Mental Health Pet Peeves

In the mental health community, we face a lot of stigma. Some of it is overt. People calling us crazy or mental or insane. People saying we're dangerous, violent. These people, while they frustrate the hell out of me, are sometimes easier for me to deal with. I pull out statistics about how those with mental health conditions are ten times more likely to be victims of a violent crime than perpetrators. I tell people how I run a business and work a part time job, have recently written a novel in my "spare time", and have served on numerous boards of directors, to name a few accomplishments. This tends to make people realize perhaps I'm not as "crazy" as they would like to think. Or they do, and I tell them where to shove and move along because they've decided to be closed minded and nothing I can say will change that, so they aren't worth my time. But the people that don't get what they're doing are the ones who really get to me. Because that is how stigma and ignorance disguises itself in a pretty little helpful bow, and continues to be perpetuated. Here are a few of my top mental health pet peeves.

•  "Just pray about it." Ok, first off, I've been black listed by the Catholic church for living in sin for the last umteen years (divorced, not annulled,etc etc) and quite frankly it pisses me off that I'm counted as much of a sinner as a murderer or a rapist simply because I left an unhealthy relationship. But all of this is besides the point BECAUSE MY ILLNESS IS NOT A SIN OR A PENANCE! I jokingly call it the gremlin in my head, but that's a joke. Because it's so ridiculous that a separate being would be actually possessing my brain that I can joke about it. Praying, if I were religious, might calm me. It might give me some sort of comfort. If I were religious. Which I am not. Now, to be clear, if you are religious and want to pray that I'm feeling better, by all means, go ahead. It's how you feel you can help, and I truly appreciate that you want to help in some way. I'm not telling you not to pray or believe, and I appreciate you doing what you can to help. Who knows, maybe it'll work and I'll become a believer again.  But please, don't tell me the only thing that I can do to help is pray. I respect that it's your thing, but it's not my thing. And I'm not looking for a miracle. 

• You're a pawn of the pharmaceutical/doctor industry. They're making you sicker so you buy the drugs and they get rich.  Ok first of all, did you witness the first 30 years of my life? Did you watch me at 2 years old in hypomanic episodes begging my parents "make it stop, make it stop." But I'm just fine off my meds?  How exactly do you, who is not in my head or my body, know that?  Let me set you straight: my meds, and the meds of so many others, are life-saving. When you have a potentially fatal cancer and choose not to take medication, please, come to me and show me how you've magically healed on your own. Then we can talk. 

• Oh I don't need medication, I've cured myself with these herbal supplements and exercise. Well hoody hoo for you. You are not me. You're not inside my brain. I have a bachelors in kineseology, worked in corporate fitness for five years, and am a certified personal trainer and fitness instructor. If exercise could cure me, I think I'd be fine and dandy by now. I'm honestly glad that works for you. You're lucky. Me, not so much. It does help me at times, but it doesn't cure me. Nothing does. I have a chronic illness that currently has no cure. 

• Just relax/chill out/calm down (during anxiety/hypomania). *%&$&*$%&#$%*$% You. If I could, I would. And here's a tip: never, in the history of telling people to calm down, has telling someone to calm down actually made them do so. In fact, it does the reverse. 

• Just focus on the positive more. Be more grateful.  I'm not ungrateful. I know I have "no reason" (as you put it) to feel so awful, worthless, terrible, hopeless. I know there are starving children in Africa and that so many people are more sick, or have it worse. But I do, actually, have a reason. It's called a medical illness that screws with my brain. And now, thanks to you, I simply feel guilty about having this illness, and more like a giant piece of shit than I already felt. 

• Why are you depressed? You have a good life. If I asked you why you couldn't just stop having cancer because you have a good life and *should* be healthy, I'd look like the biggest asshat on the planet. When you ask this, so do you. 

• I  avoid people who are emotional/dramatic. Every time I see this in anyone's status/profile/etc I run like the wind. Because this makes me feel like I can't be myself if I'm having an overly emotional day, and like it's my fault if I am. Like it's not an illness that makes me this emotional but a choice. It makes me feel like a burden. And I don't want to be a burden to anyone. I'd rather be alone. 

