nature and boys in sunglasses

staying steady

Whenever I speak to a large group of people about being bipolar, they always want to know about my coping strategies. They want to know what I do when my life is going a little too fast, or when I am moving to slow to get help. They want to know, how I get through each day, month, year and remain safe, stable, and happy. I feel that though my strategies are based on my individual personality, most of them are rather universal. So, here is a list of the things that help me get through life relatively smoothly, for now anyways...

A Support Network:

I can't move forward without some form of support network. (Actually, I could if I had to, but they sure make life a hell of a lot easier.) My family has fought long and hard to help me get the treatment, doctors, medication, and education I need both to help me cope with my first onset of bipolar, and my life today. They were always there to stand with me, even when I may not have wanted them there. On that note, my doctors, counselors, and psychiatrists have all been amazing sources of stability. They are my solid ground when my life begins to sway, shake, or completely break to pieces. My boyfriend has also been an amazingly huge influence on my life. He has been through my rougher times and was the one to help me move from a extremely harmful lifestyle to one where I feel comfortable not drinking, doing drugs, or constantly partying. I also have amazing friends that sat with me in the worst of days. Wonderful ex-boyfriends, old roommates/best-friends and adopted sisters always make life much easier to swallow.

Lifestyle:

For me this was one of the hardest choices. If you ask most 18-21 year olds what they do on the weekends, especially those in a college or dorm setting, they will tell you that they drink. They go to parties. They go to bars. And I was just your average 18-21 year old, minus the fact that I was bipolar. I was a little more then effected by the late nights, the excessive drinking, the drugs. I was stuck in a cycle where all of my friends drank, and all of my coping mechanisms involved putting my mind in a different state. In the first years of my diagnosis I didn't want to think about how awful I felt. I wanted to be "normal." I wanted a quick distraction. I wanted to be everything I envisioned a "bipolar" person being: a mess. It took a lot of work, a lot of self talks, and good friends, and eventually some pretty scary moods swings to get me to move into the healthy lifestyle I live now. It would also have never happened without fate leading me to good friends who lived healthy lifestyles. Good friends who had been through pain, substance abuse, and eventually the decision to get straight. Good friends who inspired me to change my ways. It is also amazing that one of these good friends has become an amazing boyfriend and best friend.

Today my lifestyle has included sleeping well, eating well, meditating, flossing, running, yoga, reading, music, and lots and lots of writing. I try to allow myself time to do the things that I know make me happy. These also happen to be the things that make my previous life of parties and anger seem like such a waste of time and energy.

Skills Training

Now, this is something I think about a lot,  but it has also been a big conflict within me. When I began skills training with a counselor  in high school she used to tell me things like, "look at yourself in the mirror and say, I am beautiful..." and I used to leave and swear that I would never go back to an appointment with her again. But I did, and every time she used to say some other hooky skill I should use to make myself feel better. The next counselor I went to used to tell me to look in "my boxes." And I would again leave feeling angry and skeptical and decide I never wanted to see her again. It took me years to get to the point where I found a counselor I trusted enough to tell them that I hated those homework assignment kinds of exercises. I told her that I didn't want to be counseled by Oprah. I didn't want to be told to be kind to myself, unless it was hidden in something else she was saying. It was through my true honesty about my treatment that I began to actually use some of the advice I received from my counselors. Today I have developed a group of core skills that help me get through the rough patches in life. It was only through the skill of my counselors and the trust I eventually developed that I began to find life skills that worked for me, (that weren't cheesy or what I thought of as stupid.)

