Lianhua.nu

Imperfect (but that’s okay)

Last Friday, I did one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life.

They say that the first and hardest step in solving a problem is admitting that you have a problem. For me, that wasn’t nearly as hard as admitting that this was a problem I couldn’t solve on my own or with the help of a friend, even a great one like the ones who have helped me before.

Friday morning, for the first time in my life, I found myself in the waiting room in a psychiatrist’s office, my stomach churning in terror.

Through tear-filled eyes, I admitted to this stranger that I have a problem and I can’t fix it myself. I admitted that I could no longer chalk it up to just being emotionally sensitive, as I had since I was little, and I admitted that I’m not okay with feeling like this.

Some days, for pretty much no reason, it’s impossible to get out of bed and get ready for the day. As much as I love my job, and as many times as I tell myself so on those days, I find myself walking in late, or not going in at all. My appetite is gone; all I want to do is sleep, watch television, play around on the computer. If I do make it to work, I find myself pretty much in tears over the slightest little frustration, or even the most minor of negative responses from a friend or coworker.

Even worse, any little fight or argument with Derek would turn into a complete meltdown. When he told me he was going to Paris, and that I couldn’t come, I broke down completely. I told him that, if he left, I wouldn’t be there when he got back. We fought for hours, and only stopped when he insisted I call my mom and let her talk me down.

That is not normal. That is not just being emotionally sensitive. That is not okay.

After another argument with Derek that got way out of hand, I realized that I needed to do something. In tears, I asked him to help me, and he promised he’d do what he could but reminded me that most of this has to be done for and by myself.

So later that afternoon, after he had gone to work, I made an appointment with a psychiatrist a couple of blocks from our apartment (one of the joys of living in an area that’s full of banks, medical buildings and churches).

And, on Friday, I went to my first appointment.

When I first saw the psychiatrist, I thought he was terrifying — he’s a big, gruff kind of guy with a very stern face. But after sitting and talking for half an hour, I knew that he was going to help me, and the terror subsided.

I left his office with smeared mascara, a prescription for an SSRI and strict instructions on how to take it and what to look out for, and, finally, a sense of optimism.

I’m going to get better.

Although I’ve never really personally subscribed to it, there’s a mindset in this country that going for psychiatric help is admitting that you’re weak, admitting that you’re, essentially, crazy. It’s a hard barrier to break through — you’re always wondering what other people are going to think, how they’ll react to the news, etc. We’re ashamed to admit that we’re not perfect, that we’re not capable of handling life and all its curves on our own. But why?

What are we without our mental health? Many social and behavioral disorders have physical effects — when our mental health is compromised, our physical health is very soon too follow. But we’d rather treat the physical symptoms — the nausea, the migraines, the acid reflux, etc, etc, etc — than the mental ones. We don’t want to admit that something is wrong with the way our brains function.

Friday afternoon I posted on my Twitter (and therefore on my Facebook) that I was starting Lexapro, and that I was scared. A friend of mine, today, mentioned that I was pretty brave to admit it.

I’m not brave. I’m human, I’m imperfect and I have no reason to be ashamed.

Hey Jude, You’ll Do.

I’ve been having a lot of trouble lately convincing myself that I’m where I’m supposed to be in my life.

I mean, I know I am physically where I want to be — I’m in a city that I love even a little more each day, I’m working on fixing my health issues (mostly related to my knees and back), I have a wonderful apartment, a great job and a boyfriend who tries so hard to make my world so wonderful — but there are so many things that I wanted to do with my life that I haven’t been able to do that emotionally and mentally, I’m lost.

A couple of years ago, in my junior year at Sarah Lawrence, I came across an opportunity to receive a grant to travel outside of the US for an entire year. Basically, the only stipulations were that I not re-enter the United States for that year, and that I produce some sort of project out of it. I started writing a proposal for it: I was going to travel to various countries to study how Buddhism had taken root and evolved in those countries (including a few that you wouldn’t expect to have much of a Buddhist community at all, like South Africa for example), and produce a blog documenting my travels and findings through words and photographs. I was so excited about it, but at the same time somewhat terrified. I wrote out about half of my proposal… but then inexplicably stopped.

I found the proposal hidden away in one of the far reaches of my hard drive a few weeks ago, and it sent me into quite the depression.

I didn’t stop writing the proposal inexplicably. Far from it; I had a very particular reason for not finishing and submitting the proposal. I wasn’t scared of being outside of the country. I wasn’t scared of the language barriers. I wasn’t scared of the amount of work it would have required.

I was scared of being alone.

The proposal would have meant that, unless I’d gotten married before I left, I would’ve had to go by myself, and I was scared that, when I got back, I wouldn’t have the relationship I would’ve been leaving.

The relationship that ended anyway, during the time that I could’ve been away fulfilling one of my greatest dreams.

Now, two years later, I’m reduced to tears by the fact that I didn’t even apply. It’s one of the biggest regrets I think I’ll ever have, and I’m probably going to have to live with it forever.

I’ve started my adult life now — I have a job and responsibilities that I just can’t ignore for a year while I go off traveling around the world. And a part of me aches because of this.

It hurts to try to accept the fact that I’ll never be who I could’ve been if I’d just taken that risk, if I’d opened my eyes a little wider and realized that it was too big of an opportunity to pass up just because I didn’t want to leave him. Especially because, in the end, he left me.

I’ve become a lot more independent in the last year and a half, and I’m slowly realizing that if I wanted to, I could probably go off and do something like that project I wanted to do. But now, there’s no money for it, no generous benefactor sending me a big fat check to stay the hell out of the US for a year, and there’s no time for it, if I take a year off from work there may be no job for me to go back to.

Derek promises that we’ll travel, together. We’re thinking about going to Japan next year for a little while, if we can. And he encourages me to travel on my own, too. I have plenty of people besides him surrounding me who would love to go to these places with me. And this comforts me. A comfort is a comfort, no matter how small.

So now all that’s left to do is to accept the fact that I can never be who I could’ve been had I taken that chance, and to allow myself to blossom into the person I can be if I take the chances I want to take now. I have to accept this life for what it is, and make the best of it. I have to accept who I am and who I’m going to be, and know that no matter what, I can be enough to make myself happy.