Jillian’s 2

Part 2

Dressing up again in tiny clothes assembled from every other closet in the Orlando area but mine, we prepared to leave for yet another social. I loved my sorority, for the most part. I often wished we would do something other than go to the bar and talk about something other than boys. But my parents were both in greek life, my mom was a tri-delt, they met their life-long best friends and each other this way, this had to be good! So we headed downtown, all made up and dressed to theme. This particular social was with one of my favorite frats at the time, mostly because I had a crush on one of the brothers. I had just gotten my first “little” and the way it works is you get a mentor when you join your sorority and that’s called your “big” and you’re then the little. I was finally a big with my own little instead of being the baby! I was so excited, I couldn’t wait to spend more time with her and meet all her friends. This particular brother was one of those friends. We got to talking at the social about him asking my little to be his little too! You can also have a fraternity big along with the one in your own sorority. Hanging with my future co-big I began to like someone for the first time since my horrible ex. So needless to say, I was fairly excited to get to spend more time with him. He pulled me on to the dance floor with him and I was so nervous. I really wanted him to like me. I tried to dance to the best of my ability, which is not well, when he turned me around expecting me to grind on him- which I’m not good at or comfortable with. But, I obliged, I wanted him to like me. Then, he turned me back around, thank goodness… and kissed me! I was so pleased with myself for officially moving on! But that pride quickly turned into panic as he suddenly pulled me off the dance floor and into the nearby bathroom. I tried to communicate that I was uncomfortable but he tried to coax me, suggesting he just wanted to be out of the public eye. I obliged, I wanted him to like me. Pressed up against a stall door I quickly regretted my decision to allow him to bring me here, I told him I wanted to leave. I said no, but that didn’t matter. He was bigger than me, but I still wish I’d fought back. I went numb, like I’d trained myself to do, as he turned me around once more. With my face against the bathroom wall I bit my lip and waited for him to be done with me. Once he let me go I walked out of the bathroom and was greeted by one of my sisters, crying. I was so thankful for her troubles so that I could focus on hers instead of my own. I spent the rest of my night tending to her drama and wiping her tears. This is when I met her friend from the frat…

Weeks later the boy that helped me tend to my drunk, dramatic friend was someone I was spending time with frequently. We had a lot of mutual friends and his best girl friends were my sisters, as well as my chosen roommates for the next year. His roommate even asked me to be his sorority little. I felt so comfortable and safe with that group. On night, my new fraternity big and I were over at their apartment and he challenged me to a drinking contest. My apartment was right down the hall and these guys were my friends, so I naively didn’t see the problem in engaging in a little drinking-game fun. That is the last choice I remember making that night. I woke up the next morning, assuming I was in my own bed. Until I heard breathing. I quickly regained consciousness and realized I was not in my own bed and I wasn’t even wearing my own clothes, or any at all for that matter. The boy that I had been so close with since the night of my first rape was lying next to me. He hadn’t had much to drink the night before because he had an exam the next day, that day. I checked the clock and knew he’d be up soon. I quickly snuck out, hoping not to be noticed. I had no idea what had happened that night. Almost a week later I was throwing up, seemingly for no reason. I had been going through my time of the month the night of the party and assumed I had removed my feminine hygiene product, since I didn’t find it the next morning. But I was wrong, I didn’t remove it, it was still inside me- far. I had toxic shock syndrome, and a new understanding of what had actually happened that night.

