Two Years

I havent posted anything in a really long time, but for some reason, the feeling just seemed right today. So here goes.  

Two years is supposed to be the bench mark for people that under-go traumatic experiences for life to return to normal. The depression is supposed to subside, anxiety should normalize, and life should go on as it was. Ive heard this from my neurologist, therapists, and psychologists-- so you could say it is a pretty universally agreed upon situation. It has been 717 days, and that means that in just 11 days, my life should be as it was. 
Let me just say, this is bullshit. 

Just because I survived my car accident doesnt mean that I didnt lose my life. Granted, I am blessed beyond belief that my heart never stopped beating, but I lost something significant that night that I will never get back. I'm a different person, and even if my temperament returns to what it was, I can't imagine I'll ever trust people the same, or view society in a way that I used to.

I think a lot of people think of traumatic experiences in different ways. For a long time, I underestimated my own situation, because on the outside, I was fine. I only just realized recently that if I had changed one aspect of the moments leading up to getting in the car that night, I literally would not be alive. I think that's something that a lot of people forget-- simple acts have a lot of power over us. I didn't consider the fact that I almost died as something serious because I wasn't in a hospital bed, but in reality, I did almost die-- and that's not something you can see with the naked eye. 
I just want to take some time to encourage people to redefine their definition trauma. Trauma comes in all shapes, and often times people can't see it.

This post has been a bit of a ramble of lots of thoughts, but I want to end with my goal for these words. I hope these words make you feel something. I hope these words encourage you to reach out-- reach out for support, or reach out a supportive hand. I hope these words encourage you to be kind.

Thanks for taking the time to read my thoughts.

Advice

About a month ago, I was sitting at home attempting to sign up for spring term classes, when naturally I became overwhelmed with every aspect of my life. As someone that's been battling depression for nearly a year, this is unfortunately nothing new to me. If you have depression, you likely very well know that any act forcing you to evaluate life choices, or make life choices, or really, do things in general can be quite taxing.

During this particular situation, I actually felt the ability to do something productive, so I went ahead and sent an email to a former teacher of mine. In my email, I talked about my mess of a life that started right after my car accident, and ended with a request for advice-- any sort of advice.

The email I got in response was the best advice I've ever received. The first part of the advice I got was an ancient Chinese story that I will now paraphrase for you.

There once was a dude that won the lottery. Out of his excitement, he ran to his grandfather and exclaimed, "this is the greatest thing to ever happen to me!" Of course the grandfather was a bit of a cynic, so he just told him "maybe". A few days later, he's driving his rich person car to the bank to deposit vast amounts of money, like all rich people do. When suddenly out of no where, bad guys just appear and steal his car! They break his legs, take his money, and leave him defeated and alone. Feeling completely ashamed, he limps to his grandfather to tell him that if he hadn't won the lotto, this never would have happened, and he would still have legs-- so surely winning the lotto was the worst thing to happen to him. Naturally, his grandfather just responded, "maybe".

There's of course more to this story, but for this purpose, I can end the summary there.

Following this story, I was told that sometimes things seem bad, and turn out to be good. Or they seem good, and turn out to be bad. The truth is, there's really no way for us to know.

As I type these words out, they seem a bit like bullshit and ramblings, but as I read them for the first time in that email, I couldn't help but cry, feeling like I had just unlocked the secret to everything that has ever happened to me or anyone in the world.


The next part of the email was hands down the best advice anyone has ever blessed me with. I was told that the mind can mess with you in about a million different ways, but it doesn't have to win. And that my friends, is what I remind myself of everyday.

No matter how depressed I feel, I don't have to act that way. Granted, not acting depressed when you truly are depressed can be the struggle of a lifetime, but it's important to remind yourself that you're in control.
Whenever I'm feeling especially weak, I just think about my ability to not punch people in the face every time I'm angry, and I remember that I'm a strong woman in control of my emotions, no matter how fast I feel I'm spiraling out of control.

I hope these words of wisdom affect you as much as they affect me. Also, I just want to add the fact that I am certainly not the genius that crafted these few ideas, I'm just hopefully sufficient at paraphrasing.

What's Wrong With Skinny Bitches?

So I love a trendy pop song as much as the next white girl, but lately I have really been struggling with some of the messages that are being sent to women. 

I know, some one has a problem with the ideas suggested by pop music. Shocker, right?

But seriously, hear me out.

