Things I've learned...

(Polson, Montana)

Within the last week I have attend two vastly different conferences, the Empowerment of Native Americans with Disabilities Conference, and the Pacific Rim International Conference on Disabilities. Though they had very similar focuses, and often similar outlooks, the cultures and people were extremely diverse. At both of these conferences I found myself feeling very small, and very under educated in the cultures, needs, and expectations. I found that like my mom, I felt very humbled. Given that I was so impressed and profoundly amazed by these conferences I thought it would be nice to share some of my favorite moments with you:

-Being blessed with sage and a feather by a Native American elder made me feel loved/scared/warm/confused/blessed.

-Listening to a brilliant paraplegic lawyer who travels the globe, frequenting impoverished countries to fight for disability rights makes me feel proud/amazed/small/inspired.

-Watching a mother and daughter present about their journey from the daughter’s severe brain injury to her now internationally read magazine for young woman with disabilities (Logan) made me feel joyous/enraptured/lucky/ready.

-Feeling the beat of the drum, hearing the jingle of the jingle dress, seeing the fancy dance as we were presented with a Native American cultural demonstration, and hearing the account of a deaf salsa dancer’s memories of 4,000 fans clapping in sign language made me remember the importance and the universality of the arts. It made me remember why they are the focus of my life.

-Learning the importance of teaching social networking to all people as a means of fighting discrimination and allowing full inclusion into society made me aware of all the things I don’t think about.

-Watching the sunset over the Pacific Ocean with my family, in Hawaii, made me feel lucky/blessed/loved/empowered/inspired/small/ready.

(Honolulu, Hawaii)

What is going on here?!?

I think this is a question that many people with a mental illness ask themselves. Why am I feeling like this? Why am I acting like this? Why can't I make it stop?!

These were the thoughts that were rapidly firing in my head as I tried to figure out why I just couldn't be happy and go out with my friends, or why I just couldn't slow down and relax. For the longest time I hated myself for not being able to fix "it". In this society where we are told we should "just smile" or "walk in the sunshine" we assume it is our fault for not trying harder. We assume we are weak or bad for not perfectly controlling our mind and our body. We assume that there is something wrong with our personality as opposed to our chemistry. When I was first depressed to the point of suicide I got into a cycle of feeling agonizing pain of depression, exhaustion and defeat from not being able to fix it, and an extreme hatred for my lack of strength and drive to pick myself up. It wasn't until I was in the hospital on a suicide watch that I was given my first tentative diagnosis, Bipolar II.

Now, I grew up with a special ed teacher mom and a vocational rehabilitation counselor dad. I grew up being taught the importance of being sensitive to disabilities, the equality between every person no matter their difference, and the importance of providing access and help to those with specific needs that may be different from my own. I grew up obsessively reading the DSM and diagnosing my guinea pig, Herman, with Tourettes Syndrome because he had certain ticks and would squeak uncontrollably at times. (And although I knew all about Tourettes by the age of seven I knew very little about guinea pig ear mites). Anyway, when it came down to it,  I knew about disabilities. I knew all about "differences" and the normalcy of said differences. I knew all about what the word "label" meant in that community and knew that one should not use a condition to classify the whole of a person. 

Maybe this is why it hurt so much when I was diagnosed. Maybe deep down in my heart I knew just how little the rest of the world knew about disabilities. Maybe I knew the discrimination and misunderstanding that came with a mental illness label, because I found my mind screaming "No. Not me! I am not BIPOLAR. I am not like that. I'm not CRAZY". To me, someone who found every disability as simply another thing that makes us unique and special, this diagnosis made me into something I didn't want to be. It grouped me into a category that was bad. And whether or not the people in this category were "bad" or not, societies view and opinion of them was. I was not going to be one of them. I had spent my entire life trying to be perfect, flawless, and this was the biggest flaw I could ever imagine.

 However, on the other hand,there was the small, scared, childlike voice inside of me saying, "its not my fault". Even writing this today makes me tear up when I remember just how hard I tried to make myself feel normal, be normal. I tried so hard to control my emotions, but the more I tried, and the more I failed, the more I punished myself. I had two competing voices in my head, the blamer, "it's all your fault! If you tried harder we wouldn't be where we are today!" and the blamed, "I try so hard. I'm not good enough. I deserve this pain." It was a dangerous downward spiral that became even worse when it moved from mental to physical hatred. Having a diagnosis validated those "it's not my fault" cries of the blamed. It allowed me to start being a little bit nicer to myself.

