Being Mentally Ill Is Political.

Being mentally ill is political. Being Puerto Rican is political. Having and suffering through any form of chronic illness is inherently political but before I get into politics I am gonna step back really quick. I think I should begin by giving you some background on what it feels like to live with OCD and what it can look like. First and foremost, if you are a nerd like me, information matters to you so let me begin with defining OCD in my own words because medical terms can be scary.

OCD stands for “Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder”  and I bet the FIRST thing that comes to your mind is a person frantically cleaning, flipping a switch, or anything the media has told you OCD “looks” like. In most instances, they show you the compulsions and not so much the obsessive parts of it. The obsessive part of the illness has to do with fearful thoughts like a fear of dying, fear of the dark, fear of getting sick and the list goes on. These thoughts then stick, meaning they go on a loop or interfere with your day to day life. In my case, my “loop”  is a fear of hurting myself or losing control of my well-being. Now, compulsions are the result of the obsession part. A compulsion is something the person does to feel better, at ease, and to alleviate the stress and anxiety that the obsessive thoughts cause. Compulsions can look like constant cleaning, switching the lights on and off, organizing things a particular way, tapping, phrases and more. MY particular compulsion is “avoidance” more specifically, harm reduction. I want to reduce ALL harm possible because my fear is that I will be triggered into losing my mind or hurting myself even though that is not something I want to do or will realistically happen. Now, OCD does not cause suicide, OCD does not and will not make you “go crazy”, OCD does not cause self-harm, no matter how REAL these thoughts might feel and no matter how uncomfortable you might feel. Again, if you are self-harming and you have thoughts of suicide, please reach out for help. It is scarier to go through it alone than to go on recovery.

Let’s get into it now, let me be as illustrative as possible. I want you to think about chocolate cake. I don’t care if you don’t like it, I just want you to think about it. Picture it. 

Okay cool, now DON’T think about chocolate cake. Just stop thinking about it. Think about your day, not the chocolate cake. Did you cook today? DON’T THINK ABOUT THE CHOCOLATE CAKE. Did you go to work today? Chocolate cake? Did you have your morning (chocolate cake) coffee? What are (chocolate) doing tomorrow (cake)? What time do you usually (chocolate cake) go to bed? What do you have (chocolate cake) on? What is with you? Why can’t you stop thinking of the damn chocolate cake? Chocolate cake. Chocolate cake. Chocolate cake. 

Okay… Can you see how that can get annoying and stressful? That’s what my OCD is like except I’d much rather obsess over chocolate cake than the morbid crap that goes through my mind. But this is the thing, sometimes I convince myself that obsessing and dealing with my OCD on my own is easier than me texting my therapist or letting my loved ones help me because being vulnerable, mentally ill, Puerto Rican and a woman is political. Living in an individualist society and being raised in a very religious, patriarchal culture mental illness is not a priority. Instead, you should “pray” the illness away or “push through it.” In my culture being mentally ill is “cosas de locos” meaning “crazy people things.” We are not locks, we are normal folx who need to give our brain a little bit more attention and love than others. On the other hand, you’ll hear that being mentally ill is “cosas del diablo” meaning “devilish things”. Not nice, right? These undertones of judgment have been embedded in me and it has been very hard to be compassionate with myself especially when I was first diagnosed. I kept thinking of how I was a failure, a failure because the one part of my body that controls everything is what is sick. It’s not a fractured bone that I know will heal in X amount of months but instead, the one thing I need the most to function properly is what I need help with and that to me was annoyingly unbelievable. Of course, with therapy, I have come to realize that that is not the case even though I play the in denial card but I am so far from being my most mental health enlightened self. But I am way closer than I was before and that is a FACT. Throughout my mental health recovery journey, I have taken it upon myself to research my illness and how to cope with it along with coping skills my therapist provides for me. One thing I came across super quickly was that most of the blogs and mental health advocates are white women. Yes, their stories have some similarities with mine but it just didn’t quite hit home for me. White folx in general have an easier time in every aspect of society (particularly white men). They have access to therapy, money for professional care, and their feelings are validated. While Black and Latina women have to hide our mental illness because we, in a literal sense, cannot afford to be mentally ill, have a family to take care of, and or society already has a target on us. Imagine being Black and struggling with mental health or Latina and struggling with mental health. We experience the judgment in our own cultures and communities to experience racism, judgment and resentment from those outside our communities. Our anxieties, our depression, our mental illnesses are political. They are political starting from our own communities and even more so to those outside our communities. We are expected to tolerate more abuse. We are expected to have a higher pain tolerance. We are expected to give to others and not to ourselves. We are expected to be neutral even when we are our saddest and our most anxious. Vulnerability for Black and Puerto Rican women is revolutionary. Black and Puerto Rican women expressing vulnerability is a decolonial, anti-racist and an anti-patriarchal practice. Yeah, it’s tiring, being mentally ill is exhausting, but being a non-white woman and mentally ill? That is a different level of exhaustion.

