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My Life with Bipolar Disorder

It has been more than three years since Bipolar II Disorder has become a part of my life. I never thought I would be diagnosed with a mental illness; it was always something that I thought that could happen to other people but not to me. Sometimes we are unaware that the very thing we thought we would never be vulnerable to could also happen to us and change our lives. It has been humbling to realize my fragility as a human being; how much my mind can let me down during my bouts of depression and hypomania. It is not a matter of being a strong or a weak person or a good or a bad one, life can deal us with the unexpected and all we can do is pick up the pieces and continue living. I have been taking medication since my diagnosis to stabilize my mood swings but there is always the unsaid fear that I may never be able to fully trust my emotions again. Am I just having a bad day when it takes me so much effort to drag myself out of bed and go about my daily activities; when I can’t stand to be around even the people I love the most or is it a signal of another depressive episode? Am I just feeling happy because of some good news or is it a sign of impending hypomania that could get out of control? Could having disrupted sleep for a few days because of schoolwork become a trigger for another episode and send me spiraling into the depths of depression or the elevated highs of hypomania? Sometimes, I get tired of taking my medication; I just want to be normal. But then I remember the darkest moments of my life when I was going through depression or the unnatural highs when my brain raced with thoughts beyond my control in the throes of hypomania, and I am grateful that the medications work well enough for me to put me in a stable state mind. But more than my struggle with mental illness or my occasional resentments of my medication, I find peace in the fact that God is still there with me and loves me unconditionally through it all. I believe ultimately my health in His hands and I give the rest of my life to Him. For Jesus who laid His life for me, who loved me at the darkest and lowest and ugliest moments of my life; who did not give up on me when I loathed myself so much and wanted to die with all my heart in order to escape the unbearable feeling that there was nothing left worth living for. I don’t know what the future holds; there will be many things in my life that I may never be able to make sense of but through it all I choose to give my doubts and worries to Him. There will always be times when a part of me is afraid of having to go through severe depression or hypomania again and what would happen to my life plans if it did. But I also know that no matter what happens, it will be well with me not because everything is good but because the God who loves me unconditionally and faithfully, through all my highs and lows and through all my mood swings, He is always there with me.

“You give and take away, you give and take away, my heart will still choose to say, Lord, blessed be your name.”

~ Yedidya Erque

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Post-You Are Not Alone Thoughts

Take care of yourself after You Are Not Alone – and always!

YANA is a great night of showing solidarity and support for your friends and the Williams community--but it can also be an emotionally difficult time for many people. Something that is as equally important to showing your support to others is showing support to yourself, and the Mental Health Committee has come up with a few ways that you can take care of yourself post-YANA tonight.

Talk with a friend. Or your parents. Or a Psych Services counselor (who will be staying after YANA for this purpose). On the phone, or in person, if there’s something on your mind that you would like to share or just get off your chest, talking with someone you trust about it will be helpful to processing difficult feelings or just understanding your emotions.

Write about it! You are welcome to submit a blog post to MHC (http://williamsmhc.tumblr.com/). Any length is accepted. Any topic. Any time.

Listen to music. This is a good one from a fellow MHC-er. https://soundcloud.com/candice-dyce/sets/everythingsgood

Watch a movie. Or a few. I love Stranger Than Fiction (Will Ferell, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Emma Thompson, Queen Latifah), Forrest Gump, and The Incredibles. Take a night off (or just a few hours), grab some food from snackbar, and watch something you like in bed! Give yourself time to unwind.

Exercise! Go to the gym for a quick workout, or maybe do some yoga with the Williams YogEphs.

On-Campus Resources:

Psychiatric Services: Make an appointment with Psych Services for individual counseling sessions, psychiatric evaluations, or group therapy. You can also consult a counselor about concern for a friend. Call (413) 597-2353 or email Kim at ktrembla@williams.edu to make an appointment.

Chaplain’s Office: Reach out to any of the religious advisors for spiritual direction, counseling, and workshop service by contacting Ms.Luczynski at (413) 597-2483 or Nancy.Luczynski@williams.edu.

Davis Center: Stop by the Davis Center for an collaboration and dialogue about complex issues surrounding race, class, gender, sexuality, ability, et cetera.

Dean’s Office:  Call (413) 597-4171 to contact any Dean about psychological and health concerns, as they relate to academics.

Emergencies: Urgent concerns can be made by calling the Health Center at (413) 597-2206 for the on-call counselor.

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Tips from Neal - How to Help a Friend Coping with Loss

This week we have some thoughtful tips from Neal on how to help a friend coping with less. A lot of insightful ideas on what is helpful and what might not be so helpful.

Things you may say or do

Check in on them  

Express that you are there to listen 

Acknowledge their loss 

Ask them how they are feeling  

Acknowledge feelings and their unique experience

Acknowledge the pain and difficulty of the loss 

Make yourself available  

Briefly share your own experience with loss

Be genuine 

Use the deceased person’s name in conversation

Attend the memorial service

Share memories about the person that passed 

Offer to help with specific things such as cooking or errands 

Offer a hug 

Be willing to sit in silence with them 

Write them a personal note

Invite them to cook, do an art activity, or go on a hike with you

Take them out to lunch or dinner 

Look for warning signs of depression after the initial grieving period and suggest getting help if applicable

Be there throughout the grieving process 

Things to Stay Away From 

Saying

I know exactly how you feel

Time heals all wounds

They are in a better place now

There is a reason for everything

Telling someone

How they should or will feel 

To be strong 

Trying to 

Fix or rationalize the loss 

Minimize the loss due to our discomfort 

Put a timeline on the loss 

Sharing religious beliefs without knowing the person religious or spiritual orientation 

Change someone’s feeling

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Keep up to date with the great work being done to create a community and additional resources for students who have taken time off from school or are considering taking time off.

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Academic Resources

Know your resources. Ask for the help you need.

If you suspect that a condition or situation is going to impact your academic performance, you should absolutely contact the director of academic resources to advocate for yourself. (Interim Director is Jean Grant, jmg4@williams.edu)

Resources that have been given in the past:

Alternate Testing (Tests given orally, etc)

American Sign Language Interpretation

Books on Tape (all your text books and course packets converted into audiobook format)

Enlarged Print Text (all your reading materials converted to larger text)

Housing for a Support Animal

Permission to use a Keyboard in Class or on an Exam

Lectures Spoken into a Microphone

Mobility Instruction around Campus

Note Taker for you in Class

Request of Professors to write in Print, not cursive

Copy of all Projected Materials delivered to you (powerpoints, etc)

Reader for Exams

Reduced Course Load (3 courses each semester, where financial aid covers 9 semesters)

Scribe in Class or on Exams (someone else writes your answers for you)

Seating in front of class

Separate Room for Exams

Tape Recordings of all Classes

Extra Time on Exams (1.5x or 2x)

This is not a comprehensive list! Each year new resources and accommodations are added!

