Category: Anxiety

Holiday Hope

I have overheard people talking baout how they don’t like Christmas because of a bad childhood. I grew up in a dysfunctional family. My mom and dad separated when I was almost 7 years old and my siblings and I spent the next several years living mostly with my mom, but sometimes with my dad, but we always spent Christmas with my mom and her family.

Even though they were separated and we spent Christmas day with my mom, our Christmas tradition included both of them.

Even though my parents fought, a lot. Even though they cut me down and made me feel insignificant, a lot. Even though most of the year was filled with anger and tension, Christmas time seemed magical.

One afternoon in December, when we got home from school, my dad would decide it was Christmas tree day. We’d load into what we referred to as the “banana truck”, a yellow, Volkswagen, flatbed truck, and drive to a Christmas tree farm. We’d see a tree and if it looked good, one of us kids stood there to guard it until we decided that was the one and we cut it down, or cut down a better one. He always let the three of us take a turn with the saw too, so we each had a part in bringing home the Christmas tree. Once we had the perfect tree for that year, he’d throw it onto the back of the truck, drive us to our mom’s and set it up for us. Sometimes he’d stay while we decorated and they’d get along for the evening. The magical part, they’d get along.

Then one year, when I was in middle school, we lived with my dad, and my mom rented a room from a friend. Even though it wasn’t my mom’s own house, we were going there for Christmas and there was already a tree. The problem, for me anyway, was that we weren’t going to be in a house with Christmas spirit, leading up to Christmas. My dad wasn’t going to get a tree if we weren’t going to be there for Christmas.

That year, my siblings and I took matters into our own hands.

My sister and I went hunting for the box of Christmas decorations, while my brother raided the wood pile. He found the perfect pieces of wood to fashion together in a Christmas tree shape, it wasn’t huge, maybe 2 feet tall, but it’d work.

Then, the three of is found my dad’s supply of green butcher paper. We cut off enough to wrap around our wooden Christmas tree frame, laid it out on the floor and decorated it. We drew on ornaments and Christmas lights in bright colors. Once the paper was Christmas-y enough, we wrapped it around our frame.

We took the Christmas lights and strung them up around the room, we didn’t want to put them in our paper tree, because it was the eighties and those big, old Christmas lights got hot and we didn’t want to burn our paper tree. We even hung lights in our bedrooms.

It was perfect.

Looking back, it’s still my favorite childhood Christmas memory. My siblings and I took a bad situation and filled it with hope and love. I spent many evenings that December sitting in front of our homemade, artificial tree, with nothing but the Christmas lights to illuminate the room, dreaming of a magical life and feeling peace in the hope that I could make Christmas magical on my own.

Right now, this world we live in is dysfunctional. People are fighting, a lot. People are cutting others down and making them feel insignificant, a lot. People are filled with anger and tension, alot. We can have a magical Christmas season.

We can choose to dwell on the negative and talk about how horrible things are. We can choose to keep the divisions between us and them.

Or…

We can choose to do something else.

We can choose to work together to make the world a better place, just like my siblings and I made our house a better place.

We can choose to see hope in the holidays.

We can choose to stop fighting and start talking.

We can choose to stop cutting others down and making them feel insignificant and start building others up and letting them know how important they are.

We can choose to let the anger go and find constructive ways to release the tension, like giving to others and loving them.

Each person in this world can choose to make it a better place.

My holiday hope is that everyone chooses love and peace.

I Cried in Class!

Yes, I really did cry in class. I was up in front, teaching a lesson, when tears filled my eyes. My students got a glimpse of my vulnerable side. It was a good thing, I think. I know it was a lesson they won’t soon forget.

In my psychology classes, we are just starting our unit on mental illness. Every year, I start this unit with a lesson about ending the stigma of mental illness and the importance of getting help if you are struggling with a mental illness.

The lesson started out simply enough; we defined stigma. Here’s the definition from the Cambridge Dictionary: “a strong lack of respect for a person or a group of people or a bad opinion of them because they have done something society does not approve of:”

Then we looked specifically at the stigma associated with mental illness with this:

“Stigma refers to a cluster of negative attitudes and beliefs that motivate the general public to fear, reject, avoid and discriminate against people with mental illnesses. Stigma is not just a matter of using the wrong word or action. Stigma is about disrespect. It is the use of negative labels to identify a person living with mental illness. Stigma is a barrier. Fear of stigma and the resulting discrimination discourages individuals and their families from getting the help they need.” SAMHSA (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration), School Materials for a Mental Health Friendly Classroom, 2004

We had a little discussion about their attitudes towards mental illness and some facts about it, like the fact that 1 in 5 teens will experience a mental illness, which means their life will most likely be impacted in one way or another by mental illness.

