Wednesday, September 23, 2015
Reasons NOT to Commit Suicide
If you are considering committing suicide, please read this entire list.
the ocean
the waves
the sand in between your toes
finding sea shells
watching a whole ecosystem develop before your eyes in tide pools
the moon
how the moon is always there, night after night
the sun
how it gives life to everything on this planet
the universe
the stars
a tiny little speck in the universe developed into a planet, which developed into a world populated with people over millions of years, just so an even tinier speck (you) could live here
nature
trees
forests
squirrels and mice and chipmunks exist on this earth...if they can survive living, so can you
even insects and tiny little creatures
the rainforest
the way you can see a single ray of sunlight shining down through the treetops
your pet
how they care about you being happy and lick your tears or let you pet them when you are sad
sunrises
sunsets
puppies
kittens
all manner of baby anythings
the way their eyes are so big and they were evolutionarily designed to make you love them so that you would care about keeping them alive
your baby
your child who once was just a tiny baby, but you've watched them grow into themselves and become their own person
how you're going to continue to watch them grow
your niece
your nephew
your siblings
watching your siblings become parents themselves
rain
that kind of rain that just pours, and completely transforms your view of the world for a few minutes
thunderstorms
when they're not scary but they are just reminders that you ultimately don't have to control everything in your life
the way the thunder sounds so comforting with the rain beating down on the roof, and you feel so safe and calm knowing you're inside
lakes
ponds
rivers
the sun reflected on a body of water
the little ripples in the surface that remind you there's a whole different way of life underneath the water's surface, different from anything you've ever known
boats
swans
the way they glide over the water so gracefully and calmly
learning about different parts of the world
different cultures and languages and people
that live life a totally different way than you do
delicious food
all the different types of tastes and flavors that are universally delicious
writing
words
how you can use words to convey a message that was once only in your own mind
little kids
how they are so innocent and don't understand anything
how they are so easily entertained and easy to please
charities
organizations that exist solely for the purpose of helping people
people that genuinely are trying to make the world a better place somehow
airplanes
how it's possible to get to any spot in the world
computers
the Internet
how you can take something from your mind and convey it to millions of people all with the click of a button, and never having to move from the spot you are at
phones
how they allow you limitless opportunities for communication
how they can entertain you for hours while you're just moving your fingertips
elephants
how silly and playful and gentle and calm they are
rainbows
how there's even such a thing as rainbows...where we can see all the colors altogether in one phenomenon
grandparents
how they can be so kind and wise
how they love to tell stories of their lives
how they've lived through so much history
sometimes they do stuff like this
history
how it teaches us so many life lessons
how people throughout time knew how important life was
they recorded everything just so that we could know about it
for thousands of years, people have been recording their history so that YOU could know about it
people for thousands of years have cared about YOU, and thought about you
the future
how you're thinking about it right now
how not a single soul on this earth really knows how the future is going to turn out
not knowing is kind of beautiful on a grand scale
music
instruments and itunes and downloads
how it can convey a message to you that you understand so well, that words wouldn't have been able to describe
art
painting
how one person can create something entirely different than another person
the human mind is absolutely endless in its potential
softness
puppy fur and pets and all sorts of animals. blankets and pillows and feathers. anything soft that brings us so much comfort and relief, just by feeling something
people
how we can talk to them and help them
how they can help us
how we as human beings are innately understanding and sympathetic, and how there are people you don't even know that legitimately don't want you to suffer
baby rhinos
because this
fishing
country air
that fresh air where all you can smell is nature, nothing man-made or pollutant
love
that feeling in your stomach like butterflies when you know you're in love
when you know they love you back
validation
when someone knows and understands your feelings, and why you feel that way
education
the fact that we are infinitely able to learn new things
warmth
that amazing feeling when you're super cold and you finally get warm and cozy
having cold hands and wrapping your fingers around a warm mug of tee or coffee or hot cocoa
hoodies/sweatshirts, sweatpants, warm blankets, bed, clothes straight out of the dryer
relief
when you finally realize you don't have to worry about something anymore
colors of leaves in the fall and in the spring
pure joy and hilariousness of how excited dogs get over the simplest things, like a walk or some food
when you really make someone laugh or make them happy
Singing along to favorite music at the top of your voice
campfires and bonfires, the way they crackle, the way they spark like fireworks into the sky, and the way they inspire ghost stories, singing, and deep conversation; and bring a group of people closer together
total relaxation when you lay your head back, let your shoulders relax, and close your eyes while your hairdresser or barber shampoos your hair (I don't know why it's so relaxing but it is at least for me!)
