The Game of Vulnerability

I finished the latest Hunger Games book, Sunrise on the Reaping, recently, and it triggered my obsession with the series, partially motivating me to reread all of the books. The other motivation is that staring at printed pages is probably a lot better for my eyes than a phone screen for hours on end.

As I’ve been reading the books — I’m currently halfway through Mockingjay — I’ve drawn a frightening number of parallels between myself and Katniss, specifically pertaining to how we both approach relationships. If there was ever a poster child for an avoidantly-attached, hyper-independent girl, it’d be a tie between her and I.

While I’ve been in therapy for the greater half of my life thus far, my issues with commitment and vulnerability have taken center stage over the past 3, or so, years. It took me the first 8 to admit that I even had an issue with it, because — in the irony of it all — that’d be too revealing to say, even behind the closed doors of a therapist’s office.

During my last session, I came to the realization that I, unconsciously, choose my words with caution whenever I open up to someone. That someone could be a friend, family member, romantic interest, or anything in between. I refrain from the “deep stuff” and keep things clinical and direct. I explain things matter-of-factly and end with a joke to lighten the mood or change the course of the conversation all-together. This brutal dose of reality has been ruminating in my mind for the past week and all I can think about is if I’ve ever had a genuine conversation about my feelings.

I’d like to say “yes,” but I am not totally sure. I think of times with my parents where my heightened emotions and sentences scattered between sobs have revealed the reality of the inside of my mind, but have I ever explained with candor and a clear-head? I think of times with my friends at bars and pre-games, drinks in hand, when I have exposed myself in bits and pieces, but have I ever soberly opened up?

The moment someone asks me “how are you doing?” anticipating a real and raw answer, I feel my stomach drop and a lump form in my throat. My palms sweat and my heart palpitates as the familiar feelings of a panic attack rush across my body and mind. I have to work up every ounce of courage I have to form even the simplest of sentences and even then I have little to no control over what comes out. There have been times I felt pressured into vulnerability — whether intentionally or not, I’ll never know — and feel instant regret. I feel unsafe in my body and an unrelenting urge to crawl into my own skin and disappear forever.

I think of Katniss trying to come to grips with the fact that she has feelings for someone, her confusion over whether or not someone is actually her friend or not, her internal debates over who cares for her. I relate.

The worst part of this recent discovery is that I have no idea how it began and I am afraid to find out. I have spent most of my life digging into why I am the way I am and medicating myself — both doctor recommended and self — so this shouldn't be any different than figuring out why I need to do things in multiples of 3s, why I can go weeks with little sleep, why I only see numbers on food, why I feel the need to get ahead, why the color red is my favorite, why I like to sleep on my left.

And yet, here I am, having spent a majority of my life shoving this fear deep down inside of me that I forgot I even had it. It’s starting to spill out now and consume my thoughts. With little distractions to keep the inevitable flood at bay, I am now forced to deal with it.

At this point, you’re probably wondering how this part of my website even exists, if I am so petrified with fear to divulge my inner thoughts and feelings. I question that too. But at the end of the day there is something freeing about not knowing who, if anyone, reads my words. Despite the fact that they will forever circulate the internet, they will always belong to me and be a living testament to the fact that I am capable of bringing down my walls.

And one day I hope I can do that with someone face-to-face.

Beating the Odds

Seventy percent of people with bipolar disorder drop out of college.

The first 18 years of my life were riddled with excess. I convinced myself that overachieving wasn’t satisfactory enough which lead to burnout after burnout and I ended up staying in-state at my last choice school (UofA doesn’t count lol).

I entered ASU with the mindset of still needing to be the best and used the cloud of defeat over my head as motivation. I also started this new chapter of my life with a new diagnosis of bipolar disorder.

For a while, I convinced myself that I didn’t need to put much attention or focus on it. I told myself, “I’ve always been bipolar, this diagnosis just puts a name to it, and I’ve done just fine so far, so why center my life around it?”

Hindsight is 20/20 and I actually wasn’t doing fine and — if I’m being totally honest — have never really been doing fine. I had a recent realization that I have never been medically stable. My therapist has told me this a number of times, but it’s only just hit me now because for the first time in my entire life, I am not in fight or flight mode.

Even during the periods of time where I was good and stable, I was still using all of my energy 24/7 to just get through to the next day. I ignored my bipolar disorder until I was incapable of pretending it didn’t exist. Then I’d fall or float into an episode and scramble to put together some semblance of a regular daily routine when I was grounded again. I told myself and everyone around me that I was fine and at some points I believed it.