Then we watched a couple of videos of teens and young adults discussing the way in which a mental illness has impacted their lives.

I ended the lesson by discussing several ways that each individual can help end the stigma surrounding mental health issues. These include: get educated about mental illnesses, listen to people talk about their personal experience with mental illness, respond to stigmatizing material in the media, speak up about stigma and watch your language.

The “watch your language” explanation was when I cried. Let me explain what happened.

I have Anxiety, Depression, PTSD and OCD. Thankfully, at the moment I am not having an episode of any of them, they have all gotten the memo that they are not invited to my party and are, so far, staying away from me. However, many of my readers know that I experience some dark times, where I feel like I’m drowning. It was the memory of one of those times that made me cry.

One of the “bonuses” of working in a high school is overhearing teenage conversations. Statements like this are common place:

“Maybe I’ll just kill myself so I won’t have to do that project/assignment…”

“I had such an OCD moment last night, I cleaned and organized my entire room.”

“I can’t sit still today, I’m so ADHD right now.”

“Oh my God! I can’t believe I just did that. I’m so retarded!”

Now, I don’t know the mental health status of all my students, but when only 1 in 5 deals with a mental illness, I can be pretty sure that many of the students who make such statements are just using the terms as adjectives.

These are mental illnesses, not adjectives!

In order to explain how this kind of talk can be stigmatizing, I chose to describe how OCD effects me at it’s worst.

In case you don’t know what OCD is, it stands for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.

A person with this illness has obsessive behavior, things they have to do. It could be organizing their closet a certain way, it could be not driving over bridges, it could be having to check and recheck that the doors are locked every night before they go to bed. Whatever the behavior is, it’s obsessive.

Then there’s the compulsive part. That’s the thoughts and feelings that cause the obsessive behavior. Usually, this part involves a feeling of terror or panic. It is not just because the person has a moment and cleans their room.

So back to my story. I wanted to describe how OCD affects me.

Every evening I check all the doors to the house and make sure they’re all locked and the windows closed. In the summer a few windows are allowed to stay open if I’m not experiencing an OCD episode. However, whether I’m having an episode or not, the routine stays the same. That way if I’m having an episode of OCD, I won’t forget to do it.

When OCD is on vacation, I can check the doors once and go to bed, no problem. When OCD first comes for a visit, I will have to get out of bed a few times to check before I can fall asleep.

When OCD is at it’s most terrifying to me, I see the terrible thing that will happen to my family if I don’t get up and check the doors and windows.

OCD doesn’t let my brain just think about the terrible thing, no, OCD takes control of my imagination and shows me vivid images of it.

That’s when I cried. One of the vivid images took center stage in my brain, in the middle of the lesson. I’m not going to describe what I saw inside my head, but imagine the  worst,  gory, horror movie scene you’ve ever watched happening to your family. That’ll give you an idea of the images that flood my mind during an episode of OCD and that’s what filled my mind in that moment of my lesson.

So I cried.

They saw a mental illness’s effect on a real person that they see almost every day. Hopefully, it will help them to watch their language and realize those are mental illnesses, not adjectives.

P.S. I know that many people with OCD don’t have the same horrific images that I see. Some obsessions have much milder compulsions, but OCD is still intrusive and disruptive to the person’s life.

#endthestigma Proud Mom Brag

I have two awesome kids and I’m super proud of them a lot. They are both friendly, smart, and totally different from each other.

In this post I’m going to brag on my daughter, just to warn you.

If you don’t want to know the incredible thing she did this week, stop reading now.

If you do want to know what she did this week to make me so proud, please continue reading.

She’s in eighth grade and taking a leadership class. This past week they were assigned to give a short, informative presentation, like a TED talk, but only about 2 minutes long.

The students picked their topics and some were; the importance of the gas light in your car, art, phobias, being a blonde, being a brunette, there was even one about TED talks.

My daughter chose to talk about mental health disorders. She wanted students her age to understand how common mental health disorders are, how they affect people’s lives  and not to make fun of people who have them.

