Normal or Nuts? Or Angry!

Dr. Phil.
Then Brian Williams.
Now Dr. Oz.

I struggle against stigma. I fight it, one way or another, every day. These guys sure are making it difficult!

Gone Caching. Back Later.

Summer is upon us. We have the light of the sun until well past the "normal" 6:30pm dinner time. I'm reminded of how much my body and biology is governed by the natural rhythms and cycles of the world beyond my little air conditioned space. Every summer dinner gets pushed back later and later until one evening I realize that it's not being served until 9 o'clock at night. I prepare dinner when I feel hungry for dinner and I'm not hungry at 6:30. Instead, I am hungry when nature's light begins to fade. No matter how much I try to discipline my body and control my schedule, I'm simply not hungry at what is considered a "reasonable" dinner time. Even if I force myself to eat at the so-called decent hour my stomach is growling as the sun is setting. Personally, I figure Mother Nature knew what She was doing when She built that little when-to-eat-instinct into me so I go with it - much to the dismay of certain parental and grandmotherly types in my life.

Such a realization drives home the importance of Mother Earth and Father Sky in managing mental illness. I need to work with them. Get outside into the full-spectrum light provided by our sun instead of that provided by the special bulbs I bought for my lamps. Breathe the fresher air beyond my front door instead of the recirculated air around me right now. Put my feet on the ground instead of the foundation of my house, a concrete sidewalk, or the black pavement of a road. I have a million reasons to not do those things. It's hot. The sun's too bright. I'll get all sweaty. I'll get a sunburn. I don't want to get off the sofa. I'm watching a movie. I'll go later.

Yesterday I pushed myself into the great outdoors. A handful of fellow explorers and I set out on a trek into town and beyond. Our mission: to find caches. The planned geocaching route was a little overly optimistic and was edited a few times along the way. Our fearless tracker took point with the intention of finding 26 hidden treasures. 26. Four miles and an hour and a half into the trip we finally stepped off the concrete and onto the trail through a nature preserve. Deer. Butterflies. Lavender. Cactus. Trees. Scattered throughout were all the caches we were to locate with GPS coordinates, a few hints provided by the person who hid the items in the first place, a little creative thinking, and some keen eyesight. We are terrible geocachers apparently. Twenty-six?! Not a chance and I knew that from the beginning, but I thought we would do better than two. Ten miles and five hours and all we found were two caches.

Was the time wasted? Not at all. We had a good time. I slept better last night than I have in quite a while. As I'm writing this I am realizing that anxiety has not crept up on me today. Mother Earth and Father Sky were good to me yesterday and I feel better today. I'm grateful.

BTW,
Geocaching - The Official Global GPS Cache Hunt Site

Spiritual Abuse - Atheist Style

I was reading a blog about spiritual abuse called "Led2Truth" recently. It struck a terrible nerve in me and sent me on a little research journey. It prompted a little soul searching, too.

Most people, surely, can relate stories of bad experiences in one church or another. I certainly have a few but I've come to terms with them. I've grown up, made my spiritual decisions, and I'm content with them. Why, then, did this blog about church experiences hit so hard? I'm prone to empathizing, easily taking on the emotions of the people around me whether they are physically with me, on-line, in print, or on television. It's rather annoying sometimes. This was different somehow. The posts triggered something from my own past.

When I found this site http://www.micsem.org/pubs/counselor/frames/spiritabuse.htm and this list, I understood.

Point #1. "Abusive church leaders in abusive churches are into power and control. Enroth writes, "The spiritual autocrat, the religious dictator, attempts to compel subordination ... [and] dominate-submissive relationships."

• My experience with this sort of abuse was not at the hands of Christian church leaders. It was at the hands of an atheist, an atheist I trusted, and I didn't recognize it for many years. The Atheist did an amazing amount of damage to me before I caught on. I'm horrified that I could be so blind and still feel guilty from time to time.

Point #2. Abusive church leaders in abusive churches are into dichotomous thinking. With them everything is black-white, either-or, this-that, us-them. Dichotomous thinking is generally expressed in overt or implied terms such as "we the true followers of Jesus" versus those others "who are not as spiritual as we are." Of course, dichotomous abusive church leaders are the judge and jury on who is or who is not spiritual, who is or who is not fully walking with Jesus.

• Same atheist. Comments I made, discussion we had, often ended with him being right and me being ignorant. He pitied me and explained that I was still under the control of a religion I no longer claimed to be part of. Scientists, which we were both trained to be, did not believe in any sort of higher power. If they did then they were not true scientists. Over time these discussion eroded my sense of self. Without a solid core of who I was, I relied on him for my opinions.

