The Wrong End of Healthy

Waaaay back at the start of this summer I wrote a blog post about getting healthier. I focused on the physical--the vitamins and minerals, the exercise and fat content, the trimming down and slimming up. What I failed to really respond to was the less visible side of personal health. And it is this inner dialogue between the physical and the mental/emotional that I'd like to address now.

In looking back at my older blog posts I realize that I mostly write about two things: growth and stasis. I tend to write when I feel a moment of personal triumph or inspiration, and I tend to write (a whole lot more) when I'm really struggling with something I can't seem to move past. I see a change, not just in tone and writing style, but in overall state of mind between these two kinds of posts and I have decided: I do not like the "stasis" me. Most people know by now that I struggle with depression and anxiety, so much so that I've discussed it on this blog, on Facebook, and in person a number of times as I try to figure out what it means to have these things and how I can best fight them. But I always get stuck at the point of "healed." At the point of "I'm better now." "It's over." "I won." As if life were one tall series of platforms that, once climbed, become a resting point where we don't have to progress anymore. Stasis.

This summer was a lot like that. So much in my life was going right--I got two great jobs in my field of study, Tim and I found a place to call home at last, and I was getting to spend a lot of time in a good mental place with people I love and admire. Simultaneously, my emotional health was taking an unexplainable dive. I felt myself get fidgety and angry at small things. I would get real low for no apparent reason and withdraw from the company of others in favor of wallowing alone. The worst part was that I couldn't find triggers. In almost every other period of my life where depression was a big factor there were reasons. Signs and cues. But this time neither my husband nor I could pinpoint exactly where the feelings were coming from or why. I started thinking I was crazy. Or bipolar. Or just plain imbalanced. Stasis. There was that too. Like I couldn't move forward, or get better, or reach for help.

I think probably the worst thing about feeling down is that you start to think you deserve it. You become selfish in the most counter-productive ways, worrying about whether or not you're messing up or whether or not you'll ever find a solution, and you forget that this is not and never has been a single test of character. Life is not platforms and checkpoints. It is an unending, all-enduring, curve-ball throwing journey meant for GROWTH and questioning. And when all the hoops were jumped through, and I'd gone to doctors both physical and mental and everyone had decided I was not crazy or bipolar or imbalanced, I was left with this choice: stay where you are, or get up and grow.

My life will never be perfect (although I know it is full of good things and good people) and I will never be perfect (this I know in spades)...but who says that we have to accept a label like "perfect"? Whoever said that life HAD to include joy and happiness every single moment or else it wasn't worthwhile? I may continue working on my inconsistent emotions my whole life and never find a good solution for them, but I know now that I don't need a clean definition or a platform to rest on to be "healthy." I just need to grow. And keep growing. It's simplistic (and maybe in some ways, moronic because we've been told this since the beginning). But this is the most crucial truth of my summer. All the best versions of myself come out when I'm letting life hit me and I get up and hit it back. The bland acceptance of what is, the periods of stasis that drain all the joy from life--those are the versions of myself I'd like to thwomp over the head.

I'm still addressing my physical health (as I should...the mind/body connection is still very much alive) but I'm doing it without ignoring the inner dialogue this time around. And when I have a "bad" day as I inevitably will once in a while, and if I start to feel that pull of stasis once more, I will turn my back to it and choose the other, sometimes less-appealing road.

I. Will. Grow. And I will live trying.

My Love/Hate Relationship With Dr. Oz

  

Every weekday afternoon my mother-in-law tunes in to the "Dr. Oz Show," where she faithfully watches and notes the latest trends in personal health and wellness and adds to her daily pill regimen based on Dr. Oz' recommendations. (One day I watched her lay out her pills for the upcoming month and she explained the use of each one to me as she opened well over a dozen different bottles. About a third of them she was taking solely "because Dr. Oz said to." The man has some powerful sway).

At first I was mildly amused by Dr. Oz. I assumed that he, like most evening show hosts, was more entertainer and entrepreneur than doctor, and took little of what he said seriously. But lately I have started to pay more attention, mostly because I am in the worst shape of my life.

