I know I've felt like this before but now I'm feeling it even more

Saturday, 04/30/16, 4:18pm

I went for a run today, in the cold, overcast, light flurries, windy weather. The first two miles were really tough. I haven't run outside since last week's 9.39mi longest run ever run, although I did get 3mi in on a treadmill on Thursday. I don't know why exactly, but it felt like I had forgotten how to run. I was also running on the cul-de-sacs in the neighborhood for those first two miles so feeling better in the run may have coincided with the exit from the neighborhood. I ended up in some other neighborhoods across the street from ours and went further than I expected- 4.8mi. It was slow going but it felt good and my body and mind needed it.

Yesterday, we had another epic meltdown from TK on the way to the busstop to pick up RG. It was all so ridiculous, over the ending of tablet time, which is supposed to be a privilege not a right, but apparently I'm failing there. I felt horrible for a bit when I didn't see TK trip while I was waiting for the bus to get there; yeah I left him running behind because I was afraid we were going to be late again. And when I saw him sitting on the ground I thought he was just so mad at me. An older girl who had come off the bus asked him what happened and she told me about him tripping. Ooo, that hurt my ego. I didn't feel as bad for him when he was hitting me on the way back to the house. Sigh. Oh and he refused to come inside the house for a long time so I took a selfie of us.

But.

Despite this meltdown, I didn't have an episode this time. Of course the circumstances around my mental state were more favorable yesterday than they were last week. Last week we remember I had just gotten my stinkin period. (For those of you just joining us, I talk freely about periods here. Yeah that's right, take a deep breath and deal). But then really in both situations, I'd been doing the right things for my depression, especially getting exercise. Oh isn't it fun to experiment on myself to see what factors really affect my mental health? (Since you can't catch my tone in a blog, I'm being sarcastic). Looking forward to starting up that low hormone birth control to regulate those darn hormones.

I'm really going on a decent streak of good days. That's probably part of why I haven't been blogging much. I have to remind myself to blog more on the good days.

This weekend is a bit more relaxing, but starting next weekend we are super busy until after Memorial Day. My 10miler is next Sunday, Mother's Day, we have a friend's crawfish boil and the opera on Saturday. Then the following weekend I have choir concerts. Then my friend Jigna comes back for a quick visit and a concert to Red Rocks and we next head to DC for a long weekend and my friend Pete's wedding. And then. (Whew. Almost there). We have the end of the school year and Memorial Day weekend with my Bolder Boulder 10k run.

I guess this weekend is kinda the calm before the storm. But I also don't want to start dreading the upcoming excitement. I recently refilled my anti-anxiety medication and I expect I'll be using it a bit more often during the next month. I can take it as often as once a day, but it's only ever been that often for like a 3 day stretch. The last prescription of 30 pills lasted me 3 years. But I wanted to be prepared for this upcoming craziness with a refill. Doing so makes me feel proactive. But I still have to remind myself that that's what that is. I have to remind myself that I should not feel shame in filling an anti-anxiety med prescription. Stupid stigma.

I could go on and on about stigma but I'm going to stop here. Need to start making dinner soon. We're going to have an Asian night- homemade egg drop soup and a noodle, veggie, and tofu stirfry.

these are days you'll remember

Tuesday, 04/26/16, 1:58pm

Dear blog, I've missed you. But I had to stay away for good reason. We've been quite busy.

On Friday I had my long run; it ended up being 9.39 miles, again my longest yet. I ran with both my sisters for the first 3 miles, and just Audra for the rest. The group selfie looks a little funny since I was trying to get the phone far enough away to get our outfits. Turned out we all wore Skirt Sports running skirts, which we got a kick out of.


I am not in any way affiliated with Skirt Sports, nor are my sisters, but we all love their products and have for awhile now. Cute, well made athletic wear for women. It's nice to feel comfortable and confident in my clothing while I exercise. It makes a difference. Plus the running skirts have so many usable pockets! Most of my other athletic wear does NOT. Although on Friday, even with the pockets, we needed to carry belts for water and fuel. It was quite warm, which I am not used to for running right now. We ran slow and mostly steady, stopped to stretch and hydrate and fuel often. I still haven't really exercised since then, although did quite a bit of walking this weekend (more on that later), but recovery from the run has been good. I was really sore Saturday, and my feet are still a little tender in some spots, but I'm happy and injury free still.

