"She felt lonesome and out of things."

Right now I am so tired though it's only 10:20 on a Friday night. James and Brenden are both asleep. I usually get a nap in during the day when James naps but today I didn't.

Sleep is very important to me. But I don't want to sleep yet.

In high school and college, I struggled with insomnia. It was tied to my anxiety and fed my depression. Because my lack of sleep affected my mental and emotional states so much, my doctors prescribed me Ambien and told me to focus on getting eight hours of sleep. Ambien gave me insane nightmares which only further fed my anxiety, continuing to prevent me from sleeping. It was a mess. I missed or was extremely late to seminary and a lot of school my junior year of high school. In college, I abused my Ambien. The directions were to take it right before bedtime, as in on my way into bed. But I'd take it and go out or call people or write blog posts. And then one Thursday in November I took my almost full prescription bottle and emptied it into my stomach because I was so tired of dealing with things.

Shortly after my BYU graduation in 2011 I stopped taking my antidepressant against doctor's orders. At the end of August last year, after years of struggling, I finally got back on it. I wish I could say life has been easier since then but it isn't inherently easier. It's simply clearer, less muddled. And the scary, isolating thoughts have disappeared or lessened in intensity. I wish my brain worked the way it's supposed to on its own. But it doesn't and I have to accept that. I'm not depressed because I'm lacking in willpower or some other important character trait. I'm depressed because some chemicals in my brain are screwed up. I'm finally getting to the point where I can be grateful there is medication I can take to treat my illness versus hating myself for being "weak." It's only been about 15 years.

Why is depression so hard to talk about?

"I am dim and unknown; a phantom, sometimes seen, often not."
-Virginia Woolf, The Waves

On Art

Sometimes I spend too much time thinking. I've been awake for two hours just lying in bed, thinking.

I realized it's been a very, very long time since I've created some kind of art. I use the word art here to mean a very specific thing because I've very rarely considered myself an artist. I know some people would probably be surprised to hear that but it's true. I have minimal skills in drawing, painting, writing, creating. I think true artists make themselves vulnerable by unveiling their deepest thoughts, hopes, desires, pains, joys, FEELINGS in their work. And I think that's why I don't consider myself an artist. Yes, I can occasionally make things that look pretty but what story does that tell? I think true artists are storytellers in their respective medium.* And this is where I have always come up short. I do not make art because I am scared to tell my story. I am afraid of making myself vulnerable. I am trying to let go of that fear. I am trying to find that girl who saw beauty or pieces of beauty in everything around her.

There was a period in high school where I considered an artist. My work wasn't always pretty but it always told a story, my story. I would make collages and paintings and sketches. I wrote love poems using only words from spam emails. I made intricate drawings on index cards that I would give to friends and drew pictures on biology tests that my teacher always looked forward to. I rewrote scripts and had leading roles in plays and musicals. I won state awards for writing. And I told my story over and over again in different ways. Because I wanted people to know me. Because I thought I was worth knowing.

I'm trying to find that girl again. I know she and I are the same so she's somewhere inside. Sometimes I can hear her beating in the walls of my heart, a longing to get out, a very real ache in my chest. I just need to get her flowing through my veins again.

*(I recognize this personal definition of "artist" will not resonate with everyone, though I think most people would agree to some extent.)

I'm awake and the clock reads 1:23.

1, 2, 3.

I am tired.

In college, I stopped keeping a regular journal because I realized I never wanted anyone to read the thoughts I had. Even now I think of burning old journals I've kept. The words frightened me then. And the thoughts overwhelm me now.

Writing had always been therapeutic for me in a way nothing else has. But I've had my privacy invaded a few times in the past and my safe haven between the pages instead became a traitor.

If I write, it is brief and superficial. I spend much of my writing time just contemplating what I am trying to express and still, everything I write is not what I meant to say.

It is so frustrating.

I just wrote about how I cannot write. And it is, again, not at all what I wanted to say.

To sum up what I wanted to write about: I am still looking for a hole my misshapen peg will fit in and I'm not very hopeful.

A Brief Interruption

When you're sad you need to hear your sorrow structured into sound.
-Susanna Kaysen, Girl, Interrupted

"Perhaps I am no one
True, I have a body
and I cannot escape from it.
I would like to fly out of my head,
but that is out of the question. "
- Anne Sexton

A Teenage Girl

This post has been sitting in my drafts since January 23, 2012.

