Wait until you know who you are. Wait until you know what you want. Wait until you heal just a little bit more. Wait, Wait wait wait... You have no idea how many times I have heard this from so many people. Some of the times, I was seeking the advice, but most of the time, I was not. It was just said to me. Someone see's me going down a "wrong path", and they give their two cents. Sometimes more than two. All of these opinions, comments, judgments, or what have you, sometimes confuse me so much, I forget who I am. And then everything that I thought I knew about myself goes right out the window. I let all of these words from other people flood into my head, and control my every thought and move. But somewhere in there, I take a hold of myself and ask a question in the back of my mind. "What do I want?" What about what I think? What about where I think I am? Right and wrong. Wait until this. Wait until that. What is that? Was does that even mean? What is the "right" way? How long do we wait? What if we wait too long and miss out on an amazing opportunity. What if we jump in too quickly? How are we to know the difference? As hard as it is for me to say, I feel that you are the best person to know what is best for you. You know when the time is right, even if it doesn't feel that way. You know more than you think. You however, do not give yourself enough credit, and forget to listen to your own voice of reason once all of the other voices come flooding in. If I keep waiting for things to be right, I will miss out on what could have been so right.
Despite talking the talk, saying you will "keep in touch", and making plans, there are still those people who let life get in the way. It saddens me. When I really want to have these relationships with these people, and more than half of them do not reciprocate, its everything that's disappointing. We must learn, that despite our "busy" lives, there are so many things that can wait. Cancel what you were going to do today, and spend quality time with quality people. That is what this life is all about. Sharing laughter, smiles, ideas. Humans were put on this earth with other humans to be amongst each other. I love the saying "If they want to be in your life, they will make it happen". Sometimes they do, but most of the time they don't. I can not tell you the countless amount of times I have listened to a friend or acquaintance say how bummed out they were because they didn't get to see that certain person again. But then they do nothing about it, because they are "embarrassed", or they think this person is going to take it the wrong way. You never know what another person is thinking unless they tell you. So don't go mind reading. Almost all of the time you are wrong. If you want someone in your life, tell them. Don't wait for them to come to you. Go for it. This life is too short to wait around for others to make the first move. This could be for anyone. An old family member, an old friend, a new friend, a love interest, anyone! You never know what could happen. Please, choose to reunite. Be with the ones you want. Whats stopping you?
Since the beginning of my time, I have always known that I was meant to help people. Through the years I thought of different ways to do this. Coast Guard rescue swimmer, nurse, midwife, peace corps, Cultural Anthropology, and a numerous amount more. None of these did I follow through with. I always looked at is as failure. Like I couldn't finish something, which was true. I couldn't. My education level goes all the way up to a very small amount of community college. Part of this was because of my disability. But now I am seeing it in a whole new light. I was just recently tested by life at a very young age. And the test was nothing even close to small or easy. I was tested with mental illness obviously, as many of you know who have read my previous posts. Coming out of all of this and seeing the light, has also made me see my purpose. Never did I know how I was supposed to help people. But now I see. Life tested me to put me where I am now. It put right where I am going to be when I help people. To share my story, to educate others about mental illness, to maybe even one day become a psych nurse or a therapist, who knows. But life in a very weird way figured it out for me. And despite the pain these past 6 months that I have had to endure, I would not take one single day back. Not for anything and not for anyone. Because who I am now, is better than who I was prior, and now my true meaning in life is slowly showing me its light. Simply by teaching what I have lived, will be the "help" that so many need, and the help that I have been forever looking to give to others. My Disorder is a blessing. And that statement I say with true confidence and truth. Thank you life, for throwing me this test. I am forever grateful, and feel like the most blessed girl in the world. I got an A in the school of life.
