My Testimony...One Who Has Greatly Conquered

My life has been a journey of epic proportions. I have been through highs and lows and the only way that I can describe it is that it ebbs and flows, like the ocean’s tides ebb and flow. One of the things that I enjoy about this ever-changing lifestyle is that it is always constantly changing. As the waters of a river are never the same at any given moment, the story of my life is ever-changing. On the flip side of it, I haven’t been given the kind of stability that I have craved, but that is one of only many things that I may have missed out on in my life. Nonetheless, the events of my life have shaped me as a person, but they do not define my future. I am not defined mainly by my past, as I am defined by many aspects of my life. No one aspect of my life takes precedence, as no one feature determines the organism as a whole. Rather, it is all the characteristics combined that form the organism.

                My journey starts in the windy state of Wyoming, where I was born on a cold January morning to my parents. Being a child of a tough pregnancy, my mother was glad when I was born. She had many mornings where she was praying to the porcelain goddess, and there were even a few times where she was hospitalized due to severe uterine infections. I came as a healthy child with no problems, unlike my brother, who ended up having seizures several years after he was born. My parents were glad for this, as they were emotionally exhausted from having to take care of my brother.

                Throughout my childhood, I thought of myself as a diva. I loved to sing. My earliest memory of singing consisted of me trying to sing louder and better than my peers. Other than that, I was a daddy’s girl. I loved being around my father, especially when he took me to McDonalds on the weekend. I would play in the PlayPlace while my dad would eat. I don’t remember much about my mother except that she worked during the day while my dad took the night shift and would sleep during the day. He was a very loving father that dutifully took care of my brother and I whenever he could. The one thing that I found troubling was that I often craved for attention from my parents, but I was often turned away. That is when I decided to take up being around with others my age, or being down at the creek by my house. There I would catch snakes and other living things and would put them into containers that I pulled out of the trash. Often I spent my whole summer down at this creek, investigating things both upstream and downstream, and my hair was bleached a beautiful platinum blond, which proved to be my pride and joy. One summer, while looking at what was downstream, I found a makeshift treehouse among a cluster of trees.

                I loved the treehouse, but I hated the smell. Surrounding the treehouse arose the stench of decomposing leaves and “blueberry mud” (mud that I found mottled with black decomposing matter), but I didn’t find that to be a deterrent. I still played among the treehouse, often on my own, during those long summer days. I would often return home with sand in my shoes, hair and clothes and wound up smelling really bad from handling the blueberry mud all day. What I enjoyed most was perfecting my skills of catching the little minnows that called the creek their home. I became very adept at seeing these fish and following them to their hiding spots. I often was not afraid of sticking my hand underneath rocks, despite the fact that crawdads, too, resided in these waters. Often, I brought these minnows home and tried to keep them in a fish tank that my brother had. Not one of them lived for long, as I didn’t know what they ate nor did I have the capacity to properly care for them. This did not deter me from catching more of these little striped fish and bringing them home.

                Often I had fantasies about what resided in these waters of this creek. In one small pool, I envisioned a large fish splashing about. I never saw this fish, but I still thought that one existed. As a result, I never went near that pool of water.

                The creek that I knew of is now blocked off by a chain link fence. Even though I now can’t go near it, this creek still evokes many memories of many summer days. It will always remain open to me in my imagination, evoking images of me catching many creatures and bringing them home, sometimes without the knowledge of my parents.

                As a child, I loved animals. I remember spending some time watching veterinary shows and admired what these people got to do. I was very outspoken about animal abuse and other things that would cause animals harm that they didn’t have to necessarily experience. One of the things that I was outspoken against was the declawing of cats. I thought this to be cruel and taking the freedoms away from such majestic animals. When I got my first cat, I was ecstatic. Here I was, given the responsibility for caring for my first pet, which was a black and white long-hair Ragdoll named Chase. He had very eccentric patterns, especially at night. He would often crawl up next to your head and would sit there, purring and kneading (sometimes it was the pillow, but other times it was your scalp). If he wasn’t doing this, he was often running around the house, chasing things that were unseen in the inky darkness. After I got my first cat, I was offered a volunteer position at a nearby animal clinic, which I relished.

