#in all fairness though at the time i was unmedicated for paranoia and living in my sisters basement in a cabin in the middle of the woods so

[cardentist]

I’ve talked about how the misconception of hoodie and masky as proxies clashes with the plot of marble hornets before and how the implications of them being interpreted as proxies impacts the themes of tim’s characterization and storyline. (link)  that said, I’ve noticed that even people who Know they aren’t proxies still tend to interpret them as more violent or antagonistic than they really are, sometimes still interpreting them as working for or being controlled by the operator. 

so ! I wrote up a manifesto rambling on about my thoughts on why hoodie and masky come off as more threatening than they actually are, on what the operator’s influence actually is, and on masky’s role is as an alter. I’m putting it under a readmore for length ! so warning for major spoilers under the cut.

as a note, this is all based on my own understanding of the series, I don’t want to have to write “in my opinion” after everything I say so I’m saying it here fjlsdk

but to start with, I wanna address the idea of hoodie and masky (and even alex) being puppeted by the operator.

troy has gone out of his way to state multiple times that there are no proxies in marble hornets specifically to counter the notion that the operator has direct control of the characters’ actions at any point. the operator can affect people’s moods, their perception of reality, but it can’t puppet people’s actions. They’re in control of themselves even if they aren’t thinking clearly or rationally.

compare jay and alex. they were both unmedicated throughout the series (for the most part), and there’s evidence to suggest that jay was affected by the operator all the way back during the marble hornets shoot (he mentions how cold he feels just like tim, and he doesn’t remember alex’s change in behavior in the present at all), but they both were in Very different places mentally. it isn’t fair to just say that alex was more Violent than jay, we didn’t see much of him pre-operator but we were meant to get the idea that he was just a normal guy, but he had a very different reaction to the operator’s influence.

likewise, brian and tim were both taking medication throughout the series and Very Obviously had different reactions to the operator’s influence (brian self isolating and giving into paranoia while tim tried Very hard to live a normal life and get better despite his lack of support).  

if the operator could just control people’s actions then the differences in their personalities and environments wouldn’t have mattered. why bother creating an alter that’s less openly violent than alex was? why leave jay to be self destructive but ultimately harmless when he was vulnerable for so long? if the alters and changes in behavior were caused by a Direct influence by the operator, controlling what they Do rather than just how they feel, then they All should’ve been as murderous as alex was.

personally? I see masky as a protector that stemmed from tim’s childhood trauma. we don’t know exactly what happened for sure, like tim said we’ll never know if what he experienced was the operator or his own schizophrenia or both (or if the difference even matters), but we Do know that from his perspective he was locked in a room with a monster with nowhere to go and with no one to help him. the people who were Supposed to take care of him (his parents, his doctors) were the ones confining him there and he didn’t have anyone else in his life (brian was his first friend). that’s Plenty of reason for DID to occur naturally !

masky’s job as a protector would be to get tim (and the people important to him depending on the situation) away from danger by either fighting or running away, because tim didn’t Have the power to help himself when he needed it. moreover, that’d explain why masky tends to front in response to seizures and being Taken by the operator, it’d be to protect tim from whatever caused the pain (whether it can actually be protected against or not) And to deal with painful memories ! it’s a trauma response because masky exists in response To trauma and tim’s inability to cope with what happened to him on his own

so ! why does masky come off as so intimidating if he’s supposed to be a protector? because he was supposed to ! out of universe, the series was presented out of order with jay getting bits and pieces of what happened to slowly pull together a more complete narrative. hoodie and masky were written to Look like antagonists the first time through (in the same way that alex looked more sympathetic in the beginning), but slowly putting the pieces together makes their actual goals clearer as well as adds context to situations that made them look bad because of how they were presented in release order. this isn’t a failing of the storytelling by any means, we thought they were threatening because Jay thought they were threatening !

and well, in universe obviously part of it is that hoodie and masky are, you know,   running around wearing masks and acting shady, especially when you have no idea who they are or what they want. But a lot of times their actions Seem threatening but can either be explained by them purposefully appearing threatening to try to scare jay away from danger/into helping someone Or can be explained by them being affected by the operator in the same way that jay and alex were (more on that later :3c)

this distinction is important because hoodie and masky’s whole goal is to combat   alex and the operator ! the operator can make them more aggressive/act out in ways that they otherwise wouldn’t, but it isn’t making them do it’s bidding !

