A new thumb for a new year. Stay tuned for more to come!! Made with Canva.
A very short post, this will be.
I actually began this post back on the first day of May 2022, but I had a spell of perfectionism and everlasting procrastination come over me, plus then exhaustion so I held off. Which, is possibly ironic, I suppose.
But yes, this will be a short post to state that for the month of May 2022, I’ll be gravitating to more mental health awareness posts and recovery tales and stories across my platforms (this blog, this Youtube channel, this Instagram account, all the same usernames as here).
I’ll be doing things across platforms like:
Tags (mental health advocate tag (my own creation from last year that I never debuted, oops); mental health tag)
Song A Day’s (check out my Archives if you’re curious as to what these are) (Mental health editions)
Life updates
ART creations: Insta for some photography and drawings (some new photos I’ve taken in particular that I can do a cool before and after for the state of my alumni college), videos discussing/reacting to my own artwork I made during my early mental health recovery journey, art time lapse vids just for funsies, the usual hauls for vids too, advocacy based vids, shout-out vids, any adult coloring pages, identity and hobbies, updating fan fiction stories, etc.
Books content
Films content
Journaling-like posts on here
Recovery burnout (vid)
Shout-outs (Insta, blog, besides the vids ones)
Shorter vids and posts on here.
Things that I struggle most with today (perfectionism in particular)
Advocacy stuff—and promoting my personal and team page for the NAMI Walk 2022 this year. Please donate if you can!!
And probably more things that I can’t think of right now!!!!
All in all, much of this will lead up to the NAMI Walk but it will also continue afterwards as well (the Walk is May 21st). So, help me raise some money or share my posts or promote my videos and if there’s something that YOU are creating that you want some feedback on, let me know that too!!! I’d love to help support and network and work together on this larger mission of bringing mental health conditions and their recoveries to the forefront of the conversation.
Thank you so much if you read this far! I know it’s a little late but I’m trying. Also I could do some cool shout-outs for Insta posts that have been helping my mental health and recovery journey if that’s something that would be interesting for everyone across platforms!! I’ll also go live on my Youtube channel at least twice this month–posssssibly tomorrow, 5/5/22 but I’m not sure just yet. Regardless, have a happy and safe mental health awareness month and if you know of any tags being utilized for this year’s campaign, leave them down below!!! See you all again soon.
But it seems like I didn’t. Or, the weight of it, it didn’t fully occur to me.
You know that I’m reaching out to You. Into this vortex of the Universe. Because I couldn’t be there for You when You felt so alone, when You were struggling so deeply, and I pray, I pray so hard that You’ll be here again for me to do better, do better by You, do better for You.
I am so, so sorry my dear that you were hurting so very deeply.
I’m so …. lost.
You’re not gone. Not quite, not…. not yet.
And it’s hard to be here without You when I can’t be with You.
I’m so sorry, my dear, that You were in so much unfathomable pain. That You felt so lost, so dark, so dull in the night sky filled with other bright stars–unable to see how brightly You, too, shined–because You don’t see how important You are, how loved, how needed, how necessary for THIS life You are, not the next one.
And I pray, I pray so hard that You don’t leave us here alone so soon. You are needed. You are wanted. You are worth the world.
And I wish You knew, I wish You knew how much Your brain is lying to You. That You DO matter. That You are cared for. That there are hundreds of other people out in the world who want to meet You, who will love You, who will accept You. Who want You to experience everything there is out here in this life.
So I sit and cry in my bedroom, trying to find the words for something so inescapable. Something so large. Something that posed so much of a danger to You, my love, so much of a danger to me, to Your family, to Your friends, to Your followers, to everyone You had yet to meet, to the other animals You had yet to love, a life You had yet to find faith in to live by and thrive through–maybe I should have seen the entity lying behind Your eyes. Maybe I should have known to listen to my gut when at 1a I thought of You. Maybe things would have been different.
If I’d just reached out. Reached back out to You through the dark, showing You that the clearing was just up ahead and You were going to make it, You were always going to make it there. And I don’t know what You thought. I might never know what You thought. The way You uniquely would have phrased it, the way Your brain made excuses for Your actions, the pain, the deep chasms of pain that blinded You to everything before You. Everything that would lay in Your wake.
And I don’t mean to guilt trip you. I know that’s not helpful.
I just hurt, too. And I’m trying to process everything and doing jack shit to be able to.
It’s just so hard.
And You don’t know yet what I’m thinking or what I’m feeling. And I pray, I pray so much that You’ll be able to find out about this. About everything.
I wish You knew. I just wish You knew.
I wish You knew how I’m feeling right now, how much I’m praying for You, how much I’m trying to piece together hope and a semblance of normalcy and struggling all the same. I wish You knew how desperately I’m looking for the signs that You weren’t okay online, that I’m wishing the happy events to come weighed more than the pain deep within Your soul. I wish You knew that I was writing these words, that I pray You’ll see them one day. That You’ll be able to comprehend them. I want so much more than this for You, and I know that You can reach it, You can make it through, it’s just hard. It’s so hard.
So I’ll light a candle for You tonight and every night until You come back to me. Come back to us.
And I won’t know how to live without You. I won’t.
And I don’t want to ever have to find that out.
