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My Thanksgiving

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When I think of Thanksgiving and the holidays, many wonderful things pop into my head. Even though Christmas music is not allowed in my presence until exactly one day after Thanksgiving, once it’s on I definitely crank up the radio. December 1st is also the start of the “25 days till Christmas” on ABC Family (which usually includes a Harry Potter weekend). But, in my life, the holidays mean more than just these commercialized pastimes, they mean time with my family, delicious food, and (hopefully!) a reprieve from homework. It’s also a time when our family breaks out certain traditions to get us into the spirit of the holiday, and Thanksgiving is where it all starts.

For some, this holiday time could be all about the food or the people or some odd tradition that involves paintball and a bagpipe player. But, for me, Thanksgiving had always been about the specificity: a certain way that the holiday was destined to go. There always had to be this kind of stuffing, and that kind of turkey and this kind of pie (for my family it’s a brined and roasted turkey with a wild mushroom and rice stuffing with apple pie…I am getting hungry just writing this). We had to play this music and drink that wine, or else, how would we know it’s Thanksgiving?! In part, this was because the one thing that always did change was where we would spend the holiday. This changed almost every year: when I was five, we spent Thanksgiving with our grandparents, when I was twelve, we went to the Outer Banks with some family friends, and for the past couple of years, our family has gathered with some cousins who live close to us. All of our ever-changing lives always turned the question of where we would go into a last-minute juggle.  Eventually, because we never had a set plan, our Thanksgiving became rooted in traditions surrounding food and family. It became a time for sharing, for catching up with people we hadn’t heard from in a while, and for spending time with people we love. The host would cook the turkey and the rest of us would bring dishes. We laughed and drank and everyone helped each other when it came to cooking and eating. It was great, if a little exhausting.

However, when my sister and I were both studying abroad, we didn’t get that big fancy dinner or the time with our friends and family. Instead, that holiday became more about who was around us at that time. My sister and I spent one Thanksgiving while she was in Scotland at a pizza restaurant, having a wonderful chat about college and traveling. When I was living in England, I spent my holiday in the library before cooking with some friends in our dorms. It was the first time I realized that the holidays and Thanksgiving could be something different than what I had always experienced.

This year, most of our other family members have branched out, so we decided that this Thanksgiving would just be about us as a nuclear family. Instead of gathering with extended family and friends, we have decided to focus on us as a family. Though this will be very different from the hectic holidays of the past, it will be a nice break from having hoards of people all gathered in a tiny space.

Not only was it a good idea to try something different this year for practical reasons, but it’s also my last year at university and I have no idea where my life is going to take me in the next year and whether I will be able to spend this time with my family again. The same goes for my sister, who just moved to Boston. Before her life becomes too settled, she wanted to come home and spend one last year at home with the four of us. Neither of us really knows how to feel about this or how to approach future holidays. But if this year has taught us anything, it’s that one should do whatever they want for the holidays, regardless of what they feel that they “should” do.

Now that I’m in my last year of college, I’ve begun thinking about my life outside of my hometown and outside of my family. I always knew at some point I would have to but I’ve never really thought about defining myself outside of my parents and our traditions before. And though I am very happy to be spending the time with my parents and sister this year, it is not because I feel like I need to for tradition’s sake. It’s simply because I want to. And I realized, for me, that’s what the holidays need to be about: spending time with the people I love because I want to. So, whether that means time spent with your own family, the family of your significant other, your newfound friends, or all by yourself with six hours of Netflix, spend the time that you have on this earth with those you care about (or those you will grow to care about!) and make the most of the time you have together. Traditions only make up the surface of a holiday. What matters is the core: the love you share with those around you.

Photo by Rob Adams

Photo by Rob Adams

Uncategorized

Rebranding The Humblebrag

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Okay, people: show of hands. How many of you have engaged in a self-enforced social media moratorium for more than a week at a time? You know: “deleted” your Facebook (when you knew the whole time that the only thing standing between you and your next hit was the re-entry of your password)? Or “protected” your tweets (aw but this is no fun, how will all my potential new followers/bots know that they actually want to follow me)?

Photo by Rob Adams

Photo by Rob Adams

We “go dark” online (and in our hearts) for all sorts of reasons. I have done so on multiple occasions due to my complete and utter inability to A) assess the worth of, validity of, and reasons-I-even-give-a-shit about someone’s very publicly announced life milestone, which directly correlates to B) My complete and utter inability to say something awesome about my own achievements. Now, this is, of course, only applicable when and if those achievements actually crop up, which is another puzzle piece in and of itself. How come I feel like such a loserly asshole when everybody else is tweeting about their promotion or the fact that SHE SAID YES, but I feel like even more of a loserly asshole when I have my own great news to post about? This is where I start SPI-RA-LING. Enter the dragon. Enter THE HUMBLEBRAG.

But I hate that guy. That Humblebrag. According to Humblebrag, I must publicly admit that, fueled by pounds of goat cheese and the blissful clarity that only boxed Chardonnay can provide, I gave up yoga on weeknights so I could beast through my novel edits. Then, and only then, after I had gained ten pounds and stopped wearing pants, did I become worthy of praise. “I did this thing! This thing I worked really hard on happened! I’m really proud! But I am the very hottest of messes because of it, so don’t worry.” The humble part of that brag is probably NOT EVEN TRUE! I might have skipped out on yoga a bunch during that short era and my goat cheese consumption rates probably peaked, but it was as unworthy a footnote in my tweet/Facebook post as it would have been in the actual book. But Humblebrag tells us it’s wrong to simply state the glowing accolades without any humanizing self-deprecation to cleanse the palate.

There’s another school of thought that encourages those who are #adulting and achieving things to shed the ‘humble’ of Humblebrag and just… well… brag. Own it. Bask in it. And yes, I super duper respect this. Why indeed should you force your grand achievement to share the spotlight with an awkward drunk uncle who nobody invited to the party, like a mic crasher at the VMAs or some other comparably low-brow self-congratulatory goblin ball? Just brag, they say. You earned it, after all. But for me, that’s just as uncomfortable as fabricating a humiliating, silly “humble” aspect to my otherwise stellar announcement. So #Straightbrag is not for me either.

There does, however, exist a third option. And I want this one to stick. I want this one to come in and sweep Humblebrag off his humble-pie feet (his feet are made of pies, as we all know)! Please meet my delightful companion for the evening, #ThankYouBrag. Here’s the way this works: chances are, if you accomplished something noteworthy, you didn’t do it completely alone. Even the most solitary of activities (like, oh, here we are, writing) requires cheerleaders from time to time. This is your friend who went to the coffee shop with you and set up their laptop next to yours so you could help each other destroy your deadlines. This is your roommate, who contributed gorgeous concept art based on your new script for you to hang on your wall “just because.” This is your co-worker who wrote a novel of an email to your boss, encouraging her to let you “spread your wings and prepare to fly” and promote you (because obviously you work for Mariah Carey). When you go to make your big, exciting announcement across your social media platforms, you will tag these people and you will thank the shit out of them.

