Hey, friends! So, I found a new way to publish my fiction stories. I'm writing under my maiden name on a website called Wattpad. I just started writing a thriller and would love for you read it. Click HERE or on the picture below!

When I wake up in a depressive bipolar fog, I have to be very careful and gentle with myself. Last Monday, I woke up feeling horrible. Super fatigued (despite sleeping deeply all night) and depressed. Getting out of bed felt impossible. I got up anyway. Fed the dogs. Painted for a little while. Made the twins’ lunches. But that was all I could manage. I went back to bed and slept. Matt made breakfast and got the kids off to school.

Later that morning I got up again. Showered. Dressed. A little makeup.

I had a goal: make dinner. I didn’t want my family to have to eat take-out again. I wanted to make dinner. Even if it was the only thing I did all day, I just wanted to make dinner for my family. Small goals are sometimes all I can handle when I’m in a depressive bipolar fog.

I research a casserole to bake and take my time writing the ingredient list. Then I drive to the grocery store.

I’m always uncomfortable in a grocery store. The lights are so bright. The music piped in over the speakers is always too loud. There are so many options and so many aisles. There’s always the chance of running into someone I know and then I’ll have to force myself to smile and engage in small talk (which feels impossible when I’m in a bipolar fog). It’s overwhelming to me. This is why a list helps. It keeps me on track. I keep a pen in my purse at all times and I cross off my items as I go along.

I get a deep sense of satisfaction in working my way through the list, crossing off items. It makes me feel like I’m being productive, accomplishing something tangible. When I’m in a bipolar fog, it’s important for me to DO things even though I don’t feel like I can. Because when I DO things, I always feel better afterwards.

I get anxious in checkout lines. The person behind me watches me unload my groceries onto the conveyor belt. I feel like I’m going too slow. They want me to hurry up. Another twinge of anxiety ripples up my spine. And then, paying. Will my credit card go through? Will it approve the amount? I always hold my breath, even when I know there’s enough money in the account. One can never be sure.

I finish at the grocery store and make my way to the car. Parking lots are scary for me. I’m always on edge in parking lots. So many people don’t look behind them before backing out of their parking space. I’m always afraid I might get hit. What if someone hits an empty shopping cart? Why don’t people return their shopping carts instead of abandoning them next to other cars? But I made it to the car without incident. This, too, felt like a victory.

Back at home, unloading the groceries feels like another Herculean task. I have to make sure and keep the dogs inside while going in and out of the front door. Unloading the groceries takes time. I should have cleaned out the fridge before I went to the store. I make a mental note to do this next time. I’m running out of energy as I finish unloading the groceries. But I don’t stop. I need to do the meal prep otherwise it might not get done.

I chop an onion and two cloves of garlic. I brown the meat. Add tomato sauce and spices. James is home from school because he’s developed a bad cough. He sits at the table and eats some soup I bought at the store. I like having his company even though he doesn’t talk to me. He has his ear buds in and is watching YouTube. I don’t mind. I’m just glad he’s there. Sometimes being alone all day isn’t good for me. The thoughts in my mind get too loud. Being near another human being reminds me that the thoughts in my mind are just thoughts. They aren’t reality. I can ignore them. I sing a little song to myself.

I make a white sauce and add Parmesan cheese. I pour the cheesy sauce over the Ziti noodles. I transfer the noodles to a 13x9 baking dish. Pour the meat sauce on top and spread mozarella cheese and breadcrumbs over it. It’s ready to bake. I cover it with foil and pop it in the fridge. Now all I have to do before dinner is bake it.

By this time, I’m utterly spent. I feel as if I’ve run a marathon. I need to lie down again. I crawl under my covers and put a pillow over my head. I need to block out everything. I sleep again.

It’s time to prepare a snack for the twins arriving home from school. I heave myself out of bed and stumble downstairs feeling for all the world like someone hit me over the head with a 2x4. The negative, racing thoughts are back. I push them aside. Sometimes I repeat little made-up songs and ditties just to keep my brain busy, just to keep it from thinking all the thoughts. I am so tired. So very, very tired. I feel like I’m dragging a 200 lb. bowling ball around with me. I just want to go back to bed.

But it’s important for me to be present for my kids. I don’t want their primary memories of me to be mom in bed, mom tired, mom not present. I plaster a smile on my face as they walk in the door. They don’t need to know how hard I’m trying. I want home to be a place they love returning to every day.

I kiss and hug them. I sit them down at the table and serve snacks. Today it’s a cup of chili and crackers, a glass of milk. They like a good, hearty snack after school. They come home ravenous. I feed them and we talk about their day. They fill me in on everything that happened at school. Who got in trouble, who didn’t finish their homework, who they played with at recess, how they’re practicing for an upcoming school musical. Then they start their homework. I go back upstairs to my bedroom.

All I want to do is lie down again and put a pillow over my head. But I don’t. I force myself to sit up and crochet. The twins come in and out of the room to ask for help with their homework. This is why I don’t lie down: they might need me.

After their homework, they go outside to play. Now I can lie down again. I crash. This is my last chance to rest before final dinner prep. Soon it’s late afternoon and I call the twins inside. It’s time to get dinner ready. The twins set the table. I put the casserole in the oven. I think about making a salad but I’m too exhausted. The casserole will have to be enough tonight.

Matt arrives home. I am so thankful and happy to see him. Now I have some help. We eat dinner together as a family. The older boys tell us about their day. We talk politics. We talk about world events. My eyes are getting blurry and I feel like my mouth is full of cotton. I need to go to bed. I can’t do anymore today. I just can’t. Matt sees the look on my face and gently suggests I go back to bed. I drag myself upstairs. I feel like the world is ending. I have a combination of regret (because I’m missing some of the conversation downstairs), exhaustion, guilt and an overall sense that I’m not doing a good job. I hate having bipolar. It affects everything in my life. I start crying in bed.

After finishing the dishes, Matt comes upstairs and checks on me. “Don’t feel bad, little Moesh. You did a good job.” It’s hard to believe him but I tell my brain to shut up and just believe.

“Don’t try to do any thinking right now,” Matt says. “I think you need to watch a show or listen to one of your podcasts.”

I turn on Netflix and watch Parks & Rec until my eyes grow heavy. I’m asleep by 7:45pm. This is my day with bipolar.

Well, two things are certain—/ the sun will rise and the sun will set. / Most everything else is up for grabs. —Charles Wright, “Crystal Declension”

I’ve been thinking a lot about how we know that what we know is true. Ever since Katherine's death, I no longer see things the way I used to see them. I no longer feel things the way I used to feel them. I didn't expect this upheaval to affect my understanding of God. But it has.

How do I know that what I know is true?

And I think I’ve found some semblance of an answer: I don’t.

I don’t know.

I have/had a faith that I believed was true but even then, I didn’t know that it was true.

People will tell you that they know their beliefs are true. But what they’re really saying is that they believe their beliefs are true.

They know what they believe and they believe what they know. But they can’t know whether those beliefs are universally true because it’s not provable either way. They have faith that those beliefs are true but that’s still different from actually knowing.

In their book, How God Changes Your Brain, neuroscientists Andrew Newberg and Mark Robert Waldman write that: “As far as we can tell, the human brain does not even worry if the things it sees are actually real. Instead, it only needs to know if it is useful for survival.” (page 6)

Turning this toward a belief in God, we believe God to be true because we exercise that belief. Whether or not God is real is not provable, anecdotal experience notwithstanding.

These scientists have also discovered that the more you meditate upon God and think about God, the more real God becomes to you.

New neural pathways are built and reinforced every time you exercise your brain to think about God and your beliefs about God. Which begs the question: is God just a manufactured product of our brains?

I was worried that I’ve believed in a serotonin induced God and not the real God—if there is such a thing/person. But over the last week or so I’ve come to think that it doesn’t matter whether my concept of God is true or not. It’s real enough and true enough that it’s changed my life for the better. I've had spiritual experiences where I felt God's presence and experienced it as unconditional love, a complete and total peace, a deep assurance that everything was going to be OK. Surely that was real? Even if my brain conjured it up as a means of survival—even then I trust it and believe it. I believe my experiences.

But still, I don’t know if God is real-real. God is real for me. But IS God real? I don't know.

I'm beginning to think that if there is a God, He/She is bigger than the Bible. The Bible cannot contain God, neither can any religion. God is bigger than big. God is bigger than my brain is capable of understanding.

I still believe there is some form of Ultimate Truth; but I don't think I can know it. I can see fragments of it. I can see glimpses of it. But I don’t know the whole picture.

According to neuroscientists, if I want to believe in God (which I do), then I need to keep going to church. I need to keep being around people who believe. I need to keep practicing prayer and Scripture reading and journaling. The more I do this, the more I believe.

So, today I went to Mass. We always go to Mass on Sundays. But today I went with the hope that I'd feel something again, that in the bread and wine, liturgy and prayers, in the repetition of ancient Tradition, I'd find my way back to belief.

And I found it. Just a glimpse. Just through the glass darkly. But God was there. And God was within me. And God was all around me.

It was just a glimpse. But it was enough. Lord, help my unbelief. Jesus, help me TO believe.

I submitted this story to three magazines and got three rejections. I still think it's one of my best pieces of writing. I thought my readers deserved to see it. So, here it is. Enjoy. xo, EE.

:::

She’d been putting it off for months. She still didn’t want to look.

Instead, she sat by the window for a long time—and hour at least—watching the late afternoon light shift and change, disappearing for a moment behind the scattered clouds and then slipping out again. Every time the sun reappeared, the gingko trees on the opposite side of the street startled awake, flaring yellows and ochres.

Last year at this time she’d painted the trees. The light had mesmerized her then, too—albeit for different reasons. Last year she was looking at it with an artist’s eye. Today, as she held up that painting against the window and compared it to this year’s colors—she was looking for something else. There. There it was. Something was different. The leaning tree was leaning more and another tree was still fully dressed in greens. The gingko trees which, last year, had all turned in a synchrony of brilliance, now seemed to be turning at varying rates.

She’d lived in this apartment for ten years. For a decade she’d watched those trees turn in tandem. She considered for a moment whether climate change was to blame. Probably. But she hoped it was something else: a sign of impending doom. She felt a faint thrill of hope. She walked to the kitchen and checked the calendar hanging on her fridge. It had only been a week. It felt like a year.

