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So what in the actual hell is radical acceptance? Let me lay out a scenario for you from my life:

I’m married to an amazing human, Daniel. He’s amazing to and for me. He loves me. He cares for me. He comforts me. But, just like any human, he is flawed. One of Daniel’s biggest challenges is not shutting down when we have a disagreement. One of my biggest challenges is not pushing him when he shuts down. I am not one to immediately run away from confrontation or disagreements. In fact, I’m the sort that will keep pushing, and pushing, and pushing, until I metaphorically push the person off a cliff. It’s something I know about myself that isn’t exactly the healthiest approach to disagreements. There are some folks that just cannot handle a disagreement in one sitting. Some people need time to process, to think, to gather their thoughts, and then readdress the issue when they are clear in their minds and able to communicate their thoughts concisely. That would be Daniel.

Early in our relationship in nearly every disagreement he would shut down and I would push for further communication until he had to get his keys and leave. I’ll tell you, for someone with BPD, a partner who leaves is overwhelmingly emotional. I would begin to think that our relationship was over, that he didn’t love me, and that I had ruined everything. Then, I would become angry and upset, wanting to blame him, instead of looking at myself and what I could do differently. I would stew over the disagreement having happened in the first place because “how could he just shut down like that?” Why was it so damned difficult for him to have a discussion? Why did he feel attacked when all I was trying to do was communicate? Why did he have to leave, leaving me all alone and feeling abandoned?

This is where radical acceptance changed this narrative. Radical acceptance is about changing your attitude. As the The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook states, “The other option, which radical acceptance suggests, is to acknowledge your present situation, whatever it is, without judging the events or criticizing yourself. Instead, try to recognize that your present situation exists because of a long chain of events that began far in the past.” [page 10, McKay, Wood, & Brantley].

Yeah, I know, this seems easier said than done. I get it. It’s not an overnight change. But, here’s the deal, when has being angry over an event changed the event? When has stewing about an event ever made it any different, or resolved the issue? You can’t change what has been done. All you can do is radically accept that it has happened and refocus your attention on what you CAN DO. Radical acceptance is seeing a situation and yourself as it really is, not as you wish it had been. This is huge for someone with BPD. I have wasted innumerable hours, probably years, focusing on how I thought it should have been. I have to say, I want all that time back, but it is gone, and now I have to accept what happened, happened. I have to accept that I can never change the past. I have to accept that though I can’t change the past, I can refocus my attention on what I can do now, in this moment.

So how does this change the narrative between myself and Daniel. Well, it has actually changed our relationship in a huge way. I no longer push him to talk when he cannot talk. I give him space to think. I practice radical acceptance and walk away, giving him the dignity of his personal thought processing, and giving myself the dignity of respecting his needs. I radically accept that we are different people. I radically accept that sometimes we have to take a break when we disagree, go to our separate corners, and readdress the issue later. It isn’t easy for me. I have to calm myself down using coping statements that reaffirm what radical acceptance is, and why it’s important. Here are a few statements that I use:

• “The present is the only moment I have control over.”
• I can only control myself, not others.
• “This moment is exactly as it should be, given what’s happened before it.”
• “This moment is the result of over a million other decisions.”
• You can choose to accept this moment, as it is, and refocus your attention on what you can do.
• I must respect the needs and boundaries of others, and accept that they are different from myself.
• A disagreement is not the end of my relationship with someone.
• I accept what has happened.
• I will focus on myself and what I can do and change.

[Those in quotations are from the workbook, page 11]

One of the most awesome things about radical acceptance is it isn’t just for relationships. It can be used and practiced in every area of life. For instance, I live with chronic pain 24/7/365. The pain is all over my body, presenting in different ways. Before I started practicing radical acceptance I use to sit and mentally fight with the pain, being angry that I even had pain, and wondering why I had to suffer. But, radical acceptance has helped me accept that I am in pain and being angry about it, and questioning “why me” is not going to change that I am in pain. In fact, most of the time, in that mental paradigm, it simply makes the pain worse, amplifying it. With radical acceptance, I focus on what I can do. I CAN take my pain medications as prescribed. I CAN do physical therapy as prescribed. I CAN refocus my mind on something I enjoy doing, like creating art. I CAN offer comfort and support to others experiencing the same. I CAN live a full life, full of joy and happiness despite the pain.

