A Spark of Madness

I guess now’s as good a time as any to actually start on/ admit I have a secret blog.

While reminiscing about Robin Williams and how fucking depressing it is when the world loses another artist, Becky pointed out that it’s as good a time as any to try once again to yell into the ether of the internet in an attempt to raise awareness about the fucking stupid stigma over mental health issue in this country (the world?).

I’m pretty sure coming from a mostly Irish family didn’t set me up to well genetically in terms of a predisposition to anger and depression and more anger. I was incredibly lucky to be blessed with parents who had pretty little of either. They have always been calm, kind and understanding (at least as long as I’ve known them). But as long as I’ve known me, it always felt like something was wrong. Like there was some screaming, Hulk-rage-monster inside me that sometimes got so angry I would punch walls, and sometimes got so sad I would cry over nothing, and sometimes got so anxious I couldn’t leave the house because I was too paranoid that the door wasn’t locking right behind me.

The first time I cut myself I was 12. I saw an article in a Girl’s Life magazine (or potentially some other teenage girl magazine) about another teenager who had battled depression and won. The story talked about how she cut herself to feel better and I thought “that’s interesting” and promptly started dragging a safety pin across my ankle until it bled a lot. It was fascinating and satisfying and the concentration that it took to draw blood with only a pin completely took my mind off being sad. I kept it a secret until I was 14 and my friend saw a cut on my thigh in the locker room. She started crying and made me promise not to do it anymore and I said ok and stopped for a while.

When I was 14 I moved to a new state, back to where I’d lived as a kid, but away from the support group that kept me from cutting. I thought the sadness I felt was normal “teenage” stuff, and it wasn’t until years later that I learned that no, intentionally hurting myself and wanting to die wasn’t actually normal stuff. When I was 15 I realized that on the days I didn’t eat, I felt better. The euphoric high from my body slowly starving was a new kind of self-medication. This is also around the time I realized

1. I might like girls and

2. I might actually be a boy on the inside.

I dove headfirst into anorexia with the control-powers of a stage manager and the dedication of someone who feels so trapped by their newly-curved body they’ll risk sickness and death to carve it out. I weighed 95 pounds on my 16th birthday. It was a triumph like nothing I have ever felt. I wore baggy jeans and long-sleeved hoodies to conceal my shrinking frame and the cuts that were rapidly growing in number. I also had straight A’s,  took all honors classes, was the president of 3 clubs, and generally loved by most folks. I was bubbly, and outgoing, and happy, and I hated myself and everything around me.

I was lucky. I had friends who stepped in. I had friends who saw what was happening and said “Enough. We love you. This must stop.” I tried therapy, and quit, making all kinds of excuses about how my therapist was stupid. I relapsed. I left for college, and there I suddenly met other people who were going through the same thing. I met Anastasia, who taught me “real women finish their burritos” and made me a sticker chart to keep track of my eating. Those same friends who were there for me in high school stepped back in and said “we love you still, let’s get through this.” I went to the doctor, because I was having all these weird health problems – phantom pains, heart palpitations, sinus arrhythmia, insomnia. My doctor had me fill out a questionnaire and as soon as I saw the questions I knew where it was going. I decided to be honest – for the most part. He took it when I was finished, and in about 20 minutes came back with my results.

“Most people,” he said, “score about a 1-3 on this scale. People with clinical depression score around an 8-9. You scored 11.”

I said “honest for the most part” because I lied on that quiz. I answered “no” to the “do you ever hurt yourself” question, because my mom was sitting next to me and I didn’t want her to be upset. I should have had an even higher score.

Having that diagnosis was like a gigantic weight being lifted. Knowing that something *was* wrong with me (in a sense), and that it wasn’t just me sucking at dealing with life, helped give me some perspective, and admit that I needed help. I talked to new people, other folks who didn’t like talk-therapy but found that medication worked. I started taking Prozac and for the first time understood what “normal” felt like. It wasn’t pretty – I managed to hit every single side effect of that drug for two weeks of nausea, vomiting, insomnia, drowsiness, emotional highs and lows that were even worse. But then it started working. And for two years I stayed on it and learned to detect the differences between appropriate emotional reactions and when my anxiety/depression were controlling me.

I learned to write the things I wanted to write, instead of just spewing angsty garbage. I learned to control my art as well as my temper, and to hone it into something actually half decent. After two years, the pills stopped working. By then, though, I had learned about behavioral therapy and because of the time spent observing my own behavior from a logical point while on the pills, I was able to stop taking them and manage my depression cycles without medication. It has been 4 years and I can honestly say I wouldn’t be here had I not had the incredible support group that I do.

I function, well, and generally happily. There are many, many days, though, where I am so sad I need to stay in by myself, or when I am so overwhelmed the thought of talking to someone other than my cats or my partner terrifies me into a frenzy and I can’t get my heart to calm down. There are days where I get very close to dragging a safety pin or a razor across the sweet spot on my leg that always, always worked in the past. It is important to me to say this, to all of you: I struggle. Every. Fucking. Day. And every day that I make it through without just dying, I consider a victory.

Two years ago I met Kate Bornstein. She is amazing. You should read her books. I met her at a reading of a book called Live ThroughThis: On creativity and self-destruction. It’s a collection of stories and art about women came out on the other side of depression through their art, compiled by Sabrina Chap. In reading it, I learned that sometimes it is ok to give in – if you need to cut a little to keep yourself alive, and that’s the only way you can do it right now, fine. Stay alive now so that you can recover. Obviously the desired outcome is a life where you don’t have to cut anymore, but a life at all is better than none. Slipping does NOT make you a failure. If you need to stay in your house for a few days, do it. But know that you CAN and WILL get through to the other side, and that there are so many people who want to help you do it.

I also learned, again, that I am really, truly not alone. Reading Kate’s books helped me understand my own fluid gender more. I began a healing journey that covered over the scars of “why can’t you be normal” that old false-friends and boyfriends had spat at me. Knowing that someone else had gone through something so similar, yet still different, was so comforting, and I never would be where I was if Kate and all the other amazing people who wrote and made art for Live Through This hadn’t had the guts to share their stories.

Kate gave me a “get out of hell free” card, which I carry with me everywhere. It says this:

Do whatever you need or want to do in order to make life worth living. Love who and how you want to love. Just don’t be mean. Should you get sent to Hell for doing something that isn’t mean to someone, I’ll do your time in Hell for you.

For some of us, Hell seems like it would be a release. Don’t give in to that shit.

Robin Williams once said "You're only given one little spark of madness. If you lose that... nothing."

My best friend Becky said “If you have a story, you shouldn't be afraid to share it.”

We all have a ‪#‎sparkofmadness. Please don’t let yours go out.