She tried not to look at the angry “X” slashing across last week. But beneath it, she could still see the word “RAPTURE” written in confident all-caps. The End of the World was supposed to happen last Tuesday. The only thing that’d happened was a Past Due notice landing her mailbox. She was late on rent. Late on utilities. Late on everything. Of course she was; why pay bills when the world was ending? Why check that lump in her breast?

“You know,” her old neighbor, Mr. Baker, had said to her last week when he spotted her huffing down the hallway with a bag of trash. “If you look for signs that the world is ending, you’ll find them.”

She’d shot him a dirty look.

“It doesn’t mean the world is actually ending, though,” he called after her. “I thought you’d be glad to hear this!”

She didn’t reply, just continued down the hall to the trash chute. The fact that she still was taking out the trash when she was supposed to be in Heaven was extremely frustrating. Not to mention highly inconvenient now that she was jobless, broke and basically friendless. She tossed her trash down the chute, thinking it was just like how she’d tossed away her life savings to Brother Samuel.

But today she felt a little better, even if it was only because of the gingko trees and the matter of their belated turning. Once again she felt something almost akin to hope.

The gingko trees were definitely telling her something. Perhaps they were telling her that Brother Samuel had simply gotten the date wrong; that if he could just see her gingko trees, he’d realize his prediction was only a few days off, or maybe a few weeks. A couple of years. It was an understandable mistake given the billions of years of Earth history. Anyone could make a mistake like that. There was no need to run off and leave everyone hanging. She needed to tell him this. She needed to encourage him.

Instinctively she reached for her phone and pulled up her text messages before she remembered he was gone. Brother Samuel had simply disappeared. Like the sun behind a fog bank. Just poof! Gone. And with him, all her money.

Nobody seemed to know where he’d gone or when (if) he’d be back. His sad, little tribe of followers met last Thursday night at a coffee shop once it was clear the world wasn’t ending. The stock market, in fact, was up. Way up. The unemployment numbers were down. Way down.

Since their church building was locked and the only person with a key was Brother Samuel, they shuffled around the coffee shop like refugees, unsure whether to sit or stand.

“The radio says this might be the end of the Recession,” someone finally said, by way of breaking the ice.

“Is there a refund for the world not ending?” another guy half-joked and everyone half-laughed. It was a painful joke. They’d all been secretly hoping the same thing.

“My daughter who hasn’t talked to me in five years called,” said an old woman. “I let her go to to the answering machine. I couldn’t bear to hear her say, ‘I told you so.’”

“I need to go to the dentist,” someone else said. “I put it off because who needs a new crown when you’re about to get an entirely new body?”

She could relate. Months ago she’d put off seeing a doctor about the odd lump in her left breast. And now, a week after the world didn’t end, she finally forced herself look at her breasts in the mirror. Slowly, she unfastened her bra.

The lump was misshapen like a smashed golf ball and pulled her nipple sideways. She touched it gingerly. It was hard and unmoving. She turned away from the mirror quickly and buttoned up her shirt.

She allowed herself the smallest of gin martinis with a bright twist of lemon. As she took her first sip she felt a sting of guilt—Brother Samuel strictly forbade alcohol. The hell with it. He was gone, everything was ruined, why not have a drink?

She settled herself, feet up against the windowsill. She sipped her drink and watched the blanched light slowly die, the street lights blinking on pre-emptively when the sun dipped behind a tall building. The thought came to her that she wanted someone in her life who would call and say: “I told you so.” How nice to have someone who would do that—a daughter who had not called for five  years, sure, but a daughter who called eventually. A person who cared.

But she didn’t have anyone like that. All her friends—more like acquaintances, really—were just other people in Brother Samuel’s church and after the world didn’t end, none of them felt like talking to each other. None of Brother Samuel’s followers had become particularly close during those two years leading up to the big day. He was far too brilliant a light. They couldn’t look away from him.

They were a ragtag band of mostly college-aged misfits. Some still attended school. Others worked entry level jobs. She went to a community college part-time and worked in a small tourist shop near Disneyland selling souvenirs and postcards with Mickey Mouse saying Wish You Were Here! But she was fired for telling tourists The End of the World was nigh. There wasn’t much commonality between Brother Samuel’s followers except all of them seemed to crave a deeper meaning to life, a purpose bigger than themselves. Or, in her case, an excuse not to get that lump checked. That was eighteen months ago. A lifetime ago.

In hindsight she could see how annoying/alarming she must have sounded to her family and non-church friends; how she’d yammered on and on about the end of the world: sell all you have and give it to this dude named Brother Samuel. No, I promise this isn’t a cult.

It was dark when she stood up and went back to the kitchen to make another martini. She felt warm, weightless and filled with a kind of glowing radiance. She hummed a little as she poured the gin. This wasn’t so bad, the world not ending. Maybe she could find a way to enjoy life again—but then she remembered the lump. Might as well make light of that, too. She decided to name the lump Herbert. A friendly sort of name for an unfriendly sort of thing.

“To Herbert!” she said, raising her glass.

The dark apartment offered no response but the streetlights seemed to be winking at her through the fluttering leaves of the gingko trees across the street. She winked back. All in good cheer. One for all and all for whatever.

Maybe just one more drink. One for my baby and one for the road, she hummed as she fixed herself the martini. She threw it back, quickly. It burned her throat and made her eyes water but she didn’t care.

Let it burn. Let it light her up like the noonday sun.

Some of my most meaningful religious experiences happened while I was manic. Or otherwise impaired. Perhaps I was PMSing. Perhaps I'd just given birth. Perhaps I hadn't eaten for a whole day. Perhaps I was deliriously depressed. Regardless, I can't remember one religious experience where I was wholly sane, not under stress, fully in control of my wits and emotionally sober (so to speak).

Which begs the question: were my religious experiences the Holy Spirit or just misfiring neurotransmitters?  

In other words, were those experiences real?

I don’t know the answer to that question.

Most of the time I’m OK with not knowing whether my religious experiences were real. They were real enough that I experienced something beautiful and larger than myself, something comforting and life-affirming. They were real enough that I was able to have faith in God. My experience of the divine doesn’t become less real just because it may have been brought on by, say, an overdose of serotonin.

Still, there’s a part of me that really wants to know if what I experienced was real. Objectively real. Empirically real. Because if it wasn’t real, then I’m afraid it’s not true, that I’m simply believing in something conjured up by my feelings and mood.

This is why I’m suspicious of worship services that are geared toward evoking emotional responses. The more smoke-machines and emotionally-fraught music, the more wary I am. The more deeply emotional the experience, the more uncomfortable I am. Not because I don’t find it beautiful. But because I’m worried that a purely emotional response does not accurately reflect reality.

I can feel all kinds of emotions but that does not mean that what I’m feeling accurately reflects what is true.

This is why I’m wary of an experience-based faith. In our faith sub-culture, we place a lot of value on personal experience. We have a whole discipline of “personal testimony” where we bear witness to what God has done in our lives. We share these testimonies with others. And we'd never dare question these testimonies because doing so is almost like questioning God.

In a broader sense, Americans don’t question others’ experiences because that’s a form of “erasure.”

We don’t question our own experiences because we’ve been conditioned to view our own personal experiences as an ultimate form of truth.

“I experienced x, y and z, therefore my conclusions about it represent the truth.”

We even allow eye witness experience in a court of law although scientific experiments have shown just how unreliable eye witness accounts can be.

Personal experience isn’t the whole story. It's one part. I'm worried that to pedestal personal experience is to deny the fact of human limitation. There is so much we don’t know and can’t see. There is so much of the human experience and ultimate reality which we can never know simply because we are not omniscient. We are bound by time and space.

We can only base our beliefs upon fragments. T.S. Eliot once wrote: “These fragments I have shored against my ruin.”

Are these fragments of personal experience enough to shore us against the pounding surf of entropy? Are my personal experiences of God—whether they happened during moments of mania or  not—enough to give me an objective understanding of the Divine?

In the end, fragments are all I have. I suppose faith is the cobbling together of these fragments and believing that they somehow represent the whole, that they are capable of pointing us toward Ultimate Truth.

These fragments are all I have. I can only hope they are enough.

I started and quit another full-time job. After the two week training, I worked one full day and was like: oops. Apparently I need to try all the jobs before learning (again) that I can’t work full-time.

Every time I try to work a full-time job, my brain wigs out. I get all intensely stressed, break out in hives and psoriasis, start thinking everyone is mad at me and then my vision goes blurry and I feel like fainting. It’s like my brain overheats or something.

I’m a great starter, though! I'm full of passion! excitement! and can-do-attitude!

But I'm an even better quitter. To that end, I’ve put together a handy little list of tips for quitting your job with panache, with flair, with wild abandon. Feel free to steal these tips and use them yourself. They're guaranteed to make you feel less alone in this cold, dark, lonely world.

1. Apply for a job everyone says is not a good fit for you.
2. Apply for it anyway because darnit, people can’t tell YOU what to do.
3. Go in for your first day and hate it immediately.
4. And intensely.
5. But keep going because YOU WILL CONQUER.
6. Break out in hives.
7. Break out in psoriasis.
8. Break down in tears.
9. Have a random allergy attack and start sneezing all over customers.
10. Go home, cry into your soup and realize: everyone was right, this job is not a good fit for you, text your boss you’re quitting, rub eczema ointment on your psoriasis and go to bed for three days.

Traditional jobs will never be a good fit for me because of my artistic personality. I’m happiest when I’m creating my art—whether in word, paint or fabric. And what this artist needs most is to embrace her art-making. I haven’t embraced that because I still have this idea that unless I’m selling my art, it’s worthless. This is untrue. Success as an artist is not determined by sales. I know this but I don’t live like this is true.

So much of my journey through mental illness is a journey of self-acceptance.

Understanding and accepting my limitations, learning to celebrate and embrace who I am (an artist!) and what I can and cannot do (work a full-time job!), accepting without shaming myself for not being able to do what others can do. 

Acceptance is really hard, you guys. I would like to be like all the other cool kids who can work jobs and not have total meltdowns in the middle of their shift. But then again, maybe I don't want to be anyone else. Maybe this whole mental illness thing is a big lesson in learning to love and accept myself, as myself.

There's a difference between self-acceptance and self-indulgence, don't you think?

Self-acceptance is a worshipful posture; it agrees with God about who we are and who we are not. Self-indulgence is a me-centered posture; it places ourselves in the center of our lives as God.