It took me a long time to be nicer to myself, and in many ways it is still a very difficult struggle. The diagnosis, for me,  was one of the most life changing parts of my illness. Though it may not have been more life changing than almost losing my life, it changed my view of myself. It forced me to come to terms with the blamer and the blamed. It helped me realize who I really am and whether or not a label (BIPOLAR) defined me. At first I felt that the words were etched into my forehead. I felt that with one word I was someone completely different. Years have taught me that my diagnosis can never define me. It may define some of the traits of my illness, but it will never define my exact reaction to those traits, or even my reaction to my reactions. Through my diagnosis I have been able to take the blame away and realize that this is simply something  unique about me. A blessing and a curse that makes my life slightly different from other peoples' lives. In finding my diagnosis I have found the most important thing of all, the map towards treatment.

Next time...why do we love the diagnosis? We love treatment. Why do we love treatment? Because it allows us to function again!

I'm back!

Pardon my brief absence. Having gone to the conferences and a week of excitement and adventure (five airports, 2 conferences, 1 keynote, four break-outs, and five states) I came home to a leaking bathroom ceiling and wall and a large photography midterm. So, now I am back and ready to roll and keep on bloggin. The problem for now is that I am minutes away from bed and have to leave you with this short little check in. I promise however, that by the end of this weekend you will feel fully satisfied with a (hopefully) inspirational and powerful post brought to you by none other than me, Linea. So, as I leave you tonight I will provide you with this, some conference pictures and my favorite learnings from the conference (and yes, I made up a new, poorly phrased word to explain the brilliant and insightful lessons I was taught).

When asking a group of amazingly brilliant, powerful, and to some, "severely disabled" young people, "would you want your parents to tell you you were paralyzed/autistic/cognitively challenged?" The answers?  A simultaneous "YES"! "It's my body". "I deserve to know because its me". "I have to deal with it, not them". "Let me know so I can move forward".
Here are a few of my favorite pictures:

The most important the I learned: listen. Listen and learn.

From Storytelling to Advocacy

I am going out of town next week to present at two conferences, one in Wisconsin and one in Texas. At these conferences I always share my story and read from my personal journals written during my most painful moments. Presenting to teachers, mental health professionals, and others who are somewhat well-read in the subject of bipolar and mental illness, I know that I want to share my most intimate moments with the illness. I want to let them see the mindset and thoughts that go through someone's head while they are in an episode. I want them to be able to see what it is really like for someone suffering with a mental health condition because I know it will help them help those struggling with it. I know that through sharing my story I can create a compassion and empathy that cannot be found in psychology textbooks. I know that through honesty I can help them reach out to just one more person.

When it comes to the world outside the conference room I am not always as aggressively vocal about my deepest darkest moments. At least not right away. My way of sharing stories outside of the classroom or conference room is through honest answers to often simple questions. People may ask things like, "Why did you take a quarter off in your sophomore year?" And instead of running or come up with a lie on the spot, I simply tell them the truth: I had to take a medical leave because I was suffering with a severe depression and was eventually diagnosed with bipolar disorder. This usually turns into a question and answer session, "what is it like to have bipolar disorder?" "what is it like to be hospitalized?" "tell me about your medications". And often times, if it doesn't produce questions I often tell them flat out, "Feel free to ask me questions, I'm not embarrassed".

Oftentimes in the "real world" of offices or classrooms or living-rooms people may not bring up mental health conditions, and if they do, the fear, misinformation, and misunderstanding is enormous. It is in these times that we (those who have a mental health condition, and those who know anyone who does) need to speak out. Be brave when you hear, "Oh my god she was like soooo bipolar! That's like the worst roommate to have!" Be brave and say, "that must have been hard for you to live with someone having such a hard time. I hope that you provided her with the support she needed. I am bipolar, so I know it's so hard to foster healthy relationships when you're in an episode..." It is in these moments when you give them the "she doesn't know what she's talking about" and try to inform and not get mad.

I get mad about injustice. Alot. I get mad when people make fun of others for any reason. When people are unfair or unkind to someone they know nothing about. But it is important that we don't get mad. If we want to make a difference we must be the  stronger man (or woman) and simply inform. Tell your story: Let people see the face of mental illness and know that it looks just like everyone else, just like theirs. Provide information: Help people find resources to get better informed. Let them know how many people actually deal with mental health issues.

Here are some of BringChange2Mind's thoughts on what you can do to make a change:

Speak Up

The general population is largely unaware of the number of people with mental illness; because of this, the stigma of mental illness is a “hidden stigma.”

• Strong evidence shows that contact between the general public and people with mental illness may be an effective approach to significant and lasting attitudinal changes.

