The Plea

I have a request, or even more of a plea for those of you who have a loved one struggling with mental illness. Please Trust Us. I know I recently posted something similar to this, but it is important enough to warrant another post.

A few weeks ago I wrote about the reason so many of us feel forced to keep our illness a secret. We fear that if we’re honest about it we will lose what little control and relief we have over our lives. We are utterly terrified that as soon as people know, they’ll treat us differently, hide things from us, and that they’ll start rationalizing their choices by saying “Well I didn’t want to tell you, I didn’t want you to go kill yourself.”

I cannot begin to tell you the overwhelming amount of emotions that follow hearing that. Hurt, fear, disappointment, failure, betrayal and so many more emotions begin to strangle us. By saying this I am not hoping to coerce you into hiding that fear from us. I don’t want it to constantly be an unspoken fear in your mind, because that is just as poisonous to a relationship as saying those painful words.

What I want, what we all want, is for you to trust us. It has been almost six years since my suicide attempt, and it has been a year and a half since I stopped needing to take anti-depressants. Yet, just a month ago my life was turned upside down by those words. Someone I care about was knocked back by hearing the same thing recently. From our side, we can see how our history with suicide and depression can be worrisome for the people around us, put you still have to trust us.

We are strong. We are resilient. We know how to fight this illness and we know how to ask for help. Yes, we need your support, and yes there may be times where we come to you sobbing or enraged because our body chemistry is different and we need you to help us be strong, but the thing we need more than anything else, is your trust. If you can’t trust that we are okay and that we are strong enough to deal with suicidal feelings that may or may not ever return, then our relationship with you, whether you’re a friend, a parent, a significant other, or a relative, will not be able to survive.

Trust us, so we know that we can trust you.   

Reasons for Secrets

There is a reason that more and more we are hearing about escalating suicide rates. Just yesterday my hometown newspaper had a front page story about record high rates in our county. There are numerous contributing factors, but I think the biggest one is attitude. Our society's attitude towards mental illness has begun to change, but not enough. We still judge, stereotype and cringe when we hear "mental illness". People who suffer these conditions feel embarrassed and ashamed to come forward and ask for help. In some cases, like mine, they don't even know their condition exists and is treatable, and they simply thing they're genuinely going crazy and are terrified of being found out.

In most cases, people who have depression, anxiety, or any other type of mental health issue, keep it a secret. We don't tell anyone what's wrong, we don't ask for help, and most of all we never speak of the dark times when death seems like the only option. There are a lot of reasons for this, and everyone's are different, but for the most part it boils down to the fact that we don't want to be treated differently.

I don't want to be handled with kit gloves, or be treated like a fragile child who can't handle life. I'm me. I'm an adult. I can handle the things life throws at me, its just that sometimes they're harder for me to handle than the average person. Yes, I am different, but I'd rather suffer silently and be treated like a normal person, than a "normal" person.

For me personally, there was always one specific fear that haunted me about telling the world I had depression. I felt like if I told people, I wouldn't be able to be in control of my emotions. I feared not being able to just be sad or have a bad day, because people would jump to the conclusion that I was in some deep depression funk. I had flashes in my mind of people saying things like "you're not gonna kill yourself, are you?" any time that I wasn't deliriously happy. When the average person is having a bad day, people just say "oh yeah I get it" or "it'll get better". But when someone like me has a bad day it becomes a crisis and people start googling the suicide hotline number.

When someone is sad, just let them be sad, or angry, or frustrated. Let everyone, depressed or not, be free to have emotions. No one is happy all the time, but making a big deal about someone being unhappy, or worse telling them to stop it or cut it out, is not helpful. It succeeds only in furthering the belief that we need to constantly fake joy. When we create a culture where it is considered okay and normal to feel and have genuine emotions, we are empowering people to take care of themselves.

Sharing My Story

This week is Suicide Prevention Week, and I thought it would be the perfect time to share a piece of my story that most people don’t know. Some of the details or fuzzy, I couldn’t event tell you the day or month this happened, and some are still crystal clear, like the flavor of ice cream I ate and the color of the notebook I wrote in. Regardless of what I can and can’t remember clearly, overall it is a night that I will never forget. 

I was 16, and it was a weeknight in winter, maybe February or March. I was alone in my room, sitting on my bed, struggling yet again with my physics homework. No amount of notes, teachers or tutors had helped me be able to understand it. As I stared at the hellish worksheet in front of me I started crying, and something in me snapped. I decided to give up, no on the homework, but on everything. It had just become too much. 

