Excerpt From Moon's First Publication “Glass Slippers: A Journey of Mental Illness” Don’t Wear Your Glass Slippers to the Rodeo
Introduction
We have an epidemic in our country. Unfortunately, and fortunately, the epidemic I am speaking of is preventable. People must rise in awareness and compassion to confront the issue. I wish not to give this issue a scientific or politically acceptable definition or label, and that is really what this book is about; seeing ourselves and our friends, loved ones and community members through different eyes. Mental Health is the term we currently use, and as a survivor to this illness, I wish to change awareness of the nature within; the essence of what is being discussed. ‘Don’t wear your glass slippers to the rodeo’ is a mantra that helps me get by day to day, month to month, as well an affirmation that helps me redefine my illness as a gift; a journey that I have embarked upon now for almost a decade.
Recently, we have had many deaths in our small community of just over 2,000 folks on Lopez Island in San Juan County, Washington, United States of America. My friend’s son was sent to jail and did not receive the mental health analysis or assistance that was necessary. He died in prison of dehydration at the age of 25. He was a gifted writer and a young philosopher. Another friend was suffering from severe alcoholism to treat her Post Traumatic Stress. Her alcoholism eventually killed her and her body and spirit gave up. She was a nurse and a healer, again, a sensitive. A highly penetrating and intelligent man in his mid-forties, who dove in the Puget Sound and loved nature, killed himself by shooting himself in the head into a diving tank, which resulted in a great explosion and the burning of his home and body. Later, it was discovered that this was a suicide. Perhaps he was attempting to protect his young adult children from the sad reality that he wished to die. My friend’s husband died in a terrible car crash, seeking thrill and escape, leaving behind his baby and wife who are missing him greatly, and leaving them with a chasm in their hearts unimaginable. A young lad in his early twenties suffering with mental illness drowned himself into a coma by drinking too much water. Later he passed away. Another compatriot in his late thirties, died of hypothermia in a vehicle after having a lot to drink, as was his tendency.
I speak of all of these folks in familiarity, and am aware that they were gifted sufferers. I myself suffer from Schizoaffective Disorder, aka Bipolar Disorder with Psychosis, and I have a personal relationship with chemical imbalance and the life journey one must embark upon to fit into a world that seems to refuse to understand.
I am a creative person. During the days I first was able to write, I wrote poetry and fiction. In adolescence I began to play guitar and sing. In high school, I dove into improvisation and visual art. Painting later became a survivor tool, my therapy, and allowed me to understand the deep emotions that lay heavy on my heart. Now, writing has returned to my vocabulary and I blog and write about my healing, my journey, while putting voice to the struggle that I have been through.
It has occurred to me that this is not an accident. A friend on Facebook today commented on a picture I had posted, “Is there anything you don’t excel at?” I am flattered, but the answer to that question is ‘just about everything’. Yes, I have many talents, and I am aware and grateful. In my long yet short journey in my life, I may make something of myself, I do not know. The reason I say this, that which I do not excel in anything, is because I have a “stress disorder”. I am a glass slipper, really not the most practical choice in footwear. I have a gift that I must share with the hope that I will help others like me.
Over the years, I discovered that education at the collegiate level is an enormous trigger. At Mills College, my first school out of high school, I ended up at Riverside emergency in the midst of my first and most cataclysmic psychotic break. I told a cab driver I had a bomb in my backpack while approaching the airport, (pre- 9/11). At Evergreen State College the following year I ended up in the hospital for the second time. Over many years to follow in my early twenties I had many minor episodes while attending a vast array, totaling 6, community colleges in Washington. I attempted to aggress in an AA degree, and later a two year degree in Early Childhood Education. After “learning my lesson” and taking some time off, I entered Massage School. Once again, I landed myself a room in the psych ward after spending three months breaking windows, wandering aimlessly through the neighborhood, and speaking very little to my husband as I was experiencing many psychotic fantasies and visions.
Moral, lesson, whichever you may call it, school is a trigger. Over the years I have learned to “take it easy” despite the nature which I possess to be a manic overachiever. Having a Type A personality does not mix well with losing one’s mind. When you have forgotten your own name, forgotten how to dress properly and brush your hair, and have been placed among peers who are 180 degrees away from where you “should” be, one’s heart becomes broken. I was a letdown. I let myself down. I was lost. I was stricken with grief about losing my potential life. I had lost most of my friends. I was filled with anger and rage. Worst of all, I was anything but self-sufficient.
Me?! I was meant to be a strong independent woman, giving dissertations at my college, speeches, performances, and inspirational talks. Now, I was living in an ex-squatter’s house, paying rent with Marijuana, ashamed of the dog hair on my coat while working at a day care center, and sleeping on a single mattress with no sheets. To be honest, post break #1, I was quite unaware of who I “should be”. I had managed to fall in love, and I was now a renegade, a rebel. I redefined myself as an angry artist, and I lived very much in the fantasies in my head, as it was many years before I was perscribed an anti-psychotic for regular use. I must have hid it well. Except for my mid-massage school ‘break’, the worst of the three, I rarely had violent tendencies. Even through said episode, though I saw red and broke countless windows (in my own house), smashed a couple of cars with whatever I could lay my hands on, and broke my seventy five gallon fish tank with a large pipe wrench, I rarely hurt myself or another living creature. I can confess to two basic acts of annihilation. One, the dead fish. And two, I used to hit my head against the wall quite forcibly when I was frustrated/angry/tortured. This act I soon realized was hurting me, so I forced myself to quit. The internal act soon became external and I found myself throwing items across the room. At least I wasn’t hurting my body any more.
