Monthly Archives: June 2014

I’m a 22 year young woman living in Croatia, classical guitar player and teacher, passionate nature, music, art and life lover, giving my best to feel comfortable and happy in every aspect of my life so basically a huge hedonist. Oh yes, I was also diagnosed with GAD (Generalized Anxiety Disorder) and have panic attacks from time to time.

The reason why I mentioned my anxiety issue last is that I absolutely HATE to be known for having anxiety! It has nothing to do with shame or being afraid, I simply know that there is so much about me, so many things that make me who I am and anxiety is just one little negative part of me that I am trying to completely delete.

Now when I look back, I see traces of anxiety since I was a child. I remember my first panic attack when I was 4 years old when I had to go take a blood test. A few years after, when I was 7, I was bullied in elementary school and I would feel sick and nauseous every single morning before going to school. In this period I even got asthma which I never related to the bullying until a few years ago.

It all resulted with my parents sending me to another school. From that point on I had no traces of anxiety anymore, except during exams, playing concerts in the music school that I attended or traveling (which I love but it still does make me feel anxious).

I of course had problems, both emotional and mental, but they didn’t make my life harder in any way, I would feel anxious, push the feeling somewhere deep down inside me and continue walking through life like that.

This changed in 2013. I went through a terrible break up with my ex fiancé, I had to move to a place which I hated to make some money. I didn’t manage to get into the university which I really wanted to study in. This all resulted with a lot of tension in my family. The worst thing was I didn’t escape from the town I hated living and working in. Instead I had to return there defeated.

As hard as I tried to push these feelings under a rug, I simply couldn’t. One day in August I was sitting with my best friend in a café when I felt sick, I couldn’t breathe properly, my head was pounding and I fainted. After that I started having anxiety and panic attacks every single day.

I was afraid to leave my house, I couldn’t go out with my friends at all because I was afraid of feeling like that night and fainting again, I feared the day when the school year started and I would have to move to the awful town again to work as a teacher…

I don’t know how did I managed to go through every day and not tell anyone about my fears. To be honest, I didn’t even know what anxiety was and I didn’t think of the possibility of having it myself. I just thought I was going insane and I hoped it would stop by itself.

From August 2013 till now, I had two extremely bad anxiety and panic attack periods. The first was in September 2013 when I did move to the town again. I was lying on my couch, thinking about how I hated being there and how I hated how my life turned out. My whole body started shaking, I couldn’t breathe or move. My heart was pounding so hard that I was sure I’m going to have a heart attack. These sensations lasted for a few hours. I had one panic attack after another. Finally I fell asleep from all the exhaustion.

The next morning I didn’t feel any better so my mum had to travel 150 kilometers to pick me up and bring me home. I remember being so tired and fed up with everything that I didn’t even care about losing my job, going to a mental institution or whatever, I just wanted it all to stop no matter what it takes.

My parents didn’t take me to any institution and I didn’t lose my job, but I did get on my feet again and decided to fight every single day until I got a better job that would, as I thought, make everything related with anxiety go away.

That did happen after a few months, but moving back to my hometown and starting a new job after winter vacation made me feel the same way as I did in September. When I refused to leave my apartment for 2 weeks, I realized that my anxiety wasn’t triggered only by me hating my job.

I had my dream job now. I was living in the city where I wanted to live but I was still unable to do anything!

This is when I realized I had to change something drastically. I realized I had anxiety. I started writing my blog and got in touch with many people dealing with the same problem. I realized that my doctor wouldn’t help me because she claimed it all being an adolescent phase and that I just had to learn how to deal with problems. So I tried homeopathy, and what I found most helpful was practicing mindfulness. I still work hard on it every day, on focusing on “The Now,” breathing, meditating etc. I find that changing my mindset towards mindfulness changed my life completely for the better.

Today I am unfortunately unemployed (it had nothing to do with anxiety issues though), but I would be happy to work again. I still fight anxiety on a daily basis but I swore not to let it control my life. Yes, I do feel awful when I have to go out and do something important, but I don’t care- I make myself do it no matter how bad I feel and eventually I catch myself being really happy!

I also paid a visit to a CBT therapist a couple of weeks ago and she gave me a huge kick to make even faster progress when she explained a lot of my physical symptoms to me. I realized that I would be even better now if I had the courage to ask for professional help earlier!

I unfortunately live in a country where no one openly talks about mental issues. They are still covered up and a lot of stigma is around it. Well, I was always a rebel and trouble maker, so I decided to be one when it comes to mental health too- I have no fear of telling anyone who I meet about my anxiety and explaining what anxiety is. I want everyone to realize that we have to open up to educate people on mental health issues. We need to let them know that we’re not crazy. We just have a problem that we’re dealing with and that doesn’t make us unreliable or not trustworthy in any way!