                I was immersed in my own world to notice the rumblings at home. My mom was absent from home for days at a time, but I often didn’t notice it. It wasn’t until after I had gotten my first volunteer position at 12 years old that I really began to take notice of what was happening between my parents. The first day that I volunteered, my father had forbid me from doing so, but I still decided to go up to the clinic anyways. I came home later that night to a cop car in front of the house. I said where I was, and was surprised to be able to volunteer anymore. The reason that the cops were called was because it was my mother’s turn to take my brother and I, and she wasn’t happy that I wasn’t at home.

                My mother decided to move out around December 2001, in which my father had shared with my brother and I that she was gone and wasn’t coming back. I felt sad because I loved my mother dearly and wasn’t sure that I would see her again. After a few months of not seeing my mother, she suddenly came back, with a man that she had met and decided to move in with. He was tall and skinny and proved to be a person that would change my life forever.

                This man, George, proved to be a very abusive man. He would drink strong alcoholic drinks and would therefore not be in control of his anger. There was one night in particular that I remember very well. My brother, George and I were all playing Monopoly together, and I was starting to become discouraged because George and my brother were both winning and I was losing (as evidenced by the little amount of money that I had compared to them). My mother took notice and suggested that they allow me to win for once. George, who had been drinking earlier that day, flipped out and lost it. I don’t remember much about the details that went on that day, but I did remember that George and my mother ended up in a fight. My brother walked out on the fight, intent on getting to my father’s house on the highway, while I stayed and observed the whole fight (sometimes I ponder what would have happened had I walked out with my brother-would my mom have gotten arrested? Would she still be alive? Would I have to live with the memory of George for the rest of my life?). My mom and George began to yell, then my mother sat down for some reason (I don’t remember why). George then took her head in his hands and said, “I’m going to fucking kill you!” My mom, pleading for her life, told me to call the cops, which I did. George then let go of my mother’s head and the two of them then took the argument to the kitchen, where they threw glasses at the wall, and finally they took it to the bedroom. In there, they physically fought, my mother biting and clawing George and George pinning my mother down. There was a loud thud and then my mother came out of the bedroom, holding her head, saying that she couldn’t remember why they were fighting. She proceeded to sit down, and George left, intent on trying to find my brother. Not long afterward, the cops and paramedics came, and my mom was taken to the hospital, where she was diagnosed with a concussion. She was later taken away in cuffs for domestic violence. I witnessed several more fights, each of which were burned in my memory forever.

                The details of that night may be out of order from what I have recalled here. After that night and witnessing the other fights that my mom had with both George and my father, I would become extremely sensitive to when another fight was going to start up between my mother and those that she was romantically involved with. I remember one other time after this that my mother had gotten into a verbal altercation with someone that she was romantically involved with. As soon as that happened, I proceeded to hide underneath the stairs outside of the apartment of this person my mother had been dating. My brother followed, and I told him that I was scared that the cops were going to be called and that my mother was going to be arrested again. I remember that my mother had been arrested three times for domestic violence and that after the third arrest, she spent several months in prison. During her stay, I remember visiting her once. It was hard having the inch of glass between her and I and only being limited to a matter of minutes with her. I never wanted that to happen to her again. (And another thing that happened after this was that I no longer trusted men, seeing that they would get angry easily. It took me years of being in the presence of men at my church for me to finally realize that my experience of men was not a common one and that men weren’t as scary as I portrayed them as being).

                Custody was a hard thing to have to endure during childhood. As soon as I would get comfortable staying somewhere, I would be shipped off to another place, often for months at a time. I loved both my parents dearly, but with one spending most of his days sleeping and the other caught up in her relationship with her new love, I began to feel the weight of how truly alone I was. I was always a social outcast among my peers, but I often didn’t care. I found enough to do on my own that I never realized my loneliness. It wasn’t until I was taken out of my own world that I began to realize my life in reality. I began middle school as a social outcast, and that is when I met Brittany Fiechter and Courtney Brown. Brittany and I were in the same choir class together and we often drew and laughed at each other’s pictorial portrayals of the teacher banging on the piano, trying to get the class to settle down enough to begin singing. I remember that this class was a class in which things were being thrown to and fro: binders, pencils, paper; you name it and it was something that was probably thrown across the classroom. It wasn’t until my birthday that I realized what I was doing was wrong.