I feel a Mental health revolution coming on. This is the era of our "coming out". I have no fear saying that I have more than one mental disorder. There is no shame behind that and should not be for anyone. Its odd how as a society we have health "fads". Don't get me wrong, its great how we have raised money for so many things. The huge breast cancer movement. Children's cancer. Diabetes. The AIDS movement. I am not discounting any of these. The only problem is, I fear for the mental health movement. It is one that will always carry a stigma. When you're talking about the mind, someone is bound to blame negative action solely on the person of that action. You wouldn't see that with cancer, or diabetes. Any symptom of those diseases are not frowned upon. But mental health, that is a touchy subject. My mind is taken to numerous school shootings, a lot of them being from people diagnosed with schizophrenia who were not given the help that they so gravely needed in time. That does not make it okay, but there was much reason in their own heads. In other words they were not in their right mind. That's where I worry. When someone is looked down upon and completely blamed when they have a mood swing and punch a hole through the wall. I understand. Those are actions that in our society are unacceptable. But I also understand that mental illness is not even fully understood by the ones who have them. Take the movie Silver Linings Playbook. I hear all of the time how that movie just hit the nail on the head. I beg to differ. They showed Bradley cooper as only getting angry with his mood swings. Same with Jennifer Lawrence. Bipolar Disorder is SO much more. Don't get me wrong, it was a good movie, and a lot of the things you saw were truth. But we can't count on just a movie to learn about these illnesses. There is only a 2 hour window for one. Two, its not there to educate you. It's there to entertain you. So I guess what I am trying to say is, don't expect to get a good picture of what its like to have a mental illness through a film that is solely for the purpose of money. If you really want to learn about these diseases, get real. Find a proper outlet. Especially if you have a friend or loved one with an illness. Despite kind of bashing on the movie, I do love this quote by Jennifer Lawrence, but its also sad that we need celebrities to get something truly into our heads.
It has been the greatest journey of my life to date. It has been terrible, it has been wonderful, it has been everything in between. There are feelings that I will never forget, there will be some that I need to let go of for my own sanity. But in all of this, there are those memories that I will never let be extracted from my mind and soul. I met so many people. Not only did I meet these people, I visited their souls, their fears, their happiness, their beauty, their humanity. Each of these people hold a special place in my heart, because they were the brave ones. The ones who went not around the thick jungle of emotion, but straight through. The hardest way to go. The way where no feeling is spent. They felt them all to the highest intensity. They sat in their bodies and watched almost from afar their souls being eaten alive. Being taken over by numerous effects of their own brains. Their own minds turning on them. Their own bodies at times they could not control. The sorrow we all felt, and that we sometimes continue to feel, is what has made us who we are. It has shaped us into the human beings you now see standing before you. We have worried, and completely feared the stigma. What will our friends think now? How will I get a job? What will the rest of the world think now? That I'm broken? That I'm just a speck on the map? A fly on their windshield? Who will stop loving me now? Who? When? Why? How? All of these things speed through the unquiet minds of someone with a mental illness. You are probably asking yourself what most ask. How will they ever function in the real world. Where will we put them all? Can't they just live in controlled homes? We don't want them shooting in our schools! We don't want them roaming the streets! There is no hope for them! They are lost souls now! God take them from this earth, as they are "the broken ones". Don't deny it. Each and every one of you has had some sort of stigma against the mentally ill. The homeless man standing on the side of the street. The woman frantically walking down the street screaming to nothing but the air. But let me tell you something. These "undesirables" are the ones who once had a mind. They were born. They played as children. They had people who loved them. And then their disease developed, and they were given no chance at life. We as a world allowed them to slip through the cracks. To be thrown away. They weren't taken to a safe place where someone would say, "I care about you, and I'm going to help you now". They didn't have anyone to give them a bed to sleep in. Hope to be given. A chance at a healthy mind. No health insurance. No medication to balance them out. They are feared. Don't tell me you haven't crossed the street hundreds of times to avoid them. Thinking that they are the zombies of our time. Don't go that way. Lock your doors when you pull up to someone holding a sign. Yadda yadda yadda! Now let me tell you something else. These people, from all walks of life, these people I have spent so much time with in and out of the hospital, they