Steve, my husband, recalls a time that I broke his hand as he placed it between my head and the wall. I do not remember this occurrence. There are many holes in my life’s memory, of which I am unsure I would want to replace with the truth. I have forgotten these events for a good reason. People who have suffered unspeakable abuse in their past may understand this. Our bodies and minds are protecting us. What we really need to know is that we are loved.
After massage school and my visit to Harborview Medical Center, I moved to Lopez Island to be close to my parents. Steve eventually followed and found a job at the local Galley Restaurant and Lounge, where he still works today, eight years later, much below his skill level. Truly, Lopez has been filled with healing for both of us. My sister now lives here, has married and given birth to a daughter, now eight months old. We just returned from travels to Hawaii, my first trip on a plane in six years, and what a happy and blessed time that was for my nuclear family.
In the following pages I hope to tell the truth. I am not aiming to shock folks, and I pray to provide a story of hope as well as inspiration to the reader. I encourage to evaluate our epidemic and to provide solutions and a new way of looking at things. I aspire to affect those who need it in a positive way providing a new perspective. I have been given talents, and though up to this point I have not had the energy or resilience to put them to autonomical use, I do hope that my journey in healing and awareness may surpass this adopted identity, and allow me to step from the crippling fold of my illness and excel.
The Metaphor
After I left Harborview, I was in and out of this world and reality. I had visions of the world being made of spiders, and spoke regularly to an angel in my mind. After becoming a Christian three years ago, I have learned that some out of the ordinary thoughts are more than acceptable. You could even say that the belief of God is quite insane. Believing in God, however, has enabled some of my sensitivities to return. I am still a natural human being, and though I need medication and have an illness, I believe there can be a place for some of my visions. Years within the mental health system taught me to suppress any and all sensitivities, psychic awareness, visions etc. I became very afraid of these tendencies because they frightened me and I could not control them. My medication does not curb all of my other worldly thoughts and talents, partly because I have learned to live with them and bless myself and my ways as a good thing. I have, over the years, insisted on as little medication as possible. I have battled with and fought with many a mental health professional, always on guard and trusting very little. The truth is that our system does not have all the answers and thrives on controlling the problem. It attempts to take away a risk in our society and apply many heavy band aides.
I have also accepted increases in medication, making my life much more livable. I am grateful for the pharmaceutical companies, what help our country does provide and the medications that have saved me. This does not change my severe reservations of the mental health system nor the opinion that there is much to change about the way we are treated therein. I am gifted. Speaking of my talents, they come from another sort of gift that many do not understand. I am able to read energy, and I am highly intuitive. I know and see things that do not make sense to most human beings. I was told this was all a lie, a symptom. I treated my gifts for many years as such. But I am fragile, special. I am a glass slipper and this world is a rodeo. This world is filled with problems and anger that are an assault to the senses, especially if one is overly sensitive to such things. I need a shield, I need protection. Recently, I have learned that Faith can act as such a shield. I now am able to work 10 to 15 hours a week at a job. This is all I can handle before I become emotionally tapped. Is there a place for a glass slipper in our world?
I emerged from Harborview Hospital after leaving Massage School, whence I experienced a severe onslaught to the senses, and arrived on Lopez Island. I began to see a “vitamin doctor”, who believed he could correct my brain chemistry through supplements. This did not feel like good news. “You mean to say that after 10 years of learning to accept that I am disabled, you are saying you can fix me?! Why now?!” I don’t really believe that this was possible. He did succeed in providing some large bills that my parents were hopeful in and willing to pay, and in selling us many vitamins. We gave up on his treatments eventually, but I did walk away with one special thing, a metaphor. No, I do not appreciate referring to myself as a car, but this was his analogy that I later transformed into my own metaphor, hence the title of this book.
He said I was a Ferrari. I am a race car, capable of amazing things. The problem with a Ferrari is it does not do so well off-road. I seemed to have taken, or insisted on taking myself, the Ferrari, throughout my life into the ditches where I became repeatedly stuck. What I have yet to learn is where I can drive and excel. I must embrace my fine inner mechanics and find a way to speed off into the distance. The problem in our society is that there are not very many smooth expensive roads on which I can travel.
Discarding this analogy, or rather reinventing it, I added the magical element of Cinderella. Glass slippers are not a dime a dozen, and one must have a fairy god mother and a magical spell to receive them. Also, the magic in the shoes has a way of disappearing at the stroke of midnight. The fact is that these are the shoes I was given in life. What does one do with such a thing? As my friends make their way to the rodeo in their boots, able to kick aside the shit in their path, I find myself stuck in it, in a magical slipper that no one believes in. So the trick is getting people to believe in the slipper, in the magical. The problem is when you are finally sitting in front of the psychologist or psychiatrist, therapist or case manager, they think you are crazy. They try to convince you that you have no shoes at all, and you are better off to accept getting through life barefoot.