                The teacher gave each person a pencil and a certificate for each person’s birthday, and mine was no exception. I got mine and decided to lay it out in the open next to my stuff on the counter. By the end of class, The certificate was in shreds on the floor and my pencil was missing. I felt so dejected by it that I began to cry. That is when my teacher had printed me a new certificate and gave me another pencil, which made my day. After that, I decided to quit making fun of her, which eventually cost me my friendship with both Brittany and Courtney. They allied against me and spent the school day talking behind their hands about me (I knew because I often heard what they said as I passed). I made my final pronouncement to them: “I’m walking out with my head held high!” I tried to ditch the rest of the year because of the humiliation that these girls brought upon me. To make matters worse, Brittany was friends with the police officer in the school, who then sided with Brittany. I was portrayed as the problem in the school, so I didn’t want to ever come to school again. However, my mother found out I was ditching and forced me to go. I hated that year! I failed all of my classes except for choir!

                The next year proved different. My mother decided that she needed to move to the Northern Colorado area, away from my father and stepfather. In her mind, they were working together to get her arrested. Whether this was real or not is something I don’t know to this day. This was the beginning of my mother’s decline. She began to fear people and to think that people were out to get her. She believed that she had to pre-emptively strike people before they were able to get her. She alienated herself from the rest of her family and began to date. She ended up going through a different date every week when we were in the northern Colorado region. She often would excuse these dates by saying that they were because of these men. I believed this for years. It wasn’t until my senior year of high school that my eyes were becoming gradually opened to the truth behind my mother.

                This year I had changed schools, since my mother decided that it was time to get her own place. I observed her dating and began to see that my mother wasn’t all that she was making herself out to be. She became very controlling of me, to the point where she would often threaten to evict me if I spent time with other people. In order to finish high school, I abided by her rules. As soon as I began my freshman year in college, I began to slowly drift away from her. I spent less time at home and more time in ministries in my college and at my church. If there was choir practice, I often found a way to be there and not at home. This was because I felt that my mother was smothering me emotionally. In the middle of this year, I began to look at Colorado Christian University, as the university that I was attending was too big and impersonal I thought. The more I looked at the college, the more I loved the sight of it. I eventually decided to transfer, but not without resistance from my mother.

                My mother didn’t want me to attend this college and especially didn’t want me to live on campus away from her. She threatened to commit suicide until I told her that I would live off-campus with her, but I persisted. In January 2010, I moved to the on-campus residences at the college.

                This was a huge step for me to take that would lead to one of the biggest decisions I have ever made in my life. When I moved on campus, the relationship became strained to the point where I was forced to either end the relationship with my mom or discontinue seeing my dad. At this point in my life, I was distanced from my father for about seven years, so I felt entitled to see my father at least once during that time. This ended up making my mom so mad that she eventually disowned me (she told me in a phone message that she wished that I was never born and that I was no longer her daughter). After I got the message, I tried to work things out with her, but the damage was done. At the end of January, I made the decision to keep her off campus. When that boundary didn’t keep her from belittling me less for the decision to see my father and to respect him as a person (she wanted me to get $500 a month from him in order to send it all to her), I decided to change my phone number and block her from my e-mail. I thought I had all my bases covered and that she wouldn’t contact me anymore.

                Toward the beginning of March, 2010, I end up getting a message on Facebook from her. In it, she belittled me and told me to get my stuff from her apartment or it would be gone. I disregarded it until I read to the end of the message, then my heart sank and sheer panic arose within me. Toward the end of the letter she began expressing how hurt she felt (however, I learned later that this was more of a means to control me rather than a true expression of her feelings). She ended the letter with a suicide threat. Knowing that she was capable of taking her life and confused on how to handle it, I decide to talk to my Resident Director, who then instructs me to call the police. I do so, and as soon as I’m off the phone with the police, a friend of mine calls, asking for my mother’s address. I ask her if my mom left a suicidal message and she confirms, so I decide to give her the address for my mother. This all seemed a dream to me, and I remember it all as a blur. I remember praying, asking God to make sure that my mother is all right. Before I know it, I get a call back from the police. My mother has been taken to the hospital. She did take a few pills, but she was mostly out of it and not overly hurt. Relieved, I break down in front of my Resident Director (by that time, my father and my brother were there as well and were in the room with me as I got the phone call. They had thought that my mother had indeed taken her life, but my tears were tears of joy. Thank God my mother’s okay! I thought as I hung up the phone. My mother’s safe, I don’t have to worry about her anymore!

