Valentine's heart shaped cakes, invincible summers, and how much of a bitch our internal voice can be

 {via.}

Back in 2010, I talked a lot about the Darkness. I went through a pretty rough time back then, and even though I did again this past fall, I didn't want to talk about it as much to my friends, to my family, and to you guys.  That was a bad decision. I should have opened up. I should have made it clear how much I was hurting. I should have asked for help.

There was one person I turned to. In September, I started seeing a therapist. It was hard, because my family had always seemed like a strictly don't-need-outside-help family. But by turning to a complete stranger, I discovered something I probably never would have found out otherwise: I was not the first person in my family to see a therapist, and I won't be the last.

But those stories aren't mine to tell.

It was such a relief to know I had my family's support behind me though, because what I learned next made me realize that I needed, and still need, all the support available to me.

As my therapist got to know me, he sent me to a psychiatrist. He dropped hints for why, but it wasn't until the psychiatrist said "Do you know what Bi-Polar Disorder is?" that I realized I was being diagnosed with something significant and long-lasting.

I didn't tell anyone what they told me immediately. I needed to digest it on my own; I didn't want anyone else's opinions influencing what I thought. A couple weeks later, I started reaching out to people, but abruptly stopped again. I was told, by a well-meaning individual, to stop sharing. That this disorder was something no one else should know about me, because it would change what they thought of me.

Well, to hell with anyone who's opinion has changed. Because, frankly, this is who I've been for a long time; longer than most people have known me.

I will be honest: learning that I have Bi-Polar scared the hell out of me at first.  BUT when I thought about it, I realized it explained so much:

• The writing sprints I went on during  high school where I didn't sleep for nights in a row but instead stayed up writing then went to school the next day, not tired at all.
•  The crushing weeks at a time when I didn't want to have friends anymore and only went out because I felt obligated.
• In college, my total inability to get out of bed for anything for weeks, followed by weeks when I would not only go to class but would participate, would do all my work for the whole semester, and still find time for friends.
• My weird habit of making tons of friends and keeping up with all of them for a while, followed by pushing them all away and cutting them out by any means possible.

So, I'm not really any different now, except that I know what's going on, and I know why. Though BPD is scary (and anyone who has it knows why), it's such a relief for me to know, because now I feel like I can handle it.

In late September, I hit a low point. I came out of it by late November/early December but I knew that it would come back for me soon because of the stress of moving. I hit an up cycle in early January, and it lasted until the crushing frustration of not having a real place to live and feeling a little unwelcome in DC. After weeks of seeing ALL THE APARTMENTS, there were several days when all I had the energy to do was sit on my friend's couch, watching reruns of Bones, and eating Valentine's heart shaped cakes.

Now that I have a place to live and a little furniture to sit on, I'm doing a little better. I'm still a little lower than normal, mood-wise, but I can make myself get out of bed, and I'm not going through a box of cakes a day. My feelings are still hurt more easily than normal, and I'm incredibly sensitive to rejection: two symptoms that I know mean I'm not doing well.

But I know things will level out soon. I'll feel better as spring and then summer comes, and maybe I'll hit a manic stage where I want to DO ALL THE THINGS and GO TO ALL THE PLACES, but things will chill out again. And now that my boyfriend knows, a few of my friends know, and my family knows, there are people who can bring my attention to what's going on when I don't notice it myself.

So I guess what I'm trying to say here is this: Acknowledging that something is going on is hard; seeing a therapist for the first time was hard. But it's harder to do battle on your own. Because when you have depression or bi-polar disorder, it is a battle -- it's a daily battle to not listen to the voice in your head that tells you that you're not good enough, to just give up, to withdraw or to do something stupid. It's feeling like you're stuck out in the cold alone, with only the terrible things you tell yourself when you're at your worst to keep you company.

That voice in your head is a bitch some times. And frankly, a liar.

So you need your back up. If people tell you not to tell, don't listen to them. Always tell. Tell someone what you're feeling. Even if you think they won't care. Even if you've never met them. Hell, tell me. In fact, I'd love for you to tell me, because then we can fight this together.

