Tag: compassion

My Favorite Words

On By beffypoo1In Mental HealthLeave a comment

Wild Geese

by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

This poem helped me through some incredibly hard times. I still tear up a little every single time I read it. Partially from the power of the words and partially from the memory of the pain I was feeling at the time when it helped me most.

We are so lucky to have people in this world who can use their words to bring us comfort and peace. Who can help us feel just a little bit less alone with their words. To remind us of the beauty and wonder that exist in this world even when it feels dark and grey.

Mary Oliver was one of the best and I am so glad that I discovered her words at a time when I needed them. I am so glad that she shared her outlook and her beautiful, powerful words with the world. I am so glad she helped me through one of the darkest times of my life.

Remember that your words have power too. They have the ability to help another human feel connected, or necessary, or beautiful, or loved. They do not have to be beautiful and fancy. They just need to be kind and honest.

Kind words are a thing the world could use more of right now.

I’ll leave you with one more peace of advice from Mary:

Instructions for living a life:

Pay attention.

Be astonished.

Tell about it.

The world lost a wise beautiful soul today. Rest in peace Mary Oliver, you will be missed.

Love to you all. The unconditional kind.

❤

 

 

It’s All Okay

On By beffypoo1In Mental Health2 Comments

Today is World Mental Health Day. I am glad we have a day devoted to the work of stopping the stigma but honestly I try to make every day Mental Health Day.

One year ago yesterday I sat in my therapist’s office in so much emotional pain that I am pretty sure I almost made her cry with my mere presence. The pain seemed to emanate from me in waves. I was sure that I was never going to be okay. I had lost all hope. I had hit rock bottom. Despite all the work we had done we decided that we had tried enough other things and it was time to try some meds. To me it was a last ditch effort. I was already considering suicide and if the meds didn’t work it would be the last straw.

This year I am in a very different place.

The last couple of weeks have been incredibly difficult for me. I have been reliving some pretty traumatic shit from my past, trying to figure some stuff out, and been stressed out about money and mom stuff. I have been focused on my lack of faith in humanity and I am feeling the pain of those around me in a way that has been crushing my soul. Add to that the fact that it has been raining for about 9 days and I haven’t seen the sun and I can hardly believe I am functioning. Yet here I am.

It is not easy. My life never will be with the constant presence of depression and anxiety in the back of my mind. There are many days where I wish I wasn’t here but I no longer think that maybe I should just step in front of a truck when I am out for a run and end it all.

The biggest difference has been that I got help. Somebody told me that it was okay to not be okay and that there were ways to make it better and I tried it. I went to therapy and learned about self care. I learned that the shit that happened to me when I was younger may have shaped the way that I am now but that it does not define me. That with a lot of work I can rewire some of those parts of my brain and do better. I learned that I really haven’t done so bad with the totally shitty hand I was dealt.

I also learned that chemicals play a huge part in how I feel. My brain doesn’t work the way a “normal” brain does. It needs a little help. And that help is readily available at any drugstore with a prescription from my doctor. And that does not make me a failure. It is just a chronic illness that should be treated as such.

All of this is why it is so fucking important to talk about this stuff. If nobody had told me that I was not alone I would not still be here. If I hadn’t gone to therapy and learned that my childhood circumstances caused so much of the fucked up brokenness in my life and that it was possible to make it feel better I would not still be here. If countless people had not shared that they too were medicated and that it was not a failure but a way to treat an illness I would not still be here.

We have to stop the stigma of talking about our mental health so people no longer think  they are alone. So they will know there is help available. That life can be better. We have to keep making it ok.

So take care of yourself today and everyday. Whatever that looks like for you. Go to therapy, take your meds, practice your self care. And talk to others about it. Reach out to someone who is struggling and share your story with them. Hell, reach out to strangers and share your story. Make this so normal that nobody ever has the thought that they are some fucked up freak show that doesn’t deserve to live. Because we all deserve to live. And we all deserve to want to live.

It is okay to not be okay. We do not always have to feel happy and that is fine. Being depressed is okay. Having anxiety is okay. Dealing with any other slew of mental illnesses is okay. There are so many others like us. We are not alone.

Join in me in not just stopping the stigma but smashing it to pieces. Because sometimes it feels really good to break shit.

And don’t forget that you are important and necessary in this world. I am glad you are here. And so are a bunch of other people. Just keep swimming. And reach out if you need help.

Love to you all, the unconditional kind.