“What Brings You In Today?”

“What brings you in today?” are the only words I remember clearly from December 19th of 2019. Everything from the last two months of 2019 was a complete blur. I only remember bits and pieces and those memories make me feel fragile and small. On December 19th of 2019, I admitted myself into the hospital because I was struggling mentally and emotionally. When the woman at the front desk asked me, “What brings you in today?” I said, “I’m having thoughts about hurting myself.” It was by far one of the worst days of my life, but it was the one day where I was forced to reflect on myself. I finally had to face many of my demons…some of which I voluntarily tried avoiding. Some of my demons were made from abusive romances, work obsession, my sexual preference, being away from the island, starting grad school, and just feeling behind in life. I felt alone, afraid, angry, suppressed, and trapped, to say the least.

After I was hospitalized it took me a long time to come to terms with my illness. I did not want to admit that my brain worked differently and needed more self-care than others. Thankfully, I have the privilege of having an amazing therapist who has helped me throughout my healing process. She has been such a rock in my life. Alana, if you ever read this, you are truly an amazing woman and I am happy to have a therapist like you. Alana has been my toughest and greatest critique. She has taught me that healing cannot happen without self-love, support, and acceptance. All things that I have deprived myself of. Throughout my journey, I have learned that I didn’t love myself as much as I thought I did. I’m pretty sure I hated myself more than I loved myself, but a lot has changed in the last year and let me tell you how. I have finally accepted myself as the bisexual Puerto Rican woman that I am and always have been. I am a proud person on the LGBT+ spectrum. This acceptance was more difficult than it was festive since I had internalized a lot of homophobia from my culture, society and religion therefore I would project harmful ideas onto me. With my self-denial I hurt a lot of women in the process who have shown interest in me and for that, I am eternally regretful. However, I also had to break away from some women who constantly measured my bisexuality, making me feel like a “fake bisexual” because I am too girly or because I spent a long portion of my life “closeted.”  Self-acceptance comes with a lot of brutal realizations, some are beautiful, and some are hurtful.

My healing journey came with many bad days but for every bad day, I got three good ones. I came to learn that I can find balance in my life again and that love means nothing if I do not love myself. I have also learned to understand that therapy is not about “fixing” me, but it is about seeing things clearly. This year I have felt like I have 20/20 vision (haha, made a 2020 joke) because I have been able to listen to my body/mind and hear/see its needs and cater to them. Now, if I need a break, I take it. If I need more sleep, I take it. If I need an extension, I ask for it. I no longer push myself because as my therapist says, “the more you push, the worse you’ll feel.” In no way does this mean that I don’t have days that I repeat some old behavior because I am only human, and this is only year one of my healing journey, but I am doing one hell of a job. But some days are good, and some days are bad.

I have also learned that there is more to life than papers, competition, and work. There is laughter, there is sadness, there is friendship, there are pride parades, and good food with good company. There is so much more that I am dying to experience things that I would have never realized if I would have taken my life last year. In the last year, I have felt more shame than I have ever felt in my 23 years of life. I felt like benign mentally ill embarrassed my parents, my sister, and the rest of my family yet they have been my biggest supported there are days I can’t help but think that my moment of rock bottom is embarrassing and shameful even when I know it’s not. Some nights I close my eyes and think of the Black nurse who brushed my hair in the emergency room. “You have to promise me that you’re going to fight this and make it out of here. We are gonna make you feel better. I got you. You have a long life to live, do you understand?” I didn’t understand at the moment, but I do now. Her hands in my hair and her voice live in my head forever. I do have a long life ahead of me. Temporary pain is not worth a permanent decision.

