A Mental Health Journey

 [Originally published on https://www.thosewhoseek.org/blog/amentalhealthjourney]

Almost exactly four years ago, I was sitting on my bedroom floor sobbing. 

I was in an extraordinarily emotionally draining, entry level job just a few months after college graduation. After only a few weeks on the job, I felt like I was about to either implode or explode. The internal chaos I felt was getting pushed to the forefront by my emotionally taxing job. The job wasn't causing the turmoil though – that turmoil was already present in my mind and heart. 

My thoughts raced as I thought about my mom’s break down two years previously that had caused so much pain in my family, the unexpected divorce of my parents who had been married for 40 years, my own years of unresolved emotional pain and dysregulation, and the knowledge that I was a mostly poor, idealistic, anxious, and depressed college graduate with no idea where her life was headed.  

As the tears rolled down my face, and as I sat rocking back and forth on my carpet, I knew I needed help. I was hurting and felt like there was nowhere to go. Around that time, a friend, who had been through some struggles of her own, suggested I think about therapy for my own healing and well-being. In theory, I was all for therapy. I was a psychology major in undergrad, with plans to become a therapist until life happened, and I got a Master’s in Shakespeare (but that story is for another day). 

I had a heart for those suffering from mental illness, because I had seen it so many people from a young age, but I realized I wasn’t willing to give that same empathy to myself as I got older. I did want to go to therapy when I was much younger, but my mom, ironically enough, always said that I would be labeled and that I shouldn’t go. Therapy had a weight attached to it for me. 

People might judge me. 

Maybe it would be a waste of money.

People wouldn’t like me. 

What was the point in talking about my problems? 

Was it vain? 

Those were thoughts that came up when therapy came up – an odd mixture of anxiety itself and the all too common Christian confusion about what therapy really is.

I had been to one psychiatrist one time before my mom’s breakdown.  After enough disagreeing and anxious meltdowns with my mom, she agreed I should try therapy. That psychiatrist basically Freudian-ly summed all of my anxieties into the fact that I was a lonely youngest child. While that may have been true at the time, it didn’t really hit to the heart of the issues. So my confusion on psychology as a whole remained lingering for a while, and I didn’t go back to him.

I didn’t yet realize that, just as there are teachers that we understand better, there are therapists and psychiatrists that can help our individual hearts better.

 That summer after graduation, at the suggestion of my friend, I continued to mull over trying again and reaching out to a recommended therapist. I finally did. And it radically changed my world. 

While I think some stereotypes make therapy look like a passive blame game, and perhaps some misguided therapists encourage that, I wouldn’t know because my time in therapy was more of a workout for the mind and heart. I learned coping skills, journaling exercises, how to ask myself what I need in a moment of stress and be able to give it to myself, how to set boundaries in order to love better, and how to be real with people instead of keeping all of my boundaries too tightly wound up around my heart. My therapist gave me insights that I had never heard before. My favorite quote from her has always been: boundaries are teaching people how to love you better. In my people pleasing younger years (I’m sure a cause of a lot of anxiety in and of itself), I thought that saying “no” was always mean and bad. When in fact, prudently being able to say no to things you can’t handle, is a way of loving yourself and gently calling the other person to love better. 

I worked with my therapist for about a year on many different subjects, unraveling hard emotions and built in lies that I had told myself for years. Then I went off to grad school where I couldn’t really afford nor focus on my mental health, unfortunately. This was probably one of my poorer decisions in life, as I don’t think there’s been a time where I have needed a good therapy session more than graduate school, but thankfully I moved back to the same area as my old therapist after I graduated.

The circumstances surrounding my move weren’t exactly ideal, and the move triggered a lot of old issues, but God works in mysterious ways. I started working with my therapist again after my grad school hiatus, and I got my official ADHD diagnosis from a wonderful psychiatrist. I started taking medication for both ADHD (a non-stimulant that helps with emotional regulation) and an antidepressant.  While some worry that medication is a Band-Aid that keeps you from progressing, I have found that it has given me the ability to function and choose the good without my brain telling me not to.  For instance, my ADHD medication has greatly helped with a symptom called “Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria.” I now know to take a step back and examine the situation before allowing myself to dwell on what I perceive to be a rejection. These perceptions, and the emotional pain of these perceptions, have lessened due to the workings of my medicine. 