Now normally I would feel quite guilty about not having exercised in... 2, 3, 4ish days, but I'm also recognizing that I am allowing a taper before my 10 mile Colorado Women's Classic race on Mother's Day. I'm getting rather excited about this run, and I'm finally feeling like yeah, I can really do it. It's going to be challenging, I've definitely gotta be careful that I don't start out too fast despite the jittery race mentality (it's not like I'm racing this one, hah), and my feet and muscles will really be feeling it by the end. But I know I can finish it, as long as I don't injure myself in the next week and a half. I'll still run some before the race, but nothing more than 6 miles at a time, and that much would probably only be once. It's strange to be referring to 6 miles as like "not that much", but it didn't used to feel that way for me, and not that long ago. In the fall, I did my first 10k and that felt extremely daunting. It is so awesome to be in the best running shape of my life, as Nasser recently put it.

So let's move on from running. We actually finished our run and had dinner at my parents house with some of our families Friday evening. Cousins had a wonderful time playing during the run, under my mom's watch, which was so incredibly helpful, and afterward we also brought home my brother-in-law and one of the cousins (N who is RG's age) for a sleepover. The boys stayed up way past their bedtime having a grand time, although luckily TK fell asleep at least a little bit earlier. Nasser and Jeff had some quality video game time, and the grownups enjoyed some hangout time before we all crashed. On Saturday after driving our visitors home, we had a 5 year old gal friend's birthday party with many of our friends in the area. But then we were in a rush to leave to drop off the boys at my parents house for another sleepover!

Date night you ask? Even better!

My good friends and roommates from college, Jigna and Magda, came to visit and landed Saturday afternoon. We went to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, about a 2 hour drive south of Chicago, in the middle of lots and lots of corn fields. It was wonderful. Jigna was my roommate freshman year in the dorms, then again junior and senior year in a 4 bedroom apartment. Jigna and Magda had a 2 bedroom apartment together sophomore year, and I often visited. Magda lived in the same apartment with us, along with another girl, junior and senior year. The three of us were very close through college and we try to remain so, even if we don't often talk. Jigna is the best of us at making a point of visiting and she always has been. She lives in the Chicago area and Magda, along with her husband, lives in Orange County.

Nasser and I ended up picking the gals up from the airport, after it appeared not worth it to attempt the new train to downtown. The train just started running, plus it was a free promotional day on Saturday, so people were taking it just for fun. We had a wonderful night on the town, went to three different places for drinks and shared plates, kinda tapas style. We even went to a coffee shop in there. We were trying to make the night fun for Jigna's birthday, which hopefully we succeeded. :)

Sunday and Monday were more low-key, girls time shopping on Pearl Street in Boulder Sunday afternoon/evening, little hike and some time at Celestial Seasonings for lunch and tea tastings on Monday, before Magda flew out Monday early evening, then Jigna flew out just this afternoon. We really had lots of quality friend time the entire long weekend. I am so grateful. And I get to see these lovely ladies again next month for a friend's wedding. Actually first Jigna flies here again for a concert with us at Red Rocks and she'll fly with us to DC for the wedding. I'm super excited about that entire trip. :)

I've been doing really well emotionally since last Wednesday. I intend to run tomorrow which will be good to get back into the exercise routine, and I wanted to immediately get back into blogging. I am recognizing that I could be at risk, with some letdown of friends leaving, but hopefully by being aware, I can combat the start of anything.

and I scream from the top of my lungs, what's going on?

Thursday, 04/21/16, 12:22pm

Today's post will probably end up being multi-tasked. I'm starting out typing between bites of my lunch and helping TK make his mini-pizzas. It's one of those totally not necessary things that I indulge him in sometimes. He loves the pizza lunchables. You've seen them before, right?

We only buy them when they're on sale for a $1 each and he doesn't eat them that often. Since we're at home we microwave them, so it's not even something he'll want to bring to school in kindergarten since he has no microwave to use there. He helps use the microwave at home since it's at his level.