Medication

This was a hard one for me. I am not always a fan of medication. It has not always had the best effect on me and at two different moments it literally almost killed me. Now, I am a girl that likes my body to be healthy and natural, I don't want a bunch of chemicals deciding what mood I am in, but after two hospitalizations I have come to terms with the fact that medication isn't always bad. Today I am on Lamictal and Trileptal. It has taken me about 13 medications to get to two that work for me, and I have now been on these for about two years. I am on medication now because I know that I am not ready to be off of it. Even though I have changed my lifestyle and have become much healthier I am still not an expert on my body or my illness (if you can call it that.) I am still not aware of the natural ways to get out of a paralyzing depression or an extreme case of mania. And until I know that I am ready and able to use my new skills to get me to a safe place I will stay on medication. It is a slow process and I have only been diagnosed for four years. One thing I do know, however, is that I will not be on medication forever. I will get to the point where I am aware and educated enough in my body and mind that I will feel comfortable being off medication. Someday I may want to travel to a third world country to save children, or someday I may want to have children of my own. If these things happen, I want to be free of medication. I do want to find a natural way to deal with my minds many states, but for now, I will continue my self-education from the safe place of medication.

These are just a few of the things I think about everyday when it comes to my health in my body and mind. I hope this is insightful, if not helpful, and please realize that each persons coping skills are different based on their own needs and understandings of the world.

(The picture in blue was taken by Ms. Morgan Minear at the MOMA while we were watching a video installation)

movement

Sometimes I miss the movement and noise of Chicago. The brightness of night. The invisible noise of darkness when not a person is seen but you can feel their ghosts shuffling around you. I miss falling asleep to the cacophony of no one.

A constant chatter as the city breathes for itself.

art

friends

the friendship game

i had a conversation with my friend steve yesterday, (as we were devouring burritos after a mad target run,) and we began talking about bipolar and relationships. now steve is bipolar too and while we only met last summer we have an affinity towards one another and a knowledge of each others struggles without even having to say a word. so we began talking and we went on about certain friends and major relationships in our lives. and i realized that i am still healing. 

three years ago i remember sitting on my couch in chicago crying with my roommate over lost relationships. prior to that conversation i had had dinner with my ex and the man who i still tell people saved my life. he and i talked about where i was in my life and how i was healing. and then he said he wanted his stuff back. now, i thought i had given all of his stuff back given that it had been about a year since the break up, but i suppose distance and time makes it easy to forget your own familiar possessions. so he wanted them back, the "stop making sense" dvd, the bob dylan cds, and the "speedology" book written by speed levitch. in this conversation he also gave back the love letters that i wrote him before i ever met him. they were the letters i wrote to the man that i would love forever, the man that would change my world and the meaning of love in my young eyes. and he did. and though our relationship is vastly different i will never argue my love for him. he will always hold that space in my heart. even josh knows this. but anyways, back to the story. he wanted his things back and he gave things back that were his and only his. and after the exchange took place and he left the apartment i fell apart. and then i cried on my roommates shoulder. i cried over the fact that it was my depression that prematurely ended our relationship and made it impossible to reunite. i cried because it was what i thought was my inability to truly love and have a healthy relationship because i was diagnosed as bipolar. 

i then thought about the rift between my childhood best friend and our broken relationship after a series of events that tore us apart as i spiraled around death and she ran to save herself. i cried and cried and told my roommate that i didn't think i was worth having as a friend, i didn't think that i was worth loving and that i was some diseased person that would only ruin lives and break hearts. and my roommate said that it wasn't true and she wouldn't leave me.

back in my conversation with steve i explained these things and went on to explain that it wasn't actually anyones fault. i told him how i have come to realize that i actually did the best i could and so did they. some people don't know how to handle times of trauma. i now know that i didn't know how to handle it and neither did they. we all just needed to ride the ride and then we all grew from there. i have now reconciled with my best friend and we are closer then we ever have been. i will always keep my ex-boyfriend in my life and though it might take him a long time to come to terms with everything that happened we will always hold a connection that few people can experience.

i then told steve about what seems to be my growing distance with my old roommate. the roommate that i cried to the night my relationships fell apart. i don't know if our new distance comes from our physical distance or our busy schedules, but i always find i hold a certain amount insecurity and fear. i am still recovering and still realizing that sometimes relationships are hard and terrifying, even when you are "normal" and not bipolar. some people float in and out of our lives, some people are like ghosts that appear when you least expect them then disappear, but some people find a place where they become a constant and a power that can never be lost in your mind. these are the good ones and the good ones always come back.

