Summer is flying by - divorce is consuming my time & mental state! UGHHH

Hi guys!

Wow, it’s been awhile. I hadn’t realized it’s almost 2 months since my last posting. Life tends to fly by sometimes when you aren’t paying attention, doesn’t it?!?!

The school year ended in May and so I was just relaxing for a few weeks (my brain was completely strained from the math course I took…I am no math wizard! Haha.) I had so many plans of school related things I wanted to get done this summer:

       Study and test out of my next math class

       Study and test out of my humanities class

       Study for and take the GRE (Graduate Record Exam – Grad school admissions test)

       Get involved in volunteer activities in the psychology community in my city

WELLLLL…since my divorce is now beginning the legal process, that has been so stressful to me that unfortunately, over the last month I have been able to accomplish nearly nothing on that list :( It makes me so sad!!! Between dealing with my ex and his mood swings, dealing with kids (who are themselves out of school for the summer), and trying to sell half my belongings and move out of my house so I can sell it, school hasn’t exactly been my top priority.

There is a lot going on you can see. My head is kind of swirling most of the time and I feel quite overwhelmed, like there is a lot hanging over my head. I HATE that feeling. I am a list maker, a checker-offer. I like knowing I accomplished things and have them under my belt. Stuff that hangs in limbo…leaves me feeling anxious :/

So, that is where I am now! Summer is half way down and it is my goal to AT LEAST test out of my math class, at the bare minimum. The rest of the school stuff may have to wait. I’m in a bit of a rush to get my house on the market, hopefully a month from now, so there is a lot happening.

My mental state is….OK. I go on meds and I go off them…that is just the nature of things I guess. Once my divorce is final (it seems to be getting dragged out slowly and painfully, unfortunately) I think my mental state will improve drastically. No longer being attached in any way to a toxic relationship will help me so much to move forward and try to make positive changes in my life. Right now I’m still sort of dangling in limbo-land while things are not finalized. And that is the toughest part!!!

Awareness is crucial in managing bipolar disorder off meds

Our circumstances can make us depressed. Seems like a fairly obvious statement, yes?

Sadly though, this fact is overlooked in the mental health field a lot, and even in our own personal lives. I know after being diagnosed with bipolar, I started to buy into all the messages out there – I NEEDED meds, it was bipolar that was making me depressed, I should monitor my moods so that I could alter my meds, etc. Sure, I had counseling but it mainly focused on – bipolar! Everything in a round about way came back to bipolar. I thought I was gaining clarity by listening to these messages. After all, these doctors and nurses and counselors were the experts, right?

During that time I was making videos a lot and still journaling so I have a lot of detailed accounts of how I was feeling and what was going on in my life. It is amazing to me looking back how unaware I was the vast majority of my life! I had a great deal of INSIGHT into my FEELINGS but very little AWARENESS of WHY I felt that way. I made one video about depression in 2010 and how nothing was going on in my life to make me depressed, and that it must have been bipolar. Yet, I was completely unaware of my surroundings and how they were affecting me.

During that particular time I made that video, I recall exactly what was going on, and my life was NOT going great at all. My husband and I were having major conflicts. It had been going on for months though so I think I just discounted it as having an effect on me, when I now see it was one of the main causes of my depression. Also, we were living with relatives at the time which was becoming stressful. We were looking for our own house, also stressful. I was taking care of twin 2 year olds, stressful. I can’t believe I didn’t take all that into account when looking at my mental state and the way it would fluctuate!!! I just thought, ohhhh, it’s bipolar…that stinks…maybe tomorrow would be better. In a way it kept me from addressing things in my life that were affecting me, because I was putting too much emphasis on the wrong things (bipolar/biological/medical problem) and not enough on other things (relationships/family life/stress level).

I guess I felt compelled to make this blog today because I think the current message in the mental health field is doing a disservice to those diagnosed with depression or bipolar. Here is my 2 cents…

I believe that many mental illnesses (including depression and bipolar) begin with an inherent sensitivity. This is something currently being researched in the mental health field and I do believe this is barking up the right tree, so to speak. I believe this sensitivity makes a person more likely to be affected by external stimuli. This can then manifest as many different things – anxiety, depression, mania.