If you have another reason not to commit suicide, please submit it in the comments section, and it could end up on this list! Let's grow this list so that anybody thinking about committing suicide will have to think twice. You could end up saving a life.
Tuesday, September 8, 2015
Local Mental Health Care and Suicide Coverage—A Peoria Problem
Yesterday (Monday, September 7th), marked the beginning of National Suicide Prevention Week. I was driving to work this morning, officially starting my work-week (since yesterday was Labor Day), and I heard a disturbing story on the radio.
A man had, ironically, tried to commit suicide this morning in our local community. He jumped off a heavily-used bridge.
What really shocked me, though, was the story they were reporting. It was not, in fact, about a man attempting suicide during National Suicide Prevention Week in our local community; it was actually about delays in traffic on I-474...the man attempting to take his own life was just the cause of the traffic delay. This suicide attempt was literally treated as an afterthought, as something that just happens sometimes and you have to deal with it, like a weather condition or road construction or something.
HOW, in the year 2015, is this STILL HAPPENING? Who in the newsrooms thought it was okay to treat a story like this as an afterthought? As just the reason to why traffic was delayed this morning?
I was absolutely appalled at the treatment of this story by the media. As I got settled into work later, I looked up the story online to see if there was any more coverage. There were 2 articles online that I found, and they were both almost the exact same thing that I heard on the radio. That a local 20 year old man had jumped off the bridge, causing delays on I-474. He was treated on the scene and taken to a local hospital. THAT'S IT!
There are even guidelines among the reporting/journalist community on how to treat stories about suicide, to prevent situations like this from ever happening. I did a quick google search and an entire website devoted to informing reporters of these guidelines came up as one of the first results. According to that website,
It's no wonder why the Peoria Area has higher levels of depression than the state average (16.6% to 15%). That statistic is from the 2014 United Way Peoria Area Community Assessment, and the ONE statistic that even mentioned mental health (in this case, it was depression), was from 2012.
This statistic has steadily risen since their 2011 Peoria Area Community Assessment, which stated, "People who reported feeling sad or depressed for more than 2 days, 2009 compared to 2004. Peoria County 29.1%; % change from 2004, +7.6%; Tazewell County 30.5%; % change from 2004, +10.8%; Woodford County 18.9%; % change from 2004, - 2.9%.
So in 2014, 16.6% of people living in the Peoria Area were struggling with depression. That is not a small percentage, people. And it should scare you that that number has been consistently rising for over 10 years.
If you peruse the Peoria County Government website, you will see a ton of links to health-related resources. With an increase in numbers like this, you would expect the community to be doing something about it. There is a long side-bar on the main page that lists a lot of different pages related to health, and not one of them has anything mental-health related. So if you go straight to the Peoria County website to try to find resources available for mental health, you will have a very hard time finding anything.
In 2010, the county of Peoria released the results of its own Peoria County National Citizen Survey, a document of statistics that is over 12 pages long. There was only ONE mention of anything even related to mental health. And what it said absolutely astounded me:
The HIGHEST percent of satisfaction is 39%, and that's in the demographic of earning $100,000 per year.
So only 39% of people in the WEALTHIEST category are satisfied with Peoria's mental health care...and that's to say nothing if you don't happen to make over $100,000 year.
The lowest percent of satisfaction reported (29%) was in the $50,000 to $99,999 range...that's the everyday average person. And they are the most unsatisfied with mental health care here in Peoria.
That is ridiculously appalling. If 16.6% of us struggle with just depression (who knows how high the statistic is if you factor in every single other type of mental illness), and the average satisfaction rate (based on annual household income) here is 33.7%, there is a HUGE problem.
That means there is an enormous need for mental health care, and an even bigger gap in the QUALITY of mental health care services.