• Happiness is a choice. Ah, well, no shit?! If only I'd known! All this time, I've been suffering from a lifelong illness when I could have just decided not to be depressed! I hope you can sense the sarcasm. If happiness was a choice, approximately 16 million Americans would not be living with Major Depressive Disorder (source here). Trust me, we don't want to be depressed, and we certainly never chose this on purpose. 

• You can't control what happens to you but you can control your reactions to it. Clarification: in a perfect world, I agree. But in a perfect world, 16 million Americans would battle major depression either. By nature of my disorder, my brain makes it increasingly difficult to control my reactions, and sometimes nearly impossible. If it helps make this a bit more clear, my meds are actually used primarily for seizures. Basically, I'm having a seizure- like reaction in my brain that manifests itself emotionally/mentally instead of physically. And if you've ever witnessed someone having a seizure, you understand the lack of control. If I could not have an anxiety attack or panic attack in public, I would.  Because nobody likes being stared at and steered clear of in public. Nobody likes collapsing in a pile of tears in the middle of a crowd. And if I could not sink into a depression, I would. Trust me, even through a depression, I'm trying to keep to react as best as possible. I'm trying not to let it drag me under into an abyss of nothingness. I don't always win. Please believe me, if I can't control it, I really can't.

Fellow mental health battlers, have more? I'm sure there are plenty. I try to laugh at them, to brush these things off. It helps keep me from isolating myself, feeling like nobody understands me. So I joke and use colorful language to make them lighter. But honestly, these things aren't funny. They're annoying at best, and ignorant and stigmatizing at worst. 

Please Don't Stop Inviting Me Even Though I Turn You Down

When you battle anxiety - social or generalized, depression, mood cycling, or any other number of mental health conditions, socializing can be a challenge. In fact, being out in public can be downright scary at times.  That's because both of these are double edged swords and with time, become a viscous cycle. 

We go out. We have an anxiety attack or our depression worsens or we slip into a hypomanic episode. We either get really quiet, or we freak out in some way. We're embarrassed, frustrated, upset. So is anyone that noticed (and sometimes it's impossible not for everyone to notice). We hybernate, either by choice or because people stop inviting us for a while. Eventually, we decide to come out of our cocoon. But we're so afraid that it's going to happen again, that we're anxious and worried the whole time. People tell us to just relax and be ourselves. But this is impossible - ourselves aren't relaxed. The more pressure we feel to relax, to not have an episode of sorts, the more anxious we get, and guess what - the more likely we are for it to actually happen. It's virtually a self fulfilling prophecy. We hybernate more. You see where this is going. 

So I understand the tendency for people to not invite me. They think I'm not interested because I've turned them down or left early or cancelled at the last minute or quite simply have been what they consider no fun at times. 

Please understand:

• My condition is unpredictable. I may agree to plans that sound good when I'm feeling better, and wake up that morning so depressed it physically hurts to move. I don't want to put either of us through that, so I cancel. 

• I may feel like I'm about to cycle and need to make a game time decision, because I know that being in a certain state of mind while participating in whatever is planned would turn out poorly for everyone involved. 

• Alcohol can make me severely depressed. If the focus of your evening is alcohol and I know my options are to 1.) drink and wake up severely depressed or 2.) be the only sober person who stands there feeling like a boret while you're all getting wildly drunk and saying things like "come on, just have a drink",  I may not want to go at times.  It's not personal.

• Lack of sleep makes me cycle. It might seem to you like I can do a late night out here or there, but I know my body and my brain, and I know it's generally not a great idea. Hypomania makes it impossible to sleep in. So staying out late doesn't mean I'll just adjust my sleep schedule, it means I'll not sleep. And I'll cycle. So again, I may decline. It's not you, it's me. 

• Lots of noise and commotion and crowded spaces often overwhelms my brain. Imagine a train coming at you full speed ahead blaring it's whistle furiously but being told you must calmly stand there on the tracks and solve a complicated math problem. And enjoy it. This is what it's like for me when my anxiety or hypomania are bad. So if that's my mood cycle, I may avoid it. 

