taken from my blog, The Blathering Broad
Yesterday, I had a woman looking to buy some food, interested in the sandwiches we serve. Once she settled on her choice, she looked around her before leaning to tell me,"Okay, this may be weird, but I have OCD." I immediately said,"No, it's all good! I do, too!" Her eyes brightened. "Really?! I could hug you right now. Most people think I'm crazy!" For her comfort, I took care of everything, washing my hands several times between glove changes. She was very very grateful, stuck around for a few more hours, and came back for more food. It made me sad that this poor woman felt that she'd be perceived as "crazy" because she has OCD. Goodness, I hate how stigmatized mental illness is. In the years since writing my post, things i'm afraid to tell you, i've become even more open in discussing my condition in the hopes that it'll allow others to feel less alone.
Personally, I've always felt alone and choose to isolate myself with those feelings of despair and anxiety come around. If I'm around others, I feel like a bummer or a burden if I talk about what is bothering me. When I'm deep in a funk, I'm all alone. It's my own personal hell. To quote Arcade Fire,"My body is a cage that keeps me from dancing with the one I love, but my mind holds the key." I interpret that as I'm in my own personal mental hell, but the key is within me to fix it. I fix those feelings by reaching out to others so they feel less alone, as well as I will feel less alone. Whenever I discover something like a friend with severe anxiety or someone struggling with self-harm, I always let them tell me their stories, as well as share my own. To know that you're not the only one struggling makes a huge difference. Just remember: everybody's trying.
be more open
fourteen years ago
Fourteen years ago, I was a seventh grader at Samuel Morse Middle School for the Gifted & Talented. My cousin had her first baby, a little boy she named Izaiah. I wore fat pants, chokers, listened to Limp Bizkit, Incubus, and Linkin Park. I was a pop-punk emo kid. The morning of September 11th, 2001, I remember my aunt screaming and crying as she got ready for work in her bedroom nearby. I didn't quite understand what was going on. I recall her mentioning something about airplanes hitting buildings in New York and how we needed to call my grandma. I am now aware where my grandma lives in relation to the towers. At the time, though, I had no clue. Whenever the subject of my paternal grandmother living in New York came up with peers, I always decided which sounded more badass- Bronx or Brooklyn? Well, my grandma lives in Manhattan, in East Harlem. I know that now, but New York was too complicated for my thirteen year old brain, having not visited for five years. There was no time to call that morning (I doubt it would have gone through anyway) so we decided to call when I got home from school. I walked to the bus stop, and thought things would be normal.
I don't recall any other class than my algebra class. Advanced math nerd that I was, me and a few other smarty pants seventh graders were taught with eighth graders the wonders of algebra. There would be no algebra that day, though, much to my not-homework-doing delight. Instead, we sat and listened to our teacher's clock radio as the news was somberly played for forty-five minutes.
"I heard it was the Ay-rabs!"
"I heard it was the Puerto Ricans!"
"Shut up! Puerto Rico is a US Territory, idiot!"
So many stupid things shouted by thirteen and twelve year olds not really sure what was happening. My brother was at the high school I'd be attending in two years. He told me that the teacher who ended up becoming my English teacher senior year ran into his Spanish class screaming,"We're all going to die!" Now that I know her, I can see it clearly in my mind. My best friend's sister was in her Italian class where they turned on the TV to watch the horror unfold, rather than studying vocabulary or whatever was on the agenda for the day. I remember moving through the rest of the day as though I were floating. I don't remember anything else about school that day. I was there, but my mind kept turning to the things I was hearing. What was going on in the world outside this building?
When I got home, 24 hours news monster was already spewing images that haunt me to this day. It took some time for my brain to comprehend that the things falling from the burning buildings were people jumping. I cried and wailed uncontrollably. I stuffed a pillow in my mouth so no one else could hear something was wrong, but everyone else was upstairs with the baby. I was alone to deal with these images. For weeks, it was all I could see in my mind when I closed my eyes. I couldn't understand why. Why did this happen? Why did those people have to die? Why did they jump? Was taking matters into their own hands better than waiting for whatever fate had in store for them?
That day always plays in my head when the anniversary comes around. We were able to get ahold of my grandma the next morning. I talked to her briefly before school, said,"Bendición," and "I love you," as if those words were enough to alleviate this strangeness we all felt. We were able to reconnect with someone we loved, but what about the thousands who never can? And the lives of innocents who didn't ask to be in a war zone? What about those whose voices we'll never hear again? What about them?