That is not okay. This is 2015. We have three major hospitals in the city of Peoria alone, and countless other health programs/organizations; we have state-of-the-art medical technology and beautiful architecture and millions of dollars that go into our healthcare system. And our average satisfaction with mental health is 33.7%. I understand that you can't please everybody, but when the vast majority of people are not pleased, it is a much bigger issue.
From my own experiences and those that I love, I have seen how decrepit our mental healthcare system is...but I never knew the actual statistics until now...and it's absolutely despicable. There is just no excuse for this.
The biggest problem here is awareness and understanding. This is why I am so passionate about this...because people NEED it! PLEASE share this with as many people as you can. We have to get this message out to our community. Most people probably don't even realize that our system is so ineffective. If we spread the message, think of all the countless people we can help to have better quality lives—not to mention the number of lives we can save.
I feel SO much sympathy for the 20 year old man who attempted suicide on I-474 this morning. Not only did he not have access to quality care that he deserves as a human being, but also for the fact that his biggest struggle in life was made into a headline about the cause of traffic delays. That is just not acceptable, and I, for one, will not stand for it anymore.
A man had, ironically, tried to commit suicide this morning in our local community. He jumped off a heavily-used bridge.
What really shocked me, though, was the story they were reporting. It was not, in fact, about a man attempting suicide during National Suicide Prevention Week in our local community; it was actually about delays in traffic on I-474...the man attempting to take his own life was just the cause of the traffic delay. This suicide attempt was literally treated as an afterthought, as something that just happens sometimes and you have to deal with it, like a weather condition or road construction or something.
HOW, in the year 2015, is this STILL HAPPENING? Who in the newsrooms thought it was okay to treat a story like this as an afterthought? As just the reason to why traffic was delayed this morning?
I was absolutely appalled at the treatment of this story by the media. As I got settled into work later, I looked up the story online to see if there was any more coverage. There were 2 articles online that I found, and they were both almost the exact same thing that I heard on the radio. That a local 20 year old man had jumped off the bridge, causing delays on I-474. He was treated on the scene and taken to a local hospital. THAT'S IT!
There are even guidelines among the reporting/journalist community on how to treat stories about suicide, to prevent situations like this from ever happening. I did a quick google search and an entire website devoted to informing reporters of these guidelines came up as one of the first results. According to that website,
...Certain types of news coverage can increase the likelihood of suicide in vulnerable individuals.
In a world where there are rules widely protecting the rights and feelings of minorities and people who are different than "the norm," how on earth do we get a news story with the headline of:
??????
This statistic has steadily risen since their 2011 Peoria Area Community Assessment, which stated, "People who reported feeling sad or depressed for more than 2 days, 2009 compared to 2004. Peoria County 29.1%; % change from 2004, +7.6%; Tazewell County 30.5%; % change from 2004, +10.8%; Woodford County 18.9%; % change from 2004, - 2.9%.
So in 2014, 16.6% of people living in the Peoria Area were struggling with depression. That is not a small percentage, people. And it should scare you that that number has been consistently rising for over 10 years.
If you peruse the Peoria County Government website, you will see a ton of links to health-related resources. With an increase in numbers like this, you would expect the community to be doing something about it. There is a long side-bar on the main page that lists a lot of different pages related to health, and not one of them has anything mental-health related. So if you go straight to the Peoria County website to try to find resources available for mental health, you will have a very hard time finding anything.
Are you starting to be bothered yet? Just wait...
The HIGHEST percent of satisfaction is 39%, and that's in the demographic of earning $100,000 per year.
So only 39% of people in the WEALTHIEST category are satisfied with Peoria's mental health care...and that's to say nothing if you don't happen to make over $100,000 year.
The lowest percent of satisfaction reported (29%) was in the $50,000 to $99,999 range...that's the everyday average person. And they are the most unsatisfied with mental health care here in Peoria.
That is ridiculously appalling. If 16.6% of us struggle with just depression (who knows how high the statistic is if you factor in every single other type of mental illness), and the average satisfaction rate (based on annual household income) here is 33.7%, there is a HUGE problem.
That means there is an enormous need for mental health care, and an even bigger gap in the QUALITY of mental health care services.
