Anxiety and Depression. My Story, My Finest Hour.

My story today begins with this video.  





This video moved me.  So much so that I thought I have to blog again after months of silence.  I must add my voice here.

I tend to be a strangely positive person.  That is to say I feel like I am, in general, a realist, or a negative person; but for some strange reason I am positive (foolishly so) when it comes to people and human nature.   My descent into deep depression happened gradually.  One trauma on top of another added to traumatic childhood events and a life full of commitments and stresses became too much for me to bear any longer.  Having to be too strong for too long was definitely the case.  I held on as long as I could, but in the end depression won.  It wasn't pretty.  

"We did not ask for this, but together we can fight this"  
                                                 ~Faris Khalifa

Being a reader, I searched high and low for answers to 'solve' this new dilemma.  How do I get back to being 'right' again.  Being 'me' again?  In the process I found information.  I found people who struggle as I do- lots of them.  And I joined a few groups to help support me in my new way of being. Trying to find new ways of coping with my present reality.  

 A lot of what I find online these days talks about stigma.  The stigma of mental illness.  Here's where the strange positivity comes in.  Stigma?  What stigma?  I often thought.  See I like to give people the benefit of the doubt.  

Over this past few weeks I've been interacting with people more.  People who don't know me and my challenges.  Some strangers, some new found friends.  And I've discovered that yes, stigma still exists.  I guess it's always been my sincere hope that people will try to understand others, even if they be strangers.   Try to understand that even though they cannot possibly 'understand' everyone's behaviors and motivations that they too would recognize that most of us are really just trying to do the best we can. 

Then I saw this video.  

The courage of this man astounds me.  Putting himself out there in such a vulnerable way to try to help.  To try to stop the stigma.  I realized I had to add my voice.

This video was painful for me to watch.  I know where he's coming from.  I know that dark place all too well,

"This is not for me....  But for those not as fortunate.   Those who feel like they don't have a voice."
                                                                         ~Faris Khalifa

Lately I've heard opinions expressed about people with mental illness that at first I was tempted to accept.  "After all the one expressing it is a doctor", I thought.   But something wasn't sitting well with me.  I heard things such as "People need an identity, they NEED to be special in some way".  "They wear these diagnoses like a badge".  and "I think what's behind depression is self-pity."

Over the past week I've had some very rough moments.  Moments I thought I might not make it through.  Moments I realized that yes I am much better now than I was- my current holistic treatments are working wonders,  But maybe I will have moments such as these for the rest of my life.  Moments that are too dark to describe.  Moments I think I wont survive, I don't want to survive.  And in those moments it broke my heart to think about what others had said about people with mental illnesses.   Stigma is still alive and well, even among health care professionals.  And this is why I have chosen now to speak up.

 I was diagnosed with a Major Depressive Disorder, PTSD, PMDD (Pre-menstrual Dismorphic Disorder), Body Dismorphic Disorder, Adult ADD and have general Anxiety as well. I have been medicated for all of the above and am still on some meds to this day.   It is not a fact I go around sharing- even though at times it does seriously color my outlook and my life.  And at times I do wish people knew because I feel their confusion at my behavior.  It is not something I am proud of, or would choose to have to deal with.  Honestly it sucks!  And at times sucks the life right out of me.  I am able to appear ok in most circumstances.  And my whole life I have been able to hide my true feelings well.  But it is my diagnosis and something I have to consider everyday.  

The thing about opinions is everyone has one.  And that's ok.  But opinions are just that.  Opinions.  We all have our own based on our perceptions, and our experiences.  Perceptions  are that way as well;  no two people perceive things the same.  We each have our own reality and outlook.  The more I thought of those opinions expressed earlier in the week, the more upset I got.  I wondered what were their opinions based on?  Have they ever had the experience of being abused, physically, verbally or sexually?   Have they ever been in war?  Have they experienced neglect, trauma or broken homes?  Have they had the misfortune of  being homeless?  Or a combination of these things as many people have?   And how can they, having not experienced the full range of things one can experience in this life, make these statements about Depression, Bi-polar,  Anxiety or any disorder or dis-ease really?  In my opinion it is the height of arrogance to make judgements based on what we ourselves, personally know.  We have not experienced what others might have.  We each have our own journey. 

