The Truth

The thing about having a serious chronic illness is that over time good intentioned people want to hear that you’re getting better. As much as they want to help and listen, they understandably don’t want you to continually be in pain or not 100% healthy for the rest of your life, regardless of reality. Sometimes, just as the person with illness, they get frustrated with a long recovery timeline. With mental illness this sort of situation can be even more complicated.

I am battling things that the medical community is only now starting to open up and explore without prejudice, something that they still haven’t completely figured out. I have been clinically diagnosed over and over, receiving explanations about how my brain does not balance chemicals properly without medication and how my neural pathways are not operating correctly. The statistics for death-- in my case-- are 1 in 5 with a 9.2 year reduction in expected life span. I am categorized as partially disabled. There is no question anymore of whether or not “it’s all in my head”, which is funny because it is in a very biological way. And yet despite the seriousness of this, I am often only left with the stigmatized word of crazy.

I try not to focus on my mental illness when talking to people for a lot of reasons: the stigma, not wanting to complain, people not understanding; but these illnesses are so pervasive in my life that it becomes harder and harder to talk to people and brush them off. The only way I can even fully hide how pervasive they are in my life is to completely isolate or tell only standard short answers. So while I don’t think that everyone needs to know the gory details of my psych history, I need to start feeling that I don’t have to be ashamed for existing with it.

The truth is, I’m not okay. The past two years have been very hard for me emotionally, but what I try to hide from everyone is the reason behind all the terrible things. Trying to figure out how to manage any serious illness isn’t easy, and for me things haven’t always gone well. I’ve made a lot of mistakes on the road to recovery-- by which I mean complete management-- that have drastically affected my life.

In 2012 I decided to try and manage my mental health (or lackthereof) with only lifestyle changes instead of the medicine I needed. I didn't see that it wasn't working until after I had gone through heavy cycles of my Bipolar. In episodes of mania I had made several terrible decisions and gone through shopping sprees that made my financial situation hard enough that I lost my car just trying to keep afloat with bills.

By the end of 2012, I was still cycling. I came close to killing myself and had to be hospitalized for the third time. My grandmother passed shortly after. In that December and the first part of 2013 I struggled and struggled to keep afloat. My prior eating disorder (an often co-occuring disorder with most mental illnesses) had resurfaced with a vengeance, so badly that I lost thirty pounds and severely imbalanced my thyroid. Said thyroid problems and depressive cycle lost me my job and put me in even more of a financial strain. I made the decision shortly after that it was best for my four and a half year relationship with Trevor to end so I could focus completely on myself and recovery. (Among other significant reasons that do not need to be doled out on here, so no, we are not getting back together.)

I was able to make some progress at first, but started cycling again not long after. I had to be hospitalized yet again in October of 2013 after a severe episode made me have symptoms of psychosis, thereby losing yet another perfect job. My eating habits were still horrendous. I had started degressing, and symptoms and addictions that I had once overcome started to come back. My thyroid took months to rebalance itself, but I still have not been able to manage my eating. I’ve ended up causing terrible imbalances of necessary minerals, vitamins, and other nutrients which in turn has already gotten me medically hospitalized once this year. It has already put me dangerously close to having a heart attack in my twenties.

But how do I tell someone about my eating disorder when they want the answer to be as simple as “well just eat something”? How do I explain that when I’m overwhelmed it’s my mind’s automatically wired response to restrict food as a way to control my chemically exacerbated emotions? How do I respond when someone doesn’t believe that I’m ill because I haven’t lost “enough” weight because my attempts to fight the illness have kept me from going to low again? There are so many different facets of my mental health and all of my disorders that are frustratingly complex and I often don’t know how to explain to someone who has never experienced any problems.

