Category: mental illnesses

in a sweeter kind-of-way

madicowell1 Comment

Life passes by so quickly.

I can’t even keep up with the summer I am currently in, or the fact that I only have one more residential year at my beautiful college.

I have been laughing to myself lately in the face of revenge and pain.

My life a year ago versus where I currently stand today is unimaginable.

Slowly but surely I am continuing to break the chains of my OCD patterns that try to suffocate me.

I am getting closer to bouncing back from an episode and staying in touch with reality.

I look back and see that little steps have been made for the past two years that have gotten me to this place today.

Yes, even with a diagnosis of severe OCD and Bipolar 2 disorder, but it has sunk into my skin in a sweeter kind-of-way, in an acceptance kind-of-way.

After a long and hard episode, I have come to a place of being able to look back in the mirror and say that I love myself even when I see a girl with make up all over her face and extremely blood shot eyes who had just spent two hours screaming and crying on the floor, helplessly.

When I have heightened emotions where I feel jittery, twitchy, and anxious I have been able to receive advice from those who care deeply for me to, “just breathe.”

Sometimes that quote can be aggravating, but other times it’s exactly what I need to hear.

Life lately with God has been rather confusing as I continue to process why I have to be the way that I am, but I can feel it deep inside of me that each day I begin to see his reasons more and more.

He saves me over and over again.

He loves me when no one else is there.

He shows me his unforgettable power and beauty in the trees.

When the air refills my closing lungs, He is there.

When all the lights are off and paranoia settles within my head, He is there to cover me.

So all that to say, everyday that I wake up I feel so thankful because it means another day to tackle and prove stigma and myself wrong; I am a fully functioning human being.

I will accomplish my dreams.

We can’t run from Jesus; He desires a relationship with us.

There is nowhere we can go where He cannot find us.

He is always waiting with open arms, but the question will always remain, will we set our pride aside and receive them?

Haze

madicowell4 Comments

I can’t seem to understand why I feel like I am always missing something?

What is this empty pit that lingers inside of me when life is so good.

There shouldn’t be sadness.

I hate the silence, when it is just me, myself, and my thoughts.

I would think that after going to counseling for quite sometime I would be okay with encountering myself alone but I still dread it.

There are so many things I expect to happen that never do.

It can be so damaging.

My heart lingers for things that don’t exist because our society makes us believe in the unrealistic and unobtainable.

My thoughts seem to disturb me with disruptive behavior.

My mind is fogged with what should have been. Who I could have been. And where I need to be.

The past pulls and grabs at my feet, but I keep my eyes straight ahead.

I know there will be a finish line.

I will reach the ultimate, but until then, I will thrive.

Whether I am enchanted or deceived my questions remain the same.

I want to know the answers.

Knowledge is so beautiful but it is destructive.

What if I know too much?

What if I know nothing at all?

My anticipation causes me anxiety.

My emotions are my worst enemy and my first love.

My thoughts swallow me after the sun goes down, reminding me of what hurts the most.

They bring comfort and peace, they know me.

But I won’t be fooled; for I know the heart is deceitful.

Exhaustion wants to settle in.

Apathy wants to take over.

But I know that somewhere, hope wants and will always sustain.

Inhale, exhale.

madicowell1 Comment

As I breathe in deeply, I exhale anxiety.

In my breath, I hold the power to move forward.

What is it about the air?

When it is at perfect temperature it satisfies my bones so much to the point that I can be so weak yet feel so strong?

Some may say when they look out into the distance, among the sky, the water, or the mountains…that it makes them feel minuscule.

But I feel empowered.

The purified pink sky with its orange undertones fill my lungs until there is no more space.

No worry.

No remorse.

I am exhaling fear.

Rejection runs through my veins and up into my throat until it suffocates me.

I could hate my body, myself, and my actions, but when I step foot into the tall grass, I feel freedom.

I am exhaling guilt.

The warm air feels like silk against my skin.

The fresh, intense smells of a new season, I inhale.

And with that life-giving breath, I exhale.

Releasing all the pain and sorrow that thinks it still has a hold of me.

No matter what the pain of the past, present, or future holds, when I exhale, I feel redemption.

I lay, feeling the depths of despair; with roars of death and hopelessness my heart swells.

I lay there, exhausted, but unable to rest.

Tormented, yet unable to escape.

But when I breathe deeply, I remember that with every roar there is a whisper.

For every drop of pessimism there is a drip of hope.

For every tear, there is warmth.

