my open letter about mental health

It's been a long time since I have felt confident enough to talk about anything I felt this strongly about. Probably I have never felt this way. There is a quote by Martin Amis, it goes like this:

“And, good Lord, in this day and age a kid has to have something to get worked up about, skimpy though his material may be. So the emotion that walks like a burglar through our house trying all the doors has found mine the only one unlocked, indeed wide open: for there are no valuables inside.”

I never understood this until now. I was always pretty open with how I felt. I guess to a certain extent I still am. But until now talking about this has felt so, so scary to me.

There are a number of unfortunate truths to my reality. I've been a jerk, a know-it-all, I've backstabbed, I've been two-faced, a flake, a bad friend. I think its fair for a significant period of my life to say I was a pathological liar. I am not a good person. I'm trying to be better, but I still do things that make me go "what the fuck was I thinking?" all the time.

I've been rambling on for a while, not really making a point, mostly avoiding what I want to say. Here it is.

I am depressed. maybe I was depressed. maybe I'm not any more. I honestly am not sure where I am now.

What I do know is this: In February of this year I was suffering from clinical depression. I was also told I a generalized anxiety disorder, I was exhibiting symptoms of obsessive compulsive behaviour, and, most shockingly, I was showing symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

I really am not ready to talk about what got me to that point, other than to say I had become a person so terrible that I had hated myself into it. Some of it was me, most of it really. Some of it was others. It doesn't matter.

I'm not about to ask for forgiveness, to apologize to everyone I've wronged...I'm still an asshole. I still harbour a great deal of resentment and I still blame other people for my pain. The thing that I need to say now is that SO many things played into me getting out of bed. all of the were important, and I needed them all.

Though chronologically it may not have been the beginning, its easiest to start here: Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. CBT is a theory of psychiatry wherein patients are assisted in "retraining" their thought processes to help them avoid circular or negative thinking and allow them to think more rationally. CBT is commonly used with patients suffering from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Anxiety Disorders, crippling phobias, and even depression.

I've been a CBT patient for 9 months. It is hard. I'm still struggling with it. I find it exhausting to have to consciously work at thought processes that are second nature to most. But every now and again I catch myself doing it instinctively, and I know its helping. My Psychiatrist has obviously been a huge player in my life lately, and our process together has been worth every penny to me.

The hardest part about CBT is that your mind has to be ready for it. I know first hand that when you do not get out of bed for an entire day your mind will not be open to new ways of thinking. Your physical self needs help to get there. Depression is like exhaustion - when things get too bad, your mind cannot do it alone. So here the pharmacology piece plays in. I have been on a number of medications - some that helped and some that hindered. Now I am down to two - an anti-depressant, and an anti-anxiety medication with a mild sedative to help me sleep at night. These were the things that helped me get up and out of bed, and to open my mind just wide enough to be able to train it to think differently. 

I do believe that mental health is biological. This includes depression and anxiety. I've seen mental illness in others and myself that makes me feel this is true. I do agree with the scientific research that suggests that there is biology to back this up. I know it involves neuron receptors in our brains, and what they do our don't absorb. I know that my medication works to inhibit the reabsorption of serotonin in my brain, which allows me to feel more balanced. I don't know enough about this to make an unbiased decision about its effectiveness, but I can say from my first-hand experience taking an SSRI that I feel better and I struggle on days when I forget to take my medication. This is not to be misconstrued as reliance on a drug. I'm simply just not strong enough yet to cope without it. My CBT counselling helps with that. 

For a person in my situation, a short run on an SSRI medication is one year, but most people will continue to take medication for a few years. I've only been settle into a consistent dosage and combination of medications for a couple of months, so I know I've got a long way to go. I don't like being medicated, but I know it helps me and so I plan to stick with it.