Soon I found myself in a very unhealthy relationship with sex. Searching for something to help me feel back in control of my own body. I pretended nothing had happened (twice), and kept the secrets of those nights to myself. My depression was in full swing, but I remained the same bubbly, outgoing girl everyone knew, on the outside. I played the sorority game, kept going out and trying to fit in. I felt like my bond with my sisters was more important now than ever. As I got closer and closer with my roommates and my little I was finally brave enough to talk to them about what had happened with their friends. I don’t know exactly what I expected, but what I got certainly was not it. Victim shaming and taking the side of the boys, my friends suddenly saw me as the enemy. I had gotten too deep and too real for the shallow, fun-focused system we had in place. Suddenly I wasn’t invited out anymore, I wasn’t getting closer anymore, instead I felt them and myself drifting away farther and farther. I was alone. October 2012 was the first time I seriously thought about the unthinkable. Luckily I’d had enough practice at swallowing things that I was able to keep my suicidal ideation from becoming anything more

Years later and I still tell my story as if I saw it in a movie once a long time ago. I still have that bubbly, goofy, outward appearance. No one believes me when I tell them I’m depressed. I beat myself up every day for not being happier, more appreciative. I still have a lot to come to terms with. Those things all feel like someone else. I’m not this sad, empty person. I’m a dreamer; a romantic. My therapist thinks I’m not ready to truly deal with my trauma yet. All I know is I’m ready to move forward. Finally, I found someone to love and feel safe with, yet my depression still interferes. I can’t simply will it away even though I know I have so much to be happy about, so much to love. I am learning over and over again how important it is to love yourself first. Even after all those life lessons, I was still naïve. I wanted to spend all my time caring for him and everyone else, but not myself. I let myself rot away. My old passion and my new found apathy for life constantly at war with each other. I call it feeling “grey” like my mind is just overcast all the time. I long for the vibrancy in life I used to feel. Maybe if I faked it enough… That’s why I play happy so well. I developed two separate inner and outer personalities, careful not to let anyone too close to what was underneath. They always leave when they find out, I have to hide it. My mind is constantly telling me to go numb again, just block it out. I can so easily slip away and drown in my personal darkness, despite the bright light I know I poses. I don’t look back on my experiences and feel angry at the boys, but I cannot shake the countless deep, burning emotions I feel about the girls. Why would they treat me that way? Bully and abandon me… I still have a hard time finding female friends. Or any friends for that matter. I try so hard not to let the people who have wronged me consume my thoughts. My worst fear is that my depression is a result of their actions, allowing them to still have power over me even though I’ve left them all in my past. That past that feels so distant and detached from who I am now. I can often feel like I’m watching myself from outside of my own body, like the happy and functional version just got pushed out. She still exists but is overpowered by some other entity that wants me to feel sad and sick and tired all the time. I’ve named him Sid, like the bully next door from Toy Story. I feel like the toy, that simply wants to make people happy, but am helplessly and needlessly tormented by something bigger than myself.

                 But, lately its been different. Being a psychology major and an intern at NAMI I’ve learned about the chemical, genetic, and scientific influences that are the true causes of my illness. This empowers me, strangely enough. I’ve learned to listen to myself and gained instincts that I’m exceptionally proud of. This is about me, not anyone else. I’m learning to love my mental illness for the wisdom, intuition, and empathy it has brought me. At NAMI I found people who are honest and open about the struggles they face. I feel a renewed hope for my life. I have been given a super power. I’ve learned so much about myself and others that I can read someone like a book and know how to treat them the way they wish they would be treated. Like I wished someone would do for me for so long. That is why I want to be in this field, that is why I want to share my story. Its a love/hate relationship for sure, but I wouldn’t trade my journey. I finally feel like I can still be something important, and I can’t wait to see what I’ll do. My life matters to me again. I don’t just want to live, I want to thrive. I want to be a positive psychologist and write a guide book for the support groups of those struggling with mental illness. I want to give a Ted Talk. I want to fight the stigma inside and outside of myself. We can all better understand the mind. I’ve been naïve so many times before, but now I’m beginning to get it. The most naïve thing would be to assume we could ever fully understand it at all. I’m ready to share my darkness, my light and all the ambiguous grey in between. This is all much easier said than done some days, but I know I’m living in recovery and every step I take, no matter how small, makes a difference. My journey still continues and my story is not yet

Justin’s Blog

I think I’ve deleted the first paragraph or so of what I was trying to write here about 10 times now, and it’s just not coming together the way I want it to. It’s so frustrating for me because I really do try to articulate my emotions on a regular basis, so to be sitting here lost for words on a topic I pride myself on my intimate knowledge of makes me just incredibly irritated. Irritated to the point that now after each sentence I write, I erase it and write something new. Irritated to the point that I’m now using a confrontational perspective. Irritated to the point that now I have lost my logical self to my emotional self and now my mind is running completely blank. Then I started typing this line, erased it, and wrote this instead. I’m considering erasing the whole paragraph, but I liked where it was going when I first stopped typing a few minutes before I wrote this sentence.

