Where have all the young girls gone?

“... Taken husbands, everyone. When will they ever learn?” Pete Seeger, Where Have All the Flowers Gone?

I try to make it so that the quotation at the start of each entry has some relevance for the rest of the post, but often it’s not the entire quote that fits, but rather a subset. With that being said, no- I am not getting married any time in the near/foreseeable future. Also, isn’t ‘foreseeable’ a strange looking word?

I have been gone for a long time. My last blog post was what, September? There’s a part of me that would like to blame the rigors of grad school on all of that. After all, the coursework was brutal, and I did end up staying in the ‘top secret zombie lab’ (as I like to call it) on campus until well after midnight on numerous occasions throughout the regular school year. I had a ton of reading and papers and data analysis… analyses? ... to cover. Who would want to take a break from all of that by writing even more profound things in their down time? Hehehehe, “profound”… I kill myself sometimes with the nonsense I spout out… Yes, I was busy; I had more homework and studying to do than I’ve ever had to deal with before in my educational career. However, that is no excuse for my prolonged absence, nor is it the particular absence I was feeling during that time. No, if I were merely ‘gone’ from the blogosphere and social scene for FW semesters, it would be no problem. Happens to many folk all the time. The truth is, I don’t know where I’ve been for the past… almost year. Well, that’s a generalization—I know that I was physically in Provo until the middle of June, and most of that was spent on campus or the other scenery changes my life had at the time, but that’s not what I mean. That girl was/is a stranger to me.

Life was a bit on the dark side for me during the school year. Not the cool dark side with Darth Vader & his posse, either… A lot of my friends know that my typical dream is ‘scarier’ and tons more violent than the average Joe. Or the average Methuselah. Average anyone, really… I don’t count them as nightmares, because I don’t feel scared by them or wake up terrified. Probably because they’re just dreams, & a part of the subconscious me knows that it can’t hurt me. The other part of the subconscious me must have some deep-seated paranoia about the government, zombies, and businessmen. I hope they’re not actually connected in the real world… *That* would be scary… Anyway, during the past school year, well, up until the end of February, really, all of the blood and violence wasn’t limited to my dreaming self. That is, instead of forgetting those dream images, they haunted me during my waking hours. I would go to a Data Analysis class, & instead of seeing the Power Point presentation, I would get repeated images of my dreams flashing through my head… Like, heavy duty day-dreaming, but in a very scary way. I got very anxious and depressed. I even had 2 actual nightmares—the kind where you feel that real terror in your sleep and wake up wanting to never go to sleep again… I don’t think I’d had a nightmare since I was a little kid before this past year. I was afraid to talk to anyone. Actually, I was so distraught & overcome with panic attacks/severe anxiety that I forgot that you could actually get help for that kind of thing. Finally, with the help of my bishop & some concerned professors, I got to a point where I could accept professional help.

There is waaaaay too much of a social stigma over mental disorders in our society. People are willing to accept things such as grief counseling, or help after a traumatic experience, but if the severe emotional pain isn’t visibly caused by any particular thing, then it makes people uncomfortable. In, Theory of Moral Sentiments, Adam Smith explains this little phenomenon. He says, essentially, that man is better able to sympathize with your emotional pain than your physical pain because while he may not have had a smushed toe, he can imagine what it would feel like for himself if his father were to die, etc… Well, this works only insofar as you can imagine the other person’s emotional pain. When it gets to the unfathomable, seemingly without cause region, people can’t imagine it. Or maybe they just do not want to. So, because they can’t sympathize, it’s like trying to feel a person’s pain over a broken femur when the worst you’ve ever had is a tummy ache… You imagine the pain of the broken femur to be as “bad” as the stomach pain because that’s the worst you can imagine… so when that femur patient is screaming in pain for a prolonged time, you might start to get super annoyed. After all, in your experience, pain cannot possibly be that bad.

Alright, that wasn’t the most accurate analogy, & I’ve never had a broken femur. But yeah, anxiety can be crippling. I remember having a huge panic attack in church once. Or twice…. Okay, a few times, during that time period. It would be from someone tapping me on the shoulder, or standing too close or something that right now seems ridiculous or small. Even right now, I can’t really remember what was happening in my life, what kind of choices I was making, or the way I interacted with people. That’s because I started getting medically treated for anxiety in the middle of February. Big. Huge. Difference.

You know those commercials for seasonal allergies or what-have-you, where there’s some lady who’s allergic to the outdoors & dogs & beach balls (because they’re in the ad too, for some reason), & then when she talks about the medication thingy, it’s like a film is lifted off the tv, & all of the colors are more vibrant & clear? That’s a bit what I felt like the first time I took one of those anxiety meds. The doctor told me to take them at night because they could make you drowsy, but I felt instantly awake. I could see things in the world around me. I could focus on my reading, my professors, and my conversations. I felt like myself again. I remembered all of my typical mannerisms, I was joking around with people, & I even started to feel comfortable standing close to friends. My eyes were open—I was blind, but now I see. & I looked back on the previous months that led to the meds, & got … frustrated. Who was that girl? What did she do to my life? What did she do to my arm? I’ve felt ‘normal’ ever since, really. Er, pretty much. There have been a couple slips here & there, but nothing as bad as before, & I always know what’s happening. That means I can remember how to get help, either by some calming down exercises, or by being able to seek for help from the people I love.

That’s another thing I got back: an ability to love. I reached out to people in the ward, & they became friends. I learned how to open my heart up to care about other people, to be able to feel the Spirit again and to come to understand a little bit of the type of love that God has for each of us. That is one thing that I never want to forget again, not even for a moment. It was probably the thing that kept me alive during those months, too. I have a super strong sense of duty (Kant would be proud), & while I could not remember or feel the truths of the gospel, I remembered that I knew them fervently at one point. I remember that I knew that I am a daughter of God, so when I felt ready to give up life, to give up hope, I kept going. I kept trying my best to live true to a life code that I had embraced before & embrace now, because part of me was still looking for that old me…

I am pretty sure that there were many, many people that were praying for me all those months. Maybe even fasting, who knows. All I know is that I could not have come back without all of that. Yes, the meds played a huge roll in that, but I mean… I don’t think I could have made it to that point if you weren’t looking out for me. So, because I don’t know who was praying for me, etc, I just want to say to you (that’s right, YOU): Thank you. Thank you for having faith. For coming to visit or home teach me even when I wasn’t much fun to talk with. For writing me a letter and helping me to see God’s love. For texting me randomly to tell me that you loved me. For cooking dinner so that I wouldn’t starve. For giving me a pep talk during the monstrous homework days… For watching Psych with me… For the spatulas, & the ice cream adventures… For being my friend…