Today at work I spent the second half of my day printing up insurance claims. The monotony and simplicity of getting each claim ready to print and then printing it allowed my mind to wander. I've always been a thinker, reflecting a lot on my own life, nostalgic at times. Even in elementary school, my journal included more than just a recording of what my daily activities were. I wrote down my thoughts about how my life used to be and what I hoped it would be. I wrote I wished I was five years old again because being eleven was too hard and my life was too difficult. Depression set in early for me.

But it was that teenage girl I thought about at work today. I thought about my old journal entries, my old livejournal entries, ramblings I had scribbled between science and english notes during high school. I thought about that girl who was so confused and so sad and so alone. The girl who wanted to graduate early and go to college, go to boarding school, kill herself-- anything to get away from where she was, who she was. The girl whose blogposts indicated she was angry, whose journal entries indicated she was despairing, whose ramblings on random pieces of paper indicated she was confused. That girl who thought she was in love many times but was really just in pain and used boys as band-aids for an illness that needed open-heart surgery. That girl whose parents didn't trust her and whose father told her he was worried about her character and she said she didn't care if she didn't have any morals. That girl who wished she could feel nothing at all so she would never be sad again accepting that if she got her wish she'd never be happy either. That girl who would sometimes feel completely numb, attempting to break her own fingers to feel anything at all. That girl who simply could not figure out how to be happy.

I was thinking of her today. And I felt so bad for her. And right now I'm channeling her through her old music, remembering those feelings, those nights she would go to bed with her silent tears and headphones. That girl didn't really know what she was doing. Locking her bedroom door, lying about having theater rehearsal so she didn't have to go home, turning in a completely blank Pre-Calculus exam, sending herself to the hospital three times. Pretending she knew how to make herself happy.

I want to tell that girl things will be okay eventually. And that she's strong and she can keep going, to just hold on. I remember telling myself many times, "Tomorrow. Just make it until tomorrow," and then I would go to bed early, listening to music, keeping the pills away. That girl I was then, was scared and almost hopeless. She often thought she was hopeless but she couldn't have been because she held on for another day, day after day. She didn't like making plans for the future because she wasn't sure she'd be around but she did anyway, just in case. She made a lot of mistakes. A ton. Probably more than you'd actually believe. But she wasn't the bad person she always told herself she was. She was good. But she was very sad. And I wish that this version of me, this older Natalie who got through her teenage years and graduated high school and college and married a wonderful person and is making plans for the future, could just go back in time and tell her she did well with what she had and I'm proud of her for holding on and to look forward to her future. She will still be sad sometimes, more often than she'd think is fair, but she will also be more happy than she knew she could be and she will love and be loved more than she thought possible.

Is it strange to think of myself in this way: my past self and my current self? Sometimes I miss that girl-- with her intensity, she wrote deeply and poetically-- but mostly I'm glad she's grown up. I just wish she could've known what her future had in store for her. She might not have been so depressed all the time.

Bedroom Corner

There is something about this time of the year that makes my mind especially restless. Music becomes more and more necessary to calm my mind and I listen to it almost constantly.

Right now I'm lying in bed, listening to The Velvet Teen,  spilling words onto an old blog.

Orange light lines my wall, a dirty window creates spots. I feel sick and sick and sick. But I'm not, besides my chronic condition, at least.

Sometimes I wonder if the hatred I felt towards myself in the past somehow became my autoimmune disease. My body is destroying itself. It would almost be poetic if it wasn't so devastating. Now I'm taking pills that make my body weak so it doesn't kill me. I'm faced with the same dilemma I faced even before SLE- how do I fight the thing trying to kill me if that thing is myself? When I think too much about it, I know it's time to go to sleep.

None of it makes sense anyway.

A Trip to Athens

The insomnia is coming back. 

How can I not sleep?

Seriously.

I'm currently listening to Radiohead's album "King of Limbs" and I'm thinking of when I lived in Athens. Earlier today I was listening to Smashing Pumpkin's "Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness" and it transported me back to middle school. I love how music has the ability to act as the soundtrack to my memories- even conjuring them. Most of my soundtracks are sad though because I had a tendency to listen to music excessively when I was depressed. I was listening to The Velvet Teen's song "Red, Like Roses" in bed the other night and I was brought back to high school and listening to that song in this same room when it was my parents'. I remembered the Sony mp3 cd player I had and the headphones that were plugged into my ears as I was curled on the edge of my parents' queen bed, crying. 