Last October during my hospitilization, I was blessed to receive a sort of partial disability that ensures I will have access to medicine and the treatment I need, as well as one of the most knowledgeable and efficient doctors I’ve ever had. I have come a long way, but even still I am struggling day to day. Even though this has been an almost six year process, I only now have the correct diagnoses. They only now know which medicine helps and which makes things worse based on my case, and are still in the process of figuring the best combination. I only now know the specific treatments I need, but quite a few of them have waiting lists. It’s not an easy road and I wouldn’t wish this on anyone. I am lucky in so many ways and finally have the exact resources I need.

I know that I am to blame for not communicating better. It’s hard for me to try and explain a frustratingly complex situation and I haven’t always got the right words. It’s my fault for not trying to figure it out and choosing to brush over anything that might upset people. I guess I just get easily dissuaded when I want so badly to tell everything that’s going on to someone and they can’t or don’t listen. I’ve had so many conversations with family and friends where I tried to explain while the other person became uncomfortable or where they brushed me off with a closed reply of, “I never understood that stuff” or “All you need to do is (fill in the blank)”.

What I want is for the people close to me to ask questions when they don’t understand and to care enough to ask how I’m doing with this specifically. I want for people to realize that as scary and strange to them as my symptoms might be, they are biological and should be treated as such. I want them to believe that it’s not my fault and that I’m doing everything in my power to get better. I want them to be able to listen without having to offer a solution because if it works, I’ve probably already heard it from my doctor.

I’ve had to adjust to the fact that my life is nowhere near what I thought it would be, or even what I think it should be. I’ve had to spend years trying to get this under control (while also working to make a living) when I should have been stressing out over college finals. I’m working on being okay with not being where I want to be right now, and knowing that I will get there when I am meant to. Right now I need to focus on healing, which is it’s own full time job.

Furthermore, I need to stop doing the very thing I preach against and stop acting like my mental illness has to be this deep dark secret. I need to try and believe that the people I love can accept every part of who I am, even if it’s messy and imperfect. I need to believe that they won’t assume the worst about me. I may not be able to control how the media and popular stigma portrays “people like me”, but I can control how I react.

To One of My Heroes

Credit to the artist

      "Answer: That you are here, that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you might contribute a verse. What will your verse be?"

     "You're only given one little spark of madness... you mustn't lose it"

       “What’s wrong with death, sir? What are we so mortally afraid of? Why can’t we treat death with a certain amount of humanity and dignity, and decency, and God forbid, maybe even humor. Death is not the enemy, gentlemen. If we’re going to fight a disease, let’s fight one of the most terrible diseases of all: indifference.”

      “Medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.”

       

I know that I am not and will not be the first or last to write about Robin Williams. First and foremost, my heart goes out to the family and friends that were so lucky to know him. I cannot possibly imagine the pain they are going through, and I only wish peace for them.

      

 I obviously did not know Robin Williams personally. However when asked the question "Who would you like to have dinner with?" he was the first person after God. (JK Rowling is a close second.)

       

 When I was first diagnosed with Bipolar disorder, alone in the mental hospital and very emotional about how I could possibly have something so much more complicated than depression (not, by any means, that depression is an easy disease to have), I remember telling my doctor that there was no possible way I could be "manic depressive". After explaining over and over to me all the medical reasons, he could see that I wasn't in the mood to accept it just yet, still too caught up in the stigma of the disease. He gave me a copy of a magazine where Catherine Zeta Jones had just come out about her Bipolar and time in the hospital. I still scoffed. I only knew her from her role in Zorro and even then she meant little to me at a time when I was so distraught. My doctor then mentioned Stephen Fry, who I also knew very little of. And then he mentioned Robin Williams.

       

I cannot tell you how many times I have watched Aladdin, over and over, a movie that would have been nothing without the magnificence of Genie. How I followed the consequent Disney cartoon every single morning and waited for the next episode. How I loved Jumanji, Hook, even the silly movie Flubber. And then, when I was in middle school and looking through my family's old VHS tapes, I found Dead Poets Society.

     

 I was thirteen when I watched Dead Poets Society for the first time. Unknown to everyone but myself, I had already started suffering from symptoms of my Bipolar disorder. It was the cycles of depression that had come first-- I had already started wishing that I could just die and had tried to overdose on Ibuprofen once, although I had not taken nearly enough to do much damage. 