You didn’t have to debase yourself with a humblebrag. You didn’t have to pull any straight up unsolicited gloating either. You announced your big bad self. And you thanked everyone who helped you along the way. You feel great because you got to shout your fabulous news from the rooftops. They feel great (hopefully) because you tagged them and thanked them for being amazing. You don’t look like a self-deprecating Eeyore with his dumb bow-tie tail dangling half off (“Thanks for noticin’ me”). You look like a real adult who is proud of their achievement and grateful to have had the support of an awesome network of people.

Just maybe hold back on the #blessed. I mean, you’ve got to draw the line somewhere.  #sorrynotsorry

Originally published on the author’s blog at www.elizabethkerin.com

Uncategorized

How one person experienced loss and death

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Photo by Rob Adams

I can’t recall the first time I realized that everyone was going to die. In a way, I still don’t believe it.  It’s not something I dwell on—but on the loneliest days or the slowest weeks, I come to the realization that there is a clock ticking somewhere just for us. But just as quickly, I push it out, burying it somewhere in the recesses of my mind. And yet, despite this, I do think there was one moment in my life that defined death, and for me that happened when I was 17, when my grandmother died.

This was the first time that someone very close to me had passed away. Death had been around me before; I grew up with a 24-hour news cycle, after all. People die all the time: it’s a natural and inevitable part of life. But, until that day in January, I had not personally experienced the finality of it. My grandmother was in my life at one moment and then in the next, she was gone. It is such a weird and relative concept that it’s hard to put into words. My mom, dad and I were all in church, when we found out. I was rehearsing with the choir, when suddenly my dad appeared behind me. He told me she was gone and I just kind of stared at him. Then I remembered my mom and what she must be going through and I leaped into action—I had to keep moving so I wasn’t overwhelmed with shock.

My experience with my grandmother’s death was, I think, pretty average. Not to make it sound like it wasn’t a big deal, but my grandmother, at 88, was living in a nursing home and was getting ready to move to hospice care when she died. My family was “prepared” for it and we had been making arrangements for a while. But there was still a big part of me that couldn’t imagine a day when my grandmother wouldn’t be around. She had been a constant presence in my life since I was born. Her life was so interesting, and she was so interesting, and seeing that taken away from the world was heartbreaking. She lived through some of the more tumultuous decades of the past century and, growing up, she would alway s tell me stories about traveling through, and living in, Europe. We’d play cribbage and she would teach me how to throw classy dinner parties. She was my grandmother.

For me, the hardest part was seeing how difficult my grandmother’s death was for my mom. She was so sad. Even though I was still in shock, I focused on keeping myself together so I could make her mother’s death easier to bear. That day was a blur of documents and plans for the funeral, which was the easiest part of the whole experience, in my opinion. But then we went home, where there was nothing to distract us anymore. Nothing I had ever experienced could prepare me for the sheer emptiness I felt during that downtime. To cope with this, I did what I usually do whenever I feel sad: I retreated. The next day, I made a CD of depressing music, got in my car, and drove around for a while—stopping when I wanted to, but mostly just thinking. There were a lot of things that I wished I had asked my grandmother, wished I had told her. I wanted to know what she thought about growing old? Did time eventually slow down? What was her favorite memory? And I wanted to tell her I loved her. But mostly, I just wished I had spent so much more time with her.

Her death made me think about how I treat the people in my life and I’ve since realized that I approach my relationships selfishly. I seek out people who make me feel good, who make me want to be better, who inspire me to do good things. But I forget most of the time the effect I have on them and how our relationship is bigger than both of us. If you only pay attention to your friends when they are physically right beside you, you run the risk of missing important connections with them. By thinking and observing people outside of your relationship, you could potentially discover more about them and yourself as well. Taking time to listen and to cultivate my relationships has helped me connect on multiple levels. There are some people I would have never thought I could be friends with until I gave them the time to give them a chance and realize that everyone has something to give if you listen long enough. I truly believe we will have fewer regrets in life if we listen, interact, and forgive those we spend time with.

When someone you love has died, you miss everything—and I mean everything—about him or her. Playing, laughing, disagreeing, even fighting with them. It’s an ache that sits right on your heart. I do not say this to make it harder for those who are missing someone, but I do want you know that missing someone doesn’t go away. Missing that person who died will always hurt some part of you. But it doesn’t have to make you miserable, or make you retreat, or make life harder for you. By missing them, you can remember that the person you love, even in death, is making you a better person, simply by reminding you that life is short, and that we all want to leave this Earth, and our friends, a little better than how we found them.

Health

Scientific Proof That Daydreaming Is Awesome For Your Health

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Okay, fine. You got me. I am not, in fact, in an academic position to offer actual “scientific proof” about anything. But, as a person who has spent a lifetime working on a formula for a gentler daily grind, I defend my right to call myself an authority on this particular topic.

Daydreaming is great. And it’s great for you. It isn’t useless or silly. It isn’t only something 13-year-old girls do when they have a huge crush on someone they would never dare exchange a word with. I don’t know about you, but I am fairly certain that there is a WAR ON DAYDREAMING. As you venture further into the world of adult-people, do you feel pressured to engage with yourself in a super sensible way instead of letting your imagination run wild? I mean, it’s obviously important to grasp the reality of whatever situation you’re in. But I’ve found that allowing yourself a little time in Brain-Narnia, no matter what age you are, can be incredibly healthy.

Daydreaming gives you perspective. It allows you to view your obstacles in a different way… to apply them to places you’ve never been to before and people who aren’t you. It doesn’t matter if you don’t consider yourself a “creative person” and you don’t think you’ll “use” the lessons your inner monologue is trying to teach you. That little movie theater that lives inside your head is a powerful weapon against the crappy, unexpected blows of the real world.

Case in point: Enduring a particularly wrath-inducing breakup? Wishing you could assert yourself in front of that co-worker who seriously will not stop treating you like you haven’t even hit puberty yet no matter how many SAT words you use in daily conversation? I suggest to you the following: Get the soundtrack to Kill Bill bumping (either volume is superb, though I gravitate towards Vol. 1 for this exercise), go run, bike, or just walk with mad purpose for a few miles, and imagine the source of all your fury meeting the pointy end of your katana. You feel better, right? YES, YOU DO. You identify with this character, this person who obviously isn’t you but might have some feelings mirroring your own, and you’re able to explore how you really feel. Did the daydreaming directly solve the issue at hand? Not so much. But the important thing is that you gave yourself a safe place to work out your “ish”, as they say. It keeps you from wanting to chase after your skeezy ex with a real katana.

And if you do happen to be the type who uses their daydreams as creative fuel, there’s an added bonus. Your inner platform 9 ¾ is a stage upon which you can watch your wildest concepts come to life, and there is nobody but you (!) in the audience. You can observe characters, places, and images from a safe distance as you attempt to flesh them out and discover more about them. As a kid, I personally used to adore jumping on the trampoline in my parents’ backyard with my boombox blaring, thinking of what I was going to turn in for creative writing class that week. I’d spend hours out there. The neighbors probably asked my parents if I was “okay” (possible perceived evidence of the War on Daydreaming!). Nowadays, I’m more of a long-walks-on-the-beach kinda gal. But it’s the same idea. It’s my artsy fartsy zen time.