It’s important to know that I didn’t decide to end my life because of physics homework I couldn’t understand. My life in those days was full of loneliness, pain, abuse, struggle, few friends, a shattered heart, events that shook my faith and bullying. These things sent me spiraling deeper and deeper into a depression I didn’t know I had. Back then I didn’t know that depression was an illness and that I couldn’t control. I genuinely thought that I was just a crazy, broken girl with no light in sight. So in that moment, when everything became too much, I took back the only control I thought I had, and decided to free myself from my pain, and the people around me from the burden of my existence. 

As soon as I made the decision, I remember feeling calm and relieved. In my mind I was not making a rash decision, but a logical choice. I can remember going to the kitchen because I was hungry and getting ice cream. I took the whole pint of Ben and Jerry’s Cake Batter ice cream, thinking that since I was going to end my life, the calories really wouldn’t make a difference. I sat on my bed, ice cream to my left, green notebook on my lap, and began to write my goodbyes. I wrote letters to my mom, dad, little brother and a small handful of close friends. 

Looking back, I’m still shocked at how calm and logical everything seemed to me. From the moment I decided I needed to die, to the moment I began swallowing handfuls of pills, there were two to three hours of time. I ate ice cream, I wrote my goodbyes, and I validated my choice calmly and rationally. I remember lying down in bed, a stomach full of pills, ready to go to sleep forever, and I remember exactly why I’m still alive. 

Everything was fine, I had no regrets or concerns or worries, except for one. I began thinking about the events that would follow my death. I had included some instructions with my goodbyes, songs to play and what I wanted to wear (even in a suicidal depression I was a planner). But the thought that stopped me in my tracks was what would happen first. My mom would come into my room the next morning and find me, and in the end that thought saved my life (Mom guilt for the win). 

I went to my mom’s room, told her I needed her, and eventually ended up in the local ER. From there I spent two more years suffering silently until I was diagnosed. And now, five years after I tried to end my life, I have finally found true bliss. I can say without hesitation that I am happy, and that I love my life. It took years of pain and suffering and hell to get here, but it was worth it.  

Midnight Realizations

Many people who meet me and know me, don't know about my history with mental illness. They don't know about the six years I spent struggling daily with depression, anxiety, self harm and suicidal thoughts. They also may not know that it is because of those six years of torturous hell, that I am who I am. The girl I am now, is the girl that people say "Her? She has depression? No way." That's the way it is for a lot of people with depression. In many of our cases, the truth of our diagnosis is so shocking because of how hard we work to build a facade of happiness. But for some of us, after a lot of hard work, the truth of our conditions are shocking because of how genuinely happy we are.

I can't speak for the people around me, but I do believe that if you asked them about me, one of the first words they would use to describe me is "happy", and they would be right. But what many of them dont know, or dont understand, is why I am always so happy, excited, smiley and loving.

For the last 18 months I have been symptom free. No crippling depression, no anxiety attacks, no days where I'm too emotionally exhausted to pull myself out of bed. I may not have every single thing that I want in my life, but I'm happy, every day, and that is all I could ever ask for. Every single day I wake up and I spend my day learning, laughing, smiling and spending time with a huge group of incredible people that I'm lucky enough to call my friends.

I'm not telling you this to brag. I'm not trying to dangle my happiness in the face of your struggle. I'm telling you all of this because of how close it came to not happening. There were a handful of times when I was in college, during some of the worst times of my struggles, that I considered suicide. There were nights when I barely escaped falling into the trap of believing that the only way to end the pain, was to end my life.

From my lowest point, it was still years before I was able to begin recovering. I've been symptom free for a year and half now, but it's only been the last few months that my life has been truly blissful. I know what it is like to struggle with depression and anxiety. I know what it is like to have your heart racing, and be hyperventilating during a panic attack. I know what it is like to stare at the pills on your nightstand for hours trying not to think about how simple it would be to take them all and never have to be in pain again. But I also know happiness. I know what ti is like to not have to take anti-depressants every day. I know what it feels like to be truly happy in your heart all time.  

But most importantly, I know that you are strong enough to fight back, and find your way to happiness. If I can do it, you can too. And I promise you, that each second of happiness, is worth years of fighting.

You can beat this.