My default is to grovel in the dirt, full of self-loathing. But this, too, is a kind of self-indulgence. God doesn't see me as a vile worm, unworthy of His love. Self-acceptance is loving the sacred self God made in us which bears the image of His own Self. The beauty of our self is owed to the One whom it reflects: God. Just as the beautifully sculpted marble reflects the skill of the sculptor, so, too, our selves reflect His skill and limitless glory. We do not look at a statue and think: wow, this statue really did a great job sculpting itself! We look at a statue and think: whoa, what amazing artist created this sculpture?

The saints often talk about "self-forgetfulness" and I think that's an important lesson for me as I learn to live with my mental illness. The saints held everything loosely, including their own lives. The only thing to which they clung was God’s will. And even that they realized was not something which they could accomplish in and of themselves but only through the power of the Holy Spirit. Clinging without grasping. Holding fast without needy desperation. “If I perish, I perish.” Understanding and fully accepting that their lives were not about them but rather about God and the work He was doing.

I think there is a true freedom in this kind of self-forgetfulness. Please understand: I'm not talking about self-erasure or self-loathing. Self-forgetfulness is something else entirely. It is not self-erasure. It is not destroying the self God created for us, as us.

Self-forgetfulness is a grateful acknowledgment that we are not our own; we are bought with a price. It is fully accepting that we are created by our Creator for a specific purpose: to bring Him glory.

It is about the Kingdom He is building, it is about the community of fellow travelers all following the One. This is an eternal and everlasting purpose. It is not fleeting. It does not fade with time.

And when dealing with mental illness, I really need an eternal perspective. A reader named Dina recently helped frame this idea for me. She, too, has struggled with chronic illness and with all those "wasted days" spent in bed. She wrote on my FB page: "When I began to reframe God's purposes for me as ETERNAL, I realized my worth wasn't in the bigness of my life but in the accomplishing of what God has intended all along for me."

When I think about my mental illness this way—as the means through which God is working out His ETERNAL purpose in me—then I am better able to accept my limitations, I am better able to love and celebrate the way God made me, I am better able to love myself as myself.

Untreated, bipolar disorder is a burr of restlessness constantly bothering my brain. I feel like something is wrong even if everything is actually ok. I’m always convinced something terrible is just about to happen. I’m up and down all the time. Manic one day, depressed the next. There are mean voices in my head telling me I’m a horrible person, telling me I should just kill myself. Sometimes the voice shouts at me. Sometimes I see things that aren’t there—shadows of people following me. These things are always on the periphery of my vision. I can never really get a good look at them.

But if someone asks me to explain what’s wrong in my life, what I’m worried about, what I’m restless about, I have a hard time pinpointing anything. By all accounts, everything is pretty much ok. Nothing is terribly wrong. My kids are healthy, I have a roof over my head and food on the table. I get to create art and stay home to raise my kids. I should be happy. I should feel normal.

But when my bipolar is untreated, my brain won’t give up until it’s found something—anything—to be suspicious about. My brain can collect evidence of wrongness even when there’s no wrongness to be found. At various times in my life I’ve become unwaveringly convinced that I didn’t have enough pets (I had five), that my husband was cheating on me (he wasn’t), that the FBI was spying on me (they weren’t——I think), that I desperately needed an RV (I hate camping). Let’s just put it this way: my untreated bipolar brain likes to lie to me. And many, many times in my life I’ve believed those lies.

Initially, Abilify was a life-saver. No more psychosis, no more suspicions that the FBI was spying on me, no more paranoia. No more dramatic mood swings. No more mean voices in my head.

Everything just leveled out and got really quiet. My brain changed from a storm-tossed ocean to a glassy smooth lake. Worn out and exhausted from the months of mania and depression, I was content to just rest in this newfound quiet. I didn’t even mind that I was putting on weight at an alarming rate. I just wanted to eat and rest.

But eventually, I began to notice that not only was I on a glassy smooth lake, but there was no wind in my sails, either. Everything—everything— was flat.

Sure, I wasn’t irritable anymore. The usual things that annoyed me—a barking dog, grumpy customers at work, traffic noise, jerks on the highway, the kids being too loud—just didn’t bug me. I didn’t get angry, either. One time I tried to hang onto my anger but it was slipped through my fingers like sand. I couldn’t stay angry. I couldn’t feel it. The same thing went for joy. I no longer feel joy. I don’t feel happy about anything. I don’t have that creative spark I’ve always had. I used to be super ambitious and driven to create. But my motivation and drive to create have simply dwindled away.

Even my facial expressions are flat. My husband says he has a hard time reading my emotions now because they don’t show as much on my face. Sometimes I’ll catch him chuckling when he looks at me and when I ask why he’ll say: “You have that blank, innocent look on your face again.”

But here’s the thing: there are no emotions to read. I feel very little of anything. I don’t feel happy but I don’t feel sad, either. Everything just feels sort of numb.

I can watch violent movies now and not be bothered. But at the same time, beautiful music no longer moves me. I can see a beautiful sunset and think: Meh, no big deal. Before, this would inspire me to write poetry. Now, I just yawn.

That’s another thing. I yawn all the time. I can sleep and sleep and sleep. I’m always sleepy. Not tired, just sleepy. I feel as if I’m never fully awake. I can drink a gallon of coffee and not feel perked up in the slightest. I can drink coffee at 8pm and it won’t keep me up.

My sex drive has totally disappeared. I feel asexual. Like I could go for the rest of my life without sex and not miss it too much.

The one thing I do feel is the absence. I miss things. I remember what it used to feel like to feel intimate, to feel alive, to experience the joys and sorrows of life. I feel the absence of those things.

Everything is flat except my appetite. In two months I’ve gained 23 pounds and I’m still gaining.

I’ve had to buy bigger pants. Sometimes it seems like eating is the only joy I have left in life. Nothing else makes me happy.

But I’m worried about going off Abilify because what if the emotions come back too strongly? I’m worried that even a lower dosage of Abilify will bring back the roller-coaster emotions again. What if the mean voices come back? What if I start seeing shadows again? This is all just so hard.

I’m going to see a new psychiatrist this week. I’m hoping he’ll be able to help me.

I’m always a nihilist at 2am. Then again, it’s 2am. Here's a handy little life-hack: don't try to solve all the world’s problems at 2am. Or when you're tired. Or when your chronic illness flares up.

I’m always a nihilist when my mental illness flares up. It's hard to stay cheery about life when all I can see is unending struggle.

Both of the following statements are true:

1. God is good.
2. Chronic illness sucks.

I have to remind myself that one truth does not cancel out the other.

When my illness is flaring, it’s easy to see everything that’s wrong with my life. I have no friends, my oven is broken, I’m overweight and I keep forgetting to pay my credit card bill. It’s at these moments when I need to just calm down and give myself a break.

I shouldn't task my brain with the impossible task of fixing everything all at once.

On my Facebook page, a reader named Sandra noted that those who suffer from chronic illnesses are more prone to a nihilistic outlook on life. This resonated with me. Nihilism suggests there is no ultimate meaning to life; that the rules, mores and morals governing our lives are arbitrary, the conventions of whatever dominant system is in power. The lack of meaning is what resonates with me.

When you're in constant pain or dealing with a never ending, chronic illness—it’s really hard to believe God has some grand purpose for your life.

Chronic mental illness has also forced me to re-examine the very premise of that idea. Throughout my childhood and early adulthood, I always heard that God had a grand purpose for my life, that God’s plans for my life could be found in the words of the prophet Jeremiah: “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”(Jeremiah 29:11)

But how does this verse apply when faced with the reality of constant, daily battle with chronic illness? When I look back through my life—and especially when I consult my gratitude journal—I can see the fingerprints of God throughout my days. I can see the blessings and the gifts bestowed upon me. But the grand purpose? Participating in the great work of God in my generation? No, I don't see that. Maybe it's not there. Or maybe God's definition of "plans to prosper" me are much smaller than I imagined. And maybe that's OK.

I suppose learning to find the blessings in my life may mean learning to grapple with the constraints of my chronic illness. The poet does not give up hope when confronted by the constraints of a sonnet. Rather, perhaps, the rules and limitations of a sonnet provide a fine chisel to refine the poet’s choice of words. Could it be the same be said for me?

Could my life's purpose find its fulfillment under the refining chisel of mental illness?

Maybe what I don’t like is the fact that this requires discipline. Finding life's purpose and meaning doesn’t just happen by itself. I have to work at it. I have to struggle, even.

I have to remember that I was made for the struggle. Perhaps the struggle itself is the meaning I’ve been searching for because in the struggle I find strength I didn’t know I had, I find courage in the face of fear, I find love in the midst of pain. I wouldn’t have found these things if I didn’t have to struggle.

Perhaps the illness isn't a curse after all. Perhaps it is a gift.

Here's a handy guide for surviving a manic episode:

1. Temporary tattoos. I repeat. TEMPORARY tattoos. You do not need to come out of a manic episode and discover you’ve had PEACE LOVE DONUTS permanently tattoo’d across your chest.
2. Same goes for body piercing. You don’t need to discover, post-mania, that you’re now the proud owner of a septum ring. Faux nose rings are your friend.
3. Hide the credit cards. Better yet, have your spouse/significant other/best friend keep them for you until the mania passes. I know you feel really strongly that you just MUST HAVE that $2,300 Vitamix blender. I know you truly and fully believe it will change your life forever and that you must have it NOW so you can start whipping up all those kale smoothies but wait. Borrow your friend’s Vitamix. And remember this: you don’t like kale.
4. No, you don’t need a brand new RV. I know you really, really think you've become an outdoorsy person. But that's just the mania talking. How do I know this? Because you hate camping, that’s why. You’re an indoors kind of girl. You like fuzzy socks and indoor plumbing. You like books and crocheting by the (indoor) fire.
5. I know! I know! You’re gonna become a real adventurer! You’re gonna sell everything and live out of a van like all those sexy hipsters on Instagram.
6. But no, you’re not.
7. Because you’re 40 now and maybe living out of a van was cool and hip and amazing when you were in your early twenties, but now you have children and animals and a mortgage.
8. Also, you are a person who requires Netflix, a full-size bathtub and a toilet at 2am every night. Camping is not your dealy-o. Just say no to #vanlife.
9. Get off of Craig’s List. You don’t need to come out of this episode to discover a beatup 1959 Shasta camper parked in your driveway. Because, no, you’re not gonna restore this camper from the moldly floorboards up. These things require experience. Experience which you do not have.
10. I know you think your husband is ruining all your fun but believe me, you’ll thank him when this is over. (Thanks, Matt).

