A Breakthrough

So, there seems to have been a little bit of a breakthrough with things.  As many of you know, I've been talking about this "heaviness" and "darkness" that have plagued me, even though everything has been fine, and it's been incredibly frustrating.  Well, my therapist and a colleague or hers had this new theory and so they were going to try something new in therapy.

This theory sort of sounds a little silly, but bear with me.  So my therapist's colleague was calling it a "critter."  Her theory was that this "critter" creeped into my system when I was hurt and broken and just grew and grew, mostly absorbing any negative energy that was around me.  It also turns out that my self-harm part and suicidal part were inviting it in, but not consciously.  Both those parts have been around so long, they don't know what to do if that heaviness and darkness weren't there.  They also felt like I wanted to get rid of them, so I guess they kind of freaked out.  Which, to be far, I did want to get rid of them, but my therapist said I have to look at it a different way.  I have to accept that it's always going to have a place, and that it played a huge role in who I've become, but it doesn't need to actively work so hard. 

So in therapy, we worked on "expelling" this negative energy.  I had to do all these exercises to get those parts to let go of the heaviness and darkness and I had to expel it to the universe where it could be "cared for, but not get back into my system."  After we did this, I genuinely could feel a difference.  When I walked into therapy that day, the heaviness was at a 5ish, when I was done, it was more like 2 or even 1.  This isn't a "one and done" deal.  Anytime this negative energy tries to creep back in, I'm going to have to do some exercises to expel it.  And my self-harm and suicidal parts are so used to having to work so hard, they don't really know what to do.  Today, I felt better than I have for a long, long, time; probably ever actually.  It was a little tiring, I'm not used to feeling like that, so I had a lot of energy.  Those self-harm/suicidal parts/thoughts are still there a little bit, but they're there out of habit, and slowly, they should be less present.  I was feeling good at work today and was sharing some of this with one of my managers and he took a minute and celebrated with me and it felt nice lol.  Not just that I felt good, but that I've had managers who have been so supportive and caring that they celebrate in my victories with me.

Something else happened recently that was a HUGE step for me.  The Front Desk Manager position at our property recently became vacant.  As soon as I knew what happened, I immediately logged into my google account at work (I keep my resume on my google drive) and printed my resume.  I went back to my manager and handed it to her and said I wanted to be considered for the replacement.  She said they weren't going to be posting/filling the position for a little while until some other things settle down first, but I knew if I didn't do it then, I was going to lose my nerve.  I never put myself out there like that.  I've never had the confidence to do something like that either.  Every day I work, I try to take on some more responsibilities.  I've already started doing several things the previous FD manager was doing, I figure the more I know and the more I'm already doing when they make the decision, the better my chances of getting it.  Then this weekend, I talked to both my general and assistant managers and I asked them, "If you had to fill the position today, what concerns would you have about giving me the job?"  They both gave me some feedback, there wasn't anything major they seemed concerned about, but gave me some helpful comments, and since they're not filling the position for awhile, I have some time to work on anything they're concerned about :-)  All of this was a HUGE thing for me.  My therapist was really impressed and I'm really proud.  Even if I don't get the job, I'm okay with it.  This was so much progress for me, that I don't care if I don't get it.  (I mean I do care, but I'm okay with whatever happens lol)

Struggling With My Faith

I didn't realize it had been so long since my last blog post.  Things have been really frustrating lately.  Externally, everything is fine.  School is coming along, slowly but surely.  Work is GREAT, and I love my managers and coworkers.  I've been steadily losing weight over the past year.  But I still have this "heaviness" and "darkness" that are making me feel like crap.  My therapist has a new theory as to what's causing it, so she has a new strategy we're going to be starting soon.  Truthfully, I'm pretty much willing to try just about anything.

Anyways, there's something else that's been on my mind- I've really been struggling with my faith recently.  My mind is kind of all over the place with this, so I just want to try to sort things out.  For awhile now, I have felt abandoned by Heavenly Father and my Savior.  I feel like all my prayers, my crying pleas, everything has gone unheard.  I was trying to do everything I'm "supposed" to be doing, but the heaviness and darkness doesn't go away.  I get that it's not something that is necessarily to get taken away from me, but all I need is just a little bit of comfort, and I don't even get that.  It's left me frustrated and angry, and slowly making choices that are pushing me farther from the church.  It's like it's 10-12 years ago all over again.