Point #3. Abusive church leaders in abusive churches are into legalistic perfectionism and perfectionist legalism. Again, legalisms are not about holiness; they are about power and control....

• Apparently atheists can fall into this trap, too. Rigid adherence to particular secular philosophies is just as damaging as doing so with spiritual ideas. His philosophies were right and mine were wrong. My views were explained away and after a while I started to believe the explanations. Certain traditions were done away with in his secular legalism. Do I bow my head, at least out of respect, with the rest of my family when my father says grace over Thanksgiving dinner?

Point #4. Abusive church leaders in abusive churches have a tendency towards isolationism. Some of this isolationism may be more social than physical. Abusive groups will not mix with the impure or with the unholy....

• We hung out with a particular crowd and had a rather elitist attitude. I didn't realize it at the time but we did isolate ourselves from certain people and certain world views. I'm ashamed to admit that I went so far as to cut long-time friends from my life because The Atheist did not approve.

Point #5. Abusive church leaders in abusive churches are obsessed with discipline and even excommunication. In some abusive Christian circles, to question the church leader(s) means questioning God Himself. Abusive Christians are so certain that they are right and that they have the mind of Christ that they can be extremely punitive if they are not obeyed.

• This one may not apply exactly. The Atheist never hit me or yelled me, if that's what is meant by punitive. He did shame me, though. If I didn't see things his way then I was just not as intelligent as he was. I was less mature, more like a child than an adult. Maybe my character had not fully developed yet? Truth be told, my character was dissolving away and I was less and less capable of trusting myself. 

Point #6. Abusive church leaders in abusive churches discourage church members' having contacts with people outside the fellowship, including family members. Obviously, church leaders that tell young people "Do not listen to your parents, listen only to us" should be suspected.

• Check. The Atheist did this, too. We didn't use the word "fellowship," of course. My contact was limited to certain people, people we considered friends. Family was definitely left out of the loop on many things. I saw them on a pretty regular basis, but some topics were not to be talked about. Their side of topics were explained into nothingness as coming from weak-minded, closed-minded, or uneducated people. 

Point #7. Abusive church leaders in abusive churches install surveillance systems (read "pastoral care") within their fellowships. Of course, for abusive church leaders a surveillance system is all about a spiritual concern regarding people's souls and how to best pastorally and brotherly look after the sheep of the flock. However, these surveillance systems go way beyond pastoral care. They are about power and control.

• Towards the end of our relationship this sort of behavior started. I was thoroughly cut off from any of the people who could have helped me see what was happening. The people who were in my life, fit squarely within The Atheists view of what life should be like and gladly reinforced his opinions when he was not around.

I get it. Now I understand why her blog bothers me so much. My relationship with The Atheist lasted for years and years. When certain traumatic events were occurring, my mind was so shocked that I finally saw some of the truth of our life. I weighed less than 100 pounds and my personality had disintegrated so much that I thought it would turn to dust. If it died so did I and I was well on my way.

A Little Politics

U.S. Politics

The link to keep up with news from the White House

http://www.whitehouse.gov/

The link to keep up with news from the U.S. Senate

http://www.senate.gov/

The link to keep up with news from the U.S. House of Representatives

http://www.house.gov/

Texas Politics

The link to keep up with the Texas Legislature

http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/

I hate politics. It's stressful and I hate the way stress feels in my body. Anxiety takes hold and doesn't let go for the longest time. In the meantime, I tremble, feel sick, can't quite think straight. In short, I feel like a bumbling idiot. I know I am smart, well-educated, usually well-spoken, but when stress starts to speak for me I come across as possessing everything except those characteristics.

Understanding the political process from an academic perspective is hard enough. Throw in the human element - all those people with their goals, values, and unique personalities - and voila! You have yourself a tangled pot of spaghetti akin to that found in Strega Nona.

Blog for Mental Health

I pledge my commitment to the Blog For Mental Health 2013 Project.

I will blog about mental health topics not only for myself, but for others.


By displaying this badge, I show my pride, dedication, and acceptance for mental health.


I use this to promote mental health education in the struggle to erase stigma.

D.J. Haswell, blogging A Midlife Adventure, pledged me. It's a fantastic blog. Thoughtful. Honest. Touching. Most importantly perhaps, it's helpful. D.J. gives me one more reminder that I am not alone.

Hind sight is 20/20. I think the short version of my story is best told backwards. My first, almost brave steps, came when I met D (for the sake of anonymity). This was the first person I ever met that was bold and outspoken about having a mental illness. Honest and upfront about having bipolar disorder, D opened a small box of courage inside me. I felt like I could finally admit to myself that something was wrong inside me.

Even so, I didn't seek professional help. The risk was too great. If the wrong people found out, all the therapy and medication in the world wouldn't be able to put my life back together again.