As you can see, starting with radical acceptance can change your life, well, radically. This is a starting point for those with BPD. And, it’s a good starting point because those with BPD have a really hard time with acceptance. I know I did, and still do, which is why I have to practice radical acceptance every day. Something that I have done is to write my statements of radical acceptance down in a mini-note card book. I bought it at Wal-Mart for $1.88, but you can make your note cards out of anything. You can write them down, and stick them to your bedroom wall, or anywhere that you feel they will remind you of radical acceptance. Writing them down also has the added benefit of helping you remember your statements of radical acceptance. I encourage anyone with BPD, and even those without the BPD diagnosis who are simply trying to learn acceptance, to write their statements down and refer to them anytime they need a reminder.

I hope that today’s blog is helpful. For anyone with questions, feel free to message. Please remember that I am not a therapist, or a healthcare provider. I’m just another human in recovery from borderline personality disorder. I encourage anyone to seek help from licensed mental healthcare professionals if you feel you may have BPD, or you have already been diagnosed with BPD.

As always, if anyone is feeling suicidal, please contact 911, or the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1-800-273-8255. You are not alone, and death is not the answer.

 

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I was on the phone with my brother, Josh, the other day. I was telling him how I was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder but I was in recovery. He said, “You can be cured of that?” To which I replied, “It’s one of the only personality disorders that someone can truly recover from.”

Maybe there’s hope and recovery for other personality disorders with newer treatments but when I was introduced to Dialectal Behavioral Therapy (DBT), that was what I was told. That if a person with Borderline Personality Disorder really worked hard and had the desire to change, they could indeed recover from it, and that it was the only personality disorder thought to be curable. Of course, time will probably prove that wrong. I believe there is hope for all who live with a personality disorder, if they want to change and are willing to work hard.

That’s what I have to do. I have to work at it. It’s a daily practice. I am still growing and learning and coping, and will hope to do that for the rest of my life. I am currently going through a workbook called “The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook” by McKay, Wood, and Brantley.

And, I’d like to share some of my work within the book as I go through it. If you want to purchase the workbook, you can do that here.*

As many of you might know those with BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder) find some pretty interesting coping mechanisms to deal with their emotions and problems. Here’s a list of mine:

• Spending time thinking about past pain, mistakes, and problems.
• I get anxious worrying about possible future pain, mistakes, and problems.
• I isolate myself from other people to avoid distressing situations.
• I use to engage in dangerous behaviors such as cutting. I still deal with picking at sores, and pulling out hair. In fact, yesterday I burned hair off my arm to deal with feeling alone.
• I use to engage in unsafe sexual activities, such as having sex with strangers and having unprotected sex.
• I use to avoid dealing with the causes of my problems, such as abusive or dysfunctional relationships (i.e. men I dated, my mother)
• I use food to punish and control myself by eating too much.
• I have attempted suicide seven times
• I avoid pleasant activities, such as social events and exercise, because I don’t think that I deserve to feel better, sometimes.

In the workbook it says, “All of these strategies are paths to even deeper emotional pain, because even the strategies that offer temporary relief will only cause you more suffering in the future.” It’s true. None of these fix the issues, they just create more issues. I still struggle with a lot. But that’s what recovery is. Struggling to do what is best for me, and eventually, it becomes less and less of a struggle. Practice doesn’t make perfect, but it makes it easier each time I choose a healthier coping method.

The workbook will go on to discuss healthy coping mechanisms. I will blog about my responses to the workbook, and share how I cope in future blogs. So, stay tuned. Shit is gonna get real and personal, but maybe it will help someone**, and that’s so worth it.

Original photography by Harmony R. Greenwood-Hogg

 

*I am not receiving any incentive to link the workbook.

