ENTERING NEW AND SCARY TERRITORY

Entering New and Scary Territory

Trigger Warning: Suicidal thoughts

Once I get to know someone pretty well, I can tell how they’re feeling through the written word. Some people use a lot of emojis when they text, and others aren’t sure how to turn off all caps; some people end every sentence with a period while others avoid punctuation like it’s a disease. But one thing remains consistent: each person has a pattern, and when that pattern is broken, something is wrong.

For myself, I know that I can fall into one of two patterns when I get upset: I either start ranting (usually in gramatically-correct paragraphs), or I get unusually terse and then disconnect. I’ve come to notice these breaks from normal patterns in my friends, and last week, it was the first sign something was wrong with one of my close friends.

Olive (as I’ll call her here) usually peppers her messages with plenty of smiley faces and heart emojis stacked on top of each other, and she never completes a sentence. I thought it was very unusual when she started writing in full sentences, punctuated as she usually never does, telling me that I should take some of her special pokemon in Pokemon Go.

Ordinarily, I’d say yes to an offer like this, but this deal sounded too good to be true. She told me I could go through her account and take everything I wanted, something that no one who planned to play the game again would ever offer. (For context, I was given one of these special pokemon for my birthday, and could barely believe my good fortune; Olive was offering me large quantities for no reason.)

I tentatively poked around the files she sent me, but I started to get worried. Shortly after we started texting that day, she told me that not only was she quitting Pokemon Go, something she genuinely enjoys, but she also didn’t want to go out for dinners or board game nights with any of our friends anymore. The little red flag I saw in my head quickly multiplied as I thought back to some of the things I’ve learned about mental illness.

No Shame On U says that some of the risk factors for suicide are someone suddenly changing their personality, giving away personal items as gifts, and quitting things they enjoy. I saw all three of these in my friend, and suddenly, I felt overwhelmed.

I recognized a lot of the things she was telling me - the feelings that her depression and panic attacks weren’t getting better, the numbness and coldness combined with extreme stress and nothing going right - from my reaction to my medical trauma. Five years ago, I was saying and thinking a lot of the same things as her, and to top it all off, she recently had a major medical crisis as well.

I wanted to spring into action, to instantly come up with the perfect thing to say or do, but I found that I was lost. It confused me - how could I know so much about mental illness in my own life but be unable to help a friend in need? I just stared at the screen where she’d typed what her depression was telling her, and I couldn’t think of a way to fight back.

I ended up calling Miriam for advice. She directed me to one of the resources on No Shame On U’s website, a crisis text line where I summarized the problem in a chat box (although it was my lunch break, I was at work, and I couldn’t find a quiet place to talk on the phone). It took a little while to connect to a counselor, but I was very glad I did.

I’d always been afraid to contact places like this, and had only done it once in the past - and never for myself, no matter how bad my thoughts got. At that time, I was on a Skype call with someone who expressed a wish to kill himself and had a gun handy, which was far more of an emergency. This new thing with Olive was subtler, and I wasn’t quite sure how to ask about what she was feeling.

I’d like to share with you some things I learned from my conversation with her this week, in the hopes that they’ll help you if you’re contacted by a friend in need:

First of all, it can be hard to tell if someone is struggling with negative thoughts in any form unless they explicitly say it. It’s easy to miss clues or assume the worst. The counselor on the hotline advised me to ask Olive if she was thinking of hurting herself at a lull in the conversation, and although I was nervous, I borrowed some of her wording and asked. The question helped my friend open up - she quickly wrote back that although she was not considering suicide, she was trying to punish herself by giving away things she loved, like the special pokemon.

Another important takeaway is how to display empathy in this situation. I wanted to reach through the phone and give Olive a huge hug, but in lieu of that, I had to figure out a way to make her feel heard and cared for, especially when she told me she felt like people were just pretending to care. I’ve felt that way before, but how is it best to let her know that?

The counselor told me to look at the exact words she’s using and say something like “I hear you’re feeling like…” to show that I understand the feeling, and then build on that foundation with a new thought. For example, when Olive said that she was feeling unloved, I had to push past my inclination to just write “but I love you!” and acknowledge that she was feeling unloved in that moment, a sentiment that just can’t be brushed away. By saying something like “I understand you’re feeling unloved, it can be really hard to live far away from your family and support system,” I used her thought and built on it with another fact I knew about her, continuing the conversation and giving her the space to share more with me.