P.S. my sexual preference is no one’s business but it might be *shock* to some. If this changes your love for me, then you never loved me to begin with. Reflect on that.

If you struggle with mental illness, you are not alone.

I finally took off my socks

I am almost three months into my recovery process and it has been a very bumpy road but it has also been rewarding. When I came out of the hospital in December I wore these fluffy socks. Then, I wore these fluffy socks again, again, again and again. Of course, I washed them but there was not a night where I’d sleep without my fluffy socks. I wore these socks for two months and a half straight because they made me feel safe. How could a pair of socks make me feel safe? Well, I felt absolutely unsafe and terrified of every piece of clothing I owned because every shirt and pants would remind me of the worst time of my life. I avoided my clothes and wore things that I hadn’t worn in years just to not wear whatever I wore in December. For some reason my brain kept connecting my clothes with the idea that I was going to end up at the hospital again. My therapist explained to me that what I am going through is described as a trauma response. The reason I felt uncomfortable in my clothing was because my brain associated it with my intrusive thoughts and the inability to have control over my situation. My clothes would, in a literal sense, trigger me to the point where I threw a lot of my clothes in the trash or I boxed it and put it away in the basement. Maybe one day, I will be better enough to wear them or maybe they will be boxed away forever. Either option is okay and that is what I have learned.

I have also learned that dealing with a traumatic experience is very hard when people around you don’t know your triggers (it’s not their fault, of course). It is also hard because the waves of uneasiness hit you randomly and sometimes you can’t help but cry or can’t fight the feeling of not wanting to get out of bed. At times my anxiety makes me feel like the smallest human being in this world, insignificant and hopeless. There are times where I feel the complete opposite but I am learning that it is important to accept the feelings day to day instead of avoiding them. Avoiding how you feel just feeds your anxiety, I would know. Anyway, back to my socks. My socks mean the world to me because it was the only piece of clothing that made me feel okay. Last week, I took off my socks and I felt safe for the first time in months. I felt safe without my socks and I could not believe that nothing happened to me without them. To you, I took off a pair of socks, to me I took a big step in my recovery process. Now that I look back at the night that I took off my socks, I see so much irony in that. One of the many things you are told as a person with anxiety is to try to connect to the present moment. One of the thousand exercises is to take off your shoes and socks to feel the ground to remember you are connected to the world. I always thought that exercise was complete BS until that night. I took off my socks and rubbed my feet on the carpet and for the time in a long time, I felt in control of my recovery process. I know not every day will feel that way, I know that I am still at the beginning. I am aware I have many tears to shed still but this is a huge step along with my daily journaling. Journaling has also been my secret weapon. It has helped me put my thoughts on paper and take them out of my head to create space for things that belong in my head. I think it’s important for people to see that recovery is hard but possible. Therefore, I have decided to share one sentence of each journal entry I have. Just one sentence because recovery is not linear.

“After I was discharged from the hospital, I needed my mother to sleep with me because I was afraid that I would wake up in the middle of the night and hurt myself.”

“I am angry I put papers and work before my body and mind.”

“I fear never getting better.”

 “I want the old Nina again, the one where intrusive thoughts didn’t torture her.”

“Because I choose life, I choose recovery.”

“I have been wondering about how far of come/how little progress I have made, weird right?”

“I am trying to learn that I am not my anxiety but my anxiety is a small part of me.”

“Today I had an anxiety attack and I am angry.”

“My name is Nina Vazquez and I am not my anxiety.”

 “I feel very ashamed that Aliyah and my parents had to deal with all my tears, thoughts and weird behavior.”

“Today was shitty but tomorrow will be better.”

“I realized that I was still myself, still good, just anxious.”

“Why did life and I choose each other?”

 “I am happy to be alive. “

“My back is tense but I feel grateful.”

 “I am happy I exist.”

“I am happy today because I did not think I would make it to turn 23.”

