Feeling deeply troubled...

I couldn't sleep and so I write to feel better. These are the 4 a.m. ramblings of a pissed off Latina. So fair warning. 

I remember being deeply disappointed by the outcome of the 2000 election. The feelings I have right now, though? They are bigger than disappointment. I'm not sure how to describe that feeling. I'm studying counseling, so you'd think I'd know the right word. But I don't. Anxious seems too small a term. But it will have to do. 

On a personal note, I work on an Affordable Care Act program. I'm not sure what the next four years will mean for that program. I'm not sure our new president even understands how the Affordable Care Act works. That's very scary for someone working in healthcare policy. 

Furthermore, I think back to his treatment of individuals living with disabilities, such as the New York Times reporter he mocked on stage. I'm not sure anyone who is okay with that behavior can call himself a decent human being. This is more than troubling. It's deeply disturbing. 

I listened to a podcast recently that talked about the treatment of Somali immigrants. They talked to one person who was deeply troubled by the hateful things his friends and neighbors would say about the Somali people living in their town. "These are decent people," the man said more than once, because the truth may have been too terrible to handle. People who act out of hate and fear have given up their decency. 

I think the thing that disturbs me most about this election is I feel like I've just watched a sizeable portion of the country get conned. Say what you will about the nature of politicians, but this is someone who's built a career on taking advantage of other people. In fact, he will go on trial later this month for fraud. He made promises to people who enrolled in Trump University that turned out to be patently false. 

I feel like that is what I just witnessed. Our country is now the victim of a giant con. Our new president is a charlatan. He has promised his constituents things he cannot deliver on. I worry about the price we will pay as a result. 

I look at the Brexit vote, which seems a precursor to this election. I wonder if people here will act like people there, expressing regret for the choice they made immediately after they made it. There, as here, there are no do overs. We ALL have to live with the choices that have been made. 

I do have some hope. Herbert Hoover is regarded as one of the worst presidents in history, in part because his policies plunged us deeper into the Great Depression. We responded to his failures one term later by electing one of the best presidents: FDR. Perhaps Donald Trump will surprise us by not being completely terrible (let's be real, he probably will be). But maybe our generation's FDR is around the corner, righting the ship (or maybe repairing it ... I'm not overly optimistic here).

The other thing that gives me hope is that the people he seeks to marginalize will rise up and fight. Trump seeks to return to the country to a way it never was and a way it will never be. Our country may have been great for some but not all. Those of us fighting for a place at the table (and that's all we want. We don't want the whole table), will continue to fight. I know many like me are angry. And I hope we take that anger and turn it into something productive. This one man in an ill fitting red hat can't make America great. But woke people can.

This is our wakeup call.  

On perpetual transition and shutting out the excess noise

I was talking to my trainer recently about my struggles with getting and staying on track, both with workouts and with controlling my food intake. And I told him something I have mentioned offhand but I think is at the root of a lot of my issues. I have basically been in transition of some sort for the last two and a half years. 

I changed jobs. I started working out and overhauled the way I eat. My grandmother had a stroke. I lost 100 pounds. My grandmother died. I changed trainers three times. I applied and got accepted to graduate school. I started a serious relationship with someone. I changed my work hours...

And in less than two months, I start school.

These past two and a half years have basically been a stream of constant, fairly significant changes and those changes have really ramped up in the last six and a half months. I'm perpetually exhausted. I no longer have a normal. It's been impossible to adjust. And I struggle.

I don't mean to complain. Some of these changes have been wonderful. I love my boyfriend and I'm super excited to start school. Leaving work at 3:30 instead of 6 or later is pretty awesome. But positive or not, these are still changes and they still require getting used to. I was a "me" for more than a decade. Now I am a "we." I struggle with time management ... So let's throw in two graduate level courses. My brain tells me I should go to bed at 10. My body tells me to binge watch YouTube videos. I used to get up at 7 to get ready for work. Now I'm at work at 7. 

Really, can I just have things be status quo for a little bit? Just long enough to get into a comfortable routine. Is that so much to ask for? 

But that is not my current reality. Reality is that in less than two months I'll be spending six hours a week at my alma matter learning about human behavior while still juggling work and boyfriend and family and friends. 

J and I started working on a jigsaw puzzle. We have completely different approaches to completing it. I have an orderly approach, combing through bit by bit in search of edge pieces. He dumps them out in a big pile and scans them for the colors he wants. He said that's a metaphor for us. I tend to have moved along a straight path. His path has been less traditional. But right now, to me, my life looks less lined up and more like a pile of puzzle pieces. That pile of pieces works for him. It overwhelms me. I'm constantly evaluating everything. My goals, my values, and my priorities. Just trying to put the pieces together. It's a difficult state to constantly be in.