Well… I thought I was going somewhere, but I’m back to erasing sentences. And isn’t that just so typical of me? Not that the reader would know. Not that the reader would care!

I’m kidding mostly. I’m sure the reader would be a great person to have a drink with. They say humor is a common way for depressed people to deflect their true emotions from people. So, consider this whole thing a deep metaphorical statement.

I paint, in my spare time. I have a lot of spare time. My biggest hope for my paintings is that I can translate the emotions that I feel, the ones I can’t fully articulate verbally, as truthfully and authentically as they can be represented, and nothing more. I want to be as vague as possible while simultaneously facilitating a distinct emotional response. Many before me have taken upon this endeavor. My favorite Humanities professor hated Jackson Pollock. “It’s all just a big mess, pretty I guess.” People tell me my art reminds them of Jackson Pollock. My humanities professor has a PhD in appreciating art.

What makes me more depressed than somebody else? I ask myself this question a lot. Why does my situation get a label, while everyone else has to settle for being sad? Is the answer in the scars running parallel down my thigh? Is it in my broken and scarred over hands? Was it proved by my Baker Act hospitalization? Does the reader think so? I feel like the reader thinks I am being facetious. I’m not, I promise I’m being as genuine as I can. Someone told me I was in denial about it. That person was wrong. I just feel compelled to think the opposite of what makes logical sense. I’m fully self-aware of my illogical attitude about this. So, I can’t be in denial. So there!

I pride myself on my logical consistency.

I think I knew things were different for me when I was a sophomore in high school. Those feelings would later be described to me, and I find it fitting, as “chronic feelings of emptiness.” I felt, and still feel, a strong sense of evanescence, like my mind was literally pulling itself away from my body. My dominant, rational self would fade into the background and give rise to something more dark, sinister, and dramatic. I think it’s a kind of release of frustration in a way, but I’ve always had problems managing a wide spectrum of emotions, love is another one that immediately pops into my mind. Evanescence works as a term because I feel like it encapsulates the “otherness” of that side of me but conceptualizes it within one total human being. It was scary, and it wasn’t that easy to find the words to describe it, they’re still not perfect. It wasn’t easy to figure out ways to cope with it, I’m still not perfect.

Pain worked. Punching allowed an emotional release, it would ground my feelings back to where I could manage them. I wrote ‘thoughts’ in that previous statement originally, and I replaced it with ‘feelings.’

Punching eventually didn’t work right away, then I found that cutting did.

Cutting too deep is scary. No one is there to help figure it out and it just won’t stop bleeding. It wasn’t like I was going to go to the hospital and then have to explain myself. The worst cut I ever gave myself bled for days. I remember all the pairs of boxers I had to throw away over the next few days, and those two pairs of shorts. I remember my mother asking me why I had taken two full boxes of bandages from her medicine cabinet. Pouring hydrogen peroxide on cuts that deep doesn’t hurt as bad as one might think, it’s a duller pain that is felt in a much larger surface area than the cut itself but lasts much longer than pouring it on a more superficial cut.. One time a pretty deep cut I gave myself on my shin started bleeding through the Band-aid while I was in public and began dripping down my leg. An old girlfriend called the deepest ones my tiger scratches, she said it was because I look like I got mauled by a tiger. I now call them my tiger stripes.