Despite medicine being "science", humans don't know everything about it, as is the case with the whole entire world. Part of my reluctance to sharing what I've been through so far is that there is a great deal of backlash against western medicine right now. I'm not going to get into all of that, but this is how I feel from my experience. I know medicating is a risk because I will never fully understand the implications of it. I know its a risk because doctors can't guarantee what will work or won't work or will cause side effects or won't. I took the  risk because I was desperate to stop hurting. Its working for me, and so far I haven't had any life threatening side effects. I don't think I could have carried on the way I felt before, so whatever might happen as a result of my decision to take SSRIs has been worth it.

Once these two things got me out of bed, I was able to change other parts of my life to feel better, too. I never would have been able to start down this path if psychiatry and prescription medication hadn't helped me, but now I'm able to further my repair because I'm up and moving.

My Psychiatrist always reminds me during rough patches to feed myself, take care of my base needs.

Sometimes I go get my nails done because it makes me feel good. Being self indulgent is not buddhist but it makes me feel better. I'm okay with that. Doing things to feel better is okay sometimes....just as long as thats not the only thing you do.

I changed the way I eat. I don't eat dairy and grains of any kind primarily, as well as starchy foods and legumes. I don't have sugar or caffeine. I'm not about to preach the way I eat to others. and I did not start eating this way to lose weight. All I can say is that eating like this made me feel less lethargic and stopped me from having adrenaline spikes throughout the day. It works for me so I do it. It probably doesn't work for anyone. The point of this is that eating well is part of base care, and by not stuffing my face full of potato chips even though thats really what I wanted to do I was able to push my self forward a little bit more.

I was able to sleep. Sleep is so important. Anyone who thinks they can function without sleep is not hitting their full potential. sleep deprivation makes you anxious, paranoid, depressed, irrational, illogical, among a litany of other symptoms. I still remember the first time I slept through the whole night. It had been a year and a half. I felt so good. I had a great day the next day. I can handle stress so much better when I'm well-rested. Its not the answer, but I know I can't move forward if I'm not sleeping.

I exercise. I never exercised. I had barely done a thing since high school. Now I run, I take fitness classes, and I am not afraid to jump at the opportunity to do something fun and athletic with others. Part of the reason I hadn't done anything was because of anxiety. I was so afraid of how out of shape I was and embarrassing myself in a class or in front of a friend that it made me avoid exercise even more. I needed the CBT and the medication and everything else to help me deal with my anxiety and feel like I could cope in a situation like a fitness class. It worked, I did it, and now I feel so much more confident in my athletic ability, the way I look, and my own attitude.

spirituality. I don't believe in God so this was a tough one for me. But everyone needs to feed their soul somehow. I may not believe in one higher being, one creator, but I do believe in the universe. Once I was able to accept that things happened in the universe for a reason, my life changed. The thing that made the biggest difference was something someone said to me. I'd had a series of strange events and asked "what sign is the universe trying to send me?" She told me, "whatever that sign is, you will just know. You don't need to search for it, because it will come to you." I just keep thinking about this. My life path will be what I need it to be. It doesn't stop me from wanting to control things, but it gives me just a teeny tiny bit of faith that things might work out alright for me even if I don't have the perfect outfit on every day. Thats what worked for me. I know other people think my ideas are cracked. I'm totally cool with that. The world has had endless wars for religion because we don't all believe the same things, so just find something you do believe in, hold on to it, and allow it to remind you that things are going to be okay.

okay. those are my key players. all of these things lead back to one: no one thing caused me to become bed-ridden for 4 months, and no one thing fixed it. Western medicine didn't solve it, neither did natural medicine. I don't attribute my all issues to GMOs, I also don't think my more natural diet resolved it all either. could have been a factor, but it wasn't the factor. 

We just don't know enough about ourselves as humans to say definitively one way or the other what causes mental illness. we do our best but if we had the answer you damn well know things would be a lot different. 

I get tired of the preaching and the protest and the right versus wrong arguments about what to do with our put in our bodies because no one really knows for sure. If you have a story of how you have been first-hand affected by something then share that! Our personal accounts are so useful in helping us evolve! but reposting or retweeting the same biased article written by a stranger doesn't. 

