The "UGLY" Truth

If this blog were anonymous, this post would be so much easier to write.
I hovered over the "publish" button for a long while...

So here it goes, welcome to blunt honesty.

My Ugly Truth does not, unfortunately, include Gerard Butler in a romantic comedy with a happy ending...
Instead its that I have an all-encompassing preoccupation with my body.
With logic and self compassion I know that the "ugliness" is not my appearance; its the way I consistently put myself down about it, day after day. Or the times I look in the mirror and don't want to leave the house because I actually get grossed out to the point of feeling nauseous by how I look, or at least how I think I look.

With logic, I know that I'm obviously not fat because I can walk into a store and fit into a small 90% of the time. So then, I beat up on myself for being stupid for beating up on myself in the first place.

If my mind had fists, I'd have a black eye, brusied ribs and a missing tooth or two.

How can these thoughts that are so empty and meaningless - merely brought on by activity in my brain - have such a hold on me? Why, as far back as I can remember, have I never been comfortable with my body, and never been able to swing a fist back at these thoughts?

What could possibly cause me to have so much self-discust that I feel the need to restrict myself from eating, or binge until i feel sick and so guilty I have to get the calories out?

Im a science geek, and to be honest, reading and comprehending research articles on the risks and ineffectiveness of eating disorders, is probably the only thing that keeps me from having one.

Its exhausting, to always be self-conscious of the way I dress, or sit, or stand, or dance, or eat, or laugh, or breath, or run... of my arms, or stomach, or the roll over my jeans... you get the picture... My mind is constantly evaluating how to appear perfect to people around me.

When I'm manic, I lose weight because I exercise a ridiculous amount and don't get hungry. I feel overly confident as opposed to self-concious. And thats the hardest thing for me to give up by going on medication.
And with depression? Its a spiralling cycle. Depressed, no exercise, binge eat, gain weight, more depressed, less exercise, more eating... repeat.

I don't want to be the kind of girl who won't leave the house without makeup, I don't want to be the girl obsessed with her weight, I don't want to be self-conscious comparing myself to every other girl, I don't want to care what other people think, and most of all I don't want to care what I think.

But I don't know how.

Mental Illness is a Coward.

Mental illness is basically a cowardly, sneaky son of a bitch in my opinion.

At least other diseases have the balls to take your life themselves.

Mental illness isn't brave enough or strong enough to to ruin or take your life itself. Instead it makes you do it yourself; stripping you of who you have the capacity to be, of relationships, of career opportunities, of decision making, of reality and so many other things.

All ^ of these things beat a person down repeatedly, again. again. again...

and again, to the point of desperation when sometimes physical pain is the only escape from all of the internal pain you're is feeling, or the idea of living one more day in the hell of your mind surrounded by the hopelessness of your life situation becomes to much. Mental illness storms your mind with negativity and self hate. shame. worthlessness. 

Whether these overbearing feelings and loss of reality lead to suicide, suicidal thoughts, depression etc. mental illness has succeeded in making you and others Think that you are the cause of your downfall, the reason you've "failed" at so many things in life, that you took your own life.

You didn't. Mental illness, like any other illness, took your quality of life, and potentially your life.

By creating awareness and fighting stigma against mental illness we are forcing it to take accountability for its actions.

The Grasp of Bipolar

"wake up
wake up
wake up
wake up
wake up
WAKE UP! " whined the alarm.

"hahaha" He just chuckled, rolling back over taking Her with him. She didn't want to go. The days she'd always loved to explore and live and love... they were gone. He'd taken them; and with each imprisoned day, she too was stolen away.

How can you escape what binds you so closely, what heeds you from within you? What takes who you are, and fragments it as if an antique chandelier had fallen, reduced to a million shattered pieces of crystal; each with it own unique jagged edge, creating an impossibility for reconciliation between them.

She had been fragmented by him, no longer whole; instead an extension of his destructive all-encompassing body. By filling her mind with lies and twisting her heart with emotion he forced her to be the cause of her own downfall. He remained blameless in the shadows.

