You have questions? I have answers...

I have blogged or journaled (as they call it in the world of therapy) for a long time, just not in such a public forum.  Honestly, other than the people who have texted or emailed me, I have no clue who is reading this blog.  

I thought it would be super cool to do a Q&A.  Email me any question you can think of in regard to "The Peach", mental illness, depression, recovery, etc. and I will do my very best to answer as raw and honest as possible (of course without using your name).  

I may get zero questions, I may get 2.  Either way, I loved the idea.  
Ask away!    

natalieoneal@bellsouth.net

Flashback Friday

When a crisis occurs, I have a tendency to revert back to what is comfortable. Comfort to me are songs from the 80's and early 90's sung in cars with big hair and in bedrooms with cassette tapes and fuzzy clock radios.  Comfort is knowing there is gaping space of physical distance between my high school best friends but only a quarter inch between our hearts.    

There's an unspoken code I like to think that has developed between us. There have been times we let our friendships waver and fade too much.  None of that matters.  You are here now.  I am here now.  We will always be there for each other in the important times.  And if we can't be there, we will understand that, too.  We get that there is a current life with responsibilities and struggles and even joys that neither of us is a part of because of time, distance and reality.  We will love each other unconditionally because our memories are too precious to let conditions get in the way.  

Hands down, my favorite letter received:  
  
Natalie, you can "ROCK STEADY" at this stumbling block because we're "LIVIN ON A PRAYER" for you.  You'll be singing "SWEET HOME ALABAMA" (couldn't think of anything else) but "GEORGIA" (UGA, that is) will be on your mind.  

We just want to "POUR SOME SUGAR" (smooch smooch) on you and make you "SHINE LIKE A DIAMOND."  "LAST CHRISTMAS" I'd have given you my heart if it would've helped.  "GIRL YOU KNOW IT'S TRUE" you are going to be stronger than ever before.  As Kim would say, "NO SLEEP TIL BROOKLYN."  It's probably getting old getting woken up every 15 minutes.  I'm glad you didn't tell us to "BEAT IT" when we came to see you.  

It's "MY PREROGATIVE" to see that you know how much we love you.  Jeremiah 29:11  xoxo  

I do know how much....and I love you too.  

Shoe Laces and Drawstrings

I'm hoping you will take the time to read through the next 3 paragraphs.  I promise there is a point to my posting of them and it will all come full circle at the end of my entry.  

Excerpt from Healthy Living - With this week’s publication of “The Opposite of Loneliness,” Marina Keegan’s posthumous collection of essays and stories, comes a gift no one ever fully wants to receive — bright and youthful wisdom from a talent who died too soon. Keegan was just 22 years old and five days past graduating magna cum laude from Yale University when she was killed in a car accident on her way to meet her family for her father’s birthday party on Cape Cod. And while she had a brilliant future ahead of her — a job lined up at the New Yorker, a play about to be produced at a theater festival — the rising star had already made a major mark. 

When a young person dies, much of the tragedy lies in her promise: what she would have done,” notes Anne Fadiman, a professor and Keegan’s mentor at Yale, in the new book’s introduction. “But Marina left what she had already done: an entire body of writing far more than could fit between these covers.” 
Shortly after Keegan’s death, her final essay for the Yale Daily News went viral, receiving more than 1.4 million hits. That piece, “The Opposite of Loneliness,” is the first in the new collection — one that you’ll be grateful is here, in spite of yourself. 

2 of Marina's life lesson's which hit home for me.  

4. Value life — all of it. 
“People are strange about animals. Especially large ones,” she writes in one essay. “Daily, on the docks of Wellfleet Harbor, thousands of fish are scaled, gutted, and seasoned with thyme and lemon. No one strokes their sides with water. No one cries when their jaws slip open. I worry sometimes that humans are afraid of helping humans. There’s less risk associated with animals, less fear of failure, fear of getting too involved.” 
5. It’s never too late (even if you’re not in your 20s).
“What we have to remember is that we can still do anything. We can change our minds,” she writes in the book’s titular essay. “We can start over. Get a post-bac or try writing for the first time. The notion that it’s too late to do anything is comical. It’s hilarious. We’re graduating from college. We’re so young. We can’t, we MUST not lose this sense of possibility because in the end, it’s all we have.”