• Having to interact and have small talk with people I don't know, especially when they all know each other, is akin to that dream you have where you show up on the first day of school naked and everyone's staring at you and you have to pretend nothing's amiss. Social anxiety makes it feel like the walls are closing in, slowly crushing you, and you can't breathe. But in small groups with real conversation, I can be really social. It's not all or nothing. 

• I may be so afraid that I will somehow ruin your time that I decline the invitation. Especially if I've had an episode in a similar situation before, or you've told me that you're worried about me doing so (this is one of the most hurtful thing someone can say, for the record). 

• I may feel so pressured to "just relax and have fun", when for me trying to relax like everyone else thinks I should is sometimes more of a struggle than my actual anxiety. My brain doesn't "relax". My body tries to, and my brain has this constant whisper, "am I relaxed enough? Do they think I'm relaxed? Am I doing this right?". 

The bottom line is, I do not want to feel like I have to be someone else, or some other version of myself that doesn't come naturally, in order for you to want to be around me and/or invite me out. When you say "just relax be yourself," I need you to understand that those two things don't happen concurrently. And that myself in that current state of mind may not be what you actually want. What you want is a "myself" that you have in your head, that maybe you've seen here or there, when I was really able to pull off trying to be like everyone else. Or when I was having a really "normal" day. 

But none of this means I don't want to be invited. Do you know what makes me want to go into my cocoon and never ever ever come out, more than anything?  When people stop inviting me. It's not because I'm being a baby (I've been accused of this and told to "grow up" on numerous occasions). It's because it feels like when I need you most, when I'm ready to give up on me and fighting not to, that you've already done so. It feels like you're embarrassed or ashamed by me. That you're not willing to take the chance on all of my good qualities in case it's a bad illness day. That those good qualities aren't worth it. It feels like I have to always be ready to go and do whatever you want however you want it, or I'll never be invited. Because of that time or two I turned down plans because I was ill, you've stopped including me all together. It feels like you're saying to me: you'll never get better. I have no faith in you. And you saying "oh I figured you'd not enjoy it" is, quite honestly, a cop out. Who are you to decide if I'd enjoy it on any given day or not? I'm mood cycling. What I enjoy (for the most part, assuming it's not a moral dilemma) depends on my mood. It would be like saying "if you don't to eat french fries every day of your life, I'm going to assume you don't like them and never offer you one again." If you'd truly like me there, what's the harm in saying, "I know it's not really your thing (or you've not been feeling great) but if you're up to it, I'd love to have you there. No pressure though"? Because I, and only I, should be allowed to decide if my body and brain are up to it on that particular day. And because it tells me you still believe in me, still trust me, haven't given up on me. And that I'm worth it. 

Please, don't stop inviting me, or anyone else that is dealing with these types of struggles. We feel bad enough about our conditions. We already feel so different, misunderstood, ostracized because of the stigma, because of the gremlin in our head that tells us we're no good, that nobody wants us around. Don't tell us it's true. 

Finding Beauty

This morning a coworker asked me how I was doing. I jokingly used the old refrain "same sh*t, different day," and we both nodded and laughed. But then I corrected myself and said that actually, every day of my life is surprising. My coworker replied, "that's beautiful." I laughed and said that I guess it depended on the surprise, but it got me thinking on the topic.

I work in travel and events. By nature, they are full of surprises. A new client traveling to a new destination; a unique type of event; a flight delay; a client completely changing their itinerary and my having to start the planning over; a snow storm delaying event attendees and pushing the day off schedule. The list of surprises, both desired and not, goes on and on. But it's not just about work.