❤

 

Be Gentle Out There

On By beffypoo1In Mental HealthLeave a comment

This morning I sat at my dining room table and wept as I scrolled through facebook and had to explain the effects of trauma on the brain to another asshole who has never experienced anything remotely resembling trauma in their life but still managed to think he was an expert on the subject. I am tired in my soul of this. There is a wealth of science based information on trauma and the brain. We live in a world where the internet is literally at your fingertips and you can choose to educate yourself on any topic in a matter of minutes but people still sit behind their keyboards and spew hatred and ignorance at others who are experiencing deep pain and suffering. And right now with current events in this country there is an abundance of pain and suffering. An abundance of people having to relive their trauma each and every day. My heart aches for each and every one of them.

I have a lot of experience with trauma in my life. Trust me when I say I have experienced more than my fair share. And each event has left its mark on me. Each one has shaped the way that I experience and react to events in my life. Mostly for the worse. These traumas have been a source of so much frustration and pain and suffering for me. They are really the gift that keeps on giving in that way. Not only do you get to live through the traumatic event but the effects fuck with you for a lifetime. Making it impossibly hard to react like a normal human being to a totally normal conflict or situation. Making you seem like a complete fucking lunatic when even the smallest thing goes wrong. Making you feel like your entire life is spiraling into a giant flaming pile of garbage because of one small hiccup.

I could write multiple posts about my own personal traumas and the way that I have dealt with them but that is not the point of this post. My point for this post is that trauma is complicated and each person experiences it and processes it differently. Each brain deals with it in a different way but I think the main goal of our brain is to try to protect us from it as best as it can. That looks different for each person and varies depending on a number of factors like their resiliency and ability to process. It depends on the severity of the trauma and the age it was experienced. It even depends on the type of trauma. Everyone’s experience is different.

Every single person is different.

Some of us may have similarities but there is no cookie cutter response to trauma. We are all doing the best we can. We are all trying to make it through one more fucked up day without throwing our arms in the air and giving up because it is just too fucking hard to keep doing this over and over. We are all just trying like hell to learn from another failed interaction, response, friendship, or relationship. We are all trying not to make the same mistake again and again and again. We are trying not to believe the voice in our head telling us that no matter how good things seem right now there is no way they can stay this way because life is chaos and happiness cannot last. We are all just trying to do better. To pick up the pieces over and over. And it is indescribably hard with this monster riding shotgun in our brain. Sometimes impossibly hard. But we keep going.

And do you know what helps most? I will give you a hint… It is not criticism and judgement, both of which I have seen in abundance over the last few weeks. It is your compassion. It is your love. It is your understanding. It is your offers of help and your willingness to learn about us. It is your gentleness. Your kindness.

I want to share that with all of the traumas I have experienced in my life the memories that I carry with me vary from each event. Almost none of them do I remember in vivid detail. Most are missing huge pieces, especially locations and time. I couldn’t pinpoint the age I was or the even the year that they happened for most. The one thing that I remember about each and every trauma my brain has allowed me to remember are the feelings associated with them. The fear, the terror, the hopelessness, the anger. These are seared into my brain and they are what flood my senses when a song or a smell or a word or a voice or a memory triggers them and makes me re-live them.

So I ask you this… Do not dismiss somebody’s experience, their pain, their truth because you cannot understand. Because their memories of an event do not check off the neat little boxes of what you think they should remember. Because their reaction to the event is not how you think you would have handled it. I guarantee you they have done the very best they could do in an impossibly unfair and shitty situation. The kind of situation that I pray you never have to go through. That nobody should ever go through. Their brain has dealt with this situation the best way that it could to try to protect them. And your judgement is not necessary or helpful.

I encourage all of you to be gentle with each other. You have no idea what each person you are interacting with is dealing with. What they have carried with them for a lifetime. What they may be hiding or masking. What kind of pain may be present under the surface at all times. The enormous amount of work they have put in to make it to this point. The setbacks that they may be encountering. The constant fear that they may be living with. Think about your words, your actions, your judgements.

And if you are a survivor of trauma in this current shitstorm please be gentle with yourself. Give yourself grace and love. Practice your self care. Think about setting up an extra therapy appointment. And for fucks sake stay out of the comment sections. That shit is not doing anybody any good right now.

Most of all remember that you are important in this world and we need you.

Love to you all, the unconditional kind.

❤

 

 

 

 

My Favorite Love Story

On By beffypoo1In Mental Health, Uncategorized1 Comment

Wednesday was my 20th wedding anniversary. If I had one wish for every single person on this planet it is that they could have a person in their life like my partner. Whether it is a friend, a spouse, a family member, at least one person like my Dana.