Some common conditions that have warranted accommodations in the past:

Anxiety

Asperger’s Syndrome

Attention Deficit Disorder

Bipolar Disorder

Chronic Illness

Concussions

Depression

Dyslexia

Hearing Impairment

Legally Blind

Migraines

Non-Verbal Learning Disabilities

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

Recovering Alcoholics

Stuttering

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Tips From Neal - Some Tips for Stabilizing Your Mood and Managing Bipolar Disorder

We’re excited to have our second of many Tips from Neal! Neal is a counselor from psych services who was kind enough to write up some tips and guides about mental health, support, and self-care which we’ll be sharing over the next few weeks.

Seek Consultation:  If you are unsure if you have bipolar disorder, it is important to seek consultation from a professional to find out.  Without effective treatment manic and depressive episodes can increase in intensity and duration.

Build a Daily Routine: Having a regular schedule can play a large role in stabilizing your mood.  Set specific times for sleep, studying, eating, exercising, and socializing.     

Refrain from Excessive Substance Use:  Because the nature of substances is to alter your mood, the excessive use of substances can undermine your efforts to stabilize your mood. 

Monitor your mood: Noticing and attending to minor shifts in moods and energy levels can prevent depressive and manic episodes from occurring.  You can keep a daily mood journal or make it a regular practice to check-in with yourself.     

Focus on Stress Reduction: High levels of stress can trigger manic and depressive episodes. It is important to notice stressors in your life and develop a strategy to manage your stress. Examples of stressors could be feeling overwhelmed by school work or having a conflict with a friend or family member. Ways to reduce may include taking time out of your day for physical exercise, grabbing coffee with a friend, doing an art activity, or writing in your journal.

Be Compassionate with Yourself:  Having a compassionate attitude towards yourself and others can help in reducing stress and feelings of overwhelm.  Moreover, even if you are working with a therapist, it can be a process in learning to reduce stress and manage difficult emotions. Compassion and reminding yourself that it is a process can be important during those times of frustration.

Focus on One Thing: When we have multiple obligations, we tend to multitask.  This can be overwhelming for our mind and body.  Try breaking things down into small steps and focusing on one thing at a time.  If you are feeling overwhelmed, take 2 minutes out to take a deep breath and write down the one thing that you are going to focus on for the next hour.

Reach out for help: It can feel overwhelming and exhausting to do things in isolation. Talking to a house member, friend, academic advisor, professor, or counselor can be helpful in providing in a space for you express how you are doing and getting support.

Develop an Emergency Plan: Despite your best efforts you may relapse into a manic or depressive episode.  In these instances when you may feel out of control, it important that people know how to best help you.  In your emergency plan you may include what an emergency looks like for you, list of emergency contacts (family, friends, counselor), medication you are taking, and how to best support you. You could share this plan with your roommate, friend, family, or JA. 

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Tips from Neal - How to Approach Someone You are Concerned About

We’re excited to have our first of many Tips from Neal! Neal is a counselor from psych services who was kind enough to write up some tips and guides about mental health, support, and self-care which we’ll be sharing over the next few weeks.

You may have a friend, housemate, or person someone on campus that you may be concerned about but not sure what to do or how to approach them. Here are some tips on how to have a conversation with them.  Also remember you can always go to your Junior Advisor or Psychological and Counseling Services for consultation and support.      

1.  Approach person to check in and name specific behaviors or concerns: In approaching someone you are concerned about you should check in to see how they are doing generally and name specific behaviors that you are concerned about in a non-judgmental way.  For example you may say: "I noticed you have not been showing up to house events and I wanted to see if everything was ok".   

2.  Check if they are ok and use active listening skills to learn more and validate their feelings: It is important to provide a safe space for an individual to express what is going on for them and how they are feeling without interruption or judgment.  During this step you are listening instead of giving advice or coming up with solutions.  Some active listening tools include: reflection, paraphrasing, summarizing, asking open-ended questions and having an open body posture.

3.  Ask if they have a plan to take care of themselves. If not help them to develop a plan: After gathering information on the person's feelings and situation, you can check to see what they are already doing to take care of themselves.  You can also ask them what has worked in past for them, what their support network looks like, and how you could be of help. Plans could include anything from having them create a self care list, having them contact a friend, setting a time to chat again, providing referrals, or walking with them to the Health Center.  It important to check in to find out if the plan you both develop feels manageable for that person.  

4.  Check back in for an update: Checking back in shows the person that you care.  It also provides the opportunity to validate the things they are doing to work on something they may be struggling with.  Additionally if the individual did not follow the plan, you can work with them to adjust the plan or see what additional support they need.  

5. Provide referrals as needed throughout the process: You may feel that the person may need additional support than you can provide.  In these instances you can play an important role in connecting them to resources.  You should research a referral beforehand in order to provide the most accurate information. Information on campus resources can be found on the Mental Health Committee website.

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What to Expect at a First Counseling Session - Student Perspective

When I went to Psych Services the first time, I didn’t know what to expect. All I knew about therapy was from the movies - you lie on a chaise longue, stare at the ceiling, and talk about your fear of death. Or you sit in a cushiony chair with a box of tissues and cry until you can’t form words anymore. Right?

Not right. Maybe you will talk about death at Psych Services. Maybe you will cry so hard that all you can manage is to blubber out a hiccupy words at a time. I’ve definitely had both of these experiences over the past two years (sorry, there are no chaise longues that I know of). But your first meeting doesn’t have to be that way. It doesn’t have to be any way at all.

My first time at Psych Services, when the counselor asked what was going on in my life and why I was seeking help from Psych Services, I felt like I was expected to divulge my entire life story. I reached back to 2010 and started telling them absurdly personal details from my past. I cried. I felt so uncomfortable. I wasn’t ready to talk about those things. And I wasn’t sure if I was crying because I genuinely felt sad or if I thought that I was expected to (probably both). I mean, it was therapy. You’re supposed to cry and tell all your secrets. Right?