I have learned that I do have shoes, you see, and that they are capable of so much more. The sad truth is that many folks do not make it this far. I have been blessed with a loving husband that has been beside me these last 18 years, high and low, crazy and sweet. I am grateful for a family that loves me very deeply. I do not deny that moments existed when I was on my own and even my family was far from sight. For this, I thank my angels and my fairy god mother, even God.
What is it that is going on inside our friends’ minds as they suffer? What is happening internally as they fall to addiction, fail in finding the help they need, and result in becoming grieved memories as many eventually die, end up in prison, with repeated hospital stays, or homeless? Why is it that we have given up hope in these people, and why have they given up hope in themselves? How can we find them and instill hope before it is too late; channel their gifts? If you have been close to a person suffering in these ways, you know it is no easy task to intervene. But there is a way, there must be one. I hope to find it and penetrate the great illness of our planet. I anticipate planting a small seed that can transform all that has been misunderstood. Will you help me?
Hope and Resilience
Many years ago, about the time when I was in Massage School, I took a training course in Peer Counseling. The purpose of this course was to teach Mental Health consumers how to listen to other Mental Health consumers that were not as far along in recovery and aide them on a path of recovery. The underlying message was, ‘I have been there, so as I listen to you, hopefully you will feel less alone. Look how far I have come, you can do it too.’
In the manual there are two big words that stand out as core principles: Hope and Resilience. When you are suffering from an illness that is so debilitating and has so many stigmas, you become hopeless. Regaining this hope is crucial to recovery. I am trying to remember the point in my life when I found hope once again. It is unclear. Perhaps, I had hope all along because I have had a loving partner who regularly assured me that everything would be okay. I also know that there were many years that I lacked hope. In this training I learned of the value of this word, and it was maybe it was instilled at this very moment. It was a gradual process, with absolute moment when I gained this insight.
Hope did eventually find its root in my being. After years of being stable on Lopez Island, I found new meaning for the word. Maybe it was when I learned about Faith, maybe it was when my perfect niece was born, and perhaps I continue to learn the true meaning of the word today. Whatever the truth, hope is the path to self-knowledge and freedom. Hope is the seed which we must plant in ourselves and others, whether we ourselves are struggling with a mental illness or it has hold on one that is close to us. It is in hope that light can be born in darkness. It is hope that gives meaning to our struggles. It is hope that can motivate us to action when we are depleted of all energy; it is a catalyst for new beginnings, for being reborn, for following our dreams.
Resilience is another beautiful word. Though I have spent much effort instilling hope in my life, and found hope long ago; I use resilience more as a daily mechanism. Hope is the call that originally pulls us from the mire; resilience is the skill for continuing to pull ourselves out. Resilience is an ability to be mastered. When I am thronged with a bout of anxiety, when life has pushed me to a limit where I then shut down, it is resilience that I rely on. Resilience is being able to recover quickly, being able to bounce back from crisis, which is a repeatable offence to a patient. It is true that I have been stable for seven plus years, and it is also true that I struggle daily and weekly with many symptoms. Because of my intelligence, I am able to fool others that I am as well and sound as any other human being, because of this I often fool myself into thinking this as well. Then the truth hits. I struggle suddenly with psychosis, mania, depression and anxiety putting the clamp on many of life’s necessary functions. I have learned to be an expert in resilience. As the years go by, I improve on my skill to bounce back and recover from the daily throws of my illness. I have learned to live with my gift, and am continually mastering the art of recovery.
I am lucky that I have found hope. I am blessed to be comfortable in life enough to practice resilience. If I was homeless, without family and support would I be able to achieve this? Faith has brought new meaning to the word hope; I still have so far to come in my healing. I have many old wounds to soothe, grief in my bones and muscles stored so very deep, which I must release and that I must shed healing light upon. I have yet to set fire to many of my dreams, dowsing them with the fervent gasoline of hope. And as for resilience, I will carry this with me to my very last day. I will never be without my chemical imbalance, and life will never be without its daily struggles. Because of this I will hold resilience and hope at my side, as a shield, as a sheath, in whatever form it must take. I know that I will be bouncing back over and over again. I know that I will need elasticity for when the hard moments come. And they will come. Yes, if I know anything about life, they will come.
Our Prisons, Our Country, Our Hidden Resource
Our hope lies in our children. Children grow up to be adults. All of our addicts, homeless, and schizophrenics are the children of somebody. You yourself are the child of someone who lives or had lived on our planet. I believe that we are all children of God. Our ages, wealth, achievements, status or caste do not define whether we are worthy in God’s eyes. This being said, yes, the hope lies in our children. Hope for our planet lies in the poor, homeless, and stricken. When one is suffering from mental illness and/or addiction, we have discussed that what they need first and foremost is hope. The synchronicity of this truth is that they are our hope as well. The statistics are staggering. At least 10% of all people suffer from a debilitating mental illness, be it Depression, Anxiety, Bipolar Disorder, Schizophrenia, Post-Traumatic Stress or another illness.