that terrible T word

television.

i have a confession to make: i have been worrying alot about the current season of 90210. now you see i am not a tv fan, and this is what bothers me. you see i happened to watch one or two episodes late at night when i was alone and had nothing better to do but eat some fatty food and be a closet television fiend and ever since then i have been worrying about them. there is this girl who is a drug addict who is now pregnant, and this other family who had this guy pop up and say he was a long lost son. its just all so hard sometimes.

so heres the dilemma: football seasons almost over which means the tv is going back in the closet. that is where it lives during the off season and i think after this whole conversion box thing it will live their indefinitely. so what do i do? do i admit my 90210 problem to josh and keep it out so that i can check on that pregnant chic? or should i just purge myself of the addiction and say goodbye to those cliche ever problematic children?

i don't know. its hard thing to do, but the first step is always to admit your problem. and in the long run, theres always the internet...

Waste...

(The first picture was Josh's idea and I feel I need to give credit to the true artist.)

Heroes

Its MLK day, and so I think it is important to speak a little about heroes. Heroes to me are people who are able to weather horrible tragedies and yet continue to lead. People who, though their heart may be breaking, are still able to inspire. People who are willing to put their own lives in harms way simply to show people that we must move on, we must move forward, we can move forward. Heroes to me are people like Mr. King, Ghandi, the 14th Dalai Lama, Desmund Tutu, and Nelson Mendela. These people are the ones who were there to lead people in times of extreme tragedy and trauma. These were people who remained steadfast to their cause and willing to risk everything just to help others move forward.

Last summer I was given the most amazing opportunity, I got to attend the Seeds of Compassion conference in which the Dalai Lama and dozens of others heroes, role models, and inspirations came together to talk about peace and compassion. I was lucky enough to attend the spirituality discussion where leaders of all different faiths came to talk about inter-spiritual dependence. There were many many amazing speakers at this event, but what stuck out to me the most was the interaction between Mr. Tutu and the Dalai Lama. Those two acted like Kindergarten best friends. They giggled and hit each other. They flowed gracefully between an eloquent serious answer and complete overflowing joy.

It is people like them that inspire me to go forward everyday.  Both men were put in leadership roles during horrific and painful acts of injustice in which their lives and those of their people were in great danger. As His Holiness was forced into exile, making him leave his people, country, and life behind, Tutu was dealing with the massacre that was South African apartheid. These men were the happiest people I have ever seen. They laughed and giggled and danced. They smiled and joked. And they demonstrated that they had survived. They lived through that cruelty. That pain. That fear. And they lead there people to peacefully and compassionately show resistance to the prejudice of the world. It is through heroes like these that we are reminded that no matter what happens in life, no matter how bad it gets, you can always move forward.

Now sometimes, no matter what things don't turn out the way the should. Sometimes our heroes are taken too soon, or our lives don't change fast enough. But in our honoring and still loving and cherishing the memory of Mr. King we remind each other that we can move forward, and that we are moving forward. I am so proud and happy that 41 years after the death of one of our greatest heroes we have moved to the point where we are finally okay letting a person of color lead us in one of our most important roles. Though I feel this has taken much much much longer then it should have, (and though I found myself in the past feeling that we are never going to get any better,) we are doing it. We are truly beginning to live the dream that was awakened in us so long ago. We are finally beginning to love and treat each other as we should. And tomorrow, in about eleven hours from now, lets hope that a new hero will lead us and shows us that we can move on. I hope that through our increasingly tolerance and love for each other that we can all come together in this new year to pass on the love and compassion that so many beautiful people have taught us in the past.

To see true inspiration and joy please watch this short clip of Desmond Tutu and the Dali Lama: 

"Desmond Tutu jokes with the Dalai Lama"

mexico