Ultimately, someone near and dear to me hijacked me. Under the guise of meeting my new general physician, I was driven to the doctor to get help. I was angry at being set up like that. It was a short-lived emotion, though. Talking to my gp about what was going on and how I was feeling, a strange kind of relief washed over me. The air around me didn't press down on my shoulders and back quite so hard.

After ten years of manic anxiety that made my skin hurt when someone touched me... ten years of nothingness depression that made me sink to the floor in uncontrollable tears... elation... rage... desperation... and everything mixed together.

Like so many others, my story is much longer than this. The point right now is not to write an autobiography or memoir. The point is, while my fears were real and I was taking a genuine risk, the improvements in my life are almost surreal. I have a shot at a real life. Finally.

I could not have done this on my own. It sounds cliche, but its true. D stepped up. I must respect that and step up, too. How many countless others only need to see someone, like D, like me, stand up?

I am pledging five of my fellow bloggers who have stood with me, and have proven their mettle in my eyes as mental health bloggers.

1. Hope for Life
2. Aaron's Journey For Mental Health
3. Anxiety in General
4. Laugh Now, Cry Later
5. Haru Haru
6. If you happen upon this without being pledged, I pledge you, too.  Feel free to take the pledge!  Promote awareness!

If you take the pledge please take the following steps....

1.) Take the pledge by copying and pasting the following into a post featuring “Blog for Mental Health 2013″.

I pledge my commitment to the Blog For Mental Health 2013 Project.  I will blog about mental health topics not only for myself, but for others.  By displaying this badge, I show my pride, dedication, and acceptance for mental health.  I use this to promote mental health education in the struggle to erase stigma.

2.) Link back to the person who pledged you.

That's me.

3.) Write a short biography of your mental health, and what this means to you.

4.) Pledge five others, and be sure to let them know!

5.) And, as something novel for 2013, Lulu and I [at Canvas] ask one more thing of you.

To introduce Blog For Mental Health 2013, and really build a sense of community — and show everyone how many of us there are, and how strong we are, coming together — we are launching a Blog For Mental Health 2013 Official Blogroll!  So, in addition to linking back to the person who pledged you, please include the link to this original post in your piece.  As this gets passed along, click here and leave a comment containing the link to your pledge, and we will put you on our Blog For Mental Health 2013 Official Blogroll page!

Show the world our

strength,

show them our

solidarity,

show them

what we are made of.

Take the Blog for Mental Health pledge and

proudly display the badge on your blog!

And may we all have a happy, healthy 2013!

"Drops of Jupiter" Describes Mania?

If you've never heard the song "Drops of Rain" by Train there's a video here for you. It's an absolutely beautiful song. I promise it's related to this post.

People ask me what mania was like and it's so utterly hard to describe. I don't think you can really have any sense of it if you've never experienced it. When trying to answer that question for people, I can almost always tell if they understand me on an intellectual level or an experiential level. Their eyes shine differently. Sometimes I see laughter in them revealing the wonderful experiences that can and do happen during a manic phase. Sometimes it's sorrow and shame. Sometimes it's relief and the weight of silent loneliness falls away.

Trying to describe it to the people that nod their heads politely, "Uh huh, yea, uh huh. I see" is a challenge to say the least. This is where that song by Train comes in.

It's not about mental illness but most of that song does a good job of describing mania. I certainly related to a lot of it when I was falling back to Earth, through normal, and headlong into depressed. Being out there so high that I twirled along Jupiter's atmosphere describes me at that time rather well. Feeling so bright and energized that the Milky Way and heaven are dim and uneventful does too. Yes, the wind swept me off my feet and in the best kind of way. Yes, I did get to dance along the light of day. Line after line of this song resonates with me and I think the poetry of it offers people a way to grab hold of the idea of mania so they can begin to understand.

"One Lovely Blog Award"

My morning couldn't have started off much better than it did. D.J. Haswell over at "A Mid-Life Adventure" nominated me for the One Lovely Blog Award. Can you imagine my surprise? Thanks D.J. <insert really big smile here>.

The rules of the ‘One Lovely Blog Award’:

• Add the “One Lovely Blog Award” image to your post.
• Share seven things about you.
• Pass the award on to seven nominees.
• Thank the person who nominated you.
• Inform the nominees by posting on their blogs.

Seven things about me:

1. I read tarot cards.
2. I don't have a tattoo, but getting one is on my bucket list.
3. I have never, ever colored my hair.
4. I am absolutely terrible at sports - I'm the person who gets hit in the face with the volleyball when I try to play.
5. I enjoy geocaching.
6. I love the show "Once Upon a Time" and also "Walking Dead".
7. I can sew and crochet.

