November 2021

In these bodies we will live

In these bodies we will die

And where you invest your love,

You invest your life

Mumford and Sons

Yesterday I discovered my fourth grey hair. It got me thinking about stuff, about the cyclical nature of existence, about the universe and its gradual tendency towards entropy and chaos. Some things have to end for others to begin. And so it goes.

I don’t feel old enough to be going grey. Of course I don’t feel old enough to have my own office at work, either, or for people to call me “Ma’am” instead of “Miss,” or “Mrs.” instead of “Ms.” When I look at my face in the mirror it’s still the face of the twenty-year-old girl who started this blog all those many moons ago. Okay, maybe a little thinner in the cheek area, and with new tiny lines around the mouth and eyes, but still essentially me, unchanged at the core.

And a lot of things have changed since I last wrote here. People, houses, medical and psychiatric illnesses and their resolutions, an endless procession of stray cats at my job. They all come. They stay for a while, and then they leave, and all that remains is me. As it was in the beginning, so it is in the end.

I think often about the people I have failed, the people I’ve hurt or upset or made angry. Every single day I call to mind the things they wrote, said, screamed about me. I wish so desperately that I could reach out to my younger self, sobbing alone in her car in April 2018, and sit with her when no one else could or would.

Three years ago I was dedicated to setting things right, to making it so that these people would love me again, and accept me into their lives. Now I see that some things can never be resolved this side of eternity. All I can do is to pour my heart and soul and all of my strength into the future and hope that at the end of my life, when the final reckoning is made, the good in my life has outweighed the bad.

This sounds dark! So, to be clear, I don’t expect or plan for my life to end anytime soon. It’s just that all I’ve been trying to focus on recently, and probably for the foreseeable future, is guide this fragile vessel that is my body in better and more productive directions. I think it’s time for this blog to come to a close, as during my three-year hiatus I’ve also learned the value of privacy.

If you’re reading this, no matter who you are or how long ago this was written … I wish you the same things I hope for myself … peace, and knowledge, and healing.

Thank you for sticking around. It’s been a wonderful eight years.

AB

Forgiveness

When I find myself in times of trouble,
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom:
Let it be.

– The Beatles

---

When I was a senior in college – and I know this will come as a shock to you – I failed organic chemistry.

I have asked myself quite a bit, in the years from that day to this, why that happened.  Why did I struggle so much, not just with orgo, but with college in general?  Why did I go from the top of my graduating class in high school to the bottom of my class in college?

I think there are many reasons.  But undoubtedly one of them is that I got so caught up in the fear of failure and of being left behind that I forgot some very important things: the fun and excitement of learning, and the innate elegance of biochemistry.  And, in fact, when I taught myself to see multistep synthesis problems as puzzles instead of just test questions, my grades got so much better.  So really, these things held me back from success … that tiny seed of fear that sat at the center of everything I did, and my ingrained view of chemistry class (and physics, and math, etc. forever) as something to be dreaded and endured.

---

At this point, you may be wondering what my performance in college has to do with forgiveness.  Let’s switch to another story.

In July 2014, someone hurt me very badly – badly enough to alter the course of my development as a person.  I am still realizing the magnitude of the impact this event has had on my life.  And I definitely, certainly have PTSD resulting from it.  I was diagnosed with that this year.

It took close to four years for me to realize that yes, my PTSD was real and valid.  Four years to be diagnosed and begin appropriate treatment.

And that is what I’ve been angry about recently.

Strangely, I’ve never felt angry or resentful towards the person who actually hurt me.  I know that they were probably sick and not acting rationally.  I’ve just … you know … felt angry towards everyone else.

I was expected to go back to work the day after the event, with no time to process what had happened or seek treatment.

People made jokes about what had happened – sometimes to make me feel better – sometimes because the nature of this crime is so shameful, and so disgusting, that you can’t really help but laugh to take some of the horror away.

Then there was the victim blaming – why didn’t you fight back?  Why did you make yourself vulnerable?

And then there was the authorities’ response.  The perpetrator was detained for questioning and I got to fill out an incident report form.  As far as I know, they threw that form in the trash the second I walked out the door.  I was never contacted by anyone – law enforcement, victim support agencies – no one.