When I was at the branch, before I moved to the ward, I was feeling left out, uncomfortable, and unwelcome.  I started to feel like the ward was where I was supposed to be, so I moved. (I think I wrote about this in a previous blog post.)  But now, I don't know.  I knew going into the family ward, it was gonna be different- but I'm the ONLY one in my current situation.  Meaning I'm the only single there that I know of; everyone else is married, most have kids, or are elderly singe.  So I'm stuck feeling left out again.  Then, between me being new, and the ward boundaries changing, no one even knows, notices, or cares if I'm not around.  One of my hopes going into the family ward was that I would have home and visiting teachers that would at least make contact with me occasionally.  I don't even need formal visits, I just need someone who occasionally texts me or checks up on me.  I was worried about being assigned teachers that I don't know or am not comfortable with, and I had a short list of who I'd be okay with as my home teachers.  Truthfully, I'd rather have home teachers I don't know/not comfortable with, but who make contact, than have none at all.  However, several months in and I have no idea who my home teachers are, they've never made contact with me.  My visiting teachers reached out once in just a "we're your visiting teachers" kind of way.  Even if I needed something, I wouldn't feel okay trying to ask them for help; and even if I knew who my home teachers were, if they're not contacting me, I'm certainly not going to be contacting them if I need help.  Someone mentioned that I should talk to the Bishop and find out who my home teachers are, but what's the point.  If someone says something to them, then they're just doing their home teaching because they're being guilted into it, and that's almost worse. 

So no one notices or cares if I'm at church or not.  I feel abandoned by Heavenly Father, and I'm left feeling completely alone.  Slowly, I stopped making it to church.  Then I'm just sitting at home on Sunday's feeling like crap.  So I changed my work schedule and instead of working Saturday mornings (which recently has been a struggle for me for some reason), I will be working on Sunday mornings, and I feel good/excited about it.  I think it'll be easier for me to handle stress wise, and now I won't be sitting at home alone all day feeling like crap. 

There are other choices I've been making recently that are also pushing me a little farther from the church, but I'm not going to go into it right now.

I'm sure at some point in the future I'll sort things out, but right now, I'm just left feeling completely alone.  Not even in regards to just church, but in my personal life as well.  Just really struggling.  I've just started the process of getting a cat, so I really hope that helps my depression some.  *crosses fingers*

When things are hard...

For some time, it seemed like things were going well.  I wasn't having too many bad days, and overall I was functioning pretty well.  For the longest time in therapy, we were working with this "little girl" part inside, and working through a lot of things with her.  Well, she seems to be doing fairly well recently, but we have unsurfaced a "teenaged" part of me, who is very intense and is carrying a lot of burdens and hurts.  While trying to help her let go of some of those burdens, we've had to go very slow, because it gets really overwhelming really fast.

So lately, things have been harder, and usually, it feels like it's for no reason.  About two weeks ago, one night when I was going to bed, I all of a sudden started sobbing.  I was up most of the night sobbing and couldn't stop.  The things in my mind were really dark and scary.  I finally fell asleep for a little bit, but I was a mess at work the next morning.  I had several breakdowns and just kept crying.  Thankfully, it was an admin day for me so I wasn't at the desk dealing with guests, I was just in the back office.  It was like that for a few days before it finally calmed down for a little while.  But then it started up again, just as suddenly.

Surely you can imagine how frustrating this is.  I went from feeling fine to sobbing in about 5 minutes.  I felt like I was being smothered by darkness and like something was holding my head under water and I was still supposed to find a way to breathe.  Every fiber of my being wanted to give up and quit; every fiber of my being wanted to end my life.  It was taking so much energy just to try to stay alive.  At some point, I just started to feel numb, which frankly might be worse than what I was feeling before.  And at the point, in addition to desperate desire to end everything, I was desperate to cut.  I ended up spending hours crocheting just trying not to pick up a tool and hurt myself.  It started back up a day or two ago, except instead of sobbing, it went straight to feeling numb, but the suicidal thoughts and wanting to cut are just as intense as ever.  Slowly, in addition to losing the energy and strength to keep fighting, I've started to lose any small desire I had to fight against it.  It's just too freakin tiring.