I have rapid cycling cyclothymia. As I've mentioned before, I can wake up depressed, be hypomanic by lunch, and depressed again by dinner. It doesn't happen often - my depressive cycles are less frequent and tend to last a few days to a week - but it can happen that quickly. I literally go to bed not knowing if I'm going to wake up in one extreme or the other, or be, hopefully, somewhere in between. I have to plan for all of these scenarios. I can plan to work out, but if I'm particularly hypomanic, cardio is out of the question - it can make my hypomania worse. I can plan to go to a social gathering, but I may be too depressed, anxious, and physically exhausted to go, so I'm leery. Grocery shopping and cooking dinner - if I have the energy, but the food will have to be flexible, because dairy can make my depression worse (this, for the record, seems specific to me), and I might not have the energy to do any of it. The only things I can count on for sure are: no matter how bad I feel, I must force my ass to get out of bed and go to work; less sleep makes me cycle worse; yoga helps all states of mood; I absolutely need to have enough food and drink with me at all times to be able to take my med doses throughout the day.  Oh, and without coffee, even hypomanic me will not be happy.

Yet it's not all bad. I started my novel because I woke up one day with the opening scene in my head. Just like that. I had been thinking for years that I wasn't creative enough to write a novel. Then one day,it was there. I eagerly wrote it down in my morning pages, and I haven't looked back. Some days, my imagination and creativity stretch to depths I didn't think possible. Ideas come to me from out of nowhere as sureties, as if I'd known them all along. It's how I started my online mood disorder support group. In fact, it's how I started this blog. It's how the goal of a mental health focused non-profit first formed in my head (though admittedly I have a long way to go on this one). Nothing, and then poof!, everything.

So while I was joking with my coworker, and poking a bit of fun at myself and my brain (because sometimes, honestly, you just have to laugh so that you don't cry), perhaps he's right. Perhaps there is some sort of beauty in the fact that each day holds a surprise for me. Certainly, nobody would say that my life is boring, so if nothing else, I have that going for me. But even more than that, I get those many moments of unexpected inspiration. I get an energy and zest for life that others have told me they wish they had. Granted, sometimes it's only quick glimpses before the gremlin in my head takes over, but I have them. And the price I pay is having to deal with the depressive episodes. I wouldn't say "it's worth it", because seriously, depression, and the less desirable bits of hypomania freakin' SUCK. But I would say, nobody's life is perfect, and if I'm going to have all the rough times that come with the cyclothymia, then I might as well enjoy these glimpses of positivity and inspiration. My life might be a mess, but at least it's a beautiful mess. 

The Most Frustrating Things People Say To Someone With a Mood Disorder

It's no secret that there's a huge stigma surrounding mental health. I've blogged before about the myths of mood cycling conditions, and even some of the positives I've gleaned from mine, but I thought I'd address some of the other statements and negativity we get dealt with on a regular basis, just for being ourselves.

• "You're way too emotional. "  I've actually been admonished for "being a baby" for tears that people didn't understand. Yes, I'm probably more emotional than a lot of people. But I'm not a baby. I'm not weak. I'm not spoiled. I have a big heart. I feel things greatly, deeply. It means if you were in trouble, I'd feel it so greatly I'd move mountains to help you.  It means I also feel joy and excitement greatly too.  Is that such a bad thing? 

• "You're unrealistic/delusional." Mood cyclers have expansive brains. They stretch to extremes. They're often incredibly creative, imaginative, visionary. Did you know that Beethoven, Van Gogh, and Picasso are all said to have had (or were actually diagnosed with) Bipolar Disorder? Just because our dreams and brains stretch a bit further into areas some can't understand, just because our paths aren't always the same as yours, doesn't make us unrealistic or delusional. It may well mean we reach heights or discover paths others don't think to go.  

• "You can't change. It's just how you are." Yes, there are parts of the condition that may always be there. We may always be a little bit more emotional, a bit more imaginative. But we are humans. And humans have the ability to adjust. Even if a trait or characteristic I have is influenced by my condition, it doesn't mean I can't take note and make an effort to change it. It may be harder for me than others, but nothing is set in stone. With science these days, we can transplant entire missing organs. Don't tell me it's impossible to adjust small personality characteristics.  

• "You'll only get worse. You'll never get better."  It's a physical condition. It can be helped by medication like any other. Furthermore, I know people who managed to come off medication for good. I know people who have had years without cycling. If I had diabetes, and I took the appropriate medication and kept the appropriate diet, I doubt you'd blame all of my issues on diabetes and be positive that I'd never "be normal". It's the same with my condition. My brain is just another organ. 