And here's something else to consider.  Why is it that these illnesses seem to be rampant?  What is going on in our society, in our world that has made life so hard to bear for some of us?  Isn't that a better question?  What can we do to help?  

This Stigma is unwarranted.  These mental health issues come from somewhere.  No one chooses them.  No one wants to be 'special' like that!  What about other expressions of disease?  Do we stigmatize cancer patients, or people with heart conditions?  If someone is on Blood pressure meds do we theorize that they wanted this outcome?  That they go around wearing their  diagnoses of Lupus, or Thyroid problems like a badge?  To garner sympathy?  We don't. 

 That would be cruel.  

Why blog?

Sometimes I think, why blog, why even speak?  It's all been done before, it's all been said before.   Sometimes I think why paint? It's all been done before more than a million times... and by those much better than me... but then I have days like today.  Today was a good day.  Twice today because of speaking I recieved huge, and I mean huge compliments.  That doesn't happen very often from strangers.  You just never know do you?

Yesterday sitting in a drive through waiting for our drinks my bitties (what I call my twin pre-schoolers) commented that the girl in the window was very pretty.  So I made a point of looking right at her, to see what they thought was beautiful.  The young girl was pretty.   She looked heavy, and I wondered about that, because she looked a strange kind of heavy, and she was really young looking.  Then I realized she was pregnant.  How tiring that job must be standing for so long, serving with that extra weight and the growth processes going on inside her.  She handed me my drinks, and I passed on the compliment from the bitties.  She got the biggest smile.  I hope it made her day.  I know the two compliments I received today made mine.

I saw this quote the other day and it really says it all here it is



"Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible." 
             Dalai Lama

I was reminded today of my sweet Gramsy.  She would run into homeless people in LA asking for change, and she would buy them shoes, or lunch, or shoes and lunch.  She didn't have much, but she could not turn a hungry person away, ever. She said they could always use shoes.

One day I was shopping by the San Juan Capistrano Mission, actually I was done shopping and in a hurry to get home.  An elderly gentleman approached me and said
"Excuse me ma'am..."
 I was in a parking lot, alone, but it was daytime.  I stopped, looked him in the eye and said "Yes?"
His next words startled me...  "Aren't you afraid?" He asked me.  This caused me to wonder for a moment if I should be,  and I answered  "no, should I be?"  Waiting to see what would happen next.  This elderly gentleman, who happened to be a person of color and in need of some cash, then said "Are you from here?" Now this question was slightly unnerving because I could not see where this conversation was going?  "Yes."  I said.  "Why?"  "You are the first person in this city who has even stopped to look at me today when I spoke to them.  Everyone else was afraid."  I was stunned.  Since the economy took its turn there have been more and more homeless people asking for help here and there.   This particular shopping center I was walking through was full of economically well off people.  People with much more resources than I, and can you imagine?  No really, can you imagine??  In this day and age being treated so poorly.  I was shocked and saddened.

Some people might think me naiive, or just plain gullible for helping someone who may or may not need help.  Who may or may not take that money and do drugs, or drink.  But you know what?  Maybe that one kindness that person recieves that day will be the catalyst they need for change.  Maybe it will be that one ray of hope in a dark and scary world.  Maybe they are not what they seem at all, who knows?  I surely don't.  The way I see it if they are asking me, it is my choice to be loving, or unloving.  I choose loving.
That reminds me of another quote I love.  In the movie (A great movie) called The Kingdom of Heaven  

the king of Jerusalem has a conversations with the main character Balien who believes he has been abandoned by God.


The King speaking to him about the uncertainties of life says this  " When I was sixteen, I won a great victory. I felt in that moment I would live to be a hundred. Now I know I shall not see thirty. None of us know our end, really, or what hand will guide us there. A king may move a man, a father may claim a son, but that man can also move himself, and only then does that man truly begin his own game. Remember that howsoever you are played or by whom, your soul is in your keeping alone, even though those who presume to play you be kings or men of power. When you stand before God, you cannot say, "But I was told by others to do thus," or that virtue was not convenient at the time. This will not suffice. Remember that."


Yes, remember that...