The cumulative effect of all of this was to make me feel insignificant, like what had happened to me didn’t matter.  I felt betrayed, and resentful, and lonely, and very, very angry.  And all these dark emotions sat deep inside me, like a lump at the bottom of my throat, for years.

---

So, how do you forgive something like this?

You don’t.  Or, at the very least, you don’t have to.  Not right away.

The word forgiveness generally carries connotations of not feeling angry or resentful towards the offending party.  If you have forgiven someone, then you aren’t seeking punishment or recompense anymore.

But acceptance?  That’s different.

For the longest time, I fought back the memories of what had happened.  I refused to acknowledge my symptoms of PTSD.  Nope, everything was perfectly normal and I was fine.  And, if not, that’s what affirmations and positive thinking are for, right?

I love myself, I thought, even as I struggled to wash my face because it wasn’t my face anymore but someone else’s.

I’m just trying to eat healthier, I said as I avoided the canned meats aisles in Fiesta (PTSD triggers are weird, man.)

I even remember congratulating myself on recovering so quickly.  I must have a really good support system, I thought.

Source.

And meanwhile, the darkness inside me spread and poisoned everything it touched.

The only way to stop that darkness is to acknowledge its presence.  Hence, acceptance.  Some things are in the past and can’t be changed – what happened to me, society’s response to it, and the stupid and reckless things I did to try to keep the darkness locked away.  Some things exist now and shouldn’t be changed.  Did you know it’s okay to feel resentful and betrayed?  That it’s okay to be angry at people who hurt you?  Because I sure the Heck didn’t.

And once you’ve allowed yourself to feel all those things?  All the gross, toxic, painful feelings that have been building up for months and years?  You take a deep breath

and you let them all go.

It is one of the best feelings I have ever felt in my entire life.  Reclaiming my dignity, bodily integrity, and personal agency from the people who took it away?  Priceless.

Forgiveness comes later, I think … much later, after all the grieving and healing is done, and after the past is accepted.  Have I forgiven the people who made those crude jokes, or who victim blamed me, or who told me my PTSD wasn’t “real” because I’m not a war veteran?  Not yet.  But maybe I will one day.  All those things have already been said, after all … and the people who said them don’t even exist anymore.  They are past versions of people I know.  And when those hurtful things pop up in my mind during quiet moments, as they often do?  Breathe in, breathe out … let them go.  Let the darkness dissipate.

And you know what’s even better?  Nothing is ever “all bad.”  No abusive relationship or traumatic event is so bad and painful that I (we?) can’t learn and grow from it.  All it takes is a bit of creative thinking – an adjustment here, a slight tweak there – and a horrific multistep synthesis problem becomes a fun puzzle.  A reportable crime (that was somehow .. you know … not reported) becomes a catalyst for growth and healing.

Pictured: fun.  I think.

I’m going to end this with my favorite quote from one of my favorite movies, that I would probably put on our wedding program if it wouldn’t seem weird in that context.

At times the world can seem an unfriendly and sinister place. But believe us when we say there is much more good in it than bad. And what might seem to be a series of unfortunate events may in fact be the first steps of a journey.

Forgiveness … we’ll get there.  One step at a time.

Enough

It’s been a rough week here. Lots of time to just sit and … think. Generally, I like thinking – it got me through college and to where I am now, after all. But when I think too much, sometimes bad things start to happen.

I like to think of the Bad Thoughts as a separate entity. If I envision this entity, it looks like me, sweet-faced and innocent, but with one heck of a mean streak. She’ll sit by my side and poke at me, trying her best to whisper in my ear. She’s never very loud, but she never stops. If I’m tired, bored, or sick, and my guard starts to slip, I have no choice but to hear her.

What she kept telling me this week was: remember all the times you weren’t enough?

Remember when enemies, loved ones, and medical professionals alike looked at you, at the amount of pain you were in, and decided you weren’t hurting enough to warrant their concern and time?

I don’t think what happened to you is enough to warrant PTSD. You overreacted.

Your distress is inconvenient to me. It’s not enough to make me worried instead of angry.

You always snap out of it eventually. As long as you’re not in physical danger, you’re not struggling enough for me to help you.