I wasn’t hospitalized until my junior year of college. The coping mechanisms got better but the mental states got worse. They classified me as having “suicidal ideation.” By that time I was so accustomed to thoughts of suicide in my life that I argued it wasn’t even an issue.I would say that I had no plans of killing myself at that time. I didn’t. Life was going to end in suicide though, that was a certainty. When I turned 21 I was going to be able to buy a gun, then it would just be a war of attrition between life and I. Suicide was such a pervasive thought too, it was just an inevitable part of the day. I think that’s the most unnerving thing about my suicidal ideation, is just how subtly it enters into the mind. I couldn’t begin to remember the first suicidal thought I ever had, eventually it was just the answer to all my self-loathing.They told me I had Major Depressive Disorder. I told them that sounded a bit too serious.

Obsessive thinking is probably the most difficult thing for me to deal with that I have experienced. I have pages upon pages of poetry that express the exact same sentiment, and it’s hard for me to really talk about because the sentiment I’m expressing is that I keep expressing the exact the same sentiment. A lot of things can trigger that kind of thinking in me. The general form of this thinking is something like this: first the thought occurs, then I think, “I’ve had this thought before,” “I’ve had this thought about thinking this thought before,” “I’ve thought about thinking about this thought too”, etc for far longer than it makes any rational sense to consider. Then it just bothers me that my mind is in a loop, that I’ll never grow as a person, my brain is decaying and I am mentally regressing, and all those kinds of thoughts happen concurrently with the thought about thinking thoughts that have been thought before. Anyway, thinking too much about it starts getting me back into that emotional state that comes with that type of thinking. I feel helpless, mentally stagnant, alone, insane, I just feel broken. I felt broken. Felt. I’m past this now. I have to be past this. The best way I’ve found to combat my obsessive thinking is to stop considering it critically until it is completely disassociated with myself, to sort of isolate it from the rest of my mind. If I treat those thoughts as an outlier in the wider, more coherent web of my logical self then it just seems to be a cruel absurdity that doesn’t deserve my attention. This works really well for me as long as it knows its place, I have worked very hard to be sure that it does.

I had a breakdown the day before I was sent to the hospital. I remember sitting on cement, scraping my knuckles against the ground until they were raw. My therapist at the university told me I was in crisis. The Baker Act is totally against the will of the person being hospitalized. Cops come in, handcuffs go on. They wouldn’t let me keep my hoodie when I was committed because of the string on it that allowed me to tighten the hood. I let them keep the string.

I took a medical withdrawal from college. The fact that I was granted one should probably give me a sense of my depression as being beyond general sadness. It doesn’t. Does being self-aware of my illogical mindset excuse me from holding illogical ideas? I understand why I want to be in denial about it, so I choose to be instead of coming to terms with it and facing it head on. Is that so hard to understand? I’m so obstinate I’ve become plated in my convoluted ivory! I imagined a maniacal laugh after that. It wasn’t mine I imagined though, my maniacal laugh just isn’t manic enough. That was a high brow depression joke. I was getting too deep back there, I had to pull out. That was a low brow joke. See how hard I’m trying to get out of this situation? I’ll show the reader how hard I’m trying.

They say humor is a common way for depressed people to deflect their true emotions from people. So, consider this whole thing a deep metaphorical statement.

Daniel’s Blog

Mental illness is a subject that is little understood, both by the global population at large and even by the psychiatrists and psychologists who study it on a daily basis. In the United States, we have a large and culturally diverse population, but these differences are not always positive, especially when it comes to mental health awareness.

According to a study conducted by Carpenter Song et. al (2010), which followed a group of 25 mentally ill patients of varying cultural backgrounds, the results highlighted this issue. For example, of the selected group, European Americans were more likely to seek help and trust prescribed medication, seeing it as a “central and necessary” part of their treatment, while the African American and Latino participants were more likely to distrust medication and sought out more “non-biomedical” explanations for their mental illnesses. In another study done by Bailey et. al (2011) on African American subjects, results showed that a significant amount of the African American reported negative attitudes toward mental health professionals for a variety of cultural and personal reasons. Regardless of race, however, all cultures experience some kind of stigma because of their mental illness. Unfortunately, this is true for Asian and Indian Americans as well, and stigma against mental illness is stronger in these cultures because of their emphasis on family reputation. From the Chinese perspective, anything that causes one to lose control or act shamefully leads to one being ostracized in their communities and even within their own families.