Right now we are seen as a burden on society. Many of us are unable to work, are on disability, or should be. Many are homeless, and most are in prisons. The reason so many mental health sufferers are in jail is because as a society we refuse to accept and look at the truth of what is happening to us, to our children. All of these folks have been given a gift. I don’t have to list the many other reasons that our society is not working, but I will list a few. We have a .01% with all the wealth, our planet is starving, sick and war torn, our icebergs are melting, and we are addicted to fossil fuels.
I once was an environmentalist. I was a women’s and animal rights activist. I was a vegan. I believed in human rights. I had to put this all on hold one day when I arrived at the psych ward, and I spent the next 15 years trying to figure out how to brush my teeth. I had no time for politics, protesting, canvasing, and dreaming. What I learned was that there are countless moments throughout our day when we can help our fellow man and make a difference. We can show love. We may be down, but there is always someone more down and out than we are. A s a culture we are so focused on looking up, on stepping to the next rung, on reaching the person ahead of us. I believe we are simply going the wrong direction. Oh, and you say, “Isn’t this obvious?” Yes, we are melting, we are driving too much, and we are spending too much money on war. What if all we needed was a change of perspective? What if we all started looking down? What if we made it our one very largest desire to step down a rung and help the person underneath us? And, what if we believed we could change everything?
There is a post, covered in caterpillars. All of the little green wormish creatures are crawling on and over each other, each totally centered on reaching the top of the post. Problem is, the caterpillar on the top of the post has nowhere to crawl, but that doesn’t matter, he defends his position. Then one day, a single caterpillar becomes tired. He thinks what if I just walked away? So he climbs down the post and finds a bush, curls up into a cocoon and becomes a butterfly.
Could it really be as simple as a change in perspective? Can you imagine? If every person on the planet stopped and changed their direction, made it their sole purpose to help out the person below them, or simply walked away from the rat race, where do you think we would be? I believe it would take a matter of days to see a major global turn around.
I am that caterpillar. I was forced to walk away, and to focus on menial habits and basic health. I thought I was lost. Oh what I would have given to be climbing on that post once again. Little did I know that my change in course would result in a complete transformation. I believe our autistic children, our schizophrenic young adults, our homeless and even our addicts are just examples of little caterpillars that have walked away. They, we, are awaiting transformation. Fed the right ingredients, God only knows what is possible.
The Cause
It is very possible that genetics are responsible for the onset of major mental illness. This is science, it makes sense. We delve into science in order to study synapses and inhibitors, in order to create medicine for the minds that suffer. But there are other causes for losing people through the cracks of society. Not all people that suffer chemically have a diagnosis. Many are addicts. Maybe they are treating a chemical imbalance, and maybe they have needed professional evaluation all along. Many do not go to the doctor. Many do not have loved ones that guide them to do so. Many doctors are not trained to identify such issues, and many come from families where substance abuse is the age old way of dealing with emotional problems.
Our schools have become machines for pumping out people that are raring to go in our highly dysfunctional society. Do you see the nonsensical recipe here? I have been to alternative schools and I have many friends who choose to homeschool their children. We have a choice at every turn and many people are trying to change the way their children are raised for the better. Many are changing what their children are metabolizing spiritually, social-emotionally, and mentally. The sad thing is that our schools have become adjacent and serving to our sick society. There is no recess, or very little. We are losing funds for music and art. Our children are pressured amazingly towards reading and math, as the only means to success.
And success, what does that mean? Should it not be us being happy and well fed? Again appears the pyramid, which in reality is more like a steeple or the caterpillar pole I recently mentioned. We must become aware human beings and not allow our young spirits to be pressured to fit into a sick society.
Sadly, we ourselves are mentally ill. We are over worked and underpaid. We drink too much and don’t have time to just sit with and love our children. We are sending them to daycare too early so that we can pay the bills, and there they receive care from some of the most under paid professionals in existence, or our transient young adults. They become lost and slip through the cracks into the great fog of our culture.
At our public schools an emotional child detaches and becomes invisible. A child who is acting out gets held back and medicated. These early moments are where the gifts begin. We could catch so many by paying our teachers more, having smaller class sizes, and providing low stress ways for our children to express themselves and find their voices, such as music, art and gardening. We have seen these models arise starting in the eighties. Sadly these opportunities have mostly been provided for a high tuition. Some of the children that need it most cannot afford to go to a private school.
What if the said wealthy parent took time out of their busy job and day to play with their child, instead of shuttling them to soccer where they are bullied, or ballet where they become tired and develop body issues? What if the poor single mother had financial help from her rich neighbors? What if we were so grateful that we were not in a refugee camp, we stopped and thought about what we really do have and are able to do for others? We wish it were that easy, but it does not feel so. We all desperately want things to change but lack the energy to turn the entire ship around. We ourselves need hope. It is a slow process and it must be. I believe one can break away from the ship like our tired caterpillar friend, become a butterfly, and slowly, gradually influence others to do so. Small acts of kindness, faith, love, hope… this is the spare change that can change someone’s day.
