Mental health post #7: Anxiety Traits

First some business: y'all know I'm not a trained health professional, right? I am simply talking about my experiences with mental health issues. Just want to make sure you understand so there's no suing me down the road... ;)

There are so many things I've been thinking about writing that I find it hard to be concise and cohesive. I hope you will excuse my poor skills at articulation--please always feel free to ask for clarification on anything. If it's something I don't feel comfortable sharing, I'll say so. You don't need to feel like you are prying. One of the things I recently pondered was some of the specific behavioral traits I see in myself when I am particularly anxious. (I talked a little more generally I think in post #4 when I described a day in the life of...anxiety (name that Beatles tune!) Here they are in the ever unglamorous list form:

1. Repetition: when I am anxious I find myself being repetitious. I mean that in both the literal and figurative way. Literally, I repeat myself over and over. I re-ask questions, I repeat instructions and requests, and I bring up the same topics over and over again. Anxiety got me one-track minding it all the time. This is, I'm sure, completely annoying to my loved ones, but also to me. One way I've heard neural pathways in the brain described is as well-worn roads. Our brain likes the path of least resistance too and will continue to re-travel down the same route because it's easier. I find when I am falling into this trap, it can be difficult to look outward too, and be concerned about the people around me. It takes effort and practice to get out of those ruts and put my brain into another gear. Since I want to make new roads that are less anxious and less-inwardly focused, I take the effort to do this even though my brain becomes alarmed when I am not hyperfocusing on the thing worrying me.

2. Irritation: yeah this is one of those things that is not by itself an indication of anxiety because we get irritated when difficult things happen in our lives, or we have PMS, or we didn't sleep well. But if I am suffering from an overload of anxiety, there is a good chance that I am going to be wrestling internally with irritation. I'm not always perfect at keeping a lid on it and sometimes I find I need to take a walk or have some alone time while listening to podcasts (or eat or sleep or whatever the case may be). The consequences of unchecked irritated behavior may seem small, but they stack up quickly. I appreciate in the love languages book (by Gary Chapman) how he talks about relationships being like a bank account: if you are constantly overdrawn with your loved ones, they find it hard to have a healthy relationship with you. So irritation, for me, is something I like to address as soon as I recognize it as a problem. Even if it means just stuffing a cupcake in my mouth so I can have the social capital to deal with whatever is needed at the moment. ;)

3. Poor concentration: so when a person is anxious, their sympathetic nervous system hits the gas and sends out stress hormones like adrenaline & cortisol throughout the body. And when a person is chronically anxious, they can chronically have this gas pedal gunning the engine. When I am anxious, I find that I have poor concentration. The amount of anxiety affects how little or much concentration I can tap into. Conversely, if I have zero anxiety at all, I actually feel like I don't have much in the way of concentration skills either. I've heard some people call this brain fog also.There must be a sweet spot of low-level anxiety that is helpful in situations that it's called for: tests, performances, etc.

4. Compulsive habits: yes, I'm talking about nail biting, hair pulling, and picking to name a few. I believe the DSM-V included this, called excoriation disorder. As a life-long cuticle picker (not proud of this!), I can attest to the fact that there is something calming about these habits. I don't fully understand it, but I can tell you that you can generally tell how bad my anxiety is by how bad my nails are (though I believe that it has become so habitual to me that I often do it while reading which is my most favoritest recreation outside of sleeping). This is related to OCD I believe. OCD, like most other mental health disorders, functions on a spectrum. I know there are other compulsions people feel: I occasionally went on a check-on-my-kids-to-make-sure-they-are-still-breathing obsession, or checked the locks somewhat excessively. But this wasn't as much of an issue for me as I know it can be for others.

5. Inability to commit: waffling, indecision, these are the common issues I face when anxious. I struggle to see myself capable of doing anything else because, as mentioned before, my body is already running with all pistons firing at all times. In my healthy state, I can make good choices about how much I can say yes to. When I am anxious, I may say no to everything because I cannot reasonably decide if I can handle it or not. Or I may say yes to too many things and then have to say no to all of them out of desperation.