…And my seven nominees are…

1. Nelly Neurotic's I am Neurotic and I Need Help http://neurtoicnellyocd.blogspot.com/
2. Martin Stephenson http://www.myblog.me.uk/
3. The Bipolar Bandit, Michelle Hughes http://bipolarbandit.wordpress.com/
4. Circular Madness http://folie-circulaire.tumblr.com/
5. A Dose of Jules http://adoseofjules.blogspot.com/
6. Jennifer Moyer http://www.jennifermoyer.com/blog-postpartum-psychosis-mental-health
7. Living Manic Depressive Disorder http://livingmanicdepressivedisorder.blogspot.com/

…Go check out their fantastic blog…

Anxiety Strikes Again

I hate it. Straight up. I hate anxiety.

I appreciate that it is hardwired into the human creature. We need it for survival. It warns us of potential danger and primes us to fight or to flee. I get it. When it works properly, triggered at appropriate times, it's great. But then there are the other times....

Getting a lump in your throat because you need to walk down the street to get the mail sucks. It makes no sense. The walk is only a single block and the neighborhood is safe so going to the mailbox should be a nice, leisurely stroll. Instead, I'm driven to keep a close eye on everything around me and my entire body is pressuring me to hurry up and get back home, back to safety. Logically, I know this is unreasonable, unwarranted, and I feel a little embarrassed but I can't help myself. I want to return to a state of comfort.

In the not-so-distant past I thought I was having heart problems and went to a cardiologist about it. A series of tests revealed my heart was just fine. If the problem wasn't with my heart, then what the heck was going on? I'm a little dense I guess because it took me a while to decide I was having stress related anxiety problems. Maybe I was just in denial. The stress in my life at that point was unreal. At times I could barely do my job because my hands would go numb and my fingers would curl up. Other times I could feel and hear the blood whooshing through my ears with each beat of my heart.

I was light-headed and got dizzy if I stood up too fast but I chalked that up to poor eating habits. Skipping lunch was the norm. My workload was just too heavy to stop for something like lunch. It was a bad idea and I knew it but I did it anyway. I didn't have a choice. Well, technically I did and as far as my employer was concerned they were not pressuring me - I was deciding to work straight through my lunch time. It was terrible. In hindsight it was just flat stupid.

The real doozy was my hair falling out. At first it seemed normal - like the little bit of hair that gets tangled in your brush over time. After a while it was a quite different. Rinsing the shampoo and conditioner out of my hair left hair tangled in among my fingers. It just slid right out of the rest of my hair. I thought for sure I would go bald.

I am really glad that many of the symptoms I experienced then are not happening now. I still have anxiety issues on a daily basis but I'm keeping my hair.

Coffee Bites

Waking up late this morning meant I had a raging headache. Since I’m typically up and moving by 6:45am, I’m typically drinking my first cup of coffee by 6:46am. Don’t talk to me until I’ve had a cup of coffee in the morning. I refill my rather large coffee mug 2 or 3 times during the 45 minutes I’m getting ready for the day and then one more time before I climb into my car.

Yep. I have a caffeine problem. I’ve gotten better, though. The coffee pot at work used to be 10 steps away from me and I refilled my mug all day long. It was so easy to do and, come lunch time, I didn’t feel hungry. The lack of hunger pains was a good thing, in a way. My work load was excessive and I worked right through lunch because I felt like it was the only way I could possibly complete everything that was expected of me. Fortunately, the coffee pot is much further from me these days. Unfortunately, my work load is still ridiculous.

I’m a spoon-full-of-sugar-in-my-coffee person. In an attempt to wean myself off of so much coffee I’ve been skipping on the sugar. It worked for a little while; I drank 1 or 2 cups while getting ready and didn’t finish the cup I took with me. I’m developing a taste for unsweetened coffee now, so my brilliant strategy isn’t so brilliant any more.

More recently I made a trip to Goodwill with my over-sized mugs. I’m drinking out of little mugs, the little white ones frequently found at pancake houses. The idea is to drink the same number of cups and since the cups are smaller I’ll drink a smaller volume of coffee. It’s totally psychological. It’s working, though. I can’t finish an over-sized cup of coffee anymore. It get cold, that nasty room temperature, before I can finish it which is strong motivation to not drink so much.

I’m still getting headaches if I don’t get to my coffee early enough in the morning. Clearly, I still have a caffeine addiction.

A New Challenge and Meditation

New goal: I’m going to write 500 words each day for the rest of May. Hopefully I’ll be successful with this personal challenge. I didn’t quite make it for the Blogging from A to Z in April Challenge, although I am going to finish it. I’m almost done - I’m down to X and K. I didn't do well in the NaPoWriMo challenge at all. Poetry is hard for me. All in all, I am proud of the poetry I wrote, I just didn't write a poem each day. I didn’t even get close to the 30 poems goal. I’m thinking I can be more successful with a challenge that is a little more flexible.