Dana and I got married very young and our relationship started when I was deep in the trenches of the trauma that would shape the rest of my life and mental health problems. When we were dating he would often be on the phone with me as I cried myself almost to sleep each night. That should have been a sign for him to run the fuck away as fast as he could but he was young and kinda dorky (in the most charming possible way) and maybe just didn’t think he could do better (he definitely could have).

I moved out of my house when I was 17 to live with him (and escape) and we were married the month after I graduated high school. I was not pregnant, just in case you were wondering (there is no judgement in that statement it is just that is usually the look I get from people when I tell them I got married at 18 years old). We were mostly happy and we were in love.

Our marriage has not been easy. Marriage never is. My sister got sick during our first year of marriage and died just before our first anniversary. So on top of the trauma I was working on pushing way down deep as a way to cope and move on and start my new happily ever after there was the new fun of some pretty extreme grief. This was all new territory for Dana.

Now don’t get me wrong, his life was by no means a fairy tale but he had it pretty good. He had pretty great parents, no trauma or abuse, he had never really lost anyone super close to him. He had a pretty normal life. Now he was thrown into this marriage with the complete opposite. And on top of that I had no idea how bad it really was. I had mostly lived a life where I went minute to minute and never really dealt with anything. In order to make it to the next thing and make it through I just had to leave all of the bad stuff accumulating behind me. There was no time to deal, I was just in survival mode. If I slowed down enough to actually think about what was happening and the emotional fallout of all that bullshit I would have killed myself a long time ago.

So we went on with our lives. I buried my feelings, I buried my grief. I occasionally brought it up but Dana just didn’t seem to get it and how could he? In fact I was sort of happy that he didn’t. But I felt a little alone. I mostly kept stuff to myself unless it got really bad but when we talked about things he just couldn’t get it and didn’t seem to want to try and it made me sad. I think he used to be one of those people who thinks depression is just sadness. You just have to be happy. Count your blessings. Be thankful. Pull yourself up by the bootstraps. Hell I used to be like that too. I thought “Well I survived all the shit I survived and turned out okay (spoiler alert, WRONG!) why can’t everybody else?” So little by little I talked to him about it less and less. And buried it a little deeper.

Fast forward to the last 3 years or as I like to call it my own personal hell. Things got worse. And worse. And worse for me. I started having mini breakdowns. They became more and more often and less and less mini. He still didn’t get it. I made some new friends. Ones that understood it more. I turned to them more and to Dana less. I thought that was okay, as long as I had someone who understood I didn’t have to burden him with the shit he didn’t understand. But then things got so bad. Like I pretty much checked out of life bad. You would have to be blind not to see that things were clearly not okay.

Things are a little blurry at this time in my life but eventually the word depression came up. I sent him a couple links to blogs, to articles and he read them. And one night as I was crying on the couch wanting to die his language changed. It was a simple statement. “I don’t know how you feel but I can imagine that must be so hard”. Fuck. He had never said anything like that ever in our marriage. It had always been I can’t understand. He couldn’t get past the fact that it made no sense to him. A totally normal reaction by the way. When it comes to emotions Dana is pretty simple. He feels one at a time and handles them pretty well. I am at any given time feeling 43 different emotions simultaneously and I have emotions that there are not even words to describe. We are polar opposites in this way. But with that one statement it showed me he was TRYING to understand. I have never felt so seen and heard. So loved.

From here I eventually started therapy. He showed genuine interest after each of my sessions. He still didn’t understand and didn’t always deal with the emotional fallout of each session well, but he tried. He communicated with me and asked what he could do to make me feel loved. When my therapist assigned books he read them too. He talked to the kids about what I was going through. He talked to me more often. He read so much literature about depression and mental illness. He educated himself and he changed the way he thought about it. The way he talked about. His language became more compassionate, more understanding, more loving. When things got so dark that meds seemed like the only other option before I ended my life he fully supported me. No judgement. He offered to go to my appointment with me. He encouraged me to start this blog. To share my experiences. And even though I often share things that are very personal and I worry about how that will reflect on him he fully supports me in my honest bravery.

His love turned from feeling to action. Don’t get me wrong, Dana has always showed love. He has always made love a verb. That is how our family lives. But he brought that kind of love to a thing that he previously didn’t understand. He channeled his energy into educating himself and making damn sure I knew I was loved and needed and had value. It is still hard for him but he makes the effort. He spends time always trying to understand it more. To show me how important I am to him. He has become my person.