6. Poor memory: ever walk into a room with no idea why? Multiply that times infinity and you get life with extreme anxiety (depression too for me). Unless we are talking about the top thing on my mind that is triggering my anxiety reflex, I am forgetting things right and left. I should clarify that this isn't necessarily something that can be measured between people. For instance, Derek misplaces things every.single.day. ;) I know it's not anxiety most of the time for him. The trick is to measure your performance against that of times in the past, and throw out the other variables that may be affecting your memory. Are you sleep-deprived, have low blood sugar or under the influence of a prescription medication? (Have to bring that last one up because we all have elective surgeries at sometime in our lives.) And, do you have other signs of anxiety?

7. Startle reflex: when we lived in family housing at the University of Michigan, Derek used to startle me almost every day, even though he made noise as he was coming toward me. That still happens today, but not to nearly the effect it once did. For a long time I wondered why I was just so prone to being startled when other people weren't. I posited that it was from anxiety. A decade later, I read a peer-reviewed article that confirmed that people with chronic anxiety can suffer from an over-active startle reflex. I don't even need to explain how this makes sense because we all get that our bodies can act differently when on constant high-alert.

Okay, sorry for another epic read. At some point here, I am going to address how mental illness has affected my close relationships. It's a little hairy to discuss so it may take some time, but I promise all will be divulged and nothing held back. Just kidding, I need to time to make sure I don't put my foot in it... ;)I'm also hoping when the semester settles a little, Derek will have some time to talk about things from his perspective as someone married to someone who has mental illness. (He's a perfect foil because he has NO mental illness at all. Not sure how he got so lucky but he definitely does not have the orchid gene!)

Picture note: Jocelyn, pretty sure I don't look as good in this as you. Also the kids told me that I'm not allowed to wear this in public. I'm considering wearing it while I run down Timpview Drive when the high school gets out...

 

Mental health post #6: Emotional Responses When Depressed

One of the things that is so ubiquitous and so devastating about anxiety and depression are how they dampen the more sensitive feelings. By this I mean those delicate feelings of pleasure, joy, love, etc etc. For me, as with all things relating to mental health, it is a spectrum. Mild sadness seems to blunt my emotional responses mildly. Severe depression or unremitting anxiety affect me severely. When I am at my lowest I find I am literally unable to to even enjoy eating, nothing is funny, and I cannot feel my own internal guidance system. For those of us that are religious I would call that the promptings of the Holy Spirit. Others might call it an internal compass or moral code. But no matter what you call it, it’s pretty hard to sense. During my very worst depressive episode, I could not feel anything when I prayed. This happens to me too when I experience severe anxiety, mostly because my thoughts are obsessively going over my concerns and my plans to address my concerns, leaving no room for spiritual conversation between myself and diety. During those times I have to rely on faith and believe that my relationship with god hasn’t changed, and that those negative feelings won’t last forever. Because that’s the big lie about poor mental health—your brain tells you that you’ve always felt this way and you will always feel this way. And it really can feel like forever because the perception of time is slowed to the point of seemingly stopping. It takes so much strength of will to get through each day, hoping for a better tomorrow.

What can be especially difficult also is that I often don’t sense my declining mental health immediately. It seems to come over me slowly, sort of like the frog in the kettle never realizing how hot the water actually is until it’s too late and he’s dinner. This is why I am constantly keeping a background program running in my mind that is monitoring my mental health. I’m certainly not perfect and things can creep up on me still. Like I know that the amount of daily sun is waning in the late summer, and of course I will feel a little less energized and occasionally have slow days. But I forget when caught up in driving kids around and frantically keeping up with all my responsibilities.

One of the beautiful things I feel like I have gained from dealing with mental health challenges is perspective. Although I still sometimes have high anxiety days, or social anxiety, I know for a solid fact that those pressures don’t last forever. I am learning to control my lizard brain instead of letting it control me. And yes there will be new issues to tackle, but I have people around me that support me and I have overcome some gnarly things in my life that have led me to believe that I can do it again.

Picture note: super fake smile when my oldest was being blessed. I felt absolutely nothing but pressure and endless tears when this picture was taken.

