Trying Something Old

Trying Something Old

All my life, I’ve been encouraged to try new things, but this week, I realized that trying something old can be just as impactful and work on the same skills of confidence and courage.

I hadn’t taken a writing class since college, and not for lack of desire. I wanted to take more writing classes almost immediately after graduating with a creative writing degree, but after my experience senior year, I was too afraid to give it a try. Even though there were plenty of online options, I set my sights on a particular place in New York City and said that since I didn’t live there or close enough to commute, I couldn’t take a class.

What I really felt was fear. My senior year of college - one brief year after my breakdown - I came back to college prepared to conquer the world. I took extremely complicated courses and added more than the typical course load to secure a double-major. I also decided to write a thesis, and as happens with much of my writing, it became deeply personal.

This thesis - a novel - focused on three stories: Ellie, who I mentioned last week, who was a representation of the part of myself I hated the most and what would happen if that part spiraled out of control; Jeanine, whose ambition resembled mine and who found herself struggling in a world where her life was far out of her control; and finally, the goddess Athena, taking a small and simple role in the story that somehow thrilled and inspired me like nothing else. Quickly, I developed an obsession with all things Greek mythology, and with my friends encouraging me at every step, I flew through over a hundred pages of writing with ease.

The problems started when I had to share the story with others. Even now, many years later, it was hard for me to type that last paragraph, to acknowledge my ideas. I became incredibly ashamed of my story, even as I fought very hard for it, when I received fierce criticism from my thesis-writing class.

This isn’t to say that I can’t take criticism - in fact, I always enjoyed sharing my work with others to see what they thought, and loved incorporating feedback. But this criticism was different. I vividly recall convincing myself that I had to wait until after class to cry when people told me my ideas were horrible, idiotic, and not something anyone should ever write. I usually made it to the stairwell and then rushed down, determined to stop crying before I made it to dinner with my friends who were much kinder.

The professors weren’t much kinder, and it got to the point where I was told point-blank to change what I was writing thanks to all the feedback I was getting, and that there was nothing I could incorporate. That was because none of the feedback was constructive - just hearing that “this sucks” or “you can’t write” or “give up” doesn’t tell me how to improve a manuscript, it just makes me sad and angry. I told my thesis advisor that I was going to fight for my story and if my story was really so horrible, I would just quit the thesis program. He told me I could stay, and to make my work the best I could.

The controversy never quite went away, even after months went by without a kind word. I fought for my story like I said I would, never got constructive feedback, and went into my defense terrified and far too prepared. In the end, I got an A on my thesis from that same professor and continued working on the story for a few years afterwards.

I still love that story to this day, although I’m scared to do anything with it. I’m scared to show it to people, and that spread to the rest of my writing. Even this blog is something only a scant few people in my life know about, and I can’t even sit in the same room as someone reading anything I’ve written. Even if it’s true, honest, and revised as best as I can, I still hear the people in my thesis group calling me stupid and my ideas worth less than the paper they were printed on.

Years later, I decided to try to be brave. I signed up for a writing class with the place in New York City, which went online thanks to the pandemic. I didn’t have any excuses other than my fear, and before I could overthink things or obsess over what could go wrong, I signed myself up.

This week was the first time in years that I have given a sample of writing to be evaluated by a group. I surprised myself by volunteering last week, and submitted the first four pages of the story I wrote last week’s blog about - the story of Britt. I didn’t know how people were going to respond to my first attempt of writing horror or the way my character dissociated and experienced flashbacks and had so much trouble living in the moment because of an experience she couldn’t vocalize. I sent two scenes - one about a hot dog and one about a pet dog - and waited.

When it came time for class to start, I was pacing anxiously around my room. I hadn’t shared anything in years, and even though I’d technically done it before, it somehow felt scarier because I knew how badly it could go. The Zoom room could quickly turn into 14 people (a similar number to my college class) telling me I’m dumb and have horrible ideas. And of course, when it came time for me to start receiving feedback, my anxiety peaked.

Against what I’d planned, I wound up starting to overexplain things, but thankfully I caught myself before apologizing. I knew I had nothing to apologize for, but I still felt the need to say sorry to anyone who had to read my work. I quickly added that my last experience in a writing class was very negative and I was nervous to hear what people had to say, although I wanted honest feedback, especially since this was my first time writing horror.

The first thing the professor said was, “Wow, hearing that it’s your first time in this genre - I’m doubly impressed about the vibe you got across.”

