Leora - A Process, Not A Destination.

To me, mental health is an ongoing process, not a destination. It’s a huge part of my everyday life. I struggle with anxiety on a regular basis, and much more occasionally depression, and I am a licensed therapist, so it’s a focus of my day-to-day, every day. I also have many wonderful people who surround me who have been affected by trauma, mental illness, and who struggle with their own mental health, so it’s a constant part of life for me. I believe that it’s a part of life for all of us, I just choose to talk about it more and to surround myself with other people who do the same.

Normally, my favorite tools for coping with my mental health struggles are psychiatry and medication, exercise, and socializing. Those have definitely shifted during the COVID-19 pandemic. I haven’t been great about exercising without my usual format. I can’t socialize as much as I used to. I don’t think I have been as good at managing my mental health, which is okay- we have to adjust our expectations given different circumstances. Lately, it’s been therapy, setting boundaries, time with family, getting enough sleep, walking my dogs, and time outside.

So many good things have come out of my mental health journey. My whole career has come out of it! My podcast with Maddie! I’ve made so many friends based on the fact that we have common ground around having struggled with mental health. I truly believe that it is a universal struggle. There is no such thing as a person who is always “mentally healthy”. While I hate the feelings that depression and anxiety bring on while they are there, I don’t hate how they have changed my life and the experiences I have had as a result of them.

If I could speak to my former self when she was at the height of her anxiety, I would say, first and foremost YOUR DOG IS NOT GOING TO DIE. Just kidding. Sort of. I would say: don’t be afraid of medication. Get yourself a good psychiatrist. Advocate for what you need. Realize that you don’t need to feel uncomfortable all the time. Tell people how you are feeling so that they can help you, and realize that it you don’t have to feel this way forever. One of my favorite things to do is listen to podcasts, and one of my favorites is My Favorite Murder. While the podcast isn’t about mental health, they do talk about their own experiences with mental health quite a bit, and they normalize therapy and medication in the process. It’s also something I enjoy listening to if I am struggling because, even though it can be dark, it’s also hilarious, which is a great way to get out of my anxious headspace.

Leora

Maddie - Break Down, Rise Up.

Maddie Ace - Break down, rise up.

It’s hard to pick just one revolution for me. But I think in order for you to understand my revolution, you need to understand my breakdown. One of my biggest adversaries is my phobia. It developed as a result of a lot of things - trauma, fear, self esteem...it's all connected. The reality of living with a phobia is that when you don't know how to manage it, you want to control the world. You want to stack it in your favor so you don't have to be afraid anymore. So I developed OCD in order to cope with this need. I fought both my phobia and OCD by myself for a couple of years and then, when I was 18, the January before my A Level (pre-college) exams, it reached its peak and after a triggering morning, I called my Mum to pick me up from school and I didn't leave my house again for 3 months. I just couldn't do it anymore. I didn't want to have to fight to stay strong. It was easier to slip into fear.

I went as low as I could go. I experienced discrimination, I had to justify myself to everyone and I let terror overcome me. I lost friends. A senior teacher at my school told me I should leave for good, that I wouldn't pass my exams. Even going to pick up a couple items from Sainsburys (UK grocery shop) was more than I could handle. I was lucky. I had my family and my then boyfriend who supported me through everything - without that, I don't know what I would have done. But ultimately, I knew that this isn't how I wanted to live my life. So I uttered 3 words to my Mum...

...I need help.

She heard me - I mean really heard me - and we scheduled a session with the therapist the next day. I decided not to go into full on therapy before my exams were done and this was hard because I’d always seen myself as being “successful”. So for the next 3 months I had to redefine my normal. My boyfriend stuck by me (even when people told him not to “catch it”) and ferried work back and forth for me every day, my incredible teacher met me at home or at the car if I felt strong enough to sit through class at school and I studied my ass off. It kept me busy so my phobia wasn't my whole life. Once exams were done, I started therapy and was at university within 3 months.

