It was brought to my attention in recent days that May is a very critical month to me. In the adage, “April showers bring May flowers”, it is a reminder to us all that even in the dark of times, there is light up ahead. However, this seemingly simple logic isn’t always how the world works.<\/p>\n
This month is Mental Health Awareness Month<\/strong>. For those of you unaware, I have always had a strong attachment to the idea of pushing away stigma towards the concept of mental illness, partially (okay, if I’m being honest, mostly) because I suffer from a number of psychiatric and generalized mental health problems myself, along with most of my family and many of my friends.<\/p>\n Mental health issues aren’t\u00a0always easy to spot, and while you might not like to admit it, they can come on at any age. I started needing therapy when I was around six years old.<\/i> To be fair, it was because a classmate told me I should kill myself (yes, six year olds say such nice things to each other when they’re mad!). But seriously…At the time, a six year old in therapy wasn’t uncommon- however, the concept that they had a severe problem was.<\/p>\n I was diagnosed with severe anxiety as “Generalized Anxiety Disorder” when I was 13, but I’d been classified with social anxiety well before that. I have always been prone to panic attacks, and also have a mild delusion tendency and whatnot. Basically, my head is messed up. When they diagnosed my anxiety, the doctors told me they wanted to classify me with a personality disorder, but it was illegal to do that with a minor. So, while I wasn’t “officially” diagnosed it until 18 years of age, I was already considered Borderline Personality beforehand.<\/p>\n I have a LOT more to cover today, but first some helpful hints from a mental health advocate that’s lived on the system most of her life.<\/p>\n I’ll try to post some helpful practices on a later date. Today, I’m actually in the middle of an anxiety attack as I write this…And I want to share why, because it’s actually kind of amazing.<\/p>\n If you weren’t aware until now, I have a heart condition called\u00a0Wolff Parkinson White<\/strong>. This means my heart has an extra electrical pathway that\u00a0does not belong there at all<\/em>. Some people with WPW have medicine help plenty, or at least use it. However, WPW can be a problem in more than one way:<\/p>\n While there is medicine, there’s one way to possibly eradicate the offending pathway all together: Ablation. It’s not a surefire method (there are some variables) but it’s fairly risk-free and minor surgery as surgery goes. I was told over a decade ago I should get it done…But I was too scared, and chickened out. I’ve been pushing it off far too long, and my heart has not been doing well with all the stress from my grandmother’s situation lately. So, I went to my EP (electrophysiologist, who would be doing the procedure)…And we scheduled my ablation. For next week.<\/p>\n While I’m an adult, I’m childish on many levels. One is that I am TERRIFIED of needles. I was proud of myself for making the appointment and even more so for not needing to death-grip my father’s hand when I got some blood drawn. However, I think what scares me the most about the surgery is the anesthesia and the fact that I’ll have tubes going up my femoral veins (the ones in your inner-thigh near your privates). I have to get pricked, obviously, to get them in- and it might not be just one vein either. It has a lot of variables, again. But…I won’t have dad to squeeze in the operating room even for the anesthesia, most likely. I can only hope the nurse will help me. Apparently, I will only be partially knocked out- it’ll be a conscious anesthesia. Hopefully, dad gets to videotape me afterwards to see my insanity? :’D<\/p>\n I plan to use my anxiety the next few days to do a lot more writing and to expand on mental health chatter.\u00a0Books and Quills<\/strong> will be doing a lot of stuff focusing on mental health as well, and I plan to make a comic based on it along with tying in an old classic. I’ll tell you more as days go by. Because this is already long enough, I’m skipping the 101 Challenge for today at least. I won’t forget it, I swear.<\/p>\n To all of you, I wish you the best of health and happiness!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It was brought to my attention in recent days that May is a very critical month to me. In the adage, “April showers bring May flowers”, it is a reminder to us all that even in the dark of times, there is light up ahead. 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