TK and I are doing better today as a pair. Still no video games, which is FINE. Although I did allow one show this morning after my appointment and dropping Daddy off at work and a grocery run, a show that was a bit more educational, Word Girl. I needed the break to make sure I could succeed today. And maybe that's when I should have blogged, but really I needed some finish my show from yesterday time.

Today is going to be better. Despite fighting tears on the drive to my appointment, despite almost crying several times in my psychiatrist's office, and despite a couple annoying comments from people in the grocery store.

Yeah I can't move on without explaining the annoying comments in the grocery store. It started with getting one of those car carts with TK. He wanted the all blue on, which was in the back. I had to move the one in front of it to get it out, but I figured it wasn't a big deal. But then those things are hard to move around- they're big, they're bulky, and they don't turn very well. But TK still likes them and every f-ing grocery store has them, and they're probably worse for spreading germs than the all metal regular carts, but whatever. The lady working at the store ended up helping me move the other cart out of the way and says "they don't even know how indulgent they are, right?" I don't know what I said back, something instinctual with how I socially interact with people I don't know to just nod and smile. But really that was a rather nasty comment! We all know it's not good to be indulgent, and she just managed to insult me and my child with that one statement. So that started off my trip to the store in a grumpy mood. And it's contributing me questioning everything I do with TK today as "am I being too indulgent?" Yeah, probably. Ugh.

Then when we were leaving the store, I was pushing our massive car cart out of the out exit, this other woman thought about going in my way but decided to go through the in entrance. Right as this was happening, I was telling TK "we're good, we're good", and that woman says to us "no, you're not." Again I made some idiotic response back and laughed it off. But seriously, WTF did she mean by that? And who says stuff like that?

So yeah, I left the store with conflicting thoughts of anger towards those women, embarrassment that my flaws seemed so apparent to the world today, shame over my parenting. I can't blame those women entirely. If I had more confidence perhaps I wouldn't be bothered by what others said, or if I hadn't had a major depressive episode last night, perhaps in a less raw state these comments would have been more easily dealt with. I'm reminded by a metaphor from therapy; I picture a force field around me. I determine which circumstances, comments, looks, etc are allowed inside the force field, which are allowed in and released back out, and which are deflected away.

I think this is one of those situations I really need to release these comments back out. The second one should have been deflected away completely but I wasn't fast enough to do that.

Sigh.

It can still be a good day. I have a night out planned tonight with a few friends at one of those paint and sip places. I can't let tonight be a repeat of last night.

the storm is passing over

Wednesday, 04/20/16, 7:21pm

I should be at book club. I should be enjoying a night out with friends, talking about the book we all didn't actually read this time, drinking wine and eating pizza.

But I am not.

Tonight I was hit with a big wave of anxiety and depression. Just 2 hours before I was telling my sister that I seem to not be experiencing the big mood swing this month with my period (which I officially got today). I was happy, confident, and I was saying that all our runs this week had maybe prevented it.

But it was already stirring. Before we had RG's running club, and just before we really needed to leave to pick him up from the bus, TK had a big meltdown because, well, he didn't want to go potty. I told him he had to go since we weren't going to be near a bathroom for awhile. Then all hell broke loose. I was louder than I should have been, and he was more stubborn than he needed to be, and at one point he was running after me as I was trying to get to the bus stop in time, carrying his shoes and sobbing/screaming at me. Oh it was an epic meltdown.

But here's the thing. Sure, looking at the situation, if I had had more patience, I probably could have diffused the situation sooner. But I held it together much better than I expected.

It wasn't until later that I really fell apart.

TK had some consequences of the yelling/screaming/not listening to Mommy episode. He has video games taken away until Friday. Really, that's not that bad. But to this 4 and 3/4 year old, it is the end of the world. So everytime it comes back up, some of that yelling/screaming comes back. And RG started nagging about screens the second running club finished. And then we come home to TK being too affectionate with the cat again, as in squeezing until Buddy starts acting like he wants to bite him.