Different cultural backgrounds also affect the reasons behind stigmas. For example, in a 2003 study, European and Chinese Americans were shown videos about individuals with schizophrenia or major depression. They were then told that the illness was “genetic,” “partially genetic,” or “not genetic.” They were then asked how they would feel if one of their children dated or reproduced with that person. When told that the illness was genetic, the Chinese group reported a reduced unwillingness to allow their children to date and reproduce with them, but the same measure made European Americans more unwilling. This result shows that stigma can be affected in different ways by different cultures, and one’s perception and understanding (or misunderstanding) of mental illness is the real heart of the problem.

However, no matter who you are or what your background is, almost everyone with a mental illness is discriminated against or experiences some kind of stigma, and that is why NAMI and other similar organizations are so important. They work to root out these stigmas, educate people on the facts concerning mental illness, and advocate for legal changes that will make the world a better place for those who feel the pain of being misunderstood and abused by their communities that do not understand what they are going through or why. Help break the stigma, whether it’s here in the United States, or around the world.

Ryan’s Blog

Shaking, ashamed, and wide-eyed is how I played my part the night before my departure. My clothes were dirty, stomach and gas tank empty, hair disheveled, and music blasting from the little white earbuds dangling from neck. I was on a mission; one that I only figured had to lead me in the right direction. I was MANIC.

So there I was, standing at the front desk of a crummy hotel with my friend and a pretty girl I had only met the night before (or maybe 2 nights before? I hadn’t slept in awhile…). My buddy was kind enough to put me up in the room for my final day in New York. I have since thanked him sincerely, but that night money didn’t really make any sense to me at all. He paid the man behind the counter, handed me a key card, and I grabbed as many apples from their welcome basket as I could carry. The man said something to me, probably along the lines of, “Please don’t be a jerk, sir” but my mind was already bathing in ‘feel good’ brain chemistry that nothing he said really mattered. I glided up to my room with my bounty of apples and unlocked my 16 hour sanctuary before diving onto the lavish king sized bed. There could not have been a nicer gift than this room! I had been living homeless for a few months through the winter and hadn’t had my own room since I first fell ill after a devastating head injury 2 years before. This was going to be headquarters for my farewell!

Laughing and beaming from ear to ear, I dumped all the contents of my backpack onto the bed. I impulsively started organizing all of my (unclean) clothes and toiletries around the room and bathroom. Cleaning is always my way for dealing with anxiety. As I was putting my medicines away, I took note that I probably had not taken them for almost 4 days. I was aware that the absence of the medicine was affecting me, but I most certainly didn’t want to take them that day because I didn’t want to come down from the high. Instead, shoved the pills back into my bag and began making some complimentary coffee.

It felt so good to have my belongings put away! I had been living out of my pack for too long. The sense of accomplishment fueled an impulsive rush out to my car to clean and organize it, too! The state of disarray that the vehicle was in was appalling. Garbage filled the back seats and floor space entirely. The trunk held the overflow of my mail, newspapers, books, and assorted articles of winter clothing. I literally spent 20 solid minutes picking up just the trash laying around everywhere. My disgust turned to pleasure once I had finally filled the big white trash bag and caught a glimpse of the long occluded carpeting and mats. I wasn’t sure how to organize the remaining random items, so I just purged them as well! I hadn’t needed them recently and I certainly wouldn’t need any winter clothing once I made it south to Florida.