A few months ago. Dana decided to look into the crisis text line. He wanted to help more people. He went through training and once a week he volunteers time to helping people in crisis. You guys I am so fucking proud of him I don’t have the words for it. In the last couple of years he has gone from a person who didn’t really believe depression was real to a person on the front likes of stopping the stigma and helping those in crisis. He is my hero. He gives me so much hope.

I often used to say that Dana saved my life. He got me out of the trauma I was experiencing as a teen. He rescued me then. White knight style. But that was not the only time. He saves me every day with his love. With his compassion. With his willingness to be uncomfortable and to constantly learn more. He doesn’t always do it right, I mean who does? But he is always trying to be better. He is always trying to understand more. And he is getting better at learning that when there are no words and no way to understand he can just hold me and let me cry and just physically be here for me. He is still my hero. Every damn day.

Dana has truly become my best friend. The person I can talk to about everything. He loves me without condition. When I do not deserve it. And even though it has been so hard to get here, here we are. I am so fucking lucky. And it only took 20 years (I joke, I joke).

Marriage is the hardest thing I have ever done and I have done some hard shit. It is a balancing act and it is about persevering through the really hard times so you can enjoy the really great times. It is not always easy but it is always worth it. I am thankful for where this journey has brought us. That we have made through so much and that we can  truly enjoy each other. I am so happy that Dana saved me back then and that he keeps on saving me every day. Here’s to 20 more years. And beyond.

 

 

 

 

 

We Are Not Selfish.

On By beffypoo1In Mental Health, Uncategorized1 Comment

I have a favor to ask you. If you have never been diagnosed with clinical depression or anxiety or suicidal thoughts or ideations or any other mental health problem please remove the word “selfish” from your commentary. In fact I would take this advice one step further and ask you to stop commenting period. I would ask you to stop talking and please take this opportunity to listen. Pick up a book on clinical depression, talk to a friend who struggles or do a quick search of blogs to get a first hand description of what it is like to deal with this monster. There is no shortage of resources out there but I beg you to stop judging us and try to educate yourself. Your judgement and harsh words do nothing to help us or build us up but it does more damage than you can possibly know.

***Trigger Warning*** I will talk in detail about my depression and suicidal thoughts so if you are in a sensitive place right now maybe skip this post.

Most people who have never experienced depression firsthand have absolutely no idea what is like. At times when there are high profile suicides in the news the internet becomes a dark and scary place for those of us who struggle with this chronic illness. Even those of us who appear to be doing well can quickly backslide. Because times like this remind us that even though we feel good right now, that monster, the deep, scary, terrifying darkness is ALWAYS there. It is lurking in the back of our brain just waiting for its chance to take hold again. Waiting for its chance to start whispering its lies to us. Waiting for us to lose our grip just enough where we will start to believe it again.

Depression is not sadness. It is so much more than that. It can feel like so many things. A complete and utter absence of hope. Despair. Like all of the colors have been drained out of life around you and everything is just washed in shades of gray. A complete lack of any kind of feeling whatsoever. But mostly it is exhaustion in your very soul. It slowly drains your energy until you can barely do basic things like make a meal, go to work, have fun, spend time with others, or even get out of bed. It slowly knocks out each and every one of your defenses against it until you are lying at the bottom of the deepest well in the world and you can no longer see that pinprick of light and it looks so utterly impossible to climb out that you just hunker down in there and get more and more exhausted and you get stuck. Trapped in your own mind with the monster.

And when you are stuck down there with no way out all you can hear are the lies from that dark voice in the back of your brain. The voice that you can usually tune out or ignore. But you are just so damn tired and it is just so damn hard to ignore and actually it makes some pretty good points. I mean who the hell can possibly feel like this when their life is so amazing? I have three great kids, a husband who is basically the perfect human, who takes care of me and them without ever expecting anything back. I have a great job, a house, enough money to not worry about what comes next, friends. Life doesn’t get much better. That voice is probably right. Who wouldn’t be happy with all of this? What kind of person can’t get off the couch to participate in family fun? What kind of person can’t contribute? Look at what is happening. My kids and husband are doing EVERYTHING. I’m not helping at all. It must be so frustrating to live with me. To take care of me ALL the time. I can see it draining them. Physically and emotionally.