tbh the only thing holding me back from explaining every single instance where hoodie or masky come off as threatening is my own thinning self control, but the fact that I haven’t yet means that I have limited examples jlksfd. that said ! I can think of a couple!

the most obvious example of them being threatening on purpose was entry ####, when hoodie and masky stopped speaking in codes for the first time and made an overtly threatening video saying in no uncertain terms that they were coming to “get” jay just before the season 1 finale. They even posted it on His channel so he couldn’t ignore it. they Knew alex was going to go after jay, but they also knew that alex was watching him and watching them. if they warned him that alex was the one coming for him then alex wouldn’t make his move and would wait until jay was vulnerable again (plus the risk of him just not Believing them since at this point he had no reason to think that alex was truly dangerous). so they made Themselves the threat and scared jay out of his apartment before alex could burn him alive in it.

an example of them appearing threatening because of Circumstance and how the story was told is actually one series of events split up into several parts ! chronologically it starts with entry 52. alex invites jay and jessica into the woods, holds them at gunpoint, and tries to shoot them only to be tackled by masky. jessica and jay manage to run away and meet up at a hotel only to be tracked down by the operator. jay tackles it and he and jessica are knocked out and  have their memories wiped.

then jay wakes up in entry 27 with no idea what’s happened, and posts about exactly that to his youtube channel. both alex and totheark have been paying attention to jay’s channel and they both find out that jay and jessica are vulnerable at the same time. they don’t know exactly where jay and jessica are right off the bat, but jay made it clear that he wasn’t going anywhere. so it’s a race against the clock to see who can get to them first while not drawing any unwanted attention.

finally it’s jessica’s disappearance, split between entry 33 and 76! jay has Just posted about how he’s gonna leave with jessica to try to figure things out, and hoodie and masky both know that if alex had already found the hotel then that would’ve push him into action. So that’s what leads to 76 with hoodie and masky grabbing jessica to try to get her out of danger. masky carries her down the stairs and then sets her down outside before heading back into the hotel.

Cutting to entry 33, that’s when he confronts jay in his hotel room. At the time it Looked like he was attacking jay because we didn’t have the context, but this was Immediately following him trying to save jessica and him Successfully saving them from alex shooting them. Moreover, he didn’t actually try to hit or overpower jay (and considering he just finished carrying a grown unconscious woman over his shoulders down the stairs he definitely could’ve).

What’s more likely is that hoodie was going to carry jessica to safety while masky carried jay, and he only Didn’t because jay was conscious to fight him off. (why jessica was unconscious probably has to do with why jay and jessica lost their memories in the first place and why jessica didn’t seem to think anything was off at the end of the series, that’s to say that slenderman wanted alex to get to them and was likely thrown by hoodie and masky’s presence). masky was hauling ass because he was trying to get to jay before alex did and he was taken off guard by the fact that jay wasn’t out like jessica was !

so then back to 76! jessica wakes up and hoodie tries to help her through the woods only to get shot at by alex, alex tricks her into trusting him and tries to convince her that they’re both hoodie’s victims. when alex tries to take his second chance to kill her she grabs his gun and hoodie comes to beat his ass ! hoodie stayed close when he ran off so he could catch alex off guard ! Unfortunately the operator gets to her while they’re fighting each other off. it’s unclear exactly what happens but jessica gets taken and we see alex put his gun away. personally I think jessica was knocked out rather than shot and he was just retrieving it from her before she got taken (seeing as she’s still alive by the end of the series) though what happened to hoodie isn’t exactly clear beyond the fact that he lived.

so ! to put all of that shorter fjdksl hoodie and masky’s goal here was to protect jay and jessica from alex. masky came to stop alex from shooting them the first time and they both tracked jessica and jay down after they lost their memories because they knew alex would take the opportunity to try to kill them again. masky not being able to grab jay (or more accurately, getting throttled by jay jldsf) meant that he wasn’t there to help hoodie defend jessica against alex leading to her getting taken anyways. but it scared jay into escaping the hotel without having to encounter alex himself. That’s why jay said he understood. it isn’t just that tim had no control over his alter’s actions, it was that masky and hoodie Looked threatening but were actually trying to help. It’s just that tim had no way to know that when he found the tape originally.

and finally ! what I think is an example of masky coming off as threatening because of the operator’s influence, but specifically on Mood rather than action! This being the events of entry 61 and 62!