….yet I know that this is ultimately Your choice. And I can hope, I can pray, I can be there for You to the best of my ability and encourage You and love You and want so much for You, for everything I, too, have found, I’d want that and more for You, and ultimately… I have to accept that this life and this fight is only Yours to make. You can choose to live or you could choose to die, but you cannot do both. And some people make it through their suicidal ideation and live happy and healthy lives. And some don’t. And I don’t want that ever to be the case that You are the latter, but, I don’t necessarily have a choice in that matter. That is Yours and Yours alone. I can’t choose to live for You, only You can do that for Yourself.
Yet I want You to know that You still would matter. That Your absence will be fully noted, fully recognized and fully mourned. I would miss You so, so much. I would long to look into Your eyes again, to hear Your laugh, to feel Your hugs, to love everything about You, to see You bake again, to have the opportunity to hold You…
So, You’ve gotta pull through, to give me that type of moment. Your story isn’t over yet, it’s so very, very far from being over. And I know that while resources can be limited, that that does not mean You shouldn’t do everything in Your power to survive, to live, to thrive. You’ve got this, my love, You’ve got this so much.
Please, please know that You can live. You can.
It’ll be so hard and it will be worth the entire world. You are worth the world. And I’m not ready to say goodbye yet.
So if the candle extinguishes before I get the chance to say it loud, to cry it for You to hear, from the vortex of my Universe, from the walls of my bedroom, with the warm tears streaming down my face, praying I get to see You one day again soon (one last time), I will cry:
I love you. I want you. I need you. Please stay. Please choose life. Please don’t go. Not yet. It’s not your time. You’re going to make it through this. And when you struggle to find the light, you need only raise your hand and I’ll part the curtain, and force the trees to move and then you’ll see, then you’ll see–you will be found.
Rest up, my love, this battle will be long and hard and I’ll be with You all along the way.
Music I think the Reader should check out:
You will be found by Ben Platt; from Dear Evan Hansen
Why by Rascal Flatts (trigger warning)
Hero by Faouzia
Black hole by Griff
1800 273 8255 by Logic ft. Alessia Cara and Khalid
It’s okay by Nightbirde
Run like a river by Jamica
Thank you so much for reading about my grief. Please do your part and hold onto your loved ones an extra bit longer tonight. And tell the people you love that you do love them. And let them know in a card or a text how much you appreciate them. This life is, in fact, short, and you don’t want regrets and you want them to know because in an instant, they could vanish. Take care of yourselves, my friends. I will be planning to update and write more in the oncoming future. May the Universe bless you endlessly. xxx (I’m going into more Mr. Ballen Youtube videos to sleep tonight. Sending all the best.)
**May all those we’ve lost rest in peace. And all those still here to find the determination, the strength and the perseverance to choose to fight another day. Your efforts are recognized. You are doing amazing. Keep up the good work.
This, once again, is not the post I was planning for today, but I’m making amends and just going with what I can.
I am doing something incredibly terrifying for today, tomorrow and Saturday. I’m making a “call out” video where I denounce someone who was once a part of and representative of the mental health community online who has done some horrible and inappropriate things and for which I can no longer remain silent about on my channel. I had done a collab with them in the past and after I watched a recent video from someone they threatened physical harm to, I am putting down my mask and my comfort level and going forward with something that’s important and that I firmly believe in.
I filmed the footage today and I’m still drowning in the panic of it and whether it will either hit the wall and nothing will happen or it will get big and the conflict that that arises in me if this is how I’m “discovered” online because of some outspoken talking that’s super uncharacteristic of me.
I’m terrified, to be honest and I hope that I can manage any backlash that may result and just keep my head afloat the best way that I can. I am planning to edit tomorrow all of the footage, I’ve made the thumbnail and created this tag above in the tag. It kinda works anyway because I was going to be doing a mental health advocate tag on this blog but I’m pushing it off to do next week instead. This is mental health awareness month and we have to speak out on abuse and inappropriate actions and holding each other accountable because it is unfair and damaging to the foundations upon which we’ve built our lives and voices in supporting one another’s recovery and not falling into the misshapen pieces the media likes to make of us living with mental health conditions that we are “dangerous” and “a threat to others.”
So, join me, I suppose or rally against me, either way it is what it is. I’m planning to schedule the video for a release on Saturday. I could do Sunday but I’m pretty sure I’d rather get it over with on Sat. Either it goes big or it goes nowhere. I’m not sure which and that’s frightening as all hell.
I am going to upload while I am at work so I can minimize some of the damage to my email and forcing myself to have time to not think about it, not look at it, not ponder it and just breathe in deep and remember it’s not the end of the world and I’ll manage and get through it somehow. Sometimes you just have to speak your truth, no matter how hard and scary it is.
No one knows in my life that I’m doing this but it’s what I think is right even if it opens me up to a lot of ridicule and misuse. I still may think that I shouldn’t do it and whatnot and have to live in that uncertainty. Hopefully if there’s any feedback it won’t be on Sat when I have to go to work again the next day, but maybe that will also be better too (I can keep my mind busy).
Okay, that is all.
I’m going to sleep now. I’ll pop in again tomorrow. Good night!