 

 

Mental health post #5: Things That Help Me

Over the years I’ve found several things that help me to have good mental health. I like to think of them in two different categories: long-term and emergency methods. Long-term means things I need to be doing daily/weekly to do well. Emergency means things that I have to do in the short term, usually to deal with unexpected or particularly difficult life challenges. I’m just gonna go ahead and put them in numbered list form because I’m fancy like that:

*Long-term*

1. Exercise: I’m sure many of you are just sooo sick of my preaching about exercise but I will not stop until I have converted the world! I’ve been a runner off and on for about 15 years now. I chose running initially because I don’t have to drive somewhere else to participate and other than shoe purchases, it’s basically free. It takes no training and can be done almost anywhere. I grew to need running because it really calmed my anxiety down in a way that no other exercise does. Would it surprise you to know how much I hate running? How hard it was for me to get in the habit of it, especially as I went through multiple pregnancies and would be forced to quit and then remake my habits? Sadly, I am not one of those that actually likes running—I’m as lazy as a pig in a wallow. But I know how desperately I need the exercise and how important it is to me to be mentally healthy for those who depend on me. The hardest part about this method is it takes true willpower to force yourself out the door day after day. Thankfully the habit does get easier, especially after the first couple of weeks. I’ve not been able to run regularly for almost a year now, so I have replaced it with extra walking with my fuzzy sausage. It’s not as effective for me as heavy aerobic exercise, but it’s def waaaay better than no exercise.

2. Meditation: Rob touched on this in an excellent comment in a previous post. For me, meditation consists mostly of the prayers I offer throughout the day, and especially before bed. I do not believe that the benefits of meditation are restricted to the religious. I’ve heard of many who use cultural meditation practices, or even some excellent YouTube sessions. I’ve also done meditation with a therapist and it’s the darndest thing—I didn’t go to sleep, but when I came out of the deep state of being I was in, I felt so refreshed like I had taken the best mini-nap ever! When I was running consistently (6 days a week), I found that I often fell into an trance-like state in the middle of my runs. Like exercise, I believe that meditation is most effective when practiced regularly.

3. Self-reflection: this one is really a part of my form of meditation but I know many people like to separate the two. I was not born with the gift of self-reflection, but thanks to therapy (aka mostly from Derek in the early years of our marriage ) I find that it is a part of an average day for me. Why is this so important to me? Because mental health statuses change allllll the time, sometimes within a short amount of time! And if you don’t practice constant vigilance, mood can trend downward at a slow pace until you are in such a hole that it becomes difficult to extricate yourself. I’ve heard of friends who do daily or weekly check-ins with themselves. I find after some many years now that I tend to pick up pretty quickly when something is awry. Another component of this for me as a female is being aware of my menstrual cycle. You better believe that has an impact on mental health! Other cycles I keep track of include seasonal ones (since I suffer from seasonal affective disorder, aka SAD) and the normal ups and downs of societal changes like school starting or stopping, holidays approaching or ending, etc. Being introspective of these trends and cycles helps me better understand if I am experiencing something expected and transitory, or if it’s something I need to pay attention to it in case it morphs into something more serious.

4. Service: one of the great collateral damages of poor mental health, in my opinion, is the tendency to only look inward. When you are struggling, it’s impossible to look outward because all of your precious energy is being used just to stay afloat. And then when you are doing better, not only do you have the habit of looking in all the time, but you do need to be practicing regular introspection. I’ve found service to be absolutely essential to helping abate the unhealthy part of only looking in, as well as expressing a part of who my true self is. So when I find myself slipping, one of the first things I like to do is force myself to do some sort of service opportunity. No grand gestures here—it’s generally a very simple thing and it’s incredibly hard to do. It might be smiling and saying hi to someone as I walk by or running someone’s garbage out on garbage day. Sometimes it’s a note I’ve been meaning to write and putting off. Either way, it sort of jumpstarts my engine of looking outside myself.

5. Take your prescribed medication every day. Put timers on your phone and cover your home with sticky notes if you need to. Just please, for the love of all that’s holy, be consistent. Most psychiatric medication work because they are in your system for a period of time and cause beneficial changes over that time. Trust me as one who used to forget all of the time—consistency is vital here. And don’t fall into that trap if I’m feeling better, I’m cured and don’t need my medication any more. I know I struggled for a long time with significant stigma about even taking an antidepressant and rushed to get off of it ASAP the first time I took one. I’ve also struggled to find the right drug(s) for me and that takes time and patience. Don’t give up! The hard work pays off.

6. Lots of other things I can put here that are important for all humans. Don’t get too hungry or eat too much junk food—that can mess up the most stable person. Please get enough sleep! (Don’t believe me? Watch Naked & Afraid or Alone! ). Laugh a lot at yourself and the ironies of life. Laughter truly is the best medicine. Take time for self-care like reading or watching a movie or playing ultimate frisbee (you’re welcome, Derek!). Don’t spend too much time alone—I know as one with social anxiety that it can be so seductive but you know when you need to push yourself to get out there more! Feel free to post more things that help you in the comments.