Those people who said I would fail school were wrong. I got full marks in 5 of my papers and 3 A's overall. The people who thought I wasn't going to make it to university were wrong. I went, I studied, and I got a 2:1 in Politics. The people who thought I would never have an adventurous life were wrong. I met my wife volunteering in a remote part of Thailand and took a gigantic leap of faith across the world to be with her. But mostly what I realized is that success and growth doesn't always come in the package you expect it to. My dreams saved me. My hopes for a different life. Knowing it was there and being reassured by people that loved me. Just because I was as low as I could go, didn't mean I couldn't dream. I live for that hope now. That’s what this website is about - creating a space different to the ones out there so we can dream together and support each other…and maybe even take steps to make those dreams a reality.

I know my struggles will never be completely gone, but I have the tools now. I know how to cope with it, I know what I need to do in my every day to manage it. But more so, I know that there is more to life than fear. I know there are people who can always help. I know I can always say no if I need to but more importantly…I know that I can always always work towards a yes and there is always a path to get there. My breakdown gave me courage. It gave me self awareness and set a fire that led me to where I am now.

Breaking down and rising up.

Mx

Laura - Enough As I Am

Laura - Enough As I Am

Today is a day that I should be ‘on’. I should be with my partner and my children (7 and 9) at church. I should be sitting in the pew during their Christmas program rehearsal so they can feel their mother’s support as they practice their roles as star and innkeeper. I should be happy and social celebrating Thanksgiving with extended family this afternoon.

But I’m not. I’m home in bed with a million scary feelings swimming in my mind. Depression, anxiety, mental exhaustion, confusion, inadequacy… and my biggest mental bully, guilt.

“Should” is a powerful word. As a straight-passing bisexual woman, I hear what people think I should be. As a heavily-tattooed suburban Lutheran mom, I don’t always fit in. As someone who in the past struggled with weight, I often felt less-than. As a woman and mother who is very open about her life and experiences through social media, I feel people’s critical thoughts about my decisions (and the decision to share them) all the time. And as someone who struggles with mental health, I let these "should" thoughts drown me. But when I am feeling myself, I know this: no one can tell me who I should be but me.

One of the biggest struggles for me is feeling misunderstood when I am in the struggle. I’m not lazy. I’m not flaking. I have crippling anxiety that comes on quickly and strongly, and sometimes the power it has over me cannot be underestimated.

I choose to medicate because sometimes it helps. I also practice yoga and meditation. I see a therapist when I feel I should. And I’m blessed with a partner who takes over without hesitation when I need him, and offers any help I might need. All of these things make life easier for me sometimes, but that doesn’t mean things come easily.

And so, if you know people like me, please have patience.
And if you are someone like me, you are not alone. 

And you SHOULD know --- you are enough.

Laura

Abigail - Bipolar II: Living in Real Time.

Abigail - Bipolar II: Living in Real Time.

We’ve all seen the ad. Everything is in slow-motion. The woman in a drab smock sitting in the pottery studio, clay dry and wheel still. The woman gazing blankly outside, a window perfectly framing her seemingly perfect husband and perfect child. The woman, still in the smock, now simply staring off into space, some of her hair having escaped her ponytail giving her the carefully calibrated look of a woman on the edge but not too far gone. A woman who could be you, could be anyone, but is definitely an anyone who needs help. After all, this is an ad for psychiatric medication, and that flyaway piece of hair has to be here, if only so that it can be put carefully back in place by the end, so that the anyone who could be you can feel fulfilled and whole and not drab and ill and stuck in a smock with flyaway hair. The woman stands up, her movement synchronized with a ray of sun angling through the wind and a narrator giving a name to the drug this ad is for and the disorder it is meant to cure - I mean, to treat. The woman walks outside, receives a hug from the child and smiles at her husband, apparently oblivious to the narrator’s list of side effects; maybe if he rattles them off fast enough, no one, least of all the woman, will notice. The woman’s image dissolves with a sweep of the camera towards the sun, the bright light serving as the background for the medication’s name, printed in loopy purple font with the ubiquitous trademark TM symbol hovering below the right-hand corner. The commercial ends with the image of the family as they walk down a sub-dappled and perfectly-groomed nature path. Their backs are to us, so we cannot tell if the woman is smiling, but her hair is finally smooth and tucked into her ponytail as it swings perkily, if not jauntily, in time with her slow-motion steps.