But now as an official a college graduate who walked across the stage with no honors or awards and no job — something that 18-year-old me would’ve had an actual psychotic break over — I have recognized that I am not fine and that’s okay.

I am not healthy or sane or stable or functional. I haven’t just been dealing with the regular ebb and flow of life. The reality is, I have been neglecting a life-altering neurological mood disorder for four years.

I am aware that this sounds incredibly pessimistic and I don’t want to discredit any of the actual progress I’ve made, but I think it’s an important thing to admit. I am finally in a phase of my life where I can allow myself to really hone in on my mental health and figure out how to heal so I can live a functional life. Maybe I’m not fine, but I am content and I am alive, and those are things I didn’t think I would be at 22.

I beat the odds of graduating college and I plan to continue to beat the odds of any and everything else I do, if not for me, then for everyone who isn’t able to. My view of success has shifted from an abundance of accolades to simple progress.

If I can do my part to make headway for the next person then that is all that matters to me. I don’t totally know what it’ll look like yet, but I am excited to see what the future holds.

To anyone with bipolar disorder out there who is starting college, in college, dropped out of college or anywhere in-between and beyond, please know that it’s okay to take a break. It’s okay to prioritize yourself, it’s not selfish or stagnant, it’s critical.

Taking Care of Your Health Actually Works

The title itself is probably has you thinking, “Well no shit,” but it’s a fact that took me almost dying to realize.

Today I had one of the most productive and introspective therapy sessions to date. It was mostly positive and incredibly reflective. My therapist — and my parents — have been telling me that I need to slow down and focus on my health for years now. Especially with my bipolar diagnosis, having a routine and prioritizing my physical well-being alongside my mental health is critical to my survival and I think I’ve finally come around to understanding that.

Over the past 54 days, I have built a routine and have taken time in silence to think.

Silence.

It’s something that used to absolutely terrify me. The idea of being left alone with only my thoughts was petrifying. I was afraid of what lied beneath the chaos of life and what lived within my own brain. Whether that was obsessions that paralyzed me or hallucinations that terrified me, I was living in constant fear of who I actually was. Taking away my distractions and my vices has given me the opportunity to face my reality instead of running away from it.

I talked a lot about who I was 4 years ago. Eighteen year old me was an entirely different person and when I look in the mirror I can only see a distant memory of her. I wish I could sit in front of her and tell her that I’m okay.

I want to tell her that we’re okay and even when we aren’t that’s okay too. I want to hug her and hold her and reassure her that despite the fact our life will always be an uphill battle, we’ve gotten stronger and tenacious. I want to tell her that we’re starting to acknowledge our pitfalls and faults in a way that is productive and we’re learning how to communicate and set boundaries. I want to tell her that even though people have left her life, she doesn’t feel less than anymore. I want to tell her that we have people we love and cherish that actively make us want to allow them to be sentimental and caring without pushing them away. I want to tell it all to her, but at the same time, if she knew, she would never become the person we are today.

My therapist told me something that I definitely already knew, but it shouldn’t take a brush with death for me to care about myself. Living in crisis 24/7 and believing that “just surviving” each day is enough isn’t actually healthy. I can’t spend the rest of my life fighting through one battle, hoping I have a break before the next. While I can’t control the external parts of my life that throw me into the fire, I can do little things everyday that build my resistance to the flames.

Slowly but surely I’m coming to the conclusion that life isn’t “all or nothing.” Sometimes life can be a little bit of this and a little bit of that. It sounds cliche and obvious typing it out, but I’ve convinced myself that I knew that for 22 years and today was the first time I believed it.

I am Fine

A week ago I was discharged from the hospital for a stomach ulcer. Technically it’s two but only one bleeding one that resulted in me yakking approximately a third of my blood all over the entrance of a bar (that had only been open for a week I might add). I am fine now, minus an annoyingly bland and restricted diet that requires me to fight against 6 years of eating disorder recovery, but at the same time I’m frustrated.

I’m not frustrated with the fact that I have an ulcer or have to cut out all of my comfort foods and caffeine and alcohol, but more so the fact that everyone else is making this a bigger deal than I am.

When I was a kid (and I’m sure many kids with mental illnesses can relate) I wanted a physical ailment to get people to care. I was popping 13 pills a day in eighth grade trying to lower my daily panic attack average to <15 and no one understood that. I didn’t parade my diagnoses around at all, but to the friends I had mustered up the courage to be vulnerable to and explain what was happening, they didn’t fucking get it.

Sure, I get it, preteens aren’t the most intellectually advanced when it comes to explaining the complexities and realties of OCD and panic disorder and depression. But still, it was something that was important to me and I just wanted to feel seen and heard.