Personally, I might have preferred a “but I love you!” in a bad moment, and that was another big lesson from the counselor: this conversation is not about me or any of my past knowledge about mental illness. Throughout my conversation with Olive, I found myself making assumptions about what she must be feeling based on my own experiences, and although this can help with empathy, it also meant I was projecting my own feelings, flaws, and fears onto her. Focusing on the exact words she said helped me get past that and make her feel heard and appreciated.

 I could tell the moment things started to change - for the first time in this incredibly lengthy conversation, she used the stacked-hearts emoji in an incomplete sentence. She asked me if it was okay for her to keep the special pokemon after all, and if she could still come to our planned pizza dinner over the weekend. It wasn’t a perfect fix, but in that moment, she got pulled out of the spiral of negativity and got a little bit of herself back.

This conversation had a happy ending, but not all of them go this way. The counselor reassured me that if Olive hurt or killed herself after our conversation, it would not be my fault. I did everything in my power to help, and I can’t fix other people, no matter how much I want to. As the person on the outside, this was a very important message for me, as I was definitely feeling responsible for Olive at this point. The counselor repeated this over and over, drilling it into my head that no matter how much I want my friend to be happy and healthy, I am not a trained therapist, and it’s not my job to make anyone’s brain well again (except my own, but that’s another story).

I disconnected from the counselor shortly after, and returned to work. Olive and I had pizza together over the weekend, and I got her a little stuffed pokemon to have a tactile reminder of a friend who wants her to be healthy and safe. Now, all I can do is wait, hope it helped, and hope that she can fight past her demons, and if she or anyone else in my life needs help, use these tools help me connect and push past negative thoughts into progress and healing.

 Ellie, a writer new to the Chicago area, was diagnosed with OCD at age 3. She hopes to educate others about her condition and end the stigma against mental illness.

IT DOESN'T JUST GO AWAY

It Doesn’t Just Go Away

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about mental health at work. Whether it’s my best friend trying to shift to a project that doesn’t conflict with their anxiety or me trying to deal with an incredibly stressful project of my own, I can’t help but wonder if there’s some way to be more accommodating of mental health needs at work without compromising the company.

In my case, I’ve been stressed about a project with a lot of moving pieces that I’m supposed to corral, and even though I enjoy organizing things like this, the interpersonal aspect of the project is extremely difficult, and the more stressed I get, the harder it is to find my way through the thoughts that muddy my head. It feels like wading through a thickening swamp, and then when I inevitably get caught up in a mistake, it’s hard to find my way out without significant stress. At home, I let out this stress with a variety of coping mechanisms, some healthier than others, but the workday can feel unbelievably long without a way to even start dealing with stress until many hours after it begins.

I’ve never felt comfortable disclosing mental health information at work, even something as simple as “this makes me nervous.” It feels more shameful to disclose even the smallest thing because I’m afraid it would make me seem like I can’t do my job properly. So, when these stressful situations come up, I find it difficult to express why I’m anxious (usually because I’m engaged in one of my most common thought patterns of thinking too far down the line) or why I tend to look less busy when I have more work (playing with toys or games on my desk can help me calm down and get back on track).

It’s not possible to state these real reasons for having trouble with a task without facing judgment. It’s not usually even possible to take a mental health day to recuperate from tough circumstances - even though I’ve only done this twice in the 15 months that I’ve been at my current job, I still feel the need to come up with some physical reason I couldn’t make it to work that day, like a stomach bug.

(Thanks to the fact that no one knows about my mental health struggles, no one knows about my emetophobia either, and my casual “oh yeah, I got sick” doesn’t seem strange like it would to my friends.)

I completely understand that it wouldn’t be good for the employee or the company to have mental illness as a catch-all excuse for not doing work or performing poorly. It also doesn’t mean getting out of things you don’t want to do - for example, when I was nervous to interview a family who recently lost a loved one, rather than trying to get out of that particular story, I chose to ask my boss for ideas of good questions to ask so that I could prepare more effectively, as I know preparation helps me calm down. 

When I feel comfortable in my head, I’m far more productive than when I’m sitting at my desk wondering how to hide that I’m feeling anxious about a work task or something else that might be on my mind.