Choosing the good for myself is still difficult, but with the medication, it’s a difficulty I can strive towards without feeling like I’m carrying the entire world on my shoulders as I do it.  I take the medicine for my hurting brain; I go to therapy for my hurting heart; and I go to the chapel for all of the above.

My therapist is also a Christian. I don’t think that is necessary for everyone’s therapy experience, but she beautifully integrates reminders of who God sees me as with practical steps for mental well-being. I want to encourage anyone that feels like they might benefit from a professional un-doer of mind knots to think about reaching out. A healthy mind is a peaceful mind, and a peaceful mind is able to hear God so much more clearly. 

And if not therapy, I challenge you to ask yourself how you can love yourself better today. Because God loves you and wants you to know that you are worthy of a healthy soul, body, AND mind. 

Hope

Tomorrow is the day the world celebrates the quiet appearance of a child----the child who fills the hearts of the world. But sometimes... we still feel holes. And these holes don't always seem filled because we're looking in all the wrong places.

One of my own heart holes,  is in the shape of a 67** (68 today!) year old woman. Carol. My mother. She was one of the fiercest, smartest, most sacrificial women you've ever met. Remember that.  She had her flaws, but those aren't the things to remember right now. Remember her humor and her passion and her dreams.
But I'll spare the backstory, and ignore my now natural use of past tense, and skip to the story of a festering wound that began just a few years ago.

I won't begin to pretend that I can tell her story. I can't. I can only tell my own.  Full of perceptions and emotions that come from a little broken soul who is full of, I'm sure what some would call, dramatic (irony or no) recollections.  But there is something in me that needs to write.

3+ years ago (almost 4 now), my mom, quite literally, lost her mind. Sorrow, anger, pain, hate, a journey of forgiveness, and a journey of trying to love within helplessness followed. She has all the labels that not even psychologists agree about yet insist they're true: schizoaffective, bipolar, hallucinations, paranoia, delusions, bullshit.  Don't get me wrong, I'm all for the proper diagnosis. But when the labels can't help heal any more because someone is too sick... it hurts.

All that I know, all that my family knows, is that we've tried every avenue for help with my mom. She fell into hospitals and jails. We've pleaded, cried, talked to experts. But she doesn't want our help or the expert's help. And therefore...no help can be given.

[the joy of a patient's unending rights.]

I don't know what she's doing for Christmas. I'll probably try to call.  But I'll be honest, I don't want to make that call.  It will be filled with anger spewing about everyone she hates. I've managed to not be put on her list of hated people...yet. This is through nothing born of my own merit. She has no reason to hate many of the people she does now besides the main reason... the broken chemicals in her brain.

But the pain in knowing that my calls won't do anything, won't really touch her, hurts me deeply. And how selfish is that? --- to worry about whether she thinks that I'm loving her well, more than actually worrying about whether she actually feels loved or worrying about how best to actually love.

But I never said I deal with things perfectly.

I'll wish her Merry Christmas and let her rant about everyone who has abandoned her, while I hold the knowledge that she (or who her mental illness has formed her to be) has abandoned us.

The temptation arises in me to compare and then to yell and scream at anyone who complains about their own family issues, especially this time of year.

But other suffering is just as valid as mine. It's just different. I've just created a wall to block people out. I've isolated myself into thinking I can't ever talk about this. Well, except for the many, many times I have shared this with the kind people in my life.

To those that have listened, prayed, and suffered with me, my family, and my mother, I thank you.

Your witness has allowed my stubborn belief that no one cares about mental illness to shift radically.

But some days it feels impossible to believe in a world that will ever allow this cross to be spoken of without awkward silences, and pitying looks. But I must remind myself that those are things that come with any story of loss. Not just mine. Ours is just one of on-going loss, and so the natural uncomfortability goes on because.... people can barely handle their own pain, let alone  someone else's messy pain arising from mothers that don't have their minds any longer.