"All About That Bass" by Meghan Trainor is for real my jam. From the moment I heard it on the Today show, I fell in love. I thought it was clever, I love the beat, it's a simple catchy song, and best of all, it fits my voice like a cashmere sweater. Singing it just feels so right, up until she starts talking about skinny bitches-- then I get real conflicted.

I feel so empowered by the beginning of Trainor's song, because for once, a truly catchy song is calling out media for using Photoshop to distort society's views on what women are supposed to look like. She later claims she's "bringing booty back", which I'm totally fine with. But then, she insists on telling "the skinny bitches" that she is in fact bringing that booty back. 

Here is where my internal conflict arises. To her credit, Trainor does follow that line by saying she's only playing, but I do not think that justifies the prior statement. My true problem with this song is that it gives skinny women a negative reputation.  There are so many other choices of words she could have used to get her point across, but instead she picked a word that makes girls with a smaller figure feel yet again inadequate. Regardless of the fact that she is making the claim that all women are beautiful, she's inadvertently suggesting the complete opposite when she regards the thinner women.

And, seriously, skinny women can also have "all the right junk, in all the right places". The real message that we need to be sending is that everyone should love their junk just the way it is, and most importantly, show love to everyone's junk. Trainor puts in a good argument, but in my opinion, she falls short in what she is trying to prove-- because she had to call skinny girls bitches.

There's an episode of 30 Rock in which Tina Fey's character suggests that we can't all go around calling each other bitches and sluts, because that only makes it okay for men to do it. And I can't think of a better way to summarize my argument than with that point.

Also, I could write an entire book on what is wrong with Anaconda, but I'm just going to leave this with the fact that women need to respect women, regardless of size, shape, or coverage of the ass.

Why Community College Is Actually Pretty Great

So, seeing as I spent my last school year completing an internship in the middle of nowhere, this is what I like to call my first "official" year of college. I mean, sure, taking online classes can still gets you student discounts, and I was doing stuff, and getting credits. But online classes nowhere compare to actually going to school. Even if that school is a community college 20 minutes from home.

This month is going to be a tough one for me-- as I can already feel my demons coming towards me at full speed. Nearing the year anniversary of the hit and run I was in is already giving me more anxiety than I though was even possible, and more existential thoughts that I want to deal with. So on that note, I am making a conscious effort to recognize all of the positives in my life.

Recognizing the positives is a tactic I developed in the spring to assist my chronic negativity during a time that was supposed to be one of the best of my life. Because for some reason, writing things down makes them so much more real. We can always change our memories by labeling them with an emotion down the road, but when we write down a happy experience while it's still a relatively recent occurrence, we can't argue with ourselves in hindsight.

My best example of this comes from something I wrote exactly six months ago today. In my "happy" journal, I don't always write full sentences, in effort not to over think the funny or happy or serendipitous occasion. So on the page for March 5th, among other things, I have written "hitting Tyler in the face during the Coal Mine." That's it. One fragment of a sentence, and I have myself laughing at the thought.
I like to think that had I written this down somewhere else, in a different context, it would mean something completely different. But having written down a fragment of a memory in a sacred happy place makes it impossible to think that this occasion was less than hilarious. (And I can assure you, this was hilarious. My lack of coordination, mixed with a breakfast dance, mixed with one of my best friends was in-arguably funny to not only myself, but to him as well-- and likely all the kids that saw).

So, while I am still basically in the "Excited New College Student" Phase, I want to talk about why college is absolutely wonderful. Even if it is just community college.

You don't have to talk to people you don't want to. 

When you see someone from the same high school as you going down the hall, it's completely acceptable to ignore them completely. Which I can really sum up by saying...

 No one is pretending 

Everyone is just going to school, doing their own thing. No one acts like they're better than you, because we're all just getting an education from a school that basically requires a beating heart to attend.

Professors are pretty great

This one is probably true for most colleges, but my teachers aren't terribly concerned with us liking them, or their views. They have a degree in what they are teaching! Lets be honest, in some of my high school classes, I'm pretty sure I could have taught the content better than some of my teachers, but in college, you are paying someone that actually, undeniably has a degree in what they are teaching.

You can sleep there

I take naps on the grass outside between classes, so, that's a definite win.

You can be friends with anyone

There are no social groups formed, so you can literally talk to anyone you want. If you want to be friends with the people from your high school, cool. If you want to be friends with the grandma in your Drawing I class, cool. If you want to be friends with the random stranger at the lunch table next to you, cool.