Themes: Recovery, hope, positivity, wellness, light in the darkness, a couple of resources
I haven’t done a blog post like this in years. I also hadn’t intended for this to BE a blog post. I spend over an hour and a half crafting a lengthy Youtube comment on Tamron Hall’s video interviewing Camryn Clifford, the content creator behind a million and a half subscribers on Youtube’s channel Cam&Fam, but I had so much to say for her video, no place to put it and decided I’d just leave it under Tamron’s instead.
However, upon crafting it, reading it over and editing it, adding the final touches…. the comment button told me it was too long and that I needed to shorten it.
Granted, it was long. I wrote about 3,000 words and either the channel itself or Youtube just wasn’t about that life. I get it. I understand.
So I went about highlighting and copying a part of it, after I copied the whole thing, just in case any slip of the keyboard happened and I’d lose all my work.
So I did that. I made the comment. Then I went to reply to it.
Except Youtube was all “this reply cannot exist” like a big middle finger to my work and I refreshed the new tab to see why….
My comment was not listed under new.
Visible confusion settled on my face.
But how could this be? Maybe it just hadn’t loaded yet?
So I hit refresh, and refreshed. And refreshed. And nope, whatever happened, whatever Youtube or the channel didn’t like just wiped it clean as if it never even took place (which is strange and hey, maybe it’s possible there’s gonna be a delay of some kind, which I hope not but I guess it’ll have me checking back in later regardless).
Anyways, I decided, “Well, okay then.” and mentioned it on Twitter, pasted it to a Word document and now I’m going to share it here because I wrote it, I spent all that time on it, and why the hell not at this point.
So, here it is:
For some further backstory (and there will be a TL;DR at the end, don’t you worry!) I found out all about this story yesterday at, ironically, a doctor’s appointment for some other physical health issue. It was on TV and the show had spoken about the memoirs of a family generational thing about bipolar I disorder. It was interesting, a bit stigmatizing at parts, but interesting. The next story was about Camryn’s family, her life and her husband’s Landon, untimely death by suicide. It was very moving and awfully sad. I found the video today where she spoke about the suicide in much more detail, which I’m hesitant to share directly here because it does cover explicit details of the suicide, the method and her reaction (which my heart absolutely goes out to her and I want her to know that it wasn’t her fault, she didn’t know and couldn’t have and hindsight is always so much brighter and understandable than the worst thing happening right in the moment, and my wishes go out to her to get through this hard time with the support of her fans, friends and family) which was very sobering and somber and pretty responsible while still be potentially triggering. There are some flaws in it, of course, which I tried to cover in my recanting of my own story and experiences. I’ll see you guys at the end:
“;”;”
Hello to anyone who finds this comment in the forest of other comments. I’d like to add my thoughts and share parts of my story on the matter because Camryn’s main video on the subject was showing disabled comments. The opinions I’ll be sharing are my own and have been carefully laid out in my mind this morning since I watched her main video discussing Landon’s death. Most of my thoughts are backed up by regulations and experiences with suicidality and suicide prevention measures. For now, feel free to skim this comment or if you have the time, read it word for word (which I shall give you a ray of sunshine for!)….
So, as far as myself, I am a mental health advocate deep within the throes of sharing my own story living with mental health conditions across professional and personal endeavors. I’ve been doing advocacy since Mar. 2016 and am still going strong. I’ve lived with OCD on self-harm and suicide obsessions (not genuine intent, rather intrusive thoughts that I feared would equal action even when the last thing I wanted to do was hurt myself), secondary depression, genuine thoughts of hurting myself, Borderline Personality Disorder and most currently trichotillomania (hair-pulling) and dermatillomania (skin-picking). I became involved with advocacy in 2016 through my state’s National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) which is all about sharing stories of recovery, hope and the darkness in order to de-stigmatize these conditions and spread the message that recovery IS possible and better days are ahead and our lives inherently matter. I also used to write publicly about my recovery journey in my university’s newspaper. At the time, I really struggled with my mental health and trying to find peace and freedom and over the course of three years I was hospitalized for suicidal ideation 12 times. The longest I went being hospital free was in 2016 for 9 months. I relapsed and in 2017 was hospitalized a total of 5 times. I’ve made three minor attempts on my life and one moderate one.
In 2018 the depression came back worse than ever after about two months of stability/symptom free management after having six treatments of Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT). When that depression hit, everything got very, very dark. I stopped believing that my life was important and that things would get better. I wrote about 7 articles for my paper that were all shrouded in darkness and chronicling how I felt so alone and so worthless and so intent on ending my life. My parents called the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline and it kicked off my 11th hospitalization and note-worthingly, the first time I ever didn’t ask for help myself. I went in to that hospitalization and came back out feeling no different. I was still intent on my plans and preparing my method, carrying it around everywhere I went on the chance that something would “push me over the edge” and it would all be over with. I felt this immense amount of calm. I was so happy and it felt like I could breathe again for the first time in a long time. I knew I wasn’t going to have to face tomorrow but even with these feelings… I would still question my decision, I would still be ambivalent and wonder “But what if… What if tomorrow everything changed? What if I feel differently in a month or three or a year?” but I was scared. I was scared because I felt in so deep. Like, I had wasted all this time planning my death, going over every excruciating detail, setting up fail safes–ways to reach out in the end just in case I changed my mind–and it was an agonizing process.