And to an extent, she’s right. All those people who pushed me away to sink or swim were right. I’m healthy and strong. No longer constantly engaging in those self-destructive tendencies that caused my physical body to become a reflection of my mental state. When there are limited mental health resources … as there are in this country … someone who is physically unstable should receive priority over someone who is stable, always.

But that’s the unfortunate thing. My level of functioning is currently high enough that I’m not visibly sick, but low enough that I still fight those self-destructive thoughts every. Day. I fight not to hear that other-me, but she’s still there, watching and waiting for the moment I let my guard down.

I don’t cry anymore. Not really, not like I used to. Enough people have rolled their eyes and walked away, or gotten angry at me for crying and being dramatic, or simply left me to cry myself out, that I have no choice but to suppress those emotional outbursts as best I can. But my affect is more stable for the same reason that I don’t engage in self-destructive behavior … I’m afraid of the consequences.

Is that really recovery? No. I don’t think so. At best, it’s a stopgap measure, allowing me to function – mostly – in the short term.

—

One of the problems with mental illness is that, well, it’s internal. No one really knows how much you’re struggling until you tell them. And when you do tell them, you’re making yourself incredibly vulnerable, trusting that they will believe you and act compassionately.

Except … except that doesn’t always happen. Older generations might tell you to suck it up and power through, because that’s what they were taught. Among my own generation, I think our first instinct is still to deflect and minimize the person’s suffering (e.g. “You’re not really suicidal, you just think that right now”) or to simply feel uncomfortable and ignore the person, perhaps labeling them unstable or toxic.

Which makes sense, really. When I seek help from lay people – even the kindest and most compassionate people I know – in the middle of an episode, I imagine it would be similar to approaching someone with no medical training while waving a massive bleeding cut around.

“I need help,” says the bleeding person.

“Y-yeah, I see that …” says the person they approached, who is maybe starting to feel a little nauseous and panicky because hello, giant bleeding wound. “What do you need me to do?”

“I don’t know,” says the hurt person. “I’m just in a lot of pain and can’t think clearly.”

“Uh, maybe you could go lie down … over there … and elevate your injury?” the other person stammers.

Person #1 does so. Maybe they go to the doctor (like they should); maybe the wound stops bleeding on its own and starts to heal. Either way, the message – intentional or not – from the other person is the same:

I wasn’t hurt enough.

—

So what can we do? How can we, myself included, make ourselves better allies for those who may seek our help?

1. Realize that people react differently to the same situations.  Just because you don’t find something stressful or upsetting doesn’t mean that someone else won’t.  Likewise, if something is disturbing to you, it probably won’t be disturbing to everyone else.  Give someone the benefit of the doubt if you feel they’re overreacting to something.
2. Know your own limits.  At the end of the day, most of us are just normal people who probably want to help, but don’t really know how.  Someone who is really struggling may have the ability to drag you underwater with them, especially if you’ve had similar issues in the past and are now mostly recovered. It’s OK to tell someone that you don’t feel like you can give them what they need, but you’ll help them find someone who can.
3. Don’t turn away.  If we all made more of an effort to help people when they were at the “annoying”/”toxic” stage, maybe less people would get to the “seriously mentally/physically ill” stage.  Just some thoughts …

If you’ve made it this far, thank you so much for reading my little debriefing session.

And if you, too, are inwardly struggling and outwardly looking fine:

Your struggle is valid.

Your emotions are real.

You are “hurting enough,” and I honestly, absolutely care about you …

But you are also strong enough, resourceful enough, and determined enough to keep fighting the Bad Thoughts and working towards a brighter future, one day, one hour, one minute at a time.

You can do this.

We can do this together.

[July 1]

A sequel to [October 1]

This is how to forgive
when you are probably being forgotten:
cry, huddled on your bathroom floor,
at 2 AM. Let the loneliness
wash over you and recede, a baptism
of sorts, waves of light. Wake up
at six and pet your favorite cat
as the sun breaks bleakly
over the desert. Pet your cats
often. Pretend that you’re not
looking for texts. Become good
at honesty. Become a good cook. Wish you were
a better cook. Sing through the tears.
Donate blood and let the needle’s sting
return you to your body. Start to heal
your body. Medicine, vegetables,
stretching. Take lots of showers.
Write in your journal every day:
thirty-five days, thirty-six, thirty-seven.
You knew this would happen. One day,
approximately three hundred days
from now, you will look out onto a sea
of people who love you, and he will not
be there. He never was.
Pursue sleep fiercely. Run your fingers
over your old scars and accept each one
for what it is. Weave lavender and ribbons
into your hair, tucking the memory
of him away with each deft movement. Walk home
in the sun. Curl yourself into your bed
like a fox into its den, and remember:
the choices you made were never wrong.