Share your experience, say how YOU FEEL. at the very least it will help us all become more compassionate. We all experience the world differently and I think if we could each share our stories and be open enough to accept those of others as valid despite whether we agree with them, it might really help us get better. 

Or at least help me get better. Because all I want is to get better.

Things I need to remember

I want to come back and keep adding to this some day....but I saw this and needed a place to put it, so I picked here.

"choose your friends because you feel most like yourself around them, because the jokes are easy and you feel like you’re in your best outfit when you’re with them, even though you’re just in a T-shirt. Never love someone whom you think you need to mend – or who makes you feel like you should be mended."

Source: brouhaha dreamer

life after 25.

the early weeks of my 25th year have been markedly strange. The number of people who have reached out and reconnected since the passing of this fateful birthday has left me feeling as though I require a translator who speaks life to explain to me what has gone on here.

At what point does something become more than a coincidence and turn into a sign, fate, destiny, whatever? And what is being said with these things. Is it a sign that I'm supposed to be here? A sign that I'm not? A sign to welcome them in or push them away? To reach out to someone I miss, or wait for them to come to me?

I don't remember ever having felt like my life looked so clear, and yet the things the clarity has revealed are...confusing. I am so interested to see what this means, where its going, or if its all a meaningless coincidence and life will carry on as usual.

This always reminds me.

The second sunny day of summer doesn't warm my body like the first.
It doesn't convince me to get out of bed, to brush my hair, to put on my shoes.
The second day only feels like having the flu and a broken heart.
Tuesday feels like the middle of nowhere.
Like being chased by my own tail.
Like following the summer sun as it sets behind the mountains and comes back up the other side.
Tuesday feels like every day ten times over.
The second snow of winter doesn't smell of romance like the first.
It feels like dread and wet feet and a sore throat.
Like dirty hands and no sink.
The second snow of winter feels like the second sunny day of summer might never come.

Transposition.

I don't really know what to say but for some reason I feel like I need to say something.

This is what I've got:

Its late when you call.
Maybe 4 am...how am I to know
As I answer the phone.
Your voice sounds like a driven country road on the other end
And just as far away
But I Feel your fingers on my ribs from here
And I don't know whether to weep or smile at this moment
where we are happy
The fear remains of the known - this probably won't last, but maybe this time it will.
You being on the other end means everything, though you'll maintain it was a late night mistake and keep telling me it won't happen again.
But we both know it will, and soon.
And you'll keep pretending it doesn't mean something, and I will keep pretending I don't know any better.
And I don't, really.
Because I keep answering the phone, and wondering if you truly don't know what that feeling is, or if you just don't know how to get the words out.
But I won't push, I'll just answer again.

Rape and Thank-you

If you don't know what I am talking about, then read this first.

I read a lot of stuff, a lot of stuff that could be categorized as social commentary, or maybe simply just human interest, I don't know. Generally I care a lot less about the 'what' and a lot more about the 'how' and the 'why' of things. I don't think it is unusual to think this way. Anyway, I read all of these things, and frequently I share them with people I know, who would agree or find it interesting. Sometimes they share things back.

Today a female friend passed along an article written in response to the recent ruling against two underage men (or boys? I have yet to decide how I feel most comfortable addressing them). I'm not sure if I would have ever found this article on my own, so I need to thank her for showing it to me.

After reading it, I was profoundly overcome. Most writing that makes me feel this way inspires me to pass it along to the next reader I feel might appreciate it. But it is on my facebook page. and now it is here, and millions of other places on the world wide web I'm sure. But I feel like I needed to say thank-you.

So, to Henry Rollins, thank-you. So frequently I find that men writing about women and their rights, no matter how well intentioned, remains to appear condescending, or like women "need" a man to speak up for them because they aren't capable of having a voice for themselves. I don't know whether or not any of this is true, but I do know that I really felt like an equal while reading this. And I felt so thankful to hear someone say that it is not okay for me to be treated like a possession, or like I had no emotions. That I am not something to be used in a play for power. Not that I haven't heard this before, just that I've never heard someone say it in a way that made me feel like they weren't talking about a baby or an animal.