Not right. The first meeting is the beginning of what will hopefully turn into a relationship. It is not the meeting where the counselor is going to answer all of your questions or solve all of your problems. It is the meeting where they ask you what’s going on in your life, and they listen to your answers. They may not do much talking or respond a ton to what you say, although every counselor has a different style. At the first meeting (and every meeting, really), you can talk about whatever you want, and whatever feels comfortable.

For me, telling so much about myself and not getting all my problems solved made me feel like Psych Services was leaving me hanging. I didn’t realize that the first meeting was about listening. I didn’t understand that they let me do all the talking because it was part of the process rather than because they lacked empathy (odds are, they probably have a pretty solid reserve of empathy). I think that meeting would have left me feeling a lot more positively about Psych Services if I had just told them what I was dealing with at that moment: that I was really stressed about the Williams workload, that I was having trouble sleeping. That I was unhappy with how I was doing in my sport and in my classes.

I felt so badly about how the first meeting had gone that I decided to switch counselors. In my second-first-meeting, I didn’t reach so far back - I only said what I was comfortable saying. In fact, I didn’t talk about what I had told the other counselor until nearly six months into my relationship with my new counselor; at the beginning, we mostly talked about other problems I was having that were more rooted in the present. Waiting to talk about the toughest things allowed me to build a relationship of trust with my counselor, and it was a much more natural and comfortable progression than diving immediately into my most personal struggles. Waiting and building a solid relationship was the right approach for me, and that’s what Psych Services is all about.

So, I think there are 2 major things that I learned about the first meeting with Psych Services:

There is no stereotype for a first meeting or for any meeting. The process is about you, what you feel you need help with, and what you are comfortable talking about, not about them or what they “expect” from you (or what you think they expect from you).

You won’t resolve your problems in your first meeting, or maybe even in your first six months. It is unrealistic to expect to feel 100% better after the first meeting - you might even feel worse. But if you keep at it, it might be one of the most valuable experiences you have at Williams (it has been for me).

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What to Expect at a First Counseling Session - part ii

In addition to providing some information on an initial counseling session (see this post), I thought I would provide some tips and perspectives that may be helpful when thinking about seeing a counselor.

Coming to counseling can be a sign of strength:  There is stigma around mental health and seeking out support. I feel like everyone is struggling with something but not everyone is able to talk about it. Being able to seek out support is a sign self-awareness, strength, and maturity.  Counseling is one way of taking care of yourself and not having to deal with everything in isolation.

You have control about what you share:  Coming to counseling does not mean giving up control.  During sessions you have the gas pedal and the brake.  In other words you can decide what information you wish to disclose or not talk about.  If something feels unconfutable to talk about, it is totally fine and helpful to let your counselor know.  

Counseling is different than talking to your family or friends:  Friends, family, and people in your entry can be great supports in your life.  However when you talk to a friend or entry member, sometimes the conversation switches towards them, they may not know how to respond to what you shared, or they may not have as much time available to talk as you may want.  

Counseling sessions are a time that is specifically focused on you and what you want to talk about:  Additionally because counseling is a confidential nonjudgmental space, you can talk about situations in your life that may not feel safe or comfortable to share with friends or family.

Students come into counseling for a variety of reasons:  Some students feel that counseling is only appropriate if they have a “serious” mental health concern or are in a crisis situation.  Actually students come in for a variety of reasons including:

Trying to make an important life decision

Wanting an outside perspective on an issue they are facing

Wanting a space where they can feel heard and connected

Wanting explore experiences related to identity, marginalization, power and privilege

Wanting to build stronger relationships with people

Wanting to develop tools to deal with anxiety and stress

Coping with the loss of a friend or family member

Figuring how to best adjust to a new environment

Wanting a better understanding of themselves

Wanting to communicate better with their partner, friends, or entry members

Wanting to process situations and emotions

Wanting to be more compassionate towards themselves

Try out counseling for a few sessions:  Counseling and talking about yourself to a new person can feel kind of strange at first.  However I know for most students the counseling process and sharing becomes easier as they come for a few sessions and build a relationship and trust with their counselor.

Counselors are open to feedback:  Sometimes over the course of therapy, there may be an interaction or way your counselor comes across that feels uncomfortable to you and brings up certain feelings. I know as a counselor it is helpful when students are able to let me know when that happens.  It helps me to become more aware about what happened and hear your experience.  Bringing it up and talking through it can often lead to a greater understanding and improve the relationship between you and your counselor.  In the end counselors are trying to best support you however they best can.      

- Neal Sardana   

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Why I Wish my Eating Disorder was Diagnosed as OCD

     The first time I made myself throw up was a revelation. I was hunched over the toilet in the dark, snotty and crying, but it was the first time in my life that I felt clean. My brain quieted. My breathing calmed. My stomach settled. I flushed the toilet, wiped my eyes, and left the bathroom feeling like everything was in order.      You might find that disturbing. You might be grossed out, confused, uncomfortable. I get it. In our society, on the rare occasions we talk about eating disorders, we never talk about the gritty details. Maybe we’re trying not to fetishize them. But by not talking about them, most people don’t understand the thought processes that go along with eating disorders, nor the function an eating disorder holds in a person’s life. This is my story. It’s gritty, and gross, but it’s also the truth.

     When I was thirteen, my doctor told me to lose weight. I was a teenage girl in America, but miraculously, it was the first time I had ever paid attention to my body size. I had never even used the bathroom scale before. Now, I stood staring at its reading: 118. I had no benchmark, no understanding of that number; I just felt out of control.      But then came the revelation. The day I forced myself to gag into the toilet provided a solution: control, order, quiet. I went on with life, succeeded at school, became captain of my middle school soccer team, and laughed with my friends. I felt in control of my life, just by spending a few minutes hunched over the toilet each week.      As these stories go, eventually a few minutes each week didn’t satisfy. Soon, I could only find order with all of my afternoon snack down the drain. Then, my brain was only quiet when I did it everyday.  I only felt clean when my stomach was completely empty. Eventually, I only felt in control if I did it after every meal.      The first time I threw up to the point that I passed out, I woke up on the bathroom floor, starving, parched, and having peed myself. Somehow I still felt more alive and calm than ever before. I cleaned myself up, went into the kitchen, and made myself an egg-white omelet, filling my body with the tetris-like order of a healthy, satisfying meal in a barren stomach.