MEET MY THREE BEST FRIENDS

Meet my three best friends: Lofty, Booty and Billy. These are my nicknames for Zoloft, Wellbutrin and Abilify. Together, these friends of mine work hard to keep my brain from careening off a cliff. They are basically the guardrails of my mind. It doesn’t always work. Sometimes my mind is driving so fast that even the highest guardrail is no match. When I’m manic, almost nothing can stop me. My brain is like a car going downhill without brakes. It’s exciting and utterly terrifying. Mania would be awesome if it weren’t followed so hard by crushing, black-out depression.

Hence, the meds.

Wellbutrin keeps me from getting too depressed, Zoloft prevents me from getting too anxious and Abilify gives me the ability of maintaining a steady mood all day.

At this point in my life, I believe it's my moral obligation to take my meds. 

HELLO INSOMNIA, MY OLD FRIEND

One of the side effects of my medication is that I have trouble sleeping. As someone who used to sleep deeply and well for most of her life, this is extremely irritating. Well, it was irritating until I began to learn how to use those quiet, insomniac hours for something good. Like writing. Which is what I’m doing right now at 3:01am.

    There was a time when I would have viewed insomnia as more than enough reason to quit my meds. Sleeplessness was not a sacrifice I wanted to make. Insomnia felt wasteful. It made me anxious about how tired I would feel the next day. I’m not saying I’ve gotten to the point where I enjoy being awake when everyone else is sleeping, but my perspective has shifted.

    For one thing, now that I view taking my medication as my personal moral responsibility to myself and those around me, quitting my medication is not an option. This means that insomnia is an unpleasant side effect but it is still better than being wildly manic or crushingly depressed. This is the price I pay. And for the sake of my family, I pay it gladly.

While nothing seems to help my insomnia, what has helped is viewing these wakeful hours from the ancient Christian perspective. Christians have a longstanding tradition of praying through the night. Monks and religious pray the liturgy of the hours and rising at 3 or 4am is not uncommon. Their schedules and timetables are determined by a summons to prayer.

I, too, am finding that these quiet, early morning hours can be redeemed through prayer. They do not have to be wasted. They can be shaped for the glory of God. Through prayer and meditation, I find a freeing self-forgetfulness.

To be clear, self-forgetfulness is not self-erasure. It is not destroying the self God created for me, as me.

It is the ancient Christian understanding that I am created for a purpose—to bring God glory with my life. It is a grateful acknowledgment that I am free from the entanglements of my feelings, my character flaws, even my mental illness. In Christ, I am a new creation. 

Self-forgetfulness is not self-loathing or self-hatred. Rather, it is loving the sacred self God made in me which bears the image of His own self. The beauty of my self is owed to the One whom it reflects: God. Just as the beautifully sculpted marble reflects the skill of the sculptor, so, too, our selves reflect His skill and limitless glory. We do not look at a statue and think: wow, this statue really did a great job sculpting itself! We look at a statue and think: whoa, what amazing artist created this sculpture?

The saints held everything loosely, including their own lives. The only thing to which they clung was God’s will. And even doing God’s will was not something they believed they could accomplish in and of themselves but only through the power of the Holy Spirit. Clinging without grasping. Holding fast without needy desperation. Saying with Queen Esther, “If I perish, I perish.” Understanding and fully accepting that their lives were not about them. But about God and the work God was doing through them.

When I look at these insomniac hours, I begin to feel comforted: that my suffering is not meaningless.

My suffering can be offered up for the benefit of others through prayer; my obedience to treatment and taking my medication provides the opportunity of these hours to cooperate with God’s work; and that, most poignantly, by using these hours to pray I can, perhaps, in some measure, relieve the pain my dearest friend Katherine felt on the night she took her life. These were the hours of her death. These have become the hours of my new life in Christ.

Four days after my trip to the hospital, my psychiatrist asks me if there is a triggering event that led to the downward spiral of my mental health. Basically, it all started nine months ago: the day I found out my best friend died by suicide. It was a day that would catapult me into full-blown bipolar illness.

a life unfinished

Katherine died in the dark, early morning hours of Monday, January 16th, 2017. 

I’ve read that suicide is impulsive—that even the most carefully constructed suicide plans are made by terribly ill brains that think death is the only option, the only way to be free from pain. 

I think that’s what happened with Katherine. I don't think she realized how much we loved her and needed her. She had no idea how much she would hurt us by leaving. She was worn out and depressed and, as she wrote in her suicide note to me, she felt like she didn't belong in this world. So, she started drinking heavily and one night, after posting on Facebook that she was "just so tired," she lay down on her couch and ended her life. 

She left her condo in a state of dishevelment. Dirty socks on the floor. Dishes on the counter. Half unpacked boxes from a move two years prior still stacked in the guest room. A life unfinished. A life abandoned.

The night before Katherine died, I was coming down with a cold. It was Sunday, January 15th. I could feel that heavy, solid-as-cement feeling weighing down my head. I went to work that night, anyway. Slogged through. I got off around 8pm feeling sick and bone tired. As I drove home, Katherine came to mind. I hadn’t heard from her for a couple days. I knew she was struggling. I just didn't know how severe it had become.

I should call her, I thought as I pulled into my driveway. I should call her tonight.

But I didn’t. It's a decision that still haunts me.

All I wanted to do was go to bed. Around 9:30pm I pulled the covers over my head and fell into a deep, Nyquil-induced sleep.

At that very moment, 2,000 miles away in Tennessee, Katherine was preparing to end her life. It was 11:30pm, her time. In an hour and a half she would send me an email—her suicide note. But I wouldn’t see it because I was fast asleep by then. In fact, I wouldn’t see the email until two mornings later after receiving a phone call from Katherine’s father, informing me of her death.

I should have called her. I think she wanted me to call her. I’m fairly certain she was hoping I would see her email that night and call her because she left her phone on.

You left your phone on.

Why?

I've asked myself this a million times. You sent me a goodbye email.

But you left your phone on.

Oh my god.

Were you hoping—

that maybe—

Even though it was late—it wasn't too late?

That I was somehow still awake?

Were you hoping that I'd call you?

I would have.
 

are you ok?

I was sick in bed all day on Monday and I didn’t check my email. I didn’t log onto Facebook or Twitter. The next morning I felt well enough to get up and I checked my Facebook messages. A woman I didn’t know had messaged me saying she needed to talk to me about an urgent matter relating to Katherine.

When I saw that message, it was 6:03am on Tuesday, January 17th. My heart dropped. I began texting Katherine frantically. No response. I stared at the screen, willing those little gray flashing dots to appear….nothing. I called her. Her phone rang through. But she didn’t answer. I called again. And again. I left a desperate voicemail for her: “Katherine, call me. I need to know you’re OK.”

I ran upstairs and pulled up Google maps on my desktop computer. I zoomed in on her address and then slowly zoomed out, looking for hospital markers. I called all the hospitals in her county. Nothing. I called all the hospitals in Nashville.

Nothing.

The worst possibility—the unimaginable possibility—was beginning to dawn in my mind. I pushed it back.

But it wouldn’t go away.

I ran downstairs to the kitchen where my husband, Matt, was preparing breakfast for our children before school.

“Matt, what do I do?” I asked my husband, lowering my voice so I wouldn’t worry the kids. “Do I just start calling the morgues? The coroner’s office?”

Matt shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe she decided she needed a break from everything. What’s to say she didn’t just book a flight and go down to Florida for a few days?”

I understood his reluctance to give in to the worst possibility. No one wants to believe the unbelievable.

“No,” I said. “She’s not spontaneous like that. She plans things like that."

“Then if she’s not impulsive, I doubt she killed her—”

“DON’T SAY IT!” I shrieked. “Don’t say it!”

“Mommy, are you ok?” asked Jorie, one of our twins.

I couldn’t speak. I just stared at her; the horrible possibility becoming a looming inevitability.

“Mommy’s friend might be in some trouble,” Matt explained, as he flipped an egg in the frying pan. He turned to me. “Go ahead and make the calls,” he said. “I’ll get the kids ready for school.”

I climbed the stairs again, my heart thumping wildly. Maybe she accidentally overdosed. I knew she’d been drinking heavily and taking antidepressants.

Once back in my room, I called the morgue in Nashville.

“I’m looking for my friend,” I said to the kind woman who answered the phone. “She’s not answering my calls. She’s not responding to texts. I’ve already called all the—” my voice broke— “hospitals.”

“Well, I can’t give you a positive identification over the phone,” the woman said gently. “But if you give me a description, I can tell you if we have someone here that matches it.”

“She’s 43. White. Her name is Katherine Ray.”
 

“OK...hold on a moment, please.”

She put me on hold and I sat there for what seemed like an hour but which was probably only a few minutes. I bit my nails. I tried to stop crying. Please, please let her not be there.

The line clicked back on. “We do have someone here that matches that description,” the woman said.

I screamed.

“I’m sorry, honey.”

“So, it’s her? It’s really her?”

“I’m sorry but I can’t specifically confirm that or give more information. I’ll have the family call you.”

I could hear the sadness in the woman’s voice. What a terrible job, I thought. To have to break the news of people’s deaths to frantic friends and family members. I felt sudden compassion for her.

“Thank you,” I said. “Thank you so much for helping me.”

“OK, honey. Just hang on and I’ll have her dad call you.”

A few minutes later my phone rang. It was Katherine’s father. He confirmed my worst fears. Katherine was gone.

After we'd spoken, I fell on my bed and wept like I'd never wept before. My beloved friend was gone. I didn't even know she'd had a gun.

Into the darkness

Normal brains move through grief in predictable stages. At least, this is what I've heard. There's denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. But my brain isn't a normal brain. And my brain got stuck. I wasn't "moving on." I was moving deeper into darkness. First came the anxiety, crushing my chest like an elephant. Around 4pm every day, I felt a vise-like grip in the center of my chest. It was hard to breathe. My brain was working really hard to find answers. In the days and weeks after Katherine's death, I developed a morbid curiosity about every last detail of her death. I wanted to know what exactly happened. What were her last words? What did she drink before she died? What was her last meal? Why did she use a gun? I wanted a specific timeline of events. As if having this information would somehow satisfactorily explain why she took her life.

This is what I learned: there were no good answers. There were answers, sure. But none of them explained WHY. None of them gave me peace. All of them just sent me deeper into grief.