We must stop fanning the flames of this great epidemic. It is all true, we must stop shopping at Walmart, be must reassess our values; we must start eating and shopping local and support our nearby farmers. If this is too much for you to think about, because you too are focused on getting through the day and managing your own basic mental health, all you need to do is love your neighbor. It is that simple. Be courageous; notice every opportunity that lies in your path over and over throughout a single day. Pick up the garbage on the ground in front of you, buy the groceries at the store to drop in the food bank box, and talk to the homeless man, see if he smiles when you look at him in the eyes. We are all loved, but sometimes we need to be reminded.
Finding the Gifted within Ourselves
We are a changing world. We have technology, we have the IPhone and a wrist band that is connected to our computer and allows us to track our fitness. We have Bluetooth in our cars so we can have access to our phones with verbal commands while driving down the highway using bio fuel and electricity. We are innovators. We have evolved.
Why then are we so in the dark ages regarding our mental health? When will we evolve to treat all people equally? Unfortunately these faults are run by a much more basic instinct, fear. We used to be afraid of the Bear, the Wooly Mammoth, and the Siberian Tiger. Now we are confused about what we should be afraid of. There is no imminent threat in the jungle, the mountains, or on the plains, yet fear is a basic instinct, that for some reason we still wish to fulfill.
We create drama, we are afraid of terrorists. We are afraid our children will fall into bad company. We are afraid of the stain in the rug, really. I believe that there are things that are worthy of being afraid of but we have become so disconnected to what is real. (Ironic, don’t you think?) Should we be afraid of driving in a steel box 70 miles an hour down the freeway, with other fast moving steel boxes just feet from us, passing us by? Should we be afraid while soaring thousands of feet above the ocean in a heavy steel plane, traveling at speeds unimaginable? In a way we have conquered fear, in a way it still plagues us in the shadows.
The truth is we become afraid when we invite a homeless man or a meth head into our home. If we are able to conquer fear in such great magnitude, why not apply that to people? I am not afraid of the ghetto man, I am not afraid of the Syrian immigrant, I am not afraid of the poor Mexican farmer; I am not afraid even of the mentally ill in my town or in my extended family.
We must unite; we must act as one body. We must not separate ourselves from people that belong to God, our planet, and our species. We must rekindle love for everyone and everything. We must clean the dark crevasses of our spirit and allow compassion for others. If we are truly not afraid, we will have no fear while putting ourselves out there to help others.
We are at war. I am not speaking of a war with Afghanistan or Russia. The war is within our very selves. The war is against the darkness that threatens to cover the human spirit. The war is against giving up hope. We are the gifted. We must not lose ourselves to the darkness. We must have faith. Once we conquer the darkness in ourselves, then we must set out to instill hope in others, and aide them in fighting the darkness within their very selves. We must find ourselves. We must find hope and believe that a better future is still possible.
The Course of Redefining
For years I have struggled with diagnosis. For years I have struggled with defining myself as disabled. What comes to one’s awareness over time is that there is a negative connotation to such a label. I do not believe that this is healthy. Yes, by the government’s standards I am disabled, but is this really how I wish to think of myself for the rest of my life? It became apparent that I must find a deeper meaning to my disability, that I must completely redefine myself.
I learned while following Christ that we should not be defined by any label, especially a negative one. Over the years this word, disabled, sunk deep into my consciousness. I adopted the belief that I was crazy, that I would not amount to anything in life, worse yet, that I was inherently flawed. Years before I found Christ I also thought from time to time that here must be something great that could come from my struggles and that I should not think of myself in such a light. It has been my greatest challenge to believe that my disability is really a gift. The role of God in my life these last three years, has lent wisdom to this revelation. There is a reason for every struggle. There is something that I have gained from this path, and I must believe this even if I am not 100% convinced that this could be so. Slowly, I am discovering why my illness is a part of me. I am discovering not only that my true nature can be a blessing, but that all of the hardship that I have experienced has lent to a back bone, has lent to a change in course that has made me who I am today. It is essential for me to be grateful, as well as believe that I have arrived exactly where I am on purpose. Yes, there is purpose in all of it.
One concept I have explored throughout my years, is that if I had lived or existed in an alternate framework of society or culture, I would not have been outcaste to the psyche ward or to the rogue mental health system. I came across a book a few years ago where a man seeking help for his severely Autistic son, traveled to a culture in Mongolia where they practice equine healing. This caused me to think. In my history, I have come in contact with a few horses. Horses are tremendously sensitive to reading energy. I have been told that horses quickly take to some folks, while they can dislike others immediately. I have spoken to horses in a magical language before. We are all familiar with the term “spooked the horses”. Could it be that such an animal could understand and communicate with the extraordinary talents and sensitivities of this child? It is possible that such a creature unabashedly accepting completely the nature of such a person could then help shape their gift.