Dear Mark Carpowich

So today, while looking through Yahoo News, I saw an article about Taylor Swift. Seeing as T-Swift is one of my favorite singers, and people in general, I obviously clicked on it. Come to find out, the article is a detestable piece of fiction that does nothing but list invalid ramblings as to why this man thinks Taylor Swift is no longer a role model for young girls. I'm sorry mark, but you're completely off your rocker, and I'm going to tell you why, point by point. Why am I doing this? Because Taylor Swift has been a defining role model in my life since I was 13 years old. She helped me through heartbreak, struggles with depression and even in the last year she's played a large role in helping me understand how to depend on myself for happiness, and how to embrace myself for who I am, and empower myself. If someone was trashing my family, or my best friend, I wouldn't sit by idly. So don't expect anything less that a strong selection of words when someone who has had a significantly impactful influence on my life is attacked.

Mark Reason #1: Taylor Swift only surrounds herself with "rich, famous and powerful women".

Why is this a problem? Taylor Swift is a successful young musician. Why wouldn't she hang out with other musicians? And the models, yeah she met them while performing at the Victoria Secret fashion show. I'm a college student. The majority of my friends are people around my age, who I work with and attend classes with. But yeah, Taylor is a completely awful person for being friends with a diverse group of strong, successful, independent women. Shield your daughters from such heinous behavior!

Mark is also displeased with the guests on Taylor's 1989 Tour. He wants her to be supporting unknown artists looking for their break. Maybe she can write a letter convincing a multi-million dollar company to pay those up and coming artists for their music instead of giving it away for free for 3 months. Oh yeah wait she already did that! I guess it really does say a lot about Taylor that DOZENS of interntionally renowned performers are willing to join her onstage and perform. Clearly this type of behavior is evidence of her demonic personality. Oh, and remind me again Mark, are her opening acts super famous or are they some relatively unknown up and comers? (I can wait while you look it up Mark, cause you clearly didn't fact check that before you started writing.)

Mark Reason #2: She Uses Others to Build Her Brand

According to Mark, T-Swift is just a big user, and has been since she "made her name in country music by titling her first single after another whose name was already established: Tim McGraw". I hardly think Tim McGraw, or his reputation had anything to do with her success. I'm sure the fact that every album she's ever released has been record breaking is completely because she had one song on her self-titled debut album. Riddle me this Mark, is Brad Paisley a user? Eric Church? Cause they both happen to have songs titled after other artists. Should I stop respecting the because of that? 

Mark Reason #3: Her Charity

I think my favorite part about this one is the fact that he first does actually talk about how Taylor is very charitable, he has no issue with that, in fact he even mentions the fact that Swift is recognized as one of the music industry's MOST philanthropic entertainers. Mark is just unsatisfied with how Taylor gives to charity. Yeah, I'm serious. Mark doesn't like that Taylor Swift chooses where make her contributions through fan surveys. I guess seeking feedback from a dedicated group of fans, and trying to be charitable in ways that will benefit them directly is super selfish of Tay. And I am sure that if we were to pull Mark's taxes they would reflect that he donates a reasonable amount of his income to a variety of charitable organizations. Of course, I would never judge him based on what he does or doesn't contribute to charity, nor question his reasoning, because that's none of my damn business and it would be rude to criticize a person's philanthropic choices.  

Mark Reason #4: She's Promoting Vanity

Apparently T-Swift is a deplorable human for A) Being an entrepreneur and B) Being a spokes person. According to him, her role as a spokeswoman for CoverGirl is inconsistent with Taylor's "love who you are" attitude. Ellen Degenres was also a CoverGirl spokeswoman, does Mark think she's a bad role model too? So, I can't love myself and mascara? Guess I can't be a confident and love myself, because I also happen to love eye shadow. 

Now, there were even more digs at Taylor Swift in Mark's little article, but for the sake of length I'm not going to get in to his inaccurate description of her musical evolution, or call him an idiot for saying she abandoned country music. I am absolutely positive that Mark loves the exact same music styles now, as he did when he was 15. And I'm sure he just forgot to consider all the famous male country artists who's music stylings have evolved throughout their careers. 

Basically, what I'm trying to say, is that you shouldn't go off judging a someone you dont know, have never met, and have never spent any time with. That is ignorant, and that is wrong. Mr. Carpowich is doing a wonderful job of showcasing the type of person we dont want our youth to idolize. He just happens to be doing it with his actions, not his writing. 

Mark's Article: 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-carpowich/taylor-swift-no-longer-a-role-model-why-everything-has-changed_b_7791264.html

The Real Shame

So, once again, America has completely overreacted to something trivial. We’ve taken something completely innocent, and turned it into a national crisis. We’re very good at this, and I’m kind of glad because it makes coming up with blog posts so much easier.