For the first time in my 22 years I have a belly that sticks out over my jeans, and I can no longer eat whatever I want without consequences. I've lost almost all the muscle tone that I built over years of ballet and yoga, and a year of living in the dorms at college has left me pale and pasty. I break out all of the time (I used to think that acne went away at the magical age of 18. But alas, it seems to only get worse from there) and a year of finally having my own transportation has also meant less walking and biking, resulting in a body that I do my best to cover up while everyone else is showing skin for summer. When I decided that I was ashamed of how I looked, my inner self started to go downhill too--decreasing my desire to go out in crowds, my confidence in myself, my ability to believe it when people say I'm beautiful, and even my comfort levels with my husband when we want to be intimate. I see girls with perfect bodies sizing me up at the supermarket and I want to disappear. I am not myself anymore.

Last week I watched a Dr. Oz in which he offered a simple "health quiz" with twenty questions designed to help the audience find where they stand as adults based on the most commonly agreed upon issues in health. I scored a miserable 7 out of 20, which irritated me to no end. As I watched Dr. Oz smile his winning smile and congratulate the members of the audience with high scores, I wanted to punch something. I'm in the prime of my life! I used to hike mountains and run the mile in under eight minutes! And now I'm scoring F's on some television character's quiz.

I've decided that it's time to make a change. Starting with the general stuff, and working my way up. Tim and I got some groceries, including fruit and cereal so that I'll stop skipping breakfast and have something healthy each morning. I'm not a big fan of pills, but I've started taking a multi-vitamin and a low-dose aspirin each day to help prevent blood clots (I've got a blood disorder). I've also set some simple goals: limit soda and caffeine intake (which any college student can tell you is difficult--it's been practically a staple in my diet for four years), don't snack after dinner, walk and exercise every day, drink more water, etc. Today I walked two laps around the Greenbelt at the river and forced myself to wear shorts, even though it made me cringe to see how white and shapeless my legs have become. By the end of the first lap I felt good, and by the second I was grinning ear to ear. I can do this. I can get my body back.

In reality I don't think Dr. Oz is a bad guy. He genuinely seems to care that people take charge of their health in responsible ways and even corrects himself when new research proves his past advice wrong. Am I going to watch his show religiously and create my own pill regimen? The odds are low. But for now I am grateful that his silly quiz gave me the motivation to finally stop doing nothing and start doing something for my health, both physical and mental, so that I can become confident in myself again and happy with where I'm at. Who knows--maybe the habits I start now will stick with me for life, and I'll end up being one of the fit grannies who can out-lap all the twenty-somethings of the future =)

Uprooted Again--and Bloom in Three...Two...One...

Sun come up, then goes away 

so does graduation day 

You did your walk of fame and that was it

--Dropline, "Fly Away From Here" 

Lately I realize I haven't been living up to my blog's title. Rather than making the most of the last few weeks to bloom at the College of Idaho I dug in my fingers, buried myself in homework, and wished for more time. Now I find myself uprooted again--back in my hometown without a job, without an idea of where we're going to live, and with my whole life ahead of me. It's time to start putting out leaves again and seeing where the days take me. And with an entire future to figure out, it's not really a question anymore of whether or not I'll bloom. It's when.

What's the opposite of dysphoria? Euphoria? Yeah, I think euphoria fits. If graduation weekend was anything, it was euphoric. The goodbyes that I had dreaded, the transition between college and that dim horizon still undiscovered--it was painless. Amazing even, to be surrounded by so much love and to finally feel the knot of dread untangle and slither off to bother someone else instead. It was an incredible relief to not see the fears of my last post realized, and to finally feel beyond the uncertainty and anxiety that has been the dominating emotion for well over a month now. 

I am ready to move forward now, with all that that entails.