The game changed for me when one of the articles I wrote….came off darker and more concerning than I ever thought fully through. My uni called me directly while I was attending a long term day program, and it was a mixture of freaking out thinking I’d have another wellness check waiting for me at home, the chaos that was erupting at school, the fact that some of my peers at the day program were honest about where they were struggling and how that reminded me that /I/ used to do that and it made me wonder if I could do that again (be open and honest about my struggles)…
I wound up talking with my friend from the paper at school the next day and it was really that conversation, that moment of hope shone into the darkness. My friend said how I wasn’t myself and my articles had taken such a dark turn. That normally in all the time before this my articles would shine with hope and positivity but they were lacking in that now. For me, fearing that nobody would notice or nobody would care if I died meant everything so even just having this insight that my friend wanted me to be okay and wanted me to live to see that day meant the world. I decided, after talking with another friend who seemed off around me, that I could either tell them what was happening, go to the counseling center on emergency or I could talk to my day program the next day. I decided I’d wait another moment and the next day I was driven to the day program, for easier phrasing I’ll call it Passages, and at first I was still going to go along with it but then I got a little triggered by something that was said and then I got angry and upset and I was adding another method to my plan and was already planning my exit strategy when in, I think, a group therapy instance it was asked directly if I was safe and I said, “No.” The group leader, who happened to be my clinician on my case, said we would speak privately after.
When she and I did, it was determined I needed to get help right then and there. The thing people don’t always realize is that mental health and especially in cases of suicidal ideation, they are public health emergencies. Just as someone having to go to the ER for a heart attack, the same is true for suicidality or homicidality. There is an excellent acronym for warning signs of suicide from the American Association on Suicide Prevention called: IS PATH WARM? Luckily, over time I had managed to learn when I needed help and when a hospitalization would be more necessary.
I was still afraid. I was afraid to let go of what had become so… comfortable in order to trade it in for a life that felt uncertain to take a risk on. But I did go. I got picked up by ambulance and taken to the ER. I was stripped of my clothing and items. I waited in there for a few hours, was assessed by the crisis team and deemed necessary to be admitted. I honestly don’t remember that much from that instance but I remember the last hospitalization I went through. I remember the weekend psychiatrist made a remark that I found relatable and hilarious when he said, from the hospital previous that had actually decreased my antidepressants, “They kinda fucked you over, didn’t they?” And that’s exactly how it felt. I was hospitalized that last time on Feb. 14th 2018.
Hospitalizations for mental health aren’t like a lot of the movies. There aren’t padded cells and a lot more of the people there are broken internally and just need help and support. Everything is watched and documented and we aren’t allowed laces or belts or strings or spiral bound notebooks and in some places not staples or pens. It all depends on the place. The rules in some places are more strict and in others more relaxed. Sometimes it’s a shit show, other times it’s a moment of restabilization and where the story is just beginning.
I got out of the hospital about a week later. The better days didn’t start right away. But by May 2018 I was recommended to join the Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) Intensive program at Passages. This meant that (and I should probably mention for anyone who doesn’t know, this day program meant that I’d go three days a week from 9:30a – 2:45p and go to various groups like art therapy, mindfulness, group therapy, DBT therapy groups, goal groups, communications etc.) I would only see a therapist on site at Passages, I would be in the Intensive program for 6-8 months as one cycle and that I’d have to complete homework assignments each week and fill out these things called diary cards that would track my moods and behaviors each day.
I made the decision to enter into it and began it. It was hands down the best decision I ever made. DBT covers four main modules: interpersonal effectiveness, distress tolerance, mindfulness and emotion regulation. Across this time frame I managed to enter my final semester of schooling, I wrote again positivitely and healthily for the newspaper, I ended a codependent friendship I was in (which was so hard but so, so necessary; I didn’t even realize it was codependency until a year later when my friend mentioned they had noticed that pattern, when I told my therapist and family about it and when my family therapist, June, finally said straight up that if I continued with the friendship I was going to wind up back in the hospital, and at the time, I didn’t want that.) I also made the realization with this codependent relationship ending that: “No one and no thing is worth being suicidal over.”
It was such a profound statement that I never could have anticipated would be such a game changer. I went from chronic suicidality to an issue that faded away. I still get urges or I can still get triggered but through DBT and learning the skills and practicing the skills and telling my story and building that life worth living–I don’t ever want to go back to the darkness. And it’s still hard sometimes because my brain likes to glorify those dark thoughts and suicidal ideation was always about fantasizing it in a way for me, I guess like how others would fantasize about sex, I just did it with the ultimate avoidance which was death. Not exactly the healthiest or happiest relationship, by far. But every day I made it closer and closer to being out of the hospital, closer and closer to finding health and happiness and stability, the further away I made it from my struggles.
It took a lot of work. It took a lot of effort. It took a lot of handling pain in a different way than ever before. It took definitely something about signing paper ‘safety contracts’ that always had a great habit of me having that voice in the back of my head saying “I can’t hurt myself because I said I wouldn’t. I meant what I said. I can’t go back.” So I wouldn’t.
I wound up graduating from college. I wound up getting retrained for a few NAMI ventures. I ended the DBT-I in January 2020 and moved on from Passages by June 2020. I got a relief job at a trauma informed residential for youth and, besides NAMI, it’s been my longest standing job (Sep. 2019 – present). I’m so much happier now. With the pandemic hitting in 2020, it was probably the best time for things to go to shit. Because by then I had all the skills, all the time and the effort and the training to be able to handle it in a creative and healthy way.