And then, he was gone as quickly as he'd come. She was free of his grasp. Or so it seemed.

AWAKENED
Ecstatic to be unbound, she lived - high on life itself, soaring through moments which felt like hours and days that passed so quickly they went unnoticed, unremembered, un-regretted. Her current world was blurred, but amazing crisp. Unrelenting thoughts provoked her. Something was luming though, she could sense it around corners, in dark places... had he come back for her?

Immediately she spiralled,
DOWN.
HE is my bipolar, to cope I must separate his grasp from me.
I think this clip from SYTYCD was more based around the hold that drug/alcohol addiction has on people, but it relates to anything that keeps you down or prevents you from being who you truly are or who you want to be. I remember watching this well before I was diagnosed and felt I could connect with it. It has stuck with me ever since.

 >>> For the most part I've tried to make the posts in this blog as positive as possible; partially because I'm naturally optimistic to the point of annoyance... but also because even when feeling immensly down and hopeless, its quite the "pick-me-up" to write about how you want to feel. Fake it 'till you make it right? For me, that actually works. Short-term at least!

This post may not be positive and I don't apologize for that. A day in the life with bipolar is a lot harder to spin positively when looking at the mere daily coping - day to day, hour to hour, minute to minute - as opposed to viewing BP from a broader perspective as a life long journey, rather then a death sentence.

Day 1: back to the real world

After dropping my fall semester this year due to a manic episode which lead to the diagnosis of BP, I'm back at school for winter semester. I've been wildly lucky to have had a relatively side-effect free and effective experience with the medications I'm on. It's just been in the past week or so, however, that theres been a noticeable difference with regard to the stability of my moods.

The feeling of needing to crawl out of my skin is a lot less frequent.
I don't feel like crying every second of the day.
People don't piss me off (as much!).
My ability to concentrate on simple tasks has improved.
Anddd, I can ACTUALLY get out of bed a lot of the time without dreading the thought of having an entire day to suffer through.
Over all I feel 'less' depressed/hopeless/apathetic toward life. (Although 'less' is relative to the over bearing quality of these feelings)

As much a medication has clearly helped me, I don't think i'd be where I am if I didn't have the support from my friends and family, and most importantly myself. For me personally, being aware and acknowledging depression as a biological thing, helped me to treat it as such, and push through. Did I need a lonnnng while to spend my days doing little more than breathing? Did I also spend those days feeling horrible in every way? Yes and yes. But this depression was shorter and different then other periods of depression I've felt, and I think its because I knew why I was feeling down and useless and hopeless and agitated and indescribably tired. It was the knowing that enabled me to avoid falling deeper and deeper-- I knew the cause of my symptoms and could change my way of thinking to offset them. 

This isn't me saying I'm some sort of professional at dealing with this disorder. Nobody is professional at anything really, theres always more you can learn. In my case, the learning to be done is how to cope... and this learning will be done over the course of my entire life.

So today is DAY 1 back at school; being on campus; living with my roommates; getting my classes in order. And it feels good. Really good. I don't expect that the next few months of my life are going to feel like this, I know school is going to be more stressful and harder for me than usual, I know that avoiding the partying involved in university life is going to be tricky, AND I also know that a few weeks in, I may realize that I'm not ready to be back at school, and return home. The idea of not being able to finish the semester sucks, theres no way around it, but I'm already proud of myself just for trying, and even having a few weeks of being more social and busy will help me to keep that going if I end up back at home.

TODAY:  I woke up. I went to the gym. I booked appointments. I tackled some online banking. I planned a daily/weekly schedule. I'm writing this post. & the day is only half over.

I accept that somedays, the waking up is as far as i'll get.

But I don't accept that most days waking up is as good as it gets. I want more than to just "get by".

Stomp out stigma-- Start with YOU

So today I was thinking...
Of course I was thinking, I'm always thinking- Great, now I'm even thinking about thinking.

Back on track now...

[TO CLARIFY: In this post I separate physical health from mental health in order to compare why there is more stigma around mental health. I DO NOT believe that they are separate entities at all. Health is Health, good or bad, visible or not.]

