Tag: mental-health

Ooph

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[A head’s up, this post contains the subjects of womens health, mental health, depression, and passive suicidal ideation. If this is too much, feel free to skip and go listen to https://youtu.be/x2bd1zp_q6Y?si=TRB_f28QAZvKY8Jz]

I’ve been sick the last week with Covid. The bilateral hip pain, the fever, the inordinate amounts of sweating, the coughing and phlegm, you know, the symphony of the body’s response to an unwelcome guest–all of it fairly typical. I was sick in February, too, but the difference between these two bouts is night and day. In February, I felt like I deserved to be sick, like I wasn’t good and what was the point in getting better. This time, I felt like I can’t wait to get better and go hang out with my friends, do house projects, have the energy to paint and create. Similar physical symptoms, polar opposite mental and emotional symptoms. Why should this be? Well let me tell you a little story…

Last summer, I decided to get the Mirena IUD. There are lots of reasons for such a decision and this post will be plenty vulnerable and intimate I don’t need to go into that too. Just know, that at the time, it seemed like a good course of action for me. Over the next nine months, I would discover that it was a horrendous match for me. If you’ve been following along here, you’ll remember I had a particularly hard winter and didn’t know why. The response to being sick in February was disproportionate and not my customary reaction to illness.

Since last September, my emotional responses to life circumstances swung wide and wild. Emotional lability is a nice way to describe what felt like hell. I wanted to escape the feelings, the world, myself. It was untenable. The parts of me that developed in chaos in childhood started to take over during the uncertainty. I began to invent things to worry about. Do I have throat cancer? Am I dying? Seriously, chronic intrusive thoughts became ever present. If I have throat cancer and am dying, do I deserve it? What do I need to do to be ready? Make a to do list, Becci.

While all of this was happening, I ended one job and started another. I did house projects. I continued to visit friends and family. I sought solace in art and music and the routine of every-day living. I was also proactive in trying to figure out what was happening. Urgent care visits. Primary care physician visits. Blood draws. Tests. Anti-depressant prescription. Exam room tears. Pleas for help. Calls to my sister who helped me map out when the worst of the intrusive thoughts would happen. Monthly, it so happened. Right around my cycle, to be specific–that’s when the lies in my brain would be the loudest. It’s scary to have thoughts that are so outside the norm to become daily, hourly, common.

Many women have success with the Mirena IUD. They rejoice in no periods. The simplicity of it. 10 years and nothing to worry about in terms of buying feminine hygiene products or worrying about pregnancy. That sounded amazing to me. About 5-7% of women who have used this form of birth control self-report depressive episodes, depression, and worse. Guess who fell into that percentage? This gal. The anti-depressant helped, but the thoughts still came right before my period. At the follow-up to check how the anti-depressant was doing, I explained that I wondered if I should get the IUD out and see if that would help. We schedule the removal and got the sucker out. Within one week I felt more like myself than I had in nine months. It was that quick. I have had loss, heartache, emotional highs and lows this summer subsequent to its removal and the emotional response has been more in line with me, with my personality. Yes, I’m heartbroken, sad, joyful, elated, relieved, the gamut of the human experience minus one thing–I don’t want to die.

What’s the point in telling all this? Being so vulnerable about something so terrible? A friend of mine recently told me my writing gave him space to write and communicate his own thoughts and feelings after a tragic loss. If this post can shed light on something someone else is grappling with and help them fight through it to the other side, then my nine months of agony and understanding it afterward will have been well worth it. Friends, if your body and brain are not behaving like you know they should, don’t stop fighting for yourself. You are your own best advocate for your health, mental, physical, emotional, spiritual. Many of my peers are navigating perimenopause and menopause. The shifts in hormones have a lot of these similar effects. There is the right thing for you. Whether its HRT, diet changes, exercise changes, a move to the seaside or the Kentucky bluegrass, keep searching until you find it. We need all of you here to navigate this world. We need your questions and your curiosity. We need your humor and your insight. We need your problem-solving and creativity. We need your light, your joy, your love. Don’t go. Keep fighting through it. You’re worth it.

A Part

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I have this part of me that developed when I was a little girl. She’s the part of me that decided instead of being reactive to unexpected hurt (Mom’s going to the hospital. Mom’s getting an apartment and not coming home. Our parents are splitting. Here’s this new lady Daddy likes and spends time with. Your home is broken. Get used to this new normal, which isn’t.) she was going to be preemptive. Imagine every possible worse case scenario, worry about it, worry about even the most inexplicably random, improbable things because, you just never know. You didn’t think your family would fall apart and it did. Why wouldn’t it be possible that you would be a coked out homeless teenager in New York City–heck even Nancy Reagan was warning you it might happen. It’s very much a child’s logic and yet, that part of me has played a large part in my adult life. It doesn’t help when the worst case scenario is realized as it was with Bryan’s illness. It reinforces that thinking.

But here I am navigating the world as a single adult and doing so with some moderately measurable amounts of success. I open the pickle jars on my own. I changed a lightbulb in the laundry room yesterday evening. I’m having a neighbor build me a fence that has been long overdue. Problems arrive and I tackle them with maybe some frustration occasionally that I have to, but then I do it. Some items on my to-do list have taken longer for me than maybe I’d have preferred, but I did those too. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m trying to persuade the childlike part of me who deals with heavy big feels and worry that actually my track record in facing hard things as a grown-up is pretty good. And while I appreciate the fierce determination this little person inside has to protect me, it hurts more than my simply dealing with things as they come.