I couldn't parent this evening. I started getting angry. I yelled. I yelled things I shouldn't have. I'm pretty sure I yelled to RG at one point that he is never ever allowed to yell at Mommy or Daddy.

I locked myself in my room and broke down. I pleaded with RG to let me have a break as he lectured me on how he is allowed to yell in certain situations, like when Mommy hurts him "on the inside" (his version of emotionally). Oh ho, I sure had some harder sobbing when he told me that.

I hate getting angry with my kids. I hate that I yell at them when I do. I want to help them navigate their emotions better by leading by example. And I fail at that. A lot.

I guess tonight was mostly about feeling like a failure as a parent. Looking back, I'm glad I did put myself into a timeout by locking myself in my room for awhile, even though I desperately needed it to break down. And I did apologize to both kids for getting angry and yelling.

I guess I wasn't safe from the anger of the Period. Hah. Ugh. Nasser and I talked some about periods tonight. How they're so stigmatized. How the brand Thinx (period panties- they are AWESOME) has trouble advertising because they can't get on news stations' shows to discuss their new product because they don't want to say "periods" on air. (WTF?) How women in third world countries are so stigmatized they can't go to school during their period or they get banished to a shed. (Reference: Nasser) He mentioned an NPR article all about periods, which you can read here. And you should. Because I just did. And it is worth learning more about menstrual hygiene products, and FDA regulation of them, and hey, remember that woman who ran a marathon without wearing any? Did you think that was gross? Or interesting? Yeah, all of you need to read this article. Here's the link again, in case you don't want to scroll back up to find it.

I'm not going to let this post get taken over by talk about periods. But hey, guess what, that topic is FAAAIR game. And just as I don't let the stigma over depression and anxiety prevent me from talking about them, I won't let the stigma of periods prevent me from talking about them either.

Nasser made me a list based on some things we were discussing for topics to talk with providers. We're going to continuously update it together. Because a lot of times he and I talk about something that I want to also discuss with my therapist or my psychiatrist, but then when it comes time for the appointment, I forget. And if I have my appointment on a good day, I don't remember to talk about the lows as much. Tomorrow, with my psychiatrist, I plan to talk about the really low lows and frequency and how much should my meds really be doing etc etc etc. I'm doing much better now, after blogging, but man I am sick of those low lows. Maybe a different medicine combination would prevent those. Of course, they might make the lows worse, or they might get rid of the highs, or they might cause suicidal thoughts, or weight gain, or acne.

I'm back to much much better. And I was laughing when Nasser came in the room earlier. Maybe the running has helped me recover faster and better, even if it didn't prevent the episode in the first place.

la la how the life goes on

Tuesday, 04/19/16, 3:07pm

I've been wanting to blog yesterday and today but just haven't gotten much time to do it. Yesterday was our 8 year wedding anniversary, which was nice and mostly relaxing. We took dinner really fun though by cooking stirfry, TOGETHER! We don't usually get to cook together. Although I should recognize that Nasser did most of the actual cooking. I did some of the veggie prep work, cleaning up, etc. So I guess I was the sous chef. Anyway, we managed to do all this without a babysitter. With the help of some tv though. But it was so worth it. I had forgotten how much I enjoy cooking with my husband. I do so much cooking for the family on my own that it's not really fun anymore. Cooking together made it fun again.

I've been getting runs in regularly lately, with the help of my sister, Audra. We've actually been helping eachother get runs in. She's been training for a half marathon, and is supposed to get 5 runs in a week, by her training plan. So I get together with her most of those days and we either run together or switch off running while the other watches our younger boys (this is typically during the school day while our older boys are at school). She's been helping me get longer distances in on the weekends, and I'm up to just over 8.5mi now. We'll be doing a 9mi run on Friday, which is going to be my last long run before the 10miler I'm signed up for on Mother's Day. I'm so excited that it feels like I'm going to reach this goal, and it's going to be my longest distance ever. Although really, every long run lately has been my longest distance ever which has made the training really fun.

I've recently determined, through the help of being so much more introspective in writing my blog, that my mood changes with my menstrual cycle. I talked most recently, rather passionately, about it here. Last month, I'm not sure I mentioned it in the blog at all, but if I look at the dates, I had depressive episodes at both the beginning and end of my period. Yeah, to me, that's not good. And I realized that maybe there was something I could do about it.