That is not okay. This is 2015. We have three major hospitals in the city of Peoria alone, and countless other health programs/organizations; we have state-of-the-art medical technology and beautiful architecture and millions of dollars that go into our healthcare system. And our average satisfaction with mental health is 33.7%. I understand that you can't please everybody, but when the vast majority of people are not pleased, it is a much bigger issue.
From my own experiences and those that I love, I have seen how decrepit our mental healthcare system is...but I never knew the actual statistics until now...and it's absolutely despicable. There is just no excuse for this.
The biggest problem here is awareness and understanding. This is why I am so passionate about this...because people NEED it! PLEASE share this with as many people as you can. We have to get this message out to our community. Most people probably don't even realize that our system is so ineffective. If we spread the message, think of all the countless people we can help to have better quality lives—not to mention the number of lives we can save.
I feel SO much sympathy for the 20 year old man who attempted suicide on I-474 this morning. Not only did he not have access to quality care that he deserves as a human being, but also for the fact that his biggest struggle in life was made into a headline about the cause of traffic delays. That is just not acceptable, and I, for one, will not stand for it anymore.
Thursday, August 27, 2015
Mental Illness Understanding and Awareness
The moment I woke up in the hospital after I tried (and failed) to commit suicide, I only felt one emotion: anger.
I was so angry with the nurses who hooked me up to monitors so that I couldn’t move. I was so angry with my family, for calling an ambulance instead of letting me die. I was so angry with my close friends, for not caring enough. But most of all, I was so angry with the world for not understanding what I was going through, and for society’s subtle messages constantly telling me I was a freak—not normal—because I had a mental illness.
I was so saturated with anger that I couldn’t feel anything else for days. I just laid in that bed, heart pounding and head reeling, completely unable to acknowledge that I had just been given a second chance at life. Why would I even want a second chance when I failed so miserably the first time? The world had been telling me for years that I wasn’t good enough to deserve anything at all. I was weird, I was crazy, I was hyper-emotional…It didn’t matter if there was something legitimately wrong with me to make me behave this way. I couldn’t seem to control my emotions, and that made people scared of me.
It made me scared of myself. I lived my life with so much hatred for myself that I literally couldn’t even get out of bed some days. It was too much to look at myself in the mirror. It was too much to even see my hands or my feet in front of me. Every part of me was bad.
My stay in the hospital was absolutely excruciating. When I was finally released a little more than a week later, nobody at home really knew what to do with me. I felt even more like an outcast. What were my friends and family supposed to say to me, after I had literally just tried to kill myself? Most people just said nothing, so that they wouldn’t say the wrong thing. But to me, the silence was absolutely unbearable. It gave me a lot of time to think about how I had gotten to the point I was at.
It all started with a self-diagnosis of General Anxiety Disorder (GAD). When I started noticing my symptoms and looked them up online, I was surprised that there was a name, an actual condition, describing exactly what I was going through. I had never even known anyone with a mental illness before, though, so I didn’t really know what to do about it.
Months later, I went to the doctor because I was having trouble breathing. I mentioned to her that I had been feeling the symptoms that I read online about anxiety, and she immediately told me that my solution was to get counseling. She sent me away, with not even a referral, expecting me to go out and find the help I needed. Obviously, I didn’t.
I continued trying to live my life the best I could. I had just gotten married, and I was trying to finish up college. Being on campus was a huge struggle. I was scared of loud noises. I felt like I was under a spotlight every second of every day. I stopped eating because I was so scared of making a sound with some sort of wrapper or plastic baggie, and bothering everyone around me trying to study or have conversations. I tried not to even move, because I was so scared of people looking at me, and being a nuisance.
I was utterly exhausted all the time. My heart was constantly racing, and I often thought it would beat right out of my chest. My legs felt so heavy; even walking to class was almost more than I could physically manage. I had such a hard time breathing; I learned that yawning helped to open my throat and get a slightly larger breath, so I started subconsciously yawning a lot. That made me even more tired…So I eventually couldn’t even leave my apartment.
Once I missed one class, I just KNEW that everyone in that class would notice what a horrible student I was. If I showed up to class the next time, I couldn’t stand sitting there, feeling like everyone was judging me and wondering why I wasn’t there last time. I felt like I was no longer worthy to be in the same classes with all of my successful, ambitious classmates. It became absolute torture to just sit through a 50-minute lecture.