Sure, I still struggle nowadays with hair pulling and skin picking and avoidance in other ways and procrastination and all of that. But I finally found a life worth living. I spend my days making Youtube videos (though I’m seriously behind in the editing process!!), reading books for fun, blogging, writing fan fiction, journaling and shopping and working.
As of 2021, I’ve been hospital free for 3 years. I know life can be unpredictable and I have come to accept I may need further treatment and support like in a hospital setting in the future. I am wary of it but I know, too, that if I need it, it’s there. I plan to one day become a Certified Peer Specialist and to share my story more through videos, blog posts, public speaking and writing and publishing books. I have SO many dreams. So many things I want to accomplish. It’s been such a hard road here and I’ve faced recovery burnout last year and it still marinates into today at times however I wouldn’t change anything about my journey because it all lead to this moment. I’ve made my mistakes, sure, and I’ve been slow to accept that these times were traumatic, yet how I handle my emotions today is so different than 3 or 4 years ago. Now, stability is my baseline. Now, I’m happy and I’m so grateful that I didn’t end my life. That that didn’t have to happen.
I know suicide, a lot of the time, because of mental health conditions, seems like freedom. But in death, can we truly be free? Because in death, we can’t experience anything really. Nothing good, nothing bad. Just dead. I believe that knowing pain makes appreciating life and the beauty in it–recognizing that it can be absolute shit at times and be so horrible–and still seeing all the beauty in it, that’s life. It’s hard to understand and it’s very difficult to have conversations about suicide.
But we have to have them. Because it matters. Because our lives matter and we’re all interconnected. Sharing suicide methods in those whom have ended their lives isn’t the best and isn’t part of the regulations for suicide prevention programs because it can cause copycat suicides (encourages others to try those types of methods). Being specific about methods is most appropriate in a one to one conversation with treatment teams. Additionally, in the US, people do not “commit suicide”, they die by suicide. They kill themselves. They take their own lives. “Committed suicide” is more like terminology of someone “committing rape, committing murder”, because those are crimes. Suicide, suicide is a public health emergency. And it’s not going away any time soon. All of this social isolation is troubling and mental health systems, the very, very broken systems, are at their wits end and it’s time that reform and true change can happen.
I have no doubt that Camryn sharing her and Landon’s story will help so, so many people out there. I watched her video and it brought me to tears so many times. It’s so, so hard. Landon likely didn’t die, like in most suicide cases, by just ONE thing, it’s almost always a complicated, multiple layered reason. Asking if someone is thinking of hurting themselves or ending their lives will NOT put the idea in their head. It actually can provide so much space to have a conversation, for someone to realize “Hey, you’re not okay and I’m really worried about you. Are you having thoughts of suicide?” because in my experience, I’ve wanted so badly for someone to notice, someone to ask or someone to just say “Hey, I see you. You’re in pain. It’s going to be okay.” And sometimes, maybe even a lot of the time, I didn’t really need advice or platitudes or anything like that. I just needed someone to see it and offer specific ways they could help me or just encourage me to see the hope that I felt so blinded to or to call for the ambulance.
I don’t think suicide is ever the solution (particularly in terms of mental health conditions). I think suicide is a permanent action to a temporary crisis. I think it’s important to know that not everyone’s experiences are the same, that it has to be adjusted and tailored to the person in question. For instance, telling me how much people would be in pain if I ended my life only made me feel shittier and more like I should do that. Telling me I had so much to live for invalidated that I was in pain NOW and that I couldn’t cope with it NOW. Mentioning different types of methods or saying how certain things would or would not kill me also wasn’t helpful.
We could spend all day wondering what would have happened differently, that’s the horrible pain left behind on suicide survivors (which are the people left behind from a loved one’s suicide, not suicide attempt survivors themselves). We could spend agonizing time wondering about things that just didn’t play out in this reality. Again, there’s so many factors involved. Had I said something else, had I mentioned this, had I been faster or quicker or… these are the unanswered questions. They will carry pain and hurt for a long time. Even when dealing with a friend in crisis, it’s so, so important to take care of yourself, too. Think of the water pitcher, we can’t pour from an empty cup. You have to put on your own oxygen mask before you can put on others. The NSPL is available for anyone struggling with ideation, their friends and family, and others who just need some support or someone to bounce ideas off of. I’ve used the hotline on my phone and over chat many times and if it wasn’t always super helpful, I found it to be helpful to at least be a starting point.