**If you believe you have a personality disorder or mental illness, please seek professional help. I am not a therapist or healthcare professional. You can find a therapist here.

If you’re experiencing suicidal thoughts please contact 911 or reach out to the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1-800-273-8255.

 

 

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This blog is all about being real. So I’m going to get really real here. Most weeks, I take one shower a week. Mental illness, in combination with physical chronic pain and illness, make it very difficult for me to shower. Combing my hair is a colossal task. Shaving my legs and armpits? Forget about it. I think I have an inch of hair growth on my legs. I keep the dry shampoo and water-less body wash industry in business.

Depression and chronic pain make the simplest tasks seem like an arduous pilgrimage.

I know I’m not the only one who sprays her hair with dry shampoo and cleans the essential body parts with water-less soap. Why else would there be such products? So, I suppose the question is, how do you move forward with self care when you can’t even make a simple meal to eat?

Will power? Meh. I generally have little will power when it concerns my needs. No, I think it has to be deeper than that. I think it has to involve community. I think it requires vulnerability in a relationship to ask for help.

This weekend my husband helped me shower. He lovingly scrubbed my back. He offered to scrub my hair with shampoo because my arms were so weak. He helped me in and out of the shower so that I would not slip and fall, one of my body’s favorite things to do. He was there for me. He saw my needs and he took the time to assist me in self care.

Initially it’s embarrassing, honestly, but then it’s magical. To have someone lovingly clean you, to care for you with compassion, is one of the most vulnerable things you can do. In that vulnerability you find a deep connection with that person that cannot be recreated any other way. There I am, naked, stinky, hairy, and gravity has taken hold of every ounce of fat. But that isn’t what he sees. To him, there I am, vulnerable and humble, in need of loving attention, still hairy but he doesn’t see that. He sees my shape and loves it. He sees me. The real me. The me without barriers. To me, that is magical. It is an intimate and sacred moment shared between lovers.

Maybe you don’t have a partner that can wash you. Maybe you have a best friend that can sit beside you while you take a bath. Or maybe you have a pet that can lie beside you as you scrub a dub dub. It might look a little bit different than my experience but it is the act of reaching out that propels us to take care of ourselves. We realize just how important we are to those who love us, and it gives us the courage and bravery to fight through the darkness of depression.

I think self care is so important. Mondays, for me, are dedicated to self care. I take the time to connect with myself. I listen to music. I create art. I write. I sing. I dance. I give myself facials and simple manicures. I reach out to friends and check up on them, furthering that connection that is so vital to surviving and thriving with mental illness.

Last night I told my best friend that I would shower, and then get dressed in non-pajama clothing, and I might even put on some simple makeup. I don’t want to overdo it and cause burn out, but telling my friend of my plans to care for myself pushes me to do it. This is why I believe self care involves community.

Today I hope you can reach out to a family member or a friend and seek help with self care. Maybe today your self care simply involves getting out of the house and meeting a friend for coffee. Maybe it involves a wash and haircut at your favorite salon. Or maybe it involves sleep. Whatever you need today, I hope you do it. Be vulnerable. Be humble. Be courageous. Be brave. Reach out and build your community, your support beams.

Successful Failures

There are not many places more lonely and desperate than the darkness of suicide. This monster has plagued me my entire life. I can remember as early as five years old wanting to leave this earth and be in heaven. It has stayed with me through the years and while I have attempted suicide 7 different times, I have successfully failed.

That’s what I call them, successful failures, because if there is one thing you want to fail at in this life, it is a suicide attempt. Some people say if you are really suicidal you will succeed. I call that a bunch of malarkey. Many times those who are suicidal, and attempt suicide, fail simply because they are unaware of what it actually takes to end your life. The body may be fragile, but it is also resilient, and does everything in its power to survive even the worst circumstances.