She cautioned people to not use the names of mental health disorders lightly. For example, saying you have OCD because you’re organized. She informed her classmates that saying those sorts of things can really hurt someone suffering from that mental health disorder

.

The best thing is she didn’t even tell me about the talk; she usually goes about her school life without telling me what she’s doing. A student in her class told her mom about my daughter’s talk because it made such an impression on her. That mom came and told me.

When I asked my daughter about it, she shrugged it off like no big deal. She just thought people needed to know.

I can not put into words how proud I am.

#endthestigma

Fantastic New Song by Avril Lavigne

I have been having a fantastic, busy past few weeks, I haven’t even had much time to blog, so I’ll give a quick update before I introduce this amazing new song.

Last year, I started having a hard time with the anti-anxiety medication I was on. It made me not care about anything and all I ever wanted to do was sleep, I was always sooooooo tired. I like to get one medication out of my system before starting another one, so I asked my doctor is I could take the summer off any medication so that I could see how I do without it. It’s been years since I haven’t been on medication and while it initially works, each one I’ve been on has ultimately left me feeling exhausted and not caring about anything.

By the end of May, I was off medication and I tried natural ways to relieve my anxiety. I have a regular bedtime that I do my best to keep, whether its a weekday or not. I do my best to stay away from food that is made more out of chemicals than real food. I drink far less soda than I used to and way more water. I also walk two miles most mornings before I do anything else and practice yoga stretching and breathing exercises while listening to a local Christian radio station,which a friend of mine DJs on.

Overall, I feel so much better. I have energy that I didn’t have at the end of my run with medication. I’m feeling physically fit, I can walk two miles in 30 minutes. I’m losing weight from eating better foods. I don’t feel anxious all the time about every little thing.

Having said that, my anxiety is not completely gone. I still have the occasional panic attack, complete with rapid breathing, tears, and my whole body shaking. Sometimes I know what situation has caused it, sometimes I don’t. What I do know is that all I have to do to get through it, is focus on something relaxing, and take some deep breaths until the panic passes.

I still worry about random things too. For example, this past week I was in Washington DC, where I used public transportation to get around. It was hot there, but I wouldn’t wear shorts because I didn’t want to put my bare legs on the seats in the subway trains because somebody else may have put there bare legs there. It doesn’t even matter though because I’m going to take a shower, so who cares? I did. Little things like that still cause me excessive worry, but I can function. I just wore pants and went on with my life, the same exact germs that I didn’t want on my legs got on my pants instead. It all worked itself out in the end and I had a fantastic time taking new people to one of my favorite places.

Now, to this song by Avril Lavigne, called “Head Above Water”.  The words of the song tell my story and the story of so many others who suffer with anxiety. It’s beautiful and heart-wrenching. Thank you Avril Lavigne for putting these feelings into such an amazing song and video.

This song brings hope!

To The MAN Who Yelled At My Child

Since I promised the police officer that I wouldn’t confront the man who yelled at my child, I decided to give him a piece of my mind here on my blog.

This is not a picture of him, its a random picture of an angry man from the internet. I have some manners and respect for people. I don’t take pictures of children; some with their parents, some not, while they walk by after school. I did however drive by and take a picture of his house after he yelled at my child.

So here it is my open letter to the MAN who yelled at my child,

You don’t know me nor my son and we only know you as “the man who live in the house on the corner near our school,” yet yesterday you felt it necessary and appropriate to lean over your fence, red-faced, and yell at my 10 year old son and another child about the same age, gesturing your arms wildly and using language only appropriate when slamming your thumb in the car door, or perhaps stepping on a Lego, barefoot, in the middle of the night, but never to a child.

You might say that the children were using that language too in talking to each other, and maybe they were, that does not, in any way, make it okay for you, an adult between 40 and 50 years old, to speak that way to 10 or 11 year old children. They are kids trying out language, you are an adult who should be setting an example for the children, some as young as 5 years old, who walk by your house every morning and afternoon on their way to the elementary school that you chose to live two houses away from.

Let me tell you how sorry I am. I am sorry that your life is miserable, shallow, and pathetic that you have nothing better to do than stand in your broken- toy and last-year’s-Christmas-lights littered front yard after school everyday with a camera to “catch” children on their way home from school.

I don’t know what you think you’re going to “catch” them doing with your camera. Maybe drop some trash, say some bad words? I have been picking my children up at that corner for eight years now and that’s the worst behavior I have ever seen.