     I haven’t talked or thought about these experiences in years. Now, having a burger with fries can feel like order and fulfillment. The growl of an empty stomach feels unbalanced. The thought of making myself throw up feels like a tailspin out of control. But no wonder. My obsessions have changed.

————-

     I was always a somewhat obsessive kid. When I was ten, I was obsessed with the rhythmic way our car passed each light pole by the side of the road. I would blink each time we passed one; if I didn’t force myself to blink, the world felt unbalanced and I knew something bad would happen. On the bus into the city, I would play a game, staring out the window, imagining all the things I would put in order if I could. Cracks in the sidewalk, trash cans tipped over, a broken window. The world was filled with chaos and things out of place. In high school, I became hyperaware of the orientation of objects, cutting imaginary planes through space, colliding in the air. It made me talented at photography -- I took shots that found order in chaos, everything miraculously in line. But those photos were the exception: everything else felt out of place, so many planes out of sync and cutting through me. Even now, I still can’t step on cracks in the sidewalk.      Let’s be clear. OCD has three letters – I was obsessive, and I had a few weird compulsions, but I wasn’t disordered. No one noticed, and I just felt like it was a quirk in my thinking. It never caused me much anxiety. But that all changed with the eating disorder.

      I found myself comparing my eating disorder to an addiction. It steadily took more and more purging to satisfy me. I sometimes found myself lying on the bathroom floor after throwing up, trying to remember what else was in the fridge downstairs, plotting to fill myself up just to empty myself out again. I realized that I couldn’t stop, but I didn’t know why I was addicted.      Now I know. The sense of order after purging is a familiar thrill: relief of anxiety, a chemical rush of serotonin that settles the stress on my system. It’s the relief I get when I finish a hard test. It’s the relief of organizing my room, making my bed, folding my clothes. It’s the relief of a crush texting back. Somehow, purging relieved all the anxiety of life at once, everything clean and controlled in that moment.      No wonder I was addicted. I don’t mean to take addiction lightly; the addiction to serotonin might not be as strong as cocaine or alcohol or nicotine, but it still messed with my head and caused me to defend it at all costs. I lied to my parents. I deceived my friends. I flaked on commitments. Just so I could get high off the next purge.

     The first time someone found out, I was fourteen, and my mom asked me if I had ever made myself throw up. Unfortunately, she had no idea of the extent; she only had suspicions. I told her I was fine, and that I would never do it again. She trusted me. I lied.      Usually when people find out, they try to fix it: “But you’re so beautiful. You must know that, don’t you?”      I never doubted that I was beautiful -- it wasn’t the point. I didn’t care about beauty. I just cared about feeling clean.      In our society, OCD is for clean freaks, germaphobes, hypochondriacs.  Eating disorders are for vain white girls with too much time on their hands.      My mom couldn’t have guessed that it was an addiction. She didn’t know it was a symptom of a bigger problem. Of course she thought telling me stop would be enough.

————-

     I didn’t stop for years. I would go through phases; every time I came close to getting caught, I would back off for a while. But I relapsed every single time. I got better at deceiving. I knew my parents’ schedules better than they did. I was the only high school student that willingly cleaned the toilet.      When I was a senior in highschool, my disorder deepened. I had too much anxiety for purging to be enough. I started fasting as well. Any food that did make it into my stomach didn’t stay long. I lost ten pounds over the course of a month. My friends told me I looked great. I started sleeping a lot.      I began to get blinding migraines. One came on while I was driving, and it was so painful that I couldn’t see and had to pull to the side of the road. I started to dissociate, lose time, wake up in the middle of the night unsure of where I was. I became convinced I had a brain tumor. My periods stopped, and then I became convinced I was pregnant, despite not remembering ever having sex. Still, it didn’t matter. I was convinced I wouldn’t live long enough to have the baby anyway.      When I tore my ACL in my soccer state final, I decided that it was my fault, because I was destroying my body. I stopped purging for awhile. I started getting up at 5 o’clock most mornings to swim before school. But exercise didn’t give me the same high. I started purging again, tentatively, now equally obsessed with avoiding illness and injury as I was with chasing the high.      Somehow, I was accepted to college. Suddenly, there wasn’t as much to stress about; the high didn’t have the same pull. I still purged, but not as often. When summer came, I started running and swimming everyday, and eventually I was fit enough to always be hungry, my stomach always clean. Everything felt in order.

     At some point, I found diet pills. They were easier to hide.

     Three weeks into my freshman year of college, I tore my second ACL, playing rugby. Despite now being on diet pills, I hadn’t purged in two months. I looked down at my injured knee and thought, “This is your own fault. ” I vowed to never purge again.

     In January, I found my stash of percocet from the knee surgery, and discovered another high that felt like quiet and order. When I ran out, I drank so much that I vomited, and just like that, I was back to my old tricks.

     I was back home that summer, hiding in plain sight. In August, my mom intercepted the monthly delivery of diet pills, and she sat me down and confronted me. I hadn’t purged in a long time (three weeks), and I was convinced I was done. Still, it was the scariest conversation of my life. A house of cards falling down. All my obsessive planning, my years of lying, my life of deception, and I was found out by a package delivered at the wrong time of day.      Still, I told her the truth, and I agreed to therapy. I found I could breathe easier than before.

     (I stopped therapy after five weeks. I told my mom I had figured everything out.)

     At Christmas, I used the words  “recovering bulimic” in front of my family for the first time. It felt like coming up for air.

     In March, I turned twenty. I had been at it for seven years. It felt like an eternity. The week of my birthday, at a campus event on mental health, I gave a speech to two hundred classmates about my “recovery.” I was still on diet pills. I dropped out of school two weeks later.

     Recovery and relapse sometimes feel like two sides of the same coin.

————-

     A list of habits, formed after seven years of routine:

Each morning, my first thought when I wake up is what my body looks like, and how my stomach feels

Before leaving my room, I look in the mirror between 10-20 times until I’m satisfied my appearance is actually okay to show to the world today

I can’t eat breakfast unless I’m hungry

I can’t eat lunch unless I’m hungry

I can’t eat dinner unless I’m hungry

I can eat more ice cream than you’ve ever seen someone eat in your life, even if I’m not hungry

I buy too much food when I shop because I never know how many times I’ll have to throw up until it “feels right”

Before I leave the house, I check all the rooms to make sure there aren’t any signs of my disorder

Before I invite someone over, I check that the toilet is clean and the bathroom doesn’t have any sign of my disorder

I always take the trash out before anyone can see how much I’ve eaten

I always have a story ready when I go shopping in case the clerk asks what I’m buying all this food for

Every time my Mom says the words, “I have to talk to you about something,” I have a overwhelming feeling of impending doom that I’ve been found out

Every time I’m alone in the bathroom with a full stomach, even now, I still think, what if?