I started with a new OB/GYN today, and was thoroughly impressed with her. I explained all my woes about periods and the monthly mood swings and what we're already doing for my depression, and she's going to start me on a low dosage hormone birth control pill (assuming it's all fine with my psychiatrist first) that's meant to regulate the hormones throughout the month. I really hope that it works and my dear readers, you will be along for the ride since I find the blog important for my data collection. :)

I started a new puzzle yesterday, because I was already itching for it later the same day I finished the last one. I like the process of starting a new puzzle, just like with any project. I'm sure I may fall out of interest with it for awhile again, but hopefully it doesn't take me another 5 months to finish this one.

oh the weather outside is frightful

Saturday, 04/16/16, 11:37am, 1:00pm

Do you remember my puzzle? It's taken me a really long time, but I finally finished. Here's the progression:

11/07/15                                              12/01/15

04/12/16                                     04/13/16

04/14/16

04/16/16

I obviously took a big hiatus from the puzzle for a few months. Once I got back into it, I remembered all my metaphors between puzzles and life, and I felt accomplishment with each final piece. And since it took me over FIVE months to complete, it's a nice longer term accomplishment. Yeah, I gotta find the little things sometimes when I don't have a paying job.

Today is mostly a chill in the house kind of day. It was supposed to be my Brené Brown workshop day, but it got cancelled due to the impending weather. Rain, into snow, although the rain lasted a lot longer than expected, at least by us. The forecast was so bad that several airlines cancelled all flights in and out of Denver for today. My mother-in-law came into town on Thursday and was supposed to fly home tonight but now she's not really sure when she can get out of here. The boys are ecstatic, but Grandma needs to be back to leave for a road trip with Grandpoo Larry for some marathons he's got next week. (It's pretty cool, my mother-in-law and step father-in-law run marathons. They are rather active grandparents). 

Hah, I just sang the song "You need to find your lo-ooong pants" (to the tune of Auld Lang Syne) to my children and it worked beautifully. They ran upstairs to find long pants. 

Nevermind. It worked on RG, but not on TK. 

We have to leave the house for a friend's birthday party, who also lives in our neighborhood. Considering the weather, this is amazingly convenient. I am hoping we walk over, although the snow is blowing pretty hard right now. I usually take every excuse not to drive. If I can walk, or bike, I try to do it. I've definitely done several grocery trips on the weekend with just a bike and a backpack. 

Things have been ok lately. Just normal ups and downs. I've been working my way through Brené Brown's Rising Strong still, and that causes some additional ups and downs.

all I really want is some comfort

Monday, 04/11/16, 10:40am

There are a number of things I should be doing right now, but I've decided what I need most is to blog.

The weather reflects my mood today, rainy and gloomy. It's a day where I really just want to be lazy at home, but I won't get that until later this afternoon. I'm at my sister's house right now; we were supposed to switch off running/cycling, but I decided I didn't want to bike in this weather. That decision means I need to do something on my own later in order to get a workout in. And I really should get a workout in, considering my mood. I am volunteering in RG's class around lunchtime so that is also keeping us out of the house today.

I started reading Rising Strong by Brené Brown, kinda the follow up book to Daring Greatly (remember my obsession with that book awhile back? If you never watched her TED talks, now's another reminder to do so). I'm actually doing a workshop with her (and lots of other participants) this Saturday. The focus is more on Rising Strong than her other books, so really, I should try to finish it. That's one of those items on my task list, that list of things I should be doing right now, other than blogging.

I think that Rising Strong will be good for me. The tagline on the front cover says "If we are brave enough, often enough, we will fall. This is a book about what it takes to get back up." Sounds pretty useful to me, considering how often I fall.

I feel like I'm on the verge of falling today. Trying to do everything possible, except that original plan for exercise, to avoid it. I'm going to limit my expectations today though. Accomplish the things I'm feeling stressed about, the things I was committed to, and maybe some extra reading wherever possible. I already removed the expectation that I finish this book before the workshop when I signed up for it in the first place, but it feels like I'm subconsciously resetting that expectation this week.