                It turns out that night, she was released the same night and not held for a suicide hold. I found out later that year that this happened and was infuriated. How could the system fail her? It was obvious that she needed help, and they   failed to give her the help that she needed! To this day, I feel like the system that is meant to protect people from hurting themselves and others has failed. I cannot rely on anyone to help my mother get the help that she so desperately needs, except through the power of my own personal testimony. Even though the story pretty much ends here and you know the rest of my   difficulties (transferring schools and the financial problems I faced by doing so, my not-so-recent diagnosis), my story will never stop being written, just as the tide doesn’t stop ebbing and flowing and the waters of a river are constantly moving. When my story is finished, my life will be too. I hope that I will influence the lives of others in a positive way and that there will be many people that will be able to say good things about me at my funeral. The biggest goal I have in my life right now is seeing to it that my mother will get the help she needs. I know that one day there will be someone that will listen to me and will take what I have to say about my mother seriously, and will help me to help my mother get help. In doing so, I hope to bring healing to my family and a fair bit of closure. However, I know that there is also the possibility that my mother will take her life before I can help her get help. If this happens, I know that it is not my fault that she would take her life. In the meantime, I have to resist the urge to wish that my mother would take her life (this would bring a lot of closure to the family and would be the end of her seeking me and my brother out at the cost of the rest of the family’s happiness and sanity), and hope that she is out there and will be receptive when the time comes to contact her. I must keep my hopes up and my head even higher and finish college on a high note. I know I’m a survivor, but I must live not as one who merely survived, but as one who has greatly conquered.

My Philosophy Explained: Two Cases

                What is my philosophy in life? I would say that my philosophy in life is to pursue what you want to pursue despite what others say you should pursue. If you love something or someone enough, there will be nothing that will stop you from doing what you want to do or being with the person you love. When it comes to people, you have to respect their boundaries. I don’t know how many times guys have asked me out on the bus, or have violated some very personal boundaries without getting to know me as a person. It freaks me out when guys touch me in some intimate way or want to have sex on the first date. The rules of winning a woman over is to move very slowly, and allow the woman to set the pace. Don’t assume that if she is letting you touch her hair that she is ready to make out. I had one guy take me to a dark area and rub my neck. This really turned me off, as I don’t really know him. He then progressed to trying to French kiss me. This was a no-no. Granted, I will no longer see this guy again due to my fear that he will fondle or rape me, I have learned that I am not anticipating dating anytime soon. Guys should honor this and try not to force themselves on me, as I am not ready, nor do I think I ever be, for that serious relationship. Really, since I have no feelings for this guy, I don’t think we can progress much further than just fellow students studying with each other. This means no kissing and no hugging, but it also means that I will be within my own comfort zone and there won’t be things done that either one of us will regret.

                When it comes to pursuing your dreams, I would say to go for it as long as it truly makes you happy. There will always be that person that chooses to be the one that talks down to you. Don’t allow that person to discourage you from doing the things that you love to do. Dream big, aim for the sky and shoot. The worse that you can do when shooting for the moon is to fall short and land among the stars. I have discovered that life is riddled with its difficulties, but these difficulties have the power to render you a helpless, crippled , crying heap or they can build you up into a better person, it is all in how we choose to view life that determines whether or not we will be effective people or ineffective bumps on a log. Don’t allow anyone’s talk bring you down, do what you love and love what you do (just as long as what you love to do can also pay the bills). So don’t be afraid to aim high, after all, you will be a better person for what difficulties you undergo in life.