However, there’s one caveat to that particular practice, something I’ve had to work to wrap my head around over the years: Just because an image intrigues you when its dancing around in your own brain, it will not necessarily be intriguing, or even good, when it materializes on paper, onscreen, or on a canvas. Some things you dream up will work as you intended. But it can be hard to tell which product of your dreamscape is the golden egg and which is the dud, because both excited you. This is when real-world-brain has to take the reins and learn to let go of the things that didn’t work, things you thought would be eye-opening and thrilling but in the end just wound up looking cheesy as hell. There’s a time and a place for creative daydreaming. Lose yourself in it. Go nuts. But accept the fact that maybe only 25% of the things you conjured up while you were walking the coastline listening to the Lord of the Rings soundtrack will actually make it into your final product. Accepting that takes time and maturity. And that’s why you need real-world-brain in addition to Narnia-brain. They work together and they each serve a unique purpose.

So, next time somebody tells you to get your head out of the clouds, take it with a grain of salt. You need to stick your head in said clouds from time to time to get some fresh air. It doesn’t mean you’re delusional. It doesn’t mean you can’t confront yourself. It means you’ve given yourself license to not always be so self-deprecating. It’s like taking a mental health day in short little bursts. As long as it’s not hurting anyone and your life/work/relationships aren’t suffering because of it, have a ball. Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t have a rich inner life. It’s a coping skill. It’s a creative breeding ground. So get out there, go find some clouds, and promptly stick your head in them. I’ll wait here.

Originally published by Thought Catalog at www.thoughtcatalog.com.

Health, Travel

Food Poisoning as a Broke Foreigner

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Before I left on my two-week dream excursion to Western Europe, my boss had one piece of advice for my first trip to Europe: “Watch out for that French food. They love their rich sauces and butter.”  She was right—the French coat everything imaginable with creamy, delicious sauces.  My boyfriend teases me that I am overly sensitive to food, and he is right, too: my stomach can’t quite handle the greasy, fried foods that most young people in their twenties enjoy.  I have made a point of eating healthier since graduating college; however, this new healthy lifestyle was going to be left back at home. In Europe, I was determined to eat what I wanted, when I wanted, sensitive stomach be damned!

After consuming everything from the four basic Western-European food groups—cheese, meat, bread, and beer—David and I halted our binge in the Louvre. There, we hoped to find a quick, simple lunch.  I ordered what I assumed to be a cheap alternative to the rich and extravagant French dishes: a chicken sandwich.  Baguette, cold white meat chicken, hint of mayo, and lettuce.  By “cheap,” I mean 8 euros, which trust me, is cheap for Paris.  Especially compared to the fondue-and-champagne birthday dinner to which my boyfriend treated me the evening prior.

After filling up on our easy lunch, we commenced our 9-hour Louvre visit.  But, among the Egyptian ruins, mummified cats, and pages from the Book of the Dead, I was already starting to feel tired. It had only been a few hours so I dismissed it as travel fatigue (this was the last day of our whirlwind trip) and carried on. I was not about to miss any of the artifacts from one of my favorite historical eras! So, despite the occasional audible complaint from my stomach, we saw the mysterious Mona Lisa, the gorgeous Venus de Milo, and more paintings of Jesus than could fill the Notre Dame.

As our full-day Louvre excursion continued, David remained enthusiastic but I was drained and found it impossible to find the energy that had kept me going through Versailles, sightseeing in Berlin, an 8-hour drive through the German countryside, and Oktoberfest in Munich.  I kept having to sit down to take breaks on every bench we passed and build my energy to move through a museum that is rumored to take weeks to explore.

After a solid nine hours in the museum, David and I set off to find the Metro station, and stopped by a corner brasserie for dinner.  We were scheduled to fly back to the States the next day, so I wanted my last fill of traditional French food.  I ordered a rare steak, pommes frites, crème brûlée, and a glass of Bordeaux.  I was going to eat what I damn-well pleased and work off the inevitable weight gain later.

We were back in our hotel room by 8 pm and, within an hour, I was complaining of nausea and had a pretty nasty stomach ache.  After taking some Pepto Bismol (a necessity if you plan to eat and drink your way through Germany and France), I was not getting better.  Another hour later, I was vomiting.

David was our pillar of strength—and I say “our” because dealing with your significant other’s food poisoning is no cake walk for either of you—through the next 24 hours, which would prove to be my worst case of food poisoning to date.  (Which is really saying something: when one is born with a delicate stomach like mine, one is prone to overdramatic food poisoning episodes, like the time I got food poisoning from eating a veggie burger in middle school. Yes, that’s right—a burger patty comprised of vegetable matter gave me food poisoning.)  Anyway, once we realized I could not keep one sip of water down, I started worrying about the effects of dehydration. My mom, a registered nurse who has been to the emergency room with a bad bout of food poisoning, was our first call.  We spent 46 euros (about $62) to call her back in California on our hotel room telephone at 2:30 am (no, we didn’t have a calling card, and no, we weren’t about to go hunt one down at 2:30 am).  She confirmed that my symptoms were, in fact, the result of food poisoning and warned David not to let me get any more dehydrated.  Dehydration is the primary concern for anyone with this kind of food poisoning (the vomiting kind), because the effects of dehydration usually warrant a visit to the emergency room.  From then on, our chief concern was to keep me hydrated enough to avoid going to the E.R., where they would give me an I.V. for the fluids that were refusing to stay in my system.  At one point during the course of that night, I simultaneously begged David to make sure I didn’t get dehydrated and not to force me to take another sip of water.  Yes, I was a mess, but at least not a hot one—thankfully, I wasn’t running a fever. Dehydration plus fever equals a certain and expensive trip to the hospital.

When the vomiting wasn’t easing up at all, we realized I still needed medical attention and since we were trying to avoid the E.R., David and the hotel clerk contacted an on-call doctor who was available to make the last-minute house call to our hotel room at 3 am, for the low, low price of 110 euros (about $147).  This angelic, Parisian woman with lovely dark features came into our hotel room with a real-life version of the doctor kit that I played with as a kid: stethoscope, thermometer, blood pressure cuff, and briefcase adorned with vials of prescription drugs.  After asking for my age, known allergies, and what I had eaten the day before and when, she opened her briefcase, pulled out a needle, and prepped an injection.  Now, I’m usually perfectly okay with needles; I am devoted to my yearly flu shot. But, given my incapacitated state, I became uncharacteristically worried about the chance of a rouge air bubble left in the vial and of my doctor’s ability to practice medicine at 3 am.  In my haze, I remember asking what the mystery vial contained, and she responded with the prescription name of an antiemetic, to help with my vomiting and nausea.  I have no idea whether her response was in English or French: I don’t speak a word of French, and her English was coupled with a heavy French accent—so, to this day, I have no idea what she injected into my body. I felt another wave of nausea come over me, so I shrugged my shoulders, looked at my adoring boyfriend for support, ignored the fact that she never snapped on a pair of latex gloves, and willingly handed her my arm.

That doctor’s visit cost 110 euros, cash only, payment on the spot—a fact that I somehow managed to ignore until she was done treating my symptoms.  The “cash only” caveat being an issue since, between the two of us, David and I had roughly 65 euros on hand that was supposed to get us through our final day in Paris.  But the wonderful doctor with the miracle injection that promised to make me stop vomiting needed to be fairly compensated for her time!  David walked down to the hotel front desk, for the third time that night, and asked to borrow the remaining 45 euros with a promise to pay him back once the banks opened and David could withdraw the cash. Thankfully, the grumpy front desk attendant begrudgingly agreed.