• The stories and experiences of people who live with mental illness, and corresponding stigma, may have the greatest impact.

• People who come out about their disease find significant release in no longer having to keep it a secret. This reduction in stress can aid in treatment, as well as improve relationships, job satisfaction and support from family members.

• Unfortunately, coming out may lead to social disapproval and possible housing or employment discrimination. However, being open about your disease may allow you some protection against discrimination through the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

• Strength in Numbers: The World Health Organization has done research that suggests that nearly half of adults will experience some form of mental illness in their lifetimes. The more people realize that people affected by mental illness are “just like me,” the easier it will be to live with any form of mental illness.

Watch your Language

• Refrain from using terms like “crazy,” “nuts”, “psycho” and “lunatic”.

• Say someone “has schizophrenia”, or “has bi-polar disorder” rather than calling the person a “schizophrenic” or “they’re bi-polar.”

• Although correcting someone else’s use of language might not be a good approach, you should always try to watch your own. 

So these are my thoughts. Now go out and make a difference!!

My story continued...

To follow up from the last post I want to once again say that we are making February our "share your story month". Because of this it is probably appropriate that I continue to share my story in February not late January. After sharing my story last week I know many people are wondering where I am now, maybe not necessarily occupationally because you can follow that on our website, but emotionally.

So out of my commitment to be completely honest to my readers here is my story now, today, in all its emotionally exposed glory:


Yesterday I went to see my psychiatrist. I told him that I am feeling slightly moody and find myself creeping into these unintended, uncontrollable moments of frustration, hyperactivity, or utter exhaustion. We talked about the need to "tweak" my meds, and we talked about the likelihood of changing one out completely sometime in the near future.

Now, I have been stable for a long time, aside from a small yearly depression that comes around the anniversary of an overdose, a depression that lasted slightly longer this year, but was still completely manageable. I still consider myself stable. But I continue to have these little hiccups of symptoms. Moments where I would feel much better jumping on the bed for hours than I would trying to attempt even a partial night's sleep. Moments where I feel so exhausted after having lunch with someone that I come home and pass out in seconds. And worst of all, moments where I find myself furious over the thought of doing dishes (and I am not an angry person by any means).

I tend to freak out about such hiccups. I think, is it coming back?! Oh my god, what if I have mixed episodes again! I'll have to be locked up! All the work I'm doing will be ruined! And then I spin off into these worry tangents until I either hit a wall, cry hysterically, or slap some sense into myself and tell myself to knock it off! These are hiccups, nothing terrible is going to happen. I am not going to suddenly loose it with all the safety nets in place, and all the lessons I have learned.

And so I go through this, I have this constant conversation with myself every time a little bump comes about. But then my common sense kicks in and reminds me that:
1) every time I felt an episode coming in the past I told my doctors immediately
2) I have learned healthy, safe coping techniques if things do go wrong
3) I am aware of the most minute movements towards any episode
4) I have an amazing support network

When I go through these hiccups, these "tweaks" in my meds I am always scared to tell people. I travel the country telling people my story, telling them horrifying things but making them feel better by saying "but I'm stable now" at the end. And I am. Just maybe not perfect. And I fear telling people, "I'm great but I have been having issues with my meds", or "I'm wonderful, but have been having small worrisome mood swings lately", because I'm afraid they won't get it. I'm afraid they will still be afraid for me. So I often tell them I'm fine no matter what.

But that's not truly telling my story. That's not being authentically honest. So I have made a promise to myself, I will always tell people exactly how I really feel. And if they worry I will remind them of all the things I remind myself. I will tell them how I feel in order to show them that when you are bipolar you have small bumps sometimes, but they don't paralyze you. You have to keep going on with your life. And you can with all the safety nets in place.

So, here it is, here is me right now, at this moment:
I am Linea. I am bipolar and have been having small mood swings lately that are causing me to have to make small adjustments to my medications and it makes me anxious. However, I am completely fine. I am capable and happy doing all the work that I do because I know how to take care of myself. Things will not happen as they did in the past because I know how to handle my stress levels, how to keep myself from coping in unhealthy ways, and how to ask for help when I need it. I am stable. I have bumps. And it's okay.

My story

We (the momma and I) have decided to make February a month of sharing stories to fight stigma. So, along with our newly posted video on YouTube we are going to start sharing our stories and learnings on our blogs, starting conversations about it on our Facebook and Myspace sites, and commenting on it on our Twitter page. So, visit us, chat with us, and learn with us. And without further adieu, here is my story...

There was a moment in my life when I almost drowned.