Hoodie wants to force jay and tim to team up, and he does so by acting as the villain to get jay to move again (while he had masky pose in front of the camera before it’s more likely that he planned and edited entry ####). He takes tim’s pills, tim goes into a seizure, the video cuts out, and hoodie tells jay to go find him. this is followed by masky attacking jay in the woods and them both waking up in the abandoned house in rosswood.

now before I say anything else, let's contrast this with jay in entry 82 and 77. jay tries to stake out the rosswood tunnel (the last place jessica was seen in the tape before she disappeared), and after not finding anything he calls tim to apologize, tell him that he understood, and to say he wanted to work with him again. He’s scared and he says that he thinks he’s seeing things, he Specifically sees the same abandoned building that they woke up in during 62 Moving Closer to him. Jay then has a seizure, the video cuts out, and tim never gets the phone call. the next time we see jay chronologically is 77, where he comes to tim with zip ties and his (piddly) pocket knife to try to “interrogate” him about jessica.

we don’t see exactly what happened to him after the video cuts out, but we know whatever it was affected his memory, made him far more aggressive and paranoid, and played into his anxiety and fears notching them up to 11 (like him shouting that it “wouldn’t have been (his) fault” when tim says that jessica is gone playing into the fact that jay blames himself for losing jessica when she was one room over).

it’s the exact same situation with masky. 61 and 62 follows tim and jay’s blowout in the parking lot and jay sharing tim’s medical records online. at this point tim had a lot of anxiety and frustration surrounding jay. so when masky woke up after tim’s seizure, shaken up by the operator, he saw jay as a threat to tim’s safety in the same way that jay saw Tim as a threat keeping him from finding jessica. the operator is Most Likely responsible for teleporting them both to the abandoned house and teleporting masky specifically to the woods !

the operator causing aggression is pretty much a constant ! though how much a specific person reacts to it depends on the situation, the amount of exposure they’ve had and how recent it was, and how much Help the person has access to (like medication, support, and solidarity). alex became an Extremely aggressive person, and it wasn’t just because of the stress of the situation. he self isolated and didn’t have access to medication. he fell into paranoia and catastrophizing, deciding that everyone around him either deserved to be mercy killed to save them from the operator or saw them as a threat spreading the sickness to other people.

That’s why he went easier on jay at first. He was trying to kill him from the beginning, but he tolerated more from him because he saw jay as someone that needed to be saved from his fate. It isn’t until his mental health declined even further and jay continued to get in his way that his attitude changed, giving us who he was at the very end.

we also know that audio/visual glitches are signs of the operator, and you’ll notice the audio glitching when people yell Throughout the series. the three standouts for me being alex yelling “I’ll kill you” after hoodie and masky try to smash his head in with a rock, tim yelling “but what if I’m right” while he’s spiraling thinking about how he could’ve been the cause of all of this while telling jay about his backstory, and jay yelling “I need it” after tim refuses to leave the camera for him when jay is zip tied on the floor.

the operator causes paranoia and aggression as a baseline, it just affects everyone to different degrees at different times depending on their access to help and how direct the operator is being with its influence, hoodie and masky are no different !

that doesn’t make their actions Okay, alex isn’t off the hook for Murder, but it does make them all Victims and it does mean that they deserved help (think back to tim offering to help alex during their final confrontation, even after everything).

All of that to say ! while hoodie and masky come off as threatening, their overall goals are to be helpful, they just tend to act extremely because of the situation they’re in on top of dealing with the same operator-influenced aggression and paranoia that everyone else is trying to manage. This is only emphasized by the method of storytelling deliberately obscuring the order of events to make them appear more threatening than they really are on top of their own attempts to scare jay out of harm's way.