————-

     A few months into my time off from school, I started purging again. I was living on my own, battling my own demons, fighting for my own happiness. I felt okay resorting to my old habits, because I had only myself to answer to. After I threw up each night, my brain was quiet, and I could sleep without detailing my own downfall.      When I found a roommate, it was harder to hide. The trash had to be taken out daily, to hide the ice cream cartons, the donut boxes, the wrappers. By now, my day was completely occupied with compulsion and habit. Wake up, diet pill, breakfast. Walk the dog, go for a run, purge. Shop for binge food. Eat, purge, eat, purge. Diet pill. Shower, make-up, dress for work. Check appearance, clean house, take out trash, check appearance, check clean house, check appearance, get in car, check appearance, go to work. At work, check appearance ten more times. Eat a salad. Go home. Go to sleep.      My day felt empty, but it didn’t matter. It felt like order.

     The day before Thanksgiving, I lost control of my car on our steep snowy road. I gunned the four wheel drive to avoid my neighbor, and my car tumbled, landing in the ditch upside down. Somehow, I climbed out without a scratch.      In bed that night, I realized I was scared to die. I hadn’t felt alive in a long time. I stopped purging.

————-

     In the spring, I frantically chased feeling alive across the country, too scared to slow down and face the desperate anxiety that followed me everywhere. In Los Angeles, I had a panic attack so bad that I passed out shaking. My friends thought I was having a seizure. The ambulance came, and I was convinced I was going to die. The EMT asked if I was on any medication or supplements, so I mentioned the diet pills. He shot my a look of such contempt that I suddenly remembered that eating disorders were a choice that vain white girls made.      I became obsessed with health instead. I stopped the pills, stopped the purging, started counting calories, running, doing yoga, sleeping enough, not sleeping too much, getting enough sun, not getting too much sun…. Every day I found something new to add as a fun new health habit to schedule into my day. I convinced myself that I was finally living to the fullest, embracing health, embracing life.

     At night, I drank to quiet the thoughts.

     In June, I started grinding my teeth so hard at night that my stiff neck muscles choked me all day. I applied for readmission to college, and waiting for the acceptance one day, I became so obsessively attuned to my throat that I was convinced I was having an allergic reaction, that my airway would close up at any moment. I walked into the ER and demanded treatment. I spent four hours in the waiting room thinking about all the possible diseases I could have. I strategically positioned myself in a chair where the nurse could always see me, in case I keeled over, gasping for breath.      I went to the ER four times that week, urgent care twice, spent thirty hours in various waiting rooms, rode in one ambulance, and got four different diagnoses until one nurse finally found one that made sense: anxiety. She told me to get some sleep, and get on medication.      (I knew that she was wrong. I was going to die from some unknown illness, and it was all my fault.)

————-

     It took two more weeks to get a prescription for anxiety medication. In that time, I developed new habits:

Creating a mental map of every hospital in a 20 mile radius

Estimating the time it would take to get emergency care

Estimating how long I could stay alive if my airway cut off

Estimating how long it would take for me to get help if I was alone

Clutching my neck to pretend the choking sensation was my hand and not my throat

Mapping every sensation in my body

Bookmarking WebMD on my phone

Learning the symptoms of a heart attack

Learning the symptoms of an aneurysm

Learning the symptoms of a blood clot

Learning the symptoms of a stroke

Sitting alone in my room at 3am, unable to sleep, waiting for death to come

Hoping I would pass out from panic so that I didn’t need to feel scared anymore

Drinking until I forgot why I was scared

————-

     It might sound silly, but I swear I’ve never felt braver than those nights I went to sleep despite believing I would die before sunrise. I suppose I had to keep living, if I was so scared of dying. And yet, every night, the decision to close my eyes felt like giving up.      Sometimes fearing death got so tiring that I just wished it would come already. Life seemed complicated and chaotic, but death seemed fairly orderly.

     The more consecutive days that I continued to wake up, the more I questioned my theory of death. I still knew I had something terminally wrong with me, but I guess it wasn’t as immediate as I thought. So I did my school work. I made friends. I went to bed every night sure that that night would be the night, but each morning I woke up and continued living.

     I slept with my door unlocked. I didn’t want protection from the outside. I wanted protection from dying alone.

     In November, I gave a second speech at the same mental health event on campus. I only talked about the last year and a half, and I hardly mentioned my eating disorder. I said I was confident it was only a matter of time before I would get over my anxiety about health too.      I was lying. I was still waiting to die.

————-

     As the reader, it’s probably tiring to read all this. Call it repetitive. Sad. Potentially boring. It had been almost 9 years. Of course it is.

————-

     In March, I let my grades slip. I knew people were counting on me to get through school, because I had already screwed up once. But grades felt so irrelevant when I wasn’t sure I would live through school.      One day, a girl walked up to me in the library and asked for help with our statistics homework. Talking to her felt like waking up: like I had been sleepwalking through life, and suddenly here was a brand new day of possibility, fast talking and bright and full of sunshine.  On our first date, I had a panic attack and thought I was finally dying. I didn’t. I kissed her instead.      Sleeping next to someone helped me stop thinking I would die alone. Dating someone helped me make plans for the future, instead of assuming there wouldn’t be one. But I still felt scared. Life still felt like chaos, and I couldn’t control it.

————-

     Life still is chaos, and I can’t control it. I’m twenty-two years old. It’s been ten years since that first day in the bathroom. Two years since I purged the last time. A year and a half since I went off diet pills. A year and a half of obsessing, cataloguing, waiting for death.      Four months ago, I made my regular appointment with a psychiatrist to refill my anxiety medication. There was a new doctor. She wanted to get to know me. She asked what I was scared of. She suggested a new medication- one that helps people with obsessive tendencies around anxiety.      Three weeks into my new medication, I had stopped cataloguing. I stopped waiting. I (mostly) stopped obsessing. Three months later, and I go to bed every night fully anticipating that I will wake up in the morning.      Ten years, and three weeks later, I’m cured.