A smile crept across my face and it only got wider when the main thing people enjoyed about my story was the in-depth and realistic portrayal of PTSD. I felt incredulous that they actually liked what I’d written and wanted to see more of what was going on in Britt’s head!

Just like in this blog, I’d conveyed a story I knew well, and it wasn’t stupid or bad or wrong. It was how I saw the world, and just like my college thesis - which was based on my lived experience with OCD, dreams, and a literal obsession - there was nothing wrong with sharing my point of view.

As one class participant said, “I’ve never thought about what it would be like to be in a picture-perfect college and experience something like Britt did, live to tell the tale, and reconcile the two worlds.” As someone who’s done the same thing (although with fewer demonic beings), it was refreshing to hear that my story - both imagined and real - was valid.

I am excited to incorporate the feedback I received into the next draft of the story. Even with just four pages, I was able to learn what my group wanted to know more about, what was clear and what wasn’t, and how to keep the internal monologue going in a satisfying way. It didn’t have to be a matter of everyone liking everything for me to feel okay, and I learned that I can take criticism when it’s framed in a polite and respectful way.

This week, I tried something old that felt entirely new thanks to the class’s reactions. Everything else was the same - a mental health-based story in a new genre, supportive friends on the side but not in the class, and an idea I was truly excited about. But thanks to the kindness of people who heard and understood what I needed, it was a wonderful experience and one I hope to repeat again as I work more on Britt’s story.

Maybe I’ll even show it to my family and friends - another new-old step on my writing journey.

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 Most Authentic Voice

The Most Authentic Voice

TW: Trauma

This week, I started taking a science fiction, fantasy, and horror writing class from a place I’ve admired for a while. I’ve felt like I was in a rut with ideas ever since the pandemic started (and longer, if I’m being honest) - and the class seemed like the best way to break myself out of writer’s block by trying something new.

I had no idea that I’d find my way out by going back to one of my oldest wells of inspiration.

After the first class, I dove right into the homework: “Using whatever means at your disposal, describe a hero. There is no wrong answer.”

I thought of superheroes first, and the Fellowship of the Ring, and it was there that my mind began to diverge from what I’d typically think of as a hero. My brainstormed characteristics started to change from physical strength to mental, and most of all, to survive something incredibly terrifying and be able to vanquish it a second time, knowing exactly what they’re in for.

It’s what scared me the most after I had my blood clot - knowing that I could go through all of that again, and that I’d know exactly everything that was going to happen to me and what it looked and smelled and felt and hurt like. Thankfully, I’ve avoided that fate, but I started to think about a common trope in horror movies. (Not that I’m brave enough to watch them, but I watch commentary and learn about their plots, because I enjoy the genre.)

I started to think about what might happen if a “final girl” who survives a horror movie, some sort of encounter with the supernatural that no one would ever believe her about, was forced to return to normal life and try to be normal herself - and then faces the demon she’d survived once again.

My fingers flew over the keyboard in a way that hadn’t happened in quite some time, and even though I was working with a new idea, the story veered into the familiar almost instantly. My character, Britt, started the story at a college BBQ for new freshmen, something I attended at my beloved school. The world around her took shape. The attic room, the closet with the far-too-heavy doorknob, even the food at the event that she was doing a very bad job of eating - everything started to come together and even though it was fiction, it felt incredibly real.

Unlike when I write most of the time, I wasn’t stopping constantly to second-guess myself. I didn’t research names - I picked whatever came in my head first - and I didn’t let myself edit until I had the whole first scene done. By the next day, I was starting on the second. And when it came time to share my work with my class, I finally decided to reread what I’d written, and discovered something I haven’t done in a very long time.

The last time I wrote one of my “Ellie” stories was my senior year of college. She was one of the three narrators of the novel I wrote as my thesis, and although my thesis was picked apart by so many people, Ellie’s voice was never up for debate. The one piece of positive feedback I got from everyone who read it was that the character felt authentic, real, and like she was about to jump off the page and turn into a real person.

The difference between this Ellie and characters I’d written previously - and which came back again as I started to write my new story this week - was that I was writing in-depth first-person narrative from the point of view of someone living with a mental illness I too live with.

For Ellie, even though I didn’t obsess about the same things as her, I knew how daunting it could feel to have an exposure experience, and how I would need to split up something like that into a series of tiny tasks so I could feel like I was accomplishing something, a bit at a time. Therefore, since her story started with her large fear of getting on an airplane, I dove into her head and described every task from calling a taxi to putting her suitcase in the taxi to lifting said suitcase on the conveyor belt at airport security. I numbered each step, and no matter what anyone had to say about other parts of the story, sections like these got a lot of praise for authenticity.