I dropped out of college right at the end of my second to last semester, and things continued to worsen. I sought help from my ecclesiastical leaders, but—not being trained mental health professionals—they could only do so much for me.
I went through a phase where I was constantly scared for my life, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for almost a year. Imagine the feeling you get when you watch a really scary movie…now imagine feeling that every single minute of every single day. My life was literally a nightmare. I stopped sleeping at night because I was so scared to close my eyes, and the little sleep I managed to get during daylight hours were interrupted by more nightmares. Sometimes I was so scared that I literally couldn’t even move. My body was paralyzed with fear, and I couldn’t speak or get help. I was utterly useless.
The worst part was probably the crippling depression that came along with my anxiety. I was doing absolutely nothing with my life, and I hated myself for it. Everything I had worked for up until that point had all been washed down the drain, in my mind. I had ruined everything and there was no hope for me, or my future. I was hopeless.
Finally, I moved back home with my parents. I went through a divorce and was on my own every day. I laid in my bed in the dark every day, only moving if I absolutely had to. I slept as much as I could to escape the horrible thoughts taking over my head, often interrupting my own nightmares with sobbing. I couldn’t get along with anybody—nobody could say the right thing. Even if they tried so hard to be nice, everything hurt my feelings. I didn’t know it at the time, but my father used to sit in the living room right below my bedroom, and just wait to hear footsteps above him, so that he knew I was still alive.
I was in and out of the mental health clinic, trying different medications and therapy. I tried really hard to force myself to go to therapy, but it was so hard. Nothing seemed to work. If anything, the medication they gave me only made it worse. One scary thing happened when I started taking one prescription: I started cutting myself.
I had horrible scrapes and scratches all over my face. I hated it so much that I literally tried to scratch it away. The infections from the cuts made my face absolutely burn, adding to my misery. I cut song lyrics and depressing phrases into my arms, shoulders, wrists, and legs. It was oddly comforting…It felt so much better to feel the physical pain, because I could control it. As soon as I put a wet washcloth over a fresh cut, it felt instantly better. The pain was still there, but that feeling of relief was absolutely blissful to me at that point. I became addicted to the fleeting feeling of relief.
I was so frustrated with my doctors and counselors. Nobody seemed to really understand what I was saying; it almost seemed like nobody was really listening to anything I was saying. One of the biggest struggles when you have a mental illness is just trying to deal with the system that is supposed to help you, and make you better. Our mental health care system is so antiquated—if you look at it next to physical medicine, there is no comparison.
There’s also no comparison in the way people treat you when you have mental illness, as opposed to a physical illness.
If your friend had cancer, you would feel overwhelming sympathy for them. You would watch them slowly deteriorate after chemo and radiation treatments, you would do anything you could just to spend time with them and get them to smile. So why is it, then, when somebody has a mental illness, nobody knows what to say?
People watch those afflicted with mental illnesses from the sidelines; we see someone deteriorating in front of us due to a mental illness, but in our heads, it is somehow their own fault. The schizophrenic on the street is homeless because he is crazy and refuses to get help or hold down a job. Our prisons are filling up with criminals who refuse to take their anti-psychotic medications. People are committing suicide because they are cowardly and shallow. People like me—the people you grew up with or went to school with—we are lazy and silly for not finishing school or getting a job. These are the stereotypes that people with mental illnesses face every single day.
You wouldn’t judge someone who was born with HIV for his or her parents’ mistakes. You wouldn’t judge someone with cancer as being lazy after his or her chemo treatment. You wouldn’t laugh at someone with a broken leg for not being able to walk. So you shouldn’t judge someone with a mental illness as anything other than a regular person with a serious medical condition. Mental illnesses do not make any person weird, lazy, crazy, or freakish. When a person has a mental illness, it only means that there is a chemical imbalance in their brain, which needs to be fixed by a medical professional, or that person has gone through something so traumatic that it literally damaged their brain. It can be just as genetic as cancer, or it can be just as environmental as someone breaking his or her leg. Mental illness is legitimate—it is more than feeling sad, angry, or scared all the time. Until you have experienced it for yourself, it is hard to understand the difference, but it is definitely more than just what you see on the outside.