FREEDOM

I show up at the school when I want, and leave when I want, and take the classes I want. I do what I want.

It's for me

The past year of my life was me doing the best I could to help others. And now, it's my turn to help myself. College is all about me! And not in a selfish way, because that's legitimately what college is all about. Bettering yourself so you can move forward. And that is exactly what I need at this point in my life.




So even though my list is only seven things, I think it's a pretty great list, and just rereading it makes me feel better about where I am in my life.
With my demons breathing down my neck, my best defense is to remind myself that, when you think about it, life is actually pretty great. I may need reminders like this daily that my life is in fact good, but this way, I never forget.

Mod Podge Magazine

So, even though I thought I understood that completing this journal would be a challenge, it would seem that I vastly underestimated how hard it is to destroy.

One of my favorite pages that I did in my journal was the one instructing me to glue in pages from a magazine and circle words that I like. This page was practically made for me for several reasons.

1. I love cutting magazines. I don't know why, I just always have. Actually, I think it's because the paper just cuts so well, even when you're using incredibly dull, childproof scissors. When I was little I spent so much of my time just cutting up pages from catalogs that had come in the mail, and placing all of the strips and scraps of paper into old mayonnaise jars.

•  Anyways, the point of that little anecdote was to emphasize the fact that I was way too excited about cutting a magazine. 

 2.   I really like to glue things. There's something about glue that just works better than tape. Unless it's the really fancy roll of double sided tape. But glue can bind all things, so I was very excited.

3. Most importantly, I was instructed to circle the words that I like. This task was made for me. I love words. I enjoy circling words in books that I read for leisure-- so this, this was perfect. In the various articles I selected there were so many lovely words... fluke... shouty....leggy... adventure... wilderness... thwart...jaunt... clever...punctuate. It was so lovely. 

Now, because I was so excited about the project, I literally spent hours making it look exactly how I thought it should look. And just to be sure, I sealed the page with mod podge, because even though the point is to wreck the book, I could still protect my project.
 

Wrong.

 I was so so painfully wrong with this assumption. For those of you that are considering mod podging pages in a book, I urge you to not. The glue like substance is-- though smelly-- wonderful at binding to everything. Including itself.

Though the pages I had decorated were completely dry, the humidity in the air allowed the two pages to permanently cling together when the journal was closed. I have peeled apart these two pages countless times-- each time wrecking the journal more and more.


It has resulted in the following.

Mod Podge also makes pictures have a glare, so, that's that.

As promised I tried to get some better pictures of my journal. I even used a fancy camera, but I'm not in any way, shape or form a good photographer. I tried to be fancy with the angles, and this was the result. The point is, the magazine is peeling off of itself like crazy, and now, it does not at all resemble what I had in mind.

The once perfect images and quotes all regarding the incredible Harry Potter have been tainted almost beyond recognition.
Okay, so they're still very recognizable, but the once perfect collage is now just a mess.

It's painful to realize that no matter how hard I tried to protect this particular page from getting destroyed, my efforts ultimately backfired.
 Embracing the destruction of something that you spend so much time on is a difficult task.

But I have realized, that now, there's space for new creations where the pieces of magazine of torn off.

Where my meticulously planned out creation has flawed, there is now room for some spontaneous creation. Which can mean many things, but most likely, it means glitter.

Wrecking my Journal

Dirt

As the name of my blog hopefully implies, my goal in writing these posts is to not only get over the trauma from my car accident last September, by ultimately finding the beauty within the damaged.
Now several months into my blog with not much progress, I have decided to begin analyzing my journal, in hopes that I gain some insight to... life?

For those of you that are unfamiliar, Keri Smith is a wonderful woman that has created the concept of the "Wreck This Journal". As readers of my blog, I find it highly important that you all understand the directions that I am following when I complete the pages in my journal. 

1. The journal must be carried with you everywhere.
2. Instructions must be followed on every page.
3. The order of completion is not important.
4. The instructions are open to interpretation.
5. Experiment. 

So similar to my actual journal, I'm not really going to follow any particular order when I blog about the things I have done with my journal. Except now, maybe.
One of the first pages I did instructed me to "RUB HERE WITH DIRT". So that's what I did.

If we're lucky, as the blog progresses, these pictures might gain higher quality. 

 But only if we're lucky. 

So, that's some dirt, on paper, yeeeeeah.