I decided to severely reduce some of the extra noise. I turned off the notifications on all of my social media accounts. I moved them to a different screen on my phone. I pop into Facebook for approximately two minutes a day and check my notifications (and for whatever posts my mom has mentioned to me). And then I'm done with it for the day. Same with Instagram and Snapchat. I used to check them obsessively. Now, much, much less so. 

These things can all be very useful tools. But they can also be huge, harmful distractions. I feel less anxious since I reduced my social media usage. The fear of missing out is greatly reduced when you have no idea what you're missing out on. I've been better able to live in my current moment, as opposed to someone else's carefully curated past moment. There's no comparing my life to someone else's.

I read a great article about dealing with the constant barrage of anxiety we are subjected to and the only way to deal is to recognize the feeling of anxiety and ask yourself: should I feel anxious about this? There is a biological reason to feel anxiety. But we aren't supposed to feel it 24/7. You have to learn when to say "this is not worth giving a fuck about." And then you have to actually not give a fuck about it. Social media is a recording of life, but it is not life. It is not helping me. And it's not worth giving a fuck about. 

Additional reading: Why Anxiety is the Plague of the Modern World http://www.cracked.com/blog/how-other-people-are-getting-rich-off-your-anxiety/

On feeling like an outsider

I've written before about my anxiety. I am generally an anxious person. I have a lot of social anxiety. Myers Briggs has me as an extrovert and it's true in a lot of ways but I have introverted tendencies as well. Certain social interactions can leave me feeling drained. I've never been good at small talk and feel quite awkward when I am required to do it. That's due in large part to social anxiety. I always feel like an outsider. 

It's probably not unusual that these feelings intensified during middle school. I was an especially awkward pre-teen and I desperately wanted to fit in. I never did. I never had the right hair style or clothes. I never said the right thing. If there were a common theme at that time, it would be rejection. It was a period where someone could be your best friend one day and suddenly seem to hate you the next. 

Middle school was a particularly heinous time. Things got better when I got to high school and fitting in stopped feeling so important. But that feeling of being an outsider was always there, even within my own group of friends. I'd wonder if they really liked me or if they just put up with me. Did they think I was annoying? Would they suddenly decide to cut me off? 

That feeling has followed me into adulthood. 

My life has been different since I met my boyfriend. It's been wonderful getting to know this person and I wouldn't trade the time we spend together for anything. But this addition to my life has meant less time for other things. I'm keenly aware that as he and I build our relationship, I have less time for my friends. When I start school next month, I'll have even less free time (that's another source of anxiety that could take up an entire blog post).

I am keenly aware of the impact on my other relationships. There was bound to be an impact because I had been single for a decade an suddenly I'm in this new relationship with this person I just connect with in a way I haven't with anyone else. We've become each other's best friend and we're together almost every day. 

I used to see my group of friends almost every day and now it's a lot less. And it's seemed to have changed the dynamics. I can't be everywhere at once. Time turner necklaces only exist in Harry Potter. 

With the change in dynamics, those social anxieties have been triggered all over again. And they've kept growing. Do my friends really like me? Did they decide I'm not worth the effort? Why don't they ask me to do things the way they used to?

The anxiety has me feeling suspicious. But it also has me feeling guilty. What did I do wrong? Did I say something wrong? Can I fix it? How do I fix it? And the suspicion: would they even want me too?

I've kind of let these feelings eat me alive. And I've never really voiced them until now. Because what if I'm wrong and I damage the relationship? Or worse, what if I'm right? What if I’m no longer included?

Note: the picture is by Beth Evans, who does a wonderful job capturing what mental illness feels like. Go find her on Instagram at @bethdrawsthings. 

Why I talk about my mental illness

May has come and gone and with it, the end of Mental Health Awareness Month. In my office, some of the staff posted images and facts on the walls and sent emails with information about mental health. We sponsored a behavioral health listening session in Bridgeport. It's all designed to talk about mental health. 

And it's important that we do talk about it. There's a tremendous amount of stigma associated with mental illness. It's hard for people to understand. A lot of times it doesn't make sense. Sometimes people think they caused it. But what I've learned in my experience is that mental illness is a lot more complicated than that. 

There's not a switch that we can just turn on and off at will. I can't just decide to feel happy when I'm depressed. I can't force myself to relax if I'm anxious. And it's hard to quiet the voice that tells you to eat everything in the cupboard. That doesn't mean that I'm completely powerless. There are things I can do to feel happier or less anxious. There are ways to stop myself from eating past the point of fullness. The first step is to acknowledge there is a problem. It's hard to do that when you feel very much alone. 