The Game of Life

Life is a game; there are those that are good at this game, and there are those who are terrible at it. What determines who is good at the game of life and who is not good at it? Survival and what you make of it makes this game of life worth playing. Some people merely exist, mere shadows of whom they are and who they want to become. Then there are those that more than survive, making the most out of life’s rules and having fun while at it. These people turn the horns of life around not to nail them in the butt, but to nail life in the butt. They don’t merely exist, their life is flavored by a sense of fun and excitement and they walk with purpose. I am both of these people at times; there are days where life is exciting and there are days where it is bland. After all, people can’t play all the time, as this is life. Play will eventually exhaust you, so there must be times that you rest. I guess life is what you make of it, and that will be what determines your mastery of it. Nothing in this world matters much except other people and God. Nothing will give you more of a sense of accomplishment than seeing how you can help other people and serving God; not money, a large house, and many material possessions. The happiest people aren’t those with everything, aren’t those who don’t have to worry about financial problems because they have all the money in the world. The happiest people are those who have nothing yet are able to give all. These are the experts of the game of life, for they know life’s hidden treasures and know the true value of relationships. They are rich despite being poor. They are the kind that are always surrounded by people and can be seen with a smile on their face. They don’t worry about what toy they need next because they have never gotten to taste that addictive luxury. To them, the holidays aren’t about how many presents they got, but about the time they spend with family and other people. They are selfless in nature, making sure the needs of others are met before their own needs are met. These are the people to be admired, for they have the treasures that are the most valuable treasures you will find: a sense of genuine love for people and for God, which is a quality that is dying off in mankind and being replaced with a kind of greed. These people are the people who can smile even though their valuables have been stolen. I admire and want to become more like one of these people, as these are the true diamonds in society that no one should dispose of in favor of a lump of coal.

The Way I View Difficulties

I think people will try to talk me out of medicine because of my mental illness. Allow me to present my rebuttal to such an argument. I am like many other people; I have dreams, desires, relationships and responsibilities. The only difference that I have from other people is how my mind functions. Some people’s minds are focused on math and science, crunching numbers from the moment they get up to the moment they go to sleep. Other people’s minds are focused on the arts, allowing music to gauge their emotions and what they are experiencing at a particular moment. I am a healthy mix of the two. Some days I allow myself to trail off on a harmonic symphony; other days, I enjoy learning about science. Just because my mind operates on these two different levels doesn’t negate the impact I could have on someone’s life, nor does it negate my devotion to a career field.

It is said that many medical students are depressed in medical school, especially female medical students. While I have seen the role that conflicts tends to play on the attitudes of medical students (I have a medical student friend who has recently found it difficult to want to stick with medicine and has found herself questioning why she had even gotten into the profession), I believe I possess an advantage over my peers. 56% (or possibly even more) of all medical students in one study were discovered to have clinical symptoms of depression. Most of these people may not be getting actual treatment for it. That is where I possess the greatest advantage. I am aware of my problems and am getting treatment for it. While I do struggle with symptoms every once in a while, I at least have some control over them. I am not allowing it to dictate my life, as these students may be allowing them to do. Second of all, the treatment for my depression can also help me get advice on how to reduce stress during school, how to manage time well, how to balance my personal and professional life, how to deal with family and conflict and so on and so forth. In this respect, therapy for me is mostly beneficial.

The question of the century on this topic is how will my mental disorders affect my professional ability to administer medicine in a compassionate, patient-centered way? Being mentally ill has no negative deviation towards any unhealthy tendency when properly treated. Just because I am getting treatment wouldn’t make me any less of a great physician or nurse. In fact, the opposite is true: getting treatment will improve my ability to be able to give the kind of prestigious, world-class care that is often demanded of the profession. Treatment has liberated me to think clearly, communicate effectively, and overcome obstacles that would otherwise still loom before me. Not getting treatment would have been detrimental to both me and those that I would care for, as I would still be interrupting due to racing thoughts, and I wouldn’t be able to learn as much as I have, which would end up detrimentally affecting my patients when I would make medical errors.

Another question that should be assessed is: how do you think you will cope with the stresses of medical school and the medical profession? The answer: I think I would cope better than most people with these stresses now that I have the tools to be able to cope and handle these stresses when they are thrown at me. I have a lot of resources at my disposal, and I am not afraid to utilize them when I need. Most people figure that they can handle things on their own and will struggle with them for a prolonged period of time before realizing that they need help. In acknowledging my shortcomings, I also acknowledge that it will be the help of others that will help me get through the difficult times in my life. I spend less time floundering about on my own and more time seeking help from others. This helps me to realize not only the potential in myself, but the potential in others. Medical school, I believe, should be focused on building a community of people that will work together for the care of their patients, not as a means of competition against peers. I have utilized community resources wherever I went and have discovered that there is more power in five minutes of asking for someone’s help than there is in five hours of frustratingly trying and failing to figure things out on your own.