*Emergency*

1. Dropping things off the to-do list: do you ever get so overwhelmed but you have all these responsibilities and you know they will sink you? Sometimes I feel trapped by this situation. And I make unreasonable demands of myself that I would never ask of someone else in my place. When those times come, I sometimes must regretfully set aside some things I wanted or planned to do. I learned it usually doesn’t have to be much—just taking one thing at a time off of my plate can make it so I can keep going a little longer before things ease. (Sometimes I can come back to that thing too.). Again with the constant vigilance. One of the trickiest parts about this is making sure that I say no when I’m asked to do something that I definitely cannot do. I’ve gotten better for sure, but it’s taken practice. I remember a time when I had 5 kids 10 and under and I was just drowning. I was asked if I wanted to help with a certain project. I really wanted to, and knew I would also make a little money. Against my better judgement I said yes. After some self-reflection I realized there was absolutely no way I could do this project and it was my duty to tell the others in charge so they could find someone else right away. It was hard to say no but my priorities are my family members and I knew I could not be the mom my kids needed without caring for myself. (I’ll refrain from using the breathing mask on airplanes metaphor. You’re welcome. )

2. Using my emergency medication: I hope I can articulate this well because I absolutely do not want to be pushing a drug that is extremely addictive and tolerance-inducing. But I cannot be frank without mentioning how important having a benzodiazepine on hand is for my mental health. I have used Ativan, Xanax, and Klonopin over the years which are all in the same drug family (benzodiazepines). I use these rarely and at very small doses. I have set limits on myself as recommended by my psychiatrists over the years. Please note that important fact: I use this drug only as it has been prescribed for me. Not only do I not want to end up addicted to a drug, but I also really don’t want to lose this tool just because I’ve built up a tolerance to it. It is important for me because my biggest single enemy is ruminating when I go to bed, and taking this infrequently helps reset my sleep patterns so I do not stay up all night or sleep fitfully with nightmares. Again I really want to stress how important it is to set limits on how you use this drug and only ever do so under the guidance of a physician. That being said: hallelujah for benzos!!

3. Ask for help: is this the hardest one on the list OR WHAT?!? Probably just my own independent nature but I still struggle with this one. I promise I’m working on it. Here’s what I think of when I dig my heels in and resist asking for help: what happened the last time you expressed true need and asked your trusted support group for help? Did they laugh at you? Turn you down? Block your texts? No, they stepped up and said things like: let’s get you home immediately before you do something drastic on your internship, or come live with me while we get you over the hump of terrible post-partum depression, or I can work at home today so you can get some errands done, etc, etc. Like I said, still working on this one, but I have learned who to trust and they have come through for me every time. Sometimes it has been hard for me to express how much I need them, but once they understand, they are there. I wouldn’t be here otherwise. And that’s what I want to address soon: my own experiences with suicidal ideation.

If you made it to the end of this, you deserve the prize of the Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me voice of your choice on your answering machine. Too bad I’m not in a position to give you this most coveted of all gifts… . Thanks for all of the kind comments. I’ve been surprised at how difficult some of this has been to share—it has meant so much that y’all have been welcoming and reassuring. Now get back to your regularly scheduled programming!

Edit: oops forgot a pic but you’re welcome I added one of end of season basil residents.

 

 

Mental health post #4: How Anxiety Presents

As requested, this post will deal with anxiety because I live to serve! . Actually, this one is a lot harder for me to write about than the depression ones. Part of this stems from the fact that depression is infrequently a part of my life and anxiety is ever-present. Part of it again is how difficult it can be to put feelings into words. I frequently hear people use phrases like “high-strung” or “a worrier” or “stressed out” to describe someone who lived with chronic anxiety. These terms are nice for a quick reference but fail to expand on the full depth and complexity of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD).