Oprah Magazine is in the news today because of a piece of fashion advice they gave women. In response to the question “Can I pull off a crop top?” the magazine said “If (and only if!) you have a flat stomach, feel free to try one. For more coverage, layer the top over a longer shirt”. Some people are calling this body shaming. I’m calling those people idiots.

I’m not sure if y’all are aware, but clothing items are not universal. Every person and every different body type can’t all wear the same style, cut, color and look good. We need to applaud Oprah Magazine. They’re doing what so many of us are unwilling to do; be honest about our bodies. 

One of my biggest pet peeves is when women refuse to dress in clothing that is flattering for their figure, because they can’t or won’t accept their bodies. Look at me, I’m a big girl. I know it, I own it, I whine about it on occasion (I’m only human after all). But I also dress for my body type. And guess what, its not all baggy sweaters. I’m fat but I’ll be damned if I don’t look cute as hell in an A-line dress. I know what kind of clothes flatter me, and I don’t really give a damn what the number on the tag says.

I have a pudgy white stomach, and I have no business wearing a crop top. Why would I? A crop top is not going to flatter my body, and Oprah Magazine knows that. They didn’t say “All you fat asses shouldn’t wear a crop top”. They said it’s flattering on women with flat stomachs (True.) and even gave a secondary option on how to wear a crop top if you don’t have a flat stomach (Thanks for the idea O!)

There is a distinct difference between body shaming, and being realistic about your style. We can’t be so over sensitive to things like this. If we turn every piece of fashion advice into body shaming, we’re going to create an environment where no one can be honest about their body. We need to focus on creating an open dialogue so that young girls can learn to embrace the body they have and rock it, not hide it while constantly saying “I’ll buy that when I can fit in the smaller size” or “I’ll be happy when I lose 10 more pounds.”

If your mom or your best friend told you to put the crop top down cause it didn’t look good on you, you would thank them for saving you from being a fashion don’t, but if Oprah does it she’s body shaming? Oprah? We’re really accusing the queen of embracing your body of being a body shamer? *Raises one eyebrow and shakes head* I don’t think so y’all.  

Anxiety Calling

One of the conditions I struggle with is anxiety. I have been diagnosed with both Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Social Anxiety Disorder. In the past these caused me to have severe panic attacks, often late at night, and that is a pain I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. I also sometimes have trouble in places that are very cramped, crowded and loud. I get overwhelmed and need to remove myself from the situation and take a few minutes to calm down and collect myself. These anxiety attacks are something that over the last few years I have been able to work to handle, and now they happen very infrequently. But even though these big symptoms are infrequent, and even though I’m now confident and able to handle them, there are still things that instantly fill me with fear.

Phones. I am terrified of phones. I know what you’re thinking, “Phones? Is she serious? Phones are not that scary, come on Liz get over it”. I know that phones shouldn’t be scary. The logical part of my brain is right with you, but the rest of me is not. The thought of having to pick up the phone and make a call (with the exception of my parents and close friends) terrifies me. It doesn’t matter if I’m calling a news station to coordinate media for an event, or calling the Doctor’s office to schedule an appointment. The minute I start thinking about calling, my body goes into panic mode. My heart races, it gets harder to breath, my stomach is in knots and my hands get shaky, and I have no control over it. I can take a few deep breaths, but that only does so much.

Now, something you should know about me. I am not an overly shy person. I make conversation with strangers, I speak up in class, I propose ideas in meetings, I’m even a campus tour guide. I am a confident, well -spoken person who doesn’t get intimidated, except by telephones apparently. But that is the thing about anxiety. It doesn’t play by the rules, it isn’t logical. I absolutely love spending 90 minutes talking with a group of potential students and parents, but when it comes to calling customer service to get a coupon code, it is painful. I put things off far too long to avoid it, and when I do make a call, it is guaranteed that I have a cheat sheet of all the possible information I might need on the call.

Making a phone call, something that is done millions of times a day, is a painful ordeal for me. But it is also a necessity for my personal and professional life. It’s not something I can just “get over”. It’s a heart pounding, hand shaking, fear inducing activity equivalent to the moment before a roller coaster plummets down the first hill.

Yes, I’m handling my depression. Yes, I’m handling my anxiety. Yes, I am a confident, hard worker. And yes, I am a young woman who, even in my most successful times, struggles to overcome her symptoms. Never take advantage the things you can do with ease, and always remember that we all struggle with something.