For example – take an average person and a person with bipolar. Put them in a situation where they are going through a break-up. The average person will feel sad and maybe even depressed. The bipolar person may dwell on it incessantly, feel suicidal, perhaps even attempt suicide. The same stimuli but much more intense emotions related to that stimuli. (Keep in mind this is just a random example, of course this isn’t true of every average person or bipolar person! I’m just making a generalization.)

So, if I were to go to my psychiatrist and tell them all this, (in my fictional example) one of the first things they would be concerned with is: medication! Upping meds, changing meds, etc. They have the viewpoint that these things must be dealt with by pharmaceuticals. I used to believe that and I went along with it all. Now, I feel differently.

So many times over the course of my treatment, everything got lumped under the category “It’s because you have bipolar.” Is it? Well, no not really. Does being depressed because I have marital conflict mean it’s related to bipolar? Hardly. If I addressed the bigger issue (marital problems) could I help mediate the effects on my “illness”? I say yes.

Bipolar or not, we are all human beings. We feel low when we get divorced, lose a friend, have a family member that dies, lose a pet. Now, those are BIG things. But even little things affect us too. Having a stressful day at work. A sick child. An upcoming deadline. Interpersonal conflict. Too often, these things are not addressed in psychiatry or in counseling as far as ways to cope with these issues in healthy, non-medical means. Somehow, everything always comes back to an illness, even if it is a legitimate problem. To this day, within the bipolar community, whenever I say things that others view as extreme, they caution me that I must be having an episode. I deeply appreciate the care and concern. But it really goes to show just how ingrained the idea has become even within OURSELVES and TO ourselves that mental illness is WHAT we are. That we are helpless. That we cannot change or improve without meds. That any sort of variation means we better get some new meds, pronto, and that will help our situation.

Now, I think at times, medication plays a role but that often, when we learn to be aware of ourselves, our moods, our surroundings and WHAT is causing these feelings we can address them in a more pro-active way. Many people in the mental health system (including myself) did everything “right”. We went to counseling, we took the meds, we followed the regime for YEARS. But that is only addressing one small piece of the puzzle. We are multi-faceted individuals and must deal with our lives in a holistic manner, instead of focusing everything on ONE THING – our illness. That doesn’t help us, but instead keeps us trapped in a cycle we can never get out of. I often wondered WHY I wasn’t getting better despite doing all the “right” things (and believe me, I have heard the same thing from others about a million times! People want to know WHY these meds aren’t fixing their depression or their mood swings, WHY they aren’t getting better. Ultimately it can lead to a worse feeling of depression, because on top of the initial depression, there is depression for having “failed” to get better.)

I am now almost a year off meds and am so much more aware of myself than I was at the beginning of my mental health journey almost 5 years ago, and I am so thankful for that. Like I said, I could identify my feelings but not WHY I felt that way. I now understand: all the variation of mood, how various social cues trigger my moods or affect them (positive or negative), how the behaviors I engage in affect me, how all of this affects others. It’s not something that occurs overnight but is a learning process that occurs over time and with observation. Does that mean I’m now “fixed”? No. But it puts me ahead of the game because I can anticipate things before they happen. I can be prepared. I minimize the chances of being caught off guard. When bad things do happen, I can learn from them and try to adjust things/situations in the future. I know my weaknesses and limitations and try to take those into account when making plans or scheduling particular outings or things of that nature. For example, I now know that working hard on something can trigger elevated mood or “mania” for me. So, I don’t avoid working hard, but if I notice signs, I can either enjoy the ride or if it becomes extreme, back off and try to do calming activities to mediate the excitation happening in my brain. If I start feeling depressed and notice I’m ruminating on negative thoughts, I can purposely cut off the train of thought and engage in something more uplifting – some happy music, or watching a funny video, or talking to a close friend. If I weren’t aware of the effects of my environment on me, I couldn’t do any of these things! Awareness is SO important. I think it is THE most important thing in dealing with mental illness, period.

