(If you’re coming in late, you might want to read parts one, two, and three first.  Unless you like to start in the middle.  I won’t judge.)

May 31, 2016

Music has played an integral part of my life since I was a little girl.  Whether I was down, or up, or somewhere in between, music moved me.  It inspired me.  It encouraged me.  No matter what I felt, music was there to bring it to the next level.   It brought me joy when I was happy.  It gave me bravery when I was scared.  It comforted me when I was sad.

And if I didn’t want to be comforted, and instead just needed to wallow?  Music was good for that too.

And now, at 42, it still does all of the above.  Whenever I connect with a band or a song or an album I devour it … listening over and over and over until I’ve had my fill.  I crave music.  My soul needs music, the way a man in the desert needs water.  Music is like breathing.  It keeps me alive.  So it should come as no surprise that music has been hugely instrumental  (ha, see what I did there?) in seeing me through the last few difficult months.

I would hear a song that spoke to me, and it would become my anthem.

First, it was “Rise Up”, by Andra Day.

After that, and for the longest time, it was “Bird Set Free” by Sia (who, it should be noted, also has bipolar) The first time I actually heard it was when Dalton Rappattoni (who also has bipolar) sang it on American Idol, and the lyrics just took my breath away.  I listened to her version, and his, on repeat for weeks on end.

On a related note, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that Dalton and Sia’s bravery in talking publicly about their disorders were more helpful and inspiring and important to me than I can even say.

Most recently, the band A Great Big World – Ian Axel and Chad King – released a new single called “Won’t Stop Running”.  As soon as I heard it, I knew that that was going to be my new song.

I have adored A Great Big World since they first came out with Say Something in 2013.  Their songs are beautiful and catchy – the kind that just reach deep down into your soul, their voices compliment each other perfectly, and they just seem like positive and lovely and genuine guys.  Their songs have been a part of my daily soundtrack for the past three years, and when I taught yoga, I included a GBW song on my playlist every time I could.  Getting to hear them live this year, at a tiny little venue downtown, was one of the highlights of what had been a pretty horrible year.  They are one of my all-time favorite bands, and their concert became one of my all-time favorite concerts.

I’m a little bit sad that you can’t see Chad’s sparkly pants in any of these photos. They were fabulous.

The song, “Won’t Stop Running” was written about Chad’s journey with MS, but the theme of not giving up was one that is relatable to all of us… no matter what stories or struggles or obstacles we face.  When they realized the overwhelming response they were getting to the song, they started a #wontstoprunning campaign, and invited people to share their own stories on social media.  I was a little bit sad because I wanted to share my story…. but wasn’t sure I wanted to be “out” with it yet.  So I watched while others shared their stories, and Chad and Ian responded here and there, and there were beautiful words of support and encouragement.  I even briefly thought about starting an anonymous Instagram account, just so I could join in the collective group hug.  But then, a couple of days later, they announced that they’d opened an email just for people who wanted to share their stories with them anonymously, and that they’d pick a couple to share.

And so I did.

The next day, I received a lovely and short and sweet and encouraging reply from Chad and Ian (that just happened to come on a really bad day when it was so sorely needed) And then, scrolling through Facebook, I saw that they’d reposted my story.  They posted it on Facebook and Instagram both, where hundreds of people “liked”  it and offered encouragement and kind words and support.  MY STORY!

I was in awe 1) that they did such an awesome campaign for their fans in the first place, 2) that they chose to share my story, and 3) that it felt SO, SO GOOD to be honest about it, even – or especially? – if it was to a bunch of strangers.  I received nothing but support, at a time when I was greatly struggling with the idea of telling even those closest to me, precisely because I didn’t know that I’d receive that same support.

It was huge for me, and it was healing, and it will forever earn Chad King and Ian Axel a special place in my heart.