• "You have nothing to be depressed/anxious about. Your life is good." Ahh this makes me want to scream (and sometimes I do). I'm not depressed about anything. I know people who've had lung cancer and not smoked a day in their life. They aren't cancerous about something. They didn't choose it, or even do something that made it a more likely possibility. It just happened. Perhaps, like my condition, it was genetic and they couldn't have prevented it if they tried. And besides, just because my life may look good or easy or happy, I have this damn gremlin inside my head that f*cks around with my brain on a regular basis, often when I'm least expecting it. That, I assure you, is not easy, no matter how great my life may look to you. 

• "I have to walk on eggshells because of your condition." Absolutely not! I don't want to be treated like a pariah or a child. I don't want to be simply "tolerated" or "dealt with". If you talk to me, truly listen to me, learn about my condition, really understand who I am, then you'll learn how to communicate with me, just as I learn how to communicate with you. We all, as human beings, condition or not, have those things that are easy or tough, exciting or painful, pet peeves and idiosyncrasies, and we learn how to interact and work with each other taking these all into consideration. 

Stigma happens because of these types of stereotypes. People with mental health conditions - at least one out of every four people in the United States - have to worry about their employers, colleagues, dates, even friends and family knowing about their condition for fear that they won't look at them the same, that they'll distance themselves or treat them differently. They often feel ashamed, isolated, alone. So instead of spreading that stigma with statements like the ones above, really talk to us about our conditions with an open mind  (if the person is ok with doing so). I promise you, we aren't creatures from the black lagoon. We are human beings, who happen to have a condition, would be thrilled to eliminate the ignorance that creates the stigma, through education and communication. 

Why I Named My Gremlin Anne Boelyn

As I've written about before, I sometimes like to refer to my condition as the gremlin inside my head. You can read more about it here, but basically, it personifies my brain in the times that it decides to take control against all common sense, logic, or emotional intelligence.

I've suggested in previous posts that it helps to name your gremlin, because it allows you to separate it out. It also allows you to take the voice less seriously. I am known to emotionally beat myself up for things I've done or said when the gremlin takes the reigns. There are times that I've loathed the gremlin, and in turn, felt terrible about myself because I had trouble separating it out from me as a person. So I decided to take my own advice an name my gremlin. This way, I can yell at it and reprimand it all I wanted without berating myself for things resulting from a condition that I never, ever asked to have.

I decided to name my gremlin Anne Boleyn. I love Tudor history. I particularly am enthralled with the story of Henry VIII's wives. Of them, Anne Boleyn is the most intriguing to me. She is also generally the most detested of all of his wives. At the time, some people claimed she was a witch. They said that she enchanted people, cast spells on them to do things against their will. While I tend to disagree with that theory, it reminds me a of my gremlin..... it too seems to steer my brain in a direction which I never would choose to go willingly.  Anne was a bit of a mystery. Often, the same things about her that tended to pull people in were those that later turned them against her.  I feel the same about my brain. There are moments when I love the creativity and depth of thought and emotion that I am capable of because my brain pushes boundaries. There are other times that this same depth of emotion can cripple me and I turn on my gremlin, wishing it cast out, never to come back.

Ultimately, Anne Boleyn was never fully understood, and I suspect she wanted it that way - though not to the degree that it cost her her life. Depending on who you ask, she was intelligent, learned, beautiful, and beheaded despite her innocence. According to others, she was an unnatural monster who was out only for herself and deserved every punishment she got, including losing her head. Either way, she most certainly took secrets to her grave. And ultimately, I feel the same about my condition aka gremlin.  It's something I feel I will never fully understand. On one hand, it makes me who I am, and I'm quite happy with who that person is overall. I feel it's helped me understand my true purpose, and in that sense, there's beauty to it. In a way, I suppose it's intelligent in that it helps me be more empathetic to and understanding of others who deal with similar things. It's guided me towards some amazing people I would never have met otherwise. On the other hand, it's workings will always remain a mystery to me. Why it l turns on me when I least expect it, I struggle to understand. It leads me to hurt (emotionally) and upset those around me, and in that sense, it's ugly and deserves to die a miserable death. It's powerful, in some ways fascinating, yet terrifying in others.