The longer this goes on, the more convincing my mind gets that no one would notice if I wasn't around.  Truthfully, most of the time, I'm the one who texts people first (I don't mean to reach out, I just mean in a general friendship way) because if I don't, I could go days without hearing from anyone.  You know what that tells my mind?  That if I didn't bother trying to keep up friendships/conversations/etc, that it wouldn't matter, no one would notice if I just stopped.  No one would notice if I didn't initiate the conversation, or if I didn't even respond.  At one point, there was a friend who knew if I didn't respond in a certain amount of time, it meant I was really struggling because I was beginning to shut down and isolate myself.  However, that time has passed as our schedules are busy and don't really match up anymore, so there isn't that person who has a sixth sense about how I'm doing.  (Which really, I don't actually expect anyone to be that for me, it's nowhere near fair to expect that of someone, but it was nice when it happened.)  So if I don't respond to people, if I don't initiate conversations, or didn't show up to things, etc, it simply wouldn't matter.  And work, it wouldn't matter.  If I didn't exist anymore, they'd just get fill those shifts and move on in a few days.  This is what my mind convinces me of, even if, logically, I know it isn't true, it FEELS true.  So I end up feeling alone and it makes all these feelings much much worse.

So, moving on to something else now.  I can't remember where I heard about the book, but I've been reading a book called "Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things" by Jenny Lawson.  The back cover describes the book as "...Jenny Lawson explores her lifelong battle with mental illness.  A hysterical, ridiculous book about crippling depression and anxiety?  That sounds like a terrible idea.  But terrible ideas are what Jenny does best."  It's been nice to read a book about experiences that I can relate to.  I recently underwent a slight medicine change for one of my antidepressants (which may have added to the recent issues I've had) and Jenny wrote a little bit about it that really struck a chord with me, so I wanted to share it. Some of what she shares is the exact reason why deciding to try medication for mental illness is so hard.

     "Being on medication for mental illness is not fun, nor is it easy, and no one I've ever known does it just for kicks.  Kids don't buy black-market Prozac to take to raves.  People don't use B12 shots as a gateway drug to heroin.  The side effects and troubles with taking medication are very real and (if you have a chronic mental illness) are something you have to deal with for the rest of your life.  Even if a drug is working for a while, it might stop working and you'll have to start all over again with something new, which can be incredibly frustrating and disheartening.  And then you have to deal with the side effects of the new drug, which can include 'feeling excessively stabby' when coupled with some asshole telling you that 'your medication not working is just proof that you don't really need medication at all.'  I can't think of another type of illness where the sufferer is made to feel guilty and question their self-care when their medications need to be changed.
     "When I went on my first antidepressant it had the side effect of making me fixated on suicide (which is sort of the opposite of what you want).  It's a rare side effect so I switched to something else that did work.  Lots of concerned friends and family felt that the first medication's failure was a clear sign that drugs were not the answer; if they were I would have been fixed.  Clearly I wasn't as sick as I said I was if the medication didn't work for me.  And that sort of makes sense, because when you have cancer the doctor gives you the best medicine and if it doesn't shrink the tumor immediately then that's a pretty clear sign you were just faking it for attention.  I mean, cancer is a serious, often fatal disease we've spent billions of dollars studying and treating so obviously a patient would never have to try multiple drugs, surgeries, radiation, etc., to find what will work specifically for them.  And once the cancer sufferer is in remission they're set for life because once they've learned how to not have cancer they should be good.  And if they let themselves get cancer again they can just do whatever they did last time.  Once you find the right cancer medication you're pretty much immune from that disease forever.  And if you get it again it's probably just a reaction to too much gluten or not praying correctly.  Right?
     "Well, no.  But that same, completely ridiculous reasoning is what people with mental illness often hear....not just from well-meaning friends, or people who were able to fix their own issues without medication, or people who don't understand that mental illness can be dangerous and even fatal if untreated...but also from someone much closer and more manipulative.
     "We hear it from ourselves."

Do you hear how crazy all that sounds?  Do you understand why mental illness is just as real and as serious as physical illnesses?  Can you imagine the journey we have to face when we deicde to try medication, or when we just become open about our mental illness; not just the things we endure from other people, but even from ourselves?!