I never told anyone except for my close friends that I was merely putting my thought processes on paper. I never told anyone that I could have those exact same thoughts and go in the exact same direction, only about the things that I personally obsessed about.

Writing about Ellie, and now about Britt, is also a way to delve into the deepest thoughts in my head and draw them out farther. What happens when I let myself explore thoughts that are frightening or the ones I try to keep out of my life? I tackled my understanding of violent crimes committed by people living with mental illness in Ellie’s story, and with Britt, the guilt that sometimes (but thankfully not often) resurfaces over my inability to take care of a dog made an appearance.

I never liked the advice from writing professors to “write what you know.” I felt like my own life was too boring (not nearly enough dragons) to merit writing about. But as I’ve come to see, writing about what you know doesn’t necessarily need to mean copying your life exactly. It can mean using thought processes that live in your head and putting them in another world, just to see what happens - and it’s not uncommon for me to wonder what my characters would do if they were in my life instead.

Starting Britt’s story this week reminded me of my first favorite character to write, an original character I wrote in the Lord of the Rings universe when I was nine years old. I used to write her as the version of myself that I wanted to be, and I drew inspiration from that idealized version of myself when it came time to face challenges in my life. As the world is starting to move to a post-pandemic state, I wonder if I’ll look to Britt for inspiration as I keep writing her story. After all, there’s plenty of time left in this class - and now that I’ve tapped into one of my favorite sources of inspiration, I’m not short of ideas.

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.

Normal

Normal

I don’t remember how old I was the first time I googled “how to get a lobotomy.” I do know that I was little, young enough that I’d heard the word and knew that it affected the brain but had no idea of what it actually meant.

Come to think of it, I probably looked it up on Yahoo, the first place I went for answers on the Internet as well as the first place where I had an email address. I don’t remember if Wikipedia was a thing back then, or exactly where I got the information that made me shove that idea out of my head. But what made it come in the first place remained, and remains to this day: a deep desire to be normal.

A desire I remembered this week when I was shopping for a new journal and came across the word many times, all in a positive connotation.

My best friend from college liked to say that “normal is just a setting on a washing machine,” but she was also someone who I got close with after he defended me when I walked away from the dinner table and someone commented that I needed to be on more meds. In other words, he already knew there was something there, and I tried as best as I could to hide it. Remarks like the one he defended me from haunt me and I tend to remember them long after, mulling over my every behavior and thinking of what I could have done differently.

I think my desire to be normal stemmed from the way my OCD was explained to me - that I thought differently than other people, and things could be harder because I had to battle thoughts in my head when other people didn’t have to. I instantly wanted to be like the people who didn’t have to worry about such things, and even though my mom was quick to reassure me that “everyone’s got something,” I still felt like things would be so much better if I was normal.

I constructed a picture in my mind of a normal person. I imagined that their life would be so easy, not having to worry about anything or be afraid of anything. I imagined they would have an easy time with everything I found hard, from trying new foods and things in general to making friends. I imagined the perfect life, and when I compared myself to what I imagined, I was certainly lacking.

Or, rather, I had too much. My head was constantly filled with obsessive thoughts that would only go away if I did specific things. It felt like my every move had to be choreographed to avoid triggering the thoughts that truly scared me, and even when I did my rituals perfectly, the thoughts would return, reinforced, and I would look strange to family and onlookers.

When I pictured the mind of a normal person, I pictured emptiness. So much room to grow and explore, not constrained by the complex web of thoughts I always seemed to be mired in. There was no limit to what a normal person could do, unconfined by fear, unrestrained by patterns of the past.

Since I believed myself unable to live a normal life, I instead turned to my stories. I wrote all kinds of stories about all kinds of people doing things I was afraid of with confidence and facing their fears.

It took me years to realize that so many of my characters live with mental illness in one form or another. Like many writers, I was writing what I know, and my lived experience colored what I was able to write as well as what I wanted to write. I wanted to see someone like me be normal. I wanted someone like me to be able to be fearless and bold, confident and brave, able to take charge of their life in a way I felt unable to.