I’m a pretty creative person. I paint and garden and bake and write and I have an imagination that is rich, vivid, and detailed. This is so much fun when it is. And scary as all heck when a childlike skillset utiizes a big, adult brain. Yowza! I’m trying to be soft and appreciative to this part and to let her know I’m the grown-up in the equation now and I’ve got this. It’s okay. You did your job, but I’ve got the wheel.

Empathy

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Background—When I was little, my mama wanted to make sure I had a mind and heart attuned to others. I can remember more than once when I would come home from school complaining of this mean girl or that awful boy. She would stop me and have me consider the why, the possible hurt, the background story. Of course, I was initially very put off by her lack of immediate side-taking, mine, that is. But this was her legacy to me. Think of others. Think of their feelings. It also is no coincidence that as a child of divorce, I developed a finely tuned toolkit to read the emotional temperature of a room and its people. One was a loving gift, the other, I suspect, is a trauma response. Good, bad, or otherwise, my superpower is empathy.  

Upside—When good things happen to other people, I feel it. Call it convergence or mudita, either one, but the effect is one of delight and joy. That’s the very best part of empathy. Having the capacity to feel the not so joyous things has its merits too because this allows for compassion, understanding, grace. If I can pause for a moment to put myself in someone else’s shoes, understanding increases. From there, dialogue, possibly resolution occurs. All good things. And bare minimum, if I can pause in my day to remember everyone has their hurts, hopes, histories, maybe I’ll be a little more patient at the grocery store, curse a little less in traffic. That’s the hope, at least.

Downside—Yet, the emotional weight can be debilitating and sometimes I take responsibility for feelings inappropriately. Just because I feel them, doesn’t make them mine or something I have to do something about. I forget this. Recently a friend posted a little video blurb that sort of felt like I was being called out. Nuggets of wisdom, when they show up like that, can have that effect. The video highlighted the concept of “ruinous empathy.” With this unhealthy form, a person with empathy makes allowances and excuses for the behaviors of someone else. Ruinous empathy will break down important personal, boundaries. “Oh no, so-and-so, is suffering/experiencing pain, these hurtful, negative behaviors that I would never in a million years tolerate suddenly have gotten a pass because I am (ruinously) empathetic.” This unhealthy manifestation of empathy is mine to own and battle, too.

Conclusion—I want to be the person my mom envisioned—thinking of others and extending grace. I’ve got a LONG way to go. And just like a game of whack-a-mole, I’m going to have to  pay close attention to when ruinous empathy creeps up and has me eroding my own boundaries. “Constant vigilance.”

Gratitude Challenge Day 15 & 16: Music and Food

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Last night, with every intention of writing my Day 15 blog post, I fell asleep early and hard due to some pretty hardcore gummies–10mg of melatonin and some magnesium. WHOA! Don’t be making plans after that heavy-hitting dose! So, as penance, I’m going to have to write a two-fer on probably some of my most favorite things–things that bring me tremendous joy and fill me with gratitude. Let’s start with music and then segue into food. You with me? Ready? Let’s go!

I think I have a low-grade, constant struggle with mild depression. There’s any number of really good reasons for that *waves arms around wildly*. Genetics, probably first and foremost. But living on planet earth is no easy feat if you have two working brain cells and a heart and that’s on the days when children aren’t being shot or thrown in cages. Suicide rates among veterans and queer kids alone are enough to shake a person to their core. This living thing is HARD. (Okay, Bec, get to the gratitude part. I’m working on it. Gimme a second.)

On really hard days, I listen to Bach. If it ain’t Baroque, don’t fix it. Amirite? This particular playlist is one of my favorites: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zHXX9J_n5E

I like to read about artists and what influences their work. I know literature professors of mine would say “let the work speak for itself,” but since I am an artist and a writer, I know my art isn’t separate from me. It is me. In that spirit, I like to learn. Johann Sebastian Bach was orphaned at the age of 10. He lost several of his children before they turned one. He had every reason to be sad, bitter, lost. And yet, we have this most gorgeous, joyful music for centuries. I feel like there’s this kinship with him in that yes I can have a broken heart and still cry for joy, too. And do. A lot. On his deathbed, he’s attributed as having these as his last words: “Don’t cry for me, for I go where music was born.” The best, most succinct apologia for heaven I’ve ever read.

On a biological level, by listening to music you enjoy you can decrease your heart rate, blood pressure, and cortisol levels while increasing seratonin and endorphins, your body’s own feel-good drugs. In a world that hurts every day, it’s critical to have all the possible tools in your toolbelt. Music is one of mine.

The other is cooking good food for those I love. I enjoy experiencing new flavors and experimenting with recipes. But what fills my heart is cooking or baking something that makes someone close their eyes and get a serene look on their face for just a moment. It’s a way to say I love you, we’re in this together, here, have a moment of joy. I’m grateful for meals shared. Conversation over a well-spun pizza crust or a roast dinner can be so vibrant and fun and rich. Time with people at table is the essence of what is good. And I’m also grateful to live in a place where we grow amazing food and share. It’s no wonder some of my favorite books and films are about the experience of cooking, eating, sharing meals. MFK Fisher’s The Gastronomical Me, the film Babette’s Feast, the Spanish mini-series The Cook of Castamar, Like Water for Chocolate (either the film or the novel), Chocolat (I preferred the novel to the film). The kitchen dance Bryan and I used to do when preparing meals for each other and friends still makes me smile. I’m grateful for all of it, even a simple omelette when nothing else will do.