————-

     You’re waiting for the punchline, the relapse, the return to the cycle. There isn’t one -- I honestly feel cured. Hopefully, eventually I’ll be on the medication long enough that I’ll forget the habits that I formed over this last decade. Maybe then I can go on a lowered dose, or go off it completely. But for now, it helps. For now, it heals.      We commonly accept modern medicine as a miracle, giving life to the lifeless, curing disease, providing hope in moments most hopeless. But to be medicated is to be diseased, and we don’t accept eating disorders as real illnesses, deserving of real treatment.      As we know, eating disorders are only problems for vain white girls.      I wonder now what would have happened if, as a thirteen-year-old, I found myself obsessing about my weight but knew I could tell my parents and my doctor that something was wrong, without shame. What would have happened if I had gotten treatment then.

————-

     I don’t know what would have happened. I try not to obsess over what-if’s anymore. I’m happy with the present now; there’s no need to obsess over the past. I’m trying to plan for my future instead.      But, sometime in the future, I might have a daughter. I hope society will have caught up by then. I hope she doesn’t believe eating disorders are choices made by vain girls. I hope we will understand that eating disorders are a manifestation of anxiety in a society that constantly sexualizes and shames teenage girls.      If my daughter ever has disordered eating habits, I won’t ask her, “How could you do this to yourself?”      I’m going to ask myself, “How can I help her feel better?”      I hope that I can teach her to be unashamed and resilient. I hope I can teach her to share what she’s feeling, loud and proud. I hope I can show her that she deserves to feel better.      I hope I can show her that she’s not alone.      In telling my story, and acknowledging the millions of others like it, I hope that other parents can do the same for their own children.      Maybe. That’s all I can hope. The world is still chaotic, but I’m no longer scared.

- Sally Waters

[williamsmhc]

What to Expect at a First Counseling Session - part 1

Hi my name is Neal Sardana and I am post graduate fellow working for PCS.  I joined the PCS team at the beginning of the fall semester.  I am passionate about raising awareness and reducing stigma around mental health.  I am writing this post because I realize that there can be anxiety about coming to an initial counseling session and not knowing what to expect.  I know this is a feeling I experienced when I first went to go see a counselor.  Each counselor has their own style but I wanted to provide some information about how I handle initial sessions as a counselor to demystify the process a bit.    

Counseling sessions last between 45 to 50 minutes.  At the beginning of a session, I will tell students a little about myself and ask if they have been to PCS before.  For most students I see, this is their first time visiting us.  I will provide a student information about our services and confidentiality.  In providing information, I also give students an information sheet which we review and they can take.  I leave room for any questions that students have about our services, confidentiality, or anything related to counseling.

After we go over the informational part, I provide space for a student to share what brought them in for counseling.  In addition to learning about the issue that brought a student in, I also want to get to know a student better.  I take a holistic approach to counseling.  I may ask questions related to their family, experience here at Williams, social life, relationships, and the various identities they hold.  A student is free to share as much or as little as they like. Towards the end of the session, the student and I will discuss how the session went and collaboratively work to develop a follow up plan going forward.  Many times the plan is for more sessions together.  Other times the plan going forward could also entail a referral to other services in the health center or on campus.

Next week we’ll post some more tips from Neal re ways to get the most out of counseling.

[williamsmhc]

10 Things You Should Know About Taking Time Off

It’s that time of the semester. Everyone’s at their wit’s end. We all feel it. More deadlines, more burnt-out ambitions and more conversations that end with, “We should grab a meal when I have some more free time.” Psych Services is overbooked. You Are Not Alone drew a larger crowd than any Goodrich party. And we all might be thinking, “What am I doing here?”

Maybe you have an answer to that question: I’m here because I’m excited about my classes; I’m here because I love the great athletics and academics; I’m here because I want the best future possible.

But maybe you don’t have a quick answer. Maybe you did in the beginning, but now you’re unsure. Or maybe you know exactly why you’re here – you just aren’t sure if you want to be here right now.

You don’t need to be. Here are 10 things you should know about taking time off from the College:

1. Eight percent of students do it.

The College has one of the highest four-year graduation rates in the nation – 88 percent according to the latest U.S. News report – but it has an even higher six-year graduation rate: 95 to 96 percent. That means around eight percent of students take up to two years off from the College.

2. You don’t need to have a reason.

Officially, the College has three options for taking time off: personal leave, medical leave and psych-medical leave. Personal leave just requires you to meet with a dean and say, “I don’t want to be here right now.” You can leave anytime in the semester, but if you leave after the eighth week, you incur course deficiencies to make up before returning. Medical and psych-medical leave require a health professional to sign off on the leave, but you do not incur any course deficiencies.

3. You can be financially reimbursed.

If you leave for any reason in the first eight weeks of the semester, you can be reimbursed some of your tuition and board. The reimbursement decreases by 10 percent each additional week into the semester. Additionally, if your family opted for the GradGuard Insurance program, upon leaving for any medical reasons you will be completely reimbursed for the semester.

4. Coming back off-cycle can be sort of weird.

The College is often organized around the presumption that it only takes four years. For this reason, it can be really strange to return off-cycle. “What year are you?” “Um, junior? No, sophomore? No, second-semester sophomore.” Furthermore, if you return off-cycle, finding information on the housing lottery, class events, major declaration deadlines, thesis information and senior week events will all require your own leg-work.

5. You don’t need to spend your time off at home.

Many people don’t have a strong financial or social support system at home. This doesn’t keep them from taking time off. Many students decide to spend their time off around Williamstown, working at a local business. Others travel, working for pay or trade. Others might just live on their own for a while.

6. You can make an adventure out of it.

Maybe you never had the chance to study abroad because you can’t get credit for your major. Maybe the program you’d like to do abroad isn’t accepted by the College. Or maybe you just want to follow your own plan. There are a lot of ways to cut down on costs of travel by applying for grants, working for trade or utilizing the College’s connections. You can come back to the College refreshed with exploration.

7. The reapplication process is relatively easy.

For personal leave reapplication, you email the Dean’s Office with a summary of your leave. The medical leave reapplication, while still very manageable, is a slightly more invasive questionnaire and does require a note from a health professional stating your health has improved. The Dean’s Office holds veto power over medical leave reapplications, but this power is rarely utilized.