It sends satisfaction through my bones as I remember the sunrise that awakens me every morning.

I wake up flooded by emotions.

I am filled with depression, rage, rejection, and disconnection, but when I remember to breath, I have the power to dismiss them.

I have the power to dismiss my toxic feelings because I have oxygen in my lungs, a heart with a pulse, and an empowered mind.

 

Up From the Ashes

madicowell1 Comment

TW: Depression, dark thoughts, suicide, mental health, Bipolar, OCD

Life is full of disappointments.

I have spent so much of my life feeling disappointed.

Disappointed by others, myself, experiences, love, and so much more.

 

Recently my grandfather shared so much wisdom with me.

We talked about how life has 4 quarters, and I am in the first: ages 0-25.

He explained how so many great and amazing things happened to him within his first quarter.

I am not going to lie…my eyes immediately welled up with tears.

I always feel so terrified when people tell me that the years I am in right now will be the best of my life.

Within the conversation with my grandfather, I had a flashback to a night during my senior year of high school.

I was having to make a timeline of all the bad things I had experienced within the last 6 years of my life, and then I was supposed to rip it into shreds and leave it in my “past”.

My timeline reached from wall to wall.

It was full of sorrowful and saddening experiences I had felt and walked through towards the end of middle school and all my years of high school.

 

I look back at my first quarter thus far, and all I can see is that timeline.

Four or five brutal times through out high school of having dark, suicidal thoughts.

Experiencing tragic heartache that I did not even think was possible to feel.

Depression that was so consuming that it left me isolated, with only me and my pessimistic thoughts.

And fear, lots of fear.

 

But as my grandfather talked to me about the four quarters of life, he told me how someday when all of us reflect, we will truly see just how amazing life was, and how the good always outweighed the bad.

I stand today, alive, seeing that this must hold to be true, or else I would not still be here.

I would go through all the heartache that I have endured all over again if it meant that it would lead me to whom I love today, because he is so worth it.

I would go through the friendships that have come and gone in my life that I miss so dearly if it would lead me to the couple of great friends I have now, because they are worth it.

I would take on the uncomfortable and excluded feelings I had all through high school because I was not like others if it meant that I would have the opportunities to pour into some one, somewhere, because he or she was worth it.

My grandfather helped continue to open my eyes to see that it is all worth it.

So often I look at my past and see wasted space and wasted time.

I see a messed up teenage girl with no idea what to do with herself.

For years I had dreams, images, and replayed moments in my head reminding me of the time I had someone I loved tell me he would never feel the way I felt for him.

I remember times that I have been lied to and left in the dust.

I remember continually giving more than I ever got back, but it was all worth it.

I hope I drove the people insane who I loved so deeply because at least they saw what it meant to be truly loved.

I hope I made people so uncomfortable by how much I cared for them because they deserved to be that cared for.

Even in moments when I feel like I have been done so wrong, it was worth it, because it was all supposed to happen.

It has left me with who I am, who I have, and who I want to become.

None of that matters now. What matters is what is ahead.

Do I look at my past and feel proud? Absolutely not. I was broken and defeated.

But now I look at it all, and I see how much it has shaped me.

I was forced to reinvent myself from my ashes.

I felt like I was thrown overboard.

Like I was left, abandoned, and forgotten by the person that I would have literally died for, but it is fascinating because it lead me to the person who did die for me.

I do not even care if that is the most cliché or mushy thing I have ever written, it is true.

I stand today alive and better than ever! Still not great, but I am getting there.

My grandfather taught me something that I will now never forget, life is about perspective.

It is about reflecting and not seeing all the times you failed or were forgotten, but about how many times you rose from the ashes and continued to fight.

I have always been told that my “first quarter” would be my best quarter, but that clearly has not been the case.

But it is not too late to turn the tables.

It is not about me, it was not about me, and it will not be about me.

It is about what is supposed to be, and if that was what needed to happen, than I am thankful.

I know what I want now.

I always felt like throughout high school the tragic moments I had felt within my heart were just going to cause me to grow more and more bitter as I grew older, but I think the opposite is coming about.

I think times are looking up, at least for now.

Since the eighth grade I have been taught lessons that could not have been shown to me any other way other than through experience.

The lesson of love, losing it…and it never returning.

The lesson of trial and error.

The lesson of fighting for my heart.

The lesson of fighting for my joy.

The lesson of fighting for my life.

The lesson of fighting my mind.

The lesson of fighting off demons.

And the last and most important lesson, the lesson of Christ’s faithfulness.

