Drowning is Drowning

"I'm caught in a rainbow, but it feels like I'm drowning." - Liz Skelton

A lot is going on in my life right now. I'm two months into a new job, we're starting fertility treatments, we're buying a house, and my church is expanding just to name a few. It's all good stuff. None of it is something I have to go through alone, but it still feels just as overwhelming and stressed and anxious and out of control as when my life has been falling to pieces. 

Needless to say, all these are great. We've been dreaming of a house for years and not only did we find a perfect starter house, but we can actually afford it. We have a great fertility doctor who has our issues figured out and we're working through a game plan of how we can overcome them to get pregnant. My husband and I both have good jobs that make it so we can pay bills and not live check to check. Everything is great, but that doesn't mean everything is perfect. 

We're overwhelmed with blessings and answers to our prayers, but we're still overwhelmed. And for a long time I struggled with feelings of guilt because even though everything was going well, I wasn't magically happy. I was still feeling stressed and tired. I deal with my anxiety by micromanaging as many aspects of my life as possible (I'm on the waitlist for therapy, no worries). But we were thrown into a pool of unknowns. I don't know the intimate details of mortgages. No amount of color coded lists will guarantee my body cooperates at the doctor. My zeal for my growing church doesn't mean I don't feel exhausted Sunday mornings and have to drag myself there sometimes without much excitement. 

I felt so guilty about that. I'm finally getting everything on my dream board lined up, but I'm still asking God for help. I'm still trying to figure out how much I can get done while chewing Xanax. I'm wanting to go to bed at a good time while also wanting to stay up so I can enjoy a few hours that aren't clogged with anxiety inducing to-do's. I didn't feel like I had any right to still not be perfectly content. 

Like I said at the start, I'm caught in the middle of a beautiful, vibrant, colorful rainbow, but I'm choking on the colors. I'm not well-versed in the bible. I recently equated the book of Jonah to being "like the movie Pinocchio, right? He ends up in a whale?" (Not quite as my bestie and Pastor gently informed me), but I am pretty sure there's no verse that says the price of an answered prayer is unflinching happiness in perpetuity. 

Long story short, it isn't a crime to still feel overwhelmed and stressed when things are going well. Answered prayers don't mean you have to grit your teeth and smile forever. Good stuff can be exhausting. Blessings can come with overwhelming work attached. If you're religious or spiritual, there's no shame in thanking God in one breath and asking him to help see you through things in the next. If God isn't your jam, there's also no shame in just being happy for good stuff but still feeling stressed. And if anyone tells you different, send them to me. 

So be happy, but deal with the stress too. Acknowledge it and figure out your best ways to cope. I go for loud car singing, some stress crying in the shower, and rewatching my comfort shows while playing mindless puzzles games. The greener pastures aren't sunny 24/7. There's still rain and mud and hail and windchill. As Paramore says, "Just hang with me in my weather". 

Are you Bi-Polar? Or Just Toxic AF..?

 Like. Share. Like. Share. Like. Share. Like. Share. Like. Share. Like. Share. Share. Share. 

My main purpose for having social media is to mindlessly scroll, like, and share cute/funny/all too true things. Lately, especially, I’ve found a lot of comfort reading memes and other posts around the topic of mental illness. I’ve even seen some I’ve sent to friends that I don’t relate to, but that I know will hit home to them. 

But here’s the thing. A lot of people see these posts and like or share without thinking it through. In this day of internet diagnosis and the unlimited access to info there are people out there who are just self-diagnosing themselves with serious mental illnesses like depression, anxiety, OCD, BPD, and more. 

They see a post/meme/GIF/video/etc. that talks about a flaw or quirk they identify with and after five seconds on google they decide they’re bipolar, or have anxiety. They make it part of their personality, a hashtag for attention. They use it to explain away or excuse toxic behavior and, to be blunt, it’s so ignorant. 

What many people, specifically ignorant people on the internet who see mental illness as a way to get attention, don’t seem to understand is that being diagnosed with mental illness is a journey. It is extensive, harrowing, soul crushing, and can sometimes be a fight. 

