The Future of My Messy Mental Health Memoir

Why I am Not Writing My Messy Mental Health Memoir

Every other month I go through my photos on Facebook and Instagram. I tell myself it will do me good to erase the visual reminders of mistakes I have made in my past, in case I consider giving the television business  another go. I scroll through my pictures deleting ones that are blurry, pictures of provocative selfies, or me lamenting about whatever shallow man I was chasing at the time. The further I scroll down through my Facebook albums, the deeper I go into the darkest days of my life. It’s like a timeline that chronicles my own personal descent into homelessness, unemployment, and despair.

I tell myself everytime, I am strong enough to face these pictures. Strong enough to face my past. Face that a suicide attempt and my subsequent major depressive episode robbed me of a life I had worked so hard for. But, I am never strong enough. I always cry. I always mourn. I always grieve. I cry for the woman in those pictures who didn’t know who she could trust, or how to fill the hole in her heart, how to repair the mess she made of her career, how to rebuild, how to start over, or how to become the woman she wanted to be. I cry for the woman who learned so many lessons the painful way.

2017, Year I Became Homeless

I feel shame, guilt, remorse, regret. Then I remember why I haven’t touched my messy memoir about this season of my life. I am in constant war with who I am today, who I was after my attempt and what I did to survive after.

I tell myself I will get back to my memoir when it doesn’t hurt so bad. I will finish when the war inside me stops. But, I wonder if the war ever ends. I am processing this struggle in therapy. When I pray I surrender my past to my Heavenly Father, but somehow I always end up picking it back up.

That is partly why I am not writing my messy, mental health memoir. And, even though I am a bold advocate and speaker about mental health, a large part of me fears what those close to me will say when they read how far my homelessness took me, and how much it almost broke me. They will read the times I wasn’t so strong, the times I wanted to give up, and the times I failed.  

2016, A month homeless & couch hopping

I am acknowledging this avoidance of my messy, mental health memoir in hopes of breaking free, writing through the pain, and one day publishing the story of my rebuilding.

I’ll share a part of the book I wrote last year. I have shared this at a few speaking events. This is how I plan to open the book:

The Broke Down McDonalds

An Excerpt from my messy mental health memoir

A Broke Down McDonalds : Prologue

    You ever see a new McDonald’s seemingly pop up in your neighborhood overnight? One day it was torn down, the next day it’s sparkly new, powered with WI-FI access, and double drive through lanes.

   

    I have often found myself upset at this process, and I don’t even really like McDonald’s. Whenever I see one of these makeover processes happening in my area I think, “Well that was a perfectly good McDonald’s. Why did they have to rebuild the whole thing? Couldn’t they have just renovated the inside, spruce up the yellow arches, or power washed the bricks?

    It seemed so wasteful to me that a large corporate company would spend millions of dollars renovating the old, dank, broke down McDonalds. Nevermind that we are finally in the 21st century and many of those buildings were made in the eighties. Nevermind the black crude I would often see wedged in the red tiled floors anytime I dared to go inside a McDonald’s for hot cakes. Or the reports of rats running into storage bins, or the many, many reports of high cholesterol and heart disease McDonald’s played a role in. I just always think,” Wasn’t there anything useful in the old McDonald’s, why did they have to tear it down.”

    Well I’m a lot like those old, broke down, dank McDonalds.

    Like a lot of the Golden Arch establishments I started off really good, and I had all the potential to be something amazing. But overtime so many bad elements started to taint  all the potential I had in life. Like the pink slime scandal when McDonalds was found out to be using fake meat, I surrounded myself with superficial friends, bad men, bought into an impossible pursuit of perfection, and passed it off as my personality. It was inauthentic, but with it I thought I was doing the right thing. But, I paid a high price for trying to live someone else’s life, and pass myself off as the perfect daughter, perfect employee, perfect person. When in reality I was just a McDonalds that ended up hurting herself ie her brand, hurting those around her ie customers, and then there was no way of salvaging anything. I had to be rebuilt, torn down, made new.

    The bulldozer in my life has a name, an ugly, cruel battle of the mind that lead me down dark, dangerous paths. And, when the depression had lifted, the suicide attempt was over all I had was broken pieces of what I thought would be a beautiful life. Why did they have to tear down a perfectly good McDonald’s because there was nothing left to save. For a while I sat in my own rumble, rolled around in dirt of my despair, pity, and brokenness until I met an incredible architect. He was big man on campus kind of big. Larger than life. And, HE me that promised me that when HE got done rebuilding me I would not only be made new, I would be the best damn McDonald’s on the planet.

This is my story. I am a Good Girl rebuilt. Just like it says in Jeremiah 31:4 “I will rebuild you and you will dance again.” You are about to witness my rebuilding, and in the end we’ll all have the most epic dance party ever heard of.