But right now I'm in Athens with Radiohead. And I'm driving the loop around town. It's night time and I can see the black silky silhouettes of trees in the moonlight. I'm driving fast- passing exits before settling on Exit 8. I turn by the movie theater and drive past the fancy new student neighborhood.  Past Publix and the gym and the crappy Asian restaurant that's open until 4am even on weeknights. I'm on Cedar Shoals, passing the high school and driving into the darkest stretch of the drive, turning onto Highland Park Drive and then up into my driveway. I pull in under the tree that leaves sap on my car during the summer. I forgot to turn on the porch light before I left so all I have is the dim orange glow of the street light by the bus stop.

I turn off the car.

A Beautiful Mess

Bottle up and explode over and over
Put it away and check out for the day

Thoughts on Depression

I was twelve when I started developing symptoms of depression. I was thirteen when I began self-harming. I was fifteen when I first overdosed on a bottle of prescription medication. For over a decade I have struggled with mental illness and though I willingly talk to people about my experiences, I gloss the whole thing over as something that happened in the past, something I'm over now. But it's not over. I struggle regularly and I find it even more taboo to talk about now that I'm a mother.

Because, you know, motherhood is a beautiful, exquisite experience full of rainbows and songbirds and endless buffet tables of cheesecake.  

When James was born, I didn't have the birth experience I anticipated and hoped for. My labor was long and exhausting. I wanted an all-natural birth experience but ended up using both Pitocin to help move labor along and an epidural to manage the pain. Then, I couldn't breastfeed successfully. I felt traumatized by our attempts at breastfeeding-- physically in pain because of a terrible latch and terrified as I anticipated each feeding because of the screaming and fighting that would occur. The lactation consultant I saw wasn't very encouraging and I really felt like it was a lost cause. Even so, I basically spent three months locked up in a bedroom trying to get that relationship working before deciding to maintain what shreds of sanity I had left and pump exclusively. One of my friends came to visit a few days after James was born and said, "It's sad nothing is working out the way you wanted it to." And I didn't really know what to say to that because, although it was true, I didn't want to admit anything about motherhood being sad so I said that yes, things weren't going the way I planned but it was okay because James brought so much happiness with his birth. This was true but didn't acknowledge the sadness I was experiencing too.

I had more than the "baby blues" that are so common in those early postpartum days but I'm not sure if it was truly full-blown postpartum depression. I had the sadness, the overwhelming guilt, the intrusive thoughts, the irritability, and the fatigue. I only feel comfortable talking about it now because I'm not currently in the throes of it. And that annoys me. Even after I've spent more years of my life in and out of depression than not, I'm still uncomfortable telling people, "I'm not doing so great right now. I need help."

I have no problem telling people I have a migraine or that I'm in the midst of a lupus flare but if I am going through a bout of depression, I have to go through that alone. It still feels like weakness to me. It still feels like a character flaw. I don't want people to know I'm depressed.

I find it interesting how surprising it is to me that even after I've become an adult that I am still me. I am still the same person I was when I was 18 and 15 and 12 and 8 and 5. Certainly there are things that have changed, but at my core I am still the same person I've always been. I guess I always thought something along of the lines of "when I'm an adult, I won't have to deal with these issues" so it surprises me when I do.

I still face depression regularly enough that it's not an extraordinary phenomenon. I even have thoughts of self-harm on the rare occasion though I can happily say it's been years since my last incident. I may be the same person I've always been but what's changed is how I deal with things. I guess that's good enough. I hope someday I'll be comfortable enough to say I need help when I do. It's still something I'm working on.  

The Staves- The Motherlode

I just found out about this lovely folk rock trio of sisters, The Staves.

 I thought I'd share. 

Because this next month could be fun

...even if it seems as though today I die.

October 1st- The Octopus Project at The Melting Point
October 5th- Andrew Bird at the Georgia Theatre
October 18th- Punch Brothers at the Georgia Theatre
October 24th- Eyes Lips Eyes at the Georgia Theatre
October 27th- of Montreal at the Georgia Theatre

Today has been terrible.

Today has been too long.

This week has been too long.

This month, this year.

This sickness has been too long.

And I found out this week it may never go away.

I'm going to bed early tonight.

Book Update

I've kinda only read one full book since I last updated this list. I had been so sick I couldn't even bring myself to read.  I have never been that sick before.


I just started two new books: Interpreter of Maladies and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.  Anna Karenina and Joan of Arc are in Georgia. 