If I experienced the visions and episodes that I went through when I was younger, today, I would be able to handle them better. The truth of these psychotic episodes is that they are not normal in our society. Other folks look at you strangely and get very turned off by your behavior. We do not look for or honor visions, gifts, or psychic or psychotic tendencies at all. When one is experiencing such thoughts, one becomes frightened by themselves. I am not necessarily saying that we should allow these tendencies to exist without some medication; hallucinations, voices, other realities; but we do very little to honor the nature of the said person. I believe in being coherent and I am grateful for my medication. If we allowed for even a little bit of these “strange” tendencies in our society there may be less stigma, we may become less afraid of even ourselves.
If I was born in a Native American or aboriginal culture hundreds or thousands of years ago, how would I have been accepted? Even if I was living today in a tribal culture, my path may have been different. There may have been an elder there who could catch and coach me. It is possible that my “disease” would have been seen as an extraordinary gift.
I am left with after many years living in the United States in general society, a life path much different than if had I been born in Mongolia among the horses. I do have a story. I still can discover and realize my full potential. I have yet to see how my struggles will benefit others. I have yet to see how the strength and wisdom I have gained can serve the world. I also have yet to, or may never understand, why I have been given the ability to “see” things. I do know that my gift is not an accident. I am approaching being able to say that I would trade ‘none of it’ for the world. There are no accidents. We are all on paths, our lives are our messages, and even if we die horribly before our time, we leave great wakes in our path.
A Magical Society
Eight years ago I moved to a small Island called Lopez. Lopez is populated with approximately 2,300 people year round, and covers about 75 square miles of earth and water. There are beatific beaches, both long as well as small secret coves, acres of forest, and long scarcely traveled roads along fields and fields of hay bordered with the wild rose and snow berry. There are no stoplights, one major grocery store, and the one village is unincorporated.
Lopez has changed my life. It has an incredibly vibrant community. People know each other, and you cannot go into the grocery store without seeing a handful of folks that you must stop and talk to. Almost everyone is involved. We have a community Land Trust that houses lower income folks in sustainable and green homes, we have many local farmers who grow organic vegetables and meats, and the Lopez community has an active Library, Community Center, Family Resource Center, and many other non-profits. It is easy to become entangled and well known.
When I first arrived here I was seeing my “vitamin doctor” on Whidbey Island. I created a mantra in my head, “Walk, Water, Wait”. I was suffering huge amounts of guilt and pain from the last three months that I had spent psychotic and destructive. I had dropped out of school once again. I had totaled my car with a pipe wrench. I had to extricate myself from my little home that I owned because I could not return to the place where I had experienced so much horror. I had removed myself form my group of friends in my tight knit neighborhood in Columbia City, South Seattle. I cannot describe the level of radical acceptance I was being called upon to practice, and I was not doing very well with it. Every moment was excruciating as I came back to this world. The very passing of time was like giant alien fingernails on a never-ending chalk board. I walked everyday at least three miles as I had little else to do, and I knew that over time, the pain of returning to reality would pass. I decided that hydration was key, as I learned the importance of drinking water in Massage school. Yes, I would wait, but there was little I could do to actually enjoy the moment, the only hope was that time would go by.
I arrived on Lopez in April of 2007. I was by myself, and staying in a little cabin we call the “coop” on my parent’s farm. Steve stayed behind in Columbia City and was very hesitant to come out to Lopez himself. I wasn’t convinced on making the permanent transition either and I longed to be at his side. We had some family sessions with a therapist, and it was encouraged by all that Lopez would be a good place for me, at least through my current recovery. I traveled on the airporter shuttle between Seattle and the Anacortes ferry landing regularly so I could spend some nights with my loved one. I visited Seattle Mental Health for groups and to visit my Case Manager. Somehow my Case Manager’s Director became impressed with me and offered me a job as a Peer Counselor, even though I had not technically been stable for two plus years. I was showing resilience in my late twenties having been through this ordeal before. I turned down this opportunity for a new life in the islands.
I was unbelievably saddened and perturbed by my recent behavior. I was getting stable on new meds and had received an updated diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder at Harborview Medical Center. It was definitely a new chapter in my life. Visiting my home in Columbia City where Steve still resided, I inquired about how he had cleaned up the white powder from the fire extinguisher that I had sprayed all over the house right before the cops came to the door and carried me away to the hospital. They had known somehow that we were growing pot. It turns out that over the three months of my break, Steve had abandoned the project, because we had had a pretty severe Gypsy Moth infestation in our home and daily life had become so difficult. Everything was dried, eaten and dead, so they did not prosecute us for the felony. They made quite a mess of the basement the night I was taken away, pouring soil into the washing machine, banging pretty heavy on a steel fan in an attempt to remove it, and turning everything upside down. They had arrived at my door as the next door neighbors called the police, (most likely for the second time). I had been throwing makeup at their bedroom window at ten o’clock at night. They were increasingly unhappy with us, and I had a habit of blasting the radio and then walking out of the house leaving the door wide open, dogs in tow leashless. I broke many windows, causing general havoc and unrest. No doubt they decided to call the cops on us. We had sold them Marijuana ages ago, and they likely had an idea of the practice. Shortly after my stay at Harborview they moved from their house. They just happened to rent their home to a Lopezian who I knew.