After the ceremony I took my family on a tour of campus, revisiting favorite buildings and undertaking the impossible hope that by doing so, they might just catch a glimpse of the wild beauty that has been my home for the last four years. Then Tim and I had a few final reunions: families that had become an extension of me through my service with the Food Bank Club, friends and coworkers (those words are simultaneous) that I'd made over the years, professors who had changed me, and individuals near and far who had left permanent impressions on my heart. Everywhere we drove, there were familiar faces. Even the Taco Bell we stopped at before beginning the long drive back to Idaho Falls, where an old neighbor from last year was now employed, left us with the warm feeling of shared experiences. There will never be another place on this green Earth where I can walk from my room to my work and be greeted by a dozen friends along the way. And I'm not sure that there needs to be. At least this way, I will always have the desire to return and visit. 

I am so grateful for the friends and family who made this last week so special. Who attended graduation, if not physically than in spirit, and who made it known that I was someone worth celebrating. I don't know that I've ever felt this much love in my life, and deserved or no, it has been an amazing experience and has given me the confidence boost I desperately needed. I may not know the answer to the most frequently asked question lately: "What's next for you?" But I know that I've got the support and the tools to find out and bloom again.

And I

I believe that everyone can fly

Fly away from here

--Dropline

Let the Dam Break

Graduation is looming--and what am I doing about it? Crying. A lot.

It started with photography. I was doing my nightly routine in the communal bathroom I share with all the girls on my floor, staring at one of the signs taped to the bathroom wall which reads: "Stop! It's flushin' time!" The note, printed midway through the year after the fourth or fifth clogged toilet had forced my RA to address bathroom etiquette, was humorous in its delivery and had been memorized by each of us visit after visit to the restroom. This time, however, I was seized with a strange sense of urgency. I had to take a picture of the sign. I didn't want to forget this.

The urgency became madness as we headed into "Dead Week," the last week of classes before final exams. My trigger-happy hand shot picture after picture of the quirkiest things--the small and remote details that I decided I couldn't live without. A campaign poster from one of the student government elections which declared the candidate: "the Pope of Dope." A baby squirrel on the balcony outside my window. The passing train that shakes the foundations of our dorm building and rattles my desk each day in passing. A flower. A stained glass window. My favorite seminar book. A wasp on the stairwell. The way the light comes down from the skylight in KAIC.

Then it was writing--I had to write everything. Poems about the wind, the process of filing stacks of data in the psychology lab, and the bobbing heads of classmates napping during lecture found their way into my bioethics notes. Quotes from my peers and professors were scrawled onto my senior thesis drafts next to short reflections about what I'd learned and who I had become in the last four years: "Learning self-control, self-reliance, and a dozen other things that start with the word 'self.' Then learning that life is not about the 'self' at all." "I like the word 'phthalate' cuz you can spit on people when you say it." "College = Love." "You're not in it for the money, you're in it because you can't live your life without words."

It wasn't until last week that I realized this inexplicable urge to document, to tie a mental string around all of my moments at the college and pull them in tight, was a coping device for May 18th. Before that, when people talked about graduation I just pretended not to hear, building a subconscious bubble around myself to guard against the idea that Life After College was more than a rumor. That I would ever have to stop being an undergrad, or leave the people and places that had become so much a part of my identity. But all good things must come to an end, and now I was experiencing it. "Empty Nest Syndrome" in reverse. Sooner than I ever thought possible, the end of my time at the College of Idaho has arrived; and I'm not ready to let go. Not yet.

When the dam broke, it broke violently. A Dove soap commercial about beauty sent me sobbing. An episode of The Office had me in hysterics. Sometimes I would feel tears on my face and not even know why they were there, like when I climbed into the seat of one of the campus vans for the final time to make my rounds, or when I (embarrassingly) broke down in the middle of my journalism seminar as we discussed our final projects. It was ridiculous. I was out of control.

Concerned, my journalism professor took me aside after class to ask me what was going on. I shrugged. How could I explain it? But he understood without me saying. Graduation is a scary time, he told me. When I was an undergraduate I had breakdowns too. I once drove for hours just to see a barn--to escape the city and clear my head a little. Trust me, you're going to be ok.

He's right, of course. And I know I will be. I have so many exciting changes coming up: being with my husband full-time (no more long distance!!!!!), finding a place of our own, getting a job that could be the beginnings of a lifetime career, preparing for grad school...At last, the fruits of my labor will start paying off, and in a year or two, all of this anxiety will just be a faint memory.