I've made so many mistakes in this process. Mistakes I'm too ashamed to share right now.
I've cried til I've screamed.
And I have clung to the hope that one day my mother will return to fill the hole in my heart.
Hope must always stay alive, even if we can't feel it yet, because without it, we crumble into a million pieces.

Hope.
A child born to save man.
Hope.
 A child born to a mother.
Hope.
A child that fills our holes before we heal in any natural way, before we realize.
Hope.
For a mother to return to her children.
Hope.
It is the season of hope.

Please pray fiercely for our mother's healing. Please love your family fiercely this Christmas season. (Almost Christmas season) 

Please hope.
Merry Christmas, my dear ones. (Almost!) 



For all the Catholics reading this, please pray this prayer for my mom's healing and safety. It's a prayer asking for the intercession of a dear priest that my mom loved. 

That summer I walked across the country...warning: clickbait. ;)

Ok, so I only walked for two weeks, and I didn't walk across all of the country in those two weeks. Shocker.  But I walked, and I learned.



From July 8th - July 22nd 2017, I had the privilege of walking with Crossroads Pro-Life, and this particular group did, indeed, walk across the U.S. of A. (To explain in brief:  the group started in California and finished just a few days ago in Washington, DC). Their mission? To walk, pray, and sacrifice for the hearts in this country to recognize the dignity of human life in every stage.

The Logistics

During the week, the group traveled around with an RV and a van. The ladies stayed in the RV at night during the week, and the men stayed in tents.The van was our best friend during the days we were walking. Those assigned to morning shift would get in the van and head out for the day. A shift usually consisted of 6-7 walkers. The shift would split in about half, and the groups would take turns walking 1-3 miles. In the vans, waiting to walk, you would find us  napping, reading theology books, or scavenging around to find the last granola bar. When actually walking, you would find us praying, laughing, grimacing, or taking in whatever beautiful view was present. Usually, the morning shift would meet up with the rest of the group for Mass in the middle of their shift.The walking/van rotation then continued until the afternoon when the next shift would take over from wherever the morning shift had finished walking. A few people would make dinner at the RV camp, the group would pray together, and bedtime would hit so fast you couldn't even remember blinking. The whole journey would begin again early the next morning.

During the weekends, we were housed by host families (more on them later) and would speak at parishes.

My friends, it was a beautiful whirlwind.

The People

How crazy do you have to be to walk across the country promoting a message that you wholeheartedly believe in? Just crazy enough. The walkers that I was blessed to walk with had varying types of personalities with one thing in common: a fiery passion for promoting the sanctity of life. It is one of my favorite things in the world to meet people who care. And care they did. Not only were they passionate about people in the abstract, these men and women were sacrificial in the most concrete of ways. I was the newbie in the group, and one lovely lady slept on the RV floor so that I could have a bed my first night in the RV before we figured out sleeping situations that could accommodate everyone. One of the men on the trip had someone hand him two cold water bottles to replace some of our room temperature ones. Instead of keeping them for his half of the shift, he ran out to give it to our half. People cooked for one another, prayed for one another, made each other laugh and loved each other as best they could. And they offered me that sacrificial love as a stranger joining their midst. I won't completely sugar coat it though. Obviously, with many varying personalities come many varying conflicts of wants, opinion, and just personality itself. However, the underlying bigger picture of their journey kept them as a family and kept them walking each day. The fact that these people offered their entire summer to this cause was truly an inspiration.

My fellow walkers weren't the only people that I encountered that inspired me. Like I said earlier, we would stay with host families on the weekends. The host families that I encountered were sacrificial, thoughtful, and overwhelmingly generous. They would feed us. They would allow us to do laundry. (Many loads, my friends, many loads). They would make sure we were awake in time to get to the churches we needed to get to. They would let us ride their 4 wheelers through sunlit flower patches. (THAT was a highlight).  My heart was touched by their acts of service and their care of us.

We met generous parishioners at the parishes we spoke at, and we met many that needed prayers for difficult situations (if you're still reading this, say a prayer for them if you get the chance).