And that's why I've talked about my experiences. When you start talking, you start to realize that you are not alone. There are many, many others who are experiencing what your experiencing. And that's a powerful thing. It's one thing to feel like a dysfunctional freak on your own. It's another thing to have other dysfunctional freaks to talk to about your issues. 

And this blog has helped. I've blogged when I'm going through a bad depressive episode and getting my thoughts down is actually cathartic. It's also great to have something to go back to when I experience depression in the future.

For the record, I say "when" only because this is not my first experience with depression. While I certainly would rather not experience it again, I know how life works. The odds are that this won't be my last trip to the depression rodeo. But knowing I survived this trip gives me hope that I can and will survive future ones. 

On Forgiveness

"You're going to have to figure out a way to forgive him. And yourself."

My therapist told me this one Sunday morning. We had spent the session talking about my trust issues which mostly stem from a relationship gone awry. Someone I trusted betrayed that trust and I hadn't been the same since. 

And even though I talk a good game about being above past slights, the truth is, I carried this shit around for way longer than I should have. It impacted past relationships and potential ones. I built a protective shell around myself and kept others out. It's self preservation for sure. But it also prevented me from, well, living.

And so, that same weekend, I deleted my ex from my social media accounts. I would post things and he would comment and his comments left me riled and annoyed. "You don't get to comment on my life," I'd think but never say. And when your mental state is already questionable, constant reminders of the person who didn't think you were good enough? Not at all helpful. 

Why would I friend/follow this person on social media? That's an excellent question. There's a joke during the first episode of The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt where Gretchen admits to going with the Rev. Richard Wayne Gary Wanye because, "I didn't want to be rude." This is ridiculous. But it's also the reason I allowed this person access to my life. 

I didn't want to be that girl who held on to the slights and pains of the past. The problem? I was that girl. And pretending like things were okay didn't make them okay. Sometimes people have done you so wrong that their very presence is toxic to you. It's not rude to boot them from your life - it's survival. And so that's what I did. 

Then, at a friend's suggestion, I wrote him a letter of forgiveness. I'm not going to lie, there was a considerable level of vitriol in this "forgiveness" letter. First, I have no intention of sending him this letter. But second, and most importantly, the letter was less about forgiving him and more about forgiving me. A lot of my anger was at myself. I allowed him to mistreat me. I allowed him to continue to have power over me. Subconsciously, this was my own fault. 

As a result of this thinking, I made the decision to close myself off. I wouldn't give people the opportunity to hurt me. I'd walk away first. I'd laugh when a guy asked me out. I built up that protective shell. But in shutting out the bad, I also shut out the good. Not every guy is like my ex. In order to experience the good, I had to let the good in. I had to break away that shell. 

I never expected I'd meet someone so soon after I decided to open myself up. It's only been a few months but it's been great. Do those self doubts come up? Yes. But I feel comfortable enough with him to be able to talk about these things. I decided that I was worth loving. And that part of forgiving myself has been the best part of all. 

The stroke

If I had to pinpoint the moment that kicked off my current ongoing episode of depression, it was Mothers Day weekend 2014. There are a number of contributing factors. But that Saturday? I feel like that's where it started. 

That's the day I witnessed my grandmother suffer a severe stroke. 

She'd been recovering from having a pacemaker put in. And she woke up that Saturday with nausea and vomiting. A lot of my family members were at a breast cancer walk. I had blown out a tire the day before and was having it replaced. My mom went and took care of my grandmother. 

The visiting nurse came, my grandmother took a nap, my mom made her some soup. She went to babysit my niece and nephew. I dropped my sister off at work, brought my mom a coffee, and went back to my grandmother's. 

My grandmother had woken up and was reheating the soup. She ate and said she wanted to go back to bed. Knowing she'd been vomiting, I told her that wasn't the greatest idea. She asked if we could sit on the porch. 

So I went ahead, opening doors. She followed slowly behind. She got to the back door, went to take the step down and froze. Then she collapsed onto me. 

At this point my cousin had made it to the house with her boyfriend. I called to them for help and they tried to get my grandmother seated while I called 911. My mother told me later that she knew the ambulance was for my grandmother. 

I rode with her in the ambulance, not understanding what had happened, sobbing uncontrollably, feeling like I had done something wrong. I kept apologizing to her in the emergency room and she just stared back at me, unable to speak. She'd suffered a severe stroke on the left side of her brain. They were able to repair it but she lost the ability to communicate clearly and she lost the ability to move the right side of her body. 