You know my story. After years of dealing with undiagnosed depression and severe anxiety, and years of praying to God to end my life, I asked for help. I asked to see a therapist, and I did, and it did NOTHING. She asked me general questions about if I liked school, my plans for college, and other basic niceties. After 50 minutes she declared to my mom that I was perfectly fine. Not long after that I attempted suicide. I assumed that she was right, I wasn’t sick. I was just broken beyond repair and I would never be free of the agony I carried with me every second of every day. 

After my suicide attempt I saw another therapist. She made me make a list of my good qualities. We played a little card game designed to find out if I was being abused. Eventually, for some reason or another, we stopped having appointments. It would be another two years before anyone actually diagnosed me. Two more years of seeing the occasional counselor and doctor to no avail, while still dealing with relentless panic attacks, crippling depression, and thoughts of suicide. 

I was nine when I started having symptoms of anxiety,12 when my ADHD started causing me to have trouble in school, 15 when everything kicked in full force, but I was 19 when I first got medication, and almost 20 when I found the first therapist who actually helped me. It wasn’t until I was 23 that anyone figured out the ADHD. Since then I have still had to seek out doctors and psychiatrists in order to get the right medications, which includes stints of being on the extremely wrong ones. I’ve sifted through hundreds of listings for therapists and spent hours on the phone being told there are no openings or that they only offer shock therapy. Right now I’m on the waitlist for a therapist, because that’s the only option. 

I’m not alone. I’ve had family members have to go through doctor after doctor fighting for the right diagnosis and treatment. I’ve watched friends spend weeks and months going through endless hours of complex and expensive tests only to come out the other side with a diagnosis (if they were lucky and had doctors who actually listened to them) which is really just the first step. Once you’re diagnosed with a mental illness, the real work starts. You have to find the medication that works for you (and pray your insurance covers it). You have to dig into all of your problems and your past to find the roots of your issues so you can start dealing with them. You have to explain your diagnosis to everyone in your life, trying to make them understand it doesn’t define you, while also setting the boundaries you need to thrive. 

Mental illness is a lifelong battle. Just getting the right diagnosis can take years of suffering. In the U.S. alone almost 50,000 people ended their lives last year because for one reason or another they weren’t able to win the fight against mental illness. I’ve had a diagnosis and treatment for 11 years. I still suffer. I still struggle. 

That’s why it makes me so genuinely angry when I see people on social media calling themselves bipolar or “so OCD”. That’s why I want to scream when people talk about having a panic attack as hyperbole, like it’s a joke. Everytime you, or someone you know, uses mental illness as an adjective, or decides they have a condition without ever having actually been diagnosed, you spit in the face of the people who actually struggle with those illnesses. You diminish the inconceivable effort those people put into finding answers and getting better. 

The next time you have a mood swing, think before saying “OMG I’m so bipolar”. The next time there’s a crowd, stop yourself from saying “I’m gonna have a total panic attack”. And most importantly of all, if you think even for a moment that you’re struggling with mental illness, GET HELP. You cannot self-diagnose OCD, BPD, etc. Google cannot diagnose you. You can’t take an online quiz. When you just decide for yourself you not only do harm to every person out there who is struggling, but you do harm to yourself. You cannot get treatment or get better until you sit down and have an honest conversation with your doctor, a therapist, or a healthcare professional. 

I am always here to listen and support, and here are other resources too. 

I'm Speaking, Still.

In 2021 I, along with millions of other Americans, sat down to watch the 2021 Vice Presidential Debate. That night led to a turning point for me, and I’m still working through the aftermath. That night, Kamala Harris turned to Mike Pence and said, “I’m speaking”. 

Despite being 28 years old, that was the first time I had truly understood that as a woman, I had the right to speak up when men interrupted me. Some of you are probably thinking, “Well duh”, but, like many young girls, I was raised to be demure, polite, and quiet. If a man interrupted me, talked over me, or cut me off, I was to smile, nod, listen attentively, and finish my thought when and if the opportunity arose after others were done speaking. 

That night opened my eyes, and I suddenly started noticing just how frequently people, mostly men, would cut me off in the middle of sentences. Worse yet, most of them seemed to either not notice that they were cutting me off, or weren’t listening in the first place, and didn’t realize I had even been speaking to them. 

The most heartbreaking part though was what happened when I brought it up. Mind you, I was still terrified to be perceived as impolite, so I broached the subject gently and politely, because as we all know if women show any type of emotion we are immediately labeled as hysterical and everything we say is ignored. But even when I said “I’m sorry, but I was still speaking” and explained that that was upsetting, a lot of men did not change their behavior. 