I didn’t want and I certainly now do not want any kind of pity or sympathy, just to feel like my openness wasn’t going to waste.

As I’ve grown older and obtained a bipolar diagnosis and gone through plenty of supplements and meds and doctors for an almost 22-year-old, I’ve realized that I don’t crave being seen as much anymore — at least not in more intimate settings.

And this goddamn ulcer has solidified that to me even more.

I have opened up here and there about some “scary” symptoms of bipolar that have arisen in the past year or so and while in the moment people have been receptive, that moment is fleeting. That is not meant to bash on any of my friends because a lot of what I am going through is hard to wrap your head around when you’re not going through it. I also don’t talk about it a whole bunch so it’s not something I can or would be upset about because I get it.

But at the exact same time, after I have repeatedly said over and over again that I am fine and I want to move on from the big hullabaloo and just heal and get on with my life, everyone seems to think that this is the time for them to cash in on their sympathy cards.

One of the reasons I don’t feel the need to talk about every little nitty gritty detail of how my mind is fucking me up, is because I don’t need every other conversation I have to be about it.

I get that everyone means well but it's frustrating to know that one of the only reasons they are checking in for this is because it’s tangible and scary for them — and they don’t even consciously recognize that. It’s not their fault but I’m also not going to spend my time trying to explain that to every fucking person.

The only positive I can see from this is that at least 13 year old me was proven right. People do care more about the physical than the mental no matter how hard you try.

Rolling Up a Hill

How many times have I started writing with the same word on my mind: again?

Here I am again, thinking that I had beaten every obstacle in my life only to get struck down immediately. This may have been the longest manic episode I have been on, for two and a half months I bounced between fully manic, hypomanic, and a little bit about normal. Up until the last few days of this period of pure bliss, I felt invincible, which yeah is the entire definition of mania, but I thought that I had figured out how to tell.

I thought that I had a grasp on how to gauge when I was slipping into one or the other. For God’s sake I have a fucking calendar that I color in each day to track. I keep forgetting that it’s barely been a year, that I’m not supposed to have a firm grasp on it yet, but how am I supposed to go through one of the biggest transition periods of life while trying to also keep myself from slipping away into my own mind?

How am I supposed to figure out how to live while also figuring out what I’m doing with my life?

I just spent two and a half days glued to my bed feeling lower than I have in so long. I had forgotten just how deep my depression can be, how lifeless I can feel. How am I supposed to keep living and keeping figuring things out when I lose myself into nothingness every three weeks?

I know it’s repetitive and I know it’s redundant and yet I can’t wrap my head around the fact that I’m going in a circle. The only thing that is grounding me and giving me some semblance of hope is that the circle is rolling forward. It’s rolling somewhere and that’s all I can hope I’m doing.

Humor and Human Nature

The cruel irony in my life is that I used to be so opposed to humor when I was deep in the trenches of my mental illnesses. I used to scream at my parents when they tried to make me laugh with a joke because I was so stuck on the idea that if I were to laugh or be happy at any capacity, then I would be diluting the very real and very intense emotions I was feeling in the moment. And god forbid I wasn't constantly in a state of personal reflection where I sulked and sat in my own misery.

Now I use humor as a wall for actually facing my internal self. I guess younger me was on to something in a sense.

Humor around my mental health and well-being is something I have become comfortable with to the point that jokes and quips escape my lips before I even think of them. I almost feel obligated to lighten the tone because I’m afraid that what I really am feeling and want to say is too heavy for any one else to carry with them. And in all honesty, I am probably not wrong to think that. When I have moments of true self-reflection without the constant distractions I have implemented in my life, I realize just how much I have neglected myself.

Sometimes I think what would be different if I was more open to humor when I was younger and more at ease with other’s help. Maybe I wouldn’t compensate for myself now by trying to make it all one joke.

It’s almost human nature to try and find the deeper meanings in life and look for every dot to connect in the end. Suffering makes us want to believe in a bigger plan. That’s probably why I was so opposed to humor, I thought it would hinder me from being able to “truly look within” or whatever the hell my 13-year-old self thought was provoking and influential.

Now I fear what’s at my core and what makes me up. I push aside any real semblance of what I’m feeling in order to maintain a fun and happy mood. I feel like I’ve gone full circle in my growth. Instead of trying to put on a facade of perfection to hide any problems from others, I have deferred to mitigating my own struggle from myself so I don’t have to come to terms with who I am.

Humor is a vast and incredible tool to help us cope, but somewhere there is a line between helpful and harmful and I’m afraid I’m too far gone down the harmful tract now.