Overall, if there is life, there is hope. I wish for Camryn’s story to help anyone else out there. I wish for Landon to rest a little easier. I wish for those who were fans of them to find not so much closure (grief never ends, it’s an ongoing and changed relationship) but acceptance of the untimely death and to learn how important it is to tell people you love them and you appreciate them or just say a kind word or thought to them. Additionally, I’d like to thank anyone who managed to read this far. Honestly, I didn’t really expect to say this much but that’s how it wound up rolling. I will leave a TL;DR at the very end. I hope that if you’re struggling out there, that you know one day you’ll be okay again. That you’re not alone. That your life really matters. And you’re worthy of this life and you were born strong enough to live it. If anyone needs to speak to a hotline, you could use the US one if you’re here at 1800 273 TALK (8255) or Google your local hotlines in whichever country you’re from. Thank you so, so much for reading. I don’t expect this to make it super far, yet I feel more peace now too. In loving memory of Landon Clifford, who was taken too soon and didn’t get to see, like so many others killed, that there were better days right ahead. For all those grieving, I am with you in spirit and I am sending as much healing and bright light as I can. Be well and above all, stay safe. XXX
TL;DR: This video sums up my experiences with mental health conditions and suicidality and then you can skip to Paragraph #6. I know it’s a lot. I don’t fault you for not reading. Take care out there. xxx 🖤🖤🖤🖤
“;”;”
And that is all that I wanted to say. If you can spare a moment, send a prayer to Camryn and her family–her two young daughters, her loss of Landon, and his family and her own family going forwards. May she find hope and blessings in her future endeavors as she continues to share her story of also living with depression and anxiety, sharing on a large platform her story, his story (that he can no longer tell) and more. She has begun a nonprofit organization in his memory and will be doing a podcast about it too. May everyone find peace, on this plane and the next.
Thank you so much for reading all of my words.
Landon, I didn’t know you before. I only heard of you yesterday. But it feels like I knew you. I would have liked to get to know you. I’m so sorry you were in so much pain. I remember the feeling. It is so, so hard to bear alone. I wish things could have gone as differently for you as they had for me. And I knew, and took some odd comfort in the idea in my recovery and my journey of life and dealing with suicidal thoughts, that some people live to tell the tale and some don’t. And was I going to be the person to tell my story myself or was I going to be one of those that didn’t make it? That choice, ultimately, was my own (which is not to say things couldn’t have stopped me like an ambulance, a hospitalization, worries, etc.) whether I took my life or I took the cards I was dealt and played the hand differently. I wish you could have gotten that chance. I’m sorry that you didn’t. Rest in Peace.
And may all of you else out there find hope and comfort soon. Please take care of yourselves and strive to be the best human out there possible. We all need more love and appreciation. And if we wait too long, sometimes we never get the chance to show it. A difficult truth, indeed.
Relevantly, The Overnight (Out of the Darkness) walk for suicide prevention and for those survivors of attempts or loved ones dying is coming up virtually online in June 2021. If you’d like to join there is a $20 sign up fee and a fundraiser for the event. I believe it occurs on a Saturday. I’ve left the link above. Take care everyone.
Two years ago, I spoke at length about what my experiences have been in psychiatric hospitalizations (“Inside a Psychiatric Hospitalization” parts one to four). For this article, I’d like to review some of those experiences and the average layout of most psychiatric hospitals.
As is the case in most things in life, there are good psychiatric hospitals and crappy psychiatric hospitals. A particular system that is on the cruddier side comes to my mind immediately and the affiliates that it belongs to, but as a NAMI IOOV presenter, we are trained to not give out specifics regarding hospitals we’ve personally been to or medications we are currently on (similar to not mentioning specifics about suicidal ideation, which is pretty normal for most group settings as well). So, because of that, I have my hands tied on being more particular about those specifically cruddier places.
I am able to say what made those particular places more difficult than others though: dysregulation and non-containment. Not only does the milieu of the hospital matter but the people working there on that unit, what groups are offered and also the group of people who are also present as patients themselves. Psychiatric hospitals are the hub of intensity. You would meet people there who are at their lowest low, their hardest hardship and who are varying degrees of ill.
Some people never leave their rooms, some people talk to things that the rest of us can’t see, some will shout and be extremely loud, some hit and punch other patients or staff, some are on one-to-one’s because they’re either a danger to themselves or others. Some are on fifteen-minute checks (the normal there) and some are on five, again, depending on their safety level. A mental health specialist (or associate in some hospitals) tracks what you do every set increment of time specified in the last sentence: how much you eat, whether you’re awake or sleeping, whether you’re socializing or in groups, whether you’re being safe or not, etc.
You can have visitors, specified mainly on weekends and evenings when most groups have been dealt with for the day. Groups range depending on the hospital—my third hospitalization in 2015 only offered art therapy groups and the black chain linked fence on the outside of the property was pretty frightening (each hospital has a different level of how strict they are, and this particular one I was at has since been closed down). A lot of hospitals will have art therapy groups, psychoeducation groups, SMART recovery groups, therapy groups etc.
You’re not allowed to have shoe laces, anything with strings (most of us walk around with our freshly supplied padded socks), anything with wire spirals (pens included in some places), belts, electronics. It’s a locked unit so you can’t go outside of it whenever you want to (and you will want to). Depending on the hospital the cafeteria may be located on your unit or you may have to travel downstairs with an MHS for it. Some of them have exercise rooms or allow you to go outside when the weather is nice.
Basically, you’re watched in almost every possible way. Listing it out like this, I can recall why psychiatric hospitalizations feel intimidating and daunting.
But, they’re not all bad.
They’re necessary for those of us who are struggling with suicidal or homicidal ideation (though I can’t speak much on behalf of the latter), self-harm, medication adjustments, intense emotions, thoughts or behaviors (particularly if they’re unsafe behaviors). Some of the staff, along with some of the patients, you won’t particularly like, but that’s the case in most circumstances anyways.