I’m sorry that you feel so week that you make yourself feel better by yelling and cussing at children.

You have no idea what I wanted to do to you when I pulled up and saw you yelling at my son and that little girl. However, I am an adult and chose an adult way to deal with the situation because I want to set an example for my son and any other kids who have to deal with a bully.

I simply made a report about your bad behavior, in this case with the police department.

If you ever yell at my child again, I will make another report. If your despicable behavior towards my child continues, I will eventually make a report about harrassing my child.

You see, I am an adult. I know how to handle things in a responsible fashion, while you are among the lowest dregs of society and resort to bullying children.

An angry mom,

Mishell Wolff

 

I have Survived!

For us, here in my little town, school started two weeks ago and I have survived. There is only seven weeks left until we get our two-week fall break; that’s only 34 more school days. Or six more weekends.

However you want to look at it, we’re in the midst of it and having fun, at least I think we’re having fun, I’m too tired to tell.

One of the symptoms of anxiety for me is trouble falling asleep and staying asleep. I regularly take 30 minutes to an hour to fall asleep, while my husband can close his eyes and is out immediately. Then, I often wake up during the night and will lay there for two or three hours counting sheep, saying the alphabet backwards, counting down from 100 by threes, connecting countries, or any myriad of other sleep tricks I’ve learned, only to fall asleep just before my alarm goes off.

Lucky (?) for me, this week I have been so tired from school that I haven’t had any trouble falling asleep, or staying that way until my alarm wakes me in the morning. I’m loving it. I love my sleep.

I have amazing, complicated teen-aged human beings to take care of during the day and teach them about psychology or history depending on what class they’re in. Its fun! I love what I do.

Seeing those light bulb moments are incredible.

Knowing that they have learned that it’s okay to make mistakes is beyond compare.

Watching them realize that they are valuable and love-able is priceless.

My goal this year, is not to merely survive each day in exhaustion, but to make sure that each student knows, every day, exactly how valuable they are, that they matter and my class would be worse off without them.

So far, I think I’m accomplishing that.  I hope I’m accomplishing that.

I have survived and so will they!

Another Trip Around the Sun

So last week I completed another trip around the sun and celebrated my 44th birthday with family, old friends, and new friends. Be I also spent time reflecting on the past year of my life. It was a good, but challenging year.

Some of the good:

  • my book was published and is now carried at several major book retailers in digital and print format.
  • My kids and I all survived a year of school.
  • We made new friends.
  • I got to take my family to New York and DC.
  • I’ve learned more about my anxiety, how my brain works with it and more of my triggers to help alleviate severe bouts of anxiety.
  • I lost fewer days to migraine than previous years.
  • My son was finally, officially, diagnosed with Autism.

Some of the challenges:

  • My anti anxiety medicine caused more side effects than help.
  • My son was diagnosed with Autism, so now starts the challenge of getting him an education appropriate for him.
  • I was one of several defendants in a civil lawsuit, which brought many horrible life experiences back to the front of my mind and emotions.
  • I still lost some days to migraine.

Overall, this past year was great. I will look back on it with fond memories, every year brings it’s new struggles and the positive memories of the past year, as well as my family and friends will give me the strength I need as I begin a new trip around the sun.

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Where Did The Time Go?

Children look forward to summer break all year long. I’ll let you in on a secret, most teachers look forward to it as well.

If you read my post “Hello Summer, My Old Friend” , ” you know that summer has been a difficult time for my anxiety in the past, I haven’t been looking forward to summer break for the past few years because of it.

This year I had a plan. I was going to get through the summer without a major episode of anxiety or depression and with one week left, I have been successful.

I’ve kept myself busy with my family and running my kids to all their activities. I’ve practiced relaxation breathing techniques as well as yoga stretches to start each day. I’ve focused on God and his role in my life. I’ve limited my time on social media and seen a purse and worked on my next book.

Most of the time I try to stay out of my own mind. I’ve learned that if I spend too much time in my mind, it begins to lie to me and drag me into it’s depths. Social media adds to those lies my mind tells me, so I limit it.

I’m thankful that I’ve made it through this summer. I go back to school in a week and my kids go back in two weeks. I know the school year will bring it’s own challenges as we adjust to another diagnosis for my son, autism, as well as homework demands, learning new routines and meeting new people.