???: The Continuing Story

On April 21, 2018, I had the worst breakdown of my life.

I was driving at the time, and I pulled into a grocery store parking lot, crying so hard I could barely see. I couldn’t breathe. I felt nauseous and my hands were shaking. The worst part was the feeling of total isolation – that even though I was in a busy parking lot, surrounded by people, none of them cared and I was totally alone. I had no one to call or text – no one who hadn’t heard this a dozen times before, who had talked me down from dangerous highs or up from frightening lows. I could not bother them again.

For months, I had felt like my mind was increasingly divided into two parts – the part that was rational and the part that was sick. It was then, in that car, that the rational part spoke quietly but clearly. It said, You can’t go on like this. You are hurting yourself and scaring the people who love you. You need help now.

I picked up my phone and searched for crisis hotline. The next thing I searched for was counselors.

That’s how I found myself, a few weeks later, in a counselor’s office. I told him about the behaviors and emotions that had become more prevalent over the past year and gradually brought my level of functioning to near zero. I told him about my tendency to cry, more easily than ever.  I talked about my self-destructive behaviors, my paranoia, and my mood swings. I left unspoken my fear of abandonment and constant need for validation. I didn’t need to say it.

He looked at me and said, “This sounds a lot like borderline personality disorder.”

—

I guess I knew deep down that this wasn’t just a resurgence in my depression (hence my tendency to refer to my mental health issues as ??? in recent months), but BPD carries such an awful and not completely undeserved stigma that I was shocked and scared by the possible diagnosis.

BPD is one of the Cluster B personality disorders, joined by antisocial, histrionic, and narcissistic personality disorder. Sufferers of these disorders exhibit traits of being dramatic, emotional, and erratic, and are commonly perceived as being manipulative, toxic, and abusive. If you form any relationship with someone who has a florid, undiagnosed, or untreated Cluster B personality disorder, you will carry the scars from that relationship for life. I know. I’ve been there.

Someone who knows that they have a problem and is actively working to overcome it, however, is different. It took that quiet voice of insight to pull me out of my downward spiral. We are still working to determine whether I indeed have the full-blown disorder or just a few of the traits, but the fact remains that my core problem is emotional instability, and the treatment is the same regardless … working to increase distress tolerance and to strengthen both parts of my mind, the rational and the emotional part, so that both will be healthy and neither will be sick.

To those of you who have seen me cry or seen me hurt, I am so sorry. I realize now that these actions were disturbing. If you take nothing else away from this post, I hope you understand this: that none of my actions were intentionally manipulative or dramatic. I think only another person with emotional dysregulation could understand the horrific pain that accompanies sadness, grief, jealousy, anger, etc. And, of course, under the tears and distress is another profound fear: please don’t leave me.

I know you were singing this in your head, too.

At the time I’m writing this, there has been a lot of discussion about mental illness and how best to reach out to someone who may be hurting or suicidal. Now might be a good time to point out that close to ten percent of the population has a diagnosed personality disorder, and the actual prevalence may be much higher. And one of the diagnostic criteria for BPD is suicidal thoughts or non-suicidal self-harm.

Mental illness and personality disorders are never straightforward and easy to fix. Sometimes they’re scary, or they’re messy, or they’re disturbing. But remember that there is a person on the other side of that screen … someone who is sick and scared. Reach out to them, not as a counselor or a doctor, but as a friend.

Some parts of me are broken, but I am more than that. I am here, and I am learning.