“Useless,” the voice whispers. And you believe it. “Burden,” it shouts, and who are you to argue? Every new thing it says gets louder and louder and more convincing and it hurts more and more and it becomes impossible to ignore and will it ever stop? You start to spiral. Out of control. The voice becomes a constant stream of commentary on your shortcomings. Pointing out how you are ruining the lives of everyone around you. And no matter what you do, eventually you can’t drown it out and it is not really even in the background anymore. It hurts. Everything hurts so much and it is never going to get better because it has been so bad for so long and it just keeps getting worse. Hope is gone. Color is gone. You can’t even remember what happiness felt like.

Imagine feeling so much pain that the only way you can possibly imagine it ending is to just not exist anymore. To be so devoid of hope that things can get better that you can’t imagine living another day. To feel like such a burden that you actually believe that everyone around you would be better off without you. I mean clearly they would be sad at first but it would be such a relief for them to not have to take care of you anymore that it really is better in the long run for everyone. Because this is never getting better and they must be so fucking exhausted. You are always bringing them down.

Imagine lying awake in your bed at night being consumed by these thoughts, this voice. Imagine not being able to sleep and praying harder than you have ever prayed in your life that God would just let you die. It doesn’t even need to be quick. Just something terminal. Even cancer would be okay because honestly you probably deserve it for being so awful and ungrateful and useless. You just need it all to stop.

This is depression. Sort of. I mean it is so much worse than this because there is no way to put it into words. This is tip of the iceberg of despair. And I have been here twice in the last year.

I hope you never have to experience this. I hope you cannot imagine what this would feel like. I hope you never have to deal with these feelings coupled with the judgement of those who have never experienced the monster that is depression. But I would like you to consider this the next time you call someone who commits suicide selfish. Because I guarantee that the last thing they were is selfish. They were in indescribable, insurmountable amounts of pain. They were experiencing a deep chasm of seemingly unending pain and they just needed it to stop. They were trapped in their own sick brain hearing that voice louder and louder, thinking it would never stop and there was literally no other way out that they could see. And more likely than not they were thinking about how much better everyone else would be without them. Their brain was broken. They were sick.

I will say for the millionth time depression it not being sad. You can not just talk yourself out of it. You cannot just “suck it up”. It does not matter what you have in your life and how fucking blessed you are and how great everything appears because none of that matters. It is an illness. Like cancer or lupus or arthritis or heart disease. And should be treated by people as the same. You don’t just “suck it up” for any of those things. You get treatment. Mental illness is the same. We do not shame people for have any of these other illnesses. Mental illness should be the same. When someone has cancer we support them. We offer to make them meals, we drive them to treatment, we fundraise for them, we check on them. But when someone is depressed they are quite often looked at as weak or selfish. We tell them to get over it and remind them that if they just “count their blessings” they will feel better. Or we tell them they have no right to feel that way. All of the things that we do feed into that darkness and make it worse. Make them feel judged and “less than”.

I suggest compassion. I suggest you think of your depressed friend or co-worker or that celebrity in the news as a person with a chronic illness. And try to think for just one second just how hard it must be to be in their shoes and to feel that amount of pain. Please.

I also suggest that you reach out to any of your friends that you even suspect might be struggling with this monster. DO NOT wait for them to reach out and ask for help. That is too much to ask and quite honestly by the time we need help sometimes it is too late to ask. Do not be afraid of making it worse by talking about it. Just check in. Because they probably won’t. And they need to feel loved. I wrote another blog post about things that have helped me through my worst bouts of depression and it comes down to 3 basics. Tell them they are important to you, you love them, and you are here for them in whatever way they need you. Even if it is just sitting with them through the pain and silence and being present. Those things can help so much. (Though everyone is different this has been my personal experience.)

If you are struggling I will say what I always say. It gets better. I know it doesn’t feel like it will and your brain is telling you otherwise but it does. And you are worth it. You offer this world something that nobody else can and you are so fucking important. I promise. So take care of yourself. Take a walk or a hike or a run. Eat a healthy meal. Go out with a friend or have them come to you. Make a therapy appointment. Take your meds. Get some sleep. Take a shower. Drink more water. Lie in your bed and get somebody to rub your back. Ask someone for a hug. Anything at all no matter how small to make you feel even a tiny bit better.

And if you need help right now text the number 741741. Somebody will be there to help you. To listen without judgement. Or call 1-800-273-8255 if you prefer to actually talk. Just get some help. Because we need you here.

Thanks for reading this.

Love to all of you. The unconditional kind.

❤