“I booked a flight to Puerto Rico and while I am happy that I will be going back home, I am so scared.”

“I am blooming while it rains.”

These are sentences from different journal entries. This is what my anxiety story looks like and I finally took off my socks.

You are not alone.

Suicide Hotline: 1-800-273-8255

Even Puerto Rican Women Struggle with Mental Health

As I write this my hands are shaking and I am not entirely sure why that might be? Maybe it’s because this is the first time I have decided to actually document how I have been doing the last month or so. I usually try to write words of encouragement and positive words therefore, the beginning of this post is probably the opposite of that but it needs to be done. My winter break has been one that I will never forget and the hardest one of my life thus far. I have been struggling with my mental health more than I wanted to admit to myself, my family and friends. For a long time, I was not sure what was wrong with me. I felt like I was losing my sanity every day that passed. All I could ask myself was, why did I feel like that? Why did my mind scare me so much? I began to think that maybe the way to get rid of that desperation was to take my own life or hurt myself to feel some sort of relief. At least that’s what my thoughts were telling me. For some reason, my brain kept and still does continue to connect relief with self-harm or death while I know that neither of those things correlate and are far from the truth. Nevertheless, these thoughts stressed me out to the point where I felt like I was no longer myself. I thought to myself, “How ungrateful of you to think such a thing when you have things that people would die for?” While one side of me focused on all the things I have not yet achieved like getting my license, getting a significant other, getting my doctoral degree, getting my dream job or having a family. All I could focus on was on how behind in life I was.  My brain was on this obsessive thought process for weeks on end. I felt alone, scared, angry and threatened by own mind. It has been the scariest place I have ever visited. A visit that has lasted way too long for my liking. By mid-December, I fell in the hospital because I was afraid of hurting myself. Hours before going to the hospital, I couldn’t think straight, I cried every five seconds, I couldn’t laugh, smile or even keep up a conversation. That’s when I knew my body was screaming for help and I needed it FAST. I told my friend to drop me off at the emergency room. She was nervous but I kept telling her that if she did not drop me off, I would not make it through the night. I have never felt so unlike myself in my whole life like I did at that point in time. Being rushed into the emergency room is a moment I will never forget. I was so afraid of myself and what everyone would think of me. I felt like my world came crashing down. Along with my feelings of helplessness and hopelessness, the support that I received from my family, friends and hospital staff was truly amazing but it did not cancel out the fear that brought me there in the first place. I stayed overnight at the hospital and all I kept thinking about was, “What happened to me? Why did I hit so low?” while having thoughts like “You need to fight. You need to keep going.” all felt so contradicting. The next morning, I was told that what I was going through was stress-induced and that I would need medication. Another moment where my world fell apart because I never thought I would need medication and “prided” myself on not needing medication. Then, I was told to go to therapy and while that was not an issue to me, my former therapist who had helped me so much the first six months of 2019 was out on maternity leave and I had gotten another therapist who threw me over the edge, as the expression says. I went into panic mode when I was told that I needed to look for a therapist because I did not want to go back to the woman who didn’t listen to me or take me seriously after three sessions. After I was discharged from the hospital, I got my phone which was flooded with messages from my best friends calling me “brave”, “strong” and a “fighter” which frustrated me because I did not and still don’t feel like I am those things. Once I got through the messages, I decided to call my insurance to see what therapists around me were accepting new patients. I called a number of practices and still to this day, have yet to receive a callback. The process of calling and trying to look for a new therapist was exhausting since I had to repeat the fact that I was having ongoing thoughts of self-harm and death so loud that led me to admit myself to the hospital. I was frustrated and crying because I want to feel good again like myself and all I could focus on was the fact that no therapist would take me until I thought of my first therapist who has been on maternity leave. I picked up my phone and searched her up. I had no idea if she was back in the office or not but I needed to talk to someone who I trusted. Frantically, I sent her an email and told what had been happening to me. That night I could not sleep because all I kept thinking was “What will I do if she can no longer take me in?”. My nights and days were and still are constantly full of “what ifs”. Anyway, at 8 am the next morning, I had an email from her in my inbox and I thought the whole house can hear my heartbeat. When I opened her message, she said she was glad to hear from me and she heard what had happened and most importantly, she would see me again. Once I read that, I began to sob because I felt some sort of relief through everything that I have been feeling. 