I love to hate this commercial - I mean, these commercials, since they’re essentially all one continuous loop of slow-motion psychiatric medications curing - I mean, treating - people. There are certain inescapable tropes about this - I mean, these - ads. There is the patient. She is always a woman, always heterosexually partnered, never childless, with one strand of hair carefully removed from her ponytail. (Her hair is always in a ponytail.) There is the narrator. He is always a man with a warm voice and the ability to speed talk without sounding like he’s running from something. Like a rhino. Or complexity. Or the truth. And there are the dichotomies: light vs. dark, indoor vs. outdoor, monochrome vs. colorful, still vs. moving, dim vs. bright, alone vs. together, before vs. after. Illness vs. health.

And there it is. Illness vs. health. I love to hate these commercials. That’s my dichotomy - love vs. hate - but there’s nothing “di” about it. It, and I, and the truth, are far more complex than that. I’m alive because of my medication. I know that as much as I know that the sun will rise tomorrow and that Donald Trump doesn’t really want to be president. I’m not dying because I take medication, but that’s not why I am healthy, and that doesn’t mean that I’m not ill. I love it and I hate it. I have a mental illness and I have my health. I am a before and an after because I am a now. None of these are mutually exclusive. It’s taken me the journey of my entire adult life to realize that illness can be simultaneous with health, that I’m not required to run from it like I would a rhino. Because complexity is ok. And I can accept the truth. And the truth is that this health is work, and that this work is worth it.

I have light and dark days. 5 months spent on a locked psych ward meant a lot of indoor days, but that didn’t keep me from teaching my fellow patients how to sled on cafeteria trays when the blizzard hit the wild outdoors of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Mental hospitals are known for being monochromatic, but the beige didn’t drown out the beauty of our colorful self-portraits in art therapy group. Starving myself almost to death resulted in forced stillness - being confined to a wheelchair, for example - but the fact that I’m moving on my own now doesn’t negate that I still need stillness sometimes to recalibrate and just breathe. I could see myself in the mirror through both dim and bright light then, and I can still now, too. Anorexia is incredibly lonely, but I have never felt more bonded together than when I was in the hospital with that community of strong-as-steel women. Even these are not mutually exclusive; I know now how one can feel alone in a room full of people or very together while the only one around. And I can enjoy all of it in this life, even if not all of my life is enjoyable.

There is not before or after, just the journey. I have a mental illness, and I have my health. I have now. I have this life, and none of it is in slow motion. This is real time.

Abigail

Megan - Turning 37, My Revolution.

Megan - Turning 37, My Revolution.

My journey into the confusing and all too common issues with mental health began as a child, but the challenges really became apparent during my early twenties and into my thirties. As a child, I grew up in a privileged environment with a very loving and supportive family. I was a successful student who loved music, art, and performance. I was a happy child. I had friends and was able to navigate the common milestones of adolescence, but I also struggled with what I’ve come to know as anxiety.

For me, anxiety was an internal voice in my head that reinforced the fears I held closest to my heart – all my negative thoughts about my body, my personality, my intelligence, and whether or not anyone truly liked me for me. These thoughts of self-hate continued to persist as I grew older.

Throughout my twenties, I had a couple of bouts with increased anxiety and episodic depression for which I eventually sought help. I learned coping skills through yoga, high impact exercise, and positive self-talk. In my late twenties, the end of a long term relationship and underemployment after graduate school culminated in a year-long episode of depression. It was a devastating and isolating place to be, but survived it. Like many who have experienced depression, I was stronger because of the experience. I was more aware of my needs, my triggers, and my ability to recognize when my anxiety was getting to a place that was untenable.

However, I was not impervious to relapses. In 2016, I suffered four very significant experiences of grief. Over the course of eight months, I had a student die by suicide, my paternal grandmother died, my mother almost died, and my maternal grandmother died. Reflecting back, I avoided processing the grief and loss - I felt it more important to appear strong and stoic all while I was screaming inside at the layers of pain, guilt, grief, and fear. These events and my inability to process my emotions lead to another episode of depression in the spring and summer of 2017. My depression came to a head when I began experiences panic attacks at work, but my reaction this time was different. I reached out for help, I saw my physician, and decided to take the needed next step to anxiety and depression medication.

As a result, my life changed. It opened up a world of self-love, grace, and self-acceptance; it was a revolution. During my 36th year, I was able to lift the veil of anxiety and depression to experience so much more than I ever had, and it was mostly due to my ability to accept myself as who I was in the moment, and love that person – flaws and all. Cheesy as it sounds, on my 37th birthday, I posted the following message on Facebook that was the most truthful, vulnerable, honest, self-loving declaration, and every word was full of love and gratitude for being able to make it through the most challenging time of my life.