Eventually, I started a new medication that actually worked for me. I very slowly started feeling like I could do more things. I got a part-time job, which led to a full-time job, which led to me feeling like I was a normal person again. I still struggle dealing with all the things I know I have lost due to my mental illness, and it still hurts to experience the memories from that part of my life. I will always have to deal with this issue—it’s a chronic illness. But at least I now know that I can manage it and still live a normal life. I now know that it is possible to feel happiness again, and I appreciate that happiness so much more when I feel it; I know what it is like to feel its absence for years at a time.
If you know someone with mental illness, gently encourage them to seek help from medical professionals. Tell them to stick with it—the mental health care system is extremely hard to navigate, but we need it. For the sake of your friends or family with mental illness, and for people like me that you don’t even know, please help us fight the stigma of mental illness. Please help us reform the mental health care system. Please help us—there is so much we cannot do alone.
My purpose in writing this article is to promote mental health awareness. So many people who have struggled with mental illness cannot talk about their experiences, simply for the fact that they are not here anymore. If I can reach even just one person with my story and that person changes how he or she looks at mental illness, then I will consider myself successful. Next time you see someone struggling with a mental illness, listen to them, be a friend, care about them, encourage them to get help, but most of all, please do not judge them.
I want to hear about YOU! I want to hear your mental health stories, whether about you, or someone you know. Share with us in the comments of this article at HealthyCellsMagazine.com/specific URL here, or email me personally at jessi@limelightlink.com. Shoot me an email/leave a comment if you have any questions about mental health issues, or if there is a mental illness-related topic you’d like to see more about in this magazine. Together, we can get people talking about mental health issues, and increase awareness and understanding!
I was so angry with the nurses who hooked me up to monitors so that I couldn’t move. I was so angry with my family, for calling an ambulance instead of letting me die. I was so angry with my close friends, for not caring enough. But most of all, I was so angry with the world for not understanding what I was going through, and for society’s subtle messages constantly telling me I was a freak—not normal—because I had a mental illness.
I was so saturated with anger that I couldn’t feel anything else for days. I just laid in that bed, heart pounding and head reeling, completely unable to acknowledge that I had just been given a second chance at life. Why would I even want a second chance when I failed so miserably the first time? The world had been telling me for years that I wasn’t good enough to deserve anything at all. I was weird, I was crazy, I was hyper-emotional…It didn’t matter if there was something legitimately wrong with me to make me behave this way. I couldn’t seem to control my emotions, and that made people scared of me.
It made me scared of myself. I lived my life with so much hatred for myself that I literally couldn’t even get out of bed some days. It was too much to look at myself in the mirror. It was too much to even see my hands or my feet in front of me. Every part of me was bad.
My stay in the hospital was absolutely excruciating. When I was finally released a little more than a week later, nobody at home really knew what to do with me. I felt even more like an outcast. What were my friends and family supposed to say to me, after I had literally just tried to kill myself? Most people just said nothing, so that they wouldn’t say the wrong thing. But to me, the silence was absolutely unbearable. It gave me a lot of time to think about how I had gotten to the point I was at.
It all started with a self-diagnosis of General Anxiety Disorder (GAD). When I started noticing my symptoms and looked them up online, I was surprised that there was a name, an actual condition, describing exactly what I was going through. I had never even known anyone with a mental illness before, though, so I didn’t really know what to do about it.
Months later, I went to the doctor because I was having trouble breathing. I mentioned to her that I had been feeling the symptoms that I read online about anxiety, and she immediately told me that my solution was to get counseling. She sent me away, with not even a referral, expecting me to go out and find the help I needed. Obviously, I didn’t.
I continued trying to live my life the best I could. I had just gotten married, and I was trying to finish up college. Being on campus was a huge struggle. I was scared of loud noises. I felt like I was under a spotlight every second of every day. I stopped eating because I was so scared of making a sound with some sort of wrapper or plastic baggie, and bothering everyone around me trying to study or have conversations. I tried not to even move, because I was so scared of people looking at me, and being a nuisance.
I was utterly exhausted all the time. My heart was constantly racing, and I often thought it would beat right out of my chest. My legs felt so heavy; even walking to class was almost more than I could physically manage. I had such a hard time breathing; I learned that yawning helped to open my throat and get a slightly larger breath, so I started subconsciously yawning a lot. That made me even more tired…So I eventually couldn’t even leave my apartment.