The last time I was at Unit Z was in January 2018 and I had such a great batch of roommates that we’d often be chatting and laughing together and it felt far more like being on a vacation than a psychiatric hospitalization. I remember one moment where someone was telling a story and I proclaimed how wonderful a color this nude crayon was and that I was promptly going to steal it so none of them would ever see it again.
I have loads of souvenirs from my hospitalizations: coloring pages friends have given me, contact information of fellow patients (with varying degrees of keeping in contact with people outside of the hospital), my own art endeavors, books, ambulance blankets, scrubs, a coffee cup, a bin for toiletries, loads of hospital bracelets, and likely other things that I’m forgetting.
Essentially, the hospital is there when you need it, and I know that one day I may need it again, and that that’s okay. The hospital begins my journey of re-stabilization and the work to do that exists outside of those four walls.
But man, is freedom a fantastic feeling.
Stay safe.
Article Written: October 18.2018
PD A/N: Honestly? I haven’t re-read over this article and this is the last thing I’m doing this Thursday night so either I’ll come back to edit this author’s note or I’ll just leave it as is. *shrug* Any who, it’s time to rear up the evening into a close for me here. Still got a few things left to do though. 😛 This article is an article and if you read it you’re here now and I don’t have much else to say (feels like that end credits scene with Cap in Spiderman Homecoming doesn’t it?) Take care, peeps! ❤ ❤ ❤
Trigger Warning: Mentions of suicide and self-harm
“Help me, it’s like the walls are caving in…Laying on the bathroom floor, feeling nothing; I’m overwhelmed and insecure… Keep telling me that it gets better. Does it ever?…Afraid to be alone again, I hate this. I need somebody now. Someone to help me out. Sometimes I feel like giving up, but I just can’t: it isn’t in my blood” – Song lyrics from Shawn Mendes’ “In My Blood.”
In this article, I’d like to explore the notion of creating and actively accumulating preventative measures against problematic behaviors. Namely, my own problematic behaviors because I’m an expert in my own experience and can only truly speak from that lived experience to what I want to discuss here, and for what I hope can also be applied to other general situations.
I’ve included the song lyrics from Shawn Mendes at the start of this article because it fits with the message I want to convey within these strung lines. I want to discuss how accumulating preventative measures against self-harm and suicidal thoughts have helped me greatly in the past, present and hopefully the future as well.
I believe I’ve mentioned it before, possibly as long as two years ago, but I have always personally found safety contracts hugely impactful in my recovery. For some people I know it can be a bit hit or miss, and for me it has done wonders. For me now, I have acquired enough barriers between myself and any action steps I could take with my intrusive thoughts and images that are utterly life-changing and life-saving, as it were.
The main one is that I signed a piece of paper saying I would not engage in self-harm or attempt/complete suicide while at the Dialectical Behavior Therapy-Intensive program. The DBT-I at my current day program–a day program I’ve been in for the last seven months and been in Intensive since May–lasts for six to eight months. That means six to eight months between me wanting to act on an urge now and by the end of eight months, no longer wanting to act on my thoughts because the crisis by then has disappeared.
It’s kind of ingenious, in a way, if you think about it. What it buys me, is time. Time to think of the ‘what if’s.’ Time to pause and breathe (even though that’s the last thing I want to be doing) and to tolerate my emotions and let go of my thoughts, ultimately take a mindfulness approach and just return to Earth as gradually as I can. It gives me time to call someone at a hotline, time to interact with another fellow human being, or time to write an article about my preventative measures. Time is a valuable, valuable thing when someone is undergoing a crisis. To have access to time, to allow the thoughts to come and go as they will naturally do is so, so critical. Because the crisis will fade, the crisis will not last forever and the cruel thoughts being slung around your brain will cease to exist again. They may return, and they very well may do so, and by then, you’ll be stronger.
You will be strong enough to say ‘no’ to them. You will be strong enough to choose to live.
It doesn’t matter what BS images my brain shows me, because in reality none of them have actually happened. I may be sitting alone on a bench crying in public, and that may not be entirely effective in the long-term, but it beats being somewhere alone where things could turn the corner in the worst way possible.
To me, accumulating preventative measures means remembering what if’s–what if my next round of treatment would have made the difference? What if I tell someone how I’m feeling and they respond with compassion? What if I don’t act on my thoughts and feel better again soon?
Another thing I find about accumulating preventative measures is using a lot of skills all at once: change my self-talk by finding encouraging or inspirational quotes, check the facts about what situation triggered me, reading over letters friends have given me, seeking out ways to help the community around me, or even watching some of my old YouTube videos.
The biggest thing I’ve learned from program is that acting on my harm thoughts really isn’t in line with my values at all. I have built an army of reasons not to act harmfully, including: the awareness of the safety contract, listening to new music that comes out, watching a sunset, creating more art, seeing the next Avengers movie, graduating, feeling happiness.
And although this article has ended, the journey has not. It’s ever changing, ever flowing and so very, very worth it.
Stay safe.
Article written September 11.2018
This was a post-crisis work through article that has been polished up and is ready for submission (I’ve already sent it out, actually). I decided to add my sunset photograph to this piece, and have a few more photos related to articles to be published soon. 🙂 It’s similar to the process of acceptance, it’s on-going and will wax and wane in progress.