A few days later after the email exchange, I saw her and of course, I told her everything. Many times she reassured me that I did everything right and that what I was going through was more common than I thought but I still felt so alone yet with some type of hope that was not there 24 hours before. After blurting out everything that was going through my head my therapist and my physician decided after a lot of consulting to put me on medication. I was explained that the medication does not work as a happy pill and that it will take time to kick in but I did not imagine how frustrating the process of healing would be. The first week on medication was pure hell, I felt like it was not working, that it was never going to work, that nothing was ever going to help me or that maybe I had something else that was not anxiety and I cried. Each day was and is about surviving one to get to the other which is hard when your anxiety is causing your brain to form thoughts of self-harm and other morbid things like killing yourself. 

 I am currently a little beyond the three-week mark for my medication and I want to say that it has been extremely hard and not a linear process whatsoever. Some days are more tolerable than others. Some days I cry, others I don’t. Some days I feel alone, others I don’t. Some days my intrusive thoughts taunt me every second of the day, some days my intrusive thoughts are so quiet, I can barely hear them. What are intrusive thoughts? I’ll tell you because I did not know myself. According to the ADAA (Anxiety and Depression Association of America), intrusive thoughts are defined as “thoughts that cause great distress” and are thoughts that can be violent and incredibly scary. Intrusive thoughts are also thoughts that come to people who do NOT want to act on them. Again, they are not ACTIONS, they are THOUGHTS. Intrusive thoughts are commonly found in people who suffer from anxiety disorder (like me), OCD, and depression. The ADAA stated that 6 million people in the United States suffer from intrusive thoughts on a daily basis. As I reflect back on these last few weeks a question that kept arising was “Do you feel safe?” which still does not make sense to me. Do I “feel safe”? How would I feel safe when I feel like my brain wants to convince me of doing such bad things to myself? How do I feel safe when I am afraid that I am going to lose my cool any moment or in the future? How do I feel safe when I feel like I will never be okay again? What is “safe” when you don’t know how long it is going to take you to get back up again? It is frustrating, it is a lonely process even when you are not alone, it is uncertain, it is sad, it is happy, it is scary, it is exciting and it is exhausting. Today, I write this acknowledging that it is a hard day for me. I have cried, my concentration has been off and my intrusive thoughts are loud and scary but will I act on them? No. Will I let them win? No. Will I go down without a fight? No. However, the other set of questions is, will I cry? Yes. Will I hurt? Yes. Will let myself feel the emotions? Yes.

 I am not going to call myself  “strong”, “fighter”, “brave” or a “warrior”. I don’t know what to call myself, maybe just Nina? A Nina that is going through a rough time. I know I still feel a lot of shame, stigma, fear, and anger. I think I feel this way for many reasons, maybe one has to do with how I am Puerto Rican and our culture tries to sweep everything under the rug, another has to be coming to terms with the fact that yes, I do suffer from anxiety disorder and the other is me being angry at my brain for recuperating so slowly while producing these frightening thoughts. Even on days like today where I cry like crazy, all I could think is “there is a reason I am still here” and there might be a lot to that statement but maybe one reason is passing my story forward so other Latinx people can see that we can’t ignore mental health and to look for professional help is okay and it is not a “white people thing” or maybe it is an awakening for me to listen to my body a little more carefully. Although I don’t feel well yet, I want to say this, if you are going through a tough time, seek help. Big or small. I know it’s hard and I am not promising you that the healing process is any easier but it is better than not being here or hurting yourself. Mental health matters, you matter. I shared this with you because I exist, my story exists and I cannot ignore my reality or avoid it. Talking about it is a form of healing. Puerto Rican women and men struggle with mental health too.

You are not alone.

Suicide Hotline: 1-800-273-8255

More information on how to manage these thoughts and what they are:

https://adaa.org/learn-from-us/from-the-experts/blog-posts/consumer/unwanted-intrusive-thoughts

https://www.healthline.com/health/mental-health/intrusive-thoughts-coping#1