I began to stammer. My hands shook. I lost cognitive function. To deal with the anxiety, my psychiatrist upped my Zoloft dosage. This is when I became manic (except I didn't know it was mania). The mania lasted for several months. I barely remember most of it except that I was making poor decisions. One day I decided to lease a new car. Just because. There was nothing wrong with my old Suburban. I just woke up one morning and felt amazing and on top of the world and OH I NEED A CAR TODAY! YAY! LET'S GO LEASE ONE! My husband was not happy with me. I couldn't understand why. Why wasn't EVERYONE EXCITED LIKE I WAS? Another day, I decided to make a bizarre, workout video and post it all over my social media feeds. My kids were not amused. They were mortified. I deleted the video.

The mania ended with paranoia and believing the FBI was spying on me.

It would take some time, but eventually the right combination of medication would finally pull me out of the raving darkness and into the stable light of day.

to be continued....

I don’t have a cute little mental illness (if there is such a thing). I have Bipolar II with Mixed Features. Which is just a short way of saying, Significantly Impaired with a lot of different symptoms mixed in. Mood swings. Paranoia. Mania. Depression. Psychosis. Panic. You know, all the really fun stuff. All the stuff that makes my kids super excited about having their friends over.

It’s humbling to admit I have this illness. I would prefer to tell you that I’m actually a really super spiritual person; that my bouts of mania mean I’m a mystic. A saint like St. Thérèse of Lisieux: all emotional and capable of deep love for God. But then I’d be lying. I’m no saint. I’m just your average, garden-variety sinner with delusions of grandeur.

These posts are about untreated mental illness and also, my journey toward a proper diagnosis and medical intervention. It’s about highly effective, medically prescribed drugs which keep me from wanting to claw my skin off my face (fun visual, amen?) and it’s also about learning how to live as a normal, sane person—because when you’ve lived with illness for most of your life, being healthy feels really, really weird. It takes some getting used to.

These posts are also a love story. They're about my husband, Matt, a fine Scotsman who—despite being a mere human like everyone else—has miraculously loved and lived with someone as mentally ill as myself. Basically, he’s Braveheart without the warpaint. Welcome to our odd little love story.

The End of My Rope

The day I go mad dawns blazing hot. 

The heat makes everything worse—like the fact that government agents are spying on me. They're watching me through my computer and tracking my movements through my iPhone. I know this like I know the sky is blue. It's just an irrefutable fact.

The thing is, I don’t know why they’re spying on me. I don't know what I've done wrong. All I know is that I AM NOT HERE FOR THIS. This is extra basic and not on fleek right now.

What do you do when the CIA is spying on you? Well, you throw an old sock over the built-in camera on your computer, shut off location services on your phone and keep the bedroom blinds tightly closed (in case of spying drones, duh). Take that, ye servants of Satan.

From what I am later told, this episode is brought on by too much Zoloft in my system. Apparently, the Zoloft triggered my underlying illness: bipolar. At the time, though, I don't know that I'm bipolar, only that I've been undergoing various treatments for four years for a variety of increasingly severe symptoms: mostly anxiety and depression.

By midday, I am gnawing on my nails and scribbling in my journal. I’m trying to make a list of things I know to be true. It goes something like this:

1. I know it is Friday.
2. I know The State is spying on me.
3. I know I haven’t done anything wrong. (Have I?)
4. I know I’m a mom who works part-time as a server in a Greek restaurant—OH WAIT! OMG, that’s it. The State suspects I haven’t properly reported my cash tips. 
5. Dear IRS, mea maxima culpa. I get it. I know. I’m a horrible person. I’m sorry. I have five kids. They need things like food (not that I cook) but they need things. Like Netflix. And tacos.
6. I know I’ve been having nightmares—especially that recurring one where I’m arrested and placed in solitary confinement for some crime I don’t remember committing. And nobody will tell me.
7. I know my family thinks I’m going crazy. Well, THEY are the crazy ones. THEY are the unwell ones. Not me. Nope. And anyway, aren’t we all kind of mentally ill? Aren’t we all a bit touched in the head?
8. I know that I grew up in a cult. Such a beautiful childhood. So healthy. So happy. Har-har.
9. I know that I might need help. But I don’t know if I can get it because stupid health insurance companies are stupid about behavioral health. They keep it all hidden and hard to access. They like to give you things you don’t need: like high deductibles. Insurance companies are like Aunt LaBelle who used to hide her cigarettes in the cookie jar and when you went to her house she was like: “Me? Smoke? Never. Here, have an antihistimine”—because you were wheezing asthmatically from all the cigarette smoke that permeated every corner of her house. The point is, insurance companies keep high deductibles in cookie jars.
10. I know that eight is my favorite number. Eight years old was my favorite age. It was the last time I remember being happy. That was the year I climbed the tallest pine tree in my yard and was able to see the Matterhorn mountain ride several miles away at Disneyland. And that made me impossibly happy. I had only been to Disneyland once and it was addicting. I was like Edmund in The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe tasting Turkish Delight for the first time. Yep, I would totally hand over my family to the White Witch for just one more taste of Mickey Mouse. I could eat that Mouse all day. Ew. But alas, I wasn’t in Disneyland, I was in a cult. Thanks for that tiny glimpse of happiness, age eight. Thanks for showing me what was possible and then yanking it away. I won’t see happiness again for another gajillion years. Cue sobs.

Somehow I have enough presence of mind to ask my neighbor to drive me to the hospital...

The young, fresh-faced volunteer at the ER intake desk looks up at me and says: “Just sign here.”

    “I can’t,” I say.

    He looks baffled. “You can’t sign?”

    I lean forward and whisper, “I’m not ok, ok? I’m not ok, ok? I’m not ok—”

    He sees my shaking hands and a light seems to go off in his head—

Suddenly I am being hustled to a chair, papers are given to my neighbor and I’m told just to wait for a moment. I don’t know what is happening. I just sit when they tell me to sit. I just stand when they tell me to stand. Why is that young lady staring at me? Why are the lights so bright? Why are the sounds so loud?

    “Can you hold me down in my seat?” I say to my neighbor. “I feel like I might float away if I’m not pinned down.”

    She presses a reassuring arm on my shoulder.

    Someone is calling my name.

    OH, NO. THEY FOUND ME.

    I look up to see someone all dressed up in a nurse’s uniform holding a clipboard. NICE COSTUME, FELLAS. I know who you are! You can’t trick me!

    “Elizabeth, they just want to check you in,” says my neighbor.

“I just want to die,” I say.

Her eyes grow wide.

She helps me up and I hobble over to the intake desk again. Apparently, the gig is up. I’m caught. Oh, well. Solitary confinement here I come. Beam me up, Scotty.

I don’t remember much of what happens next except that I am asked a lot of questions, taken to a room with a bed and told to undress, told to swallow a pill, poked with needles and, several hours later, sent home with a prescription for Zyprexa and strict orders to call my psychiatrist the following Monday.

When I ask the psychiatric nurse to let me stay, she says: “I’d rather send you home because I think being around other really mentally ill people will make you worse.”

Apparently, I’m not going to prison, after all. Apparently, I have to keep on living. UGH.

Ever since my best friend died by suicide, I can’t seem to get a grip on this new, horrible reality without her.

Katherine is the reason why I used to laugh and now she’s the reason why I cry.     

I really thought I had a handle on this stupid grief thing. Instead, things got worse (witness: the spying drones, witness the CIA tracking my iPhone).

    I thought I was getting better.

    I thought I was moving on.

    You know, MOVING ON. That’s the thing people say to grieving people. They say: “You’ll always cherish the special memories but now it’s time to move on.”

    I wish people would stop saying that.

Because the thing is, after losing Katherine, I didn’t get better. I got worse. I moved deeper into grief, deeper into a dark hole that spilled itself like black ink all over my mind. Losing Katherine triggered all the underlying symptoms of Bipolar II and it came roaring to life like a beast released from its cage.

Katherine, ever since you died:

I can't figure out what to do with all these things I need to tell you.

I can't seem to remember who I am or why I’m here.

I keep calling your cell phone just to hear your voice.

I can't concentrate.

I forget everything.

I imagine your voice in my dreams.

I wish I would have done more to help you.

I tell you everyday how much I love you, how much I miss you, how much I hope you're OK.

Katherine, why did you have to go?

 

Zyprexa zombie

Zyprexa is not my friend. I learn this after the ER doctors prescribe Zyprexa and it wallops me upside the head and knocks me out for sixteen hours straight. When I wake up, I don’t wake up. I mean, technically. I’m awake. But my eyelids won’t open. My eyelids are all: We hate you right now so we are going on strike. Your eyelids will be closed until further notice. Signed, The Management.

This is perplexing. Also, highly inconvenient. Maybe I should just prop open my eyelids with Q-tips. That’ll work. That won’t be weird at all. My kids won’t mind if I drop them off at school with Q-tips taped to my eyeballs.

This could be a new look for me. Zyprexa Zombie Mom. Somebody get me a TV show, stat. AMC, I have a new show for you: The Walking Q-Tip Head. You’re welcome.

Where were we? Oh, yes. Zyprexa Zombie. Let’s discuss how fun it is to show up at your kids’ school in 3 day old pajamas and matted hair. Let’s discuss how many awesome invitations you’ll get to playdates and Moms' Nights Out. Exactly zero.

This is the first thing you need to know about severe mental illness: it is lonely.

    You don’t get invited to things.

    And if you do, the host regrets it.

I mean, there was a time when you got invited to things. But on the day of the party, you were burrowed under your covers convinced the CIA was spying on you through your computer so you didn’t show up for the party. In fact, you completely forgot about it. Throwing the CIA off your tracks was more important. But three days later—in a blind panic—you suddenly remembered: THE PARTY.

You frantically text your friend: Hi, Kate. I’m so so so so so so so so so so sorry I missed the Moms Night Out. I was sick in bed with bipolar 2. It’s a severe mental illness. Have you heard of it? It used to be called manic depression. I can send you some articles if you’d like to read up about it!

    And then you wonder why you never hear from Kate again.

Here’s the second big lesson of mental illness: I am not my feelings.

    Oh, boy. I’m in trouble now.

 Mental illness has taught me that my feelings are not the be-all, end-all of the entire world. The Earth does not spin on its axis because of my feelings. The sun does not rise because I felt like it should. Everything goes on with or without my feelings which is why I need to learn to how to detach.