I expected that some people I didn’t know well, colleagues or acquaintances, might not take me seriously, and might ignore my comments. What I did not expect, and what was the most gutting of all, was that men I was close to, who I had long-term, close friendships and relationships with, would ignore me. Even after exposing my insecurities and how being talked over made me feel small and insignificant, some of them were still incapable or unwilling to even try. 

Interestingly enough, when I expressed the same feelings to some of my female friends, the response was instant. Even now if one of my close friends interrupts or talks over me, they apologize, genuinely, before I even say anything. And that genuine concern has taken all the sting out of those interruptions. When one of us, because I’m guilty of cutting people off too, speaks out of turn, we note the behavior, correct it, and apologize before the other person even has time to be hurt. For me, knowing that they care enough to be cognizant of how that makes me feel, is huge. 

Now, several years after first having this realization, I’m more comfortable speaking up, and I’m working on assuaging the guilt I feel speaking up about it and asking to be treated with respect. But, I am still dealing with the fact that, on an almost daily basis, there are still men in my life who interrupt me, talk over me, and don’t notice. There are some men in my life who, despite knowing that being talked over makes me feel weak, unloved, and takes me back to an abusive relationship in my youth, still can’t or won’t work on their behavior. 

With the Barbie movie sweeping the nation, and hopefully with more and more women beginning to see their own worth and speak up for themselves, I want you to know, as someone who is walking that same path, that it is not easy. But as you begin to set boundaries, remember that the people who love and care for you will have no problem respecting them, supporting you, and celebrating you as you grow. So when you find yourself faced with people who are upset with your growth, who push back against the boundaries you set, or who don’t change their behavior that hurts you, you’re allowed to push back and speak up. You deserve people who support you, and you will find them. 

Disconnecting

Today at lunch (which I actually took for once) I was reading an article about celebs who were stepping away from social media for one reason or another, and I just wanted to share some thoughts and experiences I've had, and why I think it is absolutely important for mental health to set a healthy boundary with social media and technology in general. 

I have an unhealthy relationship with my phone. I spend way too much time on it, and way more time than I'm proud to admit on social media. I would love to be more disconnected from my phone, but I also have family spread across the country, and whenever I try to leave my phone in another room I get anxious. 

So how do you find a balance between not having your phone attached to you like an extra limb while combatting the guilt, stress, or anxiety of being out of reach? Spoiler alert, I do not have the answer for you. I barely have an idea of how to do it for me, and I'd venture to guess it's different for everyone.

I didn't fully realize how much media was affecting me until a couple years ago. My husband and I were starting to try to conceive, and we discovered we have some fertility issues and it isn't going to be an easy journey for us. As I was trying to cope with the thing I wanted more than anything, a family, becoming out of reach it felt like everyone I had ever interacted with was getting pregnant.

Friends from high school and college were posting pregnancy announcements, and my social media feeds felt like they were being flooded with happy couples and newborns. It all came to a head while I was watching New Girl. A character found out they were pregnant and I just lost it. "Can we have 1 show where people aren't getting pregnant?" I posted my anger on Facebook and stopped watching the show for months. I had gotten to the point where even fictional characters getting pregnant had me sobbing.  

I knew it wasn't rational to be distraught over pregnancy plotlines, and my friends probably weren't getting pregnant to spite me. But I was upset, I was grieving, and screens weren't helping. Admittedly, rage quitting TV shows and avoiding my timeline in hopes of missing more "We're Pregnant" posts weren't intentional steps I took to benefit my mental health. But the space from those things might have helped me open my eyes to some of the things around me that did help me heal. For me it was talking to my Mom and my best friend, insights from my Pastor, a lot of angry and tearful prayers, and having to fall back on faith. 

God and church aren't for everyone, and I never want you to feel like I'm slapping a God bandaid on things and calling it good. God was part of healing for me, but the more important takeaway is that taking a step away from the things that were upsetting me was really necessary for me to clear my mind and find some ways to heal. 

I now make a more conscious effort to avoid certain kinds of shows and content when I'm in a fragile place. I have to step away from my beloved true crime podcasts when my depression flares up, and sometimes I'm not in a place to watch intense shows or even happy ones with certain plotlines. 

