Last Week #10 | It's Always Sunny in #frelidalphia

 A year ago, all of this would have seemed like a dream.  For instance, the fact that I spent the Thursday before Memorial Day in a car crossing state lines with my friends and boyfriend, for a weekend of relaxation? Impossible. You may not know this about me, but much of my anxiety is related to sleeping in new places. So vacations, sleepovers, and weekend trips are things I've come to avoid. But when Kelsey and Sam suggested we take a trip to Philadelphia to visit the infamous La Colombe and just have fun for a weekend, I couldn't turn it down. So I spent the last few months since we booked the trip practicing, preparing, meditating, doing yoga and trying to get myself to a good mental place before we left. 

And when the worst case scenario happened, I survived. I started to have an anxiety attack, late at night when it was time for bed, and I worked through it alone. And then we worked through it together. Things weren’t always perfect on this trip. We got on each other’s nerves, we made mistakes, but most importantly, we learned and grew in spite of it. My friendships and relationships with these people are stronger as a result. I’m glad I nearly had an anxiety attack. Because I'm, no-- we're, freaking better for it. 

On the second day we met up with friends from home, serendipitously in the city the same weekend as us. As we sat there in a strange place talking about the life we'd been living miles away from home, I thought about how nothing new is impossible if you have the right people by your side. Any place can feel like home with them. And it suddenly dawned on me how two of our friends made the seemingly impossible decision to pick up and move to the other side of the country. It’s because they had each other. In that moment I realized that I could do the same, with these people. Because I already had. I took a huge step this weekend. I chose to say "fuck you" to my anxiety and do something I wanted to do anyway. That's no small feat, and a lot of the credit should probably go to me, for being strong enough to do it. But a sizable portion of that credit should be given to my friends, for creating an environment in which I felt safe enough to take chances my anxiety ordinarily wouldn't let me take.

I’ve been thinking a lot about family lately. Who matters, and more specifically why they matter. It's different for everyone, but I think some people cling to the archaic, dictionary definition of family in the hopes of keeping the status quo. But that doesn’t always work. If people are meant to, they will drift away regardless of whether or not you dig your heels in and demand they stay. Family is however you define it. For me, it is a hybrid. It’s the people I live with, sure, but it’s also the people I want to live with. It’s my best friend, her boyfriend, my boyfriend. It’s my boyfriend’s family. It’s my mentors, my therapist, my teachers, the people who inspire me and help me to live my best life. It’s the people who care, basically. 

On this trip, I think I saw a flash of the future. I saw a version of us that I suspect could be the real us. A group of genuinely happy people, full of life and love to give. Talented people who are going places. I knew that about us before, but I saw it more clearly in the bright Philadelphia sunlight. 

For me, this meant letting things go. I’m always connected. To technology, to the world, to my worries and anxiety, to this clear cut version of myself I have in my head. I reply to emails within a few hours of when I receive them (if not minutes). I'm practical. I don't like concerts. I can't go on trips because I have anxiety. But this weekend, I simply didn’t do that. I quit cold turkey. I checked my email maybe once a day, but never replied. I watched the anxieties and worries passing through my head, but didn't buy in or subscribe to any of them. I was as impractical and silly as I am physically capable of being. I went to a concert that I actually loved, discovered why people love concerts, and realized that I would see that artist a million more times live. And I learned something that’s kind of life changing. Nothing matters as much as I think it does in the moment. Like, maybe the long weekend vibes got to me, but I just felt like nothing was all that pressing. I wasn't really missing anything by being off the grid. The grid could wait. I could take time to myself, because people don’t actually email me as much as I think they do. At 9:30 am on a Friday, I laid in my bed in Philadelphia listening to Phil Collins’ Drum Duet and writing, having left all my stress back home. 

You can watch my weekly vlog from this week right here. It's one of my favorites. I can tell this will be a vlog I watch when times are tough, to remind me that it will be okay, or at least... it's always sunny in #frelidalphia.

-Fran

Anxiously Aware

 May is mental health awareness month, so I wanted to take this time to talk about a topic that is near and dear to my heart, and so many others' as well.

 The scariest thing about mental illness isn't the illness itself, but the lack of awareness, appreciation, and sympathy people have for it. If someone says, "I have the flu" they are met with hoards of well-wishes and offers for medicine and pick-me-ups like soup or funny TV shows. But if someone says, "I have anxiety" or "I've been feeling really anxious lately," they are often met with comments like, "just calm down," "relax," "chill out," or are simply told that they're overreacting. There is an astounding lack of sympathy for sufferers of mental illness of any kind, not just anxiety.

 Anxiety is kind of like being in a room full of laser beams. You might successfully step over one just to collide with the next one, one you hadn't even previously known was there. And when you do come up against your fears and anxieties there are real, tangible consequences, as the symptoms of anxiety are a lot bigger than anyone understands. With anxiety (and many other mental illnesses), you're constantly dodging and weaving through a maze of worry and insecurity, and it is completely exhausting. But it's a silent struggle, and a lot of times it might not seem to other people like anything is actually wrong. So they tell you, "relax, it's fine" or, "you always worry for no reason," and that can make you second guess what you're feeling, and pretend it's not happening. No, it's fine. You might tell yourself. Other people do this and they're okay. I'm fine. But it's not fine, and this cultural apathy only serves to continue the pain and suffering, in situations where it might have been helped.

 What pains me the most as a sufferer myself, and someone who has been speaking fairly openly about my anxiety for about five years now, is that I still find myself apologizing when I tell someone what's going on with me. I'm still downplaying it, still using a smaller voice to try to make it seem like it's not a big deal. I find myself saying, "Oh, I've just been feeling kind of anxious lately..." and shrugging, like it's not totally kicking my ass. Like it doesn't make me want to completely give up sometimes. I've had anxiety since I was about seven years old, so I've had years to get to know it, and become familiar with the nitty gritty, ugly highs and lows of it. And yet even I still sometimes fall victim to this unfeeling and unforgiving cultural mindset about mental illness.

 What I'm saying is, there needs to be more sympathy for sufferers of mental illness, and it starts with us. If you suffer, please, treat yourself well. Try your best not to negate your feelings in your own mind. Allow yourself to feel bad, because in my experience admitting that you feel bad is the first step (on a sometimes long road) to feeling better. Do I still feel like total shit about the fact that going to the movies has been making me crazy anxious lately? Yes. Do I feel bad about the fact that I had to leave the theater a few weeks ago before the movie was even over because of this anxiety? Yes. Do I horribly guilty for making my boyfriend leave that movie as well? Yes. Do I feel bad about the fact that "normal" activities are harder for me, and require more thought and preparation beforehand than most? Yes. Am I afraid that something as small (and ordinarily FUN) as a simple road trip to Philadelphia might end in disaster? Yes. Am I sometimes I afraid that this will effect my whole life, that I'll never do the things I dream of because my anxiety will hold me back? Yes. Am I cripplingly afraid of letting fear control me? Yes would be an understatement.

 It's okay to admit all that, but it's also okay to cut yourself some slack. Do people with the flu apologize for sneezing? Well, maybe, if they do it impolitely and get someone else sick, but ordinarily-- NO. They are met with, and I'll say this word again for emphasis, SYMPATHY. Kindness. Well-wishes and pats on the back (even if it's from a distance and with hand sanitizer at the ready). So maybe it's high time we do the same for people with mental illness. Unlike the flu, it isn't catching. You don't have to avoid the subject for fear you'll catch it yourself. This month, I'd urge you to be more mindful, considerate, and open to conversation about mental illness, in the hopes that one day it will be a natural reflex rather than a conscious effort to be sympathetic about this topic.

 -Fran