If you’re struggling with something – anything – I’d definitely encourage you to find the song that speaks to you, too.  If you’re at a loss, feel free to borrow one of “mine” till you’ve found one of your own.  🙂

#wontstoprunning

xo

(Continue to Part Five)

(You can read parts one and two here)

May 30, 2016

Here’s the positive thing about hitting rock bottom:  You’ve got nowhere to go but up.  That thought actually comforted me a lot in the beginning.  I can get better now!  It’ll get easier and easier!  And it’s a nice sentiment for sure, and in some ways it is of course true.  But….. it doesn’t really work like that, despite the people who upon hearing that I had bipolar responded with a chipper – and what felt at the time incredibly dismissive and condescending – “Oh, that can be treated.”  (I realize intellectually that they intended neither of those things.)

And yes it can be treated – although I think “managed” is a better word – but it’s not exactly what you’d call straight-forward.

If you have a minor medical illness, say strep throat, you have a fairly predictable course of symptoms, followed by a fairly predictable recovery.  Barring any complications or special circumstances, you start taking an antibiotic.  Two days later you’ve started to feel quite a bit better.  By five days, you feel almost like your normal self.  By eight days you feel so much better that you start to forget you were even sick, and you have to keep reminding yourself to finish out your course of antibiotics.  At day 10, you’ve finished your medication, you feel fine, and your strep throat is a thing of the past.

Mental illness is more complicated than that.

The main medication I’m on will be slowly titrated up to a maintenance dose over the course of about 6 weeks (assuming it’s the right one for me.  So much is trial and error).  What I’m on now in comparison is barely above a placebo.  Other medications may need to be added or substituted or removed as we go.  And what I’m currently learning from  my therapist are strategies.  Things that I have no doubt are going to help me in the long run, but that are things that I need to practice.   Routines I need to build.  Habits I need to form.  Tools I need to use. There is much I need to learn, and many things I need to understand.  There is work – continual, ongoing work – that I’ll need to do if I want to be well.  This is a chronic illness that can’t be cured.  Learning to manage it is a process, and progress won’t always be linear.  It will zig-zag, and it will spiral.

I won’t get better overnight.  One recent article I read said that it took the author a solid four years until he felt that he was really stable…. the thought of which is… daunting.  But even if it doesn’t take four years, it will take time.  Patience is going to be my friend, and I have to learn not to freak out when I have a bad day.  I have to learn to focus on the big picture.

It’s sort of like the worried parents of a selective-eating toddler.  You never want to judge the situation on what they did/did not eat at one meal, because you’ll get a much clearer picture of what’s going on if you look at what they ate during a whole week.  In one meal, there might be five noodles.  Over the course of the week though, you can see, “Hey, he ate an apple!  And an entire yogurt!  And some broccoli dipped in ranch!”

I cannot –  cannot –  compare myself to where I was yesterday, because it’s only a lesson in frustration.  But I can compare myself to a month ago.  I can compare myself to the broken girl who was gutturally sobbing all over the place, begging for…. something, anything, that would take the pain away.

There will be good days and bad days, and that needs to be okay.  I have to say it again:

There will be good days and bad days, and that’s okay! 

I had two pretty lousy days this week, mood-wise, that stood out more than the others.

The first was because I was just really pissed off about how hard it all felt.  I don’t want to go to bed at the same time every night.  I don’t want to exercise.  I don’t want to meditate.  I don’t want to chart my feelings.  I don’t want to take any pills.  I don’t want to go outside if I don’t feel like it.  I don’t want to take another supplement.  It shouldn’t be so hard.  It’s just not fair that it’s so hard.  I want to live like a normal person and not have to think about any of those things if I don’t want to.  I want to stay up till 11:00 and drink a glass or three of wine.  I want to spend my Tuesday afternoons curled up with a good book, not in a therapist’s office, 30 minutes from home, talking about my feelings.

In short, I needed a day to feel sorry for myself.