Social Media, charaties and organizations are working to eliminate stigma surrounding mental illness. Why is there stigma around an illness that manifests invisibly in the brain, as opposed to an illness which is physically present? I think the main issue is ignorance toward the reality and commonality of mental in illness in contrast to the many stereotypes- psycho, crazy, loner...

On top of this, symptoms of mental illness are a lot harder to spot than symptoms of physical health. If you have the flu you may be sweaty, sluggish and vomiting... people around you may not want to get to close!- but they most likely feel a sense of empathy toward you, as they can see you are not feeling well. And will probably excuse you for being grouchy, or not getting all of your work done.

However what if those surrounding you are unaware you have an illness? And you're in a depressive state, trying you're very hardest to keep your head above water. Everything is exhausting. You may start to fall behind at work, or show up late, making you seem lazy. Or maybe everything you're going through has increased your stress level so much that you snap at a friend or co-worker. They probably just think you're being a bitch. Theres a good chance you'll with-draw from people and not be very sociable, making you no fun to be around.

SIDE NOTE: even if someone does recognize your recent behaviours are not normal for you they may ask "are you feeling okay?"... and instead of simply saying "I have the flu" you'd have to reply with something like "I suffer from depression, I have Bipolar, I have Schizophrenia," each of these infinitely more difficult to say, let alone explain to a person who may or may not be supportive.

These are symptoms as a result of mental illness. You are sick, no different from the flu. Except that, from the outside you seem well, so your "symptoms" are most likely perceived as character flaws.

Bringing me to the rant about you, yes YOU. Whoever you are, if you suffer from a mental illness (including ME) read this.

We, (those of us sick) are working to see a change in the way people view mental illness and those effected by it; by attempting to change the opinions of those who let their ignorance of mental disease effect the way the see and treat sufferer's... I'm not by any means saying anyone involved in trying to educate others and raise awareness should stop, I will always advocate for those with mental illness, as I did even before I was diagnosed. BUT how can we expect others to see us as being worth love and compassion if its not even seen by ourselves?

I've been reading a ton of blogs about Bipolar and other Mental illnesses, often what I discover is that the general self view/perception, is one of a negative nature, feelings of being a burden or unlovable and so on. Once again, I'm not saying this is is everyone or that its not understandable to feel this way, as I often feel this way. A lot of the negative thoughts people with mental illness oppose on themselves are very similar to those felt by people physically ill.

But heres the ugly truth, how can others love/understand/empathize with those affected by mental illness if we don't love/understand/empathize with ourselves?

The task of learning to apply these things toward ourselves is no smaller task than trying to get wide-spread social attitudes to change regard to mental health.

If you have any friends or family you feel you can be open with about your illness, doing so will be a huge step toward creating more awareness about mental illness, the more people know (as in number of people AND amount of information) the less the stigma.

My wish for 2013

I'm not feeling very celebratory.
If I look at the black and white of my past year it seems like there is nothing to celebrate, it was a tough, stressful and roller coaster of a year. It also feels like theres nothing to look forward to celebrate in the New Year --  I have a disorder that can't be cured and is going to make life difficult everyday for the rest of my life (talk about daunting!). This^ is how I'm feeling right now, or maybe this is what my disorder is making me feel right now... 'cause I'm pretty sure I'm smarter than to look at things from a black/white perspective. Either way, its no fun.

Now I'm going to write about the little nuances of happiness that have filled my past year and hope that both my Bipolar and other self start thinking a little more positively. Warning to myself... This might not work, and thats okay.

"HEY, guess what? It worked. After finishing this post I feel much more positive about my past, present and future." [keep reading to see my wish for 2012]

and now, cheers to some of the grey areas!