“I will rebuild you, and you will dance again.” - Jeremiah 31:4

Present, Mental Health Recovery 2019

If this projects speaks to you, and you would like to support it you can donate to my GoFundme at GoFundme.com/teamgoodgirl or share this blog

GGC Feature: The Colors of Robin Smith

There are a lot of moments when I think about all things I have lost because I talk openly about my suicide attempt and mental health: friends, family, job positions. Then I question myself.

“Why did I start writing about this dark part of my life?

“Who really cares?

“Why does my story even matter?”

Then people like Robin Smith remind me, a story is most powerful when it is shared. Hearing my story of surviving suicide inspired Robin to start sharing her own. She chronicles her experience in her new blog and is finding new ways to live mentally well. And, like me Robin has found the freedom of sharing your story, and the healing.

“I got tired of living in the shadows,” she says.

I got the pleasure of capturing Smith’s story because she won one on my Instagram contests. The winner receives a free coffee date with me, and a interview feature on my Good Girl Chronicles blog.

Sitting across from Robin, you are drawn in by colors. The purple and teal hair dye that accentuates her light blond hair, her blue eyes, the tattoos that cover her forearms.

It’s a stark contrast to the blue, purple, and yellow scars she bore on her face just two years ago. Those colors covered her fair skinned face when she collapsed in her home and developed Bell's Palsy. Doctors said it was her body’s reaction to her attempted overdose. They were surprised she survived considering the amount of drugs she had taken.

“It was horrible. I went from two days prior wanting to die, to actually thinking in that moment I was going to die.”

Even scarier, Robin said was the fact that in the emergency room she heard doctors giving her a grim diagnosis, saw the faces of her distraught loved ones, heard their cries; yet could not utter a single word. The entire left side of her face was paralyzed and the Bell’s Palsy also affected her speech. It was if she was trapped inside of her own body.

“I was in my body, but could not move. It was horrible. My face seized up, and my teeth were clenched shut.”

“ All I could do was watch and hope to God that they could fix me,” she says fighting to hold the tears behind her blue eyes. Her face turns red, and her voice quivers as she recalls this day.

“It really is a miracle I survived.”

Robin was released to a behavioral health care unit, but says the prescribed medications did not help much. She rode a roller coaster of with intense manic periods often characterized by feelings of euphoric, erratic behavior, and followed by deep depressive episodes.

“By September, I thought I was losing my mind.”

For six months she struggled to find help from different physicians, and was even rejected admission to a behavioral unit after another suicide attempt.

“I’d go see doctor and they would just ask me what kind of medication I wanted. I thought to myself isn’t it their job to tell me what I need?”

Finally, by late 2017 Robin found care and a new diagnosis that changed got her on track. A clinician diagnosed herb with bipolar disorder, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and Major Depressive Disorder. The National Institute of Mental Health describes bipolar disorder as a brain condition that causes unusual shifts in mood, energy, activity levels, and the ability to carry out day-to-day tasks. The diagnosis explained so many of her mood swings.

“It wasn’t surprising,” she said. “It’s something that should have been diagnosed sooner,  If someone would have taken the time to talk to me and not just throw medication at me.”

Smith takes medication for her mental health condition now, and says counseling helped strengthen her relationships with her boyfriend Mike and her two step daughters.

“Therapy was a group effort. It was me, Mike, and my parents. We all went to therapy together. Everybody works together. Because it (bipolar disorder) did not happen overnight I knew I could not restart everything overnight.”

Smith has learned how to manage the highs and lows of bipolar disorder. She is more open with her loved ones, and has joined a kickboxing exercise community to help her fight through the hard days.

“It still a struggle everyday. Life is tough, but you can be just as tough,” she says.

This is the strength she wants to pass on to her stepdaughters.

The desire to be a beacon of hope is why she why she dyed her hair purple and teal> These colors symbolize suicide prevention. She also has tattoos on her forearms in teal and purple with two quotes that remind her to keep living in the moment.

The tattoo on her left arm reads “We all live with the scars we choose,” and the one on the right says, “No day but today. 525,600 minutes.” An homage to the musical Rent and a reminder that even though her past was painful, healing, and recovery is possible everyday.

 

“We are not damaged. I am not damaged.”

Smith works at an accounting firm, enjoys kickboxing, and playing with her three Jack Russells.

 

 

Sneak Peek of Our April Storytellers

Introducing Our April Storytellers

April 19, 2019

Dave & Buster's Lynnhaven Mall, Virginia Beach, VA

Introducing a few of our storytellers for our April show!