      

Dead Poets Society did what no counselor had done before. Mr. Keating had an exuberence about him that made you want to listen to every syllable he ever spoke-- and what he said! He talked about how important life was, how precious, how even at a young age you should take control of your life! He had all the wonderful warmth, sweetness, bravado, and knowledge that made it impossible not to want to follow every single thing he said. That life should be lived in the pursuit of happiness, romance, and the ability to create and touch others.

      

And then Neal committed suicide. And the movie did not end. Suddenly the quote of, "And not, when I came to die, discover I had not lived" took a whole new meaning. Keating wept. It was so very obvious now that when Keating had told the young boys who fought against authority and their emotions to take control, the extreme choice of ending one's life was not what he meant. And it was this, the legacy of Keating so poignantly played out through Robin Williams, that helped carry me through my teen years when my symptoms only got worse and worse. This picture of Keating crying over the opening poem that stayed with me.

     

Good Will Hunting and the iconic scene on the park bench-- it gave me the wonderful knowledge that I wasn't alone. That everyone had their own hidden turmoil that others around them might never grasp unless you communicated it to someone. It helped me reach out to others, something that helped keep me alive.

     

What Dreams May Come taught me the lesson of letting go. The idea of Heaven had never comforted me when I was little, not after losing people I loved to death. I didn't know how to cope with the pain of losing someone, and to me Heaven and the idea I'd see them again meant very little when I was alone without them. When my very first boyfriend died, I was inconsolable. It furthered my depression, it made several of my symptoms so very worse to the point where I stopped being able to function normally. I stopped eating, I couldn't sleep, I got terrible grades, I threw myself into volatile relationships-- the stress exacerbated my illness to the point that I started hallucinating. When I went into counseling, I would hardly talk to the counselor. She had to find roundabout ways to get me to open up, and as such we would talk about things like favorite actors-- which led her to telling me about What Dreams May Come. 

        

 The movie starts with the main character Neil narrating and his journey through heaven, while the secondary character Annie blames herself for his death and the death of her children-- causing her to kill herself in the end. Before her death you see the spirit form of Neil over and over trying to console her, trying to reach out to her, and it only makes her pain worse. When she dies, she is in "hell". The sort of state caused by not being able to accept what she had done and that her warped view was what led to her demise. It takes the idea of Neil going through hell with her to wake her up and realize that life (in death and out) are worth living. For whatever reason, the idea that those in heaven suffered simply because I was suffering hadn't occured to me. I had considered it as a cure-all place, and watching Neil go through this journey of pain and heart break because his wife couldn't accept his death helped change my perception and grief and inarguably saved my life.

       

I never would have watched these movies if Robin Williams wasn't in them. Saying that, they would never have made such an impact if it weren't for the very unique and special person that he was. Learning that the man who had saved my life countless times already-- whether he knew it or not-- also suffered from Bipolar Disorder gave me hope. It helped me accept that maybe it was a detrimental disease if not treated properly but that one day I could be the kind of person who brought so much joy and happiness to others despite that.

       

There's a lot of people I know that suffer from mental illness that looked up to him that have lost hope because he lost his battle. When I first heard the news, it was hard for me not to have that initial reaction. Earlier this year I had another friend commit suicide who was the same bright, giving, funny person. Another person that my roommates knew and loved killed herself just a month prior. It's hard not to live with a severe and sometimes lethal illness and not take the statistics to heart-- 1 in 5 people with Bipolar commit suicide. But a man like Robin Williams would not want us to focus on his death. He would want as many people as possible to learn from it. To reach out. To help others. 

       

 Suicide is the 4th leading cause of death in US adults 18-65 under cancer, heart disease, and unintentional injury. Close to 19% of the US adult population suffers from a mental illness that is not developmental or substance abuse related. If you know someone who is showing signs of depression, please reach out to them and help them seek medical advice. Learn what symptoms come with Bipolar and the other major mental illnesses. Odds are, you know someone. Odds are, they might be afraid to say something. No one should feel so alone and afraid of what others might think that they do this. No one.