And if people's opinions of you change, fuck them. Chances are, this has always been part of your personality, at least a little. Don't let the fear of judgment stop you from taking care of yourself. As Albert Camus once said, "In the middle of winter I at last discovered that there was in me an invincible summer."

Find that invincible summer. And if you can't, let someone help you.

It's Closing Time

Everyone knows that song Closing Time, by Semisonic, right?

This song is what my life feels like these days. And I'm sure that everyone that graduated from high school or college from 1998-2000 said the same thing, but I identify so strongly with this song these days that every time I hear it, it moves me in a way very few songs have before.

Closing time. Open all the doors and let you out into the world. 

I'll be honest: As I get ready to graduate from college on Saturday morning, I'm nervous. I'm excited and thrilled, and really proud of myself for actually doing this because I had so many opportunities to not, but I'm also nervous about what comes next. I've always known what the next few years of my life would look like - this is the first time I don't have a plan like that. It's cool and wonderful, and also a lot of pressure. Going out into the world, the Real World, finally.

Closing time. Turn all of the lights on over every boy and every girl.

I keep thinking about that moment when I walk across the stage and am handed my diploma. What if I trip? I probably will because, well it's me and I fall a lot. And I tripped at my high school graduation, so I might as well trip again. I know no one pays attention at graduations, but my family and a lot of friends will be there watching that moment directly in the spotlight.

Closing time. One last call for alcohol so finish your whiskey or beer.

My friends and I have been doing a lot of weekly happy hours this semester. I'm going to miss that as we all graduate and move elsewhere.


Closing time. You don't have to go home but you can't stay here. 


I never quite considered College Station 'home,' but I will be sad to leave it. It's true that I can't stay here - this city was good for college, but there's nothing here for me career-wise. It's too small, and I'm going to be working in big cities. Capitals.


Closing time. Time for you to go out to the places you will be from.

I've kept this a secret for a while now, but I suppose now is as good a time to announce this as ever: Soon, I'll be saying that I'm from Washington D.C. I'm spending the holidays with my family then I'll be D.C.-bound after the first of the year. I'm doing an internship up there for the semester then... well, who knows? I've loved D.C. for a long time, so I'm excited for that city to become a place that I call home someday.

So gather up your jackets, move it to the exits. I hope you have found a friend.

I've found friends in college. Some of them are moving to D.C. with me, which I'm excited about, and that makes the move a little easier. I've stayed friends with the most important people from high school. And as cheesy as this sounds, I've made a friend of myself. The most important thing I've learned in college is to be faithful to myself, true to my needs and desires, and to love myself. It was a tough lesson, but the most important one the last three and a half years could have ever taught me.

I know who I want to take me home.



But that's for another post.



Take me home. 

Closing time. Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.

remember that one time I was mess? here's why, and how I'm okay now.

 {via.}

About this time last year, I posted a few emails my friend and I exchanged. Partly because she is one of the best writers ever and I couldn't have summed up what she said any better than how she said it, but also because I was too tired, too sad, too heartbroken to write something down myself. I felt dried out, and empty, and utterly just shattered.

The pieces of my life were sitting there on the ground, and I didn't have the energy to pick them up.

And so I let my friends pick them up for me. Cyndi gave me energy to breathe deeply again and get out of bed. That was probably the biggest thing I needed. The sweet comments left on that aforementioned post helped me clear my mind and see that I would be okay again, someday. Another friend reminded me how to laugh, one reminded me to focus on myself and my hobbies. Eventually, I could write a post about taking a mental health day, and in December I was able joke a little and make a list of nouns I refused to put up with from men in the future (which is still true). Eventually I was able to write one of my favorite posts ever, love, loss, hope, repeat. I was fortunate and the next guy I started dating (and am still dating) passes the nouns test, and is also just a generally good person.

So I guess what I'm saying is that even though that was a painful time, I'm glad I went through it. I'm different because of it, but in a good way. I've stopped dating assholes, and I've learned to take my time when falling in love. And I've learned that my pride/personality/life is mine and even when some guy cheats on me but actually doesn't because he's only pretending he's single but actually has a girlfriend that is studying abroad and you catch them together when she comes back to Texas during her European fall break to surprise him (deep breath) that doesn't change who I am. It doesn't make me less of a bad person that I fell in love with him, even if maybe it does show that I didn't always have the greatest taste in men.