“I’ve learned so much this past year, and most of it was through the big and small kindnesses from family, friends, coworkers, and students. My 36 was filled with a lot of high and lows that are common in the human experience:

Joy of new life, love, and friendship, 
Pain and grief of death, 
Struggle with my anxiety and depression, 
Health and healing (shout out to my Zumba family, my walking buddies, family hikes, and the miracle of meds), 
Boatloads of tears, but twice as much laughter (how can you not with my friends and family?) 
Exciting travel, exploration, and adventure with wonderful people, 
Fear of the uncertainty and the unknown,
Success and growth in my career,
Arriving late to a lot of things.

Amidst the challenges, the past year was overwhelmingly full of love, kindness, and support from my family, friends, and coworkers (love to my CeO and DDEEA fam) who continue to make me feel heard, seen, accepted, valued and normal for all the parts that make up my whole: auntie, friend, sister, daughter, advisor, bisexual and biracial (“superbi” lol), and person with anxiety and depression.

With a heart full of love, I jump into 37 with appreciation and gratitude to be the recipient of such love and a desire to pay that love forward however I can.

If you’re a TL;DR type of person, here you go...
I turned 37.
I struggle.
I am sick.
I am healthy.
I am normal.
I am successful.
I’ve got a lot of love and support.
I’m so so thankful.
I’m going to pass all that love forward.”

Megan

Charlie - Meditation Revolution

For a long time I thought that relationships were the most important thing. Like... it didn’t matter if you were struggling with money, work or life in general - as long as you had someone that you could love and share life with, then everything was always going to be ok in the end. Now it turns out that I was half right and despite the hours the Beatles must have researched… you do need more than love. You need yourself.

At my darkest times panic attacks would isolate me from everything around me and there’s no time in my life I could honestly say I felt more alone. I know what you’re thinking… how was this better than seeking comfort in others? Meditation. We’ve all heard the old adage about giving a man a fish… and it teaches us that giving someone the tools to support themselves is far more effective long term, than simply offering a short-term lifeline...

At first I was terrible, I’m not going to lie. I would try to meditate and one of two things could happen: I would spend far too much time trying to fight my intrusive thoughts (thinking shouting at yourself for everything your shit at doing) that I would end up feeling more anxious

I would go so deep into “emptying my mind” that I would just sleep.

Despite seeming counterproductive, both of these outcomes pushed me in the right direction. Stage 1 allowed me to actively fight through my troubles until I got to the point where I had nothing to fight… and then after 5 minutes into a session I would head towards stage 2. Although the idea of mediation isn’t just to sleep… this is where my mind and body would go until I had rested enough to meditate properly.

For me… this took about 2 weeks of daily practice but results will vary depending on your own experience. Some sessions were quicker than others, but each session after that I would both a mental and physical weight being shed with each breath. For those that haven’t experienced it, it’s difficult to explain but the closest likeness I can muster is that breathing exercises through meditation, when done properly, are akin to the warmth you get from somebody you love holding you… only when you are done meditating, the comforting feeling doesn’t disappear.

Charlie

Gina - Gypsophila

To me, being brought flowers has always been associated with being wanted, being valued and being cared for. When my step dad buys them for my mum, or my mum buys them for my grandma, it’s a small act of kindness that can hold so much value.  

For me, this year was the hardest yet. I was asking more questions than ever about who I was, and I felt there was little kindness around me in regard to how I was treated by others as well as by myself. That is when I began buying myself flowers. I thought, if this act is so wonderful when done for others, why can’t I do that for myself? Show myself that care and feel wanted and valued, for myself, by myself. With that in mind, throughout the last year I have brought myself the same bunch of gypsophila flowers every other week. They live on my windowsill and remind me that even when I can’t see through the bleak, when I don’t feel valued by others or understood, I can do that for myself. That I can care and cherish myself.

I felt so passionate about this small act of self-care that I recently tattooed the same flower I have been buying myself for the past year, on my arm. For me, at the end of a turbulent year, it reminds me that the act doesn’t have to be the boldest or the biggest. Buying myself flowers is a small act, but the revolution was the care it brought with it. It reminded me to value myself, and that was a revolution in itself.