Mia Talia-Lowe

My name is Princess Mia-Talia Autumn Lowe, and I believe we are each entitled to be our very OWN prince and princess, regardless of socioeconomic status, gender, identity, or mental health. I live in Orlando, Florida: The City Beautiful. I am currently a second year law student at Barry University School of Law, which I applied to in order to be an advocate for the mentally ill. I have a boyfriend named Maher Khalif, who works a 9-5 architectural job, while transitioning back into a new studies program at UCF. I have 2 cats (both since birth): Elmo (a deaf Siamese: 3 years old) & Ernie (a chunky tabby: 2.5 years old). I am a 3.5 years Active Duty Air Force Veteran, and this is my Mental Health Story.

In high school, I was a perfectionist. In middle school too. In elementary school too. I had to be #1 in my graduating class, which ended up being the #1 ranked public fine arts magnet school in the state of Georgia, which I did end up graduating in 2007 as #8 in the class, however 8 years later, I’ve discovered being the best and having the best isn’t the key to happiness. In high school as a senior in Augusta, GA, I interned for the regional offices of United States Senator Saxby Chambliss and United States House of Representatives Charlie Norwood at the same time after taking classes at the local university as a dual-enrolled high school student. However, I didn’t have close friends, and I coped with stress and social anxiety in many wrong ways. I had behavioral problems at school, by skipping, in fear that I wouldn’t make a 100% on a test and I even used alcohol to self-medicate from feeling alone. I was waitlisted at 2 Ivy League Undergrad Schools, Brown and UVA coming out of high school, but I attended Mercer University, after leaving home and not getting along with my parents. When I got to Mercer University in Macon, GA, I ran for Student Government as a Freshman and got the most votes out of the entering class, but I soon lost my spot on SGA due to a low GPA because I was self-medicating in all the wrong ways: partying, drinking, promiscuity. I dropped out of college after a marriage engagement went south, and joined the United States Air Force 4 months later, July 2009.

The Air Force taught me discipline and self-motivation, pushing myself harder than I ever could. However, my mental illness struck. I got confused in my identity. I felt scared, alone, confused, with shivers. One night when I felt like no one could understand my predicament, I took 70 OTC sleeping pills, after trying to drown myself in the bath tub whilst cello music was playing (I’m a violinist by the way). My body rejected the dose and I don’t recall everything, but I hit my head, and am lucky to be alive. I even have a cool Harry Potter scar on my forehead to prove it. J Ultimately, my coworkers, friends, relationships, family thought they knew what was best for me, but after being taken by law enforcement (who was called after I was found the next day) to a psychiatric hospital, I learned that Mental Health and feeling like you have a way to ask for help and that someone understands EXACTLY what you are going through is a good thing.

I was Honorably Discharged from the Air Force in Dec 2012, after my suicide attempt in October 2011, with an unfortunate array of hospitalizations in between, in an attempt to get the right support, medication, and feeling stable enough to survive and live again. In Dec 2012, I moved to Pensacola, FL and self-medicated with various negative relationships that did not provide a good, productive progress in the right direction. However, I managed to finish my degree from the University of West Florida in Professional Accountancy, which I began 6 months after entering into the Air Force. Education and moving forward is pivotal. I happily proclaim that I graduated the B.S.B.A. in Accounting, in August 2014, which is when I moved to Orlando to pursue my law degree in Mental Health Law, although there is no true exclusive “track” under this study. I read text and cases from both perspectives, but primarily from someone who has a mental illness. Recovery to me is this: nature, Disney songs, music, art, yoga, running, hygiene, nutrition, outdoors, fresh air, singing, reading, smiling, laughing/ giggling at silly things, observing, problem solving.

I hope you enjoyed my story. What does NAMI mean to me? Everything. NAMI stands for the liberation I have to express myself and help in the best way I can. As a Community Outreach volunteer for NAMIGO, I find fulfillment in a judgment-free zone, which I previously was unable to (whether due to my own judgment or not).

In summary, my name is Princess Mia. You have every right and entitlement to be your own princess and prince today, regardless of what you look like, where you’ve come from, and what your story is.