The second one was set off because frankly, I did something really stupid.  There’s a meme that’s been going around Facebook.   It’s a comparison of two photos.  The top photo is a serene, forest scene with the caption, “This is an antidepressant”, and the bottom photo is a Prozac pill, with the caption, “This is shit.”  Now what I’m personally taking is not even an antidepressant  – it’s not appropriate for my specific situation – but damn if it didn’t piss me off to see anyone else getting shamed for whatever it is they need to take.  I shared the photo on my blog’s Facebook page, NOT for the photo itself, but for a really lovely commentary refuting it…. from a woman who believes in both nature AND pharmaceuticals when necessary.  (I will share it down below, because I really do love what she had to say) Anyway,  I shared this post and in the course of conversation I used the word, “disgusting.”  I said that I thought it was disgusting to call something “shit” that could (and has!) literally played a life-saving role in someone’s recovery.  I concede that it could have been a poor word choice.  A woman commented who’d had a very bad experience with psychotropic drugs – and absolutely, those experiences are out there.  I’m not refuting this.  And there are risks.  And there are unethical doctors.  And there are things to consider.  And my heart goes out to anyone who has had such a bad experience … whether it’s with drugs, alternative treatments, or something else altogether.  She was really offended/hurt/ticked off by my words and told me so.  Not wanting to make things worse, I very, very carefully chose my next words and told her simply that I was glad that she ultimately found what she needed to do to get well.  But that pissed her off even more, because she’d wanted a different response.  She bit back harder, wanting to hurt me (OR, feeling hurt herself, just used me as a convenient outlet in the right place at the right time).  It worked.  I bawled.  And a couple of hours later I pulled down both my Facebook page and my blog itself.   I realized that while I had actually started to enjoy interacting with friends on Facebook again, I was not yet ready for the masses.  My blog/its Facebook page were not going to currently play a part in my getting well.

Fact:  Posting controversial things about mental health treatment when you’re TEN DAYS into your own mental health treatment (and, obviously, still raw and fragile) is not a good idea.

Really though, that woman did me a favor.  The more distractions I could shed to focus on what I really needed to focus on, the better.  One step forward at a time.

Here’s the meme:

And here is Jenny Chiu’s beautiful commentary:

Hello,
I’m Jenni Chiu and this image pisses me off.

May is Mental health Awareness month and I can’t think of a worse way to raise awareness than with this irresponsible image (recently posted by the page Earth. We are one.)

I find the top part of this image to be absolutely true. Meditating outside, breathing fresh air, taking a break from the blue light of my electronics – that all helps my brain and body tremendously.

I find the bottom part of this image to be stigmatizing, and extremely harmful to those who struggle with mental illness. It is irresponsible and IT IS FALSE.

Disclosure: I’m a damn tree hugger. I’ve hugged the hell out of trees. I’ve felt their energy. I’ve sat beneath a redwood and exhaled up into it’s branches, asking it to lift some of the weight off my shoulders. I believe that our modern lifestyles have disconnected some of us from Mother Earth and that by spending time outdoors we are reminded of the balance between us and nature.

Disclosure: There were several years of my life where I was on a cocktail of meds (prozac was one of them) and they literally kept. me. alive.

Depression and anxiety are mental ILLNESSES. Not all illness can be cured with fresh air and sunshine. Sometimes chemical imbalances in the brain need to be supplemented. It may not be the answer for everybody, but it is definitely a life saver for some.

Are meds overprescribed? Possibly.
Can simple lifestyle changes improve our mental and physical health? Certainly.
Should a drug that could keep someone from wanting to die be described as “shit”? Never.

If you manage your mental illness by taking medication, I AM PROUD OF YOU. If you are considering talking to your doctor about medication, I AM PROUD OF YOU.

If you are able to manage a mood disorder naturally, I AM PROUD OF YOU. If you are considering talking to your doctor about weaning off of or changing medications, I AM PROUD OF YOU.

If you have an entire arsenal of mental health tools that include a combination of prescriptions, meditation, art therapy, exercise, sunshine, multiple yoga poses, and several flavors of gelato, I AM PROUD OF YOU.