The sun is coming out now. Maybe I will try to allow the metaphor to the weather to continue, and let the sun wash over the stress I'm feeling. I can do this.

but I still haven't found what I'm looking for

Thursday, 04/07/16, 8:28am

I've been needing to blog. I tried writing a post yesterday, but never got enough focus to finish it. It doesn't help when I can only get a paragraph out every 6ish hours.

I like to blog/write during the day the best. I'm at home with TK during the day, until RG gets off the bus at 2:44pm, so it's a little tricky to fit in the time. It works best when I give TK something to totally occupy his time while I'm writing, and a fair amount of the time that ends up being screens. But I weigh that with the benefit I get the whole family gets from my blogging and it's worth it. But occupying TK is just part of it; if we're out of the house all day with activities, I often don't get the time. But then occupying our time with activities, getting TK and me social time and outside the house time, is all really important too. And then on top of the blogging time and the social time, I always want to fit in exercise time when I can get it. Sometimes I can do a workout DVD while TK plays with dinosaurs or we can have a "dance party" with awesome 80s music, and lately I've been getting lots of runs due to the influence of Audra, my sister. She is stay-at-home as well, and her kids are very close in age to my kids (oh and they are all boys), so we hang out together a lot. Lately, she's been training for a speedier half marathon, and her workout plan has her running 5 days a week. So, that's got me running about 3-4 days a week, either with her (often with her pushing both our boys in the jogging stroller) or switching off with her (while the other one watches the boys at one of our houses). It's been great to have that running influence in her and the support to get workouts in during the week.

Speaking of running, I've decided to be pretty ambitious this year. I signed up early for an olympic distance triathlon in June. And I had in the back of my mind that I wanted to try for a half marathon (my first) in the fall. I still want to do that, but I've since added some running races as part of the training somewhat. I'm signed up for a 10-miler on Mother's Day and the Bolder Boulder 10k on Memorial Day. And I might actually do a virtual half marathon over the summer if the 10-miler feels ok. I have in the back of my mind some concerns over pushing it into injury, but I'm also trying to be very careful to listen to my body, ice if ever needed after bigger runs, foam roll and stretch often.

I've loved having specific races to look forward to and this year I'm getting more serious about training for things. Last year, I did my first sprint distance triathlons, which were great, but I was already in reasonable shape for surviving the distances and I really didn't train all that much. I want to much more this year, and really I have to. I am definitely not as comfortable with the olympic distances for the triathlon, and I cannot just run a half marathon on a whim. Although I'm getting closer to being able to do that! ;)

Yesterday, and a little the day before, I was having some of those life inadequacy, no confidence feelings. Having no engineering job has definitely contributed to those feelings. Being at home with the kids is great, it's rewarding, but it's often rather thankless. There are a lot of days where I feel totally unproductive and I seem to accomplish nothing. But that comes with the territory, and days where I feel depressed, I sometimes need to let go of the expectation that I do accomplish anything. And that's ok.

I'm not sure where I'm going with my blog post, but that's also how I've been feeling about my life right now. Feeling a little lost and like my goals are just floating around me, some of them really distant and out of focus. Some of them feel really selfish right now, but I also recognize that I need a little bit of that too. Being good to myself comes back in my easier struggle with depression which then makes me a better mom and wife. It's weird, a lot of people ask me how I'm liking being at home. And I don't want to tell people, yeah I like it more because I'm being selfish a lot and taking care of my needs as much as possible. But to some extent, that's a big reason why I like it right now. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the time with the kids, I'm so glad to have a more relaxed schedule for RG completing homeowork, for being able to volunteer for things here and there in the school, and I think that my being at home the last 7ish months has really improved our children in a lot of ways. And all those reasons are huge for the case for me being at home. But that selfish bit, that's a nice perk.