But for now...For now I'm going to let the dam break. There are more emotions associated with this place than I thought was possible to feel, and I am determined to experience them all before I leave. College of Idaho, you have made me who I am today. And while saying goodbye to you feels like I'm breaking up with half of myself, I will do so with gratitude for the impact you've made on my life and with the skills you gave me to be successful in graduation, Life After College, and Beyond.

Finding A Religious (Or Not) Identity

About two weeks ago an old friend from high school messaged me for the first time in years, asking me how school was going and what I was up to after so long. "Also," he added, "are you still Mormon?" 

Without thinking I typed out a response, filling him in on the typical details of college life. When I got to his question about religion, I didn't hesitate. I wrote: "I am not Mormon anymore. I have a lot of respect for the church and its teachings but I'm no longer active." 

After I hit "send" it occurred to me that this was a big moment. Although I'd been thinking it for months, this was the first time I'd actually put words to the feelings I had about my religious status. I felt like a huge weight had been lifted off. After almost four years of waffling and soul-searching and putting off questions about my faith I had an answer that wasn't a cop-out or a: "Well, my family is Mormon. But I haven't been to church in years." I had my own identity. 

This does not mean that the LDS church is no longer a part of me, or that I suddenly hate religion and what it stands for. It's impossible to completely reject something that has been an integral part of your life for eighteen years, or to miss seeing the value in it. It does mean that I no longer believe I'm destined for hell if I don't attend church, or crack open the scriptures, or even pray daily. This is the best way I can explain it:

I have always taken an interest in the beliefs and testimonies of others, be they Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Bahai, Jewish, atheist, agnostic, pagan, or what have you. And I have discovered the common thread in each: religious identity is not universal, it is individual. Each person decides for themselves what they believe and how to act on their faith, often after years of searching. If high school was the starting point of my search for religious identity (the awkward parallel in many ways to finding self-identity) than my journey began with the need to ask questions. Lots and lots of questions.

When I was fourteen I attended EFY, a youth conference designed for gospel study and dating in a "safe" setting. It was at this conference that I was able to say for the first time with any degree of assurance that I knew the church was true, that my testimony was sound. Though I still had a lot of questions that were unanswered, I felt satisfied with my interpretation of the peaceful and warm sensations I had experienced at EFY. When I was sixteen I received a Patriarchal Blessing, a special prayer given to members of the LDS church once during a lifetime. The blessing is meant to offer guidance and wisdom to members as they figure out where they are headed in life, and at the time, the blessing did just that for me. I also took the blessing for more than its intent, and convinced myself that it was a kind of roadmap for how the rest of my life was meant to play out. (The church cautions against this).

Then I got to high school, and realized that life is infinitely more complicated.  I attended Sunday School and Seminary as I was encouraged to by my youth leaders, but my heart was often troubled by the black-and-white presentation of certain things, the gossip, the looking down on those who had "fallen" into inactiveness or sin. There were days I genuinely enjoyed seminary and days that I longed to skip it, wishing for a fresh perspective and more open discussions. When it came time to pick a college, I purposefully chose not to go to BYU, attracted by the small campus and intimate feeling of the College of Idaho. 

After graduation, I fell in love. I experimented with my free will. For the first time in my life, I strayed from the path. I made decisions that went directly against the teachings of the church. And I suffered the consequences. Following a series of interviews with a Bishop at one of the local Caldwell wards, I was put on official probation from church membership. My disenchantment with the church began at this point--when I was told it was "normal" to experience the total self-hatred and alienation I felt when sitting in my ward, when I was unable to find support or friendship in the congregation, when it became a weekly ritual to have to awkwardly turn down the sacrament or offers to pray in class. I was officially on the Outside. (Let me pause here and say that I acknowledge all wards are different. People are people in every religion, in every congregation. Some are more tolerant and kind than others. And, to be fair, I did not go to great lengths to make friends in the ward because I was afraid of being judged). I also started obsessing about my Patriarchal Blessing, rereading it often and wondering if I was bound to the "promises" it made for my life or if my choices still allowed me to decide my own fate.