The number one person that I felt like left me was here all along, or else I would not be here.

I spent endless nights lying in bed bawling thinking, “where is the God who said He so desperately loves me? If you love me, than why am I am so empty and disgusting.”

I felt like I was better off dead, and I figured He thought the same of me since I was not progressing what so ever.

But now I see the devil’s nasty tricks.

He fooled me into thinking a human’s rejection meant I was unloved, forgotten, and dismissed by all people.

But God proved me wrong, He always does.

The very times I think He is the farthest away are the times when He is standing not even beside me, but in front of me, fighting off the demons, and fighting for my life.

 

And that is where my fresh, new, and beautiful perspective starts.

Life still scares me.

Love still makes me sick to my stomach for fear of losing it, yet again.

I am still terrified to trust.

I still have my questions, anger, and doubt.

But my perspective is literally being changed each day because of faithfulness.

God is removing the callous’ from my heart that the devil so desperately tried to cover me in.

 

Befriending Yourself.

madicowell8 Comments

With my freshman year of college behind me, it has caused me to reflect.

This year has been insane, literally.

I have officially been diagnosed with Bipolar 2 disorder as well as OCD.

Many mental illnesses have been overgeneralized, downplayed, and even made fun of because people are not fully grasping the severity of them.

As I continue this blog I will definitely go into further detail about what exactly these disorders are as well as my personal experiences with them, but for today I will stick to my other thoughts.

I waited to post this until I felt like I was ready to come to terms with it myself.

I have been battling my own judgmental thoughts for the past seven months.

How do I allow these labels to bring me peace when I feel so shameful of them?

How do I remain confident when the stigma behind so many disorders is that “those people are crazy” or “those types of people just need to stay on their medication.”

We must change this stigma.

Souls, moods, personalities, hearts, and minds are broken because people feel out casted for things they cannot control.

My entire life I have questioned my sanity.

Now that I have learned about my final diagnosis, I have had to remind myself that it is okay that I am different from others.

That my mood may be more rapid.

That my thoughts might be more intrusive.

That I may be much more emotional.

More depressed.

More anxious.

More talkative.

The likelihood of me having Bipolar disorder as well as OCD was slim to nothing.

There was a 1.5% chance of me having Bipolar disorder, and 2-3% chance of me having OCD.

I do not line up with any of the statistics.

So, this has left me with two options: to hate myself and every single way I operate, or to realize there is a specific reason I was made this way.

I was made this way on purpose.

My extreme highs and very low lows are painful and can be harmful, but through out my life I have been able to connect with others in ways I did not even think were possible due to how many different feelings I have endured.

My intrusive thoughts that have caused me to stay awake until 5:00 AM, only to be woken back up at 7:00 AM from morbid dreams that leave me speechless.

These exact moments are the times that make me empathize with those around me the most.

I want to comfort people’s minds.

That is why I am here.

The issue with our society is that everyone feels so alone. They think no one understands them whatsoever. But we are all thinking this exact same way…that no one understands us.

Therefore, we never even give people a chance to, and this leaves us completely isolated with our thoughts and ourselves.

You are not defined by what the world tells you that you are.

Male or female, you are a beautiful creature.

The goal of this post is to express that nothing is too weird, nasty, or intense to not share you story.

It does not matter how different it is from others.

In order to bring souls together all over the world we must break free from the bondage of our own minds, and the world’s critical remarks.

Embrace your creative, intricate mind.

I have spent my entire life staring at a reflection that I loathed.

Sometimes, I definitely still do, but I want to change this so that I can really understand what it means to love myself.

I do not care if this takes me my entire life, I will fight for my mind and my mood.

When intrusive thoughts crowd my mind and suffocate me, I will befriend them, and speak things over myself to reiterate that I am in fact okay.

I will welcome my disorders so that I can better love myself.

I cannot keep running from who I am, and who I will be my whole life.

They make me the overly passionate person that I am.

Yes, this makes me different from my peers, but I must move past this in order to continue doing big things in the world around me.

Do not ever think you are too emotional, too unstable, or too crazy to have a say.

I stayed quiet for so long because I thought I was psychotic, and needed to get over the things that haunted me from my past.

I thought my dark thoughts were normal.

I thought my extreme mood swings were just part of “being a girl”, but these things are not true.

So today, I am openly speaking about my diagnosis, because I am choosing to love myself.

If this is you, speak out.

Remember you are unique. Not strange.

Yes, this journey will be long, but I am no longer ashamed and no one should have to be.