So this may come as a surprise to my longer term readers, but would you have guessed that I wrote as much as I have above without mentioning that Nasser is on a work trip this week? Normally I feel the need to blog about it before, during, at the end because I am stressed out beyond belief at the idea of him being away and leaving me all the responsibility. But this trip has been amazingly different. He left early Tuesday morning and is coming back really late tonight, so 3 day trip. Pretty typical for San Diego. BUT, now that I've survived a week long India trip, 3 days doesn't sound too bad. And although he's really busy with meetings, he feels so much more accessible on this trip because he isn't sleeping most of our day. And of course, he just feels so much closer. Regardless, the fact that I was more confident before and during this trip, shows amazing progress. :)

Since this blog post is all over the place today, and feels a little like I'm just catching up and reflecting on the state of my life right now, I have one bit of bragging to do.

RG wrote a short story last month and submitted it in this young authors writing contest. It was an optional thing to do, and it was awesome to watch him work on it and complete it. It was a good 3 day project, typing away on my chromebook for a good hour or so each day. He wrote it in Google Documents, added a Google image, and the only thing I really helped with was spelling and grammar here and there. It was a little stressful at times when he still had a ways to go on the last day before the story was due, but it was really fun. Anyway, his story ended up being selected (!!!), along with several others, to be read aloud by professional actors in a couple little performances in Boulder and Denver. The first one is this weekend, and we're so excited.

and I try, oh my god do I try. I try all the time, in this institution.

Sunday, 04/03/16, 11:23am

There's something wrong with me. Something that's deeply ingrained in my personality, my neurological pathways are wired such that my thoughts are difficult to control. When someone says something to me, I almost always automatically see the worst in what they say. I do this even with Nasser a lot. I see judgement in everything that people say to me.

Unfortunately, the more I do this, the more it happens. Everytime my thoughts turn negative I make those neurological pathways stronger. At least, that's how I understand it, biologically speaking. Sometimes thinking about it in a biological sense can help me. Right now, since I'm borderline depressed, I just feel like I'm circling the drain, very slowly, but continuing to go down further and further. Not a very positive thought there, huh?

So let's go back to the positive part of the biological speak. Understanding that my brain is a bit more wired for negative thinking than most "normal" people, helps me to remember that depression is not my fault. That I'm not just too weak. Because as much as I claim to know and understand that depression is a disease, and not the fault of the person, I fall into that stupid stigma a lot still. And that makes me feel shameful about having depression and that makes me more depressed. It's like I have a worsened condition of depression BECAUSE of the stigma. Doesn't that majorly suck, people?

So it seems like the solution would be, cut down on that stigma. Not that easy right?

Trying to change someone's stigma is like trying to change an ingrained belief. Like say someone had a big problem with racially profiling others, right? Not that abnormal actually, which is extremely unfortunate about our society and our world.  But that's a story for another day. Person A let's say, thinks person B is a bad person because they are X culture, Y sexual orientation, and/or Z religion, different from person A, who is U culture, V sexual orientation, and/or W religion. Most likely, person A grew up thinking that U, V, W were the right way to live, versus X, Y, Z. Trying to make person A change that thought to "X, Y, Z are different from what I know, but that's all, just different" is extremely difficult. Just like trying to change someone's political beliefs. Difficult, or perhaps, impossible in certain cases.

Most people grow up thinking that mental illness is wrong, not normal, and potentially dangerous. Unless they're extremely lucky to have extremely enlightened parents who block or combat the social and media messages their children get.

It's difficult to change that way of thinking unless you suffer or know someone who suffers from a mental illness (although sometimes knowing someone with mental illness can make that way of thinking more extreme I think, depending on the judgments you make about how that person is handling his or her illness).

It's hard. Not all mental illness cases are the same, even when they have the same diagnosis. Then there are spectrums of extremities. We all suffer a little or a lot differently.

But you know what? You look around at the people you know. Many of them have in the past or are currently suffering from a mental illness. Or maybe you will later in life. It's more normal than you think. And most of the time you don't know that certain people in your life are suffering. We get really good at hiding it, or at least, trying to hide it. Some of us decide that hiding it isn't the way to go and we become more open about it. For me, I've decided that's the best way to live with a mental illness, and the best way to do something about the stigma. Because maybe, just maybe, a few of my readers are starting to understand more about mental illness, and it's breaking down the stigma, little by little.

Maybe.