Living in the largest dorm in the country with three best friends, experiencing my first serious college boyfriend, living the perfect life of a well-off artsy college kid, I couldn’t have dreamt of anything better. That is, until I turned my back to the ocean and was swiftly and dramatically pulled in by the undertow.

One moment I was there and one moment I wasn’t. It was as if I had suddenly had my brain replaced by someone weaker, angrier, sadder. I didn’t know where I was or what I had set out to do anymore. I couldn’t understand what went wrong. I couldn’t understand why I was suddenly seeing pools of blood every time I closed my eyes.

It was a dramatic and intense case of depression. I stopped eating. I broke up with the man who was, at that time, the love of my life. I stopped leaving my room. I stopped all contact with the world, and whether I pretended I was there or not, my eyes were empty.

This went on for several weeks. Floating around Chicago, the city that I had worked so hard to get to. To me this went on for a lifetime. I floated out to sea.

Then my boyfriend, who was now just a friend-friend, called my parents. He called, and just as swiftly as I was pulled under, I was pulled out.

Completely.

My dad arrived from Seattle no less then ten hours after he was called. My life, my room, and my thoughts were packed up and shipped out. Flown back to Seattle and, in my mind, never to return.

Nothing could have been more painful. Nothing could have been more dramatic to me at that point and place in my life. Nineteen years old and suddenly I was forced to leave my friends, my life, my freedom and everything that I had built within the last two years of hard-earned independence.

I arrived home tired, cold, and wet, water still in my lungs.

The next couple of years moved from an undertow to a tsunami. My mind moved quickly from a simple depression to a devastating suicidal obsession. Looking back I am amazed I am even here to tell my story.

In the next year and a half I spent time in hospitals for suicide prevention and for overdose recovery. I spent time in apartments, manic and drugged and depressed and dangerous. I spent so many hours feeling completely out of control of my mind and so many hours trying to fight against it with every form of self-medication and self-harm I could find that I am amazed I have the ability to form thoughts or press my fingers to these keys.

It took me a long time to come to terms with what was happening. After having a “wait and see” diagnosis of bipolar disorder II at nineteen I spent many, many months fighting the label and implications before I finally received my final, “for sure” diagnosis of plain old bipolar I. My months and years of fighting only made things worse and it took me a long time before I realized that if I was good to myself and my body, my bipolar would be good to me. Who knew stimulants could make you manic or alcohol could make you devastatingly depressed!

Once I finally gave in and decided to change my life things began to turn around again. Though it took lots of self-care and finding the right doctors, counselors, and meds, my stability allowed me to live the life I had always dreamed of living. My stability was more then just taking care of myself and finding the right help however, it was also my amazing luck to have the opportunities and support network I do. It was this fact that inspired me to begin to make a difference in the mental health world.

Having spent time in the worst psych units with the saddest cases I realized that things must change. I realized that people need to talk about these things. People needed to be able to talk about their thoughts, lives, and feelings. We need to be able to share our stories.

So…here I am today, graduating, speaking at conferences, in classrooms and auditoriums, writing and collaborating with mental health and education professionals, working with amazing mental health organizations, writing a book. Through my experiences I have realized that I needed to make a difference, and through my opportunities I have hopefully begun to do so. I am so excited and pleased that I have the opportunity to make the differences that I am seeing.

Today I have found my way back to dry land where I can finally stand on firm ground, and it is here that I will help others do the same.

(This picture was taken when I was 20. I look a little different now that I finally take showers and have let my natural hair color grow back.)

love and conversation

I believe that I have already spoken about the difficulty and fear that can encompass romantic relationships when someone sees themselves as unstable, depressed, or "mentally ill", so I won't try to go too far into that direction. (If I have not gone enough into it please let me know in a comment so that I can be sure to write my next blog on the topic.) What I think is important to talk about is my current relationship and the interaction it has with my current diagnosis.

I am dating and living with an amazing boy, I mean man, who I have been with for quite a while now. I feel we have an amazingly healthy relationship and that is why I feel comfortable sharing this for the blogosphere and for readers hoping to learn or hear more about how to make a relationship work when someone is feeling unstable, etc. My boy, J, is an amazingly stabilizing force. One that I often find myself feeling I couldn't live without. And it is exactly this worry that I think it is important to be aware of. Whenever I have this specific worry I always find it is my own fear of my diagnosis, my being bipolar, that leads me to feeling I can't do without him. I find myself thinking I can't do without someone that I could see being a care taker. It is when I get to these points however, that, though I would not want to be without him, I must always remind myself that I would do fine without him. (But that is once again going back to relationships, mental health conditions, and autonomy.)