We met a priest that pulled over on the side of the road to donate to our cause and to say a prayer with us.

So many beautiful souls were encountered, and it gave me new hope.

The Lessons

I've heard it said that pro-life people only care about the fetus and never afterward. If that is the extent of a person's pro-life beliefs,then that is a despicable travesty. Pro-life means caring about all people, all injustices, and all uniqueness-es of each person from conception to natural death. Crossroads recognizes this and puts it into action.

In the middle of one of the shifts, we had stopped the van at a rest stop. A few of us had gotten out for a bathroom break, and upon our return we saw a lady talking with some of the walkers who had stayed in our van. I'm not sure why she had come up to us that day---maybe our bright yellow pro-life tshirts drew her to us or maybe just the fact that we were all young people had something to do with it. But she started talking to us and explaining her story. She had been taking care of a grandson.She had a mentally ill daughter. She had just gotten kicked out of her apartment and had to live in her car for a few days before finding another place to stay. We gave her money for the hotel room she had asked for, gave her a ton of our snack food/water bottles, wrote down her prayer requests, and prayed with her on the spot. I'm not writing this up to sing our own praises. I'm writing this to show how much the group cared about this woman ( who wasn't a fetus) in need and jumped into action by helping her as best they could. I wish I had taken a picture of our group giving what they could to this lady, but I will  have to make do with the one in my mind. This is how we should all be living our lives.

Another man we met while walking reminded us that when prayers go up to Him---> blessings come down. A simple statement of faith that most of us have forgotten about.


Finito

I learned about myself in those brief two weeks, and I learned about other people. In the eyes of my fellow walkers, I saw the strong, kind, patient, fierce passion that we must all gain in order to become preachers that walk the walk as well as talk the talk. Because it matters. To quote Pope St. John Paul II: "The person is unique and unrepeatable, someone chosen by eternal Love." Real talk paraphrase: there will never be another you, that fetus will never be the same as any other fetus, we belong here, and we are loved.

Grateful doesn't really begin to cover my time on Crossroads, but it's the word I will leave you with.

If you have any interest in donating or walking with Crossroads next year, go to: https://www.crossroadswalk.org/

Blessings,
Paula

Personality, intuition, other people, oh my!

I am a self-proclaimed Myers-Briggs expert. I diagnose people with their four letters like it's my job. I'm a melancholic-phlegmatic (diagnosed by another personality test: the four temperaments.) All of these tests point to some overlapping truths about myself:  I'm a not-so-secret romantic, deep-feeler, and have a tendency to be overly critical.

And what else have I learned through years of these tests and some (hopefully) honest self- reflection? I get a sense of people rather quickly. I've gotten somewhat prideful in this ability, actually. I get vibes, and I share vibes with other people. Scientific? No. Experiential? Yes. Reliable? Enough that I can brag about it. When the vibes turn out right, I get all Adrian Monk, and I think: 'It's a blessing and a curse.'

But really this blessing has turned out to be a curse because of the way I've used it.
Yes, I can usually tell when someone is insecure when I first meet them. I can tell when there's a wound on their mind. I observe shallowness, and I immediately file it in my List of People w/ Certain Characteristics to be Avoided. I don't really realize I've made that list in my mind until later, but made it I have. Because I pick up on select things, I think I've picked up on the whole person. What a joke. (And this blog isn't even touching on the times when I'm just plain 180 degrees off.)

I cannot continue to brag about my gift of understanding people while simultaneously dismissing the whole person in front of me because I've intuited he has such and such a trait. I obviously didn't intuit the fact that all people long for something: to be understood truly for who they are, not for characteristics that compose them. How prideful of me to not realize that even the people with the most awful characteristics could (and do) have a depth that I cannot even begin to fathom.

As St. Augustine says: 'Men go abroad to wonder at the heights of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars, and they pass by themselves without wondering.'

I beg you, sisters, to apply this quote to your neighbor, and to always listen more closely than your intuition can infer.

The Lord gives some of us the gift of understanding (and buzzfeed personality tests to tell us so), but it is not to be used to dismiss the complexities of the person standing before us. It is to be used to start a conversation that only the other can complete.