In the moment I am always dismayed at yet another failure. Each time I received mental health help. I’ve been in too many psychiatric hospitals to remember them all. I’m not a fan of psychiatric hospitals, where they treat you like a criminal, strip searching you when you’re at your most vulnerable, taking away comfort like a teddy bear, not letting you smoke, making you have private conversations in a hallway with a line of folks waiting behind you, the uncomfortable, sparse rooms void of anything resembling a home, rooming with a complete stranger who is sometimes worse off than you and triggers you over and over, the unpalatable food, and the hurried rush to get you “better” enough to discharge you.

I really believe that we need a different approach to treating suicidal patients. They are already losing control, and then all control is snatched away, and your forced to live in a way that is not yourself. You get “better” just to get out of there and get some of your control back. I know I have lied through my teeth that I was not suicidal, when in fact I was, just so I could go home, be with my dog, sleep in my bed, and have comfortable clothes on again. Needless to say, nothing changes.

Nothing changed for me for years. I remained depressed and suicidal without appropriate care because of the turmoil and trauma I had experienced within psychiatric hospitals.

It wasn’t until I moved to Texas in 2012 that things began to change for me. Without insurance I was forced to get care from a state funded outpatient mental health facility. It was there that I met with a case manager, a psychiatrist, and a therapist that all worked together to get me better. A real better. I met with my psychiatrist monthly, but my case manager and counselor I met with weekly. It was their persistent care, their proximity, their dedication that eventually saw me through to a better place. I cannot be more grateful for their help.

I still have moments when I’m suicidal. The desire to die is unwanted and yet it runs in the background of my mind constantly. There are days I indulge the thoughts, but those days are becoming less frequent, thankfully.

Over the years I’ve built a support network of close, trusted friends that I can call on when things get too heavy, too dark, too depressing. They remind me the moment will pass, and tomorrow is a new day. They help me see my own goodness and what I add to the world that no one else can. They love me as I am so that I can love myself as I truly am. They celebrate my life and are thankful for my successful failures at suicide.

I am truly thankful for so much. Today I am writing about suicide, and not contemplating and planning another attempt, or resting 6 feet under. Today I am helping others reach beyond their suicidal thoughts and giving them reason to hope and to flourish. Today I am alive, breathing, and truly enjoying who I am, where I am, and what I do. So today I am thankful for my 7 successful failures. I celebrate these failures and celebrate the life I still have. I celebrate everyone’s successful failures at suicide.

A Holy Departure

There are times I relish the silence. No screens. No music. No chatter. Just…

This is my silent time. The rising moon brings with it a beautiful silence that can only be experienced from midnight to 4 AM. I’ve had many silent nights. I consume the silence with crafting, reading, or just sitting still in its splendid, comforting healing.

As someone who has recovered from borderline personality disorder silence is my saving grace. It’s when I recharge. It’s when I reflect. It’s when I forgive myself of all my blunders. It’s when I encourage myself to keep at it, and not let my mental wellness slip away into the chaos of a personality disorder, depression, or anxiety.

Silence is a precious commodity in today’s world, but it is essential for my mental wellness. I think that it is likely essential for most people’s mental wellness. I hope more people will find the courage to brave the silence and receive its gifts.

I want to be more intentional in my silence. I want to create a sort of practice of silence. Maybe candles. Maybe incense. I want there to be a sacredness to it; a holy departure from the cacophony of life.

Photo by Harmony Greenwood 10/2016

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I created this blog to talk mostly about my personal struggle with mental illness, how I pursue mental wellness, and how to prevent and overcome suicide and suicidal thoughts.

There’s another aspect to my struggle that I have not talked about much on this blog. Not only do I have many mental illnesses, which include borderline personality disorder, bipolar II, post traumatic stress disorder, and general anxiety disorder, but I also have several other medical conditions that cause chronic pain.

I have chronic pain nearly all over my body. On any given day I could be experiencing back pain, leg pain, hip pain, knee pain, neck pain, muscle pain, burning sensations throughout, and various other painful symptoms, nearly always at one time. My daily average on the pain scale, 1 being least amount and 10 being the worst pain you can imagine, sits around a 6. I see many doctors for the various issues I have that cause the pain, including a pain management specialist.