I vomited a few more times but, finally, whatever the doctor administered kicked in and I had stopped by the time the sun came up.  I was in no shape to eat solid foods, but I needed to ingest something that would increase my blood sugar and energy.  David left the hotel room on a mission to find Coca-Cola, pick up medicine prescribed by the doctor, and—most importantly—get cash.  What David didn’t prepare for was the fact that, during our dream vacation out of the country, his debit card had expired. This meant he was unable to retrieve cash from any source.  My poor boyfriend walked back to the hotel room to get my debit card and face a not-so-forgiving version of his helpless girlfriend. By the time he returned with the soda, pills, and cash, I was worn down to the point of tears, and David was exhausted.

While the original plan was to hop on the Metro to Paris Orly Airport, there was no way that we could coordinate that effort with my sick ass and our four bags of luggage.  With the remaining cash from David’s morning ATM trip, we spent 80 euros (about $106) for a cab ride that far exceeded our original plan of a 3 euro each Metro ride.  But, we made it to the airport: broke, weak, and grateful for each other.

And when I got back to work a few days later, after arriving safely in the States, I was able to tell my boss all about our unforgettable trip.

Photo by Rob Admans

Photo by Rob Adams

Food

The 21 Day Sugar Detox

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When I try to explain my relationship with sugar, I tend to refer to it as that ex who is  just no good for me. Once I finally saw past the sweet, candy-coated, emptiness of the calories I was consuming, all that was left was how lethargic, heavy, and stuffed I felt. So finally I declared, “That’s it, Sugar, you’re not good for me” and I cut him out of my life. I un-friended him on Facebook and I even bought a vegetable slicer—because, hell, I’m replacing all those noodles with zucchini spaghetti. And for a while, I’m good. I feel more energized, more focused, I sleep better, and I breathe better. It’s awesome.

Photo by Andy Sutterfield

Photo by Andy Sutterfield

But then Sugar comes back around and he’s like, “Hey girl, I heard you were having a party… I brought you those brownies with peanut butter cups inside that you love so much.” And I’m all, “Nope, I don’t do sugar anymore.”

But as the night wanes, I tell myself, “Well, just a taste of this peanut butter cup brownie won’t hurt.” It’s comfortable and familiar and it makes me feel good. Before I know it, the love affair is back on, full throttle, and all I want is pad thai and pizza dough. For who understands me, knows me, and never judges me like a slice of apple spice pound cake?

It’s an unsustainable relationship. And Sugar and I will mend ways and break up, I fear, many more times before I’ve really wrapped my head around how much better I feel without him.

I won’t bore you with the oh-so-bitter details of why sugar is bad for you because you can learn more about them here, here and here. Be warned, there is definitely a good amount of fear mongering out there when it comes to sugar and gluten intake, but it’s important to know the facts about the negative impact that sugar has on our bodies and also be aware that, as with anything, excess consumption is bound to have negative repercussions. Excessive sugar intake has been linked to diabetes, obesity, high cholesterol, heart disease, eczema, and gum disease. Not to mention that it’s highly addictive.

I’ve never exactly been the picture of healthy eating habits and I never gave much thought to just how much sugar I was consuming—either natural or processed. After all, the bottom of the food pyramid, the category we’re told to consume the most of, is a giant spread of rice, bread, and noodles. So for all intents and purposes, I figured I’d nailed it. Turns out—and you may have guessed this by now—the sugar found in said rice, bread, and noodles is not actually good for us. At all. Which is why I decided to do my first sugar detox.

Here are the rules I followed for my 21-day sugar detox. They’re actually pretty simple!

  1. DON’T eat anything with sugar. All bread/pasta/rice products are out. Baked goods, obviously, are a no. Avoid potatoes, corn, quinoa, and legumes.
  1. DO eat lots of meat, protein, vegetables and anything else you can find that’s high in fat or fiber. Nuts are great, and so are eggs. Get creative, or don’t, but stick to the rules.

Depending on what level of the detox you commit to (i.e. how many allowances you intend to make for yourself), sweet potatoes are on the sometimes list. So are green bananas. Both of these guys are definitely sugary in their own natural way, but far less so than regular potatoes and ripe bananas. It’s recommended that you incorporate one serving daily of either of these if you work out regularly.

It’s also important to buy meat and eggs that are organic and grass fed, since so many chickens and cows are corn-fed and grain-fed it means that if they’re consuming it, when you eat them, you are too. You’ll also get to avoid a world of hormones, growth promoters and antibiotics that so often wind up in the meat we eat.

Part of this process is about keeping your blood sugar levels as even as possible. Therefore, if you’re going to partake in dairy products during this detox, you should stick to whole-fat dairy because your body processes non-fat and reduced fat dairy in the same way it processes any kind of sugar: it will lead to crazy blood sugar spiking of the unwanted variety.

With this knowledge and a vague plan, I set off for Whole Paycheck Whole Foods to get my high-protein / high-fat / gluten-free on. Now, the key to success for any detox is utter and total preparation. Boil some eggs, bag some almonds and keep that ish on you all the time. Especially at first. That’s my best and most prominent piece of advice—be ready to feed yourself something high in protein and sugarfree at the drop of a hat.

Another trick that helps a lot is to find ways to replace what you’re cutting out. If you’re like me and live on a steady diet of noodles and sauce, crack open a spaghetti squash, or get a julienne peeler and make noodles out of sweet potatoes or zucchini. If you’re all about those Yukon gold mashed potatoes, make your best cauliflower mash with garlic and butter. Before you know it, you will forget you’re only eating vegetables.

Make some treats for yourself. There are hundreds dozens of gluten, sugar, and dairy-free baked goods online that turn out to have a real natural flavor and a deeply satisfying texture. Take this from someone who spent a whole Saturday during my first detox just looking at bread recipes online. Do yourself a favor and make some imitation bread.

Another tip: drink water. Drink all the water. Put lemon in it, steep tea in it, put it on ice and drink it all day long. It’ll wash the toxins out of your body, stave off cravings, and generally make you feel more awesome.

There will probably be some side effects, not unlike anything you’ve felt if you’ve ever tried to give up coffee. You might feel achy, you might have headaches, and there’s a pretty good chance that your body will revolt a little bit. You may discover midway through your detox that when you need to use the restroom, there’s a sense of—erm—urgency, if you will. That tummy ache you’re feeling is Candida die-off. Candida is a fungus that lives happily and symbiotically in your small intestines so long as we keep feeding it sugar. Stop feeding it and, well, it’s going to die. And that can be kind of unpleasant. (Sorry.)

After about 7 days of the detox, a really magical thing happened for me. My sinuses opened completely. For as long as I can remember, I’ve suffered from what the fancy medical professionals refer to as sinusitis. It’s a chronic inflammation of the nasal cavity, which makes breathing through my nose a non-starter. It can also cause a lot of sinus pressure headaches. As it is, sugar, gluten, legumes, and dairy are all inflammatories, and when I cut them out of my diet my sinuses became less inflamed and I could breathe through my nose. It was amazing.