It hurt my pride, but at the end of the day, I'm okay. Hell, I'm better than okay. And so this is a thank you to those that stood by me, to those that encouraged me, and to those that turn their nose up at him when they see him at the only supermarket in town.

The Girl Effect: Donations

Who runs the world? GIRLS.

Today, I want to tell you a very personal story, one I haven't shared with many but that I've told myself a lot before falling asleep at night. It's not a story just about me - it's about me, my mother, and her mother before her, and a million other women like them.

I grew up the daughter of a poor mother. Well, she wasn't poor by the time I was born. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

My mom was born in El Salvador, the youngest child of a sometimes-single mother. Her father was in an out of the picture, sometimes a wonderful and supportive man, and sometimes a man who took the money they had for food and spent it on alcohol. Sometimes, they didn't eat at night. Or all day.

But, they had a house to live in, and clothes to wear. Her mother, my grandmother, insisted that her daughters get an education, a good one, even though she herself had never made it past middle school. Their life was hard, but they worked hard to make up for it.

Throughout the 1970s, a civil war was building in El Salvador. My mom has told me once that as tensions escalated her friends disappeared from school. There one day, gone the next, sometimes never heard from again. Often, she suspected they were being kidnapped and forced to fight in one of the various gangs that was trying to gain control of the country.

Her mother sensed that it wasn't safe for my mom and her sister to continue living there. They escaped to the United States just in time.

Here, they tried to establish a living. Fortunately, they had family that they could stay with, and so my mother and her sister continued going to high school in California, and they worked hard after school to make rent and to put food on the table. They worked hard to learn English and to fit in. They wanted to be part of America, not just in it. When they graduated, my mom considered just getting a job to support her family. But her mother insisted - she would go to college.

What a wonderful thing for my grandmother to force her to do.

It took a long time, but my mom put herself through UCLA. She was one of very few women in her engineering program. She faced adversity - women didn't major in engineering yet. She was supposed to get her "MRS degree", marry rich (it was LA), and have a few kids. She didn't - she worked her ass off to finish her engineering degree while still mastering English and graduated at the top of her class. She went on to work for a few well-known companies, spending 20+ years helping make one the company it is today. Now she's a leader at a multinational corporation.

Today, she doesn't have to worry about putting food on the table. She doesn't have to worry about whether or not she'll be able to send her only child to school. Instead, my mother has a savings account and knows that whatever the world throws at her, she will be okay. She is stable, she is safe, and so is her whole family.

Pretty far from some very humble and worrisome beginnings, huh?

My mother is an amazing woman. She stood up for what she believed in - that she deserved an education and a chance as much as the boys - and earned everything that she got. And this is all because another woman invested in her - her mother.

So, thank you Abuela for the life I have today.

Throughout my life, my mother taught me that I was so, so fortunate to grow up the way I did because all this, all that, could have not worked out - she could have been forced to leave school in order to work, or to get married young, and to perpetuate the vicious cycle of poverty. Instead, she was lucky because my grandmother was a smart woman and she ended up living a wonderful, successful, and healthy life.

Sometimes, this story makes me want to tear my hair out because, well, how the hell do I live up to that? When my mother fought tooth and nail to survive in this world but I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth, how do I earn myself a place? How will I ever make my mother half as proud of me as I am of her? And then one day I realized how.

My mom taught me one other thing: That as someone on this side of the poverty line, the lucky side, it was my job to help pull other people across in any way I could. Her story reminds me that it only takes one believer to do this.

So, learn about the Girl Effect.  Learn how you can help one life, one family, even one village by investing in just one girl. I know first hand that it works because I am the result.

 {This is my mom, back in El Salvador after twenty+ years.}

Interested in spreading awareness of this problem? Join the Girl Effect blogging movement. Write your own post about this from October 4-11. Here are the details. 

[Want more statistics? Read these.]

the elephant in the room. the big, graduating elephant in the room.

 {via.}

This is a stream-of-consciousness post. I'm sorry if at parts it doesn't make sense, but if I didn't get it out I was going to lose it. 