Socially Obsessed

Around March/April of this year, I vowed to myself that I was going to take a social media break for the summer. My main focus was deleting Snapchat and Instagram and I think for the month of July I’m going to get rid of TikTok too.

The reason I wanted to forgo any social media for the summer was mostly because I felt burnt out from it. It sounds stupid and for anyone who looks down on Gen Z as internet-obsessed nothing I’m about to say is going to help that, but I was addicted to my phone and the social version of myself that I curated online. Every day I felt FOMO when I didn’t check on everyone’s profile every few minutes or I based my days around waiting for people to respond to me and once I took a step back and processed that, I felt pathetic.

Why was I allowing the likes on a photo or the number of messages I got every day or how many people watched my story to dictate my happiness? And even further, why was I allowing other people’s internet presence to affect what I thought and what I did?

I wanted to take a step away from the constant flood of information and oversharing and happy faces to reconnect with myself and who I was. I know that I’ve become more secure in myself these past few years but I know there is more room to grow in my confidence so why would I stunt that opportunity for growth?

I will admit that the first week was rough. I felt like I needed to let everyone know what I was doing and thinking and I needed to make sure I was on top of everything going on, but now I don't really miss any of it at all. I don’t miss thinking about who was going to see my story or who was going to like my post first. I don’t miss trying to get the best angle on a photo to impress other people. I don’t miss the constant anxiety that came from thinking about what I was “missing.” Because at the end of the day, there is so much more to life than the digital persona you create.

I probably sound like a pretentious idiot who thinks they're “too good” for Instagram, but I know that once my hiatus is over I’m going to use it again. It’s not about getting rid of it all forever, it’s about creating a healthy relationship with it and allowing myself to feel confident because I feel confident and not because someone else allows me to be.

If you can take a social media break, try to do it for a month and I promise you’ll be better off for it. Especially if you were glued to your phone like I was.

Hate is Not a Mental Illness

Mental Health America posted the above quote on Instagram on May 15th. Something that I have seen time and time again when scrolling through Twitter or Facebook or any other social media platform is people using mental illness to either justify or penalize people who do bad things.

The most recent example is the tragic shooting in Buffalo where a white supremacist coordinated a hate crime against Black Americans. It makes me sick when people equate racism to a mental illness or try and blame a mental illness for harmful actions. There is plenty of stigma around mental health as it is and inaccurately equating acts of hate and violence to mental health is harmful to everyone involved.

It not only places negative stereotypes around people who have mental illnesses but it also provides an excuse for racists, homophobes, and other hateful people.

Before I dive any deeper I want to preface that I am not a mental health professional and I am basing my opinions on my own personal experience and knowledge about mental health. While I have done thorough research, I am not qualified to offer mental health advice or guidance.

Another thing that irks me a bit is the argument that because the shooter was coherent and intellectual means that he can’t be mentally ill. I have seen a few tweets using this as a way to “debunk” the notion that what the Buffalo shooter did was due to a mental illness, so I will give the benefit of the doubt and assume they come from a good place. However, by using the ability to function in society and intelligence level as means of ruling out mental illness, people are reinforcing the idea that everyone with a mental illness is incapable to live normally and cannot be smart or functional. And as a mentally ill person, I would like to state that that is simply not true.

At the end of the day, it is important to note that the conversation around mental health is still new. Genuine discussion and debate about it are starting to become more normalized so it is vital that we do everything we can to ensure that authenticity and accuracy flow through our words.

Mental illness cannot justify acts of hate.

My heart breaks for Buffalo and the families that have been affected by this event. If you are interested in donating to help the families of the victims please click here for a list of verified GoFundMe fundraisers.

The Good Side of Nihilism

I could have a solid retirement fund if I had a dollar for every time I questioned what I publish on this site. One of the things that I have increasingly become more aware of is how I am perceived by others. Before 2019 I was very reserved in talking about myself and what I did and who I was. I felt the need to construct the “ideal me” and only present that facade to everyone and anyone I met. However after the pandemic took its toll and I crawled my way through high school, I became a borderline nihilistic cynic—my mother’s words not mine.

And while there is certainly a negative side to always seeking the worst in the world and constantly contemplating whether life is even worth it at the end of the day, there is also a slight beauty to it. After a certain amount of time the terrifying idea of “nothing matters” turns into a freeing life motto. There are certainly better ways to come to this realization than sending yourself down a somewhat neverending downward spiral, but that is how I came to this place. A place of contentment and a kind of unsettling peace—but peace nonetheless.