Once I missed one class, I just KNEW that everyone in that class would notice what a horrible student I was. If I showed up to class the next time, I couldn’t stand sitting there, feeling like everyone was judging me and wondering why I wasn’t there last time. I felt like I was no longer worthy to be in the same classes with all of my successful, ambitious classmates. It became absolute torture to just sit through a 50-minute lecture.
I dropped out of college right at the end of my second to last semester, and things continued to worsen. I sought help from my ecclesiastical leaders, but—not being trained mental health professionals—they could only do so much for me.
I went through a phase where I was constantly scared for my life, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for almost a year. Imagine the feeling you get when you watch a really scary movie…now imagine feeling that every single minute of every single day. My life was literally a nightmare. I stopped sleeping at night because I was so scared to close my eyes, and the little sleep I managed to get during daylight hours were interrupted by more nightmares. Sometimes I was so scared that I literally couldn’t even move. My body was paralyzed with fear, and I couldn’t speak or get help. I was utterly useless.
The worst part was probably the crippling depression that came along with my anxiety. I was doing absolutely nothing with my life, and I hated myself for it. Everything I had worked for up until that point had all been washed down the drain, in my mind. I had ruined everything and there was no hope for me, or my future. I was hopeless.
Finally, I moved back home with my parents. I went through a divorce and was on my own every day. I laid in my bed in the dark every day, only moving if I absolutely had to. I slept as much as I could to escape the horrible thoughts taking over my head, often interrupting my own nightmares with sobbing. I couldn’t get along with anybody—nobody could say the right thing. Even if they tried so hard to be nice, everything hurt my feelings. I didn’t know it at the time, but my father used to sit in the living room right below my bedroom, and just wait to hear footsteps above him, so that he knew I was still alive.
I was in and out of the mental health clinic, trying different medications and therapy. I tried really hard to force myself to go to therapy, but it was so hard. Nothing seemed to work. If anything, the medication they gave me only made it worse. One scary thing happened when I started taking one prescription: I started cutting myself.
I had horrible scrapes and scratches all over my face. I hated it so much that I literally tried to scratch it away. The infections from the cuts made my face absolutely burn, adding to my misery. I cut song lyrics and depressing phrases into my arms, shoulders, wrists, and legs. It was oddly comforting…It felt so much better to feel the physical pain, because I could control it. As soon as I put a wet washcloth over a fresh cut, it felt instantly better. The pain was still there, but that feeling of relief was absolutely blissful to me at that point. I became addicted to the fleeting feeling of relief.
I was so frustrated with my doctors and counselors. Nobody seemed to really understand what I was saying; it almost seemed like nobody was really listening to anything I was saying. One of the biggest struggles when you have a mental illness is just trying to deal with the system that is supposed to help you, and make you better. Our mental health care system is so antiquated—if you look at it next to physical medicine, there is no comparison.
There’s also no comparison in the way people treat you when you have mental illness, as opposed to a physical illness.
If your friend had cancer, you would feel overwhelming sympathy for them. You would watch them slowly deteriorate after chemo and radiation treatments, you would do anything you could just to spend time with them and get them to smile. So why is it, then, when somebody has a mental illness, nobody knows what to say?
People watch those afflicted with mental illnesses from the sidelines; we see someone deteriorating in front of us due to a mental illness, but in our heads, it is somehow their own fault. The schizophrenic on the street is homeless because he is crazy and refuses to get help or hold down a job. Our prisons are filling up with criminals who refuse to take their anti-psychotic medications. People are committing suicide because they are cowardly and shallow. People like me—the people you grew up with or went to school with—we are lazy and silly for not finishing school or getting a job. These are the stereotypes that people with mental illnesses face every single day.