I have been thinking a lot about the equality of our relationship. Something that I feel is crucial for all my relationships, romantic or otherwise. I have been thinking a lot about how amazing he is at taking care of me. He does the dishes when I am overly busy with school/conferences/etc. He reminds me to pay the bills when I am too focused on my travels to realize the date. "Oh yeah, it is a new month, maybe I should pay rent..." He seems so often to be the stabilizing force in my own life and in our relationship.

Lately, however he has been extremely busy with his own crazy schedule and has been working hard simply to keep his own head above water. This has led me to make the decision that while he has helped me hold things together when my life lost control, I should help him when he is trying to keep his together. So last night we had a wonderful conversation. I asked him, "what can I do for you?", knowing that he is the very opposite of me in his busy and emotional states--while I can become clingy and needy, he tends to want more of his own space.

The question led us into a wonderful conversation about our own needs, once again helping me realize the importance of being two independent beings within an equal relationship. Though he may hold me up at times when I am feeling unstable and needy, I know that I can do the same for him when things change. I also know that when I am feeling too depressed to help him and he is feeling too busy to help me that we will both chip in to help each other, even if it just means leaning on one another without doing anything else. I know that I can do my best to support him in these busy times, but I also know that he would completely understand if I was to say I can't based on my own emotional struggles. The importance and strength of our relationship all lies in an honest conversation.

For now, thanks to our conversation, my path is relatively easy. When asked what I can do to help he simply said, "keep your stuff picked up, do the dishes, and rub my back". That should be easy enough to handle, and if its not, I know he'll understand simply because we were open enough to talk about it.

The picture was a gift from J for my birthday. Visit his blog here.

Focusing on the big picture...

I have an exciting "informational interview" tomorrow with someone I look up to, someone who I would happily follow in their footsteps if it was only that easy. But when I think about this interview tomorrow, or the fact that I am in the midst of trying to figure out life after college, the only thing I can think of to say is this:

"Hello, I'm Linea. I am twenty-four years old and in the middle of a transition crisis. I have been in school for six years now with almost two full majors, only one of which will be claimed at my graduation ceremony. I have no idea what to do with my life or where to go from here. Sometimes I think I would just like to disappear into my bedroom with a couple of DVDs and some candy and never leave..."

And when I try to think about what to say, whether it is to the person I am interviewing tomorrow or the random stranger that asks "what are you going to do now that you're graduating from college?" I simply feel like a failure. Which is funny. On many levels.

The first reason it is funny is the fact that I believe almost every person feels this confusion when they graduate, and I'm sure that more then half of the twenty-four year olds in America probably feel like failures anyways. The other thing that is funny (and a little sad) is the fact that most people would never call me a failure. At the age of nineteen I was hospitalized and completely psychotic, but by the time I was twenty-two I had written a book and traveled to international conferences sharing my story. I just can't seem to see that myself, and therefore continue to only see myself as a failure.

I don't know what makes me feel like more of a failure, the fact that my diagnosis interrupted crucial points in my development, leading me to still remain, (and I am so ashamed to admit it) still very much financially dependent upon my parents, or the fact that my episodes interrupted my college path leading me (the extreme perfectionist) to graduate two years later then my original plan. Either way, I find that my diagnosis and the accompanying episodes have left me feeling far behind the rest of my peers.

And this is what I find important to discuss, my mental health condition has left me feeling utterly behind the rest of the pack. I feel that the herd of mid-twenty somethings have all run off ahead of me finding jobs, furthering their education with bigger and grander degrees, or building families. Not that I want to be like all of them, (especially not want to be the family builders), but I feel like I should be doing more. That is until I really stop myself, look in the mirror and realize, you are doing more. You have much to offer.

I think that it is hard for anyone who has had to follow a different path due to a health condition. It is frustrating to me that I could not simply follow the path I planned out when I was five. I may be slightly financially behind my peers, or in some ways independently behind my peers, but I have in many ways reached much further ahead. I have confronted the hard stuff in life, and there will be more, but I have faced it head on and grown wiser from it. I have gotten to a point that I feel many of my peers, or even heroes may not have reached. I have confronted myself in its darkest, scariest sense and have lived to tell the tale. I have spent the time exploring and fighting and soothing the many selves within me. It is through my battle with a mental health condition that I have in many ways reached far ahead of that self I always planned on being at my age. And it is because of this that I realize that I am worth something and am not in any way a failure.