It reminded me of a video I saw where MacDoesIt, a gay YouTuber, reacts to homophobic video clips. In one of the clips, it’s stated that when you go to the airport, you leave things that aren’t allowed outside of security to get onto a plane - therefore, gayness needs to be left outside in order to get into Heaven. Mac laments that you can’t just put your identity in a duffel bag and plop it outside the door, and that statement couldn’t ring truer here.

Just like it’s not possible to leave sexual orientation outside, it’s impossible to leave mental health outside. Not only does OCD define the way my brain is wired, but it also changes how I see the world. My work style and the way I think are both heavily affected by the way I’ve grown up with OCD and learned how to deal with it in a variety of settings, and I can’t undo that by simply trying to do a better job of hiding things.

I personally think it could be helpful to be more open - not necessarily about a diagnosis or any medical information that I feel uncomfortable sharing, but to have the option to offer tidbits that could help me have a more successful time at work, and be listened to. It would be nice to be able to say that I’m good at keeping a tight rein on spreadsheets, but lunch meetings make me anxious. It’d be helpful to note that if I look distracted by toys or games on my desk, it’s not that I’m choosing to waste my time instead of work, it’s me knowing that if I take a short break to get rid of some of the anxiety clogging my head, I’ll be able to focus on my work better.

This would be great for both the company and the employee. An employee who feels more comfortable in their environment will do better work, which would both bolster them and hopefully encourage others to speak up about their own troubles. It’s another step in eliminating the stigma that prevents people living with mental illness from reaching their full potential, and one that would ultimately make for happier and healthier people at work and beyond.

Ellie, a writer new to the Chicago area, was diagnosed with OCD at age 3. She hopes to educate others about her condition and end the stigma against mental illness.

"THE THING"

“The Thing”

Any of my friends who have known me for long enough know that I sometimes do a behavior nicknamed “the thing” by my best friend in college.

It starts when I let down my guard about something I’m interested in. It could be as simple as a name of a favorite character or as complicated as any of my headcanons (ways that I like to imagine certain things happening during or after the plot of my favorite books/movies/video games). I get caught up in the thrill of sharing, only for the other person to ask me a question.

The question is always something simple, because I always leave out the most important details out of shame or fear. And when I’m confronted, I freeze. 

My thoughts begin to whirl. The euphoria of sharing my favorite things is gone, leaving behind raw panic. It’s a classic fight-or-flight response, where part of me wants to answer the question with aggressive pride and the other part just wants to hide in the closest available spot.

And while I’m sitting there playing tug-of-war with myself, I miss out on important moments in conversation, and frankly, seem strange, as if my brain has left my body for no reason at all.

When I get like this, my mouth gets dry. I feel others’ eyes on me acutely even if it’s nothing more than politely making conversation. I feel pressure to answer in a timely manner, but can never think of a good way to be honest because I’m too afraid that if I reveal too much about the things I enjoy, I will lose friends.

It started in college, when I discovered a deep passion for Greek mythology that I worked into my senior-thesis-turned-novel. I was so ashamed of working with mythological characters and concepts in my thesis that I would blush deeply whenever anyone brought anything up. Even just the name of some of my favorite gods and goddesses could cause me to flee from the room or, in one memorable occasion, actually hide under a table.

It started when I was mocked for having this particular interest and working it into my writing, and ever since, I’ve responded to the familiar shame of being too interested in things in this way.

My “thing” is a predictable enough response that people who have known me for a long time know it’s “the thing” and to just wait or be encouraging. But now that I’ve been making more attempts to find new friends, I find myself facing this behavior like a newcomer all over again.

This past weekend, I went to a new friend’s apartment to marathon all three extended editions of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, which took around twelve hours. That kind of commitment isn’t for the faint of heart, which made me feel more comfortable - I wouldn’t be admitting to a level of interest that other people in the room wouldn’t have - and for the most part, I was right.

My friend baked a variety of things based on themes in Lord of the Rings. We all offered background commentary during the viewing. Someone offered up a drinking game with an option to “experience an emotional connection” to a particular character instead of drinking whenever they did a certain action on-screen. We all chose a character. (I got Frodo!)

But as the movies rolled on, we started talking about other things, including video games. Fire Emblem: Three Houses came up, and I quickly got into a conversation about cosplaying with someone else who cosplays a character in that game.