I saw myself as the opposite of normal for a while. What did that mean, though? Abnormal, or “Abby Normal” like in “Young Frankenstein?” Or was the opposite of normal the words I used to hear about myself like “weird,” “odd,” “strange,” and worst, “crazy?” I internalized so many childhood insults that I believed that I was all of these things, and with no examples of people like me who had achieved success in their lives, I thought I wouldn’t be able to either.

Years after I first heard the word “abnormal” in reference to my brain, I heard “neurodivergent.” I like this word far better, as it gets to the fact that it’s my brain that’s different, and “divergent” reminds me of the poem about the two paths in the wood, and although I may not be on the typical (or neurotypical) path, I can be on a path that works for me.

Even now, I struggle with self-acceptance. I second-guess myself when socializing, expressing my interests, and doing anything else I’ve gotten negative feedback about in the past. I take the criticism of others - and myself - very seriously, and even now, I still see a failure to be normal as a failure in general.

For me, the word conveys a high level of self-control and the ability to blend in with others. Since high school, I’ve had a better ability to “pass” as neurotypical except in certain situations when specific things trigger me. For example, I once started crying in a restaurant when I realized I had eaten a not-insignificant quantity of meat that, as a vegetarian, would be strange to my system and might make me throw up. Most of the time, I am able to make my way through life without revealing my mental illness to others inadvertently, and since it makes things easier for me, I like to keep it that way.

At the same time, though, I’ve been reconsidering the idea of always seeming normal. With this book, and the advocacy I’ve tried to do with my friends, colleagues, and others in my life, I have begun to realize that if people don’t know there are neurodivergent people among them, they might feel even more isolated. Being open as a person living with a mental illness can help others seek help when they need it or make them feel less ashamed that they’ve done so.

I only really started to realize this when my best friend in college pulled out a bottle of pills at dinner and when someone asked, he said they were for mental health. He took one and then returned to the conversation like nothing at all had happened, as if his behavior was normal. Without making a big deal of it, he made it normal, and he also gave me the courage to speak out when I had problems later.

I still believe, like I did when I was a child, that my life is not going to be entirely normal, as I would picture it. There will be a lot I won’t do or experience, and that is a combination of my choice and taking the easiest path through an anxious life. But by speaking out about the abnormality, weirdness, oddity, or any other word for neurodivergence, I can help make those discussions more normal. People like me can be seen as normal if it’s not strange to talk about things like medication, negative thoughts, compulsions, or other things in our heads.

 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.

Nine Years Ago Today

Nine Years Ago Today

TW: Medical imagery, mentions of death

When I was driving to pick up my family’s first post-Passover takeout meal, an ambulance passed me on the left. It darted into the fast lane, lights spinning - but no sirens blaring. As it sped off into the distance, I couldn’t help but remember my own ride in a silent ambulance nine years ago today, the day I was sure I was going to die.

I was loaded into the ambulance in a small town in upstate New York, to get care in a larger hospital better equipped for vascular emergencies. The sirens were so loud that I couldn’t hear myself think, and considering exactly how fast my mind was going, that was saying something. Before I was wheeled in, I asked the driver to turn them off.

Inside the ambulance, there was a friendly EMT who joked around with me and a student volunteer who was 19 and a freshman like me, who was there to be my buddy. But still, my heart rate was 120 the whole time the ambulance careened off towards the larger hospital.

I’ve recounted on this blog what happened before: the longest night of my life, the question of whether my foot would recover, the three surgeries while I was awake that I still remember, the weeks afterwards where everything hurt and nothing in the world felt stable anymore.

But this year, nine years to the day after I was first admitted to the hospital with a life-threatening blood clot, I feel very stable. Yes, COVID-19 has changed the world and everyone in it, but thanks to the therapy I received two years post-op, I am able to deal with fears, especially medical ones, in a healthier way.

When I first went to cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), I was told that I was letting April 4, 2012 define me like I had not done with anything else. I never let OCD define me in that way - I always said that I was a daughter, friend, nerd, etc. before a person with OCD. But I was seeing the world through the lens of a blood clot survivor as if there was nothing else in my life and to live for - as if it had actually killed me.

I made the conscious decision to not let that one day dictate the rest of my life, and I spent a year in intensive cognitive behavioral therapy to help me make that choice a reality. But every year, on April 4, I recognize how far I’ve come and how much better my life is now than my hospital stay, and how much I have to be grateful for.