It's so strange to think the sun can be terrified of how dark it is out there.
— Guy Branum (@guybranum) August 12, 2014

American Authors/Paint Concert

A fun night in my St. George trip was being able to go to an American Authors concert with my friend Danielle (from middle school!). The band was great-- they're known for the song "Best Day of My Life", and it was fun listening to them. Part of the show was also a huge glow-in-the-dark paint fight after the band played. Everyone got a watergun full of paint and they shot paint as they played dance music from the stage as well. It was a lot of fun and led to some fun pictures.

Nathan

           This vacation I was blessed to have the time to hang out with my brother Nathan and talk with him. Soon he will have graduated high school soon and gone on his mission, it was really nice to have the opportunity to have some alone time with him.

             First of all, we went to the high school and talked to my old art teacher Mrs. Sisam. She had nothing but praise for him, and it was fun to catch up with her and talk about how different mine and Nathan's art styles are. I am a very traditional artist that likes to play with hyper realism while Nathan is a very abstract artist whose style is similar to Kandinsky's. (example of Nathan's on the left). Sisam also teaches CJ, so it was really cool to get her view on all of us.



           After that we went to one of the newer restaraunts in town called Apollo Burger, an amazing burger place with Greek elements and food. The burgers were not only huge but absolutely to die for. One of the best things that they had as well was fry sauce, one of the best food substances Utah offers. (It's basically a mix of ketchup and mayo, but with a few more ingredients that make it amazing.)

          The next stop was The Orange Peel, which our mom used to take us to all the time and also was one of the biggest fads when I was in high school. Everyone had to have a bubble tea before school or at lunch. What I didn't know was that Nathan took me there and paid for me when he didn't even want a drink, and when they messed up my order he paid again for the bubble tea that I wanted. It was so sweet.

       

              I'm constantly amazed by the kind and patient person my brother is. He is always helping others and considering their feelings. Thanks for a fun time Nathan!

New Years Eve

              Because Alayna was working and Courtney had other plans, I was luck enough to spend my New Years with my best friend Amanda and her fiance John and her baby Kaysee. Apparently me and my friends are getting old, because all we did was stay in, have pizza, and watch the Times Square event. I still have my promise that I'm only going to kiss the person I'm married to on New Years and I don't drink alcohol, so this was a lot better than going out. :) 

             

              I love this baby. She is so cute and happy! I can't wait to spoil her rotten. (I actually crotcheted that blanket she has :) )

             Goodbye 2013!

Goodbye 2013

2013 has left a mark. It has been one of the most life-altering years of my life since 2008. It has forced me to decide who I am in ways that have often left me confused, nauseous, scared, and sad but mostly... hopeful. This year, more than any, I have finally had to find the strength within myself and not the supportive people around me to decide who I am, what I want, and what I deserve. In a lot of ways, that's a big step for me (not that I'm close by a long shot). It's the first time I've been healthy enough to make that sort of decision and not immediately cower behind it when life got hard. It's the first time that I chose to be healthy not because the people I loved wanted me to be, but because I finally allowed myself to think that maybe I could start loving myself instead of letting others do it for me.

Which is funny, when you consider how much of this year I spent hating what I saw in the mirror. The events and circumstances both in and out of my control have taught me things about myself that weren't always kind. I have many flaws and I have many weaknesses. I can be selfish, I can be lazy, I can be self-centered, I can lie, I can let my illnesses control me, and more often than not I isolate myself from the world around me. Some of that is because I hold on to the bitter “lesson” I learned from a young age-- that people are cruel and not to be trusted-- but most of it is because I want to minimize the affect my faulty existence has on the people around me.