So here is my two cents on the fight for feminism, I guess. I wouldn't really call myself a feminist in the typical sense. I mean, I want to be equal, but I guess I just don't see it as the battle that other women seem to observe. I'm probably being really naive in saying that. I guess what I figure is, that I was a woman who worked in a highly male dominated industry that I had to leave because I couldn't get the experience I needed. The reason I couldn't get that experience was because those with the power to provide it to me believed it wasn't safe for a young woman to be in that environment. They might have been right. I was small, not very physically strong, 22 and naive. I am still small and weak and naive. But even after that experience, I never really felt like I needed to become a feminist to defend my rights.   I sometimes think if women weren't so hard on each other it wouldn't be as bad - we aren't a very good team sometimes. I guess maybe I just haven't examined my femininity very personally before.

In his response, Henry Rollins asks the question of why women would dress so provocatively that they risk having a photo of their nipple taken, and suggests that men be subjected to the same insensitive practice. We dress this way because it makes us feel attractive. It is human nature, I guess, and fuck if I want to wear a 3 inch wide tube top to cover my nipples well that is a weird thing to do I guess but that sure doesn't mean I am forced to accept unwanted sexual solicitations, and that REALLY doesn't mean it is okay to rape me or otherwise defile my body in any way. And seriously, don't take pictures, and definitely don't post them on the internet. You will get caught that way. Honestly, that is really stupid.

I guess my deeper issue with this is that I feel most attractive when I expose my legs or my breasts or some other sexualized part of my body. I mean, I like the way I look, and I like to wear cut off shorts in the summer when its hot, but sometimes I would just like to wear a long sleeve, crew neck dress, and still feel sexy. Which is hard. And it really is because of men. Men make women feel like it is the exposure of skin and curves that make us attractive. Men have set that standard for us, we didn't choose it. Not each man specifically but this is so deeply ingrained in our society that there is pretty much no way it could ever be changed within my lifetime, or my kids lifetime, or their kids lifetime. But we have porn and strip clubs and rape and women will forever feel the need to wear fewer and fewer inches of fabric to cover their "wobbly bits" and thus feel attractive.

I really didn't expect this to be as long as it is now. I thought I just wanted to say thanks, but I guess I had a lot more on my mind than that. I don't mean to come off preachy or self-righteous, although it probably does because I have a way of doing that and then offending people. But really I just think this: I don't want to be raped. I don't want any of the girls I know to be raped. I don't even want the girls I know to feel like they have to reveal themselves in order to feel attractive. I think maybe if we talked more, if we educated more kids, if we had heroes of all races and sexes and religions, we would probably all be better people. I don't know what sort of scary environment would result in two boys raping a young girl, filming it, and laughing all the way through, but it makes so many parts of me hurt to imagine it.

Henry Rollins, thank you for making me realize all these things about being a woman tonight. I imagine that when people talk about men making women feel strong and powerful this is what they mean. I'm not going to show up to work tomorrow in a mini skirt, but at least I know that the next time I do decide to show some skin, I won't feel guilty about being mad at men who think I am "asking for it". 

Nobody asks for rape, because the minute you do it isn't rape anymore.

P.S. On the topic of the length of their sentence - its true that they likely wouldn't be more sorry for having served a longer sentence, but I just wish they could suffer in pain the way the girl whose life they have savagely broken will for the rest of her life. I want them in jail not so that they will learn, but so that they will suffer. I'm sick and twisted maybe, but thats what I would want. 

Now I will be different.

Now I will stand on this hill alone. beyond reach, beyond reproach.
I will stay here and reach down to the hands below me, but I will never come down.
I expect to remain until truly passionate, painful, dangerous, ruining, consuming, overwhelming, destroying love reaches up and pulls me down.
Then I will fall down the hill, feet first, then head, then feet again.
 I will be broken and torn and wrecked and bloody and barely able to stand again, these million pieces of me all left to belong to someone else.
Until then I remain, whole and alone, on my hill. To be touched but not yet broken.