I’ve gone on just, frankly way too long. so ! if you’re interested in more meta about how mental illness ties into the core Themes of marble hornets as well as misconceptions in the fandom (and specifically some dunking on night mind’s masky theory jlkfsd) I have a google doc where I’ve been just, chewing on it here (link)

it’s written like it’s laying out points for a response video that I’m frankly never gonna make, but I’ve been putting off making a post about it instead for This Exact Reason (this post is just over 5 pages in google docs jlkfds). and if you’d like to do more research on DID and OSDD there’s an Excellent playlist with resources ! the uploader has OSDD and they have other playlists as well that are worth checking out too ^^ (link)

[jesseneufeld]

Feeling Happy and Healthy, Medication-Free

It’s Monday, everyone! And that means another Primal Blueprint Real Life Story from a Mark’s Daily Apple reader. If you have your own success story and would like to share it with me and the Mark’s Daily Apple community please contact me here. I’ll continue to publish these each Monday as long as they keep coming in. Thank you for reading!

Folks, I have been grateful for every story that has come my way over the years. It’s an incredible privilege being on the receiving end of your reflections and evolutions, and they are why I’ve kept at it all these years—knowing the message and information have made a difference in people’s lives. I appreciate every single one. I’ll add that today’s has inspired me on a new level. It’s a powerful narrative and huge testament to the impact of diet and lifestyle on our mental well-being. Thank you to reader, Megan, for sharing her strength, tenacity and hope with others today. 

Hi everyone. Mark recently requested success stories and work-in-progress stories. I’ve been meaning to write for a while, and took that to be my personal kick in the butt. I am a work-in-progress story. I was waiting until I was a success story, but as you will see even though my journey isn’t complete, I already am a success story. I have found inspiration from other stories, even the work-in-progress and failure stories; it is good to see that imperfections exist, and it is ok to fail. I can only hope to inspire others. Because, my story is one of hope—hope for myself and hope for others like me.

I had a difficult upbringing with a mother who had an undiagnosed and unmedicated mental illness. She tried the best she could to be a mother, but she was overly critical toward me and even competitive with me. I would hide in the outdoors, books and food. Secretly eating a bag of cookies by myself or hiding Halloween candy that I would binge off of when she wasn’t looking. I lived solely off macaroni and cheese for dinner (yes, every night) for about a year and a half in fourth and fifth grade until I suddenly couldn’t stomach the smell anymore (At 40, I still can’t to this day). Friends in middle school and high school thought it was amusing how hyper I would get from sugar and would feed me pixie sticks and other candies on purpose. You would think that I was extremely overweight with these eating habits, but I was active as a child through high school (marching band, track, hiking, cycling) and looked every bit the “normal kid,” albeit an emotionally scarred one; I was happy and bubbly on the exterior but falling apart inside. I was regularly sick with sinus infections or bronchitis. When I hit puberty, my mother’s criticism’s turned to fat shaming me even though I was actually technically underweight. I refused to eat healthy foods as a way to rebel against my mom. I excelled in school and read more books than ever as a way to escape.

I started to exhibit signs of a mood disorder when I was in high school with extreme bouts of depression and some episodes of rage, typically around “that time of the month.” The beginnings of grandiose ideas also manifested, on occasion. The depression was severe enough for me to have suicidal ideations, but no actual attempts. The depressive lows continued into college, but then the highs started to come. I would not be able to sleep until 3 or 4 in the morning and then wake up ready to go at 6 am for days on end. Then I would crash and swing back to extreme lows and want to sleep for hours. I didn’t realize anything was wrong until I went to the health fair at school. On a whim I filled out a “how are you feeling questionnaire.” I checked off a few boxes, handed it over and thought nothing of it. I was so used to feeling the mood swings; including extreme depression that I thought that feeling that way was “normal.” The staff at the tent looked over the results and was so concerned that they would not let me leave. They walked me right over to the mental health clinic to get checked out. That fall (2000), I was diagnosed with Bipolar I. Around the same time I also was diagnosed with an underactive thyroid and began thyroid hormone support.