Gina

Sally - Me & My Piano

 Piano playing has been very cathartic throughout my life and I’m very grateful that I did practice all those years ago. It gave me a focus that I found uplifting and fulfilling. In my teenage years it allowed me to express my emotions when I had no words, when I couldn’t connect, it was a release. As a struggling single Mum it gave me a profession of piano teaching and I thank all those who played with my children whilst I taught their children. You were such a lifeline. But I loved seeing how students would learn to relax their bodies and freely express themselves through the music, through the beauty of the sound. I knew how valuable it could be, a step towards autonomy and authenticity, the very roots of a healthy way of life.

As I learnt how to nurture muscular freedom though piano playing in my teaching I also became aware of how frozen my body and mind had become through my struggles, my bodily tension reaching an unhealthy place, my mind fraught and rigid. Once again I turned to my piano and I started from the beginning again, drawing out the freedom I had lost note by note. I became fascinated by how I had lost inner freedom to stress and anxiety and how I could retrieve it. My exploration took me to Alexander technique, to mindfulness, to meditation, my inner self searching for peace and the freedom that I had lost. Therapy took me further along the way of finding out why anxiety and panic were so prevalent in my body.  Gradually, I have realised that the piano had given me self-care, mindfulness, bodily freedom and a means of challenging my mind. Once again I can feel free to express the emotions I feel. It’s never been a solitary place as I have played, I’ve been accompanied along my way, a friend for life.

Sally

Lydia - Finding My Rhythm.

Lydia - Finding My Rhythm.

I have been through many changes in life, moving from place to place, flowing in and out of friendships, but nothing prepared me for the shift I would feel when I finally accepted that depression and anxiety are things I do suffer from. Sometimes for months on end, long dragged out days when I can rarely decipher one day from the next, or a simple shift in the weather can have me napping all day long, not wanting to peer outside and be presented with greyness, because greyness is exactly what absorbs so much of my time. Though thankfully, not as much now.

That change though, that realisation — whatever really, I’m unsure as of what to call it - was a revelation, it changed my life. I had been put on the pill to see if my chronic fatigue symptoms were hormone related and I had never felt that low in my entire life. I soon went back to the doctors, feeling very much on the brink… I was asked about my general mental health and was very honest about crippling anxiety, being a perfectionist and experiencing real low moods, to which she replied, “that’s very normal, we’ll take you off of the pill and we will get you referred for counselling or CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy), whichever you think would suit your situation best.” For the first time in my life, I felt like I had been given permission to feel like this, I had been told that some people are more susceptible to these kinds of feelings, never mind how rosy life looks from the outside.

This was by no means an easy time in my life, possibly one of the hardest times. I had been given a diagnosis of CFS/ME (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Myalgic Encephalomyelitis), my parents had moved abroad, I had recently come out as gay to all my family and friends and by doing so, freed myself from the boulders I felt I was carrying, dragging, laden with guilt and shame. Deep down, I was hoping a formal diagnosis and being out would make a significant difference, what I didn’t expect was that these were just the catalyst, the domino effect took place, as it triggered so many things within such a short time frame. It wasn’t too long after these events that I realised I am worth more than the labels others give me. Yes, I have a CFS diagnosis, but it does not define me. Yes, I am gay and hell yes I will hug, kiss and hold hands with a woman in public but no, it does not define me. Yes, I have depression, but that is not who I am, it’s something I am learning to live with. My strength makes me feel worthy of life, as does my genuine love for people, those I respect, whether I have known them a lifetime or six months - these qualities are what define me as a person.

This strength is what supported me when I decided to give up my job, my beautiful cottage and really, my independence. I packed up everything and moved to my parents place… in France. It hit me the day of the move, exactly what I was doing, but more importantly amid everything the strength I had to do this. It’s fourteen months since I made that move and I feel like the best thing that’s happened in that time is that I have learnt to listen to my body, had time to figure out the triggers for the anxiety and depression… I’ve realised the impact of my mental health on my physical health and that sticking to the path society seems to have set for me is incredibly demoralising. Instead of keeping up with my peers, the best thing I can do is follow my own path, because it’s right for me, there is no wrong path in life. We ebb and flow and have to follow our own rhythm. At the end of the day, I know I have to look after myself because I am living this life.