For me, that was the health benefit that sealed the deal. A lot of people I know now who detox from sugar do it to lose weight, feel less bloated, and because it makes them healthier. It will help you achieve all of those things, and a lot of people experience benefits that far surpass the basics. Some people with minor gluten intolerances discover that rashes and acne clear up, and that they end up needing less sleep.

You will also find that after 21 days, that brownie sundae won’t look so tempting. Your body will have adjusted so wholly that you’ll think it’s too sweet. You’ll have a new appreciation for the natural sweetness of foods like grapes, sweet potatoes and bananas: healthy sugars that you can gradually reintroduce to your diet. There’s a lot of winning to be had.

So then, day 22 rolls around and you’re probably wondering what happens next. You’ve stabilized your blood sugar, reacclimated your taste buds to life’s natural sweetness, and you’ve even killed off that funky bacterium that was living in your intestines. Sure, now you can start to reintroduce natural sugars back to your diet, like fruit, and well… fruit. So it’s totally smooth sailing from here on out right? That depends. If you have also completed the detox you may have discovered that sugar is literally in everything. Ketchup, and buffalo chicken wings, and taco shells.  So it gets pretty tough to avoid. I’m willing to guess that even the most diligent among us (a group that does not include myself) struggle to truly steer clear of sugar long-term.

Yes, that means I fall off the wagon. It means my cheat days turn into cheat months where I fall several paces behind the wagon, sipping pumpkin spice lattes and eating Nutella crepes. It happens often enough, but I can tell you my body has not let me forget the benefits sugar-free eating. I can’t get halfway through a plate of pasta before I can feel my sinuses begin to close. So I try to go easy and be fair on myself when “just this one peanut butter cup” turns into all the french fries at In ‘N’ Out. I try to avoid bread and pasta and potatoes and for the most part I succeed. Everything else I try to keep attainable: I’m not a stickler about sauces or cheeses, and I have reintegrated beans and rice into my diet. The goal is to improve quality of life after all.

There’s little else that the heart of a carboholic like myself wants more than a big pile of noodles, covered in cheese, topped with breadcrumbs, wrapped in a sourdough bowl. Followed by a brownie, covered in cake. (Duh.) So take it to heart when I say that, although the 21 Day Sugar Detox was probably one of the most challenging things I’ve ever done for myself, it’s absolutely been one of the best things and I’d do it again.

Here’s the link to the full program for those of you eager to give this a go yourselves.

Relationships

Clear History: Porn and the Long Term Relationship

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“All I’m saying is… if we like, move in together or get engaged or something, I don’t want to find out he’s watching porn ever again,” a dear friend confessed to me in a scandalized whisper over a bottle of wine one night.

I was floored when I heard her say this. This was a girl who was comfortable with her sexuality and was always up for dishing about her most recent inappropriate nocturnal activities. I snorted into my glass of Merlot and said, “Yeah, okay. And what’s he gonna do if he ever catches you watching porn?”

“I don’t watch porn,” she said.

“Lies.”

“I don’t need to,” she argued. “Why would I? My relationship isn’t missing anything. Sex is great how it is.”

She then elaborated on how degrading pornography is towards women and that she didn’t understand why her boyfriend, a self-professed male feminist who was down to take his wife’s name when he got married, could allow himself to watch it.

And thus began a long day’s girl talk into night as she and I hashed out the place of pornography in today’s long term relationships. It was a doozy.

My side of the argument sounded a little something like this:

It’s important for both parties in a long-term partnership to be able to express their feelings about porn, because guess what: it’s here to stay. We can’t get rid of it as long as the Internet is also here to stay (and I’m pretty sure that’s a given). Gone are the days when a guy would sneak away at 3 pm on a Sunday, pop the collar of his shady looking trench coat, and duck into a dirty movie. As adults engaging in sexual relationships in the 21st century, it would be naïve as all hell for us to pretend that porn doesn’t have a seat at the table (er… in the bed?). It’s too accessible. You cannot pretend that your significant other isn’t ever going to watch it again if he or she is already in the habit of doing so. If my friend came down hard on her boyfriend for watching porn, he would probably just start sneaking it, and then it would turn into this weird, dirty secret he had. Why have weird, dirty secrets if you don’t need to have them? Unless you like having them—but, that’s neither here nor there.

My friend and I then chewed over this idea that, if someone watches porn, is he or she fantasizing about something that is missing in his or her relationship? This was the reason she said she didn’t “need” to watch porn, and one of the reasons she was offended when she found out her boyfriend occasionally did. I guess the thought process goes like this: if your significant other is seeking out a very specific type of fetish every time he or she pulls up the YouPorn home page, you might conclude that he or she wants you to incorporate said very specific fetish into your sexytime routine. But the truth is that he or she likes it because it’s not real life; it’s a fantasy, an indulgence. It would lose its allure if it were part of reality.

“Listen, you don’t watch him play Grand Theft Auto and think he’s going to run around the city jacking cars and running over innocent bystanders, right?” I asked her.

She agreed that the analogy made a lot of sense. Even if her guy was peeping on some kind of freaky stuff, it did not necessarily mean that she was expected to imitate it IRL. After all, porn doesn’t show you what it’s like to have sex with someone you’re emotionally invested in. It’s not a roadmap by any means! It’s important that both people in the relationship know that.

My friend then conceded that maybe porn did have its benefits because it can help people deal with the boundaries of a monogamous relationship, especially if a monogamous relationship is what you ultimately aspire to. Sometimes we have to resist the urge to behave like animals. I wholeheartedly agreed: everyone, male or female, gay or straight, has had to avoid forbidden fruit at one point or another. Porn allows people to keep their shit together in real life; the temptation for forbidden fruit is super rare if said forbidden fruit isn’t looked upon as a super rare thing.

At that point, we circled back around to this idea that pornography is, traditionally, just plain offensive to women. If a teenage boy is caught looking at porn, a lot of parents might write it off as “totally normal for his age.” But if a young lady were caught in the same predicament… well, it goes without saying: we’re kind of not supposed to like porn. Because, as she argued, porn, in the “classical” sense, degrades females. There’s really no getting around that.

However, thanks to the Internet, more varied types of erotica have become accessible these days. It’s no longer 100% for-dudes-by-dudes, I argued back. I encouraged her to give it a whirl sometime and see if there was anything out there that she might like.

We hit the bottom of the bottle about an hour later and found our conversation in a very different place than where it had started. But my friend seemed much happier and far more relaxed now that she’d aired out her concerns. We agreed that monogamous couples don’t have to turn a blind eye to porn in our relationships and marriages if we don’t want to. And it might be healthier not to do so, especially considering it is everywhere!

And as for her boyfriend’s status as a self-professed feminist—his rep can remain intact.  We settled on this: it’s okay for a guy who upholds those ideals to find something sexy even if it goes against the feminist grain. If a person is a champion for non-traditional gender roles at home and in the workplace, the fact that they like guy-on-top sex shouldn’t discredit said championing. Sometimes, the body just wants what it wants—which is also probably what hurts the most for someone like my friend. Why does the body want that? I don’t know. Ask the cavemen, I guess. We also discussed the fact that it seems like a huge percentage of women secretly prefer guy-on-top-type sex as well—women who want their guy to “be in control” in the bedroom. But a great deal of ladies are hesitant to really own up to it because they don’t want to sound like a scab to the feminist agenda. Feminism and pornography have been waging a very complex cold war for years, so I didn’t want my buddy to think of it in such black-or-white terms. If she loved this guy (and of course, she did), she would have to find a way to navigate this question with an understanding, open mind.