[May 27]

The sun in my sky is gone,
and so are the stars at night, hanging above the freezing sea.
The ice that burned my face
has melted away, and the rocks
that hurt my feet are nowhere to be found.
This path is a smoother and lonelier one,
its dust pale, not red,
and as I climb it I can hear the ocean
singing under an even haze.
My memories of you, still beautiful
but jagged, rusty, cut deep into my palms
and will leave scars.
I had no idea how tightly I held them
until I let them go and felt my joints and tendons
ache, not with sadness, but with relief.
I am the only person on earth
who remembers where we met, both younger,
before the desert’s scouring wind
wore us both down. Sand against rock.
Rock grinding, unpadded, against itself,
over and over. Here, I do not smell
dust or jasmine, but blood and salt,
and the air is sharp and clean.

You left me broken and adrift,
but I am free, and never more certain,
and I will not stop climbing.

Pieces

I’m a crier.  I always have been.  One of the only memories I have of first grade is of preparing to cry, and of my teacher – her normally sweet, patient face turned cold and hard – snapping, “No, Amber.  You will not cry today.”  I remember being ten and walking in circles around our tiny backyard because my mom was tired of listening to my sobs.  And yes, of course it was raining, and of course my windbreaker was black.  Once I got started, it seemed like nothing could stop me.

As I’ve gotten older, my tendency to cry has lessened, but when it does happen, it is more embarrassing.  Two weeks ago, I cried at an airport because my traveling companions were cranky and because a crossing guard mimicked my clumsy, waddling attempt at running across the road.  I wonder what people thought when they saw my tearstained face.  If they noticed.

The bottom line is that I cry quite often for no real reason.  Even when I’m otherwise happy.  Since relapsing with dysthymia this past fall, I have cried even more often.  It’s horrible.  It’s embarrassing.

Having depression as an Adult™ is much different than having depression as a college student.  In college, I was surrounded by people who cared.  Some were paid to care, some cared because they saw me so often, some cared because they were experiencing similar things.  Now, I feel like I have to earn concern and sympathy.  Chronic mental illness gets old when you’ve had it for nearly ten years.  It has altered my development as a person – not necessarily for the worse, but its mark will always be there, just like the freckle on my nose.

I feel such tenderness and compassion for the nineteen-year-old girl who started this blog.  The younger me talked about recovery as if it were a finite goal, something to be achieved and then discussed breathlessly and optimistically forevermore.  I wanted my battle with depression to be a Lifetime movie, and I almost got my wish.

And then – this fall.  Back to the nauseating waves of anxiety and guilt.  Back to the isolation and the recurring thought that would hit me out of nowhere – You are a failure at everything you have ever done.

And back to the crying.

When I was given the PHQ-9, I checked off every symptom on the list.

Since resuming medical treatment, I have come to realize that recovery is not a goal that you reach and just sit at.  You have to work to recover, tirelessly, every day.  Doctors can help, and medicine can help, but the majority of the work is up to you.  And it is thankless.

Sometimes you stumble in your recovery, and you have to face the consequences.  Because – let’s face it – real life doesn’t care that you have depression.  Real life cares about things like chores and nutrition and profits and productivity.  The government will not accept crippling self-doubt as a reason why your taxes are late.

So you apologize.  Pick up the pieces.  Forgive yourself, and move on.

Take Up Your Spade – Sara Watkins

Remember when I used to skip the weather? Why did I do that again?

Sun is up, a new day is before you
Sun is up, wake your sleepy soul
Sun is up, hold on to what is yours
Take up your spade and break ground

Shake off your shoes,
Leave yesterday behind you
Shake off your shoes,
But forget not where you’ve been
Shake off your shoes,
Forgive and be forgiven
Take up your spade and break ground

Give thanks, for all that you’ve been given
Give thanks, for who you can become
Give thanks, for each moment and every crumb
Take up your spade and break ground
Break ground, break ground, break ground

[October 1]

One of my favorite poems that I have written, and still relevant, although under different circumstances.

Glass Half Fuller

This is how to forget
that you are probably being forgotten:
make your coffee strong, with dark brown sugar.
Go to bed at nine. Wake up at six
and sit outside in the lightening blue
looking at your phone. Look at your phone
often. Pretend that you’re not
looking for texts. Become good at pretending.
Become a good writer. Wish you were a better
writer. Don’t cry. Dig your nails into
your arm and forget you put them there until
the skin turns white around the grooves
and puffs up and stings in the shower.
Take lots of showers. Put a counter
on your phone: thirty-four days, thirty-five,
thirty-six. You knew this
would happen. One day, two thousand
two hundred and twenty-six days from now,
someone will say her name and you’ll say Who?
even though your heart will skip a beat anyway,
as it does from time to time.

