Mental Disorders and Societal Expectations

Last week I was incredibly turbulent emotionally, and I am experiencing a little carry over of those emotions this week. I notice that I am continuing my thought patterns and that is not leading to positive thoughts. So to help express and release these thoughts from my mental cycle, I am going to share a particular inner argument that has been plaguing me…

I have been struggling with popularity of the stereotypes that accompany mental disorders. I have noticed that anytime someone is arrested, the news report always includes the fact the person is “mentally ill”. I hate this because slapping that label onto a negative situation automaticlly adds onto the already previlent stereotypes of mental disorders. What the news doesn’t often tell is is that there are millions of people who work hard everyday to overcome those stereotypes and move beyond their disorders.

Why is it that society has to slap on an “mentally ill” label on anyone who defiles the law? It almost seems that the society has already decided that people with mental disorders are corrupt. Bums. Thieves. Murderers. Scum. Do some people who suffer from mental illness do terrible things? Yes. Does that mean that everyone with a mental illness is going to eventually do something terrible? No!

So these have been my thoughts and I have really been struggling with with this the last few weeks. How can we expect to break the stereotypes of mental illness when we continue to connect it with negative connotations? We need to start spreading the word about the truth and showing the positive people that live a full life everyday in spite of their disorder.

Thank you for listening to my rant – I feel better already! 🙂

I have come so far!!

How has it been 9 months since my last panic attack AND since I started down my road towards better mental health. It has been an incredible journey filled with challenges and triumphs. I feels fantastic to be back to my self and no longer fear the things I love to do!

If any of are you are thinking that you can never be mentally healthy, but don’t know how to do it, just take the first step and reach out to someone around you. If you have any questions, let me know and I can help give you some ideas on where to start 🙂

Look Forward. Never Back.

Look Forward.

Never Back.

You cannot change the past.

But the Future is yours!

You are NOT your past.

Change is yours.

Take it and make it our own.

Your life is worth something.

Something Beautiful.

You are beautiful.

Never Look back.

Only look forward.

Hard times can be used for good!

I have touched on this topic in the past, but it has been brought to my attention again, and I believe that it is something that should stay in the forefront of our minds. We all go through hardships in our lives, some more than others. There is nothing we can do to change what has happened in our past, but we can change what happens in the future. After we have finally made it to the other side of our struggles, we are able to reflect upon them and discover that we are stronger. We are also able to support others who are going through the same struggles. No one understands more than someone with first-hand experience.

Since my anxiety manifested itself in my adolescence, I have always prayed for it to be taken away. I always thought there was something wrong with me, and that I was doing something wrong in my life because I continued to struggle with it even though I felt as if I continually prayed for God to take my burden. Over the years I became disheartened and fell further into anxiety. There were times when I had no anxiety and I was so thankful! However, it kept returning and I kept wondering what was wrong with me.

After years of thinking I was doing something wrong, God has finally made it clear to me that it is NOTHING I have done. I am not a bad person. I do not lack faith. It is purely a biological imbalance. I do not want to say that it is a flaw, because I do not believe that God makes mistakes. Do I wish that I didn’t have anxiety? More than anything. However, I am at the point where I am able to see that my anxiety has a purpose. There is a reason why my struggle is anxiety. I think that it is so I can help others who suffer from the same affliction. I have always had the gift of gab, combined with the inability to be embarrassed. These qualities combined allow me to open up to others and share my story. Provide hope for those around me who feel as if they have nothing left.

I am here to tell you now that there is something left. You have so much to give, even if you are flawed. Even if you are afraid. We are all afraid at one time or another. What matters is what we decide to do with that fear. Will we allow it to tear us down and defeat us? Or will we use it to propel us forward and overcome the hardships? What will you choose?

Thank You for Your Understanding

I just wanted to take this time to thank all of you for all the support and kindness you have given me on this blog as I have revealed some of my darkest moments to you. In the beginning, I wanted to be sure to be completely honest in hopes that I could help at least one person no longer feel like they were traveling this anxious road alone. Had I been able to find that one person, maybe I could have come to terms with my anxiety sooner. Regardless of how I discovered my own disorder, I do not regret anything that I have gone through in the past because it has made me who I am today, and I have been able to use these experiences to share with all of you!

Thank you again for being so kind and loving! You continually give me strength to share my journey with all those who need to hear it.