Do you ever a gripping feeling that you are being pushed to do something?  Last night as I was headed home from the airport I had this overwhelming feeling to call "T" (a fellow "Peach" person) and check in.  It was 10:39 -- way too late to be calling.  However, I had 2 voice mails from her I admittedly had not listened to.  She picked up the phone immediately.  She needed a friend.  She was in distress.  She needed to hear, "it's OK, I'm here."  I've been her.  I get it.  I love this passage from Rachel Naomi Remen's bestseller, Kitchen Table Wisdom:    

I suspect that the most basic and powerful way to connect to another person is to listen. Just listen. Perhaps the most important thing we ever give each other is our attention. And especially if it’s given from the heart. When people are talking, there’s no need to do anything but receive them. Just take them in. Listen to what they’re saying. Care about it. Most times caring about it is even more important than understanding it.

Marina lesson #4 for me is this.... It's easy to take the road of not getting involved and helping others.  Heck, there are days when I feel like all I can do is help myself.  But the reality for me is I would be kidding myself to close that door -- kidding myself that I don't enjoy those relationships.  I'm finding on this journey that focusing on helping other patients with small positives in turn helps myself.  Example, "T", I know you want to have this book published and you feel like a failure because it's not anywhere near done.  Let's compromise and get 2 entries done per week.  

As Elementary as the above may sound to some of you, it's real life for a person with mental illness despite the degree of the illness in my opinion.  Life becomes overwhelming and we have to stop, breathe, reassess quite often.  It's very similar to my entry of frustration from my weekend.  I have had to stop, reassess that I can paint one room and that I'm not a failure for not having my entire house ready to photograph for the pages of Elle Decor (ha!).
      
Marina lesson #5 is for "T":  "It's never too late."  I recall hearing you say you received summa cum laude honors and a College degree around the age of 50.  If that isn't a lesson in "it's never too late," I don't know what is.  Today as I write this, I am wearing pants with a drawstring.  That is progress my friend.  It's funny how something so insignificant can make you feel so powerful.  Only "The Peach"patients know why that's important.  So put on your tennis shoes with laces, pants with a drawstring and go out into the sunshine and write a beautiful book entry.          

"You have brains in your head.  You have feet in your shoes.  You can steer yourself any direction you choose."  Dr. Suess  





  
   

Solo In The City

I feel like a child leaving for school for the first time with my book bag on my shoulder.  In a sense, maybe I am.  It's my first foray into the big city alone since "The Peach."  My first meetings with 3 accounts alone since "The Peach."    Other than a night of almost zero sleep, I'm up and ready to take on the Big Apple.  As much as I do not like or want to take my prescribed sleeping pills, I'm going to have to cave into my Doctor's advice -- "as needed."  The alternative is not pretty.  I can weather the storm of vivid dreams and they make for great conversation.  

JT, my brother, my boss all called to "check in."  One might think that would be annoying to me but at this stage, it's comforting.  Comforting to know how much they care.  Comforting they took the time to call.  I'm realizing that time is a precious commodity we can't get back.  People love to say they are  "too busy" but the reality is, we make time for what we WANT to do.  I'm trying to be more aware of using my time wisely and not using that terminology.  
Baby steps.  

With bright colors staring me in the face telling me to smile and a word document left on my laptop, it's going to be a great sunshiny day!  

Surprise! Guest Blog "I understand"

I don't think JT needs an introduction at this point in the game.  I was thrilled at his desire to write a guest blog and speechless and in a puddle of tears at the outcome I received in my inbox this morning.  

I understand.

That two word sentence is the biggest lie I ever told my wife.  The biggest one I ever told myself.  I understand.  No, I didn’t.  No, I don’t.  No, I’m not certain I ever fully will.  Because I didn’t understand Depression.  To me, it was simply a word…a feeling…it passes, right?  Heck, they named the illness after an emotion…how stupid is that!?  Perhaps that alone made it difficult for me to understand.  Perhaps it is my thick-headed, stubbornness.  Perhaps it is a combination of things…but the fact remains I didn’t understand what my wife was going through.  Oh yes, I said I understood…and maybe I even thought I did.  But that was akin to me sticking my toe in a freezing pool and saying it was cold…while my wife was immersed in the deep end.  Like me opening a cellar door and stating how dark it was…while my wife was enveloped in the darkness.  Like me trying to pick up a heavy weight…proclaiming how heavy it was and putting it down….while my wife was dragging it around.  I never understood.  I couldn’t possibly, because I wasn’t living it.  I realize that I may never truly understand it…because I believe that in order to truly understand…one must live it…not stick their toe in.  I didn’t realize she was freezing, in darkness, and carrying a heavy load…with no one to help…because I wasn’t there.  A guilt I will carry…but that’s a story for another time.  For this time, it is simply one point…I now know I didn’t understand.  My wife suffers from Depression.  So to me, while technically I do not ‘suffer’ from it…I deal with it.  Because I am in this with her…together we are in the deep end and swimming to shallow waters, leaving the dark for a brighter place, helping each other to carry the heavy loads.  I want to understand…and I can try to do that better…but I also think that may be missing the mark just a bit.  Maybe it is not about me fully understanding.  Maybe it is about something else.  Maybe it is not “I understand” that she and people that suffer from Depression need to hear.  Maybe it is not hearing anything…but more seeing and knowing…

I’m sorry.  You are not alone.  I am here now.