8. There’s a network of students you can ask about taking time off.

Mental Health Committee recently created a network of alumni and current students who are willing to advise anyone who is considering taking time off. Talk to a dean or email the unix scw2 today about matching up with an advisor.

9. You can take up to three years off.

Yeah. Imagine all the things you could do in three years.

10. Williams will still be here when you’re ready.

You might be scared to leave your friends, your teams, your clubs. When you come back, there might be a whole new cohort of students, and you’ll have a different class year. But while the people change, the College is always the College, full of opportunity and interesting students and faculty. And when you return, you’ll have changed as well – you’ll be ready to take advantage of the opportunities available.

Taking time off is a big decision, and it’s important to know the facts. But if you’re unsure about whether you want to be here, you should be aware it’s an option. Hundreds of students have made this same decision in the past, and we’re here to help. Williams shouldn’t be an experience you “get through.” Williams should be an experience that helps you thrive.

- Sally Waters and Elowyn Pfeiffer

[williamsmhc]

Post You Are Not Alone Pick Me Up

As you struggle through the ups and downs of mental and emotional issues, hopefully there comes a point at which you can feel your “cliff.” That is, you not only feel yourself beginning to feel overwhelmed in some capacity, but also recognize where your breaking point is. Consider these overwhelming feelings, like those that may be triggered by You Are Not Alone, leading you to a cliff. Once you fall you can crash pretty hard and it may seem impossible to climb back up. Some days it’s easier than others, but the truth is that it’s often difficult to stay motivated to get back up. Most times, it would be nice to avoid reaching that low point, especially at a place like Williams. This is by no means to suggest that anything is wrong with fully experiencing your feelings and actively “leaning in” to them.

However, there are a number of ways we could potentially minimize the frequency with which we crash. There comes a moment- a single moment right before you feel as though you have lost control. It’s in that moment that we can make an active effort to use some healthy distraction and relaxation to give your brain time to recoup from overwhelming feelings.

Now, we are no strangers to the wonders of both music and videos in completely enhancing or changing our moods. Here, I offer a list of a few songs and videos that always change my mood for the better. While they are clearly biased toward my own taste and sense of humor, I hope they offer a useful starting point for people hoping to beat the post-YANA blues.

These distractions should in no way replace use of any campus resources available for coping with mental health issues, but instead should be seen as an easy way to make it easier to stay afloat.  Use these links as a great post-YANA mood-changer. Enjoy!

-Candice Dyce

My Pick-Me-Up Playlist:

https://soundcloud.com/candice-dyce/sets/everythingsgood

Videos:

Cutest Babies in the world

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=to7uIG8KYhg

Baby Laughing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RP4abiHdQpc

Treat Yo Self

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsABTmT1_M0

Jimmy Fallon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1jHDJl02Fc

Oops… More Jimmy Fallon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWS5bz2LGuE

And if you have way too much free time…365 Days with a Corgi

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAkf4B_Ff3M

Campus Resources:

Psychiatric Services: Make an appointment with Psych Services for individual counseling sessions, psychiatric evaluations, or group therapy. You can also consult a counselor about concern for a friend. Call (413) 597-2353 or email Kim at ktrembla@williams.edu to make an appointment.

Chaplain’s Office: Reach out to any of the religious advisors for spiritual direction, counseling, and workshop service by contacting Ms.Luczynski at (413) 597-2483 or Nancy.Luczynski@williams.edu.

Davis Center: Stop by the Davis Center for an collaboration and dialogue about complex issues surrounding race, class, gender, sexuality, ability, et cetera.

Dean’s Office:  Call (413) 597-4171 to contact any Dean about psychological and health concerns, as they relate to academics.

Emergencies: Urgent concerns can be made by calling the Health Center at (413) 597-2206 for the on-call counselor.

[williamsmhc]

Intersectional identities

On Sept. 28, friends, family and the greater Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) community grieved the loss of 16-year-old Skylar Lee, an Asian American transgender teenager from Madison, Wis. Lee was an outspoken activist for intersectional queer identities within the Asian American community, leaving an indelible mark on a movement that seeks to advance understanding of a complex overlap between racial, gender and sexual identities and mental health. His passing serves as a reminder of the stresses generated by the contrast of varied identities, which, though often overlooked, can compound to take a profound toll on one’s daily life.

We write this as Asian American cisgendered women, standing in solidarity with Lee, his loved ones and the greater queer Asian American and GSA communities, to highlight the impact of mental illness among Asian Americans. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, Asian American women have one of the highest comparative rates of suicide in the United States. Those between the ages of 15 and 24, in particular, are afflicted by mental illness and take their own lives at a rate disproportionate to that of the general population. But, of course, they – we – are far from the only ones affected.

Perhaps because of the stigma and disbelief of mental health issues in the Asian Pacific Islander community and the expectations imposed by the Model Minority Myth, Asian Americans struggle with mental illness in silence. According to surveys conducted by the Asian American Suicide Prevention and Education group, only two percent of Asian Americans report symptoms of depression to their doctor, compared to the national average of 13 percent. Though stories like Lee’s make headlines around the nation, little has been done to address the full complexity of their subjects’ intersectional identities.

At the College, more can be done to further comprehensive discussion of mental illness among traditionally underrepresented groups. Inclusion by the Minority Coalition (MinCo) of Williams Active Minds, an advocacy organization that raises awareness of various mental health issues, would be a vital step in advancing this discussion. Though traditionally stigmatized and narrowly understood by the American public, mental health disorders affect around 20 percent of the general U.S. population. Growing recognition of the causes and repercussions of mental health issues mark the tentative development of a more respectful and empathetic social justice community.

However, this movement, though expanding, is a nascent one. There remains a disparity between the population affected by mental health issues and representation of their experiences. For example, more can be done to understand the experience of mental illness amongst people of color, non-binary conforming individuals and others who do not fit into the traditional identities of the dominant group. This lack of contextualization further necessitates the empowerment and recognition of these voices. While the College works hard to embrace these multifaceted identities, more can be done. The intersectional issues arising between mental health and other segments of an individual’s identity pose crucial and often forgotten questions that we must collectively address. MinCo, as a “unified voice against prejudice and discrimination against minority students … [and] a mechanism for minority groups to come together in organizational, social, academic and political sphere,” has many reasons to include Active Minds in its alliance for minority solidarity here at the College.