I try to put my phone to the side when I'm reading or cross-stitching so I'm not tempted to investigate every single notification. I even went through my phone and turned off a ton of notifications. There is nothing happening on social media that requires my immediate attention. Facebook comments shouldn't pull me away from time with my friends and family. Every text doesn't have to be immediately answered. 

Just recently I started putting my phone on do not disturb at night. If someone on a specific, and short, list of people calls me, my phone will go off. Other than that, no pings or vibrations, which used to wake me up at night and give me anxiety. 

Sometimes we need space. For me, it's from social media and being constantly reachable. For you, it might be something else. The most important thing we can do though is to pay attention to our minds and our bodies. We get sent signals and warning signs when things aren't right, and we have to be responsible for noticing them and adjusting what we're doing. 

Infertility still plagues me. Images of happy families and pregnancy announcements still hurt, and sometimes I feel more bitter than happy. But now I know when I need to step back. I know when I need to put my phone face down and dig into what's happening in my brain. I take time to journal, to reflect on why things are more triggering today, and step away from sources of stress until I feel more confident about my headspace. 

I feel pretty confident in saying that the world will not crumble if you step away from Instagram for an hour. Take the time to think about how social media is benefitting you, and the answer isn't a blanket 'it isn't'. I love memes and videos of cute animals, and laughing at Tik Toks. Focus in on the good things the digital age can give you, and take the time to think about if there are other things you want to focus on instead of feed scrolling. 

Find your balance. Find your peace. Find a strategy that works for you. You deserve to have peace in your soul.  

Purging & Praying

 As I’m growing up and (hopefully) becoming more mature, I’ve been reflecting on my past. After a lot of therapy, growing up, and learning, I’m seeing choices, relationships, and experiences I went through with new clarity. And while I’m proud of myself for that growth, I think a bit of turmoil comes with reevaluating and reliving these experiences.

I’ve been thinking a lot about some of my past relationships, and I’m only now realizing how destructive they were. I’m just now seeing them for what they really are, and how they broke me, and to put it plainly, it’s upsetting as hell. Not only am I trying to come to terms with some traumatic stuff, but I have to do it years after the fact when there’s no possibility of a confrontation or apology.

I can’t dress down an old friend who betrayed everything our years-long friendship stood for. I don’t get to yell at the boy who used me over and over for his own gain, knowing I cared too much for him to ever say no. There’s no way to recant my apology to my rapist.

So where do these feelings go? How do you find peace after digging up the past and realizing what it was without the rose-colored glasses of youth and naivety? I’m not the same person I was then, and I hope with all my heart they aren’t either. I hope we’ve all grown, and I hope the person I am now can be some kind of penance for the pain I’m sure I caused other people.

The only way I know to grapple with being torn this way is to pray. To turn the pain and hurt over to God and ask him to help me find the path to forgiveness. They say the hardest apology to accept is the one you never get, and I know that none of these people will ever stand on my doorstep to say they’re sorry. That’s hard to accept, but I genuinely hope that if I ever found myself in front of any of them I would have the grace to smile and wish them well, and I hope that anyone I hurt knows that I regret being their villain, and I am working to be a better version of myself.

So here, where no one or everyone may see, I’ll say my piece and make my peace.

To the girl I thought would always be in my life…

I hate how you ended our friendship. You took my deepest, darkest fear and you made it a reality. You spat on the years I spent trying to be everything for you, on the time I spent trying to help you heal, on every moment I worried about your peace and happiness.

I pray that you’ve found peace. I pray that you’ve learned to love yourself the way you deserve because you deserve love without condition, that doesn’t need to be earned, and that will never falter. I pray that you love the life you’ve built, that you smile every single day, and that you’ve found genuine people to surround yourself with.

To the boy who chose my body over my friendship…

I detest what you let me do for you. I despise that I was willing to be the other woman and betray another woman, just for your time. I hate that you chose to use me and to use my body over the friendship I gave you and would have always given you. I hate the girl I was with you, and I hate that you let her exist for your own use.

I pray that you care for the people in your tribe deeply and that you give more than you take from the hearts of those around you. I hope you sing loudly and freely and find something in each day that makes you laugh. I pray you’ve found phenomenal relationships that you nurture and cherish, and I hope people return that to you in spades. I pray that you’re happy and that one day I find enough forgiveness in myself to remember only your best qualities.