Enter a series of different cocktails of psychiatric medications. My weight yo-yo’d along with all the side effects of the various medications (mood stabilizers, anti-psychotics, anti-depressants, benzodiazepines). I continued to have all the classic symptoms of Bipolar I, grandiose ideas, paranoia, severe depression, anxiety. I wouldn’t allow myself to have a credit card because I couldn’t trust that I wouldn’t spend the whole thing in a matter of a couple of months. I made one major attempt to take my life by intentionally overdosing on about 40 slow-release lithium tablets (please do not try this; after dialysis I am lucky to be alive and not a vegetable). I was also hospitalized on several occasions for short inpatient psychiatric treatment stays. I didn’t have many friends because I wasn’t stable enough to be a reliable friend. People didn’t know how to behave around me and treated me differently, like someone who needed extra care instead of just like anyone else. I went through various cocktails of medications and found I responded better to the older, but that I was never truly “stable.” I tell this part of my life story not to shock, but to say that there is hope for healing. I want to show how far I have come and how far it is possible for others to go by adopting the Primal Blueprint. Photo: me in 2007 after several years of medication.

I went back and forth with running over the years as a way to lose the weight that the medications put on. Running also became an addiction and a meditation for me; a different way to escape reality. Add in my rescue border collie to run with, and I was in heaven. Running with her was my happy place. It saw me through broken friendships, a divorce and meeting the incredibly supportive and loving husband I have been with for the past 10 years. On the first date I told him my diagnosis, and he said “ok, let’s do this.” My friends told me I was crazy to tell him. I guess they didn’t know my diagnosis…. Photo: happy wedding day. (Me in 2013.)

Without realizing it, running made me sick with more inflammation. I ran six half marathons and one full marathon before quitting due to severe tendonitis in one ankle. At this point I was frustrated. I had been heavily medicated for over 15 years and never really felt well; I felt like I was hiding behind a veil and not letting people see my true self. I started doing research on scholarly articles for how gluten and casein could play a role in exacerbating mood disorders. I decided to eliminate gluten from my diet. Within a week my husband asked where my stomach had gone. I had been so bloated for as long as I could remember that I thought it was normal.

Nursing my ankle back to health and still feeling frustrated, I continued with my research and somehow stumbled on Mark’s Daily Apple in early 2016. AND IT ALL CLICKED. The pieces of the puzzle finally came together. The health and environmental impacts of following the PB made complete sense and I was all in. I was already GF, but I started adopting more of the PB principles. We bought organic grass-fed meats from the local farm, ate organic veggies. I ditched process foods and sugar. I stopped drinking caffeine. I identified that gluten, caffeine and sugar gave me anxiety, and that dairy gave me depression. I eventually also ditched alcohol, which I realized also caused depression and sleep disturbances. I went from brittle nails to being irritated with how often I had to trim them. The extra 25 pounds slowly fell off over the next year and a half. I was on the lowest maintenance doses of my medications ever. My period was normal for the first time in my life ever, regular and with no PMS.

This is me on vacation in St. Croix in 2017 – I’m at my healthiest ever but still medicated.

I was doing kundalini yoga at the time and without realizing the power of the practice, I put myself into a manic state. Despite my pleas not to, I finally agreed with the psychiatrist to go back on Zyprexa. This medication destroyed my gut microbiome I had worked so hard to repair, and I gained 20 pounds back in a matter of two months. Once I was off the Zyprexa, I continued to eat Primally, but not as well as I had been. My psychiatrist is thankfully one who is a bit more progressive than most. He listened to me tell him that I felt like I was pinging back and forth on low doses of mood stabilizers to anti-depressants. He decided to take me off medication and see what happens. After 17 years of psychiatric medications, I took my last dose Thanksgiving of 2017. If that isn’t a success story, then I don’t know what is.

A year and a half later, I am still struggling to lose the weight, and have my periods back to normal. I struggle with sleep on a regular basis. I am working with a naturopath to identify supplements that support the methylation pathway issues we identified, and sleep is slowly normalizing. But I am still off psychiatric medication and my thyroid hormone medication dose has slowly been lowered by a third of what it was two years ago. I have had no paranoia, and no mania. I have not been hospitalized in almost three years. I have had only minor bouts of depression, mostly associated with hormones.