Lydia

Trevor - Baseline TSB

I didn’t fully realize that I was depressed until college. Rest assured though, I exhibited warning signs long before then. During high school, I passed my depression off as teenage angst and covered it with biting sarcasm. The excitement of high school life, the extreme highs and lows that typify early adulthood hid the symptoms that became so obvious later in life.

It wasn’t until 3 years into college that I realized what was truly going on. After the major life events of my late teens and early twenties had occurred: living on my own, serious relationships beginning and ending, choice of major and first idea of a life direction, I began to realize I wasn’t like my peers. I would stay in bed regardless of deadlines or consequences. I would choose being alone and sad over being with friends and trying to fake happiness. I let things that I knew I truly enjoyed go by the wayside. In short, I did very little other than exist. It wasn’t until a long conversation with a friend that I realized something was wrong.

Seeking help was difficult, but required. The Protestant work ethic and Midwestern approach of tackling a problem kicked in and I went through the paces of psychiatrist and psychologist appointments. Deep down, I didn’t think it would work and didn’t know if I wanted it to work. Depression was an easy way to cover my faults and short-comings. Without that excuse, it would be me alone to stand for my actions and that was frightening. Still, I took the medication I was prescribed and…nothing happened.

At least it didn’t feel that way at first. I expected “happiness” to come galloping in and save me from wallowing in the mire as I had for several years. What I felt was only a slight elevation in my mood. Soon, I came to realize what I was given was a new baseline. Previously, my baseline mood was so low that even tremendous and exciting events would only barely bring me to where I believed others were. Medication allowed me to have a more mentally advantageous starting place from which I could more positively and accurately evaluate what was happening around me.

My revolution was understanding that it was still up to me to adjust and control my emotions from day to day. Medication allowed me to do so from a better frame of mind but didn’t, by itself, solve any problems. I still needed to do the work and figure out what I truly enjoyed. I still was required to face difficult issues head on and self-correct afterward, even if the outcome wasn’t to my advantage. As I contemplated my life and the world around me, I needed to adjust where my priorities laid and make the changes I thought required to keep an even keel.

Revolution defined is a fundamental change in your way of thinking, a paradigm shift. My change was dramatically humanist; I have agency, I can critically think and I reject the dogma or superstition of mental health concerns that society as a whole, holds. We all have the power to change. It is easy to be intellectually lazy, to wait for results to come to you, to feel resigned to your condition or hide behind the cowardly notion of others being required to take you how you are. Find your new baseline through medication or otherwise and begin to move forward. You don’t need a significant amount of help, you aren’t broken beyond repair, and it’s not too late. I want to share in this revolution with you and assist if I can. The world is a much better place with your participation, ideas, joy, and love. I look forward to sharing in all of that and more with you.

Trevor

Amber - Finding My Light.

Amber Riedesel - I'm nervous to write this post. It feels deeply uncomfortable, even in a safe space like this. The reason is that my revolution is centered around weight loss, and that topic has so much heft to it (pun intended). We have such complex feelings on weight, appearance, and what is(n't) healthy, both physically and mentally, and for me to talk about weight loss as my revolution feels inauthentic and sadly superficial. But, please try to look past that and hear me out anyway.

I was a heavy kid, even with repeated interventions from my parents. I just didn't enjoy activity and loved fatty foods, simple as that. When I reached 250 lbs at 19 years old, I finally decided to do something about it. You name it, I tried it- probably 15+ attempts within a few years. Finally, my roommate told me about an expensive program of frozen pre-made foods, and weekly consulting- SOMETHING FINALLY WORKED. Over a series of 8 years, I lost 100 pounds (some of which was lost and regained along the way).

So what, right? "You look better…congrats!" No. It means that I am less likely to have my chest cracked open at 42 like my dad (fear). It means that I don't breathe quite as heavily when I try to jog, and I can finally make it up Bascom Hill without having to stop twice and pretend to tie my shoe (shame). I have the mental capacity freed up to focus on other priorities, and not on feeling badly about what I just ate and shouldn't have (incapability). Losing the weight taught me what I can and cannot do, what my priorities are, and shaped my growth in my 20s. I am proud-exuberant-grateful to have accomplished what I set out to do, and it is my revolution, at least for now.

Amber