Learning about yourself doesn’t have to be scary!

The other day I wrote a post about the power knowledge has on our healing process, and today I discovered I had to take my own advice. As many of you know, I  started this journey of healing at the end of June, and I have made immense strides in gaining back the power anxiety stole from me.

All those months ago, the doctor confirmed what I always suspected. I have an anxiety disorder. It came as no surprise to me because it is prevalent in my genealogy, and mental disorders tend to be hereditary. I have always known I had this type of disorder, because I have gone to counseling to help with anxiety when I graduated from college, but it was never diagnosed by a doctor.

Since the doctor I have now never 100% confirmed which type of anxiety I have (since he was a gynecologist), I have always speculated it was either GAD or panic disorder. I tend to be anxious a lot and have had panic attacks. However, the more I thought about it, and researched the disorders I felt that I did not wholly identify with GAD. I felt that there was something more that I was missing and I couldn’t quite figure out what.

Completely out of issues relating to my own struggles, I began to read about Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Like many others, I had always assumed that OCD was a disorder characterized by excessive cleanliness and rituals. However, while I was reading about it today I happened to stumble upon the intrusive thought obsessions. Pow! It hit me like a ton of bricks (if you pardon my overused idiom). That was it. The missing piece of my anxiety. OCD-UK is an incredible site that lists the various forms of OCD that are not stereotypical of the disorder.

As I read through the signs and symptoms of the intrusive thoughts I felt as if I was reading a page out of my own diary. I felt as if someone was searching the deepest parts of my mind and writing them down without asking me for permission. I have to admit, I started to feel my chest tighten and the familiar feeling of anxiety creep over me. I think it was a knee-jerk reaction to confronting my obsessions in plain, black and white text. Never before had anything struck so close to my core as reading through some of these symptoms.

Since I have started this blog, I have never kept my struggles from you all, because I believe that transparency of these disorders is what will help eliminate the stereotypes we live with everyday. So, I will reveal some of the obessive thoughts I have had in the past.

The  biggest obsession has always about being pregnant. The strange thing about this obsession is that I did not have sex until I was 27 (I wanted to wait for marriage) and these thoughts started LONG before I began my sex life. I knew it was insane, but It kept cycling through my brain in repeat. Everyday. All day.

Another obsessive thought I have experienced is randomly punching someone while they were talking to me. It sounds slightly comical, and I have to admit, if I ever saw it happen in real life, it would be hilarious! However, it was awful because while people were talking to me I would just have the thought to hit them or flip the table over or some other weird aggressive action towards them. The strangest part about these thoughts is that I have NEVER been a violent person. I have never been in a fight, and I have a difficult time recovering from a stubbed toe, let alone a blown out hand from punching someone.

Also, I have had what they call “magical thinking”. I thought that if I talked about getting in a car crash, it would increase the likelihood of me getting into one. Or if I talked about an accident happening, it would be more likely to happen. I avoided talking about these topics because I thought that the mere mention of them would seal my fate. I always thought it was because I hated irony, but I see now that they are obsessive in nature. I remember during my first year of teaching we had a member of the police department come in and talk about what to do if a school shooting was to occur, and for the rest of the day I thought we were going to have one. There are many other obsessive thoughts that were listed, but these were my big three.

After reading and researching more, I do feel a little rattled by this learning, but I am happy to learn a little more about myself. In a few months I will be going to a more specialized dr. and I am going to bring up this area and see what I can learn from them. I want to continue to grow in my knowledge so that I can better myself in the future and finally take the reins on anxiety and be 100% in control! It will not win! I am strong and I can defeat it! 🙂

Sometimes you just have to laugh at yourself!

Do you ever have times when you feel like you are just a hot mess? I do! I feel like my anxiety takes over and I don’t know what is up from down, and my ADHD kicks into high gear and I have word vomit all day long! Not to mention I am running around, jumping, overly excited, all while being nervous at the same time!? What the heck is that all about?! They seem to contradict each other.

I have realized that everyone has a demon they fight behind closed doors. Everyone struggles with something. So why not laugh about it? Making it seem small and insignificant helps with learning how to cope. Clearly our problems are not just jokes, they are real situations and are very painful. But can’t we take time to step outside ourself and view it in a different light?

Try to view your struggles in a different way. Come at them from a different angle. You may be surprise at what you discover.