It took me over a year on the Outside to feel ok with myself again. To realize that being a "good" or "bad" person went far more deeply than the "do"s or "do not"s I had been taught in my youth. I began taking religion courses in other faiths, namely Buddhism and Zen, and found in these a safe haven where religion could finally be discussed with honesty and openness. We talked about Christianity as much as we talked about Buddhism, finding similarities between the two and ways to live that exemplified the standards of both. I recognized that the things I didn't like about the LDS church had less to do with its teachings and more to do with the way people carried out the teachings: the use of guilt to encourage obedience, the acceptance of "this is right" and "this is wrong" without an actual understanding of the why, the intolerance for open discussion on topics like sex, gay rights, and the afterlife. 

I began to develop a new religious identity for myself from scratch. Surprisingly, my respect and understanding of many of the gospel principles I'd grown up with didn't lessen--it deepened. I understood now why certain things were "right" or "wrong" because I saw what they led to. I learned gratitude for the time I had on the Outside, because it finally allowed me to see over the wall that I'd put around myself to protect me from the world. I learned compassion and understanding for people in similar or worse situations than myself. Felt the alienation that they felt. Developed tools to help combat the despair and confusion we shared--skills that I know will someday serve me well in social work or counseling. As time went on, I grew more comfortable with not knowing all the answers, and less comfortable with the easy answers religion provided. I started relying on my own heart more and the opinions of others less, and finally found peace with myself.

From time to time a certain pain in my heart returns. I was the first in my family to not get married in the temple, and in many ways I feel I let them down. There are certain big life moments I haven't been able to share with loved ones, including weddings, baptisms, and my dad's appointment to Bishop last year. I watch family and friends live faithful, steadfast lives with minimal mistakes and part of me envies their strength. But then I think, if I could do it all again and choose a more perfect life over the mistakes I made, would I do it?

Not on your life. I would have certainly changed some of my actions that ended up causing other people pain, but I wouldn't be the person I am now if I didn't have those glaring black marks on my record. My heart would never have healed without the chance to be broken. 

It is both terrifying and relieving to write this out and to share it. My hope is not to encourage others to ditch church and become heathens like myself =) Rather, my hope is that you read this with an open heart, maybe find something you identify with. I hope that you allow yourself the chance to ask questions, to be restless, to make some mistakes, and to realize it's human and ok to do so. For unless we test our faith, how do we know we have it? 

*Pictures taken at the Snake River in Idaho Falls, ID this February*  

Every Criticism Holds A Sliver of Truth

 

One of the most difficult and rewarding concepts I learned from my Zen professor last year was the idea that every criticism we receive, no matter how fair or unkind, usually holds a sliver of truth in it somewhere. At first this concept seems pretty simple, but the longer you hold to it and try to integrate it into the way you respond to other people the larger it becomes, and the more it demands from us.

For example: last spring a close friend of mine told me something in a moment of personal pain that I perceived as very cruel. I was hurt by it and wrestled with the words over and over in my heart asking myself do they really think that of me? Why would they say that? They're wrong about me, right? It took me several days to stop centering the questions on myself and my own feelings and ask the much harder what do I do with this criticism now that I've got it? Once I got over the initial sting I looked for the sliver of truth--the actions or words that had come from me during that time that might have triggered my friend's accusation. I recognized that often during the semester I had come across impatient or unkind towards my friend, and that I had a responsibility to apologize for that and change my behavior in the future.

It's one thing to accept that what someone says about you is true, but much harder to actually face your own flaws and change them.

However, (and this is a very important "however!") the more we practice this the better we become in our dealings with others, in our ability to be kind and forgiving, and in our capacity to handle criticism positively and sincerely.

Today this lesson hit me hard again. I was given a rather back-handed compliment this morning. I was told that the only reason my male coworkers talked to me was "because I was pretty." The individual delivering this news made it clear that they thought I used this to my own advantage, and their expression seemed to be one of triumph, like they were catching me with my hand in a cookie jar. Their comment threw me off-guard to say the least, and as I ran the words through my mind again and again I went from confused to offended to emotional in quick, agitated loops. 