We are fortunate to be part of a community that values the needs of each and every one of its diverse constituencies. In the past few years, MinCo has raised its voice to emphasize the need for staff at counseling services who are able to identify with the contextualized experiences of students who seek their services. This has been a positive step, and we hope more will follow. We believe that including Active Minds in MinCo’s general committee is one such way of further addressing the sources that continue to reinforce ableism and identifying the nuanced effects of racial, gendered, sexual identity on mental health on our campus. As this fall semester’s midterm season begins and stress intensifies, we hope that steps like this one will empower students of all identities to reach out and find outlets of support, understanding and solidarity.

- Dayoung Lee and Wendy Tang

[williamsmhc]

Mental Health is a Physiological Need

The link between refugees/immigrants and mental health is a conception that I had not internalized until I took a travel course, “Teaching, Doctering, and Living with Refugees and Immigrants,” for my sophomore winter study. During this course, I lived with a Burundian host family in Portland, ME, and I worked with a licensed clinical social worker (LCSW) at a counseling center. The social worker was specialized in counseling torture survivors from Africa, so I had the opportunity to observe his counseling sessions – of course, after obtaining appropriate consents. Whenever he was not working with his clients, he introduced me to the cultural variety and the internal politics within the refugee population, and he showed me the public health system (often inadequately) supporting the lives of refugees.

This experience painted a rather comprehensive image of how refugees live in America, and more importantly, I witnessed the power of proper mental health care for these individuals. According to Maslow’s hierarchy, the most fundamental needs for human survival are physiological – food, water, and health. This makes intuitive sense, as we simply cannot survive without food and water. However, what may be unintentionally hidden under the label, “physiological needs,” is mental health.  

A lot of refugees have survived through tortures and/or experienced traumatic events in their home countries and during their journeys to America. Without proper treatment, the residual effects of these events lead to profound mental illnesses, such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety, depression, and personality disorders. Some refugees have mental conditions that greatly disturb their daily lives and that serve as root causes, perpetuating financial, social, and other health problems. Mental illness can directly target and hinder one’s ability to adopt to a new environment, and what I witnessed in my travel course was quite clear: dealing with mental problems through professional counseling improved many areas of these refugees’ lives.

Most immigrants, not just refugees, face a tremendous pressure to assimilate and become a part of the American society. Unfortunately, cultural assimilation is only one out of an immense range of problems that must be resolved in order to live decently in America as immigrants. In such busy, overburdened lives, mental health is often neglected, though proper mental health cares can substantially diminish these burdens.

“So what?” some of you reading this post may wonder. “What does this have anything to do with my life?” It is important to recognize that anyone can have traumatic experience and suffer from any residual effects of such an experience. Furthermore, many of us are constantly stressed from work and personal issues, which could also lead to more profound mental problems. Thus, mental health deserves more attention in our daily lives.

- JKC

[williamsmhc]

Support Networks

Support networks while dealing with any sort of mental illness is, to me, a key part of the coping/healing process. Struggling alone is one of the most terrifying experiences I can recall, and not knowing who to turn to, or feeling like too much of a burden when you do turn to someone, is an awful feeling. But building a support network around yourself is a great first step in the right direction. Dealing with my own depression, I felt like I was being a nuisance to my friends and family. Surely they didn’t wanna hear about how crappy I was feeling again, for the third time this week? So slowly I withdrew from my own support network. I told myself that I would just drive them away if I kept complaining to them, so what’s the big deal if I just cut myself off now and save myself the trouble? That only led to more problems, ones that I couldn’t foresee. I never let anyone know how I was feeling, or about the progress I had made, and so I felt trapped in this bubble of my own distorted thought process. I didn’t know how I was feeling and I couldn’t get anyone’s objective view about my situation.

I knew I had to try and surround myself with people who would listen, and genuinely care. And little by little, I did. I opened up to friends about how I was feeling, and assured them that if it ever become too much for them, they could let me know. I wasn’t looking to dump my issues on to someone else, and they acknowledged that and thanked me for it. Slowly I opened up to more and more people, and the response was incredible. The people I talked to were there for me when I needed them, and having a diverse support network of several different people offered me a number of advantages. One, I didn’t feel as though I was dumping too much on one person, and in the process making them feel unhealthy in any way, or overwhelmed to any degree. And two, with a number of people I felt confident talking to, I could get a wide array of perspectives, advice, and comfort that could be integrated into my own schema of things. And I know that this scenario can’t be the same for everyone- I’m blessed to have the circle of support I did, and I know not everyone has the same access to resources. But even reaching out to one or two people that you trust is a start. A counselor, friend, teacher, it doesn’t matter what their relationship is to you. Someone who you feel you can open up to, and you know won’t place any blame or judgment on you, that’s a great first step. It was for me.

- Anonymous

[williamsmhc]

As an introvert at Williams, I find myself constantly forgetting how stressful even mundane social interactions can be here. Watching the attached video this summer reminded me of how long it has taken to find a way of engaging with other members of campus that fulfills my emotional needs while also respecting my aversion to over-stimulation.

I am fortunate that it doesn’t take me long to get accustomed to the quotidian college routine. But every once in awhile a Friday rolls around and a friend asks “Is anyone going out tonight?” I’ll think to myself, hmm, it’s been a while since I ‘went out’, why not? The following sequence of events occurs like clockwork: Attend party. Attempt to seek out people I know. Begin to feel awkward not dancing or talking. I finally find someone I know, but the first thing I say comes out wrong so I excuse myself to the bathroom or water fountain then dip out of the area. Twenty minutes later I am back in my room hating myself for having ventured out, for not being able to talk to my peers or even my close friends like a normal human being, and for feeling like I’m squandering my youth.

I often blame it on the noise or the crowds. “I’m a small group person” I tell myself. But I don’t think that’s it either. I think the truth of the matter is that at Williams it’s too easy for us to slip into the academic routine and neglect social and emotional needs. Last year I talked with a friend about this problem, and one of their recommendations was to practice my interpersonal relationship skills by putting myself in situations of “optimal anxiety.”

Here are some solutions that have worked for me: 

Reach out! A great place to start out is by talking with other people about social anxiety. Williams has a number of excellent counselors in Psychological Services

Exercise with a friend.

Group studying. This one can be rewarding, but it is also difficult to pull off effectively.

Don’t overthink. All too often I find myself wanting to cling on to how I want things to go instead of trying to accommodate unforeseen situations and circumstances.

- Anonymous