Detach is a terrible word and I hate it very much. But that’s mostly because I am way too attached to my feelings. I am way too attached to my way of seeing the world. Did you know that the medieval definition of attached was NAILED TO? Yeah. That’s me, alright. I am nailed to my feelings. I can’t go anywhere or do anything because I am nailed to how my feelings feel about where I go or what I do. I am the handmaiden of my feelings. I serve my feelings with gladness and thanksgiving because my feelings are….uh-oh. My feelings are beginning to sound a lot like God.

    Ay, there’s the rub, Hamlet.

 I feel so many things and they feel so very real and yet, those feelings are not me. I am the one having the feelings but I am not the feelings themselves. This is good news because it means I can detach from your feelings. I have the power to change my feelings. Except when I don’t. Except when my neurotransmitters have gone horribly awry and my brain is lacking dopamine and then I'm like: AAAUGH.

 But the point is, once my neurotransmitters are stabilized, it’s actually possible to get a handle on my feelings. This is not to say I don’t feel your feelings. It’s just to say that I don’t let your feelings boss you around. My feelings are not the boss of me. I am the boss of me and if my feelings are getting too out of control, I have every right to put my hands on my hips and say: “GET THEE BEHIND ME, SATAN!”

TO BE CONTINUED..... 

2017 was a rough year for me and so I didn't read as many books as I would have liked. But I did read a few really great books and I thought I'd share them with you.

FICTION:

A GENTLEMAN IN MOSCOW
In this delicious novel, a Russian Count is imprisoned in a hotel after being deemed an "unrepentant aristocrat" by a Bolshevik tribunal. A beautifully rendered period drama, the novel is a story-within-a-story: following the Count's life and relationships inside the hotel while volatile history takes place right outside it. A lovely read.

SING, UNBURIED, SING
Jesmyn Ward's exquisite writing captures the raw, tender life of a troubled family. 

MOVING KINGS
Joshua Cohen writes with an edge. It's been a long time since I read a book that so deeply and succinctly wields descriptive language. Rich character studies. Reminded me of Donna Tartt's "Goldfinch" but with a quarter of the words. Literary-types will enjoy this one.

WATCH ME DISAPPEAR
A quick-moving, fun thriller. I loved this book and gobbled it up in two days. Fans of "Girl on the Train" will love this book.

THE SUMMER BEFORE THE WAR
I will always remember this as the book I was reading when Katherine died. It supplied a momentary relief from grief. It's a charming, witty and very British book about a lovely young teacher who arrives in a small Sussex town to teach Latin during the last, golden summer before World War I.

TURTLES ALL THE WAY DOWN
John Green returns with another teenage love story but this time, our protagonist suffers from a severe anxiety disorder. Gut-wrenching and true-to-life.

Non-Fiction:

I'M JUDGING YOU
It's rare to find a book that combines humor with such varied topics as friendship, racism, rape culture and all the ways we suck at life and how we can do better. Luvvie lays it down true. Don't miss this one.

THE SUBTLE ART OF NOT GIVING A F*CK
I was on the fence about this one but it won me over. Quick-moving insights on life and how to quit carrying the excess baggage of caring too much about what other people think.

OF MESS & MOXIE
Jen Hatmaker is the best friend you need when navigating life's tricky and surprising detours. This book is chock-full of witty insights and tenderhearted stories.

FALLING FREE
Shannan Martin's words were deeply convicting and also, highly encouraging. This is a woman who is truly living her faith. She's real. She's down to earth. I loved this book immensely.

FREE OF ME
This book was the biggest surprise for me in 2017. I went into it unsure whether I would enjoy it and found myself underlining page after page. Sharon's heart of gold shines through every word with compassion and conviction. A must read.

Those were my 2017 favorites. What books did you read this year that you loved?

The Liturgists Podcast has long been one of my favorites. A voice of progressive faith and non-fundamentalist conversations about God, the blend of music, meditation and discourse was always a rare gift.

But something changed for me over the past few months and I stopped listening. I could no longer handle the way they treated female guests on the show.

I looked back at three different episodes to see if I could identify the problem and this is what I found:

There are three behaviors that occur repeatedly:

• a woman makes an intelligent, on-topic point and the men do not respond to her subject matter but respond with a joke. Or...

• they respond by talking about themselves, their own stories, struggles and questions—basically re-centering themselves—

• and sometimes, the men will talk right over her (interrupting/silencing).

The male hosts inadvertently diminish the voice of the female guest by:

• derailing her talking points with jokes
• diminishing her commentary by going off-topic
• not responding to her points at all, and
• re-centering the conversation on themselves. 

Case in point: a recent episode called "Shame."

I actually thought this was an amazing episode and had some really beautiful moments. Hillary McBride was the guest and she provided brilliant commentary about how shame functions in our lives and how it even affects our bodies. 

The trouble starts during the group conversation (beginning at 45:00). As soon as Hillary begins to respond to the questions, things become problematic. The men do not respond to her points but respond with jokes or with their own personal stories. Here’s a list:

A joke about masturbation

A joke about being helpless on a desert island

A joke about favoriting someone’s tweet while on the toilet

A joke about using a gendered pronoun

A joke about Calvinists listening to the podcast

A joke about God’s wrath

A joke about “turtles all the way down”

A joke about back hair

A story about Mike McHargue’s own experience of shame

At this point, Hillary turns the conversation into a therapeutic exercise which ends the joking and leads to some genuinely authentic moments. However, in my mind, the damage was already done. Her subject matter had already been hijacked.

Here are a few more examples:

In an episode called "Names," the female guest shares a poignant realization she had while reading the book of John (15:26) and the men do not respond to this at all. Instead, Mike McHargue launches into a different topic. Later in the show, the female guest shares another story (32:00) and again, there is no response. No followup questions. No further discussion. Instead, Mike McHargue shares another story. Again and again on The Liturgists Podcast, it's as if women are speaking into a void and their words are neither acknowledged nor discussed.

In another episode called "Pale Blue Dot," a female climate change scientist is the guest. While she is given plenty of time to speak without interruption, the same strange dynamic occurs: the men neither engage or discuss her commentary. Either her comments are followed by a musical fade-out, a different question or one of the men changing the subject entirely. It was so strange to me that I wondered if they had intentionally edited the show to sound like a woman sitting alone, talking to herself.

The podcast bills itself as the progressive voice of faith but it functions just like other patriarchal media. Which is to say, it’s two white guys leading and dominating a conversation.

I know the guys are trying to change this, even describing themselves as "reluctant participants" in one episode that addressed female-centric material. I guess what bothers me is the implication that because they WANT to be inclusive, they are. That just because they WANT to be an allies, they have already achieved it.

Defenders of The Liturgists have said that because The Liturgists "give their platform to women," they are, in fact, true allies. It upsets me that women are supposed to feel grateful for being “given” The Liturgists' platform. It reminds me that women are always supposed to be grateful for any scrap that falls from the men's table.

In my mind, allyship is like trust: it's earned. Being an ally is not a declaration. Not a trophy you are handed upon retweeting progressive activists. And inclusivity is not just about inviting marginalized voices to speak, it's also about HOW those people are treated.

The Liturgists like to say that they want everyone to know that whoever you are, you are welcome. But how is this possible when women's voices are silenced? To me, that's just performance allyship.

Mike McHargue talks about how he wants to make things right for the ways he perpetuated harmful beliefs and behaviors in his younger years, but as with all of us, one's advocacy can only go as far as one's healing. One has to wonder if the reason why there is so much silencing behavior is because the podcast's hosts are still wrestling with their own spiritual trauma. 

Here is what i would love to see from the liturgists:

1. Become better listeners: never interrupt a woman while she's speaking. When a woman makes a point—respond to that point (after she's done speaking). Engage her commentary. Ask questions. Acknowledge and respond to her words. Don't use her commentary as a springboard for your own story. Don't ignore her commentary by moving on to the next topic without engaging her first points. Don't re-center yourself.
2. Cut back on the jokes: I know that humor keeps people interested but when dealing with serious subject matter, jokes about masturbation are crass and beneath the dignity of the guest you're hosting.
3. Adopt a posture of humility and willingness to learn rather than being "the experts." When you listen to great interviewers—take Oprah, for example—you will see that she takes the role of learner. She truly seeks to understand her guests and their subject matter. Their commentary is not used to re-center herself.

May The Liturgists Podcast can become the inclusive, welcoming space they are trying to be. I sure hope so because I'd like to listen again.

Many of us who grew up in evangelical purity culture had lives built on faulty scaffolding that crumbled years ago. We rebuilt our lives from scratch. We had to deconstruct—sometimes by burning the whole thing down—before we could see what was worth keeping (if anything) and constructing a new scaffolding upon which to hang our new lives.

I've learned that life post-cult is not easy. There are no easy answers. I've had to learn to think for myself. The process of recovery was (and still is) untidy, gangly, misguided. Like a toddler learning to walk, I've fallen down time and again. My journey has taken more twists and turns than I imagined. And I've made mistakes. Many mistakes. I've even hurt other people in the process of trying to heal. I'm grateful to the friends and companions who gave me grace in these strange, middle places, this wilderness of relearning.

And now, I desire to repay the kindnesses granted to me by extending that same compassion toward Josh Harris.

A quick background: a little over a year ago, Josh and I interacted on Twitter. He apologized for the ways his book hurt me. The conversation picked up some attention and pretty soon, Slate magazine wrote an article about how Josh was "kind of maybe sorry" about his book, I Kissed Dating Goodbye. Then Josh read my first book "Girl at The End of the World." Then we had several long, deep conversations about his book and why what he wrote hurt so many people.

I haven't written about these interactions because I wanted to give it time. But recently, Josh gave a TED Talk about what happened, citing me as the person who started the whole thing for him. So, I figured now is a good time to talk about it.

What I see in Josh is someone who is trying to do better.

And I just can’t fault him for that. It's a helluva lot more than ANY religious leader I’ve ever called out has done. To be honest, it's healing to see someone take a measure of responsibility and accountability for what they perpetuated—even if their process isn't perfect. Even if, in the process of making things right, they make more mistakes. 

I think it’s easier for me to extend compassion because I’ve had the privilege of speaking with Josh personally. I heard his contrition and believe it was genuine. I now count Josh as a friend. Yes, we were on opposite sides of the experience of his theology but we both suffered because of it.

All that said, I've had reservations about Josh's "Apology Tour," so to speak. I'm a bit worried about how his documentary will turn out—will it really be about helping victims or will it be about Josh Harris? And while I'm grateful our initial Twitter conversation got this whole thing rolling for Josh, I know it's much harder to do the real work of change in real life than just offering a public apology on social media.