If you wake up to live another day… If you open your eyes and face those same demons that left you so exhausted the day before… If you continue to grace us all with your existence, I AM PROUD OF YOU…
and I thank you.

When you are drowning and someone throws you a life preserver, you take it. Pay no mind to the people off to the side judging and telling you it’s not the right size or color… or that it couldn’t possibly work. You take it. You grab it and hold on like nobody’s business.

When you get to shore and dry off… then you can take a breath and figure out a plan. Change things up if you need to. Ask for help if you need to…

Anyone telling you not to grab that life preserver is a dick…
and if you accidentally kick them in the face while you’re paddling your way out of the stormy waters, no big deal…

Tell them to go stop the bleeding with the warm breeze outside.

I love you.
Do whatever you need to stay with us.
xoxo

(Continue to Part Four)

(Did you miss part one?  You can read it here.)

May 29, 2016

Here’s a question.  Why would someone with admitted mental health issues spend her entire adult life actively avoiding seeking out a mental health professional?  It seems foolish and well, frankly, really stupid doesn’t it?  But there were reasons that, at the time, seemed to be very sensible.

Here are just a few of them, in no particular order:

•  The stigma.  People have tried to tell me that there’s no longer a stigma, but they’re wrong.  There IS a stigma.  It is everywhere.  And while people do tend to be more open about their mental health than they used to be, there is still the overarching belief by many that it is a weakness.  That it is a choice.  That they could feel better if they just WANTED TO BADLY ENOUGH, Dammit!  It’s not very conducive to seeking help when a large segment of society wants to treat you like a failure just for walking in the door.

• The woo woo stuff.  The few people that I know who’ve talked about therapy or counselors have been very into sort of new age, touchy-feely, get in touch with the Goddess within sort of thing, and I had no interest in that.  I wanted straightforward, practical advice, not to be told I needed to hug my inner child. (Disclaimer:  I have no issues with other people wanting/needing/connecting to that approach.  It’s just not for me.)

• I had a bad experience with therapy as a teen.  In hindsight, I guess it wasn’t a bad experience per se, but it was unpleasant.  To begin with, I was there against my will… a mandatory family thing when my parents took in a foster child.  I HATED IT.  Hated the questions, hated the pressure, hating being expected to talk about my feelings when I just Wanted. To. Be. Home.  In my room.  Reading a book.  Not in a weird uncomfortable room with this total stranger who kept asking me questions…. questions that I learned to begrudgingly answer, because if I didn’t my mom answered for me (with how she thought I’d respond) which ticked me off and made the whole thing worse.

• I didn’t know what to expect.  With the exception of the people in #2, hardly anyone ever talks about this aspect of their lives.  I mean, it’s private, and I get that, but more openness would be so very helpful to those who are new to the idea.  I had absolutely no idea what to expect, and the unknown – particularly when it comes to something as sensitive and personal as  your mental health – is scary and daunting, which brings me to:

• It was overwhelming and scary.  Even – or especially – when you know you’re at a point where you need professional help (and by all means, I was in that place for a long time), taking the step of actually researching different places/providers (when just getting out of bed is a lot of freaking work), calling someone (when you’d rather suffer a slow agonizing death in the talons of a velociraptor), actually driving to a place and having to see someone (when you’re not even up to seeing your best friends), AND having to face and talk about the messiest, scariest, most personal parts of your psyche with a total stranger is really, really, breathtakingly HARD.

Alas, despite all of the above…. I knew it was time.   So I sucked it up, I made some phone calls, and I found a place that could get me in right away.  I knew that 1) I needed to start with a proper diagnosis, so I went straight to a psychiatrist, and 2) a multi-faceted approach was important, so I chose a facility that offered psychiatric care, therapy, general medical care, and an overall holistic view on treatment.