This summer seems to have flown by, where has the time gone? I’m thankful I survived it and know that will give me strength to survive the school year.

How to Stop Sexual Harassment

This week a former student of mine shared her #metoo story on Facebook and Yelp. Thank you Erica Yamane for your bravery in calling out those people and sharing what happened to you in your workplace.

This incident happened to her in a popular industry in our area, wine. I actually had the amazing privilege (read “agonizing horror”) of serving on a jury for a workplace sexual harrassment case for two months a few years ago.

Sexual harrassment happens in the workplace, schools, streets, shopping centers everywhere, and it never should, so I have come up with a few steps to finally stop sexual harrassment.

1. If you are married or have a significant other, only talk about sex with that person.

2. If you are “flirting” with someone and they don’t reciprocate, stop flirting with them.

3. If you say something to someone and they ask you to stop, then stop.

4. If you touch someone and they ask you not to, then stop.

5. If you talk to or touch someone and they look uncomfortable or disgusted with you, then stop.

6. If it’s not something you would talk about with your grandma, then don’t talk about it.

While not comprehensive, I hope this list gives a little help in putting a stop to sexual harrassment.

Everything I’ve read on how to stop sexual harrassment is speaking to the victim. In reality the only way to end sexual harrassment, is for the perpetrators to stop what they’re doing.

One last step…

7. If you need to stop and ask yourself, “can this be seen as sexual harrassment?” keep it to yourself.

Hopelessness and Suicide

If you experience suicidal thoughts or have lost someone to suicide, the following post could be potentially triggering. You can contact the Crisis Text Line by texting “START” to 741741.

Two people from popular culture died this week by suicide; Kate Spade on Tuesday and Anthony Bourdain on Friday.

On Thursday, the CDC published a report about the rise on death by suicide in the United States between 1999 and 2016. According to their statistics, suicide rates have increased by 25% nationwide and up to 57% in a few individual states, such as North Dakota. According to the data the CDC receives from various reporting agencies, 2016 saw nearly 45,000 deaths by suicide in the United States, which is approximately 105 people in America who die by suicide everyday.

We heard about two of them this week, but in reality, according to those numbers, this week in America, 735 people have died by suicide. That’s the equivalent of an entire junior high school in my town being wiped out.

That’s a lot of hurting people whose lives mattered, who left even more hurting people behind.

According to the lead scientist of the CDC study, 54% of those people who died by suicide did not have a diagnosed mental illness.

That doesn’t mean they weren’t suffering from a mental illness, it just means that for some reason, they had not sought medical help for what was troubling them.

But that statistic caused me to ask a question, “If they aren’t doing it because of mental health issues, why are people choosing to die?”

I scoured the internet searching for answers. Some of the other reasons for suicide, besides clinical depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder and other  mental health issues(diagnosed or not) include:

Situational depression: this happens when a person has experienced a negative impact in their life, but hasn’t quit met the criteria of clinical depression.

Divorce, separation or end of a relationship.

Loss of a child: either through death or custody battle.

 Death of a loved one.

Financial loss.

Terminal illness diagnosis.

Fear of being “found out”: a person may have made decisions that will cause somebody close to them to lose respect for them or refuse to love them anymore.

Fear of consequences for their actions.

The list can go on and on. Some of the sites I got information from are:  http://www.suicide.org/suicide-causes.html,  https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/suicide/statistics/index.html,  https://www.healthline.com/health/suicide-and-suicidal-behavior, and  https://psychcentral.com/encyclopedia/suicidal-ideation/

The common thread in all the reasons for suicide is feelings of hopelessness.

Feeling as though the situation you are in will never get better.

Experiencing pain so intense that you’re sure it will never go away.

Expecting those you love to be angry with you, lose respect for you or stop loving you because of choices you’ve made.

Hopeless is a terrifying place to live.

It tells you that you’re alone and nobody will understand you.

It tells you that the world and those you love will be better off without you.

It tells you that death is the only solution to end the pain you’re in.

It tells you that you’re helping your loved ones by ending their suffering too. They may be devastated now, but you’re saving them years of heartache of having to live with you.

Hopelessness is a liar, one that clouds your mind and judgement so that you believe the lies it tells you are the truth.

This week we heard about two people who died by suicide, don’t forget the 733 others. Be there for people, listen to them and guide them towards the help they need.

If you need support right now, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 or reach the Crisis Text Line by texting “START” to 741741.