The struggle to get proper treatment for chronic pain, especially when you have a mental illness medical record, can be very difficult, if not impossible. Many are assumed to be drug seekers, or disbelieved as it all being in their head. To that I say, “Duh!” The brain is part of the body and chronic pain is a brain disorder. Chronic pain differs wildly, and vastly, from acute pain. It is no longer pain caused by an injury but rather pain caused by a signal in the brain on repeat. The switch never gets flipped back off after the injury heals and so the pain signal continues. The link between the brain and chronic pain is undeniable and scientifically proven.

Can chronic pain cause you to be depressed? Absolutely. It can either cause it or it can exacerbate an already present depression disorder. Can depression cause pain? Yes, it can. For those with existing chronic pain, depression can amplify the pain. It’s a vicious circling cycle of misery. Does this mean that the pain experience is contrived and not real? Absolutely not. It is very real. And there are very real medications that help dampen the pain signal very effectively.

It has taken years of pinballing my way around the medical community to finally find my current, and most wonderful, pain specialist. I was referred to her by my primary care doctor, with whom I have a solid foundation and relationship. It’s important for those with chronic pain and chronic disorders or diseases to maintain a relationship with a primary care provider. Your primary care doctor will advocate for you and will know best which specialists they trust and work well with. In this case, my physician’s professional relationship with my pain doctor has added validity to my request for effective pain management. It takes a medical village to keep a chronically ill person going with a tolerable quality of life.

While medications can and do offer me a better quality of life, my best coping tool is my humor, and my willingness to laugh at myself and my chronic conditions. I choose to not let them be my identity. I choose to not let them rule my day or my mind. It isn’t exactly easy and there are days I want to crawl into a hole, pull the dirt back over me, and die; terrible truth. However, having such a dedicated team of doctors, an empowering and supportive circle of friends, and goals for the future keep me going even on the darkest of days.

I hope for a day when all pain patients are treated with dignity and respect. I hope for the day when doctors truly find empathy for their patients and see their humanity and not just charts and tests. I hope for the day when having mental illness is not an indictment against your character, and an excuse for medical professionals to dismiss patients as drug seekers. I hope for a day that mental illness and chronic pain are curable, but until then, I hope most for courage to still see the beauty in this life and to be present each day.

 

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Nine year olds dream about lots of things: Prince Charming, unicorns, and fairies. I dreamt of being a neurosurgeon. I’m thirty-six now. I’m sitting in my makeshift office, intended for a dining table. I don’t have a dining table. My dining room office occupies 1/5 of my 632 square foot, one bedroom apartment. I don’t own a car in my name. I don’t have a savings account. I never got a college degree. I’m now disabled. I’m on 17 medications a day. I have, on average, 6 doctor appointments a month. I can barely keep up with the dishes and laundry. Essentially, I doused my dreams with gasoline, and set them on fire, and with it, hope went up in smoke.

My nine year old self sits in between my ears, behind my eyes, surveying the damage, climbing the rubble, looking for dreams, sifting for hope. She brings me my tattered dreams and ashen hope, collected in a charred metal tin, and says,

“See, you can still do so much. Take these tattered dreams, and ashen hope, and grow something spectacular.”

Original photography by Harmony Greenwood

“I don’t think I can be a neurosurgeon anymore, though,” I respond with matured sensibility.

“I don’t want to be that anymore, anyhow,” She vacillates, “I think now I want to help people like me. People who hurt inside. People who need to be loved, but no one wants to love them because they are too hard to love. I think that’s what I’m really good at. I love you, a whole lot.”

 

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Where do I go? Why the silence? All I can say is I’m here. Words are pinging against the walls of a prison cell I created inside my head. Doubt lives there. Anxiety marches the halls and doling out daily rations of fear.

What the hell is there to actually be afraid of? Sure, someone could say something mean, but that game is so old to me, I win it before it was ever started. Maybe it’s a wall, but it’s a well placed wall. I just laugh and literally have a laughing fit when people say mean things. Coping mechanisms are weird, aren’t they? I would say this one is healthy except sometimes it escalates things. Tiny people with their huge ass egos are intriguing to me. Why are they that way? What happened to them? Love is obviously absent from their small worlds.