The Kitchen God's Wife by Amy Tan (January) 
Life of Pi by Yann Martel (January) 
Prozac Nation by Elizabeth Wurtzel (reread) (February) 
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy* (February/March) 
Dubliners by James Joyce 
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce 
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller 
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott 
The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde (play) 
The Misanthrope by Moliere (play) (March) 
Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer 
For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway 
The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck 
This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald 
The Stranger by Albert Camus (reread) (February) 
1984 by George Orwell (reread) 
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (reread) 
Nickel and Dimed (March)
My Name is Asher Lev  by Chaim Potok (April) 
Joan of Arc by Mark Twain* (March)

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith * (May)

Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri * (May)

*Currently reading 

Just Complaining.

Why am I still sick?! Stupid doctors not calling me with my test results and not returning any of my calls. Stupid going back to work full-time at the beginning of the week and not being strong enough to handle it so totally relapsing and having a constant fever alleviated only when I take Tylenol as often as I'm allowed. Stupid having a virus but not actually knowing whether or not it's mono because the doctors won't call back. Stupid having a virus that has to go away on its own and all I can do is treat the symptoms. Stupid not being able to work for the last two weeks and a good portion of this week. Stupid still being sick and unable to take decent care of myself, my husband, and my home. Stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid.

A Book Update

The Kitchen God's Wife by Amy Tan (January)
Life of Pi by Yann Martel (January)
Prozac Nation by Elizabeth Wurtzel (reread) (February)
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy* (February/March)
Dubliners by James Joyce
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde (play)
The Misanthrope by Moliere (play) (March)
Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Stranger by Albert Camus (reread) (February)
1984 by George Orwell (reread)
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (reread)
Nickel and Dimed (March)

*Currently reading

(I think that's everything so far.)

Who I've Wanted to Be

Here is a list of careers I've considered throughout the years:

Elementary School:

• Pediatrician- Not only did I know I wanted to be a doctor, I knew what kind of doctor I wanted to be. It was also the only doctor I'd really had much interaction with at the time.
• Writer- I missed my third grade yearbook class picture because I was spending recess in the cafeteria writing a ghost story. At the time when I found out, I was sad because I wasn't in the picture. But now I just think that's how it was supposed to be.

Middle School:

• Any kind of doctor- Medical school was always one of my plans. A career as a doctor was something planted in my mind when I was very young. It's also an idea I occasionally entertain now but usually just as one of those, "What if I had done this..." thoughts.

High School:

• Psychiatrist- After my first hospitalization my freshman year of high school, I got a really cool psychiatrist from Russia. I can't remember her name because I could never pronounce it correctly. I was still leaning towards a medical degree at this point.
• Clinical Psychologist- I decided I liked the person I talked to more than the person who prescribed me my drugs so this career looked a little more attractive.
• Graphic Designer- I like when things look nice. I like designing things to make them look nice. In high school I had a penchant for making mix CDs and then designing CD covers and actually drawing on the CDs themselves. I like words and I like pictures. I also like when they are aesthetically combined. Well-designed posters and restaurant menus make me happy.
• Art Therapist- I took an art class my senior year and loved it. We went over the very basics for the first month and then we were given free reign of the school's art supplies. There were a total of four people in that class so we would all be working on different projects and still getting the individual attention we needed. (I remember at one point my friend was doing a watercolor, I was working on an acrylic painting, another kid was doing a very detailed pencil drawing, while the fourth person was doing a stained glass piece.) I knew I would never be good enough at making art to make any kind of career out of it but I thought I could somehow share that therapeutic effect art has with others.

And now I'm just going to list the ones I'd considered while in college without explanations because I'm lazy.

College:

• Clinical Psychologist
• Marriage and Family Therapist
• Social Worker
• Elementary School Librarian
• Big City Librarian (official title?)
• Elementary School Teacher
• University Professor
• Researcher
• School Counselor

Post-Graduation:

• Librarian- I love books. I love them with a rather large portion of my heart. I had an awesome school librarian while I was in elementary and middle school. She knew I was enthusiastic about books and was enthusiastic about that fact. She would get new books and set them aside for me without putting them up on the shelf because she wanted me to read them first. She would let me check out more books than the allowed limit and I could check out books that weren't supposed to be checked out (like classroom collections for assigned readings.) I could also keep books longer than we were usually supposed to. She liked me and I liked her and she set an amazing example of the kind of librarian that should exist in all libraries. Basically, I've wanted to be that librarian for someone else. Books can change lives and good librarians catalyze that process.
• High School English Teacher- I like books and I like writing. I want others to like them also. Similar to my librarian friend, my high school English teachers were really great. One of them didn't think my essays were always that great and that discouraged me but I don't hold that against him anymore.
• Pharmacist- Medications have interested me since my psychiatrist first told me how Prozac and other SSRIs work. Whenever I get a new medication, I thoroughly read their little information papers and then often look them up online to read more about them. This is not just for safety- I'm also just really curious. When I overdosed in May 2008, I didn't tell the nurse what medications I had taken (excedrin, benadryl, nyquil gelcaps), instead I told her the exact number of milligrams I had consumed of aspirin, dextromethorphan, acetaminophen, caffeine, diphenhydramine, and doxylamine succinate. <--Probably a bad example of my interest in pharmacy. Anyway, the way drugs work has always interested me. Also, I didn't do too poorly in my science classes.
• Stay-at-home mom- I realize that it's kind of weird that I'd never really considered this option seriously until fairly recently, especially having been raised in a church that emphasizes the importance of the mother in the home. I just always thought I'd have some kind of full-time job for the rest of my life until I retired. It wasn't until I met Brenden and we talked about getting married and having a family that I realized that this could potentially be an option. Growing up, I never calculated getting married and having a family into my educational and career pursuits. Basically, since I was child I just assumed I would get a bachelor's degree and then a MD or a PhD. And THEN I'd get married and have kids. My mom worked full-time and all of my friends' mothers worked full-time. It made sense to me. Still having trouble reconciling this option with my lifetime's worth of ideas of how things were supposed to be.

Also, right now I just really, really, really want to be in graduate school. Unfortunately, I haven't decided what career path I want to take and we don't have the money for me to just take classes because I want to. Lamesauce.

Thought

If I'd left on a mission when I had been planning/hoping to, I would be coming back this month.

Not sure how I feel about that in particular.

But in general I feel very sad right now and I don't know why.

2012 Reads

Heidi's post about her January reads reminded me that I needed to write down my booklist for this year. I had scribbled titles of books and authors on a piece of scrap paper at work about a week and a half ago as an effort to take a tiny break from entering names and diagnoses and payments and insurance information, etc. I've been adding to this list as I sit at work and think about books I'd rather be reading at that moment.

Here's my list at this point:

• The Kitchen God's Wife by Amy Tan
• Life of Pi by Yann Martel
• Prozac Nation by Elizabeth Wurtzel (reread)*
• Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
• Dubliners by James Joyce
• A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
• Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
• Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
• The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde (play)
• The Misanthrope by Moliere (play)
• Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
• For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
• The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
• This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• The Stranger by Albert Camus (reread)
• 1984 by George Orwell (reread)
• The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (reread)

*Currently reading

Like Heidi, I've also been aiming at reading about two books a month but some books may take longer than others (e.g., Anna Karenina vs. The Catcher in the Rye) so I'll have to space them out accordingly. Several of these books have been on my "To Read" list for years now (I bought my current copy of Anna Karenina as a freshman in high school and just never read it, but it was one of the books I shoved in my suitcase when I packed for Hurricane Ike) so I really just want to buckle down and read them. I know they're good books. It's just that other good books have often gotten in the way. The four rereads listed on here are all books I read in high school and I just want to read again. I LOOOOVED The Stranger when I read it the summer before sophomore year (that summer I did the summer readings for both high schools on the island which my friends thought was both totally unnecessary and totally nerdy; I didn't care, I loved it). I read it twice that year and then forgot about it until freshman year of college when I got to read The Plague by Albert Camus for some class (I can't even remember which class it was-- I think it was maybe History of Psych?) and I loved that book too. My rereads are at the bottom of this list (except Prozac Nation) because I should read the other books first, though I WILL read The Stranger again even if I don't get around to everything on this list for some reason like other good books getting in the way.

Other things I would like to read this year but won't put on the above list because I don't feel like I need to commit to them as much:

• The Collected Poems by Sylvia Plath
• 50 poems by e.e. cummings
• The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (I think I've read this book about once a year since I first read it in high school. This is one of my favorite books of all time.)
• Anything by Amy Tan because she is becoming one of my favorite authors
• And maybe a few Newbery Award winners for some light reading. It's kind of an unwritten goal of mine to read all of the past Newbery Award winners and then just keep up with them as they come out each year. I thoroughly enjoy children's literature.

Please feel free to recommend other books for me to read this year (there are still about seven spots open, if I plan on doing at least two a month) or to simply add to my neverending list of books to read in this lifetime.