During this recovery period I continued to have psychosis, though at a manageable level. I took several pairs of Steve’s boots and left them on my new neighbor’s doorstep. She was tolerating and understanding. She knew it was an odd behavior but she accepted it, accepted me. Later, I realized that I had done this for reasons pertaining to fantasies in my head and I approached her, apologizing and taking the boots with me. This must have been a sign that Lopez was calling me home.
Many interesting characters live out in these Islands. The San Juans seem to be a safe haven for eccentrics. I have made friends with people who have lived here, on and off the grid for decades. Many are like me in ways, some aware of diagnoses, some refusing this language all together. People come here to seek refuge, as have I. Finally, in October of 2007, Steve followed me as he had landed a job at the Galley Restaurant. We stayed at my parent’s place for some time. Soon they bought another property, having sold a house on Queen Anne Hill in Seattle and were looking to reinvest. We sold our house in Columbia City and invested with them. We live there today and we feel quite settled. My mother lives on this property with us, my sister on the other farm with my Dad. We all get along quite well and spend holidays with each other once again. Steve and I are happy.
Lopez is another world. The post office delivers the mail to the wrong addresses, the newspaper makes mistakes, and people that have lived here for extended periods of time are likely to know little about how things operate in the real world. Rarely do folks get fired as the working pool is so small. These are simply examples as to why Steve and I have always referred to Lopez with the nickname of “Disneyland.”
This lack of uptight professionalism was hard for me to accept at first. Over time, I realized that this is exactly what we need in our world today - a willingness to break away and make our own choices about how to operate; a willingness to see each person as the individual they are, not the piece of paper that they hold in their hands. We are a free country. We have an amazing chance to shape our culture the way we choose. Years ago, during the Fourth of July parade that happens annually here on Lopez Island, a local band belted out the lyrics to a song… “Them Hippies were right!” I am thankful for this small ethereal culture that I have landed in and it has shown amazing results in my life and behavior. The low stress anomaly of living in the country contributes greatly to my mental and physical health. Perhaps, ‘them hippies were right’. We all learn as we progress internally. Our society acts as an individual, so we must treat is as such. We must allow for creativity, freedom and innovation. We must find the inner gifts in the people who make it up. We must allow for this gentle birth to occur. High stress is making us ill, and our ill society is profiting on us being sick. We must be the change. We must nurture ourselves and our neighbors.
A Typical Day
Today I nurtured myself. I cleaned my house and arranged my office for a restorative yoga space and access to my light box on a desk decorated with stones, candles and some pictures of my sister and Jesus. I received a massage from a practiced healer. I went to a yoga class and bathed myself in breath and opening. I had a talk with my sister over a glass of wine.
I work two days a week in the winter and 3-4 days a week in the summer. My life is constantly full with other things as well. I may go to a writing group or spend the afternoon working on my blog. I may meet with a friend over coffee to discuss our mental health crisis in San Jaun County and brainstorm ways we can help. I may attend a women’s circle, or walk and picnic with my wise friend out at Iceberg Point, while delving into conversations unimaginable yet so necessary. I may work in my garden, go for a walk in nature with my dogs, or ride the lawn mower all about the 9 acres of my mother’s property. Life is so full and rich, but what keeps me afloat in mood and having a sense of worth most of all, is helping others.
There is a song that I recently brought back to life in a family slide show of our trip to Hawaii. It is written by Loraine Bayes and the group Tickle Tune Typhoon, a children’s band from the eighties and my own childhood. You may be familiar with it; I will recite the first verse here:
“Love’s just like a Magic Penny. Hold it tight and you won’t have any, let it splendor and you’ll have so many, they roll all over the floor!
Love is something if you give it away, give it away, give it away. Love is something if you give it away. You’ll end up having more. And it will come right back to you. Yes, it will come right back to you!”
This “children’s” song is so pure and sincere in its message. It is the essence of where we need to put our focus in if we want to change the world, as I have mentioned before. People say love is the answer; well this little verse spells out the magic of love, the simplicity of the action, and the very nature of its expanding presence. We are meant to give it away, not hold tight within our hearts. We are meant to flow naturally towards chaos, or what may seem like chaos to our broken minds that yearn for control. The act of spreading love enables us to experience love ourselves. We may have been told this over and over as children, but now, as we mature into adulthood andapproach our middle age crisis or menopause, we find ourselves clinging to whatever we do have, our hearts damaged and cold. We may be preparing for death and wondering why we never enjoyed life. Or we may be fresh out of college having just landed ourselves a good job, yet only truly long to search.
The beauty of this song, metaphor, parable, is the reminder of how simple and easy love can be. The opportunity for it resides in every waking moment. We can freely give of our energy, our food, our money. It may be with our partner or our neighbor; it may be with the local charity. It may be a ritual moment at our morning coffee shop when we drop an extra dollar in the tip jar. It may be loaning a favorite piece of clothing to someone we barely know, simply because they are cold this very moment.