So my advice to anyone new to the mental health system or newly diagnosed is this – FIRST, take stock of your own life. No one knows you like YOU. You are the best advocate for yourself. We may like the idea of a fairy godmother or white knight swooping in and fixing us or fixing our lives but that isn’t reality. We must be our own advocates in life. Understanding yourself better can help you understand your moods and ways of coping or self-medicating (drugs/alcohol/self-injury/bingeing/social withdrawal, etc.) that are unique to you. You can in turn begin to address these things. SECOND – Don’t believe the hype. Even if you’ve been diagnosed with bipolar (or even if you just think you may have it) not everything about you is “because you have bipolar”! Bipolar in itself doesn’t make a person inherently – quiet, loud, obnoxious, generous, loving, selfish or any other thing. We all have to accept that we have our own traits regardless of bipolar. Don’t fall into the trap of believing “I’m a thrill seeker…it’s because I have bipolar!” or “I don’t like people. It’s because I have bipolar.” Not only is that boxing yourself in, but some of it isn’t even true (bipolar is simply a tendency for extreme mood experiences and shifts.) While you may be able to say you’re a thrill seeker while in an elevated mood state, if you’re like that all the time, it’s just your personality. (I’m going to go ahead and say that most people realize a lot of their own personality traits, good or bad. We don’t all admit them openly to others though!) Lumping all these things under the heading of “bipolar” may make you feel better for a while and you may feel validated that it’s not all in your head, (I know I did) but eventually it will consume you. Bipolar will become the only thing you see about yourself and in a weird way, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. You believe you’re nuts and so you act nuts, so people treat you nuts and so you believe you’re nuts…It will make you feel worse and not better. And that isn’t what any of us want, bipolar or not.

LASTLY, Many times, bipolar or not, addressing the true issues in life can bring more happiness than simply relying on a pill. There is no miracle pill to cure bipolar or depression. But healing starts with AWARENESS. A person can never change something they are unaware of. If you walked around with spinach in your teeth all day and never looked in a mirror, would you think to floss your teeth right away? Probably not. You wouldn’t even be aware of it. But if you thought to yourself while you were eating your salad that you better head to the bathroom after you eat and make sure your pearly whites were white instead of green, you’d head off any unforeseen embarrassment. Point is, be aware. Aware of YOURSELF, aware of what is AROUND you. Notice how things affect you, what your particular “weaknesses” are, what triggers your moods (both down and up). Is it having too much to do in a short time? Is it dealing with money troubles? Relationship troubles? Is it being involved in a cool class? Experiencing something new? Really take a step back and assess your own life. You can be your own best friend or your own worst enemy. Only by truly looking at yourself as a whole can you begin to understand how to take steps that will bring the improvements you seek.

Self Esteem

I’ve been thinking a lot about people lately – it’s never ending for me. I’ve been noticing patterns that people get into in their lives or relationships or in different forms. How they love, or don’t love, are attached or detached, selfish or altruistic, those sorts of things (mainly in the sense of how it relates to people in their relationships, friendships, families, jobs, etc.)

So then I got to thinking quite a bit about insecurity and self-love, and self-esteem.

Alright, we all have insecurities. No doubt. We are all human beings and none of us are perfect. It varies a lot from person to person but there is no one out there who feels 100% great about themselves 100% of the time. But, we CAN feel very good about ourselves and be confident about our abilities/skills/talents/appearance. But that involves acceptance of those things. If we are always trying to change things or wishing they were different or pushing them away it’s a sure recipe for feeling crappy about yourself.

Hard for me to admit now, but most of my life I had fairly low self-esteem. I was often told that I was attractive, smart or talented by my peers or people within an academic realm (“Your hair is gorgeous!” “You have the highest grade in class” “That was an amazing project” “I wish I could sing like you!”) Yet despite the positive messages I received from peers, in my personal home life, I really got none. It was sort of like a complete discredit to anything anyone else said. Why didn’t anyone in my actual life notice that I was smart? Why didn’t they tell me I looked pretty? Why didn’t I ever get told they were proud of me? I believed that it was because I really wasn’t any good and felt a sort of paranoia that the nice comments others made were somehow false or just lip service. So, really they wound up doing nothing for my self-esteem and it remained very low even into my adult years.

Having low self-esteem caused me to get into a lot of bad relationships and have bad experiences in general. In ways I’m sure I (subconsciously) allowed myself to be treated in a poor manner because I BELIEVED that I didn’t deserve any better. Sometimes the people actually told me that I didn’t deserve any better. It became this lifelong message drilled in – you’re not any good, you have too many flaws, no one is going to want to be with you and if they do you should consider yourself lucky.