I’ve decided that I’m going to participate in a meditation group that is starting up soon. It’s structured to be more along the lines of shamanism than Buddhism. Buddhism is about clearing your mind (right?) and that is something I am simply incapable of doing. Some people disagree but they are not able to crawl inside my brain to experience, first hand, what my brain and thoughts are like. I’m not a Shaman in any way, shape, or form, but shamanism is more suited to the workings of my mind. It allows, even encourages, the thoughts, feelings, and images that arise during a meditation. They are part of who I am and, if I can avoid directing them or filtering them, they can help me understand myself and come to terms with all aspects of myself.

Thoughts, images, and feelings pop into my head all the time. I keep myself busy as a way of managing all the popping – it’s annoying at best. Horror movies and other graphic media are anathema to me. They foster thoughts that make me feel afraid and anxious. Certain places and activities do the same thing. Worry washes over me and I cannot enjoy myself. I won’t make a list in case your brain works like mine and the list itself will create feelings of anxiety.

The meditation group will have time for journaling, an activity I enjoy profusely. It’s helpful in the moment and interesting to look back on later. I can see where I have grown, where I have stagnated, and where I have withered. My journal is like a good friend complimenting me on the good things I’ve done and willing to smack me in the face for the things I messed up.

The last feature of this particular group is that we will have time to discuss our experiences. What helped us meditate? Hindered us? What did we experience during the meditation and what might it be revealing about ourselves? A great deal of trust will be involved because not all experiences are about unicorns and rainbows. They aren’t all beautiful because we are not perfect. The meditations will certainly reveal those things that I don’t like in myself and in my past. Sharing some of those things will be difficult. I don’t know yet if already knowing someone will make sharing easier. I’ll find out soon enough.

I Love Photoshop.

I think the title says it all. Well, most of it. The picture below says the rest of it.
Please support me and NAMI by making a donation at http://namiwalks.nami.org/Jennifer.

Jennifer Clark (c) April 28, 2013

Z is for "Zee" End!

When I decided to do this Blogging from A to Z April Challenge I knew it was going to actually be a challenge for me. I just didn't expect it to be so big a challenge! Sadly, I did not succeed. I am, however, persnickety enough that I'll go back and fill in the posts for the letters that I missed. Having most of the alphabet represented is great, but those gaps in the sequence will aggravate me to no end.

It's been fun and I'm glad I did it. I'm also glad it's over.

Bye-Bye April! Hello May!

Y is for You

The photo was taken by my cousin Amy. I made the modifications by playing with Photoshop.

NAMIWalks take place all over the country. To find one near you go to http://namiwalks.org/

X is for Major Arcana X: Wheel of Fortune

I have a tendency to think about some things in terms of opposites. Life and death. Right and wrong. Up and down. Manic and depressed. Placing the ideas on the flip side the same coin organizes them quickly and easily. That approach to thinking is so prevalent that I am compelled to believe it's human nature to do so. The coin system works great for a lot of things but it's sorely inaccurate for many others. The 10th card of the Major Arcana always reminds me of that fact.

This card has two wheels on it. The obvious one that's the focus of the card and another one tipped over on its side at the very top. Do we make our own future, our own destiny, or are those things determined from above, from the divine? The artwork on the card says the answer is both. The lighting bolts in the background, the power from above, are always hitting our lives from one direction or another. The other wheel, with the Sphinx, the monkey, and the crocodile is the destiny we create for ourselves. The swirling pattern farthest in the back is the motion our lives add to the world around us - the proverbial ripple in the pond.

I don't dare speculate about the wheel at the top. After all, who can really know the mind of the divine or the rules from beyond the veil that govern the physical and spiritual universe we live in.

The wheel in the front I can talk about because it is my own life and its movement is the result of my own choices, good, bad, or indifferent.

The ape on the left is riding the wheel up to the top. It represents creation, initiation, those things that are coming into being in my life and they are not necessarily positive  things. The ape could let go if it chose to. It could refuse to allow the emergence of the next thing in life. I could refuse and at times I have.

The crocodile on the right side is riding the wheel down, to its lowest point. It's tied to the wheel with absolutely no choice but to experience the destruction that occurs in life. Or does it have a choice? The tie is loose, there's no knot. The crocodile could let go, just like the ape. In letting go though, it will fall none the less. Perhaps something wonderful is being destroyed causing pain that we cannot escape from. Of course, something causing us great pain might also be disintegrating.