You wouldn’t judge someone who was born with HIV for his or her parents’ mistakes. You wouldn’t judge someone with cancer as being lazy after his or her chemo treatment. You wouldn’t laugh at someone with a broken leg for not being able to walk. So you shouldn’t judge someone with a mental illness as anything other than a regular person with a serious medical condition. Mental illnesses do not make any person weird, lazy, crazy, or freakish. When a person has a mental illness, it only means that there is a chemical imbalance in their brain, which needs to be fixed by a medical professional, or that person has gone through something so traumatic that it literally damaged their brain. It can be just as genetic as cancer, or it can be just as environmental as someone breaking his or her leg. Mental illness is legitimate—it is more than feeling sad, angry, or scared all the time. Until you have experienced it for yourself, it is hard to understand the difference, but it is definitely more than just what you see on the outside.
Eventually, I started a new medication that actually worked for me. I very slowly started feeling like I could do more things. I got a part-time job, which led to a full-time job, which led to me feeling like I was a normal person again. I still struggle dealing with all the things I know I have lost due to my mental illness, and it still hurts to experience the memories from that part of my life. I will always have to deal with this issue—it’s a chronic illness. But at least I now know that I can manage it and still live a normal life. I now know that it is possible to feel happiness again, and I appreciate that happiness so much more when I feel it; I know what it is like to feel its absence for years at a time.
If you know someone with mental illness, gently encourage them to seek help from medical professionals. Tell them to stick with it—the mental health care system is extremely hard to navigate, but we need it. For the sake of your friends or family with mental illness, and for people like me that you don’t even know, please help us fight the stigma of mental illness. Please help us reform the mental health care system. Please help us—there is so much we cannot do alone.
My purpose in writing this article is to promote mental health awareness. So many people who have struggled with mental illness cannot talk about their experiences, simply for the fact that they are not here anymore. If I can reach even just one person with my story and that person changes how he or she looks at mental illness, then I will consider myself successful. Next time you see someone struggling with a mental illness, listen to them, be a friend, care about them, encourage them to get help, but most of all, please do not judge them.
I want to hear about YOU! I want to hear your mental health stories, whether about you, or someone you know. Share with us in the comments of this article at HealthyCellsMagazine.com/specific URL here, or email me personally at jessi@limelightlink.com. Shoot me an email/leave a comment if you have any questions about mental health issues, or if there is a mental illness-related topic you’d like to see more about in this magazine. Together, we can get people talking about mental health issues, and increase awareness and understanding!
Friday, August 21, 2015
Central Illinois: About Me Post in a Creative Way
Central Illinois—I wouldn’t choose
to live anywhere else. Every region has its own unique kind of beauty and
splendor. The rolling fields that change from green to golden when you look at
them from a different angle, the bright vivid green of the grass and trees all
around you; the sheer density of color is astounding when you stop to think
about it. It is easy to take the majesty of central Illinois for granted, until
you’ve lived other places and realized how much you need that green surrounding
you.
I was born in northern California,
raised in Illinois, and went to college in Utah. I also lived in the state of
Washington for a little bit. No matter where I go, I always end up back in
Illinois, surrounded by forest and fields and green.
Growing up with four older brothers
(and being the youngest, only girl) gave me a lot of time to myself when I was
young. Instead of playing with siblings, I played with willow trees. Instead of
dolls, I nurtured cobs of corn. Instead of a gymnasium, I ran in fields. Nature
was my first family. My real family was almost second place in my heart. It’s
not that I didn’t love them…I just connected with my surroundings more than the
surrounding people.
Intuition is my first method of
understanding the world around me. Sometimes, I just feel connected to things
that I know understand me better than people do. Nothing feels more comforting
than a wise, giant tree that has seen more than you ever will. The storms that
it has weathered, the leaves it has lost, the branches that have been stricken
down…it understands your struggles on a very fundamental, instinctual level.
Nothing will ever get you as well as a tree does. When you are struggling and
no one can say the right thing or have the right look behind their eyes, you
will find the deepest understanding and comfort within your soul when you sit
underneath a selfless tree.
A tree will never judge you for how
tall you are in comparison. A field will never laugh at you for how far you can
run through it. A flower will never look at you with pity for the lack of
beauty you possess in its presence. Grass will never challenge you to grow
faster than you are able.
While I love to experience new
things, travel to new places, meet new people, and see life through different
eyes, I will always return to central Illinois, where the green and the fields
and the trees will welcome me back into their leafy arms. Expanding my mind
will always be a priority in my life, but comforting my soul and easing my
burdens will always be left to nature—my friend, my family, my majesty, my
peace.
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