Maja was born in Zagreb, Croatia, educated to be a professional classical guitar player. She is currently unemployed but worked as a guitar teacher for two years and is hoping for doing it again. You can read everything about her fighting with anxiety disorder and other life situations on her blog, www.myownchallengeblog.blogspot.com and follow her on Twitter @myownchallenge.

I was an overly-dramatic emotional child. We still laugh about the time we were taking a hike while camping and I begged my uncle to carry me. I was probably fourish at the time. When no one would, I threw my head back and moaned, “WHOA IS ME! NOBODY LOVES ME! MY LITTLE LEGGIES ARE GOING TO FALL RIGHT OFF!!!” I did this the entire walk.

I vaguely remember it, but I am reminded of it all the time.

I am quick to react to something if it upsets me. I also worried a lot.

Growing up I yelled and shouted and cried a lot. I had night terrors. I made myself physically ill worrying about the worst case scenario. I hated spending any time away from home without someone who felt like home with me.

It was my “quirk” and was generally made light of.

But I remember not thinking it was funny at all.

The surge of sweaty nausea I got when I had to start something new like a job or college prevented me from asking questions or creating relationships until I had become comfortable.

Once I was comfortable, I would talk to anyone. I would make friends with an empty chair if there was no one else to talk to, so not many people realized how crippling my anxiety was. I didn’t even realize it.

When I know what to expect and I have a plan, the anxiety is so small, I forget it’s there.

That is what happened when I became a mom.

My husband and I had been married for four years when our oldest son came along. I had been in the same job for six years. Although we had been pitched some curve balls with miscarriages and losing my father-in-law to cancer, we were comfortable. There wasn’t much anxiety that we couldn’t manage-that wasn’t normal for where we were in our life together.

We happily prepared for Eddie’s arrival in June of 2009. We created a cute nursery, we read the books, we took the classes, we talked with all of our friends who had already had kids. Like all new parents, we knew how this was going to go. We even knew it could go a different way, and that would be Ok.

Having an emergency C-section was something I was actually prepared to have happen. But the reality of it-the trauma of it and the pain resulting from it-I was most decidedly not prepared for.

I was also not prepared for a baby who cried for hours and hours every single day. I thought babies slept a lot! Not Eddie. He cried more than he did anything else.
I was not prepared for the rush of hormones or my milk coming in or a baby that needed to be switched to soy or how useless I would feel as my incision healed and I couldn’t soothe my own baby.

Even after the first four months past and Eddie mellowed out, I was still vibrating with the after effects.

It never occurred to me that any of it had to do with my already present anxiety issue. I wasn’t overly worried about leaving my baby. In fact, when it was time to go back to work, I almost ran.

I never thought I was depressed either. Commercials for antidepressants showed people who were sad and ho-hum about life. That wasn’t me either.

I was mad all the time. And overwhelmed. So overwhelmed and angry. I want to slap my husband and then go to bed and stay there for a million years. I didn’t want to deal with life. I fantasized about driving my car at 80mph off the expressway during my commute and into a tree. But really, it wasn’t so much that I wanted to die, I just wanted to not be part of life.

I didn’t know how to verbalize this without freaking people out. I was an educated, successful high school teacher and college adjunct instructor. I had a great marriage. And now I had a cute baby. I had people commenting on how I was doing so much and so well.

But I wasn’t.

I wanted to scream that. “I AM NOT OK!”

But what would I say after that? I had no idea. So I pushed on trying to ignore the crappy stuff going on in my head, telling myself it’s totally normal since I am a new mom-and hating being a new mom.

One evening after a nine-month old Eddie was tucked into bed, I started crying and couldn’t stop. My life sucked! Why was this so hard? Why did I hate everyone? Was I never going to be Katie again?

My husband gently suggested I call my doctor and because I was too worn down, I agreed.

That was five years ago. In the past five years, I have been working my way back to myself. My official diagnosis is Postpartum depression and anxiety (which are now just depression and anxiety), post-traumatic stress disorder (from the miscarriages and emergency c-section), and obsessive compulsive disorder.

I’ve also suffered antenatal depression with my second baby and postpartum depression after he was born. Both of which I was quick to notice and quick to get help for because I knew what I was watching for.

I’m still a successful teacher and writer. And I have mood disorders and mental illness. I am a great mother and wife. And I have a chemical imbalance in my brain.

I take medication every day and I go to a therapist, but I am not afraid to have more children or whether or not I can continue to be successful.

There was a time when I asked my therapist when I would be “done”, when I would be “better”. She gently told me that living with my mental illness was like my best friend who lives with diabetes. There is no “done”. There is maintenance.

I can live with that. Because I have to. And it’s Ok.

At the beginning of this school year if someone asked me what was wrong or why I was unhappy, I could not have told them; I’ve always been this way. It was not until off a whim I signed up for a class on gender identity and sexual orientation that I realized how much my sexuality has impacted on my life.