The Sphinx at the top is balanced. The wheel turns easily so maintaining that balance is difficult. It looks back into that space between the wheels, between how we influenced our own lives and how the higher power influenced it. If we are to learn anything, it will be from trying to merge the what and why of our past. There's no point in looking forward for the what and why of the future, because we cannot know what lighting the universe will throw at us next. If the Sphinx turns to peer deep into the future, the balance will be lost and the wheel will resume its movement. People being people, turning to look is inevitable.

I guess I should tell you why this card always reminds me that life's things and events are not represented on the opposite side of a coin very well. After all, that's where this post started.

The wheel of life does not flip. It does not have heads or tails. It revolves around a hub. The animals, representing creation, balance, and destruction, do not sit on one face or the other. They ride the rim, diminishing and expanding continuously - never appearing or disappearing in an infinitely small moment in time.

Life is not, can not, be the opposite of death. The wheel is the very representation of life and it turns, not flips. Health and sickness are not opposites either. Getting sick happens over time, so does regaining our health, and maintaining it is a balancing act. This is no more apparent than in trying to live between mania and depression. Is it possible? Absolutely. Is it permanent? Absolutely not. I will make some choice that will start the wheel turning. Lightening, far beyond my control, will strike. Do I hold on to the wheel, trust that it will not stop at the bottom? Will the momentum of its movement be enough to carry me through the low point?

I've lost count of how many times I have been so afraid of the motion that I have tried desperately to climb back up to the top. When I was on the downward side, trying to climb back up only made the wheel turn faster and faster until I couldn't hold on anymore. I had no more control. My fate was dictated by the powers from above and it was my own fault. Learning to hang on is one of the hardest and most painful lessons of my life. Riding the wheel is hard, that's true. It hurts and I selfishly think sometimes that it hurts me more than others. The wheel keeps moving and it always brings beautiful things with it along the way. They are not permanent but neither are the ugly things. There's one exception to that. Letting go.

Letting go meant I was always at a low point, lower than the wheel would have taken me if I had only held on. I could have closed my eyes and screamed in terror. Instead, I let go and screamed a silent sort of terror. I could not close my eyes. It was as if my eyelids had been torn away. I was ignorant of how far I would fall, when and if the divine would finally pull me back up within reach of my life, and what the divine would put me through next. My life stopped, suspended in that terrible space I should never have entered. The swirling motion of existence continued without me because I was stuck in a single moment. That which should have disintegrated, what should have fallen from the wheel instead of me, stayed there. It left no room for that which should have developed in my life.

There I remained, experiencing the pain and anguish created by the enormous power from above and the choices I made in response that lightening and thunder. Angry, desperate, screaming in pain, I learned what hell truly was.

W is for Walk... NAMIWalk that is!

Time for the Walk.... the Austin NAMIWalk that is.

Shamelessly, I ask you to support me and NAMI by making a donation at http://namiwalks.nami.org/Jennifer.

The Austin NAMIWalk is a 5K walk that starts at West Riverside Drive at South 1st Street, Austin, Texas. It takes place on September 28, 2013 and people start walking at 9:00am (check-in is at 7:30am).

The walk taking place in Austin is only 1 of many taking place around the country at different times of the year. It's held annually for two big reasons:

1. to increase public awareness of mental illness
2. to raise money so NAMI Austin can fund the support, education, and advocacy programs offered (for free) in our community.

The view from the starting location of the Austin NAMIWalk

V is for Very Sad

Very sad. Actually, this is disturbing. Can you tell what the picture is? It's a magnet advertising the Jason Foundation, which is great.

Can you guess what it's on? It's on a paper towel dispenser like you find in public bathrooms. Which is great, too.

Can you guess where it is? Over the sink in the teacher's lounge of a high school. Maybe not so great?

Why is this disturbing? Because it's the ONLY such thing that I found on the entire campus. Definitely not great. Not even good.

The campus has lots of "no place for hate" and "click it or ticket" posters. Up and down every hall are posters warning against drunk driving and drug use. Of course, examples of student work are posted inside and outside classrooms. Giant strips of colored paper are painted with yearbook ads, prom announcements, and welcomes to the campus. Flyers are taped and stapled all over the place announcing theater try-outs, etc. It's all the usual high school stuff, except the occasional suicide hotline poster or flyer.

A single magnet, the size of a business card, on a towel dispenser in the teacher workroom is just wrong, maybe even irresponsible.

U is for Ups and Downs

Up and then down and then up and then down. Like a roller-coaster ride. Really? It's like that?

I don't think so.

• You choose to be on the roller-coaster.
• People with bipolar disorder did not have the option of such a choice.