If you’re invested in someone and you really care about them, hold their sexuality to the same standard that you hold your own. Don’t put them down if they enjoy certain things. Respect the chemistry, as Walter White would say. Porn doesn’t have to draw a dividing line between two people in a relationship. If you approach the subject in a respectful manner, it might even strengthen your relationship in ways you never expected.

I’m happy to report that my bud is now engaged to this awesome fellow. I’ll take a smidgen of credit where credit is due for this one (though that bottle of wine probably deserves an honorable mention, too).

Have your own opinion? Share it in the comments!

Photo by Sara Slattery

Relationships

The End of a Girl Crush

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I met B on one of my family trips to China.  I was 16, she was 17, but B was already so much more mature and sophisticated than me.  She was a bit of a socialite, honestly, and handled everything with an easy grace that clung to her like perfume.

Her dad and mine were good friends and, since I was in China by myself, she had been tasked with making sure I didn’t get bored or accidentally sell myself to the Triads.  To my surprise, instead of being annoyed or half-assing her guardianship duties, B threw herself into them. I found myself bewildered by the amount of excited attention I was getting from this very wealthy, vividly charming, porcelain doll of a “young woman.”  Not “girl,” a distinction that I noticed was made by all of the adults around us.

In case you couldn’t tell, I had a bit of a girl-crush on B.  And since I can already hear my friend Alex saying “Lez be honest,” let me clarify what a “girl-crush” actually entails to me.  Basically it’s another girl in whom you recognize a bit of yourself, whether it’s her sense of humor or her interests or whatever but she’s somehow managed to amplify herself with some secret quality that you can sense hovering just beyond your grasp.  You want her as your best friend because secretly, part of you kinda sorta wants to be her.  A little creepy, sure, but in my definition, it’s not a romantic attraction.

Anyway, so I was pretty fascinated by her and when she suggested we jump on a bus tour to one of the neighboring provinces, I was completely on board.  I was also completely out of my depth. I’d never really traveled on my own before and, even though I could speak Mandarin fluently, I was going to be facing a bit of a language barrier. All of the rural provinces preferred to use their native dialects (many of which are incomprehensible even to Mandarin speakers) and I was (am) illiterate in Chinese.  Thank goodness for B, who obviously had the language proficiency but also proved herself very capable of handling all sorts of scenarios.  She knew exactly how to walk the line between demanding and gracious with hotel concierges, how to be just the right amount of stubborn when haggling with artisans from the local tribes, and how to judge whether or not jade was “ripe” enough (don’t ask, I still have no idea what she was talking about.)

While we marveled at the breathtaking sights, B told me about all the places that her eternal wanderlust took her.  While she was at it, she’d dump loads of advice and personal research into our conversations. I soaked this up like a sponge, all the while thinking to myself, “I’ve always wanted an older sister.”  I cringe a little when I think about it but I took to every one of her ideas like she was handing me a secret guidebook to enlightenment.  She just seemed so certain of everything.  Every choice was so thoughtfully yet effortlessly made.  Next to her, I felt so manic and so restlessly lost inside my own head.

I was hitting that point in life when you first realize that the world is much larger than you could’ve ever imagined and more daunting than you could ever be prepared for.  And yes, I was freaking the fuck out, but—in true Tiger Cub fashion—very very quietly.  God forbid anyone get the sense that I was actually an adolescent, ya know?  Point being, I latched onto B because I thought she could soothe all those worries away and tell me everything would be okay because I very badly wanted to hear that.  Like, “Girl, please.  This is how you deal.”

Now, of course, I’m aware that this was/is impossible.  That, even at 25, I can’t tell my 18-year-old sister what shape her life should take in order for it to be “okay.”  In fact, I can’t even say I want her life to be “okay” because there is nothing beautiful or glorious or epic about “okay.”  But I can commiserate with what she’s going through and we help each other along—usually pretty gracelessly, but with love and humor.  Ironically, I might have had that experience with B back in the day.  Except I never once opened up to her.  Not really, just gossip about boys and parents, but nothing of true weight.  I was always too worried that these burning, wordless questions I had would feel needy.  And that my neediness would be repulsive to her.  So I clamped my mouth shut and tried to decipher the secrets she seemed to hide in her eyes.

I guess she did the same thing.  Looking back, I realize that there was much about her that didn’t feel quite…okay.  There were holes and crooked lines that whispered about a deeper, more complex ache within her that I was too young to fully understand.  Like when she’d push her bangle down her forearm until it dug angry, red ruts into her skin while she murmured dreamily that she longed to lose enough weight so that the bangle would just slip all the way down to her elbow.  Or when she’d idly pull lacy scraps of lingerie out of her suitcase and talk about the things she’d wear for the boyfriend, whose love for her—she was certain—had grown to an obsessive fever pitch despite the fact that she was equally certain she didn’t love him back.

Nothing really alarmed me though until our last night of the trip.  She and I were wandering around the (tourist trap of a) rustic town on our own when she pulled me into a bar and immediately ordered two whiskey drinks before sitting us down at a four-top table.  I asked her who was joining us and she simply winked and told me to drink up.

This wasn’t my first time drinking alcohol or anything.  One time, when I was 11 and we were on our annual family Christmas trip to Vegas (because Christmas in Vegas is as Asian as dumplings), my dad handed me “Sprite”, which was actually gin, and laughed until he was crying after I spat it across the hotel room.  I had always hated the taste of alcohol and my dad had enjoyed grossing me out with it since I was about 6.  So why did I drink the whiskey?  The promise of enlightenment, that’s why.

Our surprise guest soon showed up—our 27-year-old tour guide, who proceeded to get us very wasted very quickly (not difficult with 5’2” Asian girls.)  I can’t remember much of the conversation but it definitely included 1) criticism of my lack of Chinese culture and 2) sex talk.  To their glee, I was still a virgin and they took this as an opportunity to educate me while trying to one-up each other with…hm…highly detailed stories with a healthy dose of hentai references (look it up.  BUT NOT AT WORK.)  Our guide then dragged us from the bar to a club and then, around 3 am, to a private karaoke room.

I was fading fast by then and I think I dozed off on the couch because I remembered waking up with the tour guide’s arm around me—petting my hair familiarly—while B was singing her heart out to an early 90’s Andy Lau power ballad. I abruptly stood up and teetered over to B’s side.  While the tour guide took his turn on the mic, I asked her if we could go back to the hotel.

I remember her smile, eyes glittering with a strange, innocent mischief as she whispered, “I told him that you like him.”  Aghast, I asked her, “Why?” With a shrug, she replied, “I thought it could be fun.”

I just stared at her, under all that neon and shadow, and realized that she wasn’t going to get us home.

I made up some blatant lies about feeling like I was going to throw up, or pass out, or do both simultaneously, and got them both into a cab that took us back to the hotel.  When we arrived, B was the first out the door and the tour guide took that opportunity to grab my arm and tell me he wanted to take me to “the most beautiful place in the city.”  “Thanks, that’s nice of you, but really.  I’m gonna throw up.” I answered as I scrambled backwards out of the cab.