I recognized the negative impact that others homophobia (and my own personal internalized homophobia) have had on my mental health. I remember as a little kid first hearing about the concept of mental illness. I learned that people could get hurt by mean things that other people said to them if they believed their mean words. I imagined that this only occurred in extreme situations where someone did something really cruel.

In reality these situations happen daily in subtle forms of hostile behavior called “micro-aggressions.”

I first became aware of my sexual orientation when I was in the sixth grade. It seemed like everyone around me began questioning my sexual identity before I had given it much thought. I remember a particular experience in sixth grade writing class; I was aware that I wasn’t naturally attracted to men all that much. So I falsely claimed I had a crush on Prince Harry to fit in with the other girls who all had celebrity crushes on guys.

I put pictures of him on my binder, his name all over my folders, and the occasional remark about what he must be capable of behind closed doors. It was practically true love. However, despite my desperate attempts to fit it, I didn’t fool anyone. One day, my good friend Mary cut me off mid-sentence while discussing my plans to marry Prince Harry by blurting out, “Isabelle, you’re a dyke.”

My body tensed up, this made me so uncomfortable. She sat grinning at me with an accusing look of pleasure, “You know it’s true.” I quickly laughed it off, assuring her this was the first time I had heard such a thing. She didn’t buy it and rolled her eyes, saving her remarks for another day.

Was I insulted? Yes.

Scared? Tremendously.

What did this mean? How did she know? What if she told?

Oh my gosh… I thought to myself about all the sleepover invitations that would surely disappear. This was the first time it ever occurred to me that other people thought about, noticed, and made assumptions about my sexuality. I previously thought my sexual identity was something that belonged solely to me. But that’s the thing about inequality, it strips you of your humanness. It takes away a part of you that should be sacred when it’s exploited as “wrong.”

Middle school was very rough for me. I received a great deal of mixed messages about homosexuality. My conclusion was that it was okay for gay people to be gay, but for me: that clearly does not apply. I am not a gay person, I am a straight person who is only secretly wondering if I am gay.

Somehow there is a difference, and it made sense to me. I’m clearly straight; that is the norm. I’d never in my life strayed too far away from the norm.

In the eighth grade I had a new friend group built off my friendship with Mary. My old friends finally ditched me for the following reasons: I was annoying, immature, obsessive, overweight, and rumored to be a lesbian. Definitely not cool. I still thought I had a chance at defending the lesbian the title though. I couldn’t possibly be gay, I haven’t even experienced a relationship with a boy, or even a girl for that matter. I was still in middle school, so the pressure wasn’t on until high school.

With all the new found freedom that arose from having not as many friends, I found myself very bored with my life. My mom would ask me why I didn’t want to hang out with my old friends and I wanted to cry. I didn’t know what to say, I didn’t want to think about why nobody wanted to hang out with me anymore. So I started spending a lot more time alone.

So began the first cycle of concealing the identity; it became the perfect storm: suppress my feelings all day long at school and arrive home to an empty house to find myself aching with an insatiable hunger. And so I began to eat, and eat, and eat. I was coming close to eating my family out of house and home.

I would sit myself down in front of the TV and flipped to the LGBTQ station, LOGO. I came across this channel when my parents purchased a satellite dish. I only ever watched it when I was home alone, or whenever everyone was asleep. Oh man, do I remember the rush! The remote grasped firmly in my left hand with my thumb pressed against the “back” button; ready to take action in case someone happened to walk in and catch me watching.

My right hand deep into a bag or bowl of something unnecessary, stuffing myself with the same emotional intensity I was feeling in the heat of that moment. And so began my binges while immersing myself in the televised LGBTQ community.

I loved watching anything that had lesbian characters in it, and surely those options were limitless: documentaries, TV shows, and movies which all kept me engaged for hours on the days that my parents worked late.

The following year when I was a freshmen in high school I decided to cut all my hair off because I felt it was the lesbian thing to do. I was also inspired by my idol at the time, Dolores O’Riordan, which is what I told my friends and family was the reasoning behind my decision. I just wasn’t ready to tell anyone about my lesbian feelings, but I desperately needed some sort of expression. Which is also why I told them that Dolores was my “idol.” She was more like girl of my dreams.

Unfortunately with this decision, I completely overlooked the fact that I didn’t have any sense of style, dressed sort of masculine, and was a bit overweight. Leaving me easily mistakable for a boy, far from what I was aiming for.

Ski practice had just ended and my team and I were waiting for the bus to pick us up from the mountain. I stood there, minding my own business, when out of the corner of my eye I saw two boys looking at me, then I heard, “Dude, boy or girl?” followed by laughter. I wanted to die. I needed to. That moment right there… I felt like I had been stabbed by their words, and I was bleeding out in insecurity. I hated myself. This wouldn’t have happened if I weren’t so stupid, fat and ugly.