To the man who broke me into shards of who I could’ve been…

You stole from me. You stole who I could’ve been, you stole my trust, you stole my faith. You forced me to live through hell and experience a hell that I would never wish unto anyone, not even you. You burned every bridge that could lead to pure peace.

I pray that you find a way to heal from the hurt that made you who you were. I pray you feel truly loved by the people around you, and I pray you never feel unworthy of that love. I pray you’re given second chances to make amends and that you take them. I pray that every day of your life you find more things to love than to hate. I pray you have peace from your demons and know that I no longer see you as one of mine.

 

 

Spicy Disaster Spokesgirl

This afternoon I sat at a small table by a window at work, eating lunch, and working on my bible study notes. People walked by and complimented the pink dress I had on; my CEO commented on how focused I was. To a stranger walking by I looked like a pulled-together girl boss who was using her lunch to commune with the Lord. 

Far from it folks. I wasn’t even trying that hard to hide my mess.  

1. The lunch I was casually eating at the sun-soaked table was microwave pizza bites because I had no drive to even grab a Healthy Choice meal on my way out the door. 

2. My cute curly updo was actually just my hair in a top knot because I couldn't sleep until like 2 a.m. and I barely had the energy to get out of bed this morning, much less wash my hair. 

3. A lead ball of stress, anxiety, and tension was sitting firmly in my stomach, its source unknown.

4. The workbook I was writing in was a last-minute assignment I put off until the literal last possible second, and most of my responses were half-hearted or about how I felt like an idiot when I tried to “witness the grace around me and thank God for it”

a. Also, I forgot to capitalize “Him/Lord/He” like you’re supposed to but I wasn’t writing with an erasable pen cause my ADHD had me hyper-focused on a different style of pen this week. 

5. I had a big glass of cold water next to me that I wasn’t drinking fast enough because I was running on iced coffee and Adderall to drag myself through the day

6. I was frazzled because I had gotten all the way to work before I realized I was still wearing my dog walking flip flops so I had to go home and change because society has told me that if I don’t look my best I’m never going to be respected or successful. 

7. It was hard to focus because my internal battle over “enjoy being in the moment” and “why the f*ck aren’t you thinner and prettier and more productive and helping more people and doing more good” were raging in the background of my head as always

8. A tab in my mind was playing “Financial Worry Sonata #4” as I subconsciously stressed about not saving enough money, medical debt, and the price tag of the crown I need to get on my tooth next week

That’s honestly just a surface-level snapshot. I have deeper demons and an endless list of other imperfections no one sees until my inner dialogue imagines them judging me. People saw happy Liz from marketing sitting in the sun enjoying her lunch and passionately working on something. 

The part that kills me is that if I walked by someone in that position, I would spend a minimum of two days wishing I could be more like them or thinking about all the ways I fail to live up to my potential on a minute-by-minute basis. 

We all do it. We all take a cursory glance at a friend or coworker or stranger and spend endless hours comparing ourselves to a snapshot we’ve put dozens of filters over. I used to spend my car rides home from church silently wishing I could be as good of a Christian as my best friend. Then one day she said she wished she could be as good of a Christian as me.

Y’all I could’ve run off the road right then. This girl knows the bible backward and forward. She leads worship music that makes me feel alive. She can quote scripture and answer any question I have and she has a heart that would put any Saint to shame. The woman who I idolized thought she was lesser than me. We had both been silently comparing ourselves to one another and feeling like we were coming up short. 

How crazy is that? First, there is no checklist for being a good person or living your life ‘right’. If there was I would have found it by now. Secondly, we all know we put our best foot forward when we walk out the door and we keep our mess behind the scenes. So if we know that we’re doing that, how on earth do we not realize that EVERYONE is doing it?

We’re all doing our best. We’re just trying. Some days we do better than others. Some days we don’t even have it in us to try. Then we walk out the door and keep a tally of all the people we’re worse than. It’s insanity. 

I’d love for this to be the part where I tell you to rise above it like me and live a life free of judgment and critique. I’d love to tell you I’ve embraced my true ‘me’ and now I’m free and happy and butterflies shoot out my butt. Ain’t true. 