When I started this page, I literally just went outside, and smudged both of the pages entirely with a dirt-sand combination that just happened to be right outside of my door. And only was it once I had the whole page covered that I realized I wanted to make something a bit more noteworthy and, well, artistic. This flower, is far from how I typically draw such things, but I still like the way that it looks. The mountain range of the left page came quite a while later, after I acquired some inspiration from a wander in the woods. I'd like to say that my little mountain range here is a spitting image of the master piece I was looking at along the horizon-- but that would be a blatant lie. In all honesty, this is just the best I could do whilst finger painting-- however, I think with these, there is a lot more to them what initially meets the eye. 

The flower, though not what I had expected, is a reflection of how even something as messy as dirt can  create something of beauty. Now, I don't say this as a new and ground breaking concept, but the point is, I didn't expect my creation to necessarily look good, because, c'mon, it's literally dirt on paper. But as I was making these two, truly astounding pictures, I found that I was actually not only making the paper a bit more shiny, but I was starting to glimmer as well. 

For those of you that don't often spend time rubbing your hands in dirt, there's something special that happens where all of the little flecks of sparkly minerals cling to your skin, and make you look ultra tan and glittered. But there truly is something beautiful about letting yourself get a little messy just for the heck of it.

This is the "ah-ha" moment-- by getting more messy, I became a bit more beautiful and real. Furthermore, by literally destroying a small portion of the book, it became so much more beautiful than just a blank page. 

As I continue to blog my way through this book, my goal is to keep these thoughts in mind, because some pages will definitely be harder to complete than others-- due to the fact that it is a bit of a moral dilemma to destroy a book, even if that's how you follow the rules.

Numb

Sometimes when you have depression, it seems like the constant pain and aching of your soul is the worst possible thing to feel. Which would make sense, because it's rare for someone to want to be a mess of emotions-- especially when the vast majority of these emotions are negative. But recently I found out that that's only the case if you don't know how it feels to be completely, and I mean completely, numb.

Numbness is far worse than hurting. Hurting isn't easy, by any means, but it at least reminds you that you are still able to feel. Going numb immediately brings the fear that you might not ever be able to feel again-- that those happy feelings are irrevocably gone forever.

At the very least, when you're constantly in a state of hurting, every once in a while there's a glimmering situation that makes everything seem possible-- and not everything is an abyss of suck. Because that glimmer in the distance is the reason to keep going.

The blog Hyperbole and a Half is easily the most influencial piece of work that encouraged me to start blogging. This is a blog I heard of last summer, before any of my depression started, and it really stuck with me. I didn't read the blog until one day in January sitting in my cabin, and I can't even begin to explain how much her words resonated with me, and I find myself comparing a lot of what I'm going through to what she has blogged about-- most of that being from her Depression Part II post.

I often think of the way that she looks at the concept of being numb, and how it's incredibly freeing. I entirely respect her view on this, but I've come to the point where I cherish all feelings because those good feelings are what we have to live for. Furthermore, numbness is incredibly frusting when other people are doing everything they can think of to make you happy, and all you can do is sit, and not want to participate in anything. It's nothing personal to other people's efforts, it's just indifference to absolutely everything. This is maybe the worst part, because it's impossible to not get frustrated with your depressed, ungrateful, numb self.
Numbess leads to a lot of self loathing, which is something else in Hyperbole and a Half that I think a lot about. I like how Allie explains self loathing in her blog with her little drawings. Mostly I just reach this point when I feel like I can't even pretend to apprecaite other peoples actions for me.
The last part of Allie's blog that really sticks with me is her "pea" moment. Over the last 5 months I've had one of these moments, but she's not kidding, these "Aha" moments really do a lot. I was standing in the dining hall talking to one of my co-workers about how I was considering quitting my job due to my inability to find any joy or purpose in where I was at. I had told her I needed to quit, and right as I sat down at one of 13 tables in the hall to eat, I found I had seated myself at the spot with the "special" knife-- and began sobbing and laughing all at the same time. I couldn't quit my job when I had just beat odds 1 to 130. It's such a small coincidence, but it was like that knife had showed up just at the right time in my life and changed my perspective on everything.

Since that night I have come to the conclusion that we get exactly what we need right when we reach our breaking point. In the same way that the special knife showed up just when I needed it most, I think that a lot of the people in my life have shown up the same way. I truly am blessed by the people that God has placed in my life, and I pray everyday that I can show them the gratitude they deserve.

I guess really what I've learned most from the marginal amount of numbness I've experienced recently is that pain will be temporary.