B didn’t talk about it the next day so neither did I. After all, she hadn’t been malicious in any way, just impulsive.  The tour guide was really just a harmless dweeb. I wanted to ask what she had been thinking but never quite managed to find the moment.  Or the courage, for that matter.

I lost touch with her after I returned to the US but I continued to hear rumors through what I refer to as the “Tiger Mother Grapevine.”  At 24, she’d been disowned when she ran away with a married photographer.  He was 30 years her senior, unattractive, and had abandoned his two-year-old son for her.  When I heard this news, I found myself wishing again—very deeply—I could call her up and ask her what she’d been thinking.  No judgment, just an old instinct to ask her what truth she’d thought she’d found.

Sometimes when I think about her, I imagine that I actually do call her up.  In this fantasy, she’s still that 17-year-old girl—beautifully and mysteriously sad.  But, luckily for both of us, I’m no longer my 17-year-old self.  I wouldn’t keep her at a distance.  I wouldn’t be afraid that my manic messiness would spill all over her.  I’d ask her what’s wrong and maybe she’d tell me and maybe I’d say something that would soothe her.  And then maybe I could get her home.

Photo by Sara Slattery

Photo by Sara Slattery

DIY

Baby’s First Building Project: from Folding Chair to Bar Cart

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Dinner party with a dozen or so close friends, all gathered in the dining room of my house. Various friends and roommates bustle around, getting food on the table and pulling up chairs. Someone inevitably reaches for the bamboo folding chair and I tense up, clutching the plate of Brussels sprouts I’m holding. Our guest flips the chair open with a caviler flick of the wrist, drops it in front of the table and plops down heavily. My face contorts in an anguished wince as I hear the mournful creak of the old, vintage bamboo as it bends under the weight of our unsuspecting guest.

Bar Cart

After this scene had replayed itself several times, I began to wonder. Sure, I didn’t like seeing the pretty, antique bamboo chair that I had thrown down 20 bucks for at Urban Ore subjected to the torment of being sat on. However, it had occurred to me that this was, in fact, the primary function of said chair, and perhaps I should either come to terms with that fact or get rid of the thing.

Needless to say, I sat on this knowledge for a good year or so before springing in to action. And when that day came, I did not take either of the equally undesirable actions I had presented to myself. Instead, I thought, I should repurpose it into something. Something awesome. And finally, one day, after spending a good 2¼ hours pining over bar carts on Pinterest, I leapt to my feet, shouting—“I could use my bamboo folding chair for this! I could use it to make my bar cart!” Eureka.

Now, as the title suggests, I did not go into this endeavor with a whole lot of knowledge or experience. I had used a drill, which was great, and I had been to Home Depot before. That was fine, though: I used my networks, consulting with friends, family, and the Internet.

Starting from the brainstorm stage, I took the chair apart and maneuvered it to try to figure out how, exactly, my finished product would look. This also allowed me to take stock of what else I would need to buy to complete my project. Speaking from the wealth of experience I have gained by building exactly one item, I think that having something tangible to manipulate while you brainstorm can really help you visualize what you want and how you can get there.
Original chair! Chair in pieces on my floor as I brainstorm how to put it together. My wood shelves are there too.
Here are my “L”-shaped supports for the wooden shelves. I just bought a long pice of rectangular wood and cut it into 2 inch pieces.

 

Per my dad’s suggestion, I also measured the materials I had and drew out a sketch, complete with piece measurements and where screws would go. This piece was invaluable—I referred to my sketch often throughout the process and you will too, should you take the prudent route and make a sketch for your own building project. Furthermore, my father’s experience and advice were extremely helpful: no doubt, I would have made a shoddier product were it not for a few of his suggestions. I definitely recommend going over your plan with an acquaintance who has even a tiny bit of experience building something.

In that same vein, when you go to the hardware store to purchase your materials, I also recommend conscripting an employee to help you. This person knows what they are talking about (most of the time, and if they don’t, find someone new). They can help you find the cheapest and best way to get what you need, which can save you money and time. In my experience, hardware stores are way too big and have far too many options for beginners.

Beginning the work back at home, I found the old adage “Measure twice, cut once” to be the best possible advice one could give—­particularly after I had to return to the hardware store after failing to abide by it. Once I finally had my pieces cut and ready, I laid them out to stain them.

A few words about wood staining: It took awhile to stain my pieces and let them dry before I could put the piece together, so if you will be using wood stain or paint, be sure to allow for the necessary time and plan a nice, outdoor place for them to dry without asphyxiating yourself. Also, if you use stain, know that you cannot just throw away the cloth you use, as wood stain is crazy flammable. You have to soak it in water and then do some hazardous waste disposal. (When someone writes an article on how to do that, I’ll let you know. And then, I’ll also finally be able to throw out the small can of water and used stain rag that is currently sitting on the floor of my pantry.)

Finished product, with awesome tray!

Finished product from a new angle – The back of the chair is farther back in the photo, and the seat of the chair is attached right there in the foreground.

While the stained wood was drying, I began to drill my holes. First, I drilled small holes to make and connect little “L”-shaped supports to set the shelf on. Getting those to be even took several rounds of measuring, recruiting people to hold things to getting, using the level, swearing when it wasn’t level, and measuring again. When I finally had those lined up and screwed on, I had a bigger drill situation to attack. I had, by beautiful, divine providence, come across the perfect bamboo hostess tray to sit at the top tier of my cart at an antique store. Perfect – things would now stay put stylishly. However, I still needed a way to keep the big bottles of rum at the bottom to feel and look somewhat secure. I decided to get two dowel rods, stain them, and make a little railing for the bottom tier.

At this time, I learned quite a bit about the drill that I didn’t know. After attempting to drill a hole big enough to fit my ¾ inch dowel rods only to have the drill whine and sputter at me, I learned that it is necessary start with a small hole and enlarge it gradually by using an increasingly larger bit to grow the hole. Though this may seem super obvious, it took me quite some time to figure it out, so I thought I’d save you the trouble. You will not be able to drill a ½ inch hole directly into solid wood. Start with 1/16 and work your way up. Since I was drilling on my beautiful antique chair, I did some practice drills on spare wood to gear myself up for it. Definitely would do again – I learned the hole enlarging tip that way and saved a bunch of heartache.

After all this crazy work of staining, drilling, and leveling, I could finally assembly my cart! I took the beautiful back of the chair propped it up and the “pushing” end of the cart. I used two mega thick dowel rods, stained to match my chair, and fixed them at the other end. To balance the motif of excessive bamboo rods, I took the seat of the chair and nailed it to the barren, dowel rod end of the cart, giving it more life and visual action. Then, I placed my wooden shelves on their little “L”-shaped supports and fit my dowel rods into their now enormous drill-holes and pushed the whole thing together. I dashed in circles around it, drilling anything that made me nervous, until, with a drop of the tired drill hand and a heavy sigh, I collapsed into a kitchen chair. My bar cart was done!
With drinks! And accouterments!

I know there are a million tips and tricks to have a successful building project, and I am still learning so many of them. Still, don’t forget to sand your edges to avoid splinters. Don’t screw screws in too close or the wood will crack. Don’t screw them into slivers of wood too small, either, or the same thing will happen. Use a level so your finished product doesn’t tilt. If the vintage wheels don’t go on, just keep hammering until they do. If you wander antique stores long enough, you’ll find exactly what you need. Make sure, at the end of your project, that you have someone with you whom you can excitedly scream at to “come look” every 5 minutes or so.