My bestie and I still compare ourselves to others. I still put on a happy face to hide my mess and never think anyone else is doing the same. I keep a mental list of all the ways the people around me are better than me, and it literally makes me sick. I can feel that stress ball in my stomach. I feel anxiety clamping around my heart. I can sense the tidal wave of spiraling thoughts before it keeps me up until 2 a.m.

It's all so much easier said than done. It’s so easy when I’m surrounded by my bible study group to declare my independence from it all. “God made me, and he loves me just as I am!” I declare until I get home and silently call myself pathetic for not having put my clothes away yet.  

My self-worth is a ping pong ball. Some days I feel good and I’m happy and I find peace where I’m planted, but some days nothing I do is right, and I will never recover from all the failures I’ve enacted. But if I can do one thing, it’s pull back the curtain to show you my mess. 

I give advice I don’t follow. I eat junk food and don’t work out and lament about not being skinnier. I spend my evenings on my phone instead of cleaning up piles of laundry or unpacking boxes from my move three months ago. I fight with my husband and roll my eyes at my parents and never clean my car out. I prayed for years for my own office and now I barely even use it. I AM A MESS. 

We’re all a mess in one way or another. We all hide it, which is fine. You don’t have to put your mess on a Times Square billboard. Just try, even on hard days, to remember that we all have messes we hide, and no one has it totally figured out. Don’t let the life you imagine other people having make you feel bad. Try to drink some water, maybe eat a vegetable this week, and give yourself a break. 

You deserve it. 

Unconditionally

 To say my relationship and journey with religion has been tumultuous would be a pretty epic understatement. I went through times of unfounded faith, doubt, hate, agnosticism, and back around to a deep-rooted relationship with Jesus. I can remember when I was in my late teens and early twenties I would say “I didn’t ask Jesus to die for my sins”.

I felt like God expected me to follow his rules and be a “good Christian” because he had done something for me that I didn’t ask for. I didn’t want or need his grace or forgiveness or sacrifice. I felt like I was being guilted into religion and I was not here for it. 

Last year I stepped back into a church for the first time in years. I had no intention of liking it, or building a relationship with God. I was doing a favor for a friend, and I made it clear in my heart that nothing had changed, and no sermon was going to sway me to bow down to some invisible presence and thank him for something I never asked him to do.

Then one day it was like a lightbulb popped on in my brain. Like when you can’t think of a specific word then suddenly an hour later you remember it as easily as your own name. I didn’t ask Jesus to die for my sins. But he did it anyway. He didn't need to be asked to provide salvation for humanity, he wanted to.   

I didn’t ask for grace. I didn’t ask for forgiveness. I didn’t ask for unconditional love, but God was there waiting with it when I realized I wanted it. Thousands of years before I existed, Jesus decided that he loved me, and that I was worthy of unconditional, endless love, even when I didn’t feel it. He loved me when I hated him. He loved me when I stopped believing. He loved me when I reluctantly stepped into a church in May of 2021 with hate and grief on my heart. 

Today, as we commemorate and celebrate the day Jesus sacrificed everything for us, I can’t help but think of the moment not that long ago when I was sitting in a small church in Saline and the lightbulb popped on. 

I know this sounds preachy, but even if religion isn’t your thing, there’s a lesson here. Like Jesus, there are people in this world who love us unconditionally. People who love us on our good days and our bad days. People who have decided they love us, and whose minds cannot and will not be changed. We don’t have to earn their love. We don’t have to accomplish tasks to be worthy of their affection. 

As someone who has spent agonizing years terrified that the people in my life would suddenly stop loving me, there is a much-needed peace to accepting and believing that love is not conditional. My mom isn’t going to stop loving me because I don’t vocalize my appreciation for her. My husband isn’t going to fall out of love with me because my anxiety attacks are hard to handle. My best friends aren’t going to start hating me because I’m not perfect. 

There’s nothing I could ever do to lose that love in my life. Not from my friends, my family, or my God. There’s nothing the people I love could ever do to stop me from loving them. No one is keeping a chart of our actions to determine whether or not we deserve to be loved on any given day. And whether you feel that love from Jesus, from your family, from friends, or from your cat, please feel it deeply.

 Feel it at your best and worst. Feel it no matter what. Because love, spiritual or otherwise, is unconditional, and you are worthy of love at every single moment.