But still, he's trying to change and he's challenging himself to change. That counts for something in my book. I thought Josh had a lot of good things to say in his TED Talk, even though I felt a bit uncomfortable with how much of the talk focused on his personal journey of admitting wrong vs. what those of us who were hurt needed to hear; i.e. what, specifically, was wrong with what he wrote and how it was wrong and why he believes differently now.

Those of us who were hurt don't really need to hear another religious leader talk about their journey. To right the wrongs, Josh will have to de-center himself and his story. Frankly, he'll have to stop doing things like talking about himself on stage. 

I know that may sound harsh. Listen to me: I forgive Josh but that doesn't mean I need to make him feel better. Soothing Josh's feelings is not my job. He messed up and his book messed people up. There's no changing that. We bear in ourselves the wounds of his misguided and harmful theology. His book was a mega-hit bestseller in our strange, little world of evangelicalism. It's going to take a lot of work to undo that damage.

I can certainly accept his apology; mainly because I want to be the kind of person who accepts apologies. That's just me. I want to be the kind of person who gives others a second chance. Goodness knows I've needed second, third, gazillion chances.

Here's what I know: recovery work is damn difficult and nobody does it perfectly.

In my recovery and advocacy, I've made mistakes, too. I do my best to stay informed and educated. But I'm going to make mistakes. I'm going to disappoint people. I don't expect people to try and make me feel better. Other people's opinion of me is none of my business. But at the same time, I hope there is still space for me. I think there's something beautiful about offering grace to the person who doesn't deserve it.

We don't owe Josh our forgiveness and he doesn't "deserve" our forgiveness. But here's something I hope we consider: there never will be a perfect apology. 

The wounds we've sustained are far too deep and too lasting for any human apology to mend. There will never be an apology which will make everything ok. In my own experience, only God can heal those deepest wounds. 

I also want to remember that Josh was a victim of his own theology and childhood abuse. This is a hurt person who, in turn, hurt others—he just did it on a grander scale than most of us will ever have access to. 

I can have compassion on Josh because I see someone who—though his experience was one of fame, recognition, validation and worldwide "success"—still suffered deeply as a result of his own fear-based theology.

When the fame faded, when the lights went down, when the applause stopped—I'm guessing he got to experience the vacuum of emptiness and loneliness that many of us had already experienced as the direct result of what he was doing onstage. 

Josh will have to rebuild his life just like we did. He will have to deconstruct and resurrect a new scaffolding to hang his life on. He's really just at the very beginning. I guess what I'm saying is: I'm willing to give him time.

I'm tired of being angry. Anger served me well at the beginning of my recovery journey. But anger is an exhausting emotion. It takes a lot of energy to sustain anger. My anger just doesn't serve me anymore. Perhaps this is why I'm willing to give Josh a second chance. I've healed from a lot of the damage caused by fundamentalism and evangelicalism. From this vantage point, it's probably easier to extend forgiveness because I don't need him to make it right for me. I already did the work.

I just hope he doesn't give up. The road ahead isn't going to be easy. But the Josh I got to know over the phone and via lots of messages isn't going to give up. It's going to take time—if I had to guess, at least ten years—but I think he'll keep going. I hope he does. I hope he earns our forgiveness. I hope he's able to forgive himself. I hope he gets to experience life on the abundant side of grace. I hope we remain friends.

Matt says the plumber Did a Bad Job. Matt doesn’t cuss so he says things like: “That dude did a half-butt job patching up the hole” which I find hilariously uncouth.

I follow Matt into the hardware store because I don’t want to be home alone with my brain. It’s been playing tricks on me lately and Matt is the only person who can take one look at my face and know if I'm losing touch with reality. He’s my DIY psychiatrist. I like to keep him on hand for emergencies.

We're shopping at OSH which stands for Orchard Supply Hardware but I like saying “OSH” because it’s more fun. Usually I don’t accompany Matt on these home repair errands because, well, I used to think it was boring. The world of DIY home improvement is a foreign land to me.

Matt is saying words that sound like English but which I don’t understand:

Rapid Set Stucco Patch

Vapor Barrier Stucco Backing

Stucco Float

Concrete Rubber Bucket

Saw-All

I follow him around like a duckling, listening to him talk with the OSH guy about things I have never heard before and I wonder how it is he has managed to keep this manly world of trowels and wire cutters private from me. Then I remember that for the last twenty years or so I’ve been chasing delusions of grandeur. Also, this manly world is boring.

I pick up a broom and a roll of masking tape. I carry the broom on my shoulder like a fishing rod. I imagine myself as Huck Finn, trawling Aisle 32 for channel-lock wrenches, whatever those are.

Matt says: “Why did you get the corn stalk broom instead of the synthetic, angled broom?”

I don’t have an answer for this except that it looked like how a broom was supposed to look: like something a witch would ride.

“Angled brooms are better,” Matt says and so we switch them.

I feel proud of my new angled broom. Take that, ye dust bunnies. Wouldn't it be wonderful if this new, angled broom could also sweep away the dust bunnies in my mind? Tidy it up? Sweep it clean of its bipolar dirt?

“Am I boring you in here?” Matt asks.

“No,” I lie.

The truth is that I’m bored stiff but I much prefer boredom to being at home with my rapidly deteriorating brain.

“I think you need a nap,” Matt says after we pay for our stucco and trowels and broom.

“Yes, I think you’re right,” I say. “Home repair is exhausting.”

Q: In the book you write: "When we gauge our sense of security on things like low crime rates, high-achieving schools, and padded retirement accounts, what we're essentially saying is, "We'll take care of ourselves, thank you very much. We've got this." Honestly, it's really hard for me to think otherwise...I have felt for most of my life that it's MY responsibility to find safe, good schools for my kids to live in. Now that you've lived this new life for awhile, how have your kids adjusted? How did you—practically speaking—overcome your fears of living in a "bad part of town"?

Shannan: Trying to stop solving my own problems was one of the most challenging heart shifts. It was also really necessary in order to trust that God is so much bigger than we can comprehend.

In some ways, my family was sort of forced to recognize we were in over our heads, which honestly helped.

We had so much transition coming at us and we were losing so many things, including
our sense of control (financial and otherwise) along with our basic reputation as good, Christian
people who had their lives together. During those times, we found ourselves needy and desperate
for the compassion of God in a new way.

Because of the abundance of our community, we are surrounded by people who don’t have it in
them to pretend to be something they are not. When we moved, people were lining up to tell us
we were going to ruin our lives. We were afraid we would arrive to gangs, drugs, and crime. And
on its face, that’s exactly what we found in pockets. But we also found a community that teaches
us about dignity, generosity, community, and grit. Once we actually got to know our neighbors
and started walking with them through everyday life, the potential problems became distant
background noise.

We have been here for five years now. This is our new ordinary. Our younger kids, now ages 12,
11, and 9, adjusted really easily. For our two youngest, this is by far what they remember most of
life. It’s interesting to think about how that will shape them into the future. I was raised in a
really homogenous, tiny, rural community and though no one overtly taught me to fear the
“other,” over time, I just did. We can’t love what we don’t know. My hope is that in living in a
richly diverse neighborhood, in terms of race, socioeconomic structures, and politics, my kids
will hold a wider view of the kingdom of God and understand what it means to live as neighbors
within it.

Q: 4. Your chapter on hospitality struck a chord with me, especially when you wrote on page 133:
"But it seems the best way to welcome the broken neighbor is by hanging up the charade that weare somehow more whole." This really flies in the face of the Put Together Christian who, out of some kind of spiritual noblesse-oblige, helps the broken other people. Has this way of
hospitality brought new and true relationships into your life? How has it leveled the
playing field in terms of realizing that not only are you serving others, but THEY are
serving YOU?

SHANNAN: Yes! I don’t think we can claim to give hospitality if we aren’t ready to receive it, especially inunlikely places.

Jesus was a pro at receiving hospitality. He modeled this far more than he
modeled the flip-side. My whole perspective on hospitality has shifted pretty dramatically. In my
“old” life, when I hosted, I definitely wanted to bless people, but I also wanted them to be
impressed with my skills. It was more about hiding all of the chaos and clutter and creating this
enchanted reality that I don’t actually live in.

I still enjoy throwing a real party now and then.
There’s nothing wrong with doing that. I just can’t roll that way in my regular life every day. For
one thing, I couldn’t keep up with the sheer pace if I was still trying to be fancy.
Our home has become the landing place for friends in work release who need somewhere to
spend their Sunday pass after church. The house is always a disaster when we walk through the
door together, but they don’t even notice. They don’t care that I usually serve soup. In fact, they
are more comfortable with really simple, familiar meals, so I have learned to save the
adventurous, foodie side of me for other days.
 

I want to provide a tangible place of welcome for lonely, weary souls. I want to give our friends
the true solace of home, where they know they belong just as they are. This is something I’m
actually learning from them. So if you ever come over for dinner, (and I hope you do!) you will
probably find me in yoga pants and no make-up. The sink will be full of dishes. The plates might
be paper. The kids will be naughty and loud. The bread might be burned. But with any luck,
we’ll see ourselves in all of it, and remember we are fully loved by God and each other, no trying
necessary.

TO WIN A COPY OF SHANNAN'S BOOK, PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT OR SHARE THIS POST ON SOCIAL MEDIA WITH THE HASHTAG #EEAUTHORINTERVIEW

After three years in 12-step meetings I stopped attending over a year ago. I had learned what I needed to learn and it was getting to the point where the group dynamics were backfiring for me. I didn't know it at the time, but the way 12-step programs are set up and organized can actually be damaging for people with religious trauma.

When I first started attending, a therapist of mine expressed concern because she said 12-step groups can sometimes function like fundamentalist groups. I disregarded her advice and lived to regret it. 

Here are a few problems I encountered in 12-step programs:

SAYING A PRAYER IN UNISON: One of the very first things that happens at the start of a 12-step meeting is that everyone says the Serenity Prayer together. But for those of us with religious trauma, this can remind us of chanting or communal prayer which was used to manipulate our state of consciousness. It can seem as if we are being forced onto the same "wavelength" as everyone else. For survivors of spiritual trauma who have fought so hard to regain our God-given freedom, this can almost feel like a personal violation.