2 years...

My blog posting has been a bit sporadic lately, but I need to get back into the swing of things.

It has now been a little over two years since I started therapy with my current therapist Karen and started to finally make some real progress.  There is still A LOT I am struggling with, and lately, things have been really rough.  We've been working with this "teenage" part and we've had to chip away at some of her burdens.  Some of her memories and burdens though are so intense, we can only do a little bit of work in each session before I end up getting completely overwhelmed and we have to stop.  I'm still having a lot of hard days, so sometimes it's hard to see the progress I've made.  But compared to two years ago:
-I'm not spending days in bed sleeping all day.  Even if all I do is move to the couch downstairs, I'm at least out of bed.
-I'm taking better care of myself
-I at least WANT to work on my school work more.  I still struggle to work on it because I'm often so mentally exhausted, but at least I want to
-I don't try to get covers at work quite as often as I used to
-My binge eating is almost completely under control and as a result, I've lost 60lbs, which is great
-I've slowly started to gain more confidence and self-esteem
-I'm putting more effort into trying to add exercising to my life
-I've worked through a lot of issues and memories and have been able to have a better relationship with my parents, that I never imagined I'd get to (though there's still some things I'm working through and still some things that happen, I've come a long way.)

Regardless of this though, every day I am fighting these massive demons, and it is completely mentally exhausting.  The demons of depression, anxiety, constant suicidal thoughts (even if they're just passive thoughts), thoughts of self-harm, etc etc etc.  It makes it hard sometimes to do other things.  Things have been lonely lately, people are busy, it's life.  And sometimes I find myself trying to isolate myself a little bit, which makes things worse.  I know I should try to find events and things to go to, to try to be social and meet new people, but that's pretty freakin terrifying when your anxiety is high.  I'm grateful that I've been able to become good friends with some coworkers and have been able to go out and do things with them.  I still often feel completely alone, and it's really a hard thing to feel.  Logically, I know I'm not, but it doesn't change the feeling.

And finally...yesterday marked the 2 year mark since I last hurt myself.  I know this is a big accomplishment, but it doesn't feel like one.  It doesn't feel like one because it's still a battle I have to fight EVERY SINGLE DAY.  It has not gotten any easier.  Every time I feel alone, I get angry, I'm upset, frustrated, etc etc, hurting myself is the very first thought.  I still have a tool or two that always sits in a pocket in my bag I carry, I can't bear to get rid of them.  I have to fight this demon every freakin day and it feels like those 2 years could go away any second.  The self-harm started when I was about 13 or 14, I've been struggling with it for 14-15 years.  There were times I couldn't even go a day without giving in.  There were times I managed to go days, weeks, or months without giving in.  One other time in this time frame I went two years, and then one day it was too much for me and I gave in.  I don't ever get a break from this, and sometimes it's just really exhausting.  Sometimes I go to bed insanely early simply because I don't have the energy to keep fighting it.  So even though I've hit this milestone and have this "accomplishment,"  I can never become complacent.  I have to fight it every day because it only takes a second to go away.  And quite frankly, not all of me even wants to fight it.  It's exhausting to fight, and things seemed like they were so much easier to handle when I had this method of coping.

Struggling with Faith

The past few months, I've really been struggling with my faith.  It's been really difficult and it's been weighing on my mind quite a bit, so I just need to write things out I guess.  I recently decided to make a permanent move from the University Branch, to the family ward, and it's directly related this struggle of faith I've had.  There's no one single reason why I decided this, there's a lot of reasons that factored into it, and I know a lot the reasons are even partly (or mostly) my fault.  I know the church is true...but beyond that...I don't really know where my place is in the gospel/applying it to my life.