(and NO not Christian Grey, although I must admit I did read 50 Shades)

I started my first year at the University of Guelph, I love the city, its so beautiful and green, my residence was right beside the Arboretum, I loved walks/runs through there.
Even though I didn't get to class often, when I did I was engaged in what I was learning. I had the amazing opportunity of working with Alastair Summerlee, the president of UoG in one of my classes.
I made some amazing friends.
The Ranch, The Bullring. Enough said, its a Guelph thing haha
I went to Mexico with my best friend, it was incredibly beautiful there and the culture was so vibrant, the people so full of life.
I've become closer with my older brother.
I've found new hobbies and improved at old ones
I've become closer with my parents
I've been diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder. Yes, thats a positive.
After being diagnosed I've been able to prioritize the importance of things in my life.
^sleep, exercise, routine, low stress, realistic self-expectations and most importantly surrounding myself with caring, loving individuals.

Happiest moment of 2012?
Fishing with my brother, (who is essentially addicted to fishing) and catching a small mouth bigger than he or my dad (also an avid fisherman) have ever caught -- on a hook and a worm, *with a bobber!
The hilarity of it was the two of us, in this little tin boat, trying to land this massive fish -- which I didn't know was massive at the time, as he opted not to tell me so I wouldn't freak.

So there we are, him yelling at me to reel fast, then stop reeling, then reel, then keep the tip of the rod down, me squealing like a girl, probably doing the opposite of what he told me. The bobber eventually stopped the line from reeling any further so I had to hold my hands above my head to get the bass up high enough to be netted by my brother who was leaning over the side of the boat with a ridiculous sized net (how we didn't tip I have no clue). We eventually landed the fish, a job well done on both accounts. Brother-Sister high fives and smiles were exchanged.

I'm sure there are other times in my life when I've actually FELT uninhibited joy, as opposed to thinking about the happiness of a situation and choosing my outward mood appropriately to suit, but I can't really think of them right now. It sounds a little strange for this to be my most favourite memory of 2012 but I didn't even have to think about smiling, in fact I couldn't stop smiling! This experience was so brief, maybe 10 minutes for the reeling ridiculousness and a few precious moments with my big ass fish! But in all honesty this one moment made an entire year of struggle worth it. This is one lesson learned that I will carry with me forever. As humans we are able to endure and obscene amount of suffering. So many suffer infinitely worse than I do, every moment of every day... Yet we are still here, still breathing, sill thriving, unwilling to give up.

So this is my wish for 2013: For all those who suffer from mental illness to remember the little bits of happiness, no matter how small, and remember that they are what we live for. Cling to life and force it to feed you more moments of happiness, don't hesitate or shy away, embrace them and hold them with importance.

Finding comfort in a song

This video has been my 'go-to' for several days now, the lyrics are so relatable and his voice echoes the struggles he's endured, still managing to show the promise and resilience we are all capable of.

Truly Inspired.

To me this song is a way of saying that no matter what you struggle with and how long you are effected by it, pushing through the sorrow is worth it to get to the other side. The grass may not always be greener so to speak, but you will find life in yourself where there once was none. Hold so strongly onto the fact that the length of your pain (though unbearable at times) will be something of your past which can help you to mend yourself and your relationships. Let it shape your character with empathy, understanding, and the appreciation of happiness.

Let the good times (however seldom or often they come along) be superior to the suffering, find strength in what is right now, and what is to come, instead of dwelling on your past.

LYRICS:
I was tied, but now unbound
My head is off the ground
For a long time I was so weary
Tired of the sound, I've heard before, 
The gnawing of the night time at the door, 
Haunted by the things I've made
Stuck between the burning light and the dust shade.
I said now I used to think the past was dead and gone, 
But I was wrong, so wrong, whatever makes you blind
Must make you strong, make you strong, 
In my time I've melted into many forms
From the day that I was born, I know that there's no place to hide
Stuck between the burning shade and the fading light, 
I was broken, For a long time, but It's over now.

Yes and you, and you, 
Well you walk these lonely streets that people send, People send.
There are some wounds that just can't mend, I do pretend, pretend, 
I am free from all the things that take my friends
But I will stand hear till the end, I know that I can take the moon, 
In between the burning shade and the fading light
I was broken, for a long time, but It's over now
I was broken, for a long time, but It's over now