 Love  boldly and humbly.

Blessings,

Paula

We are the theater people...

There's something very precious in the act of performing for other people.
 If done right, your heart will be open, vulnerable, and free to feel deeply.  It's like you've entered into a special dimension of reality that hasn't been discovered yet. It's a secret inside you that you are meant to tell when the exact right moment hits.

There's a silence of such loud anticipation from the audience as you stand backstage peeking through the curtains --as all old time professionals do, of course. You quietly speak with your fellow performers but all of you can feel the gentle excitement building in each others' hearts as the time for the start of the show grows closer. You smell hairspray and foundation. And you laugh because the guys, no matter how old, still complain about the make-up.

The director comes in and gives some notes, some kind words, and leaves with a prayer. You stretch. You warm your voice up in ways that would make the rest of the world think you were a dying chicken--not the theater world though.

You prepare yourself for your first scene: spiritually, physically, emotionally. You go over scenes, lines, emotional prep questions in your mind as you take in the crazy people around  you in the green room. It's funny---you remember them as their character for a few moments after each show run until life slips back into the regular drudgery and the life as an undercover superhero swiftly comes to a close...It remains only until the resounding last clap has drifted away. But the show run hasn't ended yet. You snap back to the present moment.

You listen for God's...err, the stage manager's cue that the house is open and you prepare your little heart to give itself away.

When you finally step on that stage you are transported to the place where your scene is. You have the precise relationships with the others on stage that make a story worth watching. It's time to stop crafting and molding and you start giving your finished creation (though you don't forget to get those notes if it's not your last show!)
You finish your scenes. You come off stage. Your heartbeat continues faster than usual and it'll stay that way for a while. Your mind and soul and being are lifted high. You see the same reactions in your fellow thespians. You then see your audience...The reason actors  come back again and again to the beautiful place called the stage.

The people smile, tackle hug, or express some sort of thanks and their hearts feel light; You can tell from where you're standing. It makes your heart light too.

The crowd starts to trickle away. You remember you're still dressed as your character, not yourself. It must be noted though, that during show week, your costume feels more like you than any regular clothing ever does.

You thank your audience. You change. You say goodnight and good job to those you've worked to share an alternate reality with. And you leave to go sleep and to calm your heart and hopefully to thank the Lord before the cycle starts all over again.

We are the theater people.
We are the crazy people.
We are the deep feelers, and therefore the overthinkers.
We are the creators.
We are the heart lifters.
We are a people that long to give the world the realness and the beauty it has forgotten.

We are the theater people.

Acting is not meant to be a selfish show of one's faked abilities, but instead, it is meant to be a diligently attempted creative process that allows one to fully give himself away to all the audience members desperately in need of all that theater can give: truth, beauty, reality, and love.

We are the theater people, and we. love. you.

Blessings,
Paula

A tale of an almost graduate

I remember in my youth as a first semester freshman in college, a friend casually mentioned "we only get 7 more semesters of this!" We laughed as we faked a freak out, not knowing how fast our college careers would fly by. 

I'm a month away from the beginning of the end of my days as a college student. Only two semesters left of living with best friends, taking "study breaks" to get ice cream, going to college dances, falling in and out of love with subjects, dream chasing like its my job, and just everyday normal college student shenanigans. 

I know it's a little early to be writing this post, after all, I have a whole YEAR left before I say good bye to my little undergraduate career. But something in me tells me I'll forget where I was right in this  pre-senior year moment when I cross that stage at graduation... and I don't want to forget. 

The thought of having one more year left to squeeze in all the events, classes, and new friendships I can is really scary to me. I WANT TO DO EVERYTHING. Why didn't I take Rhetoric when I had the chance? Should I have added a theo minor? What about a math minor? MATH PEOPLE MAKE ALL THE MONEY. Should I even bother making new friends? I run out of time just to have coffee with the old ones most of the time! 