I'm back stateside now. [Photo blogs and more about China will come soon.]   

I'm back stateside and back to real life. The real life where I have to write my senior thesis, asap. The real life where I'm graduating from college in December, in four months. The real life where I'm supposed to be applying for jobs or grad schools. The real life where everyone expects me to have my shit together, and I don't.

I talk about this a lot. This whole not having my shit together thing. I know sometimes I think I'm really really sure; I'm like, FOR REAL REAL THIS TIME GUYS.

But now it's crunch time, and I'm NOT for real real sure. Yet, post-graduation plans are all people seem to want to talk to me about these days. And no one wants the "I'm not sure" answer. I'm sure there are hundreds of people in the same position as me being asked the same question and giving the same answer, but right now I feel like the whole world is watching me. Everyone is waiting to see if I can sink or swim, but no one seems ready to throw me a line if I need some help.

Right now, I'm just paralyzed. I'm not sinking or swimming: I'm just barely keeping my head above water. Everyone is watching and it's taking me all my will power to not close my eyes and scream at them to just leave me alone for a second so I can figure my shit out. Jesus, let me think. Please.

I feel like I have so much to prove, to everyone - to my parents, to my boyfriend, to my school, to everyone who ever wrote me a recommendation letter, to everyone who ever scoffed at me for being proud that I'm Hispanic even though I have green eyes and blonde hair, to my status as a first-generation American on one side of my family, to the UCLA legacy I haven't acted on, to the side of the family that's watching me be their first college graduate this generation, to the old bosses that said I'd go far, to my fucking next door neighbor when I was twelve who was the first person to ever call me 'brilliant' - but I don't even know what I'm trying to prove.

That's the scariest part. It's all this pressure to prove that I'm something when I don't even know what that something is. It's too much pressure, it's way too much, and I feel like I'm being set up for failure.

The life goals, the long journeys, and the homesickness

One of my life goals was to travel alone. I thought it would be so cool. I’d get to explore a city on my own, do whatever I want, not have to be on anyone else’s time table. Just me.

Traveling alone was going to prove that I was capable, that I was strong, that I was  Grown Ass Woman.

It was and did all those things. For a while.

But there comes a time when you’re traveling alone that you just want to be home. It doesn’t matter if it means going back to a town where you don’t fit in, or a roommate you don’t like, or a job that makes you die inside. You want those things because they’re familiar, because they’re easy; they don’t come out of a suitcase and they smell the way you remember.

My parents just spent a week in Shanghai with me. It seemed like perfect timing: I was eight weeks into my sojourn in China, I was starting to feel like I gelled with the country, and even though I was almost as new to Shanghai as they, I could act like a guide to some extent. We had a lot of fun.

Just a little while ago, we got in taxis. Me back to my dorm, them back to the US. And I started bawling. Seeing them leave made me realize how much I wanted to go back with them. It took all my self-restraint to not say “Take me with you! I’ll sleep on the floor in economy class, I don’t care!”

Somehow, I didn’t. I held my ground. I knew I needed to stay in China a while longer. Alone.

But I’m not ashamed to admit that I cried the whole cab ride back.

I say all this because it made me have an epiphany: The journey to becoming a Grown Ass Woman is like a really long trip you make alone in a foreign country. There are other girls out there on the same journey I am and our paths will cross occasionally, like my path occasionally crosses with other travelers through China, but this is something we most have to figure out on our own. All we have to guide us are some obscure tips written in the margins of a Lonely Planet guidebook from a generation ago.

Some days, the journey is thrilling: exciting people to meet, places to go, things to learn about yourself. Hopefully this is most days. Some days, it sucks: You have to pack or spend a day on the train or you just feel stuck and bored.

Then, there are the todays. The days where you’re frustrated with yourself and this journey and your internal monologue is screaming “Why couldn’t you have just been content at home? We were okay there.  It was comfortable, it was easy, why did you have to leave? Why couldn’t you have just been happy where you were? Let’s go back. NOW.”

It’s a valid question. The answer? Because you just weren’t happy there and then. That’s all. There’s no way around that.