And then, before I remembered to stop myself, I brought up the fact that I have a favorite “ship” (a romantic pairing between characters that people enjoy imagining; very common in the fandom community). Naturally, a question followed: “Who are the characters?”

I felt the feeling come on again.

This time, it wasn’t just the familiar “thing” that comes at me even when I’m with my close friends. It was an additional feeling of knowing that I was being weird in front of a room full of people by not answering the question, and even if I did answer, they might think I was weird for liking this particular ship, which tends to be unpopular. It was a no-win situation.

But thanks to my whole “year of yes” thing, I decided to try to speak up. I couldn’t quite get words to come out at that very moment, but I flipped my phone over to show off my case, which has the two characters in question on the back. My potential new friend looked down at the case, then at me.

“Cool,” she said.

She doesn’t love that ship, I came to learn, but she doesn’t hate it, either. Nor does her like or dislike of fictional characters have anything to do with how she feels about making a new friend. We’ve talked a few times since, and my fledgling attempt at openness didn’t ruin everything. It probably even made things better by not leaving me stumbling for far too long and making myself the center of unwanted attention.

It’s hard for me to “unlearn” things after certain behaviors of mine are reinforced. It’s hard to break the behaviors that I get complacent about fighting because people who know me are used to it. But it’s time to fight past that complacency.

This won’t come overnight, but I hope that the next time someone asks me about something I’m interested in, I admit it right away rather than beating around the bush. I hope that even if I’m nervous and sweaty and my words come out squeaky, I can still muster up the courage to share something that matters so much to me that I keep it a closely guarded secret.

I tell myself that there will be people who are fine with what I have to say, and people who won’t be. There’s only one way to find out, and no matter how scary it is, I want to turn my “thing” into a thing of the past as I diversify the ways I look for friends.

Ellie, a writer new to the Chicago area, was diagnosed with OCD at age 3. She hopes to educate others about her condition and end the stigma against mental illness.

PRACTICING WHAT I PREACH

Practicing What I Preach

I’m a loud advocate for therapy.

If a friend tells me they’re having a hard time, it’s the first thing I suggest. If they want to talk about an appointment or look for encouragement or praise for starting therapy, I’m always there for them.

But for myself, it’s a different story.

Ever since I was a kid, I enjoyed going to therapy. My child therapist when I was very young let me draw while we talked and had Mr. Sketch markers that I loved to sniff. She had a toy basket by the door where I could “pick a prize” and an extremely cheerful outlook on life that helped me be positive in tough times. My childhood psychiatrist, while not perky, was a fountain of wisdom and even now, she knows my thought patterns just as well as I do.

Even though my experiences with therapy have been positive, I still have the lingering feeling that it’s bad for me to go. It’s been years since I had appointments every week or month, and now that I’ve moved to seeing my psychiatrist over the phone once every few months, it feels like I’ve somehow “won” against the need to seek therapy and should just be able to do everything myself.

I feel ashamed to admit that I want to talk to my psychiatrist or do what I’m doing this week - seeking a local therapist. Even though I would recommend therapy to a friend wholeheartedly, I have a hard time justifying it for myself. I feel like I’m “losing,” and as someone very competitive who was taught from a young age that OCD is an enemy in my head who I have to fight, I always want to win.

Sometimes, even when I feel like a therapy appointment could be helpful for me, I delay or even convince myself that I don’t need it. I claim factors like the difficulty of getting an appointment, the cost, and the fact that I often take these phone calls during work hours, which means I usually end up wandering the streets while talking because my office doesn’t have a door.

But all of those things are just excuses. I know myself well enough to know when I need therapy, and I love telling other people about how much it’s helped me. So why is it so hard for me to do something I believe in so much?

In my case, I’ve pinpointed a specific fear about therapy. The thought process goes like this: If I need therapy more often than I’ve needed it in the past, that means I’m bad off. If I’m bad off, it means I could be backsliding to the horrible place where I was after my surgeries. The thought fills me with such dread and is honestly my deepest fear, losing myself again and having to claw my way out of days-long panic attacks, negative thoughts, and worse.

I know, rationally, that such a thing is unlikely to happen again. It had a catalyst the first time (namely, the trauma from my surgeries), and if it did happen again, I would recognize what’s going on before it got too bad and seek out the medication that helped me fight my way through it. But even so, I’ve come to associate that time in my life with therapy in general.