What does high anxiety look like in me? How about I describe my a part this past Tuesday because it’s a nice little encapsulation of a high-anxiety day…

Tuesday was a big day for me because I was going to try to add a French conversation class since the BYU Haitian Creole class was canceled (due to low enrollment). I’ve been working since February on Duolingo to brush up my 20 year old French. Software is a fantastic tool but no substitute for in-person learning for a language. So actually, my worrying started long before Tuesday. I had intrusive thoughts for a few days before worrying about whether I would be allowed to add the class, how the class members (all much younger than me) would react, and whether I would be able to even find where the class was since campus has changed so much in 25 years. This really ramped up to the point that Monday night I struggled to sleep. I carry a lot of the tension from anxiety in my neck and jaw. Part of my falling asleep routine is deliberately relaxing those muscles. This was not at all effective this night and it took a couple of hours to drift off into horrible sleep full of nightmares. When I woke, I felt less rested than the night before!

Another symptom that was driven by the anxiety is repetitive thinking. For me, that looked a lot like a short to-do list that is bolded, underlined AND italicized.

1. Get up with alarm and get ready for day,

2. Call Derek when he is late getting home so he can give me the promised ride,

3. Get to campus no later than 11:45 and speed walk to the correct building to get the add code before class starts at noon.

I went over and over and over these steps in my head. It’s not like I was going to forget them. It’s not like they were complicated (like reflexive verbs or passé composé in French!). I am not even sure why I have that obsessive habit when I am highly anxious, though I have theories (oh the theories. Derek still makes gentle fun of me because I always have “theories”… ). I do know it is shockingly common behavior among those of us with anxiety.

Okay, finally we are to Tuesday. The easy part of the morning is driving my dear MIL to the Trax station. Then back home to jump from task to task as I count down the minutes before I need to badger Derek about being home “on time” (let’s be honest, it was really more time than I probably needed to get to class early). Then we drive to campus and I speed walk to the building all while being intimidated by all the confident looking young folk around me. And yes I get to the correct classroom 10 min to noon which is waaaay more time than I needed. I walk around the hall for a bit before slipping into the classroom nervously to sit on the front row. And…it ended up going smashingly well. The teacher gave me an add code and I noticed that she was sort of nervous when dealing with me (who is old enough to be her mom) and I was reminded as I often am: I’m not the only nervous one in the room. I’m a lot older and that’s intimidating to the kids around me. Breaking into groups showed me that I was around the same average as the other kids in the class and was able to hold my own in a short directed conversation. It was wonderful.

Afterwards, I felt like a deflated balloon. If you have ever experienced a time of high-anxiety, you probably know what I mean. I felt like roadkill, or laundry run through a wringer. I needed to sleep for a hundred years, but I was also on a high from doing something that was hard for me. So many conflicting emotions. It takes a bit of time to process out all of those intense emotions and self-produced stress hormones. Plus, and this is the ultimate bonus feature of anxiety, there are new things to agonize over! Just when you thought you were in the clear, you have to decide if you are going to actually take the class, and if so, will you have enough time for the homework and group projects? Will it interfere with all of the adoption work you are footing and caring for your family? The list is endless because anxiety, it doesn’t take time off. It doesn’t have holidays and it never gets sick. As with depression, it takes true work and willpower to stay rational while under the influence of stress hormones and learn how to manage and modulate responses. I’ve been working hard on it for almost 20 years and I suspect I will work on it for the rest of my life. The thing I am here to tell you today is that it has gotten sooo much better for me. Tuesday was exceptional. I have days like that a couple times a year now.

I have blabbed on for FAR too long so I will wrap up, but next I want to talk about things that have helped me in my journey to be functional and in good mental health.

PS I made a snake pretzel. Derek gave it pushpin eyes.

 

 

Mental health post #3: Depressed But Still Functional

Last time I talked about my experience during my first major depressive episode. That wasn’t my first experience overall, just the one I consider the most severe. I also had a pretty gnarly time the first time I went abroad when I was an French-speaking au pair in Belgium between my sophomore and junior years of college. (I’ll talk more about that time at a later date.). And of course PPD (postpartum depression) came back a few times.

But today I want to talk about the times I was depressed but still functional. These were the times when I felt bad, but could still fake it well in public and around even acquaintances. When I felt that way, I was not quite as broken as when I was having a major depressive episode. (When I say broken, I do not mean that in a hyperbolic sense, I mean it in the way that you break a spirit in a horse). Instead of crying, I was irritable and constantly angry. The littlest things could set me off like chewing (misophonia you wretched punk!), sudden loud sounds, and not having my basic physical needs met (hunger, thirst, fatigue, hypoglycemia, etc).

Another thing I discovered, long before I read about it in the literature was how easily I startled. Derek could come clumping up our loud wooden stairs and when he would talk to me, I would jump about 10 feet. Every tiny thing made me jump!