I can’t do the 80/20 rule like most folks can and am much closer to a 100% rule. That works for me, but doesn’t work for everyone. I do not eat gluten, except for maybe one special “treat” while on vacation once or twice a year. I do not eat dairy. I meditate and practice mindfulness and compassion. I do yoga, hike, walk, play with my dogs, and do body weight exercises when I am up for them. I use a kettlebell for my sprints once every week or two. I run a 5k once a month to get my running in but won’t allow myself to do more than that. I have embraced minimalist shoes 100% of the time, if I am not allowed to be barefoot (happy ankles and feet again). I have slowly been reducing my need for glasses for myopia. I began removing environmental toxins from my life years before I discovered the PB. Allergies are less severe and I have much less frequent sinus infections, and, when I get them I recover much quicker. So, while I feel like I am struggling to get back to where I was and feeling really frustrated, I have to remind myself that I already am a success story. My psychiatrist now jokes that I am a boring person for him and has discussed discharging me. He asked what I think precipitated the illness. I really don’t know the answer, but my guess is an unchecked thyroid condition (my antibodies were negative the one time I checked, so I don’t know if I have an autoimmune condition), a really bad diet, emotional trauma as a child and extreme stress. I don’t know the answer, but I guess it doesn’t really matter because I have a way to manage my symptoms.

This is me in the early morning after hiking to the top of Moro Rock in Sequoia NP in 2018. Feeling healthy and happy being medication free! Mark, my husband, my dogs, my family, my friends and I thank you for saving my life. My psychiatrist told me several years ago that of all the people he treats with Bipolar I, only about 25% are able to function in society (complete college and hold a successful and functional place in the career world/society). Statistics indicate that I would have eventually either taken my life or the psychiatric medications would have done it for me. Thank you again for saving my life and giving hope to others. I’ve often been told that I am strong to have been through so much and made it this far. My husband tells me how much he admires that I get up and face the world every day even though all I want to do is curl up with the dogs and a book in bed. He asked if I was scared what people might say if they found my story. It doesn’t matter. I’ve found that people are too quick to dismiss me because of a label. I’m sick of being a label and an outcast. If my story is out there and can help one person, then I feel fulfilled. Because maybe someone else is out there looking for another way, but they can’t find it because someone didn’t speak up to tell them that there might be. I really appreciate you giving me a way to take back control of my life. Thank you for giving me the means to help myself. Hopefully my story can provide help and hope for others.

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[lauramalchowblog]

Feeling Happy and Healthy, Medication-Free

It’s Monday, everyone! And that means another Primal Blueprint Real Life Story from a Mark’s Daily Apple reader. If you have your own success story and would like to share it with me and the Mark’s Daily Apple community please contact me here. I’ll continue to publish these each Monday as long as they keep coming in. Thank you for reading!

Folks, I have been grateful for every story that has come my way over the years. It’s an incredible privilege being on the receiving end of your reflections and evolutions, and they are why I’ve kept at it all these years—knowing the message and information have made a difference in people’s lives. I appreciate every single one. I’ll add that today’s has inspired me on a new level. It’s a powerful narrative and huge testament to the impact of diet and lifestyle on our mental well-being. Thank you to reader, Megan, for sharing her strength, tenacity and hope with others today. 

Hi everyone. Mark recently requested success stories and work-in-progress stories. I’ve been meaning to write for a while, and took that to be my personal kick in the butt. I am a work-in-progress story. I was waiting until I was a success story, but as you will see even though my journey isn’t complete, I already am a success story. I have found inspiration from other stories, even the work-in-progress and failure stories; it is good to see that imperfections exist, and it is ok to fail. I can only hope to inspire others. Because, my story is one of hope—hope for myself and hope for others like me.