It wasn't something that just suddenly happened- it's been growing for a few months now.  Since I'm pretty open about it nowadays, most of you know I struggle with severe depression and anxiety.  What has become more and more frustrating for me, is that because of the depression, I often can't feel the Spirit when I need to.  For the most part, I understand (and do my best to accept) that this clearly isn't something the Lord is going to take away from me.  For whatever reason, this is a trial I'm supposed to experience and continue to face.  What I get angry, frustrated, and confused about is that in my darkest moments, I can't feel the Spirit when I need it the most, when I just need a little bit of comfort.  This anger and frustration has been growing and growing.  I began to feel alone and abandoned.  I have felt like Heavenly Father and the Lord have left me all alone and don't hear my silent, or very vocal pleas for help.  The angrier I felt, the more frustrated I became, the more I felt alone, the less I would do the things I should- such as reading my scriptures and praying.  The less I did those things, of course, the more alone and frustrated I felt, which then resulted in doing those things less.  Vicious cycle continues...  I've always struggled a little bit with scripture reading, but saying my prayers wasn't usually a struggle.  But the less I did the things I was supposed to, the less I read my scriptures, the less I went to church, the more my mind convinced me that I SHOULDN'T pray.  Every time I thought about it, all I could hear was, "you haven't done squat lately, why would Heavenly Father do anything for you right now."  Yes, I "know" that's not how it works, but sometimes it's hard to realize that.

There was a situation last week, where I made the decision that I was going to drink- the temptation has been creeping up and growing for some time, and I just broke down and decided to give in.  I was out with friends from work, and I ordered a drink.  Got a couple of sips in and noticed a huge fly in my drink.  Flagged down the waitress and she was going to bring me another, but I was so turned off at the thought of having the same drink where the fly came from, I opted for something different (non-alcoholic).  In the moment, I know why that happened, and honestly, it's probably a good thing it happened.  BUT, it honestly made me really mad and upset-  "Heavenly Father can intervene when I'm going to make a not-so-wise decision, but I can't feel a thing in my darkest moments when I just need some comfort?!?!?!"  Uuuggghhh. 

Then I started struggling with going to church in general.  It became really overwhelming for me every week.  Not just because of all the things I was already struggling with, but also because I've been feeling out of place at church lately.  The problem is, my anxiety would get so high, that I didn't want to talk to people, unless I was really comfortable with them.  There were so many new people, so many forced introductions, so many people I was uncomfortable with, so I would avoid talking to people.  But then I would get mad and feel alone when people I was comfortable with wouldn't talk to me.  Ridiculous, right?  The thing is, overall, I was feeling left out, unwelcome, unaccepted; not just at church, but even in my personal life/friendships.  I know this is all mostly my own fault/doing, but still...it affected me.  As changes in the branch happened, people I was close with moved on, lots of new people moved in, home teachers changed, etc etc.  Home teachers that I was comfortable with and who kept in contact/visited, changed to home teachers that don't.  I know I'm not always someone who is up for official visits, but I always appreciate at least a little bit of contact, especially since I don't have many people I could ask for a blessing if I needed one. The last thing I'm going to do in a dark moment when I could use a blessing, is call up my home teacher(s) that I don't hear from.

Slowly, I've just started to feel like I've outgrown the branch, like it just isn't for me anymore.  Don't get me wrong, it's a great place, and I strongly believe it's an awesome place for students, young couples, etc and I think they'll do well there.  But I just feel like I don't belong there anymore, so I started thinking about going to the family ward.  I decided to try it out last week, and it seemed to go well, and I went again this past week too.  The family ward isn't necessarily ideal- it's hectic, there's tons of kids, it's hard to hear sometimes during sacrament meeting and it's filled with people who have known me since I was a kid, watched me grow up, Abe to be honest, it's sometimes a little awkward; but oddly, I kind of felt like it's where I needed to be.  So for all these things going on, I'm going to switch to the family ward, and I'm going to strive to get back on track with things.

RIP Chester Bennington

It's been a long time since I've written a blog post.  I keep thinking about writing one, and what I want to write about, but I ultimately don't write anything.  There has been a lot of things going on lately, a lot of things I've been feeling.  But this week, something awful happened.

This week, Chester Bennington from Linkin Park took his life.

I don't typically react to celebrity deaths, but I feel like I lost a close friend.  I was in TEARS after finding out.  Chester, and Linkin Park, got me through a lot of shit as a teenager.  Whenever I was in a dark hole, depressed, suicidal, or just upset in general, I would put on my headphones and blast Linkin Park.  For just a little while, I felt like someone understood, I felt like someone knew how I felt and that I wasn't alone.  I listened to them as I wrote angrily in my journal.  I listened to them as I sat in my closet crying all night.  I listened to them as I wrote more than one suicide note when I felt like I couldn't go on.  I listened to them as I hurt myself because it felt like the only way I could survive.