And to make a long story short(er), May 10th ended up being one of the most important days of my life.  It was weird and uncomfortable and scary… but important.   Both people I saw (a psychiatrist and a licensed counselor)  were professional and kind and reassuring and thorough – without veering into the overly caring/condescending behavior that drives me so absolutely batshit crazy.  The bipolar diagnosis was a fairly straightforward one, and I do not mean in any way that it was rushed, or one that they came to quickly.  They asked a lot (a LOT) of questions, they sought clarity, they asked me to word things in different ways when they needed more information.  But what it ultimately comes down to is symptoms, and I read like a text book.

As for my own personal views on the experience?  It was HUGELY powerful.   The simple act of being able to answer questions like “Have you ever tried to hurt yourself?” with honesty… in a non-judgemental environment where no one is shocked, or horrified or phased in any way…. a place where they’ve heard it all before, and are trained to simply listen, and ultimately to help you… It was freeing, and it was healing, all by itself.  And to have a diagnosis?  There were other emotions, that I’m sure will continue to come and go, but in the moment it was pure relief.

And I mean, I knew.  I’ve known it was bipolar for a long time.  But to HEAR it;  to be able to begin treating it;  to be able to create a specific plan to get well;  to finally move FORWARD…  It gave me more hope than I’ve had in a long, long time.  I cried the whole way home that day, which is far from an unusual practice for me, but this time they were largely tears of relief.

The immediate plan was – and is – just to get me stable.  I was prescribed some appropriate medications for my specific situation (a brief word about medications, if I may:  They were, for me, absolutely the right answer for this phase of my treatment.  Will they always be a part of my treatment?  Possibly.  Maybe even likely.  Bipolar is tricky.  I feel no shame in taking them, and no shame in evaluating – and continuing to evaluate –  the role they may or may not play in keeping me well.)  I was also given a lengthy – but somehow not overwhelming – list of homework:  practical things I can do to supplement my medication, and help me work towards getting better.  Which is exactly what I was wanting, and needing.  I’ll see my psychiatrist monthly for now, and my therapist (who is wonderful) weekly.

Eventually I’ll be living my life, learning to control it instead of letting it control ME.  But for right now, this IS my life.  Getting well, getting stronger, learning to live NOT as a “bipolar person”, but as the same complicated, multifaceted, creative, perfectly imperfect person I’ve always been, who also happens to have bipolar.

(Continue to Part Three)

I don’t know how much longer I can fake it
That it’s all alright, that I can do this alone
And I know that life is what you make it
But it’s hard to see stars when you’re always caught in the folds

Every night in my mind it’s a fight
But I won’t stop dreaming
‘Cause this isn’t over
It’s never over

Facing forward
Lights out
I won’t stop running
Falling backwards
Hands tied
I won’t stop running
I’ll take another sunrise
Another hand to hold tight
This isn’t over
I am way too young and I won’t stop running

~ “Won’t Stop Running”, Great Big World

It is a Saturday as I write this;  May 28th, 2016.  It seems important that I note that, because when or if this story is ever shared, I know it’s one that will need to come in bits and pieces over time, not as a one-off post.  In a way, what I’m about to write about is the culmination of what’s actually been going on for years (decades, if I’m being honest) but in many many others it is just the very beginning baby steps of what will become a lifelong journey.

I have bipolar disorder.

I’ve been practicing saying that, even if mostly inside my own head.  I say it very well, don’t I?  Hello, my name is Jennifer and I have bipolar disorder.  Did anyone else just hear Richard Gere in Pretty Woman when I said that?  “Hello, my name is Mr. Lewis and I am very angry with my father.  It cost me ten thousand dollars in therapy to be able to say that sentence.” 

I haven’t (yet) spent ten thousand dollars in therapy, but I am actively going to therapy, which in and of itself is… unexpected.

But I’m getting way ahead of myself, and should really start at the beginning.