So Anne and I will go through life together, battling each other some days and working together on others, sometimes understanding each other, and sometimes despising each other. But at least I can now say I hang out with Anne Boleyn on a daily basis, and that sometimes I even manage to out-smart her. For a Tudor fanatic like myself, that's often enough to make me chuckle and smile.

Head Vs Heart

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the gremlin that lives inside my head, and how I deal with that. If that sentence confused you or freaked you out or made you in any way curious, you can read about that here.  I thought I'd do a follow up post, because it's a topic that seems to be reoccurring in my life, as well as others I've talked to who deal with mental health conditions (and to be honest, probably a good number of people who do not have diagnosed conditions).

With cyclothymia, I deal with the constant battle of opposing self-talk between my head and my heart. In the general population, the brain is traditionally seen as the logical side, whereas the heart is viewed as the emotional, often less reasonable side. What if, though, everything were reversed? What if your brain liked to play tricks on you... like telling you that you're no good at something when you are in fact talented? Or telling you that people don't like you when you have a big circle of friends and loved ones? This is a struggle that I face, and I would venture to guess this is quite true of a lot of people with mood cycling, as well as anxiety, panic, and depressive disorders. It's also probably rather accurate for those who are not diagnosed, yet battle low confidence and low self-esteem. 

In this case, how do you sort fact from fiction? For me, the answer is quite simple. My heart almost always wins the battle with the brain. My brain requires medication in order to function "normally". And I mean that in the purest form. My brain doesn't work the way that others' do.  My brain is more porous, figuratively speaking. It often listens only to the negative. It soaks up others' thoughts that counteract my own opinions and beliefs of myself.  It generally sees only black and white. It's not happy with logical reasoning because quite frankly, that logical reasoning isn't always all that logical in my world. It's cautious. It would be content to live this life carefully, hedging every bet just so that "I don't mess up".  My brain is tends to think that its own shadow is that of a predator.  Furthermore, depending on what type of cycle I'm in, it sometimes seems to want me to fail. Quite frankly, I don't trust my brain at times. I feel it often lies to me, or at best, withholds some truth. 

My heart, on the other hand, does not. I know that my heart is genuine, and accurate, and not playing tricks on me. My heart is brave and courageous. It will not let me lie on my deathbed and look back and say "I wish I had..." or "I regret that I didn't...".  My heart knows when I'm really good at something, and encourages me instead of trying to scare me off. It recognizes the good people in my life instead of making me feel lonely. I trust my heart. Which I know is counterintuitive for most people. For many, their heart is a place of emotion, which can mean joy or hurt or fear or confusion, instead of good old reliable logic. For me though, that is all logic. The stuff my brain tells me can sometimes be a whole lot of BS. The stuff my heart tells me, that's real and to me, "logical" in the sense that it's trustworthy, and it makes sense. My brain can be a saboteur who tries to prevent me from taking risks and following dreams. My heart knows me better, and knows I'd be sorry down the road if I let my brain win. 

Of course I'm sure you can think of examples in which the brain is more accurate. Common place thoughts of the brain like "the milk is curdling, I probably shouldn't drink it" are probably pretty reliable, because in that instance you're using the brain for exactly what it's for - factual information. But major life decisions, ones that generally contribute to my happiness or lack thereof, those I assign the heart. It's different for everyone I'm sure. For me,  I'm slowly and surely learning to give less control to the gremlin in my brain, and more to that part of me that I know I can trust. I can say that in doing so, I'm much happier. 

This post has been written as part of the I AM WOMAN 30 Day Blog and LinkedIn Challenge. 