It is only when I realize the things I have accomplished, whether they seem small or irrelevant, that I realize my life was not ruined by the fact that I have bipolar disorder. It has effected my life greatly, yes, and while it may have held me back in some ways it has pushed me forward in just as many. It is during these moments, the ones that leave me devastated and fearful for my future, that I realize that I need to step back and look at the big picture. Only through looking at this big picture can I finally realize that an unconventional path holds equally impressive results.

why so hard?

So, I had this paper that I was supposed to write. It was a simple paper, four to six pages synthesizing my biggest ideas throughout college and talking about my favorite classes. I was supposed to simply write about the ideas that snowballed in my mind. The ideas that connected with thoughts in other classes and the way they changed the way I understood the world. Normally, this assignment would thrill me. I love thinking about thinking. I love when my ideas connect and snowball ultimately making my world shatter through the realization that everything I thought I knew was actually wrong, or at least completely different than I ever thought. But this time, given that I have a lot of other stressors on my plate, things like a looming college graduation, a non-existent post-grad job, and the fact that the paper came at the anniversary of a very painful past experience, (a near death by overdose), it was nearly impossible to finish. It has actually taken me about a month over the due date to complete. And last night, finally, I turned it in.

So, why was it so hard, I ask myself. Aside from the obvious previously mentioned items, I realized that it forced me to look at a part of my life in a different angle. I found it strange that I can write a memoir about my experiences with bipolar, and travel the country sharing my story, but I couldn't seem to write a simple paper about my college career. The thing that I realized though, is that I have not had your average college career. Throughout my time in college I have been diagnosed with bipolar, been hospitalized two times, came extremely close to losing my life several times, and been through innumerable amount of ups and downs, round abouts, and zigzags through the world of mental illness, self-medication, and that continuous search for stability. It was through all of this that I had one goal: to just finish school. So it was through all of this that my biggest ideas formed. Through all of these things I was attempting to write papers, read, grasp big ideas. In the end my experience with bipolar and my experience as an undergrad became completely intertwined.

In realizing all of this I finally just realized that there was still healing to do. I still had to come to terms with a lot of trauma and pain that I thought I had already coped with. It is through these tasks, seemingly menial papers, that we originally assume to be easy that each of us must realize that there is always another level. There is always a deeper level to which we can explore ourselves and our lives. Always more to the story that we originally thought. Though the paper was extremely difficult and painful I came to realize that I needed to go to that painful level to truly come to terms with my college experiences. I needed sludge through the painful moments in my life one more time so that next time it might be a little easier. Sometimes we find ourselves asking, why is this so hard?! It's because we need to confront it, to push ourselves to the next level, and to realize that everything isn't as it seems.

little things

On Friday I was forced to think about my future as I met with my college advisor regarding my upcoming graduation. Still being in a somewhat sensitive state I became extremely, overwhelmingly anxious. It was at that point that I remembered the importance of family (whoever that may be: friends, community, etc.) and support when it comes to stress, and especially when it comes to complications pertaining to one's mental illness. So, I went to my sister's house because I know that she (almost) always makes me feel better with her "get mad not sad" attitude that is so opposite of mine. (To learn more about my this, read my mom's blog entry, "Where's Sister"). I think the thing that made me feel the best however, was also the fact that we made cookies with my twenty-one month old nephew. It was in the moment when I looked at his flour and oatmeal covered head that I began to feel better. As he "helped" stir the flour, sugar, salt, and oatmeal by putting it all over his high-chair, body, face, and the floor I couldn't help but smile. His flour covered body was a reminder of the little things in life that are important. Just watching his mischievous little face and observing him as he tested us with his toddler-ness was a reminder that sometimes it helps to focus on the little moments, (and in his case, the little things). When I'm at my worst, I often find that the only way to get by is by focusing on the small moments in each day, each hour, each minute. In doing this I can get out of my head and remember that the earth is still spinning, and that joyful, (and even hilarious), things are still happening.

Everything is Everything

I just read an article by John Frow called "A pebble, a camera, a man" on "Thing Theory" where he talks about the concept that "things, too, embody human will". He speaks about the fact that the speed bump is not merely a thing in the road, but something that gives an "instruction, on behalf of the police or some traffic control authority, to slow down on this stretch of the road". He explains that to call the speed bump "non-human" is to "ignore all the ways in which human will is translated into things and in which things in turn work as delegates which relay back to us these configurations of human will". In reading this it reminded me of my favorite phrase: "everything is everything".