• Your roller-coaster ride will come to a predictable end and you'll return to your normal, every-day life.
• The cycles of bipolar disorder have no such end; they are life-long. There is no stopping and getting off the ride.

• Your roller-coaster ride is engineered to be safe. Even when you are falling, you know you'll arrive at the low point safe and sound.
• Falling into depression is falling into a great unknown. You don't know how deep the hole is and you won't make the journey unscathed.

• You know you'll emerge from the low point of the roller-coaster.
• Not everyone returns from the low point of depression.

• Your roller-coaster ride has a specific maximum height. You're likely to return from the heights with messed up hair.
• Mania has no maximum height and it can escalate to the point of messing up entire lives.

The ups and downs might look like a carnival ride when they are plotted out on paper. In real life, though, comparing bipolar disorder to a ride designed for fun... that's just wrong.

T is for "To This Day"

This TEDTalks video says it all.




For more information about the 2013 Blogging from A to Z Challenge see the website of the same name.

S is for Save the Date

Directly from the NAMI Austin NAMIWalks Website:

SAVE THE DATE for the 2013 NAMI Austin Walk:

Saturday, September 28, 2013

The Austin Walk is part of a nationwide program sponsored by the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) that has two primary goals:

1. To increase public awareness about mental illness and the devastating effects that it has on the lives of millions of Americans – one in five families – every year.
2. To raise much needed dollars to help fund the wide array of NAMI support, education, and advocacy programs here in our community.

2012′s Austin Walk was a huge success with more than 2,000 walkers participating and a record-setting $258,000 raised for NAMI’s programs. Get ready for 2013 to:

• Recruit your family and friends.
• Rally your co-workers.
• Call on your communities.
• We can all help raise community awareness … one step at a time.

---

For more information about NAMIWalks Austin, please contact:
NAMI Austin Office: 512-420-9810
Email: namiwalks@namiaustin.org

To make a donation to NAMI Austin through me, go to the following website ...

http://namiwalks.nami.org/Jennifer

Let's made stigma disappear!

Lines for a Fortune Cookie for NaPoWriMo Day 21

The next time you feel down, someone will tell you to pick yourself back up and get over it.

You will "like" a Facebook page dedicated to mental illness advocacy and education.

Choose your words carefully. Stigma bites and it might come back and bite you.

An important message is waiting for you at http://www.bringchange2mind.org/

Someone close to you has a mental illness. They're just not saying so.

Stress is wearing you down. Slow down before you hurt yourself.

Talk to someone. You need to share and they need to hear.

Are you really OCD? Or do you just like saying that?

You will soon meet someone with depression.

Participate in your local NAMIWalk.

Sing. It's good for you.

Recovery is possible.

Are you crazy?

Meditate.

Just breathe.

Take one step at a time.

Your insurance will cover it.

Imagine your world if she wasn't sick.

Try listening to understand rather than to respond.

Good things will come to you if you follow this blog. ;)

You are the 1 in the 1 in 10 that will experience depression.

Your bad attitude is the reason people with mental illnesses don't seek help.

Every criminal is not mentally ill and every mentally ill person is not a criminal.

Suicide is not funny. Tell that to the next person you hear make a joke about it.

Remember to tell them you love them. Every day.

R is for Reflection

These are few of the images some high school students created as part of an artsy lesson on symmetry. Every picture is different as each one is made from the letters of that person's name. They used the letters in their name to form a kind of code that told them where to graph and where to dray the lines. In choosing colors, they only had to make sure that each sections' neighbors were of a different color.

What does this have to do with mental illness? Well, much like we experience mental illness, these pictures are all expressions of symmetry. Yet each person's experience with mental illness is unique, just as these small works of art are unique.

Artwork created by my students (c)1913

Many of the kids got part way into the activity and started complaining that their picture was ugly, that they wished their name made something pretty like that person's over there. Mine's too simple, it's boring. Mine's too complicated. I don't know how to color it.

I had to do some poking and prodding to get them to move on, to keep working to the finished product. They are beautiful, aren't they?

The activity got me thinking about how often we wish our lives were different. What if our lives were more like that person's life over there. How often we think our own lives are not pretty or are not worth working on. My life is so boring. My life is so complicated.

We can only work with what we're given, just like these kids did. At the risk of sounding cliche, I think we can create something beautiful, balanced, and worth sharing with others if just keep taking that next step.

Q is for Quest

Do you find ever find yourself trying to figure out your purpose? Of course you do. Doesn't everyone?

My friend, K (for anonymity's sake), knew what she was supposed to do before she even graduated from high school. She started on her career path way back then and has stayed on it all these years. The real kicker is that she still loves her job. She's had issues with coworkers and bosses through the years, but she's always loved what she does. How many people can say that?