I had a difficult upbringing with a mother who had an undiagnosed and unmedicated mental illness. She tried the best she could to be a mother, but she was overly critical toward me and even competitive with me. I would hide in the outdoors, books and food. Secretly eating a bag of cookies by myself or hiding Halloween candy that I would binge off of when she wasn’t looking. I lived solely off macaroni and cheese for dinner (yes, every night) for about a year and a half in fourth and fifth grade until I suddenly couldn’t stomach the smell anymore (At 40, I still can’t to this day). Friends in middle school and high school thought it was amusing how hyper I would get from sugar and would feed me pixie sticks and other candies on purpose. You would think that I was extremely overweight with these eating habits, but I was active as a child through high school (marching band, track, hiking, cycling) and looked every bit the “normal kid,” albeit an emotionally scarred one; I was happy and bubbly on the exterior but falling apart inside. I was regularly sick with sinus infections or bronchitis. When I hit puberty, my mother’s criticism’s turned to fat shaming me even though I was actually technically underweight. I refused to eat healthy foods as a way to rebel against my mom. I excelled in school and read more books than ever as a way to escape.

I started to exhibit signs of a mood disorder when I was in high school with extreme bouts of depression and some episodes of rage, typically around “that time of the month.” The beginnings of grandiose ideas also manifested, on occasion. The depression was severe enough for me to have suicidal ideations, but no actual attempts. The depressive lows continued into college, but then the highs started to come. I would not be able to sleep until 3 or 4 in the morning and then wake up ready to go at 6 am for days on end. Then I would crash and swing back to extreme lows and want to sleep for hours. I didn’t realize anything was wrong until I went to the health fair at school. On a whim I filled out a “how are you feeling questionnaire.” I checked off a few boxes, handed it over and thought nothing of it. I was so used to feeling the mood swings; including extreme depression that I thought that feeling that way was “normal.” The staff at the tent looked over the results and was so concerned that they would not let me leave. They walked me right over to the mental health clinic to get checked out. That fall (2000), I was diagnosed with Bipolar I. Around the same time I also was diagnosed with an underactive thyroid and began thyroid hormone support.

Enter a series of different cocktails of psychiatric medications. My weight yo-yo’d along with all the side effects of the various medications (mood stabilizers, anti-psychotics, anti-depressants, benzodiazepines). I continued to have all the classic symptoms of Bipolar I, grandiose ideas, paranoia, severe depression, anxiety. I wouldn’t allow myself to have a credit card because I couldn’t trust that I wouldn’t spend the whole thing in a matter of a couple of months. I made one major attempt to take my life by intentionally overdosing on about 40 slow-release lithium tablets (please do not try this; after dialysis I am lucky to be alive and not a vegetable). I was also hospitalized on several occasions for short inpatient psychiatric treatment stays. I didn’t have many friends because I wasn’t stable enough to be a reliable friend. People didn’t know how to behave around me and treated me differently, like someone who needed extra care instead of just like anyone else. I went through various cocktails of medications and found I responded better to the older, but that I was never truly “stable.” I tell this part of my life story not to shock, but to say that there is hope for healing. I want to show how far I have come and how far it is possible for others to go by adopting the Primal Blueprint. Photo: me in 2007 after several years of medication.

I went back and forth with running over the years as a way to lose the weight that the medications put on. Running also became an addiction and a meditation for me; a different way to escape reality. Add in my rescue border collie to run with, and I was in heaven. Running with her was my happy place. It saw me through broken friendships, a divorce and meeting the incredibly supportive and loving husband I have been with for the past 10 years. On the first date I told him my diagnosis, and he said “ok, let’s do this.” My friends told me I was crazy to tell him. I guess they didn’t know my diagnosis…. Photo: happy wedding day. (Me in 2013.)

Without realizing it, running made me sick with more inflammation. I ran six half marathons and one full marathon before quitting due to severe tendonitis in one ankle. At this point I was frustrated. I had been heavily medicated for over 15 years and never really felt well; I felt like I was hiding behind a veil and not letting people see my true self. I started doing research on scholarly articles for how gluten and casein could play a role in exacerbating mood disorders. I decided to eliminate gluten from my diet. Within a week my husband asked where my stomach had gone. I had been so bloated for as long as I could remember that I thought it was normal.