Nothing matters UNLESS you fuck up so tremendously bad that you ruin the rest of your or someone else’s life (and newsflash this doesn’t mean failing a class or losing out on a job. I’m talking about like murder and stuff like that). At the end of the day, you are only one person and any mistakes you make or anything pitfalls you succumb to isn’t going to matter in the long run as long as you make a conscious effort to fix it, atone for it, move past it, or even just forget about it. This isn’t to say that you can’t make an impact as one person or that the good things you offer the world are meaningless—well for the most part yeah—it just means that overthinking is an unforgiving poison and it doesn’t hurt to remind yourself of that sometimes.

I will admit that at the beginning of this newfound—for me—idea, I found it a little discouraging. What do you mean nothing matters? I have always worked hard and constantly strive to do my best and create things that leave the world better off, and now I’m realizing that none of it matters? And yes, this is probably something you’re thinking about right now, whether or not you should even bother trying because what if nothing you do ever matters. And I’m here to say, in my “profound” not-professional about-to-be college-sophomore opinion, there is some truth to that but there is also so much more.

There is so much more to doing good work and working hard and trying to do your best than just what you produce. By relieving a bit of the materialistic and existential pressure that we all put on ourselves to one degree or another, then we can in turn make better stuff. I can’t even count how many times my own head has prevented me from jumping into something I am interested in or want to try and all of those times are missed opportunities for change and for growth. If I had just taken a moment to remind myself that it’s perfectly fine if I mess up because there are more days and more opportunities and more people and whatever, then I probably have a lot more things to show off.

So back to me, overthinking nine out of ten things I publish here. I have spent so much time afraid of being vulnerable and open and honest because I was scared that people would judge me and laugh and criticize me for it, but the more I write and tell stories and meet people I realize that the only real reason I was afraid was that no one else around me was doing it. Coming to that conclusion made me promise myself that I would be that voice in every space I enter in order to make anyone and everyone else feel a little more welcome and a little more comfortable.

Am I still worried about how spilling every little detail of my life and how I think and feel will affect the way people view me? Yes, but I know that there is at least one other person somewhere who might come across something I’ve written one day and gain a little more confidence in themselves and that is all I hope for.

My Dear Old Friend: Burnout

My new favorite item on my to-do list is simply: “ALL OF THE EXTRA CREDIT BECAUSE FOR SOME GOD FORSAKEN REASON YOU DECIDED THAT “just passing” WAS ENOUGH…NEWS FLASH IT’S NOT”

It speaks for itself and doesn’t really need any additional context but I’m gonna provide it anyways. I constantly joked before coming to college that “C’s get degrees” and that was the bar I was going to hold myself to instead of the absurdly high one I had set previously. Then I realized that I rely way too much on academic validation to ever do that. And then I ignored the well-thought advice of my peers, family, and therapist and have dug myself into a burnout cave where I simply am hanging on by a hair.

It’s funny how little I understand when it comes to time management. I don’t think I’ve ever said “wow I’m balancing really well” and was executing a time management schedule that wasn't unhealthy. Sure I thought I was the peak of balance, but in reality I was just too sleep-deprived and caffeine ridden to realize I was crashing and burning at a rate that cannot be viable.

I’ve convinced myself that being able to put everything into a calendar and show up to things on time are the only two qualifications one needs in order to be good at a work/life balance. Who cares if all I’ve consumed today is one can of RedBull and the lukewarm remnants of yesterday’s iced coffee, I successfully made the 20 minute drive between meeting #1 and meeting #2 of the day in under 15 minutes. Gold star.

As I typed that out I now realize how I sound to all of my friends and all of the dots are now connecting. They are all justified in their criticisms and I am simply incapable of being self-aware.

Anyways, I have finally come to the light realization of this fact and am now struggling to recover from the absolute dumpster fire I have created for myself. Since the beginning of this semester I have been completely blacked out, not in an alcoholic sense, in a I have no idea what I‘ve been doing with my time sense. In years prior, when I would feel the creep of burnout coming I would simply go into autopilot mode and just vibe on cruise control until I was able to stop crying and think my version of rationally. This time I reverted back to default mode, like Buzz Lightyear in Toy Story. Something hit my ‘reset’ button and now I’m aimlessly doing stuff in hopes something will activate me.

And something did.

Instead of the regular amount of stress and fear of failure that used to jolt me back to reality, a wave 10x that has washed upon the shores of my consciousness and now I am trying not to drown in my own whirlpool of anxiety. I am so looking forward to the summer and next year as I have adequately (I hope at least) planned out my schedule to allow me to breathe and properly function in society without breaking down. Until then, I will just run on the fumes of burnouts past and pray that I can at least go home with a fraction of my sanity.