I don’t want to write for money. I feel like it makes it less valuable. Like selling gold for pennies. Words are sacred. I need my motive pure. There’s the bulk of my hangups; I’m a constant philosopher on motive and intent. I got that obsession from a previous pastor friend of mine. Don’t worry, the religious shit never stuck to me, but I did pick up some wisdom in that experience, and denying it would be folly.

I do love it, though. Writing is breathing when my words are out of their prisons. Lately I’ve been taking Abilify just to see if it would help with my depression more than just my Effexor, and I have to say, it is helping. I’ve been more creative, more active, and more motivated to change my life and make it what I want it to be.

Making my life what I want it to be has always been incredibly difficult for me. I’m almost 37 and I still don’t know what this adulting shit is all about. I wish I did. I think my anxiety would be a lot less intense if I could just figure it all out. Like I’d think it’d be super cool if I was an Adulting Wizard that walked around with a staff that had a globe on top, into which I could see the future of someone. Then I could help them with their taxes cause I’m a badass Adulting Wizard. Anyhow, I digress into rabbit trails of imagination.

Photographed and edited by Harmony R G Hogg

 

I guess right now, after a friend mentioned he thought I ought to look into a degree in journalism, I’ve been giving it more thought, but the writing, well it must begin again. No more silence. Journalism or not, I am getting a degree in Psychology because if I was ever going to write about something I’m passionate about, it’s mental illness, mental healthcare, and mental wellness. It’s so important to me.

Life is fucking scary. It’s also incredibly beautiful. That’s what I try not to forget most of the time. Life is beautiful. It really is. I mean, today, I had my vagina and rectum examined by a stranger (no worries, this was by a licensed medical profressional). That was not really fucking pleasant. It basically sucked. But the walking outside, waiting for the buses, the sky this vibrant blue with fluffy clouds, and the wind so gusty you’d think you might fly away, that was fucking beautiful. Being slapped by my earrings was a might unpleasant, but so what. It was still fucking beautiful.

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I need to talk about something. The something isn’t so easy to talk about. A few months ago I was introduced to a young lady that has mental illness. I try to be there for those with mental illness, especially young people.

She said she was seventeen. She said she was being abused. She said she had been sex trafficked for 10 years of her life, sold by her mother. She said she had given birth to seven children, all of which had died or been murdered. She said she was raped almost daily by her foster father who she calls Popaw. She said her neighbor harassed her and molested her. She said there was never any food in the house, and that they would eat out and not feed her. She said the man who abused her for ten years was in prison for murder, and that the cops found her naked and chained to a bed in the basement. She said that they never bought her clothes. She said her social worker told her “living isn’t for everyone.”

She said a lot of things and I believed her. I believed every word because she said no one believed her. She started calling me Mommy, and I let her because her own mother had betrayed her. I felt close to her story because I too had been betrayed by my own mother, more than once. No, she never sold me into sex trafficking, but she regularly broke my trust growing up. She regularly emotionally abused me. She abused me physically as a young child. In my adulthood, my mother became a background character that I could not trust or have in my life for my own mental health. So, of course I felt close to this young lady. Of course I wanted to help heal her wounds. Of course I had empathy for her. My compassion for those suffering is grand and wide.

I spent countless nights worrying about her safety. I cried every day for her. I invested time, energy, and money. I sent her things in the mail. I stayed up late messaging her on Facebook to get her through wanting to kill herself and cutting herself. I involved another friend in helping her. I involved a lot of others with her story in hopes of finding some way to help her. And they were all helpful and wanted to help her have a better future. I started calling every foundation under the sun to get her the help she needed. Needless to say, I was exhausted and my mental wellness took a dive.

I personally started self injuring, creating sores that I could pick at, and picking at sores that happened from just living and being clumsy. I started ignoring my need for sleep so I could be there for her. I was constantly on messenger even when hanging out with friends, explaining why I was messenger so they wouldn’t think I was rude.