The Gremlin Voice

I swear that I have a gremlin that lives inside of my head. Just when everything seems to be going well, he says or does something that totally railroads me. And when something potentially negative happens, forget it. He goes into high gear, creating every potential "glass half empty" scenario possible.  When I don't hear from someone as often as I usually do, the gremlin tells me that surely I've made a catastrophic error and they're mad at me or are slowly ditching me all together. When a business opportunity doesn't go through as planned, he tells me how unsuccessful I am, despite any evidence to the contrary. When I over-indulge one night on food, he tells me I'd better go shopping for new pants tomorrow because clearly my a$$ will not fit in my pants tomorrow.

That's the thing about the gremlin - he only looks at the most negative, and most immediate evidence. He doesn't weigh everything out. For instance, when I haven't talked to someone in a few days, he doesn't look at the fact that last week that person reached out multiple times. Instead, he racks my brain for all of the potentially awful things I must of done or said and beats me up about it. The business scenario? Forget all of the satisfied clients, the leadership offices I hold in numerous organizations, or the fact that I've been asked to speak on numerous panels over the last couple of years. None of that matters? And obviously all of that exercise this morning doesn't stand a chance against the pieces of pizza I will eat this evening (ok this last one may have some merritt if it becomes a habit, but not on a single occasion). 

The thing is, I know the gremlin's secret. It feeds on my history of self-doubt. My fears of rejection and failure are just the source of energy it needs to thrive.  The more I feed the gremlin, the more he grows and the stronger he gets. Cognitively, intellectually, I understand this. Emotionally, not so much. I have, though, learned a few tricks to help tame this ugly creature. First off, I find something to distract myself, and therefore throw him off balance. Writing is huge for me. Today, for example, when he was getting a little to "high on his horse", as the saying goes, I decided to write this blog. Other times, I spend time out with friends. Partly as a distraction, but also, it helps to prove him wrong. It says "I'm not unsuccessful, or unpopular, or rejected. Look, I have friends. And they want to hang out with me, and they enjoy my company." It doesn't shut the gremlin up entirely, but it helps. It helps me to not dwell, which is one of the most important steps in the process of battling him. 

Now you may be asking: how do you know your gremlin is a "he"? That's a very good question. In fact, while I'd love to think of the nasty voice as a he - blame it on the stress a lot of men have caused me over the years, I suppose - the truth is, it's really not. It's 100 percent female. It's my own voice. It's the distorted, pessimistic voice that feeds off past hurts and is always waiting for other shoe to drop when something is going right. It's the part of my voice that's inaudible to others, because it's too ugly to show itself in public. I read once, and I can't remember where unfortunately, that in this moment, everything is ok. It's not the situations or specific instances that cause us stress or hurt or anything else negative, but they way we view them, and project them into the future. 

I realize that this is so much easier said than done. Which is why I am writing this blog right now. If I'd tamed the voice completely, I wouldn't need to.  But I have made strides, at least most days. Here are a few questions that I ask myself to at least try to make some progress: 

1. Is it possible I'm over-reacting/reacting in too negative a light?

2. What are three positive/alternative things that have happened that could counteract this thinking. (ie if you're thinking "I have no friends", who are the last three personal contacts who reached out?). 

3. Even if I'm not over-reacting, how could this be a lesson or stepping stone? This might be a tricky one, but try to come up with at least something. 

4. How can you act on #3? 

5. If all else fails, how can I distract myself until the acute phase passes? You could just be having a bad day, or be in a frustrated mood that makes the gremlin scream louder. 

Finally, a silly but helpful trick I learned (again I don't know where, sadly): name your gremlin. I realize this sounds like creating an imaginary friend, but It also makes it more human and less all-knowing. Importantly, name it something really silly or embarrassing or just plain weird.  If you give your gremlin a ridiculous name it's tougher to listen to.  Seriously, think about it.  Think of the dumbest name you can come up with, and how attentive you'd be if that was your boss or another authority figure. Wouldn't it be difficult to take them seriously every time they acted all important and authoritative? If you need help with your embarrassing name, just google "embarrassing names". I promise you'll have your pick of ridiculousness. If you'd like, share your gremlin's name in the comments below. It might  inspire others fight their own gremlin voices.