Angel Sighting

 I like to think every single person is placed in their daily lives for a very particular reason. There is purpose behind the placement of every single individual on every sidewalk, every second. God places them there because they have lived certain experiences or have certain qualifications that render them perfect for certain necessary interactions. God wants some people to meet.

...On the way to Drawing class, I was crossing the long, four lane street to get to Regis Hall when a car jumped in front of me. And at the exact moment I laid eyes on that car, my mind screamed "HIT ME". And this message flashed across my mind and I froze up--my body tensed, my eyes widened, I was feeling the panic attack coming hard, strong. I forced myself to the other side of the street and my breathing was already erratic, I wanted to die, I hadn't been this bad in weeks, I couldn't go to class like this, no no no no no

and within seconds of me getting to the other side of that road, a woman walked up to me. She had to try a few times to get my attention, I was shaking so bad inside, but I finally heard her and looked up from my feet. She was small, with curly hair wild around her face, and her eyes looked at me with the smallest bit of urgency from behind her spectacles.

"Excuse me, could you help me?"

And her voice calmed me down a bit, and I answered very politely, Yes, yes I could, what do you need? and she pointed to a magazine lying open across the sidewalk and asked if I could pick it up for her. She had a terribly bad back, she told me, and couldn't bend down to get it.

And I said "Yes, of course," and as I went to get it, I felt positivity slowly cleansing my thoughts. By the time I walked back to her, within those few seconds, my breathing was back to normal, and tears no longer threatened the backs of my eyes. I was calming down. I gave her the magazine, and she looked me straight in the eyes and said "Thank You", and she smiled into my face in this completely sincere way.

And I was fine. I smiled to the tips of my ears and told her she was welcome, and I told her to have a wonderful day, and she gave me one final smile before we parted, and my heart soared and sang because it was free of the terror that had so recently gripped it, and I was alive, and I was breathing, and I was no longer breaking. And I thought, "that was very convenient." And I thought, "I must have met an angel."

Because what were the chances of someone needing to talk to me right as I started having a panic attack? What were the chances of someone being there who had every reason to speak to me, who had that kind of smile that would free me? God put her there. God went to the woman with the bad back and the bright smile and placed her gently across my path, God took the magazine out of her hands and placed me there instead. God let me get there just as she did, God let us meet, God wanted to tell me that He was looking out for me.

Maybe God even caused the car to jump out, and caused my mind to scream out pleas of death that I had held back for weeks, finally convinced that I had my life under control. Maybe God set all this up to remind me. Maybe he wanted me to recall my faith in angels, in faith, in a God that could support me and make me believe.

Or maybe it was coincidental. Maybe it was sheer luck. Maybe I am misconstruing a series of very regular, exceedingly mundane events. But maybe I'm not. I don't think there is such thing as a mundane event left in this world. We are all placed very strategically in our lives in case we may be of use to others. We are pushed through experiences that will equip us with conditions advantageous for certain situations. And we will be used to help people, and we will be helped. Every single person on the street is there for some other person, in some way, shape or fashion. Even little things--it matters.

Regardless of the background circumstances, i can safely say that woman helped me much more than I ever helped her.

Life is good.

Standards

 I was going into the Delaware Clinical Research Unit to be assessed for the self harm study they are conducting. It specified that minor self harm was included in the study (they mentioned burning and scratching in the same context as cutting), and depression was not a requirement. And yet, I still felt the pressure of those per-conceived standards of "real mental health issues" during my interview.

I had been diagnosed with mild depression when I met with my therapist last year, and but mostly i had recovered from depression by that point. Most of my anxiety and depressed thoughts now stem from inadequacy stemming from my self harm. They said that was okay. It was okay if I did not have terrible depression.

But I did say I had lots of experience with depression, starting in junior high. That that was where it all started. And the head nurse who was interrogating me, she looked at me and said, "were you diagnosed?" I told her no, I was self diagnosed, I was too scared to tell anyone about my depression. She asked why. I told her my step father was emotionally abusive and that I was afraid to talk in my house or gain his attention, and that I was scared for more obvious reasons besides stemming from having mental illness. She nodded and looked uninterested. "My daughter's in junior high right now, I understand what it's like to be that age. It's a hard time in life."