But just like with the roller coaster, I’m going to try to dive in head-first to this fear. I’ve made an appointment with a local therapist, and I’m trying to reframe my thinking to align more with what I try to tell others. Therapy can’t hurt me, it can only help, and it might make me calmer at a time when things are tense in other areas of my life.

This week, I’ve found that the roles have flipped - I sought reassurance from my friends for going to see a therapist, and the people who I once encouraged are now encouraging me. It’s nice to see this coming full circle and the mental health community is made stronger for these types of bonds. As a child, I never had any friends to tell about therapy, and it’s great to see the world changing even just a little to make these sorts of conversations okay even with people I haven’t known for very long.

Ellie, a writer new to the Chicago area, was diagnosed with OCD at age 3. She hopes to educate others about her condition and end the stigma against mental illness.

A YEAR OF YES

A Year of Yes

As someone living with OCD, I’m very good at saying no.

I say no to outdoorsy things, going out for a drink, trying new sports, and many matches on online dating. The other day, a coworker offered me a cookbook, and I returned it when I realized I wouldn’t eat a thing in there, regardless of how many vegetarian recipes there were. I panicked when the restaurant I go to every Monday for lunch closed suddenly and my coworkers expressed excitement at getting to try a new place.

Most of the time, I have to force myself out of my carefully-crafted routine to try even the smallest new thing. But lately, I’ve come to realize that my life isn’t working for me the way I want it to. I’ve fallen into a rut of doing the same things over and over, and although certain aspects of that make me happy, I’m also looking for something new that can push me out of my comfort zone, even if just a little.

That’s why I’ve signed up for an improv class this winter.

Improv, I thought, is a great fit considering that I’d like to add new people to my life, and I enjoy not censoring what I say. The randomness is part of the fun of a class where no one knows what will happen next - and it’s working through that uncertainty in a safe way where I won’t risk alienating people for being “weird.” The class is specifically designed for people who have been feeling lonely and want to make new friends. Plus, dressing up for the performance at the end could tap into the euphoria I feel in cosplay, the way I love pretending even if just for a moment that I’m a cooler person in a different, more beautiful world.

Strangely enough, even with having all these reasons to want to do this class, I was still reluctant and coming up with excuses. It’d be too expensive; I would travel there in the cold and dark; there could be ice on the ground; I wouldn’t like having the two days of the week so close to each other and would get burned out; just because the people in the class want to make friends doesn’t mean they want to make friends with me. Something inside me was grasping at straws for anything to get me out of this commitment even though I greatly enjoyed the first session and have been looking for a way to spice up my life, simply because this isn’t 100% in my comfort zone.

When I went to the introductory session, we all had to talk about why we wanted to sign up for this class. I was pleasantly surprised to hear that I wasn’t the only one feeling nervous not about the class itself, but about breaking out of a rigid routine. I wasn’t quite brave enough to own up to being in that routine because of OCD, but several other people mentioned that they were living with mental illness, addiction, and more, and hoping this could help break the cycle.

All of us are choosing to say yes to something that makes us uncomfortable. It’s a conscious choice that we wouldn’t be making if we were content with our lives the way they are. It’s easy to feel comfortable knowing that I have no plans except for video games when I get home from work, but I also loathe the feeling of boredom and stagnancy that follows.

Until now, I’ve shied away from the feeling of trying something new, even if it’s led to these other unpleasant feelings. But in 2020, I’d like to try to change.

This year, I’m making it my goal to say yes to more things, even if they frighten me. It might take me more time or self-convincing, and I might feel the urge to bolt, but I want to stick with it. I want to find something besides my current hobbies that makes me happy and new people to enjoy these new hobbies with. As many of the people in the class say, I want to try a “year of yes” where I challenge myself to say yes to things my OCD wants to say no to.

I’m making a good start - I’m committed to twice-weekly improv sessions for the next three months, I went to lunch with a coworker at a place that isn’t my usual place (even if it’s rather similar), and I agreed to a blind date with a coworker’s friend. I hope I can continue this in the upcoming year and create a life where I feel more welcomed by others and less dependent on my stories and video games for entertainment and companionship.

Ellie, a writer new to the Chicago area, was diagnosed with OCD at age 3. She hopes to educate others about her condition and end the stigma against mental illness.