View original post 74 more words

2017: Looking Back

On January 25, 2017, at approximately 9:15 AM, I was starting my commute to work.  It was a sunny morning and the temperature was right around freezing.  The last thing I remember the radio DJ saying was, “There’s a lot of ice on the roads, so be careful out there.”

The next moment, a big white pickup truck took the corner ahead of me too fast and skidded on the ice.  I remember thinking offhandedly: Wow, that’s a bad skid.  Then, as the truck began to spin more and more out of control: Oh crap, he’s going to hit me.

I pulled the car over to the side of the road as far as I could, closed my eyes, and screamed.

When I opened my eyes milliseconds later, the car was full of smoke from the airbags.  My glasses had been knocked off my face and my forehead and legs were bruised.

The rest of the memories from that day are spotty.  I remember my manager at work calling me, his voice full of concern.  I remember a tow truck arriving to take me and the car to a repair shop, and an employee referring offhandedly to my car as a “total loss.”  I remember getting home, after hours and hours, and immediately falling asleep.

It was my first car accident.  Just days before, I wrote, “It looks like things are finally starting to get better for us.”

—

January 23 through April 14 was just … a mess.  I won’t go into the details, but it was exhausting, confusing, and terrifying.  Looking back, it’s so clear that the S.O. and I suffered from Vitamin D deficiency last winter, which didn’t help.

Despite all of that, there are some things I will miss about Minnesota – the fresh, cool air in the suburbs, the lakes and endless fields, the rows of buffalo fish and Dover sole at the supermarket (yum, fish!)  I’ll miss rediscovering podcasts like This American Life, S-Town, Welcome to Night Vale and Heavy Metal Historian – don’t ask.  And I will miss wandering through downtown Minneapolis on my way home from yet another job interview.  It’s such a vast, vibrant city, and I’m afraid I didn’t appreciate it enough while I lived there.

December 30 will mark my second anniversary of graduating from college, and I can honestly say that none of the past two years has been what I expected.  At all.  Of course, I didn’t really have any clear expectations when I graduated … besides “Get job.  Earn money.  Try not to freeze to death.”

One of the things I expected the least was moving back to my hometown – almost literally down the street from the hospital where I was born.  When I lived in Minnesota, it was so easy to pretend I didn’t care about old friendships from my childhood.  I don’t care, I told myself when I read about engagements, weddings, graduations.  I have a new life now, and I don’t care if they’ve forgotten me.  

Except, I did care.  And I still do.  And coming back to this state that is so full of memories – some bad, mostly good – I’ve had one heck of a time trying to figure out where I fit into all of this.  Which friendships are salvageable?  Which do I want to salvage?

I have spiraled into this weird, horrible depressive episode (?) with almost delusional levels of guilt and self-hatred.  The good news is, I’m getting help for it very soon.  I just have to hang on for a few more weeks.

—

In July, just before I started my new job, we adopted a third cat named Oliver.  Younger than Calvin and Hobbes, and normal in terms of motor function, Oliver has been comforting in so many ways.  He lets us hug him, swing him around, and cry into his fur (okay, the last one is mostly me ..)

Up until now, I’ve really underestimated the power of unconditional love.  Our cats love and trust me so much, and that is one of the most inspiring things I’ve come across this year.  Every morning, before I go to work, I kiss the head of every cat I can reach.  I tell them, “I’m doing this for you,” and it gives me the strength to keep going.

Sometimes I wonder why God – or fate, or both, or something in between – brought me back to Arizona.  I wonder why I was guided from a purely R&D, wet lab environment to a more client-oriented lab – a dynamic environment where no two days are the same and where there’s always something to learn.  (Seriously, do not ask me about my job.  I will never stop talking about how much I love it.)

But then I realize that it doesn’t matter why I am here – only that I am here.  I was given a second chance to find closure, and I was given another way in which to change the world for the better.

The sadness is still with me, making my bones and muscles ache and tying my stomach into knots.  Maybe it will always be here, in one way or another.  But my cats and my S.O. are helping me to fight it.

Together, we are a family.  And we are home.