When I begin talking about my belief that "everything is everything", (that everything either already is or eventually becomes connected in some way, that life always seems to find a way to circle back around, that everything has an intense interdependence upon everything else, and that every piece of this world is equally important and present within every other piece,) I am always told that I must be getting manic. I always have to laugh because though I may be going a little too far thinking that the number eleven is extremely telling in my life (because I seem to see an increase and reoccurrence before a major event), or in thinking that "rabbits are my power animal", I am certainly not the only one who sees the patterns in the world. I have even been told that people who are bipolar, or "mentally ill", see patterns more often. This may be true, and though this may make me see things a little more connected then they might actually be sometimes, I can't help but know in my soul that it's true: Everything is Everything...

"But we consist of everything the world consists of, each of us, and just as our body contains the genealogical table of evolution as far back as the fish and even much further, so we bear everything in our soul that once was alive in the soul of men. Every god and devil that ever existed, be it among the Greeks, Chinese, or Zulus, are within us, exist as latent possibilities, as wishes, as alternatives." -Hesse-

back in my day...

A few weeks ago I was given the opportunity to visit the town I grew up in: Manson, Washington. A tiny apple farming town on a beautiful lake, surrounded by snowy mountains. I have found my mind going back to Manson quite a lot lately. I remember how simple everything was and how easy it was to be happy. I am not sure if it was the town itself or my wonderfully enjoyable childhood, but I am beginning to realize it may not have been as simple and easy as I thought.

When I first moved to Chicago I thought this is where I belong. The big city. I thought I was cut out for a world of "culture," art, music, constant movement, noise, and people. I thought that I would never be happy in a small town again. I actually forgot Manson existed. Until this last year. I'm not sure if it is the fact that I am once again living in Washington or if I am maturing to the point where I am seeing my youth through a new lens, but I can't stop thinking about it.

Going "home" was an interesting experience for several reasons: the first being that I hadn't been there for about five years, the second being the fact that I hadn't been there with my sister in thirteen years, and the third being that I had the opportunity to bring my one year old nephew with me. It was a strange mix of youthful memories and startling realizations of maturity. I am not a child anymore, and it became blatantly clear the moment I started driving my sisters sleeping child past my old house. I felt very emotional, happy, sad, overwhelmed at the fact that I was not the kid asleep in the backseat waiting for my parents to get me home. I thought about how much I have been through since that moment. I thought about how much things have changed and whether my parents thought the same thing when they were driving me around their home towns.

I think one of the things that struck me was thinking about the complexities that I never noticed. I drove around a place that was so full of memories, yet with the feeling that I had never seen any of it before. I saw the poverty, the small shacks that generations of families lived in, and realized for the first time what it meant to live there. When I was a kid I didn't understand what it was like for the families of the kids I went to school with. I didn't understand the extent of the poverty or the wealth of the tourists that juxtaposed it. I am amazed at the things I never noticed. I was amazed at the beauty that I took for granted. I was upset by the new wealth and "summer homes" that surrounded my old house and playgrounds.

I suppose the point to this is that I'm still young, but I think for the first time I really understand what it feels like to be getting older. It was that moment where I could hear my eighty year old voice saying, "back in my day..."

this and that

i find it amazing how i tend to break things into sides. as i have been told all my life, i am very "black and white." i find this interesting considering my being defined as bipolar. is my tendency to break things into good and evil, happy and sad, beautiful and ugly something that follows these newly defined brain patterns, or is it my natural disposition? could i have instead simply been influenced by the fact that i was raised by someone who is also said to be "black and white." i find it interesting how our social labels and categories are always used as a way to explain and excuse are natural tendencies. i tend to feel that my pull towards duality has a little to do with everything. i have always been a person that is entranced by beauty, and i have always felt that what we see as beautiful or ugly are only truly complimented by seeing both sides. you can never know how bright it is until you have been in the dark. you never know how slow you are going until you have transitioned from the freeway to a small side street, or vice versa. there are always two sides and i feel that without both there is no way to truly see the beauty in the ugliness. now, i have been told that i am full of shit when it comes to this topic, but this is how i feel and this is what i will stick to.

in my life i have seen both sides. i constantly move from what i see as "the good girl" to the "troublemaker," the bad girl. i always felt strangled at one end and guilty at the other. things are always hot or cold, right or wrong, happy or sad, everything or nothing at all. These are things i need to reconcile. these are things that do need to find a happy median, and while i do love to see both sides and compare one to the other, it is not always healthy and appropriate for certain situations.