As I saw the ambulance pass by, I smelled the amazing baked ziti take-out on the seat next to me and smiled at the thought of eating my favorite food right after Passover ended. I was grateful that I was driving myself, and the ambulance was far away. My quality of mental health had increased to the point that I could see an ambulance resembling the one I was in - the lack of sirens - and not descend into flashbacks. I was even tapping my left foot - the one I could have lost - on the floor of the car as I listened to music.

Nine years later, while I can’t say everything is the same as it was before my blood clot, I can say that the cliche of “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” does actually work. Nine years later, I know I am stronger for having survived that horrible night and all the nights after, during my recovery from the blood clot and my trauma response that took years to overcome.

There are some things I don’t think will ever be the same. My outlook on physical and mental health, advance directives in medical emergencies, faith, and even my sense of humor have changed (I have certainly acquired a taste for blood puns!). But it no longer needs to be the one thing that defines my life. Just like I can expand the scope of my life beyond OCD, I can be more than a blood clot survivor, while still taking pride in my survival of a physical and mental horror.

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.

No, OCD Isn’t Why Passover Is My Favorite Jewish Holiday

No, OCD Isn’t Why Passover Is My Favorite Jewish Holiday

After my family’s first Seder - held in my parents’ home with my vaccinated grandma, just the four of us - I remembered seeing a funny Passover picture earlier that day. I took out my phone, Googled “Pesach funny,” and the first thing that popped up was a comic depicting an OCD support group where everyone was saying that Passover is their favorite holiday because it normalizes obsessive cleaning.

At first, I could only see red, especially when my mom and I were on Facebook later and saw similar “jokes” from extended family. It’s not that I am unused to insensitive jokes that make fun of OCD based on stereotypes, but every time I see them, it reminds me that we as a society have a long way to go in terms of understanding mental illness, which is a key step of destigmatization.

The people who share jokes like these only have a surface understanding of what it is actually like to live with OCD. Back when I was little and had compulsions about hand-washing, I used to wash my hands until they were red and raw because I was afraid there was even a single germ left there. That’s not something cutesy to put in a comic - it’s horrifying, and should not be the butt of a joke.

Literally only one thing in that comic made sense to me - the sense of community. Even though I know the comic wasn’t meant to empathize with this, I did connect in terms of feeling better when the “weird” things I do are normalized. It’s the main reason why I love fan conventions like DragonCon - I can show off every one of my positive obsessions to a degree I would never let myself normally and make friends instead of repelling people, because that’s the expected behavior in that space.

But Passover isn’t my favorite Jewish holiday because it normalizes cleaning or eating strangely or anything else that I or others with OCD do.

It’s my favorite because some of my earliest memories are showing up at Nana’s apartment early to cook for the Seder, practicing our songs together, chopping apples and nuts for the charoset (pre-allergy), and finding all of our favorite mistranslated text in our Maxwell House haggadahs from before I was born.

It’s my favorite because I love eating garlic Tam Tam crackers for 8 days straight, asking the Four Questions even though I’m in my late 20s, and setting time aside in a busy world to put away everything else and just focus on family.

It’s my favorite because it’s a holiday built around a story of redemption and survival, and whether we’re telling it from the Haggadah or watching “The Prince of Egypt” for the umpteenth time, it’s inspiring every year.

In addition to all of these wonderful moments, I also do some cleaning, either in my pantry or helping my parents with theirs. I make a game of finding the oldest expired thing from the back to make it more palatable as I am not exactly someone who enjoys cleaning.

I have OCD - 300.3 in the DSM, with basically every symptom in the book - and I’m not a cleaner. I pile my papers in a way that only makes sense to me and allow clutter to pile up on basically every flat surface I use frequently. I’m not dirty, but I’m also not going to have a perfectly neat and tidy apartment or work desk. My OCD never got in the way of keeping my home this way, and there are many other people who have similar experiences.

Even as someone with the disease, I didn’t realize there were so many different kinds of OCD until I started researching things after my junior year crisis. I learned that even though I knew what OCD meant for me, I had no idea what it meant for other people, and even sharing my story isn’t akin to sharing the story of all sufferers. Everyone’s obsessions and compulsions are a unique product of their environment, life experiences, and whatever the neurons in their brain are doing.

In other words, yes, I am a person with OCD whose favorite Jewish holiday is Passover. But I could take or leave the cleaning - for me, it’s all about family time, reenacting our favorite rituals while spending time together. As this year’s Passover wanes, I hope that next year, there will be even more awareness of mental health conditions and less offensive comics that reduce people to inaccurate stereotypes.

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.