SLOGANS: 12-step programs are full of slogans which members repeat to each other. Things like: “It works if you work it” and “One day at a time” and “Keep Coming Back” are repeated so often that they almost function like magic spells. For those of us with religious trauma, using a slogan can remind us of when people responded to our pain by quoting Christian platitudes or Bible verses: “All things work together for good!” or “Prayer Changes Things!” Whenever I felt vulnerable enough to share my pain and someone replied with a slogan, it paralyzed me.

CODED LANGUAGE: 12-step has its own unique language and is protective of how 12-step literature and pamphlets are used. Only “conference approved” literature is allowed in most meetings and members are discouraged from directly referencing outside material. This was a big red flag because I grew up in an environment where only “approved words” were allowed. As a newcomer, I once made the mistake of sharing about an outside-of-program book that was helpful to me and was interrupted by another member. She literally interrupted me right in front of everyone and said:  “we don’t name other books during meetings.” The embarrassment I felt reminded me of being shamed for reading anything other than the King James Version of the Bible.

THE PROMISES: at the end of many 12-step meetings a list of “promises” or “blessings" are read to the group. These "promises" are like miniature pep-talks that promise future success in life if we just work our 12-step program. The first time I heard “the blessings,” I had to restrain myself from bursting into laughter because it reminded me so much of prosperity gospel preachers promising us financial wealth if we just had enough faith (or gave our money to the church). 

THERAPY is DISCOURAGED: 12-step groups take a rather dim view of traditional therapy and counseling. While it’s generally acknowledged that many people do seek therapy, the perspective of most 12-step programs is that therapy can only go so far. I’ve heard from many sponsors and people in the program that therapy can help identify the reasons why we behave self-destructively but can’t help us change our behaviors. They are quick to testify that only 12-step programs actually saved their lives or changed their lives.

I would like to clarify that I do indeed believe 12-step programs work for a lot of people. I don’t dispute that. I’ve seen firsthand the positive outcomes for people and members of my own family. But I know there are others like me for whom the 12-step programs did not work—in fact, they may have even damaged us further. And it's important to me that our stories are heard.

The reason I chose to write about this was because every time I expressed my concerns to a sponsor or other member of the program, I was brushed aside. I even had a sponsor once tell me that: "Well, even if it IS a cult, it's a healthy cult."

Friends, there is no such thing as a "healthy" cult. And if your gut is telling you something is wrong, LISTEN. We have fought hard for our freedom. Nobody can take it away from us—unless we let them, unless we give it away. Remember: there is always hope.

The same hope that found you inside the cult can also heal you outside of it.

And for me, hope arrived in the form of helpful therapists and counselors. If I would have listened to the advice from 12-step groups, I wouldn't have found the healing I so desperately needed.

We all need a helping hand. We all need community and connection. It's ok if we can't find that in 12-step groups. We don't have to feel ashamed if 12-step groups don't work for us. God is big enough to find us wherever we are. There is always a path to healing and there is always hope.

I went to Mailboxes, Etc. last week and after that I started adding "Etc." to everything I said. Get dressed for school, Etc. Do your homework, Etc. Give me all your money, Etc.

It works for a variety of scenarios including highway robbery—if you're into that sort of thing. It also made me realize I would like to change my name to Elizabeth, Etc. 

Elizabeth, Etc. would be less confusing for everyone especially the people who can't figure out whether to call me Elizabeth or Esther. Or Elizabeth Esther. Or EE. It's totally a branding problem.

Elizabeth, Etc. takes care of that quite nicely. It encompasses all the iterations of my name, including my alter egos and various personalities that seem to appear when I'm manic. Elizabeth, Etc. Branding problem solved! I should go into marketing.

Anyway, the reason I was at Mailboxes, Etc. was because I had to submit my fingerprints for my new job. I don't know why, but submitting my fingerprints made me paranoid. I was like: "Did I commit a crime I'm not aware of? What if I have a secret criminal record that I don't know about and the FBI is just waiting for me to submit my fingerprints and then, WHAMMO, I'm locked away for 50 years without parole?" See, this is why I take medicine.

So there I was standing in line at Mailboxes, Etc. and there's this old dude in front of me who also came in to get his fingerprints done. But he was not happy about it. He wanted everyone to know that this fingerprint dealy-o was a "total racket" and that he was Very Angry About This Great Injustice. 

I was standing behind him silently judging him in my head: I think your real problem is switching jobs too frequently. Maybe try sticking with one job for awhile. Not that I have any credibility, here. I'm just the failed writer who can't seem to hold a job. But I try, friends. I try.

The Mailboxes, Etc. clerk was trying to be kind and helpful but the old dude just kept going on and on. Finally, the clerk was like: "I have an idea. Here's the number for the fingerprint company, you can call them and ask them to use the same set you submitted last time. It hasn't worked for anyone else but maybe it will work for you."

The point is, don't be that guy. If only because it's too exhausting. Why waste energy railing against the injustices of fingerprint systems? Maybe it's just me, but it seems like there are more important ways to spend my energy. Life, etc. Happiness, etc. Love, etc.

Let's discuss life for one minute. There's a little cliche I've come to despise. You see it everywhere. Plastered on signs. Hand-lettered on chunks of reclaimed wood. Stamped onto burlap garlands. LIVE. LAUGH. LOVE.

I hate that phrase. 

I realize it's supposed to cheer me up, make me think positive thoughts, maybe heal all my childhood traumas. But instead it just makes me ragingly mad. It makes me want to shout LIVE. LAUGH. BARF.

But that would be inappropriate so I don't shout, I just write about it on my blog.

Look at me turning into Grumpy Mailboxes, Etc. Guy.

I'm sorry, but there are just some things that should not exist. And that stupid phrase is one of them.

Do you know what's weird? Now that I'm all stabilized on my medicine, my brain won't let me freak out about stuff anymore. It's annoying. I miss freaking out. I miss my feels.

Except that while my medicine works on my head, it doesn't seem to work on my stomach or my jaw. Which is to say, the only way I knew I was getting nervous about my new job was NOT because I was having anxious thoughts—my thoughts were super chill—but because I had a stomach ache and I kept grinding my teeth at night. It's weird to have my brain on vacation while my body is still here in this REALLY OVERWHELMING LIFE. I miss having a full-being freakout. You know, where my brain is going a million miles a minute and my hands are shaking and my stomach is cramping and everything is working beautifully together to remind me just how awful life is.

Just kidding. I don't miss that. 

I certainly don't miss the mania. Or the crashes.

Life has become suddenly, rather boring. Is this how normal people feel all the time? I ask myself. Like, they just go through life without panicking over mailboxes, etc.? You guys, I'm turning into a normal person and this is very, very strange. I don't quite know what to make of my new normal. My family seems to like it, though. They have a No-Freak-Outs-Mom and apparently, kids dig that sort of thing. WHO KNEW. Life is strange, etc.

If you buy an individual sized Fage greek yogurt you will notice a pronunciation guide on the side of every carton. Fage (pronounced: fa-yeh!).

Yes, it has an exclamation point because nobody talks about Greek yogurt without proper pronunciation and excitable punctuation.

Pronounced fa-yeh!!!!!!!

I am a real Greek. My maiden name is Geftakys. Well, that was the Americanized version. Family lore says that when Great-Grandpa George came through Ellis Island in the early 1920’s, the customs agent changed our Greek last name to something more pronounceable in English. Hence: Yeftakis became Geftakys.

Back to yogurt.

i am perplexed by the packaging of Fage Greek yogurt (pronounced: fa-yeh!. 

With the small carton you just peel back the foil lid, mix in the fruit jam and begin eating. If, however, you buy the larger size, things get a bit more complicated.

First of all there is the plastic lid which is whatever. Everything has a plastic lid. No big deal. But the question is: why?

Why does the larger Fage yogurt (pronounced: SHUT UP!) get a lid and the little, individual sizes get none? It’s not fair. Does this mean the little guys can keep themselves all fresh and Greek-y with just the foil lid? Is it because they’re so small and cute and nobody would suspect them of going sour?

I suppose it’s like Spiderman: with great yogurt comes great responsibility. More yogurt requires more lids. Might as well double up. It’s also sort of like birth control. If you’re smack-dab in the middle of your most fertile years, double up. You’re going to need a plastic lid and a foil one.

Of course, we can’t forget the round parchment paper that is underneath the foil lid, sitting flat on top of your yogurt.

This parchment, we learn, is supposed to absorb the whey that rises to the top after yogurt is made. This parchment, I say, is terrifying—especially when you go to take your first bite and up comes your spoon there it is, this horrifying slimy thing hooked on your spoon like some beast rearing up from the bog of your yogurt.

You didn’t know the Loch Ness Monster lived in Fa-YEH! yogurt, did you?

This parchment paper is a hazard and there should be warnings. I mean, what if you’re looking at your phone checking Facebook and whatnot while you and you absentmindedly dip your spoon into the yogurt? Then you bring it to your mouth and Fa-HEY! Monster paper on your tongue. Not that I’ve ever done that.

There are other considerations pertaining to Greek yogurt: mainly, is one supposed to stir the yogurt before consuming it? Is Greek yogurt like Laura Scudder’s (pronounced scuh-ders) peanut butter? You stir before eating?

Because that means there’s just one more opportunity for the monsters among us to make themselves known. You know who you are: ye non-stirrers of the peanut butter. Ye lazy lobsters, you. NOT EVERY PEANUT BUTTER IS JIFF!

Modern life is overwhelming for me. So many options. So many different ways of eating the same kind of food. So many different ways of flushing a toilet.

I was in the airport last year on one of those super rare occasions where I have to fly (which is terrifying all by itself) and the airport toilets were a mystery to me. There were so many options for flushing. I just wanted the one that said: LEVER HERE. But instead there were diagrams and flowcharts (har-har) and even little drawings depicting the forcefulness of each flush. Do you prefer the single drip flush? The double drip flush? OR THE MEGA WHOPPER OMG DID THAT JUST COME OUT OF ME flush? I go for the mega whopper every time. Because I like killing the Earth. Kidding. It's because I’m super paranoid that the next person in line will come upon my excretions.

I have issues. I don’t like the way we flush our toilets and I don’t like the way we eat in these modern times. Then again, now it’s trendy to eat like they did in the olden days. Like Neanderthals. Or Paleo-enthals. Look, I have deep suspicions about the Paleo diet thing. I just know those olden-day humans were sneaking in Wonder Bread with their side of cow.

You know there just had to be some kid choking on the parchment paper of his Greek yogurt and then saying: screw it! And eating peanut butter straight from the jar. Without stirring it.