Overall, I believe strongly that mental illness is no reason to discount someone from attending medical school. If someone is passionate enough for the field, there will be nothing that will stop them from succeeding at whatever they put their mind to. In the end, mental illness may prove beneficial in helping patients overcome their own shortcomings in life and to potentially seek out the advice of other health care professionals and professional counselors should they need it. Talking about an illness and genuinely experiencing one are two completely different things. I believe that by experiencing a disease, the health care worker, be it physician, nurse or even CNA, they gain an appreciation and genuine understanding of what their patients are going through at a particular moment. Not only that, but often the difficulties of our life form us into better people and therefore better healthcare workers. I often see these times of difficulty as the proverbial heat and pressure that forms the coal into a diamond. This view has allowed me to conquer many difficult times in my life and to rise above them. My life is not dictated by a series of defeats, but rather an alternating series of victories and defeats that have refined me into who I am. I am not always at war, but I’m also not always at peace. I have learned to take these moments in stride, and to learn to live life in the moment, never worrying needlessly about the future and not allowing myself to be haunted by my past. I think that this is what is often required in medicine, and I strongly believe that I will do well in this field despite my shortcomings. It is all in the way that I look at my difficulties and life.

Dreamer

Dreams, what are these worth to people? To some, dreams are interference, a wall that ends up splitting people from the world of reality. To others, dreams are reality, the means that they can use to do great things for many people. I am no exception. My ultimate dream is to become a doctor, to transcend the barriers of poverty that have so easily constrained me for many years. I know that I can do it, but how is another question. I will need help, but where will that help come from. I don’t know now, but I know that I will meet many people along the way and that I will touch the lives of these people in very special ways. I have already touched the lives of others. People look to me for inspiration, a sort of example of what perseverance entails.

My life hasn’t been the perfect life. I am the image of a broken person, a person that has been made new through experience and relationship. Through my times of brokenness I have learned to value things more than some of my counterparts. For the most part, family is very important, a sort of cheerleader troupe to encourage you through life. Each of us is given a different family, and whether we are born into a family who cares or not is pure luck. For those that are born into a loving family, I have discovered that a lot of people take this for granted. They tend to resent the kind of care that their family has for them. For those not born into a loving family, I have discovered that they resent not being loved. What does this mean? This only demonstrates that the world is not perfect, and that we, as people, are not content. The best that we can get is a temporary sense of elation, but true happiness is often elusive. Where is this true happiness? I think that true happiness is not found in things or even people, but in simple living and loving God and others. In realizing this, I hope that I can provide better care for my patients.

I admit, I am a dreamer; I hope to teach others in medicine and hope to be taught myself. However, my heart is for the poor and the hurting, which is what drives me to become the best physician I can be. My vision is to help the poor, as I have been helped by others in the past. I want others to receive the kind of compassionate care that I have received in the past, despite not being able to afford the care. Who are we to decide who gets medical care and who doesn’t? It is not up to us as physicians to turn people away who need it. That is why I want to work with the poor. On top of it, I have discovered that some of the best stories come from those who are poor, and I want to hear those stories and learn from those who have learned a lot. I refuse to turn these people away like they have been turned away in the past.

Like I mentioned before, I need help to realize this dream. In order to fulfill my dream, I need help, from studying for the MCATs to financial help for medical school. I ask that you pray about what you feel is in your heart to give. I will take just about anything, as that will help me to turn my dreams into reality and to turn my dreams into something that will benefit the world. Like my persuasion teacher said, “God transforms nations through transformed people.” Please help me transform nations through my transformed self.

Victory is Yours, It's in the Way You View Life

Happy November to you all! Can you believe that it's November already? It seems like yesterday was summer. Time goes by quick, almost too quick for my liking. Before I know it, I will be applying for nursing and then medical school.

I am relegated this fine Tuesday morning to wait for the 7:30 bus, so I have some time to burn before I have to leave for CCU for my counseling appointment. I thought I would update everyone on how I've been doing these last few weeks. The change from the medications I'm on is starting to become noticeable. Here are the things I have noticed most:

1) No more thoughts of suicide: This is really important and great, since antidepressants can increase these in children, teens, and young adults especially during the first few months of therapy. The question that my doctors have been asking the most has been if I have had any suicidal thoughts, and frankly it kind of makes me annoyed. I went on antidepressants to keep from feeling this way, why on earth would I be thinking about these things? Then again, I realize that they have to ask these questions to make sure that the medications are working, which is the only reason why I don't say anything about these questions or act particularly perturbed when it has been asked for the seven millionth time it seems.