i was taking a class where we read sense and sensibility. at the end of the class we were supposed to write a paper and i remember having such a hard time because i couldn't stop thinking about what i saw as the two vastly different sides. there was the romantic world of beauty and art and religion and the enlightenment world of science and reason. i had such a hard time because i wanted both and i felt both but i couldn't find a way to bring them together. after completely panicking as to why i could not see the middle i had a conversation with my boyfriend josh. now, while most people think their partners are wonderful and perfect, josh is truly the most amazing person i have ever met. he talked me down off my cliff and explained that he can't see it in any other way. he can't separate the two because he feels that they are so perfectly connected. at first hearing this i kind of wanted to punch him; here i was trying to figure something out and he comes along and says that he already figured it out. but then i realized that that wasn't what he was saying at all. he demonstrated to me that he is just the opposite. he just works differently than i do. his world is always connected and he seems to have the opposite problem.

this is beautiful because i stopped being upset and angry at myself for not seeing it in a certain way and realized that that is how i am. i am a person that tends to see things as dualities. it is not my fault that i see it one way or his fault that he sees it the other, it is just how we are. so today i work on finding the gray area in important life struggles that need a bit more stability, struggles that don't do well when you totter from side to side. today i also allow myself the ability to be okay with comparisons. i allow myself the ability to see both sides and find the beauty in one and then the other. but even that is about balance. it is a balance of finding the right time to use my new skills and the right time to allow my natural tendency for "black and white" to come out.

Bombs and Feathers

on a day of sun and joy and plenty of free boyfriend time we decided to take an adventure, so we moseyed on down to the SLUT (or the seattle trolly thing whose initials are all i happen to remember, and i suppose that the true name isn't truly needed when we could simply call it the SLUT). Anyways, slut abound, we rode all the way to the city center. we wandered in and out of various seattley type places. walked through the expensive and newly remodeled SAM (seattle art museum) and missed the Chicago Art Institute. Went to the pike place market and wandered into an anarchist bookstore. spent lots and lots of time reading books about art, religion, mental health, science, history, philosophy, etc., etc., etc. my thoughts began to get somewhat anxious as i thought about china and tibet. iraq. iran. terrorism in south america. starving children. poor indian reservations. i started to hate the world and love it and wanted to save it and forget about it all at the same time. as i read and thought, (and inevitable bought) way too much i kept hearing screaming from outside. i thought i was losing my mind as my head turned over thoughts of fear and pain and inequality. i thought the world was ending. I knew i was hearing something and in my american media fed head i thought that there had to have been some tragic gun or bomb related event going on outside.

so we went outside

and we saw this...

 

and then we stood there in awe.

in my mind full of fear and violence and anger i thought the worst. and we all do. because time after time we hear these things on the radio on tv on movies in books. violence. war. fear. pain.

but instead it was merely fluff, and quite literally. feathers flew everywhere as hundreds of people brought their pillows for an impromptu pillow fight in the market. police in riot gear surrounded fearing the worst when all people wanted was a chance to mindlessly pound a stranger on the head with fluff.

hmm.

symbolic i suppose.

insurrection

(picture created by some amazing artist whose name i don't know)

im sitting here in my living room reading extremely dense german philosophy and drinking a gigantic cup of hot chocolate and listening to red house painters in my underwear (which i suppose is irrelevant, but it does create a sense of the freedom of this scene) and as i am reading about the effects of the french revolution on romantic/idealist philosophers and socialist and nationalists and all those pre-hitlermaos i have to laugh at my previous self. the self whose main goal before she died was only to start a revolution. the me who thought that the greatest joy in life was being intoxicated/high and alone riding public transportation.

            i think about all of this and laugh at the fact that i merely wanted a reason to fight. or something to fight for. i wanted for it to be okay for me to be angry or mean or crazy. i wanted my actions to be justified. i didn't know why, or what for, but i wanted to revolt.

         and its funny, cause i still see revolutions with some sort of romantic lense. they still represent some sort of beauty to me, and the thoughts and art and behavior are intriguing to me. i still enjoy reading les miserables and watching 60's documentaries.

            i don't know what exactly im getting at, but this: i sit here alone, free, with my hot chocolate, studying past anger and pain, and i am happy and content. i am safe here. my life and my mind have been stable quite a while now, and i have developed a safe and sensible way of dealing with myself. im okay not being in a revolution. im okay not killing or hurting in order to get what i want. im okay without using some outside political or economic or spiritual source to deal with my own demons.

            getting fucked up and riding the train alone might be amazing. and terrifying. and sublime. that fear and excitement that comes with carrying drugs past the big mean drug dogs, or the "are they looking at me? can they tell?" is invigorating.

         but so is sitting in your living room and doing homework until your love comes home to give you a hug.

         let me not seek past excitement to fulfill a longing for infamy.

         excitement comes in all sizes.

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.