At first this made me feel better. But the she kept bringing it up: "I had a phobia in junior high" "Were you diagnosed?" "No, but--" "Junior High is a tough time, I know." Any time I brought up my depression, she reasserted how junior high was 'a very difficult time'. Yes. Yes, I know it is. But do you think I would be here getting an interview about self harm and still confuse regular preteen angst for depression?

Please, do not make me doubt myself now. I know what I went through. I hate doubting myself. I hate thinking maybe I was stupid and exaggerating. That kind of denial is what kept me from going to a therapist for so many years. That denial was what kept me from dealing with self harm. That denial is what led me to believe I didn't even HAVE self harm. If that denial hadn't existed, maybe these damnable habits wouldn't be so deeply engrained into me that I need to go get free treatment from the Delaware Clinical Research Center under the guise of participating in a study.

But maybe I'm wrong! Tell me, is having convulsions and hyperventilating at the sight of blood a normal preteen experience? Should I discount my years of phobia, where the sight of even a vaguely red liquid would throw me into a panic attack where I couldn't use my muscles for half an hour, becoming a trembling mess on the floor? Is it normal junior high life to constantly want to die, constantly think you're going to die, honestly believing you're in danger of breaking at any given moment, even when you're supposedly safe in a classroom? Is it normal to break down in tears in the middle of the school musical because you saw a nail behind the stage and imagined being impaled by thousands of them? Is it just regular preteen drama to never have a single happy day for three entire years of life, where smiles are either fake or terribly fleeting, where home is the place where you can finally collapse on the bed and think of dying for a few hours without anyone there to judge you? Are the middle school years supposed to haunt you for the rest of your life, always creeping on the edges of your vision, intensifying your sad moments, whispering how you could easily go back into relapse, where the self harm first started, where you first decided that chipping away at yourself was the only way to be functioning again?

I am in college now. I am in college, and I still spend half my week mumbling how much I want to die under my breath. I still get nervous around sharp objects because I'm afraid what I'll do if I'm not controlled. I walk in front of moving cars and hope they hit me, every single time.

I know I shouldn't. I know people care. But every time I cross a street I can't help but long for a car to just sweep me off the road. I want to be hit, and I want to go to the hospital during one of the most excruciating ambulance rides I'll ever have. I want to wake up in a hospital bed with a thousand needles stabbed into my flesh, IVs and beeping machines shrieking madly around me. I want to wake up in the middle of surgery and see them cut me open. I want to finally go home, still feeling a terrible soreness run through my body that threatens to plague me forever. I want to run my hands over my stitches and fantasize about ripping them out, reopening my wounds, bleeding out.

Luckily, cars on campus always stop for pedestrians. Even when they don't, I think about how horribly guilty I would feel seeing my family have to pay for the medical bills. I don't necessarily mind how they would feel about me--it's hard to care, sometimes, or remember that I'm cherished. But I would hate them to worry about money again because of me. So I won't run into moving cars.

These thoughts, though, are direct results from my depression in junior high. Does everyone feel like me? Did I just go through one of many hard junior high experiences?

How dare you judge me based on appearances, doubt my trials, think I'm not 'depressed enough'. Yes, I have only gone to one therapist. Yes, I never got diagnosed in junior high with anxiety, depression, or phobias. I talked well in your interviews, I seemed happy enough, my self harm is mild. But does that mean I lose my identity as mentally ill? Because you believe that I'm probably too happy to own my own past?

Shouldn't you, who is interviewing mentally ill people as a job, know just how good we are at hiding our pain and how much we try to?

Stop setting standards for mental illness. My label should not be an achievement. It should not be something I must earn by meeting a baseline. I should not need trophies on my wall or on my skin. So much mental illness is invisible. So is mine.

Life is good.