2) More confident, natural flow of conversation and interaction with others: This was a big problem for me. My schizophrenia made it difficult to trust others and because of that,  I wouldn't talk to others readily. I feared their rejection. Now I feel like I can talk to other people and that they genuinely care about me. I have no more doubts about whether or not they will shun me. I know that they love and care about me and won't do anything to purposely harm me. If they do turn me away, I feel confident that I can voice my concerns and be heard without feeling like people are totally and irrevocably angry at me for all eternity. I also want to mention that my primary care doctor commented that my conversations were more natural and not so strained, like they were in the past. She hardly knows me and even she noticed this, which means that this is more noticeable than I once thought.

3) My thoughts are organized: I can actually stay on one topic and complete a thought without jumping all over the place. This makes writing papers a whole lot easier and I am getting higher marks because I'm not going on tangents, which makes me a lot more confident in my own writing abilities. As you can even tell in this post, I am able to focus for long periods of time on one topic, which makes me incredibly happy.

4) I can remember things easier: I thought my memory was good before I went on the medications, but now it is better than ever. During my morning workouts, I would often space out on what number rep I was on because I had so many thoughts swirling around in my head. I now don't have this problem. I also can remember facts, statistics, and what I read a lot easier than I was in the past.

5) I no longer have the delusions of being a horse: For once in my life I feel human and know that there is no possible way that I could be a horse. Granted, I still love the wind blowing through my hair, I believe that my hands are hands and not hooves. There will still be that love for horses, but there will no longer be that prancing around, neighing like one.

6) I can concentrate on my schoolwork for long periods of time: This was becoming a problem and was one of the main reasons that I sought out professional help like I did. I felt like my grades were starting to slip because I couldn't concentrate long enough to get anything done. I wanted to either pretend to be an opera singer at Carnegie Hall or I wanted to prance around like a horse, both of which were not conducive to what I wanted to accomplish in life.

These are all the good things I have noticed, but there are a few bad things I have noticed as well:

1) I can't drink alcohol: This is a huge bummer for me, depending that my 21st birthday is coming up in a few months. I was looking forward to getting a drink on that special day, but I won't be able to do that now. In place of getting a drink I have planned a night of bowling with friends, so this should turn out to be an excellent night, even though I won't get to drink.

2)I can't take NSAIDs (Aspirin, Ibuprofen) with the Prozac: This is a huge downfall for me, because I had nothing but NSAIDs to get rid of my headaches. What will happen if I take an NSAID with Prozac? Nothing immediately noticeable, but depending on the NSAID, it could render the Prozac ineffective or could increase my risk for bleeding. Prozac thins the blood, and so do NSAIDs, so the two combined could be fatal. The only thing I can take for my headaches is Acetaminophen (Tylenol), and even with that I have to be careful to not go over 3,000 mg (3 grams or 6 pills per day) or I could damage my liver. Lucky for me, most of my headaches respond to two Tylenol. I have only had one that didn't respond to two Tylenol, but what I did was take two more, and it went away until later that day when I needed to eat. Then it responded to food and caffeine and two Tylenol. I guess it's a small price to pay to feel in touch with reality.

3) If I don't get enough sleep, I end up tired/with a migraine: I, before going on these medications, would get a migraine after several nights of cutting on my sleep. Now it only takes one and I will have a migraine. This sucks because my rhythm is one where I go to bed at 8 PM and wake up at 5 AM, and if I skimp on that, I am either running on empty or feeling like my head will split apart.

4) I clean the house and count my pills constantly: I don't know if this is necessarily a bad thing, as we desperately need to keep the apartment clean most days, but I have put it in the bad category because I normally would hate to clean. I also count my pills every time I take them to see if I am still on track with them and to make sure that I haven't taken more than I needed. So far so good! However, this tells me that I have some obsessive-compulsive tendencies, but I don't necessarily think that they are all bad.