And good luck! May your building project bring you as much joy and inebriation as mine has brought me.

Health

What is “Normal”? Dealing with Depression & Anxiety

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“It’s okay. It’ll get better. Everything will be all right.” I hate when people casually say those words to a distressed friend—and, usually, I am that distressed friend.

Photo by Andy Sutterfield

Looking back on my teen years, filled with moments of extreme sadness and anger over my body-image issues and my limitations, it’s tempting to say that my panic attacks and depression started then. I think, however, that I was just a regular moody teenager. But I do know that it was around this time that I adopted habits that later led to my anxiety disorder: I stayed silent, I ate my feelings, I avoided talking about it when others broached the subject, and I became resentful of my friends for their “easy” lives.

Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illnesses in the U.S., affecting 40 million people, roughly 18% of the population. There are a wide variety of them: generalized anxiety, OCD, PTSD, phobias, etc. If you’ve never experienced depression or a panic attack, here’s a rundown: We all experience anxiety, but those who do not have a disorder can rationalize their fears, work through them, and come out with a plan of attack for any issue they’re facing. But when you have an anxiety or panic attack, the fear takes over. You can’t step back, you can’t shake yourself out of that place of fear, and you can’t force yourself to “just not think about it.” I’ve heard people say a panic attack feels like having a rubber band pulled across their chest, or having an elephant sit on them. The first time I felt it, I thought it might be a heart attack: the shortness of breath, the erratic breathing, the tears. After the attack passes, then comes the self-admonishment, the feelings of inadequacy, the thoughts that you must be weak and inferior to those around you because they don’t go through this—all of which feed into depression. And when you’re depressed, you can’t lift yourself out.

Depressed isn’t just sad or frustrated or down. Depression is detached, and that feels worse than the sad times or the panic-stricken times. You hear people say that if you put on a happy face, the good feelings will come. It’s not true. I’m putting on the happy face, I’m being my perky self. I’m at work, I’m with friends, I’m joking, I’m laughing. But there’s a cold layer around me. I feel as though all my movements are jerky and disjointed as I’m internally debating and debasing myself. You try to pull yourself out, wanting to feel something because anything is better than nothing. You try to talk to friends and family about it but you can’t get the words out or, when you do, they don’t know what to do. So they just offer the only comfort they can—“It’s okay.”

Anxiety disorders and depression do not always go hand in hand, nor does one predispose an individual to the other. However, studies show high co-morbidity rates: in a study of 3,000 patients in clinical trials for generalized anxiety or depression, about a third of anxiety disorder patients had severe enough depressive symptoms to enter the depression trials, while two thirds of the patients in the depression trials had anxiety disorders that warranted joining the generalized anxiety trials. I’ve gone through periods of both anxiety and depression, and because I have—because I’ve sought help—I know I’m likely to go through them again. I know it’s not an instance; it’s a cycle that’s repeated and feeds on itself. But I’ve also learned I’m not alone.

When you live with anxiety or depression, you might feel like you’re the only one, until you meet another ‘only one.’ When my attacks clustered closer and closer together and I started distancing myself from friends, I was scared about where I’d end up if I didn’t get help. So, I started talking to friends who I could trust. It helped me to vent and their comfort kept me from feeling like less of a person. But I still felt disconnected from my peers who all seemed to excel, unhindered. Then, a friend confided in me and told me about her own struggles. A coworker revealed the truth about her battle with the same illness. Suddenly, I wasn’t an imperfection in a perfect world; my struggles weren’t proof of my inadequacies as a human being. I was normal, beautifully and imperfectly normal. It seemed weird and maybe even wrong to feel legitimized by other people’s struggles. But I was. And that was worth something.

I’m not saying talking about it always helps, but not talking about it never does. I’d talked to friends mid–panic attack, either calling them or tracking them down at school to explode at them. They weren’t prepared for it, nor did they have the knowledge or skills to deal with it. But as I became more comfortable telling friends about the imperfect areas of my life, they reciprocated that comfort. I found safe zones to talk and let off steam before I reached attack mode.

So, how can you tell if you’re near this precipice? If any of the above resonated with you, you may want to talk to someone (yes, actually voice the thing you’re most desperate to quell). There’s a stigma associated with “not being able to deal.” A coworker who’s faced similar struggles told one of our peers and was discouraged from telling anyone else. But what we’ve experienced is real, and so is the connection I now have with this amazingly strong and beautiful woman. If she hadn’t told me about her situation, we might not have ever had this connection.

Okay, so what should I do? Again, talk about it. I couldn’t afford a therapist, so I looked into group programs I could join, which are cheaper. The people I met there provided me with a support system. If that doesn’t help, maybe one-on-one sessions are a better fit for you. Bear in mind, however, that it can take a couple of tries to find the right therapist or support group. You have to feel as though you’re in a safe place. Don’t settle until you’ve found that.

Aside from the importance of talking about it, I’ve also learned the value of the following:

Don’t Assume

The perception that your friends and family have it easy builds negative emotions and increases your feelings of being different. It’s hard to remember that those around us suffer too, that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side, but try. Resentment only distances you from the positive influences in your life.

Sleep

This can be hard when you lie awake at night for hours thinking of what’s to come. But if you’re prone to missing sleep, don’t go to bed when you have to be up in eight hours. It sounds weird, but budget for the freak out. You’ll cry and you’ll stress, but eventually you’ll be so drained emotionally and physically that you will drift off to sleep. However, if you suffer from insomnia, consult your physician.

Exercise

To quote Elle Woods, “Exercising gives you endorphins. Endorphins make you happy. Happy people just don’t kill their husbands. They just don’t.” I’ve always hated when people suggested exercise to help with mood, cramps, whatever. But it does help. Exercising results in an increase of serotonin and endorphins, which are chemicals that alleviate depression. But even if that twenty-minute walk around your neighborhood doesn’t do much for you chemically, it at least allows you to have some time alone. You have the opportunity to think things through, to be away from the pile of bills waiting for you on your desk, or your spouse who you just had a fight with.

Stress Less

Easier said than done, I know. But map out the major stressors in your life, talk it through with someone if it helps, and formulate a plan of attack to deal with each one in turn. Try not to think negatively. It’s hard but doable. Instead of thinking of “I can’t get a better job,” say to yourself “I’m going to revamp my resume by the end of the week.” Turn your fears into a to-do list. When you make a mistake, instead of obsessing, take a step back and see what you learned from the mistake and do your best to accept it.

Focus on the Happy

I love journaling because it’s a great way to document milestones and see how far I’ve come. However, when I’m upset and want to gain perspective, looking at old journal entries from when I was down can actually increase my feelings of anxiety or depression. For my New Year’s Resolution, a friend and I started a little yearlong project. We each bought a mason jar and pretty stationary. Every time something good happened or we stumbled upon something random that made us happy, we would write it on a piece of paper and stick it in the jar. Whenever I’m down, I open the jar and read through some of the anecdotes. Remembering those moments and how happy I was when I wrote them down helps to lift me out of my funk.