Walking on eggshells

When I committed to putting fingers to the keyboard and hitting the "Publish" button, I committed to honesty and raw emotion.  Today will be just that.  How I have known this blog was the right thing for me was that it wasn't a chore or on my "to do" list plus it was encouraged by my Doctor and Therapist.  It came so natural and I couldn't type fast enough.  Yesterday and today, not so much.  

I'm not a fan of the terminology, "walking on eggshells."  How many times have you ever heard it used in a positive connotation.  Me?  Never!  I've been guilty myself of using it often and although I haven't been in the living rooms of my friends and family recently, I fear it's been used in reference to me and my illness.  I feel certain people feel they have to walk on eggshells when they speak to me.  I can't say I wouldn't feel the same way.  I don't really know a solution at this point.  I can at least offer a list of the 5 steps I have gone through and am still going through to shed light over the last several weeks and where I am now.     

Diagnosis
Treatment Planning
Early Recovery
Recovery & Maintenance
Relapse Prevention

I'll speak on the recovery and maintenance stage since that's where I'm living at the moment.  It's a few steps forward and a few back and a really uneasy time.  It takes just that....time.  In a fast paced world, that is a rarity we are afforded.  Time combined with persistence and patience.  That's a tough trio.  The toughest part for me so far in this stage are the absolute polar opposites of the good days and bad days.  When they are good, they are great!  When they are bad, they suck!  What makes me proud though is that I now know they are just that, a couple of bad days and I have the tools to combat them.  

Look, I'd be lying if I said this isn't hard.  I fear I've painted a rosy picture on some of my blog entries of recovery.  I currently have 5 voice mails from friends in a panic because I didn't call or text them back in 2 days.  It isn't them, it's me.  One of which is my sweet friend "S" who was in "The Peach" with me and said she was on her way from Athens if I didn't answer my phone.  Trust me, she wasn't kidding!  It's exhausting in this stage of my recovery because I feel so much is expected of me and quite frankly, I'm expecting it of myself as well.  Waking up, eating because I have to in order to take my meds, showering because I have to because working in my pajamas is sign of depression, answering emails, compiling a to do list, diving head first back into work because they honestly need me and the business suffered while I was away, leaving the house for lunch or an errand b/c it's unhealthy for me to stay home all day, Therapy appointments, Support groups, calls from parents, texts from friends, planning dinner, quality time with JT, laundry, etc. etc.  And as much as the people around me feel like they are walking on eggshells, I feel like I'm being viewed through a microscope.  Viewed and expected for every single day to be a good one.  That's a tough act and I don't know of any pill or Doctor that can pull that one off.    

I always like to end on a positive note.  The one word that comes to mind is HOPE.  When I knew I was getting better and that "every little thing was gonna be alright," my check in at group was, "My name is Natalie T and I'm feeling hopeful because my mind feels whole again and I feel loved."  

Hope and Love...

1 Corinthians 13:13
And now these three remain:  faith, hope and love.  But the greatest of these is love.  

  

After all tomorrow is another day

Today I am full of frustration.  

Frustrated for the rooms not painted, frustrated for the curtains not hung, frustrated for an empty dining room, frustrated for an unused front room, frustrated for the half clean garage.....clearly, I have let frustration rule my beautiful day.  My first day alone in weeks and I framed it with frustration.    

I had to stop, breathe and assess my coping skills.  We had to develop a list of coping skills in therapy.  These evolve as life evolves.  One of mine includes a note I found in my phone from March 3rd.  What is scary about this note is that I don't even remember typing it.  Note, I have removed the drug name.  Drug names are not discussed in group therapy so I have chosen to take that stance as well.  We are all different chemically and what works for some may not work for others.  It's easy to get bogged down in thinking that Drug x didn't work for her so it won't for me either.  

  

This note is a coping skill because it affords me the knowledge of just how far I've come from the dark place I was in a month ago.  Step 4 of the below guide is imperative for me on days like today.  Baby steps!  I just listed my 5 things to do before bed tonight for a positive change.  

As Scarlett said, "I can't think about that right now.  If I do, I'll go crazy.  I'll think about that tomorrow."  

I've already gone crazy.  Not interested in going back there.  For now, I'll just chow down on this pizza with these cute kitties, watch an episode of Y&R and know that tomorrow is a brand new day full of hope.