The Courage to Change

It has been quite a while since I have posted anything on here so I must apologize.  With all the work we have been doing the blog has fallen a bit behind. I would also like to let you all know that I have been given the honor of creating and manning the brand new BringChange2Mind blog (http://bringchange2mind.wordpress.com/) so when I am not writing here, please check the BC2M blog to see if I am posting there. I will try my hardest to stay loyal to both.

And now a quick update... In the last month since I wrote I have been to St. Louis, Chicago, and New York, and been the team leader for two NAMI Walks, one in Seattle and the other in Portland. It has been an extremely inspiring, energizing, and exciting month as I made new friends (the Close/Pick family, Kitty and her mom, the Francolini family, and so many more), learned about new research and treatments, and met and listened to new and old heroes (Glenn Close, Jessie Close, Calen Pick, Kay Redfield Jamison, Marya Hornbacher, and Rosalyn Carter). If you don't know who some of these people are please look them up as they are all heroes in the mental health awareness (and women empowerment) world. I have had the honor of attending fabulous events in cities I had only dreamt about ten years ago. But it has not been all easy and joyous.

As I present and speak publicly about my illness and my (relative) stability I feel as if I need to always be happy, and if not, always act happy. I had gotten to the point where I found myself presenting a false image because I feared that if I let people know that I still get depressed sometimes, or still feel unsteady sometimes, they will feel there is no hope. I felt that if I am going around the country telling people that there is treatment and stability for people with mental illness, my hiccups in stability would prove this false. I have talked about this before in a past post so I won't go into it completely now other than I promised myself that I would always be completely honest, so, here it is...

The last month has been extremely hard as well. It has not only been the anniversary of my first hospitalization and the exhaustion of five national trips in one month followed by two 5K walks, but meeting so many people with one's same story is very difficult. Meeting so many people that share your story and hearing their struggles not only feels comforting as you are swiftly pulled from the aloneness of a diagnosis, but it also reminds you of all the pain you experienced. It reminds each individual of how lonely you really were and how different your life would have been had you just had this new friend(s) with you from the beginning. It is strangely validating, empowering, and comforting, and yet, it is often painful to meet people with such similar stories of agony, near suicide, self-harm, self-medication, etc., etc., etc. It is beautiful because everything is suddenly okay. You have found yourself on solid ground. But you can't hep but remember how terrifying it is to dangle from the cliff.

The last month has been more than exhilarating. It has reminded me of how much I love my family, how happy I am that I am alive, and how honored and lucky I am to have the opportunity and the health to do all the things that I do. It has once again reminded me why I need to continue to speak and share my story. People should not be alone in this fight. People should not have to feel pain when they finally find community years after their initial diagnosis. People should feel comforted, cared for, and loved from the very beginning. Feeling the ups and downs of this month has made that fact even more present in my mind. We need to change things now. We cannot let this continue to happen. We cannot let so many of our children end up on the streets, end up incarcerated, end up losing their lives by self-medicating. We cannot let a treatable enemy like suicide claim so many victims because they are alone and scared. We need to talk about this. We need to change things fast. Please help us change things by sharing stories, by letting people know that they are not alone. In my mind the biggest way to fight stigma is to talk. Share your truth. We need to remind the nation that 1 in 6 adults suffers from a mental illness by sharing real stories from the heart. Please have courage, for all of us.

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.

camera shy

we've arrived

the move from Chicago to Seattle went well, now it's time to live with my parents until we find our own home...

love and couches

I often find myself seeing the world as I will remember it and not as it currently is. Because I so often go back to memories for writing or even just to put together the pieces, I now find myself trying to see things before they happen. Preparing for the next article, book, life. I find myself viewing the world as if it is not me that is living it, but me that is directing it, painting it, acting it.  Take this moment. Josh is at work and I just cleaned the apartment. Five hours ago there were piles upon piles of my papers and books and clothes. My stuff everywhere. But now it is clean and I sit here in my green chair next to the window by the plants and purple curtains and I look at how big it looks when it’s clean. I think about how much space there is and how beautiful the hard wood floors look when there is nothing on them. I always wanted hard wood floors, and now they are here. In my suddenly clean apartment. But anyways, what made me think of this is the fact that I was looking at the pictures on the wall above the couch and they made me think of Jamie, my last roommate, and my old place in the loop in chicago. They are in the same order, over the couch, and I think about how I remember that apartment and I think about the memories that were there. I think about memories a lot. I think about the movement of objects a lot. This chair for instance. I think about all the places that it has been with me and all the places that it may have been in the past. Its like that movie The Red Violin. I don’t remember very much, but I have been thinking about that concept my whole life. I used to think about the fact that if I moved to a new room or location I would have to make sure that I changed it, so it looked different, and I think somehow, with the help of my parents I was able to do that until I was about nineteen. Then I ran out of money and the furniture in my home became the furniture in my home, no matter where that home was. This chair is my chair and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I have to keep it. It is my friend. And everything else around here, in this apartment, with a few exceptions, is a constant. The brown couch. I think about it sitting in the apartment in the loop. I think about it sitting in the house I bought it from. I think about its lives, and what happened on it. I think about who all slept on it. Who made love on it. Who cried, laughed, sang on it. I don’t know where this is going, but I wonder what I will think of when I remember this place. When I see the couch again, with the same pictures above it, will I think of this apartment, or will I think about my last apartment. I will really miss this place, and I am afraid that I will continue to miss its shape and form as I miss the one on Broadway in Seattle. Why do I make apartments into living beings? Doesn’t that seem a little strange? I miss them like old friends. I don’t want to leave. This place especially. I want to bring it with me. It didn’t do me any harm. I love it like the Broadway apartment, but I have better memories. At least I have josh to create new memories with. He will be there in the next home we create, and probably even the next.