Yeahhhhhh, not exactly messages conducive to feeling good about oneself, eh?

I’m not sure when the real turning point came. I think I simply had some realizations and insights into things after years of talking in therapy, discussing feelings and life experiences with friends and family and just stepping outside myself and DISTANCING myself from my feelings and taking a cold hard look at the reality of the situation.

Awhile back I came across some old papers I had from grade school. Report cards, projects, the works. I looked through them and was amazed because everything in there had positive comments, teachers singing my praises, high marks and just an overall glowing portrayal of me. I never ever saw myself that way and I think it really hit me then, wait a second. Why have I thought I was no good all this time? Why did I listen to the bad messages instead of the good ones? Maybe it’s because of conditioning. Maybe because as I got older the positive messages became less and less as I entered the adult world of work and relationships. I had forgotten all that stuff from childhood. But it came back to me and made me rethink things I previously thought about myself.

Most of my life I viewed self-esteem as something that needed to be bolstered by someone outside myself. I needed someone to like me to feel good, I needed someone’s praise to feel good. I was always a sensitive person and in ways I think that was more of a personality trait than anything. But it became completely maladaptive. It got to where I just internalized everyone else’s view of me and that is who I became. If someone thought I had done a nice job on something, then I was good. If someone thought I looked terrible, then I was ugly. It was the exact opposite of self-esteem. It really had nothing to do with self and everything to do with others.

When I finally started realizing all these things, I knew that in order to feel good, and I mean TRULY good (and not the fake front that you put on so that others can’t see your insecurities) you have to learn to LOVE YOURSELF FIRST. You have to love yourself even if no one else does. It’s very hard at first because you don’t believe it. You have to dig down, (sometimes wayyyy wayyyyy down) and find those things that you know make you special. Everyone has them. I do believe that everyone has something worth celebrating, whether that be that they are a great listener, a stellar cook, good with animals, a generous giver, or whatever. Everyone has something within them to celebrate, regardless of what those outsiders say. Loving yourself means holding onto those things and allowing yourself to revel in them. Don’t listen to the naysayers if they think your talent is useless or that you are just “no good”. What do they know? Generally, not much, especially if they are the types of negative people who would make such comments to begin with.

Now, my self-esteem has soared in the last couple of years and there have been so many positive outcomes from that. A) I accept myself more now and feel far far less of a need or even desire to change for anyone else B) I am more likely to go after the things I want because I know that I CAN achieve them and that it isn’t a futile goal or investment C) This is huge – my depression levels have gone WAY WAY down. I used to be incredibly depressed much of the time. Now I find that I am rarely depressed. And when I am it only lasts a day or 2 and then I pop back up ready to tackle the next thing. Having that self-esteem and self-confidence bolsters me into more positive thinking such as “I know I’ve got this” instead of “I’m just going to fail.” It gives me a lot more resiliency than I previously had. D) Whenever things DO happen that are negative, I don’t automatically attribute it to myself. I used to think anything and everything that went wrong was my fault. No more! I realize that when people do/say things to us, it often has more to do with how THEY feel about THEMSELVES and very little to do with us. Recognizing that helps keep things in perspective and realize, hey, they are just one (or two or three) people on the face of this earth. There are millions upon millions of people on the earth! Why should I care what a few negative nellies say???

So I really think that self-esteem is a core issue in so many problems, both social and psychological. We have to assess ourselves and ask, how am I doing? What can I do to pick myself up? True self-esteem comes from within and exists independently of anything else. It can be a hard road (in my case, 30 year road!) but completely worthwhile pursuit that really can change your life.

My Christian Playlist

Since I wrote about bad messages in music, I wanted to post about some positive messages in music as well! I’ve been listening to Christian music for years, even when I wasn’t involved in anything God related, just because I found it to be happy and uplifting. Now it is what I listen to most of the time because I try to avoid the bad messages in other forms of popular music.