I hope that you enjoy this article! Leave me your thoughts down below on what some of your own preventative measures are! 🙂
❤ ❤ ❤
PS If my after-thoughts don’t make as much sense, I’m trying to avoid a ruminative process right now (Sat evening) so that may explain things. I also didn’t read over this article so that might have something to do with it, too. 😛
If you’ve been reading my articles since the dawn of time, you’ll know that I’ve touched on stigma and its effects on those of us living with mental health conditions, such as myself, quite a few times. In fact, my first article in The Mass Media was because of stigmatizing comments I had encountered in my day to day trekking home and to UMass Boston. (Back when we didn’t have dorms!)
Stigma is something that many brave souls have combatted in the past, in the present, and unfortunately, will likely continue to combat in the future. Stigma eliminates person first language (as you read about in the Diagnosis segment of the series) by identifying those struggling with mental health conditions *as* their illness and not who they are as a whole. Stigma is often said by those who are uneducated about the field of mental health and who are either ignorant to the weight of their comments or do not care to understand at all (to put it bluntly in black and white terms). Stigma harms those who are struggling both silently and with their voices loudly echoing the room. Stigma has the power to drain every ounce of energy from you and collide into you with the hopelessness of why we, as a community, should fight back against it at all.
Stigma, most importantly, while largely being external can also become internalized, posing even higher stakes and problems for the individual’s minds.
When I was first diagnosed in 2014 with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder on self-harm and suicide obsessions (not genuine thoughts of suicide), I faced my mind’s enemy with phrases that I was “just attention-seeking” and “I didn’t really have OCD”, or that I “should check whether or not I have hidden intentions to harm myself”–which would perpetuate a cycle of anxiety and doubt that I would engage in mental rituals to arrive on the conclusion that I was in fact safe which only then prompted additional intrusive thoughts that began the cycle all over again.
I know I also struggled with coming to terms with the idea that I didn’t know I was living with a diagnosable mental health condition. I felt that if I couldn’t tell something was “wrong” with me than what else was I missing?
Over the years, I’ve faced stigma in a few different places–on the train, in passing conversation, in people mentioning “craziness” off-handedly, in text-based mediums and within my own mind. I still have some internalized stigma mostly regarding those individuals living with psychosis and personality disorders as those are areas of psychoeducation that I, myself, am not well educated in.
Along those lines, personality disorders like borderline (BPD), psychosis, eating disorders, substance use disorders, self-harm and suicidal ideation tend to be *heavily* stigmatized in multiple cultures and countries around the world.
In fact, there’s a public health crisis ongoing at the moment regarding the alarming rates of suicide worldwide along with the presence of an opioid epidemic in America.
Again, I don’t have lived experience with the latter so I can’t talk too much about that but for the former, suicide is still a hushed topic with a lot of stigma stemming from the idea that its act is one of “selfish-ness” or seen as a sin in a religious perspective. Then there’s also the idea that self-harm is equivalent to suicidal ideation–when it’s not–and that suicide attempts are marked as “cries for help”, “attention-seeking”, and “if they were really serious they would have completed suicide.”
Stigma has the knack for perpetuating lies and misconceptions about mental health conditions as though those of us living with them are meant to be feared and shunned, or worse, sterilized and institutionalized. There have been many cruel acts done to us in the past, and we’re repeatedly demonized by the media still today.
Choosing to not talk about suicide envelopes and pushes those of us who struggle with its ideation further into the darkness. Normalization and approaching individuals with compassion and light is what’s required to bring down the statistics that say every forty seconds another person loses their life to suicide (WHO, 2018).
It’s not easy to talk about, it’s not fair, and it’s still important.
There will always be the people who don’t believe mental health conditions are a reality for one out of five American adults (NAMI, 2015). There will always be those who claim it’s for one reason or another, but there will also be people who are willing to understand and want to for the sake of their loved ones.
Our mission is to find those individuals and educate them, leaving behind the rest; because saving even just one life can make a world of difference.
If you are struggling with suicidal thoughts: you can call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1800 273 8255; contact the Counseling Center any time; text HOME to 741-741; or find additional resources via Google.
Hey everyone!! I haven’t completely decided if I’m uploading this article this Saturday or tomorrow (Sunday) as a scheduled post. But I thought I could keep you guys up in the loop by sending it out soon.
Wellness deadlines for the paper this semester are Thursday’s at 5p, which means I send in my articles for the week by Wednesday evening, the day before. I’ve already written about 7 articles and from what I was overhearing the other day, the paper may change from bi-weekly to weekly, which would be awesome.
For now, I have about 3 ongoing series going on, and this article itself took a turn down suicide prevention lane that I had not anticipated at the get-go. But, that’s okay.
Hope you guys enjoy this post! I have a really cool one coming up after this from my week two’s submission. 🙂
I’ll try not to be a stranger! Hope you’re all well. ❤ ❤ ❤
PS I forgot to say: This piece was written September 9.2018 🙂
Living life with a chronic illness is definitely not easy. But I do my best to push through all the barriers this illness puts in front of me! In my heart and mind, I believe maintaining a positive outlook on all situations in life will carry us through to much better times! I hope you find the information that I provide both helpful and inspirational!
RecoverytoWellness 