Nursing my ankle back to health and still feeling frustrated, I continued with my research and somehow stumbled on Mark’s Daily Apple in early 2016. AND IT ALL CLICKED. The pieces of the puzzle finally came together. The health and environmental impacts of following the PB made complete sense and I was all in. I was already GF, but I started adopting more of the PB principles. We bought organic grass-fed meats from the local farm, ate organic veggies. I ditched process foods and sugar. I stopped drinking caffeine. I identified that gluten, caffeine and sugar gave me anxiety, and that dairy gave me depression. I eventually also ditched alcohol, which I realized also caused depression and sleep disturbances. I went from brittle nails to being irritated with how often I had to trim them. The extra 25 pounds slowly fell off over the next year and a half. I was on the lowest maintenance doses of my medications ever. My period was normal for the first time in my life ever, regular and with no PMS.

This is me on vacation in St. Croix in 2017 – I’m at my healthiest ever but still medicated.

I was doing kundalini yoga at the time and without realizing the power of the practice, I put myself into a manic state. Despite my pleas not to, I finally agreed with the psychiatrist to go back on Zyprexa. This medication destroyed my gut microbiome I had worked so hard to repair, and I gained 20 pounds back in a matter of two months. Once I was off the Zyprexa, I continued to eat Primally, but not as well as I had been. My psychiatrist is thankfully one who is a bit more progressive than most. He listened to me tell him that I felt like I was pinging back and forth on low doses of mood stabilizers to anti-depressants. He decided to take me off medication and see what happens. After 17 years of psychiatric medications, I took my last dose Thanksgiving of 2017. If that isn’t a success story, then I don’t know what is.

A year and a half later, I am still struggling to lose the weight, and have my periods back to normal. I struggle with sleep on a regular basis. I am working with a naturopath to identify supplements that support the methylation pathway issues we identified, and sleep is slowly normalizing. But I am still off psychiatric medication and my thyroid hormone medication dose has slowly been lowered by a third of what it was two years ago. I have had no paranoia, and no mania. I have not been hospitalized in almost three years. I have had only minor bouts of depression, mostly associated with hormones.

I can’t do the 80/20 rule like most folks can and am much closer to a 100% rule. That works for me, but doesn’t work for everyone. I do not eat gluten, except for maybe one special “treat” while on vacation once or twice a year. I do not eat dairy. I meditate and practice mindfulness and compassion. I do yoga, hike, walk, play with my dogs, and do body weight exercises when I am up for them. I use a kettlebell for my sprints once every week or two. I run a 5k once a month to get my running in but won’t allow myself to do more than that. I have embraced minimalist shoes 100% of the time, if I am not allowed to be barefoot (happy ankles and feet again). I have slowly been reducing my need for glasses for myopia. I began removing environmental toxins from my life years before I discovered the PB. Allergies are less severe and I have much less frequent sinus infections, and, when I get them I recover much quicker. So, while I feel like I am struggling to get back to where I was and feeling really frustrated, I have to remind myself that I already am a success story. My psychiatrist now jokes that I am a boring person for him and has discussed discharging me. He asked what I think precipitated the illness. I really don’t know the answer, but my guess is an unchecked thyroid condition (my antibodies were negative the one time I checked, so I don’t know if I have an autoimmune condition), a really bad diet, emotional trauma as a child and extreme stress. I don’t know the answer, but I guess it doesn’t really matter because I have a way to manage my symptoms.

This is me in the early morning after hiking to the top of Moro Rock in Sequoia NP in 2018. Feeling healthy and happy being medication free! Mark, my husband, my dogs, my family, my friends and I thank you for saving my life. My psychiatrist told me several years ago that of all the people he treats with Bipolar I, only about 25% are able to function in society (complete college and hold a successful and functional place in the career world/society). Statistics indicate that I would have eventually either taken my life or the psychiatric medications would have done it for me. Thank you again for saving my life and giving hope to others. I’ve often been told that I am strong to have been through so much and made it this far. My husband tells me how much he admires that I get up and face the world every day even though all I want to do is curl up with the dogs and a book in bed. He asked if I was scared what people might say if they found my story. It doesn’t matter. I’ve found that people are too quick to dismiss me because of a label. I’m sick of being a label and an outcast. If my story is out there and can help one person, then I feel fulfilled. Because maybe someone else is out there looking for another way, but they can’t find it because someone didn’t speak up to tell them that there might be. I really appreciate you giving me a way to take back control of my life. Thank you for giving me the means to help myself. Hopefully my story can provide help and hope for others.

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