These are the worries that fill the mind of the silly little girl in me. And those don't even cover the worries of the future AFTER graduation. My heart is currently being pulled in about 5 different directions as to what I should do when I graduate. I've prayed and I've talked and I've thought and I've  given up.  And in the process...I'm learning a few things.

I'm going to sound like a hippy, please bear with me though.

1) Go with the flow. Or rather, go with the Holy Spirit guided flow. 

I know, I know, we get told "just trust" quite a bit. And it ends up with us frustrated, lying on our beds, staring at the ceiling, hoping that someone will bring us caffeine because otherwise we aren't getting out of that bed for anything. 

But that's not trust. Talking our worries into the ground is not trust. Going with the Holy Spirit guided flow involves planning what we need to take the next steps, and trusting that as long as we keep walking, the H.S. will open the doors for us to walk through. 

There's nothing wrong with planning, we need to plan a lot of things out. 

But for almost college grads? Pick an option, walk towards it, and open yourself up to walk through the doors that just seem to flow. This applies to the friendships that start your senior year AND any after graduation plans. The Lord doesn't work through unrest, he works through peace. 

2) Remember that the unknown is a beautiful thing. 

When you don't know which passion you'll be following next year, but you still say "use me God"... you're in the right spot. This time of unknown can be a beautiful place to grow. 

 

3) Give a "perfect effort" as that famous high school football coach once said. 

You don't have to be a perfect friend, a perfect student, and know perfectly what your future will entail. Because... ummm that's not going to happen. But you should strive to try in everything to do the best you can, with a humble acceptance of our limitations. 

It is such a blessing to be in the numbered few that have gotten a college education, I don't want to waste it in worry. 

Dear future Paula,  

I hope you lived a beautiful senior year, making decisions based on love and faith, and trusting that when you leave in May, you are exactly where you are supposed to be. *

The Handmaid's Example

“Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.” (Luke 1:38)  Imagine you are 14 years old. You are doing the same thing you are doing every day, perhaps you are outside taking a quiet walk. Suddenly, a huge angel appears to you. He tells you not to be afraid. He tells you that you are going to become pregnant with the Son of God. You have never been with a man though. But the angel tells you this is what God wants. You say yes, simply because it is what God wants. You do not need any other reason. You accept all that the yes means. This is what Mary, the Mother of God, did 2000 years ago. From that yes the course of history and the course of our lives were forever changed.

On this feast of the Annunciation, I want to meditate on Mary’s trust in God and how we can learn from her.

We walk through life with a pile of worries on our hearts. A range from the smallest to the largest of concerns is what consumes our minds. We hear “trust God” over and over again in Church, from our friends, and when we read any Christian literature these days. It has gotten pounded into our heads since we were little, at least the words have. It just seems so cheesy when we hear the words coming out of our mouths now.  But why does it feel so overused? Why does it feel so strange to tell our friends to trust? It is because we don’t have that trust. We’re frustrated when we hear it because we haven’t reached a point of trust yet. We feel awkward when we tell a friend to trust in God because we ourselves do not know what it means to trust.

Let today be a renewal of trust though. Let Mary be an example. She had free will and she chose God’s will. I firmly believe that our lives will be totally peaceful if we learn to let go of the tight grasp we try to have on our lives. We do not realize how much more difficult our lives are when we hold tightly to our own will and worries. Let us again think of the words “let it be done to me” that are said in the gospel. Mary does not say “I will do this, this, and this. Then I will know I am doing God’s will because I am powering through it with all of MY might.” No. She is simply receiving. She is simply allowing God to work through her, to mold her, and to use her. She has opened her hands to receive all that God wants to do with her. With her trusting hands open to receive God’s blessings, there is no room left to cling tightly to her own will.  This is the model for trusting we should follow.  Stand with your hands open today. Tell God you are letting go. Ask Momma Mary to wrap you in her arms and push you towards her Son. And watch the peace that will come from following our beautiful Mother’s example.

“Am I not here, I, who am your Mother? Are you not under my shadow and protection? Am I not the source of your joy? Are you not in the hollow of my mantle, in the crossing of my arms? Do you need anything more? Let nothing else worry you, disturb you.” ~Our Lady of Guadalupe