I could think of a thousand reasons why they were wrong. I don't consider myself pretty, and I don't believe I use my physical appearance to my advantage at work. The wide majority of my coworkers are male, and after almost two years of working with them I've developed many solid friendships. Did I have to question these now? Was it all reduced to the narrow realm of physical attraction and flirting instead of camaraderie? Was the comment suggesting that I had no other qualities that could warrant a male coworker talking to me? 

As the sting of the comment cooled I realized that I'd fallen again into the trap of asking all the questions that centered around myself. I had the criticism, it was in the open now. So what was I going to do with it? Rather than argue over whether or not it was fair, I had to accept that this individual had reasons for saying what they did. Something I had done or said at work over the last few weeks was putting across the image that I was a flirt, or that I used my appearance to my advantage with my coworkers. It didn't matter that this made no sense to me and I didn't agree with it. The important thing was that this perception existed, and in order to change the perception I had to first change myself.

When I went to my shift that evening I decided to be more mindful of my actions and words. When I joked around with my coworkers, I monitored myself to make sure no lines were being crossed. I tried to see myself from the perspective of those around me. Over the course of the night I discovered that sliver of truth...the moments when the joking around might be interpreted wrong. When I might spend a little too long chatting instead of working. I even had a heart-to-heart with one of my coworkers and we agreed to set better boundaries with one another if the need arose.

All in all I don't believe that the friendships I have at work have anything to do with my looks. I believe the majority of them are sincere and based on respect and affability after weeks of working together. But tonight I was forced to see some of my flaws--the times when casual joking might be flirting, or when I might feel closer to a coworker than maybe a married woman should. This is a lesson worth learning, and something that I will have to be aware of in the future. For this reason I'm grateful for the comment and for the self-reflection that it brought.

The next time you receive criticism and you feel sensitive or angry about it, take a moment to see if there's a sliver of truth. It might suck, but it might also get you one step closer to being the person you want to be <3

*images borrowed from Google*

The Slightest Thing

 Last week as I crossed campus between classes I was struck by the winter scene around me. The sprawling lawns of melting snow and slush, while ugly on their own, had given birth to something truly beautiful: windows bursting with color and shape; portals to another world. I am attracted to puddles I think mostly because when I was younger I believed if you jumped hard enough into one, you could fall into the reflection on the other side and wake up in another reality. I never succeeded in doing this of course--all I ever got for my trouble was soaking wet clothes and a scolding. But it was fun to imagine.

I think each one of us creates a separate world for ourselves in our youth. A place to go to escape the awkwardness of growing up, the fights at home or at school, the confusion of questions unanswered. Increasingly kids have turned to video games or movies for an escape, while the more dedicated find solace in books and adventure series. I found happiness in both these places, but my best escape was always in my mind. Take me to a park and I'd make the grass lava and the swing-set my castle. Put me in a waiting room and I wouldn't flip through magazines or make small talk--I'd imagine stories for each of the people around me, guessing what lives they led and what symptoms had brought them there that day.

As I've gotten older the desire for an imaginative escape hasn't left. If anything, it's gotten stronger (which probably explains why I settled on a creative writing major rather than something practical like engineering). Don't get me wrong--I can be serious and face reality head-on. I enjoy school and work and the scraps of a social life that I manage to squeeze in. But there are days when tragedy seems endless. When the heartaches of those around me echo inside until I can't think anymore. Days when the world seems so darn ugly and human beings so unfeeling that I'd rather belong to another species. There are days when I am so fragile that the slightest thing could crush me, and the strength within is not enough. There are days and there are days.

It is in these moments that I turn to writing or photography, poetry or sketching. Something to create that the world cannot corrupt. It is in these moments I turn to puddles.

I look both ways to make sure no one is watching. 

I brace my feet. 

I jump as high as I can. 

And I pray, that when I land 

it will be Somewhere Else,

Somewhere Far Away from here. 

Maybe I hope that I will be Someone Else too, 

on the other side 

of the reflection.