This because in all my messed-up-still-trying-to-figure-out-who-i-am-in-my-almost-mid-twenties glory, I still have never felt that just wanting something good for my life was reason enough to deserve it. Somewhere along the line I convinced myself that everyone who has ever had real happiness was a person that was inherently morally better or just more well equipped than me. So I stopped going after things and started going through the motions with only one goal in mind. Find stability. It doesn't matter if you have to settle or what you give up, just get your head above water (which, at times, was actually extremely hard. I still have my floaties on). So I settled for any happiness that stumbled into my life (and I have been lucky and blessed, because I have known a lot of it) and screwed it up more often than not. I have not been the person I should have been for a lot of people, and I am sorry for the hurt I caused them because of it.

The funny thing is, right now I find myself looking up to who I was when I was seventeen. Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of reasons I thank God I am not still her. Despite what I tend to forget, I have come a long way in healing that broken girl. But at the same time, she had something that twenty-three year old me forgot how to feel. Passion. She felt things exquisitely, and as much as she hated life she also found beauty in hope. She had the energy to change her life completely and move to another state like it was nothing, like it was going to be the best adventure she had been on so far. She was excited about college and making her own career, she was excited about finding the perfect person who was just as romantic as she was, she was excited about traveling the world and seeing much more than middle class America.

I compromised her. While I don't regret the path I have been on, because there is no way I could have survived life without the people in my life to give me so much support, help, and healing; I do wish that I had found a way to do everything without losing sight of that girl. I wish that I had held on to that drive to keep changing my life, to keep molding, to keep pushing for more against all odds. Because this year of 2013 has taught me how very, very hard it is to be forced into change. When you have little to no options and you keep trying to hold on to what you should be letting go the odds stack up against you very quick.

Because in the end, it turns out that life demands more than a will to survive out of you. Life demands that you do not live solely for the sake of breathing, but for hope. For family. For friends. For experiences. For change. For future. For helping others. Life demands that you own up to all of your ugly but that you recognize your beautiful. It demands that you let go of the idea of “perfection” that society clings so heavily to, and that you live your life with messes.

This isn't the first year that life has tried to teach me this. But it is the one that I've had no choice but to listen.

2013 has been hard. Having a four and a half year relationship end can be humiliating at best, heart wrenching at worse. Losing two jobs over health problems is only slightly easier, but no less ego-damaging. Losing the one asset and transportation you have because of your own egregious financial mistakes is mortifying. Like I said, it hasn't been fun looking in the mirror lately. But that's okay. I am allowed to dislike who I am as long as it drives me to be better. In a lot of ways, I feel like I've been in an incubator since I moved here. Waiting, growing little by little, and healing. I'm still pretty new at this. I don't quite know how to fly, and I tend to stumble when I walk. But I'm out of the incubator.

2014 has a lot to live up to.

Christmas Night

 What started as driving around to see the Christmas lights that night, quickly became a field trip to see the LDS Mesa Temple lights. I had been a few years ago, but neither or Courtney or Alayna had seen them and they both were really interested. (Although Alayna had seen the Salt Lake ones frequently.)

 Because we were at the temple and because Alayna and I both knew that Courtney had never been or seen anything similar, we decided we had to show her the Christus statue in the Visitor's center. There's just something, regardless of religion or belief, about seeing this statue for the first time in person. Watching Courtney view it for the very first time, as she stood in awe for minutes, was moving.

 


 I believe in the lessons that the Savior taught, as much as I might argue how they relate to religion. I believe that in order to be truly happy we need to help one another, that we need to focus on a greater power and the miracles and beauty around us. I believe, more than anything, that there is power and healing all around us when we strive to be better and when we're looking for more in the world than just what we see. I am constantly dumbfounded as I watch my life enfold and how no matter what terrible trials I go through there is always a greater purpose and a bigger theme then I usually see at the time. I am surrounded, especially in the past few years, by the love of genuine and generous people that inspire me to better. I have felt love when I did not deserve it and have felt the joy of being lifted by giving love to others around me. I cannot deny any of that. And so, I say this night, Merry Christmas.