When I was young I used to think ewwwww, Christian music! And it conjured up images of people crying at concerts and things like that, which I found ridiculous but I now get it completely. I’ve cried at some of these songs myself because they are so moving, or they speak to me at just the right moment when I need it. They encourage positive values, loving yourself, loving others, being caring, helpful, generous. Loving God, respecting him, worshiping. Some of it is slow and some of it is music that makes you get up and dance! Whenever I listen to this music it truly does cheer me up. I can’t tell you how many times I was having a terrible day or experience and I turned on the Christian station and heard just the right thing at the right time to lift me up and help me keep going.

So here in my current playlist I’ve been playing quite a bit! Go listen to them now!

*Ready or Not by Britt Nicole

I'm not ever selling out
A love out loud is what it's all about
Giving everything to see the lost get found
Yeah, it's going down

You, you, you want me to take my light, light
Fit it in your box, right?
I want you to look me in the eye

Ready or not
Here, here, here, here I come
I'm about to show you where the light comes from

*Write Your Story by Francesca Battistelli

They say
You can give the blind their sight
And You can bring the dead to life
You can be the hope my soul's been seekin'

I wanna tell You now that I believe it
I wanna tell You now that I believe it
I do, that You can make me new, oh

I'm an empty page
I'm an open book
Write Your story on my heart
Come on and make Your mark

Author of my hope
Maker of the stars
Let me be Your work of art
Won't You write Your story on my heart

*Speak Life by TobyMac

Though it's crazy, amazing
We can turn a heart with the words we say
Mountains crumble with every syllable
Hope can live or die

So speak Life, speak Life
To the deadest darkest night
Speak life, speak Life
When the sun won't shine and you don't know why
Look into the eyes of the brokenhearted
Watch them come alive as soon as you speak hope
You speak love, you speak...
You speak Life, You speak Life

*Your Love by Brandon Heath

*Shine Your Way by Owl City

*Starry Night by Chris August

*Architecture by Jonathan Thulin

*More of You by Colton Dixon

*Ready, Set, Go by Royal Tailor

*Jesus in Disguise by Brandon Heath

*Born Again by Newsboys

*You Invite Me In by Meredith Andrews (first Christian song that ever stuck in my heart years ago!)

*Drifting by Plumb

*What I’ve Overcome by Fireflight

*Walk on the Water by Britt Nicole

Awesome, uplifting songs that really understand our physical human needs and spiritual needs as well. Hope that you enjoy them like I do.

I finally found HOPE

Hello everyone!!! Wow, it’s been a long time. I’ve been on quite a journey this year (well, the past 4 years really :P ) I realize now what a huge DOWNER I have been. Mainly it was because I was struggling all the time…struggling with my mental state, struggling with my personal relationships, struggling with LIFE. And you know, it wasn’t fun.

I’ll spare you all the long winded details of 2014 but suffice it to say I had about 100 epiphanies about life, about my beliefs, and about myself as a person. My whole world got flipped on its head because I realized the way I saw things was all wrong. ALLLLLLLL WRONG. And with the realization that it was wrong, I started trying to make it right.

Granted, I’m only a lowly human. I don’t have all the knowledge in the world or all the wisdom. But I like to think that I’m an intelligent enough person to put the pieces together eventually. It took me about, oh 32 years but here I am now! Better late than never?

Now, don’t get me wrong. I am by no means saying that all my problems are gone. HA! I wish. My life is just as stressful as ever. It’s terribly stressful. Some days I just want to give up. But I don’t. I go to sleep, I pray for strength. I get up the next day and do my best. Some weeks are incredibly difficult. And some are easier. But the bottom line is, that is life. For most of it, I lacked confidence, was depressed, sad, feeling like a broken little doll, useless, a victim of the world. I no longer believe that anymore or feel that way. I feel like a caterpillar who is metamorphosing into a butterfly.

There are some in the mental health community who don’t seem to believe that lasting change can be had. That’s a whoooooooole other post unto itself. But for now, in the interest of brevity, I’m keeping this short just to say, I found hope. There are many things that contributed to that, and I will explore them all in more detail soon. As a preview, what are a few of those things? GOD. Personal understanding. LOVE. Love for others, and love for myself. It’s a heck of a lot to dig into but I’m going to do it. Because frankly, after all those years, I’m tired of wallowing. And I’m ready to put a positive footprint out into the world.

Take care everyone!!! And talk to you all soon. :)