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Welcome to My Personal Hell...Did You All Have Fun?

OCTOBER 30, 2017—Tonight I’m in a cornfield touted as a thrilling Halloween haunt. I didn’t know my friends would be bringing me here. My stomach aches as dark melodies float through waves of fog and flashing strobes. I’m forced by the crowd into dark corners with threatening figures and painted masks. Then I’m funneled slowly toward a smoking, broken-down bus labeled, “Psychiatric Ward.” I step inside. A pale woman sits in the back muttering and rocking quietly. Back and forth. I’m pushed closer. Back and forth. Closer. Back and forth. She screams violently and my body shakes. She thrashes and writhes. Her restraints pull her back. Muttering. Screaming. Shaking. Rocking. Welcome to my nightmares. Welcome to my personal hell. Did you all have fun? In 2015 I was diagnosed with major depressive disorder. I was a sophomore in college. That semester I thought about killing myself every day. I withdrew from school. I lost my scholarship. I could’ve lost more. Two years later I find that ver...
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Tick Tock

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“Lord, how ashamed I should be of not being married before three and twenty!” Pride and Prejudice Vol. II Ch. XVI  “So—are you married?”  “No.”  “Are you dating anyone?”  “No.”  “How old are you?”  “24.”  [ Insert uncomfortable pause here .]  “Well, I’m sure it will happen soon.”  Welcome to my world.  For those of my readers who are, as of yet, unfamiliar with my cultural surroundings, let me explain: My quaint college town hosts a very religious community. That religious community cares a lot about marriage and family. Also, this place is saturated with literally thousands of intelligent and attractive young men and women; they are in search of eternal life and an eternal partner to share it with. Privately, my sister and I compare this remarkable phenomenon to the “land that floweth with milk and honey.” As a faithful member of my congregation I know it is my life mission to date, to marry, and to ...
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Shhh

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As the sun sets on my four-year undergraduate study of human health, I find I can summarize my learning quite succinctly: Eat well, sleep well, exercise. Behold, the foundation of my formal education; the simple tenets of healthy living. Naturally, as a full-time college student with two part-time jobs, I keep up on project deadlines, final exams, graduate school interviews, community and church service, all while fully living up to that creed to eat well, sleep well, and exercise. Ha. Just kidding. Decembers can be particularly rough with the hustle and bustle of the season, accompanied by my poor coping skills, and more recently my senioritis. It's hard to manage all the tests and the presentations and the grocery shopping and the patients trying to meet their deductibles; not to mention the cookies that need delivering next door, and those special gifts that need to be got! Sometimes I become so preoccupied with the urgent “to-do’s” of each day, I even fail to practice wh...
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Happily Breathing

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October 17th.  I remember October 17th. It was a Saturday night. The weather was good. My brothers had insisted on taking me to a poetry slam, so I sat for an hour in the melancholy ambiance of aspiring poets until I received permission to leave. Meanwhile the sweetest girl you ever knew put the finishing touches on a surprise party she realized too late I didn’t want. I came home to a full house, ate a taco, snapped at my brother in front of all my friends, gave out some hugs and a “thank you for coming,” then snuck away to my room to cry. That’s when I knew—alone in a dark corner with the sound of dear friends and family on the other side of the door—that’s when I knew I wanted to die. I don't always say it, and I don't always show it, but I am truly grateful for every breath I have ever breathed since that day two years ago. Today I am not only breathing, but happy about it too. Life is so good, whether I deserve it or not.   Recently, I was reminded of a...
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From the Mouth of a Virgin

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It was a lovely April morning.  The sun shone, the tulips bloomed, the mountains beckoned, and I was inside staring at a computer screen in the Harold B. Lee Library reading my next chapter for class.  Ever the devoted student.  Minutes later I was greeted by a handsome young man I know. "What are you up to?" He inquires cheerfully. "Just working on a reading assignment."  I smile politely. "Oh yeah?  What are you reading about?"  He asks with interest. "Female orgasms!" I express articulately. He blushes.  Heads turn.  He never speaks to me again. No, that didn't happen.  I thought it best not to draw unnecessary attention to myself in the hub of an academic library.  I got a lot of funny looks last time when I was studying cross-sections of male penises.  Nevertheless, I was in fact reading a book on female orgasms, and thoroughly enjoying myself. Sex. Isn't it fascinating what kinds of emotions foll...
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Have You Seen My Shoe?

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When I pour juice it spills onto the table.  When I stir a pot my food ends up on the floor.  Water dribbles down my chin with alarming frequency as if I've forgotten how my mouth works since the last time I took a drink.  Somehow I get grease stains whenever I wear tan pants to work from gym equipment I don't even use.  My life is full of unconsciously accumulated bumps and bruises and tiny scratches that bleed all over my clothes before I discover I need to buy more band-aids.  I missed the exit to the airport and drove my family 40 minutes in the wrong direction.  Then the gas light came on. Such is life for the incompetent. Unfortunately--more for the quick-tempered than for the patient--I have discovered a world full of creatures very much like me.  It is called Earth.  Here we do all sorts of silly things: lose important papers we've been safekeeping all week, forget to set a timer for the burning bread in the oven.  I've even hea...
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September 4, 1996

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“Let’s pick some serious subjects like famine, and drought, and pestilence... I don’t want to have to smile.” -Rob, The Dick Van Dyke Show September 4 ,  1996 “The summer is over now, but I had to write about what a wonderful little swimmer you turned into.  You even jumped off the diving board at the city pool and swam to the side all by yourself.  I am very proud of you.  One day we were swimming at the neighbor’s pool.  You had a whole bunch of little plastic Barbie figures all lined up in a neat row along the side of the pool.  Stephen came along and knocked them over.  You were very mad at him.  You gave him a big scowl and shouted, ‘You Traitor!’  I think Bradley taught you that one. “I have been very depressed and blue lately.  I will be having another baby in about two weeks.  I can’t remember a time in my life when I’ve been more down hearted and miserable....
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