I never wanted to be called out like that again. I felt like a freak and everyone could see it.

I arrived home later that night and kept my feelings to myself, as per usual. My mom called me down from my room to join the family for dinner. I glanced away from the mirror and yelled down, “I’m coming!” My glance retreated to the mirror as I stared at my body with only my underwear and bra on.

I’m so big and gross.

I turned to the side and tried to suck my stomach in. It barely made a difference. I didn’t want to eat dinner.

I am fat enough. I wished I was sick so that I would have an excuse to not eat dinner.

***

It was Christmas Eve. I lay in my bed as I reset the message on the home screen of my phone to an abstract number “1446.” The rough estimate of days until I graduate from high school. Laying in bed all alone I realize how much I hate myself and how much I want a girlfriend and how much I wish I could come out as gay. When I graduate from high school I will come out, I reassure myself. I honestly don’t know if I can make it that many days, but it’s helpful to have a visual concept of how many days that is.

Three months later, roughly 5 pounds heavier, April vacation was looming. I was going to South Carolina with mom, sister, and a friend of each of our choice. I pretended like I was excited to be around college guys in bathing suits on spring break. My friend and I discussed the possibilities of them talking to us. With this thought in mind, later that evening I decided to try on my bathing suit to see what I had to offer. I slipped into our guestroom where I could get a better perspective in our 6 foot by 4 foot mirror. I switched on the light and saw a glimpse of myself from 15 feet away. I didn’t recognize my reflection. I wanted to cry. I was so sad to see my body. “I am so fat,” I announced to myself with great distress.

I am so horribly fat, I want to die. I look like a man. I am so big I look like a man in a woman’s bathing suit.

Suddenly, déjà vu: my mom is calling me down for dinner “I’ll be down in a minute!” I call down.

I stare at my reflection with fear and disappointment.

Something is different tonight. I eat my dinner with the same gusto as usual and then retreat to my room, stopping to grab a Tupperware container while everyone else is occupied in conversation. I lay on my bed and I feel so full. My stomach protrudes further usual.

I’m going to throw this up.

Just like that I bobby pinned my bangs back and emptied the majority of my stomach into the Tupperware container. I felt fantastic. Despite the high impulsivity correlated with bulimia, the decision was actually not as impulsive as it appears. In reality I had been planning it out for years. Starting the summer before seventh grade; the first time I made myself throw up. Since then, I rarely engaged in this behavior However, internally the eating disorder had been brewing beneath the surface, just waiting for the perfect moment to attack.

I had been comforting myself with this idea. In case of an emergency: I can make myself throw up. This night seemed like enough of an emergency; my weight was at an ultimate high and in a very short amount of time I was going to be seen in a bathing suit. Later that night as I fell asleep I started thinking about my food intake for the next day. I liked doing this.

I’m not going to eat breakfast and I will try as hard as possible not to eat lunch, but if I do I guess that is okay for now. And then once dinner comes around I will definitely purge that.
I was always told that I couldn’t be certain of my sexual preference until I had experienced both sexes. So I decided to take on this challenge. The only problem was that at the time it was difficult for me to find a guy who was attracted to me. By freshman year I had only been the love interest of two people: a boy in the kindergarten who told me I was pretty, and a boy in the sixth grade who I “dated” for three days. Other than that no guy had ever shown interest in me, and likewise I had never really shown interest in them.

I figured “Ok Isabelle it’s your time now, clean up your act and start attracting guys!” I told myself that once I had experienced guys then I could decide if I was gay. Oddly, it didn’t even cross my mind that I should test out if I was lesbian. I just sort of knew or assumed that sex and a relationship with a woman would be amazing and so much more wonderful. (I was right.)

I devised the ultimate plan to attract guys: lose weight and dress more feminine. And in the process, maybe I could become attractive enough that I would be able to accept myself and come out as gay (It made sense at the time). I sort of mentally aligned my weight restriction with my gender identity restriction.

One summer, I lost 25 pounds and allowed myself to cut my hair even shorter into a pixie cut, and then my goal became: lose 25 pounds more, and then I could shave my head.

My plan to loose weight came to a halt six months later when I was diagnosed with bulimia nervosa.

I now stand here three and half years later recovered from bulimia but still wondering if it was okay that I ate breakfast this morning.

I tell these stories of a distant past because the toll of these experiences lives on. My goal is to show everyone what even the subtlest forms of homophobia can do. Even the smallest comment- like questioning a person’s gender- has the potential to set a person’s life off course if directed at them. These small acts of hatred are carried over to the victim where they seep into the soul at any available entrance. A few minutes of hateful comments led me to years of self-hatred.

Isabelle is a student at Lasell College studying psychology.