Me? My quest for what I am really meant to do in this life continues and I'm getting a little old to still be searching.

I wonder if a person can make a decision that will send their life down a path they were never really supposed to be on. I wonder if events initiated by the decisions of others can forever alter life in a manner that should never have happened. I guess I'm really wondering if it's possible to be on a road that never leads to the thing you were meant to do and be.

What if we have no ultimate purpose, nothing we are meant to do? If that's the case, then all of this is a moot point.

Pillars

Ancient Egyptian Tarot

As part of NaPoWriMo (National Poetry Writing Month) I tried my hand at a form of poetry called Fibonacci. It's based on the Fibonacci series that's built by adding the last two numbers of the list together to create the next number in the list.  Like this....

1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, etc.

Do you see it? Add the first two numbers together to make the third. Add the second and third numbers to make the fourth. Each number in the series determines the number of syllables in each line.

I'm also participating in the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge. It's tough to keep up, to post every day and I don't really succeed. I spend time on Saturdays and Sundays writing posts for more than one day. It's good work for me. I'm always amazed at what the final result looks like. I start with one idea and strike out in that direction but somewhere along the way I invariably follow some side trail into unfamiliar territory. 

Pillars

by Jennifer Clark (c) April 20, 2013

Life.

Death.

Between

these pillars

all chaos and calm

tumbles, rambles, crumbles, and grows.

Bitter and better, crueler and  kinder. I'm tired.

Between the pillars the wheel turns, torn, born, torn again. House falls, death calls, I crawl to rest.

O is for Oshun

A friend recently introduced me to Oshun (in a manner of speaking). She is a Goddess of beauty, art, love, sweetness. I am absolutely enthralled with Her and the idea of Her. She is so much that the world needs.

From what I understand, She can be pretty tough to deal with sometimes. When She looses Her temper, She is capable of causing great destruction.

Really, I don't have much to say about Her because I don't know very much. I just know that I like Her.

My friend put together a sort of celebration, an Oshun-themed celebration. We danced, shared the blessings we are thankful for, and asked for blessings that we need. We had food and drink and decorated with fresh flowers. Everyone that came brought fresh flowers with them so the space we occupied was absolutely beautiful and smelled amazing. We had a wonderful time together, full of love and kindness and the wonderful things that make life worth living.

N is for Nature Deficit Disorder

The idea here is that if we don't have enough outdoors in our lives, then we aren't going to be as healthy as we could be. I wouldn't call it a disorder and I think Richard Louv used the term more as an attention-grabber than anything else. Maybe it's just me, but I consider this just plain old common sense.

Do a quick search for strategies for dealing with stress and mental health and you'll find a plethora of suggestions to go outside.

Spend time in the sunlight. ---- Breath in the air outside. ---- Walk. ---- Bike. ---- Run. ---- Stroll. ---- Lolly-gag. ---- Whatever, just do it outside. ---- Leave the concrete behind. ---- Go to the park. ---- Go to the river. ---- etc.

We know all these things.

I take a walk (or a run) around my neighborhood when I need to shed the stress and frustration of my day before engaging in anything with my family and friends. I love them and don't want my emotional sludge to poison their environment. I know the physical exercise helps but if that was all there was to it then I would just use a treadmill and stay in the A/C.

I dance in the rain. Yes, I really do. Something about being among the drops falling all around me is beautiful and moving. Sometimes I sway slowly with my head back and my face to the heavens. Sometimes I jump and splash like a child enjoying the sound and sensation and sheer joy of it all.

Poets forever have written about the way the leaves of our trees move and shimmy in the breeze. They've written of bare feet on grass, trails through woods, oceans, skies, caves, animals, and all manner of things provided by our planet.

It's instinct to connect with nature and human nature to crave that connection. Without it, we are incomplete.

photo (c) Jennifer Clark 2012

M is for Music

I think it's funny how often science lags behind the things that people already know. Did we really need a scientist to tell us that music helps us manage stress?

I have music that I like to play when I'm angry - something loud with drums and guitars that seems to growl.

I have dance music, romantic music, sleepy relaxing music. I have music that helps me keep an up-beat attitude and other music that, whether I like it or not, moves me to tears.

I play Patty Griffin's "Heavenly Day" when I need to be reminded that things are going to be okay. It's one of my favorite songs and has been for a number of years.


I'm sure there's more to the study than proving that music affects people's moods and can be used to help regulate moods. Considering that people have essentially been using music to self-medicate for as long as humans have existed, all I can say to this is, "Well, duh."

Like I said, there's more to the study. Here's the link to the article I read and it contains a link to the study for those of you who want to check out the other elements of the study. http://io9.com/can-music-be-more-effective-than-drugs-465249779