5) My emotions are dulled down a lot: This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but my emotions have been really dulled. I can still feel emotions, but they don't drive me as much as they did before. I loved being able to feel emotions deeply, but some days it feels like I am dead in emotions (these are also the days that I end up tired/with a migraine because I haven't gotten enough sleep and I haven't had my cup of joe). I guess there is a price to be paid though, and the dulling down of my emotions will help me focus more on what I need to do rather than on what I am feeling. In the past, my emotions were crippling, and now they are dulled down to the point where they are no longer this way. See, there's always good in something that's intended for evil!

So far, I am satisfied with what I have been experiencing on these medications. While I may experience headaches every so often, it's never something that a few Tylenol can't take away. I am on the mend and can feel it in my heart and mind.

I wanted to end on this note. No matter what your family may communicate to you, they do care. My father, after learning that I had consulted a psychiatrist, is starting to spend more time with me. The lack of time spent with my family was the one thing that drove me into depression, so this is a very good thing for both me and my dad. Granted, I haven't told him my diagnosis yet (I plan to do so this Friday, because I wanted to tell him when I was a little more stable on my medication), I know that I have the confidence to tell him and the courage to accept what may come (it will be good). Your family loves you and doesn't want to see you go down the wrong road. If you don't have a family, you do have a makeshift "family," a group of people that genuinely care for you and want to see you succeed. Me, I have both, and I genuinely believe that there are few people that want to see my destruction. I hope you feel the way I do and if you don't, I pray that you will feel the way I do in the end. Victory is yours, it's all in the way that you view life.

Life...One Step at a Time

For those following my blog and not on my Facebook, you aren't aware of the struggles I've had over the last week. Anyway, I recently attempted suicide, wanting to slit my wrists and sit in a hot tub of water. Seeing myself like this scared me, so I sought out the help of a psychiatrist in the ER, which made me feel much worse. A few days later, I had an appointment with a different psychiatrist, where I not only mentioned what happened on Tuesday, but what I was experiencing. On the outside, I portrayed a life that was well put-together. On the inside, I was falling to pieces.

I had made the appointment a week prior to when I actually went. I was concerned because I was manifesting what I thought to be symptoms of Schizophrenia, and then I began to show symptoms of depression. I couldn't concentrate on the things I loved the most, and I didn't have any desire to do things that I used to love doing, which were the symptoms of the depression. I also didn't trust people and I didn't want to help others because of the fact that I felt that they would use me. I also questioned what other people thought of me, and thought that when people were silent, they were indifferent or they all-out hated me. I also manifested myself as a horse, believing that I had the abilities and functions of a horse. I really believed that my body and my mind was that of a horse, and that I could gallop like a horse. I reared, kicked, jumped and whinnied like a horse. I wanted to be around horses, to socialize with them because I knew, inside, I wasn't human, but I was horse. I had no interest in people, but I had interest in animals instead. These were the symptoms of Schizophrenia that I was so scared about.

I was declining gradually over the last few years, becoming more and more cautious about people. The relationships I used to form became distant and something that was only external. I could never truly relate to others, nor could I actually become close to them. I began to hate them, and because I hated people, I hated myself.

For many years, I was afraid of going to a psychiatrist, fearing that the drugs that I would be put on would make me a walking robot, always sleeping and having no emotion. However, I had the decision to make, if I did have Schizophrenia by chance, would I rather deal with the decline to what my mother experienced, thereby exposing my family to a life similar to mine, or I could deal with the side-effects of the medications? Seeing other people dealing with depression and seeing the other route made the choice easy, I would face my fears and seek the opinion of another.

The diagnosis was major depressive disorder and I was prescribed Prozac for during the day. I was also prescribed an anti-psychotic, Risperdal, that I would take at night. I did my own research on this and Risperdal is used to treat Schizophrenia, so I may have Schizophrenia. If I do, this will be treated with the Risperdal.

It has been two days since I have started the medication, so there is still a ways that I need to go before feeling the full effects. I am starting to sleep and eat better than I was over the past week, but I know that I won't feel the full effects until about two or so weeks. Thing is, I am not experiencing negative side-effects yet, which is a good thing.

As this week ends, I am thankful that the worse is over and I am optimistic about the future. I hope that some of the problems I have experienced will be resolved, and that maybe one day in the future, I can help my mom, who is more mentally ill than I, to get the help that she needs. For now, I will take life one step at a time.