Then the day came that I encouraged her to call me so we could three way call the Runaway help line because every organization said that at her age, she would likely need to run away to get the help she needed. You read that right: the only solution for a girl with her history is to run away. So she did call me, and then I three way called the Runaway help line. We got a rep on the phone that was very willing to help, but then she went silent, as if she had hung up. She wouldn’t answer the lady back. She wouldn’t answer me back. Nothing. Just silence. So, I had to end the call.

I spent the next few hours trying to understand why she did that. I asked her why and she said she froze. Which I could understand having mental illness myself. But then she said she can’t run away. That she wouldn’t run away. That she would not spend any time in a shelter. That she has no money for a bus ticket, even when I offered to pay the bus ticket. Even when I offered to send spending money for food, just long enough for her to get help with transitional housing and food. Every excuse under the sun was given for why she could not leave the abusive environment she was in.

For the first time, I became suspicious. Why? Because I know that if I was 17 in an abusive environment, I would grab what would fit into a backpack and high tail it out of there. And I did at the age of 17. I ran away. My mother had used a belt to beat me for smoking cigarettes, so I grabbed my backpack and started walking the 5 miles to Burger King, the place of my employment, to hopefully get help from a coworker and find some place to stay.

With my suspicions high, I started to talk with a friend. That friend started to do some digging and found her mother’s Facebook profile. I messaged her mother, asking her to verify some details of her story, but I did not give her any details of her daughter’s story. That’s when I got a response back from the mother explaining that she had never been sold into sex trafficking, that she had never been raped. That she had never been pregnant or given birth to seven babies. That she was actually living with her adoptive grandparents, the grandpa being a blood relative and the grandmother being a step grandmother. She had lived with them since age 12, being legally adopted by them by the age of 13. She explained that she gets messages like mine at least once a month and that her daughter had been doing this since she was 13. The mother explained that her daughter was mentally ill and that they had done everything to get her the help she needed, but to no avail. She refused to go to counseling, and that if she said she was going to counseling every week, that too was a lie. They couldn’t make her go anymore.

The mother indicated that she would let her mother know (the grandmother), and that the best thing to do in this situation was to block her and move on with my life. She asked me to call the grandmother. So, I did. I spent an hour on the phone with the grandmother who profusely apologized. She did not realize that she was at it again, but had become suspicious when she started receiving presents from me and the friend that I had involved in her story and life. She told me that they had done everything they could to help her, involving the courts with hopes of getting help, with no results.

I had been catfished. I was incredibly sad. I was incredibly angry. I was embarrassed. How did I not see it? How had I, a skeptic by nature, been fooled? The answer is simple, really: I was an empath and she played on my emotions, and did so expertly. She was playing on hundreds of people’s emotions. Having people from all over the world send her things because her story said that no one else was. In reality, her grandmother said that they regularly took her shopping for clothes because she kept gaining weight. They regularly fed her along with the rest of the family. That they cared for her, but had reached the end of their rope and that sometimes they weren’t so nice to her because they simply had had enough. They had had enough of her lies, her laziness, and her meanness. She wasn’t a nice person if she didn’t get her way, so they nearly give in every time to try and keep the peace, prisoners of her rage. At 78, the grandmother is weary and exhausted.

I can imagine she is. I was weary and exhausted. I had invested so much into this young lady and it was all a lie. I felt betrayed. I felt stupid. I felt embarrassed by my naivety. I had been duped, in the most grand way. Which is why I’m here sharing this story today.

I’m sharing because I let my mental wellness take a dive for the wellness of another. And while I’m all for helping others, being there for others, I’m not for neglecting my own mental wellness, which I did in grand fashion.

This experience has taught me that no one else’s mental wellness is more important than my own. And, that is selfish. But, it is not wrong. To be selfish about your own mental health is to be mentally healthy.