And so you pick yourself up and you keep going. You stand your ground. You willingly go through a bit of discomfort so you can experience some joy for once. Because even though today you just want to hide in your old life, tomorrow might be a wonderful day in your new life, and you can’t deny yourself that.

I threw out a lot of my old clothes in the past two weeks. I was always a t-shirt and jeans kind of girl, a tomboy. I rarely wore pink.

Today, I’m wearing a light pink top that I wouldn’t have been caught dead in just this past May. I bought a girly hat that I would have never picked out for myself six months ago.

It’s not comfortable, but it’s not uncomfortable either. It’s just new, it’s different. Even though I will probably always pick mudding with the boys over shopping with the girls, becoming a Grown Ass Woman has included an evolution in the way I dress, and I’m learning to be okay with that. It’s new, it’s different, but frankly, it’s a little like China.

Not every day is easy or comfortable or happy. Some days, I’m going to want to put on a tshirt and jeans, just like some days I’m going to want to go home. But the important thing is that I don’t – that I stick with the journey, that I embrace the discomfort, that I allow myself this time to travel alone because what comes out of this trip is going to make me so much happier than what I had before I started out.

Today, I...

{mine.}

I miss Sweet Eugene's coffee.
I miss playing with puppies.
I miss watching reruns of Inuyasha late at night.
I miss walks in the park.
I miss laughing at nothing.
I miss tickle fights.

I think I'm starting to feel a little better.
I think journaling daily is helping a lot.
I think I'm starting to remember how to smile.
I think I actually might like being single.
I think I may still need medication.
I think getting a puppy may be in my future.

I am thankful classes are already done for the week.
I am thankful that I get to spend this weekend with my family.
I am thankful for friends that make sure I get out of the house.
I am thankful my parents are moving back to DFW.
I am thankful for blue skies.
I am thankful for supportive readers that encourage me almost every day. <3

The Darkness

{via.}

I sat staring at this blank screen for about an hour. I didn't know where to start. I knew this was something that needed to be put into words -- not as a cry for help but as a moment to be truly honest about something that I normally hide from everyone, but I didn't know how to say it.

The fact of the matter is that I've probably had Seasonal Affective Disorder since middle school. Or maybe it's Major Depressive Disorder. It's never really been cleared up. I've had bouts of depression during spring/summer, but it's always been worse during the winter months, when I feel like everything around me is dying.

That's how I feel right now. Like I'm dying. More specifically, I kind of feel like I'm drowning. Like I can't breathe correctly. Like I'm swimming against a very strong current, a current that is trying to drag me down to the ocean floor. You know how when you're underwater, you can't hear anything correctly? I feel like that too, like the whole world is out of tune, like there's some kind of impenetrable membrane separating me from everyone else.

Perhaps I should say here that I'm not suicidal. At all. I want desperately to run away because I feel trapped in this town, or perhaps just trapped in my own head, but I know that I'll be okay again and that makes this bearable now.

This is the worst I've ever felt though. It's like I can't function properly. My heart and mind physically hurt, like every heart beat and every thought is a physical exertion that I just won't be able to complete again. I'm exhausted constantly. My whole body aches. I've been sick for weeks now. I can't sleep for days at a time, and when I finally do sleep getting out of bed is a multiple hour long argument that often includes me crying at some point. In fact, I cry for no reason these days; I'm crying as I type this just because I'm thinking about crying. I feel like I'm losing my mind and there's nothing I can do from teetering on the edge of total collapse as the walls close in around me.

And yet, I have no desire to be on medication. It's partly from a pride stance, but it's also because I don't want something that will "even out" my mood. I still have good days. In fact, I have days where I feel like I'm flying, like I'm unstoppable, like the world could not be more wonderful. I've had a day like that this week. I remember how to laugh on those days. And I don't want the meds to take those days away because if I can't fall asleep hoping the next time I wake up will be one of those days, I might actually lose my shit all together.

But nights like tonight, when it takes all my willpower to not just curl up on the floor of my closet and cry, or use one of my even less healthy coping mechanisms, I start to think maybe I should set my pride on the shelf along with the good days, and take something to at least make me feel like I'm going to make it to spring.