It was a cold and snowy day in 1974 when I was born …  KIDDING!  Well, only partly kidding, because it was a cold and snowy day when I was born.  I was born during a snow storm in fact.  That’s completely irrelevant to the story though.  Except that now that I’m thinking about it, it’s actually pretty poetically perfect that I was born during a storm.  I wouldn’t be ME if I’d been born on a calm, quiet, balmy day in June.

I’m just not the calm, quiet, balmy type.

I’ve always been open about my issues with depression and anxiety … and when I say “open”, I mean I’ve written about it a grand total of a whopping 4 or 5 times (out of 1,000 posts) over the course of the 10+ years that I’ve maintained this blog.  But while I was always as raw and honest as I could manage at the time, those posts only told a part of the story.  They were tentative.  Testing.  Dipping my toes in the water as it were.  I feel like I shared a great deal, but I subconsciously held back at least as much as I revealed.

I’m tired of holding things back.  My only personal goal right now is to get myself well, and I believe that part of that process is going to be total, uncensored honesty.

This spring I had a breakdown.  “Breakdown” is a weird word (one that’s a way too often and flippant word of hyperbole) that doesn’t convey the severity of what happened to me, but it’s the only word I’ve got.   As was my usual pattern, I’d just come down from feeling AMAZING. Life was so painfully beautiful it made me cry.  I’d been full of energy.  Full of grand ideas.  Full of huge plans.  I was going to write another book.  I was going to expand my blog.  I was going to start more blogs.  I spent hundreds of dollars on online courses to teach me how to do exactly that.  I was going to CHANGE THE FREAKING WORLD.    I felt like I could do absolutely anything.  And then….. I didn’t.  And then I got depressed.  And then I got really depressed.  And then I wanted to die.  And then, in the middle of taking the 8 year old to play rehearsals, and the 12 year old to football practice, and taking care of the kids and the house and the pets and everything else that comes with adulting, I had a breakdown.  To put it into perspective, the only reason I didn’t end up in the ER was that I found a psychiatric facility that could get me in for an evaluation right away.

Only a couple – less than five – trusted people knew how much I was truly struggling.  Even then, I spared them the gory details.  The little bits I did share here and there though were more than enough encouragement for well-meaning advice.  I just needed to exercise.  I needed more sleep.  I needed to change the way I ate.  I needed to use essential oils.  I needed more supplements.  I tried really hard not to be offended – and deeply, deeply frustrated – because I was exercising.  I was eating well.  I was getting sleep.  I was taking appropriate supplements.  And essential oils?  I tried pretty much all of them that were supposed to be helpful.  Daily.  But the thing is, motivation is great.  Exercise, sleep, and vitamins are great.  But there are some things they Just.  Don’t.  Cure.  I couldn’t fix it.  Sheer willpower was not doing it.  And it was insulting and minimizing every single time someone suggested otherwise.

It was reminiscent to the end of my journey with my gall bladder.  It was full of stones and sludge, it was starting to get inflamed, and there were stones lodged in the common bile duct.  I was due to have it removed, but then it started to get infected.  I ultimately had an attack that lasted about 72 hours, and in desperation called the surgeon’s office for advice.  The overly cheerful woman on the phone told me, “Oh you’ll see a big difference if you avoid things like fried foods.”  Fried foods?  Was she kidding me?  I hadn’t been able to eat ANY fat for several months, and hadn’t been able to keep down anything – at all – for days.  And she was talking to me about fried foods?  I ended up in the ER, where I checked in for a five day stay, one emergency operation, one endoscopic procedure, and a truckload of necessary medications.

She was being helpful to the best of her ability, but I didn’t need to be told to avoid fried foods.  It was so beyond that point.  What I  needed was intervention.  And in this case, I didn’t need to use essential oils.  It was so beyond that point.  What I needed was intervention.  It wasn’t that I was hanging on by a thread.  My thread WAS GONE.  I had no more thread, and I was hanging over a precipice.  The only recourse I had left was to seek the help of a professional.

So I did.

And it was the hardest, and scariest, thing I’ve ever done in my life.

(Continue to Part Two)