are the most beautiful people I have ever met in the entirety of my life. They shake off the shame, and show their scars, they show their hurt. They share things with you within minutes of meeting you that you would normally only tell your best friend. You hug, you cry, you hold each other up in the scariest times. They are human. They laugh, they cry, they get angry, they watch movies, they makes jokes, they create relationships, they play games, they dance, they hold out hope. And all the while this is happening, you don't realize that you are making friends for life, all because you just get it. You can look at one another and just know what it feels like to be one of them. Based off of what your mind is doing to you. Others don't understand the terror that "these people" go through. The only way you know it is if you've lived it. The amount of strength it takes to go through hell. The pain. All of it. The numerous people whom I now call my dearest friends, their strength is limitless. They are everything that is beautiful. They are everything that is sorrow. They are everything that is fear. They are everything that is bounty and success. They are the brave ones. The ones dealing with the pain. Not the ones hiding it. To reach out and ask for help. That is everything. That is the hardest thing you have to do. To admit that you are too weak to help yourself. To seek that help. To admit yourself into that hospital. But what happens after time? After all of that hurt, regret, shame, misery? You get it right. You feel alive again. But this time you feel more alive, like you are being born for the first time. You take nothing for granted. You stop to literally smell the flowers. You don't care as much what people say. Because you know your own truth. You know how long you had to sit with all of those evil feelings. You know what it took to sit in your own body and not go completely "nuts". You know what you are capable now. I didn't let it phase me when a radio talk show host said, "Claire Danes plays a crazy person really well in the new show Homeland". Because I know he has no idea what he's talking about. He has NO IDEA. Otherwise he wouldn't have said those hurtful words. If he understood that a mental illness is like having cancer, or diabetes, that its not something you asked for, and that it is a legitimate medical condition, maybe, just maybe he wouldn't have said what he did. To those I have met along this journey, I love you. With all of my heart, my body, mind and soul. You are my heroes. You are the heroes of the world. Because you have overcome the hardest thing there is to overcome. Yourself. We are warriors of pain. We are the warriors of our time. This life is a beautiful life, and our wisdom and richness will exceed our expectations. I would not take back any of the hurt, no part of these long six months, not for anything. Because look at me now! I am a pain soldier. And in return, I see the beauty in ever little thing. All I need to do is look. I am not ashamed to tell people what I have, because I know that it does not make me who I am. I am not my disorder. I am Laney. Anyone who judges me and doesn't get to know me because they know I have a disorder, well they weren't meant to be in my life in the first place. And who would want them? Hello life. Here I am.
Tests tests tests. That's life. How will we rebuttal? How will we react? Will we react at all? Most of us don't think we have a choice. We think we are dealt this hand, and can't change the suite. FALSE. I don't care who you are, if you have a disability, if you are homeless, if you have no family, whatever it is! The human spirit, body, and soul are more resilient than one would ever think. How do I know? Ive been through my fair share of hardship. A nonstop six month long test of every ounce of courage and strength I possibly had. There were times I felt wholeheartedly that I would not make it. That this was the end. The thing that would do me in. Would squash me. Devour my soul. However you'd like to think of it.. "This too shall pass." The most frequent phrase I had heard in that time. I started to question it. It just being a phrase some man somewhere at some point in time made up. I questioned the truth in it. The genuine meaning of each syllable. Would it pass? Would it really one day be "a part of my past"? The words "this too shall pass", reeling in my fragile brain over and over like a dark carousel of sheer terror. It was beginning to lose its meaning. You know, the way a simple word such as fork can start to sound odd if frequently said. I could go into detail, I could get graphic, descriptive, dark, but I wont. I wont because guess what, it too did pass, and continues to blow with the wind each and every day of my new found and enriched life. Anyone who has come out on the other side of something understands what I'm saying. The immense gratitude you feel. To be alive. To be human. To be anything at all. The constant buzzing begins to fade. The sky seems a bit more blue. You can hear in detail the birds song once more, but this time with a better understanding of the world. What it can do, what it is capable of, but also what we are capable of when we work with it, and allow father time to take his place. Bliss. Sheer bliss is waiting for each and every one of us. Never give up. Never give in. Because as they so often say in complete truth, THIS TOO SHALL PASS. And so it does.