Since finding out that I was catfished I have since blocked this young lady from my Facebook and on my phone. I cannot be in contact with her without sacrificing my own mental wellness. I made sure to inform other people of this young lady’s deception, only to be met with concern for her and none for me by some. I guess that’s okay, cause those people did not invest the time and energy I did. They backed away at the first sign of “too difficult.” I don’t. I embrace the “too difficult” and the “too crazy.” I embrace the hardest to love, and I do it with abandon. Sure, my willingness to help sometimes gets me hurt, but I’d rather live my life taking risks on people, choosing to love the hardest people to love, than to back away at the first sign of “too difficult.”

But, it is painful. I feel like I lost a daughter. I feel betrayed. And, I’m incredibly sad. I also still love her. I still care about her. I still worry about her. Because regardless of the catfishing, the lies, the manipulation, I do know that she is mentally ill and she does need a whole team of help. I also know that I cannot be that for her. I’m not a psychologist or therapist. I’m just an empath with a whole lot of love and compassion for the hurting. While that can be life changing for some people, having someone love them, in this case, I was simply being played by a master puppeteer. I hope that she will get help and want to change. I hope that her future is full of love and joy. I hope that she gets mentally well. I hope so much for her. I have forgiven her. However, I cannot forget. I won’t forget. This is a cautionary tale about ignoring your own mental wellness: don’t. Never neglect your own mental wellness for the wellness of another. It’s counterproductive.

 

 

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I think one of the most frustrating things about writing for me is that there is so much to say, I spend months vacillating between being sure I can finally write and knowing that I need more time to reflect. I know a lot of people write every day. It works for them. I don’t feel like you can really write about things on a daily basis with any level of self reflection or extensive pondering. I think this leads to a lot of thoughtless drivel and pointless reading.

I’m not trying to get famous here. I’m not trying to toot my own horns. I am simply trying to write about the reality of my world, my perceptions, and how I cope with the complexities of mental illness, and how I work towards mental wellness. A lot of time is given to mental illness, and though we still are fighting a ruthless battle against stigma, it is becoming more well known and understood by society. I personally feel a lot more time should be given to mental wellness.

What is mental wellness for me? It is an exuberant effort on the part of a mentally ill person to seek help for their illness, and to implement treatment, therapy, tools, coping mechanisms, and building supportive personal community that help keep a person continually moving forward, and that community being there for them in moments of darkness, regression, and the struggle to persevere.

Unlike other medical conditions, with clear cut therapies and cures, mental illness is still a mystery. The marrying of neuroscience with psychology is a huge step forward in understanding mental illness even further and offering new, innovative therapies, but we are ages from a cure.

So what actually, and currently helps? I think that is different based on the person. Along my journey toward mental wellness I have engaged in psychotherapy, including both cognitive behavioral therapy, as well as dialectal behavioral therapy. I have been under the care of a psychiatrist for 17 years. I utilize a variety of psychiatric drugs that help me function better than without them. I have built up a community of people no matter where I am that I both share my mental illness story with, but also ask them to be part of my support system. I have constructed a list of people to call should I get suicidal with plans. I have found the strength to abstain from cutting since October 2012 with the help of others who also struggle with self-harm. I have learned to utilize mindfulness meditation, grounding, and centering as a means to pull myself out of panic attacks. Listening to music is a huge way I work on healing myself. Art in general is how I renew my spirit. Walks in nature and talks with birds seem to calm my soul. And there is nothing more glorious than a sunrise or sunset. I think the biggest thing I have ever done to drive my mental wellness forward is to be vulnerable and honest about my struggles with mental illness. I am quick to open up about my mental illnesses. I have found most people either have personal experience with mental illness or they have close friends and family who do. The camaraderie is life saving.

There are a lot of folks out there that just need to know they aren’t alone, and today I am here to tell you that you’re not alone. You’re struggle is not a private hell. There is light at the end of your dark tunnels. Your past is not your future and your future is not your past. You do not have to ride the victim train of life. Disembark and join me at the park where we can experience the present moment. The here and the now. The smiles and the stories. Good food. Good music. Experience the love of your tribe, open up, and share.

What are some ways you work towards your mental wellness. Please comment below and share with your community.