I also became more attached to home and had a harder time going to activities outside of it. It was sort of like being in the fetal position, but mentally. I didn’t have the energy to engage in social events or be around groups of people I knew.

Physically, I still struggled with insomnia, tho not as severely, and I actually tended to overeat to the point of gaining weight I did not need. Sort of a self-medicating with food perhaps? Sleeping too much hasn’t really ever been a problem because even when depressed, I tend to still need to get up and do things. But I know it can be an issue for many with depression.

There is certainly a component of anxiety in this as with the profound depression. I was strung as tight as a bow and could not handle small disappointments and changes to my routine. As I look back now, in some ways I feel like I behaved in a similar fashion to a toddler in these ways. I should talk next about anxiety because that is my kryptonite and something that I think is romanticized in a different but just as unethical way as depression.

Edit: forgot to give an honorary mention to Sol’s latest blep…

Mental health post #2: What It Feels Like To Me

The most common thing I am asked is what depression and anxiety feels like to me. I’m sure you can guess how hard it is to answer a question like that. Feelings are very difficult to describe and both personal and situational. So let me describe a depressive episode I had in the past (I’ll save one on anxiety for later though I was clearly suffering from extreme anxiety also at this point). The very most severe episode I had was after the birth of my first child (I had episodes before and after this, but this was the worst.)

I took a shower every morning when my baby napped and would sit under the stream of water and cry so hard I dry-heaved. I cried all day about everything. I think I cried more in those couple months that the rest of life! I felt this enormous pain in my heart that was heavy and made it impossible for me to smile. I could not eat solid food: when my parents came to visit and they saw what a bad state I was in, my mom went to Costco and bought every juice she could find. I was grateful to get those calories in because I could not eat for a couple months. Consequently, I lost all of my pregnancy weight and was lower than my pre-pregnancy weight by week three post-partum.

Another thing I experienced was extreme insomnia. I would lay in bed for hours each night trying and failing to sleep. I suspect I had some periods of sleep that I was unaware of but it seemed like I was awake all night, every night. I could not nap either. I could not smile, and I could not find pleasure in anything. Things that I loved before, like doing the crossword puzzle in the newspaper, or watching movies, or eating yummy food brought me no feelings at all. I remember once Derek begging me to tell him what food I wanted from any restaurant and he would go get it. And I could not think of one thing I wanted to eat. I was constantly very, very cold probably from losing so much weight and sleeping so little.

I also had really bad paranoia. If Derek left for even a few minutes, I worried endlessly that something would happen to him: a car wreck, a fall, even the most amazingly improbable events. I definitely have some OCD and it ramped up badly at this time. I constantly was checking to make sure Adia had suffocated in her bed or any of the thousands of things that could happen to a baby.

Something that seemed weird at the time but now makes sense is that I felt slow. Time moved slowly and so did I. I I felt like my body was walking through water. I never really experience what I think is true depersonalization or derealization, but I definitely felt like my body didn’t respond quite as quickly as it should. This was particularly excruciating because once I was given an antidepressant (it took me three weeks to convince my Ob’s nurses that something was deeply wrong), I still had to wait 4-6 weeks to even start feeling relief. The tiny flame of promise from that little pill, and my support system barely sustained me for the next several months.

Thankfully I did recover from that period but it took until after I had my second child that I realized that I experienced many of those same problems even when I wasn’t pregnant or postpartum and that I had a chronic mental health issue. More to come on that…

Feel free to comment with words on how you feel when you are depressed, or what you’ve seen in a loved one who has experienced as major depressive episode.

 

 

Mental health post #1: I Have Depression & Anxiety

I have depression and anxiety. I’ve dealt with it for as long as I can remember, but was formally diagnosed in 2003 and have been taking antidepressants continuously since then. I’ve been very open to everyone in person about this diagnosis; but for a couple of years, I’ve realized that I’ve rarely talked about it on social media. And to be fair, I really didn’t use social media all that much until the pandemic hit last year. So I am reforming and am going to be better about posting about this particular challenge. I want these two mental health issues normalized. I want people to see that while they shape my life, they aren’t the sum total of who I am. I also hope I can give some hope to those who are in the bitter throes of a depressive episode or unrelenting anxiety. I also promise that I will post plenty of pictures of my chonky dog which should be a reward in and of itself.