When we cling, when we hold tight, we starve ourselves, and those around us. Those around us may not notice our lack of giving, but our hearts do. We gradually grow cold over the years. But when we give in every moment we are able to realize what we do have. What we have truly has no meaning unless we share it. Giving a little bit every day will not deplete our resources, it will splendor them. When our hearts become opened by tolerating a friend who seems to always have a need, or spending an extra moment with a small child, a little light penetrates our otherwise mostly dark worlds. Collectively, yes, we are in the dark, why else would there be so much suffering in the world? We are responsible and we are responsive. We can be responsive to the constant opportunity to give that nature puts directly in our face every day. It may take a moment to un-numb ourselves, to break ourselves of our habits, but once we open, splendor is but inches away.
The more we give, the more giving there is to be had. The more giving there is to be had, the larger our hearts become. The larger our hearts become the happier we are and the more we give. The more we give the healthier the world becomes. The healthier our immediate world becomes as well as our global one, the happier we are. When we are happy we are healthy and wealthy. Have a healthy day today. Give something away. Give it whole heartedly with no strings attached. Don’t worry, this may not be an easy thing to do at first, but it will come with time.
The Gift of The Glass Shoe
I have been on a long journey to see the gift within myself. I now am only beginning to see a glimmer of what the term ‘gift’ might entail. I stick to this concept tightly, because I am able to understand the essence of what this means. We all are gifted. Those who suffer greatly are supplementaly gifted, or are discovering gifts through their trials.
“… There is no gain except by loss, there is no life except by death, and no full vision but by faith, no glory but by bearing shame, nor justice but by taking blame.” – Amy Carmichael
These words are profound. What I struggle with, in believing that I have a gift, is belief in the adversity and acceptance of the hardship. In this very writing I am healing and attempting to understand these truths. Why are Amy’s words so epic to me? We study and try hard to see the point, the science of what makes us up to gain true insight and understanding. But the truth is that we may only ever comprehend the meaning of why we are here, the critical essence of truth, if we step ‘blindly’ into pure faith and trust.
The truth that we must lose first to gain is true in economics, and in the heart of giving. We must give of our energies, our money, and our time in order to gain. In order to heal the broken we must become broken ourselves.
And life, life does not exist if it does not die. New life is born from death and transformation. This is both literal in our plant world, as well as one of the most poetic truths of our very nature and existence. Phoenixes rise from ashes. Christ had to die so that we may all experience eternal life. Metaphor or truth, you decide.
We cannot experience glory unless we accept shame. We simply cannot understand or comprehend such a thing unless we accept we are faulted and we have held the weight of all our misgivings. We cannot be perceived in our glory unless we become transparent and heal and find beauty in our wounds and faults. Our crevasses and shadows are but strengths waiting to be revealed.
Also, there can be no justice in the world unless someone takes the blame; a sad but loyal truth. However, the beauty of this statement is I can start with me. I must take the blame. Are we not interconnected and one? Because of the infinite and beautiful design of nature in our world, if I take the blame, then justice can be served. Is this not true in our closest relationships? I can only become a better wife, and have a more loving relationship, if I admit that I am in it. It is an exchange, I must at some point be wrong. We must live by example. We must heal the narcissisms of our society, by smashing the glass walls, and accepting that we are to blame. Then we forgive, all and everyone, and, finally there will be justice.
These true words help me understand the premise that my suffering which I have experienced in my life due to my mental illness, is leading me somewhere beautiful. There is shining glory in my shame, there is life in my symbolic psychotic death, and there is justice in me bearing the weight of blame of my family and generations of wrong doings in my blood line. There is huge gain in so many things because of this suffering. There is gain of insight and wisdom. There is gain of self-knowledge and resilience. There is gain in me finding hope, and learning to pull myself from the mire. There is gain in the strength I have learned and felt because I have survived. Most of all there is vision in my darkness, there is light now entering all of the dark years, existing still within my bones that I trod through purely by faith. For many years, I did not know why I was suffering, for many years I learned that I must simply put one foot in front of the other. I was exercising the act of faith. Then one day, after having been through so much, I was able to enter blind faith. Because of this I have gained pure vision into my darkness and so many other things. Faith is allowing me to heal. Faith has provided understanding for all that I have gone through, and is leading me onto discover only beautiful things.
So now I attempt to enter this beauty fully to realize all of the amazing gifts in everything I do. Time is still an element. I am learning. I am learning to incorporate these truths. As I bumble along and am reminded daily that I am a gift, as I pull myself regularly out of the darkness and the lies, I build muscle memory. I attempted to build these muscles before I discovered blind faith, but it is as if I have come across a magic ingredient. Love is the answer. We must implement love in our daily lives. But how do we do this? It is by faith. Faith. Guided by the understanding that we are a miracle, that God resides in our very cells, we are able to give in, to give up control, to purely trust. So now I admit I know nothing, I am humbled by my wisdom. It is true, the more you know (by experience, which is how we learn anything) the more you know you don’t know. It is a ratio. We only ever inhabit a percentage of the vast space that makes up our universe and infinity. But it is a part of me and I am a part of it. By understanding that I am a miracle, I can comprehend the miracle of it all. Believing in my glass slipper, it becomes as strong and resilient as the crystal in my very bones and the hopeful stardust from which our world body is made.