As I've gotten older, as I've worked more towards recovery and managing everything, I've listened to them, and some of my other "angsty" music (Staind, Sugarcult, The Used, etc etc etc) less and less because it starting to become really triggering, mostly just of all those memories.  About a month ago, I saw Linkin Park was going to be playing with Blink 182 in Hershey, so I asked for tickets for a friend and me to go as an early birthday present.  That concert was supposed to be next Sunday.

I am heartbroken.  I'm sad.  I'm angry.  But I can also relate, I've been in those places that are so bad it seems like ending your life is the only way out.  I've tried, twice.

For years, Chester, Mike, and the rest of Linkin Park got me through some of the hardest times.  I know I'm not the only one.  Chester was loved, and he is going to be missed so so much.  It's like a close friend is gone, and I keep crying over it.

Rest in Peace Chester.  We love you!  <3 <3 <3

Credit: Linkin Park

Whether I like it or not, depression can be a disability...

I've been thinking about this blog for several weeks now.  It's a topic I've struggled to face- disability.  Disability is generally defined as a physical or mental condition that limits a person's movements, senses or activities.  It's a condition that can get in the way of every day activities and functions.  I'm not saying that every case of depression is necessarily a disability, but yes, cases of moderate-severe depression can be considered a disability.  Recently, I've had to face this "label", and it hasn't been easy.

So a couple of months ago I made the decision to open up to my managers at work about the depression and anxiety.  The biggest reason I decided this was because I was really really struggling with working overnights, and I was constantly trying to find covers for my shift, and it just felt like it was time to say something.  Last time I tried to tell my managers what was going on (these were different managers a few years ago), it was a really bad experience, so I was terrified.  However, it ended up being really good, they've been really supportive and encouraging.  At one point though, my general manager decided to reach out to HR about everything as well, which I wasn't really expecting.  After a couple of meetings with someone in HR, she suggested that I get an ADA form filled out by my psychiatrist (ADA=American's with Disability Act).  She suggested this because it would help officially keep me off overnight (as my psychiatrist said it was getting in the way of my treatment), and in the event of a sudden leave (aka I go to the hospital or something, which was a possibility at the time because of some medicine changes (and really always is a possibility), that having this form filled out would help protect me.

I walked out of her office almost in tears.  I didn't want to be labeled as having a disability!  But why did I feel that way?  There is nothing wrong with that.  The whole process was suggested to help me, not to "punish" or "shame" me.  But it's the stigma that society has placed on this idea of disabled that I was afraid of.  (Kind of ironic that I try so hard to be vocal and fight against stigmas, but yet am afraid of it at the same time.)  In addition to this, I realized that if I am trying to get people to see that mental illnesses are just as real and valid as physical, then I have to accept that mental illness can also be a disability, and considering how debilitating mine can be at times, it is definitely considered a disability.

The good news about all of this, is that now I am legitimately not allowed to work the overnight shift anymore (yay!).  Right at the same time of all of this, the hotel lost quite a number of employees between people quitting and a few being fired, so now they're short staffed, including the audit shift (this happened literally the same week I turned in the ADA forms from my doctor, perfect timing!)  But now I work A shift, which is 7am-3pm.  At the very least, I help out with the first half of the shift and work 7-11am.  So I'm in the office Tuesday and Thursdays and at the front desk Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.  My hours have gone from 16-20 hours a week, to 30+ hours a week.  It's been good, but mentally exhausting.  Since I've been able to stay on a regular routine and sleep schedule and get enough sleep and everything so thankfully, physically, I've been feeling okay.

I've also been in the process of getting some forms filled out for my school too.  Especially considering it's only been about a year and half since I've received really good treatment for everything, there are several years of school that I really struggled with, and I'm still struggling, so it's looking like I'm not going to be able to finish all my semesters by the final degree deadline.  As I was talking to the school about what options I had, they sent me an ADA form as well that I could fill out and submit along with a letter from my doctor/therapist to get an accommodation of more time if it turns out I need it.

I'm grateful for all of this, and I'm glad these options exist, but it's definitely been a journey to go through. :-/