My family members kept telling me they were so thankful I was there and that I had saved her life. We got another year with her before she had a second stroke she didn't recover from. But it's hard to feel good about that day, even two years later. It was hard to look at her and not feel sad and guilty, even though I know there was nothing I could have done differently. 

She felt trapped within her body during that yearlong attempt at recovery. And I felt like I sentenced her to that. And I wonder if that feeling will ever go away. I wonder if this weekend will ever feel like a happy one. I feel ... well a lot of different things. And I don't know how to deal with it except to cry. So that's what I do today. I cry. I get it out of my system. And then I'll put on a brave face and pretend like everything is okay. And maybe next Mothers Day weekend it will be. 

The struggle never really goes away

When we last left you, I was in a pretty good place. Or at least, I thought I was. And some really good things have happened since I last updated. I'm in a pretty awesome relationship. I won my weight class at my first power lifting competition (I was the only one in my weight class... but I was one of the heaviest lifters out of all the women). I got into graduate school. Lots of good stuff. 

But there's one place I'm still struggling: food. And it's an obvious struggle because I've gained back more weight than I anticipated. And I'm on this cycle I haven't been able to stop. I've been self-medicating with food. I will eat like its my last meal. 

This is obviously a problem for a number of reasons. The biggest and most important is that I got into a healthy lifestyle because my health was at risk. And my health improved. My lab results were good. I was physically capable of things I couldn't do before. But now I feel like I'm eating worse than before I started. I'm putting myself back at risk for all of the things I was trying to avoid. 

I also worked really hard to get into shape. And now I've undone a lot of it. And it makes me feel like I've wasted my time. 

So now I'm on this cycle. I feel bad so I eat. Then I feel bad again. And then I eat more. Then I feel bad. And because I'm eating crappy, I physically feel crappy and it's hard to find the motivation to exercise. And then I feel bad that I didn't. And then I eat. At some point it has to stop. 

So this is where I'm at. Still battling depression. Still battling binge eating. And I know it probably doesn't make sense to a lot of people. My life is actually pretty good. What do I have to be depressed about? But that's the thing with mental illness. It doesn't make sense. And that's what makes it so difficult to overcome. But I am determined to do so. 

Long time no update

It's been more than a month since I last updated the blog. I didn't mean to take this long of a break. Or any break, for that matter. It just sort of happened. 

Things are pretty good right now. I feel happier than I have in a long time. I've made some pretty big life decisions. I'm in the waiting game before I can actually take the next steps. And it's a little scary. But I'm very excited about the steps I want to take in my career. 

I joined a powerlifting federation. I'm planning to complete in a push-pull in April (that's bench and deadlift). Still struggling with nutrition. I think I'll probably always struggle there. And I'm struggling with balance (again, this will always be a struggle). But I'm enjoying the process and seeing how I progress. 

Probably the biggest change is that I met someone! I met him through a friend and decided to approach things with an open mind. I'm glad I did because I would have missed out big time if I had taken my usual approach. It took some work to get to that place, to be open and ready but it's been worth it. Maybe I'll write about that in more detail later. 

But things are happening and it's scary and exciting and wonderful. I can't wait to see what life has in store for me. 

Messing up

When I first started taking Wellbutrin, I read all of the potential side effects. Some where amusing: you could see rainbows when looking at lights. Others immediately came to pass: dry mouth ... fun. I was very serious about not drinking on this medication. It can cause seizures. It can cause hallucinations. It can make you more depressed...

Two months later and ... yeah, I didn't follow through on the no drinking. I drank on my birthday. And on Christmas. And at my friend's birthday. And on New Year's. No seizures, thankfully. 

But I had a depressive episode the day after my birthday. And a bad one after New Year's. And when I look at what my latest episodes all have in common, I drank within the 24 hours before they came on. 

So I messed up. We all mess up sometimes, do things we know we shouldn't. It could have been worse. But now I know. My taste for alcohol is not stronger than my need for mental clarity. And so the drinking stops for the foreseeable future. 

Feeling some kind of way

It seems like every time I'm feeling up, something happens to smack me back down. It's almost like the more I try to change, the less things actually do. 

I was actually pretty proud of myself because it had been more than a month since I had a serious, nose-running, ugly cry. And I still haven't. But I'm having one of those moments where I really want to cry. I'm not going to go into details. 

I'm feeling like I am incapable of change. There are things I very much would like to but I don't know how. I don't know if I can. When the voice that tells you that you can't is louder than the voice that tells you that you can, what are you supposed to do? How are you supposed to get that louder voice to shut up? How are you supposed to get the quieter voice to speak up? How can I expect anyone to possibly understand? Why would anyone want to try?