 

 

Storytellers

Neisha Himes, Founder, GROW Foundation will share a story called “Victim to Victor: How I became Wonder Woman”

Neisha Himes is a survivor of domestic violence and devoted advocate.  After leaving the toxic

relationship in late 2012, she began telling her story years later via her gift of Spoken Word.  Known to the poetry community as ‘Beautiful Dizaster’, Neisha has featured on many stages and often uses her talent as a method for bringing awareness.  Her courageous transparency soon led to requests to share her story on platforms such as: radio interviews, high school and college awareness programs, community seminars, out of state conferences and more.  Along with her speaking engagements, she began volunteering at a local shelter where she created a journaling group to encourage self-expression and healing through the art of writing.  She later became certified as a Human Trafficking Victim Advocate with the Virginia Beach Justice Initiative and remains an active volunteer with the organization.  In August 2016, she founded G.R.O.W. Foundation and currently leads a team of nine board members and volunteers in carrying out the organization’s mission.  In July 2017, she left her career as a Real Estate Paralegal to join a local city prosecution office, holding a position as their Domestic Violence Victim/Witness Advocate.  Additionally, Neisha serves as an active member of the Hampton Roads Military & Civilian Family Violence Prevention Council, the 24th Judicial District Coalition Against Domestic Violence, the African American Leadership Task Force and the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence.  In honor of her work, Neisha was recognized by Investigation Discovery (in collaboration with ‘People’) as their ‘Inspire A Difference: Hero of the Month’, featured on PBS channel’s ‘Virginia Currents’, and the recipient of the YWCA’s ‘2019 Woman of Distinction Award’, along with a host of local accolades.  Her unwavering dedication and passion to help others is the driving force behind the mission of G.R.O.W. Foundation.

 

 

Raymond Barnes, Registered Peer Recovery Specialist, State Peer Trainer will share his recovery journey.

Raymond was born in Jamaica Queens, New York and is the oldest of five children. Raymond says  he had a pretty normal upbringing. Raymond says he is the child of a functioning alcoholic, an enabling mother, and has been around some sort of drugs or alcohol since he was little. Raymond struggled with drug addiction in his adult life. He has been clean for several years now, but still considers himself an addict living in recovery. He now uses his lived experience as a Peer Recovery Specialist to lead a life saving recovery program in Norfolk, and train other to become peers also.



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nadejeh Minerva, Hampton University Graduate, Founder #MyStrengthisBeautiful Inc.  

 

Nadejeh Minerva is a Brooklyn born, Hampton University graduate, as well as a survivor of sexual

assault and domestic violence. She founded #MyStrengthIsBeautiful Inc., to empower survivors like herself. Her foundation is determined to nourish the emotional, mental, physical, social, and professional levels of each survivor, so their transition is made easier. Her story is “My Strength. My Story. My Glory”, the victory she never thought she’d see.

 

 



 

 

Get Your Tickets to this powerful night of storytelling.

April 19, 2019

Dave & Buster's Virginia Beach, VA

6:30 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.

Tickets $10

$15 at the door

Click here to buy!

 

 

 

 

Also check our highlights from our March show.

 

Donate to our cause at www.gofund.com/teamgoodgirl

 

 



I’m That Oreo Girl

No one wants to hear the opinion of an Oreo.

No, I’m not talking about those amazingly delicious Nabisco cookies. 

Chocolate on the outside, vanilla on the inside.

I’m talking about the very unlucky people like me who dubbed an Oreo.

It’s what they called me in middle school when I rose my hand in class, sat in the front of the bus, or used the word sugar instead of shit.

It’s the nickname no brown or black person wants.

Sure my skin is black….but I soon found out that didn’t mean I was black.  

It was a startling revelation in my search to define myself as a woman, as a first born, as an American….

In high school I learned there’s a whole box of things that qualify you as black, mostly stereotypical things like the music you listen to, your pattern of speech, how you dress

These things apparently defined your blackness amongst other black folks.

You had to have a hard knocks life story or atleast your kin folk did… 

You had to have a toughness to you… 

You had to be confident and take no shit

You had to listen to Biggie, Tupac, and Jay-z

To other blacks folks, black I was not.

With my platform shoes inspired by the Spice Girls

Or the way I rocked out to Coldplay and Norah Jones

I longed to recieve the invisible black card given to people of color, to be included, to feel accepted

So when I left my Filipino run high school in Virginia Beach I immediately applied to an all black college.

My parents were so proud.

I thought there I would find my blackness

It would be like the classic Spike Lee film School Daze

The film about a fictional historically black college that featured all black sororities, black activism, black music, and stepping in the quad.

But I guess I didn’t pay attention to the real messages that Spike Lee movie was preaching.

The messages colorism among black folks, and the struggle in having a voice in a world that judged you by the color of your skin.

Even at this all black college I was placed in the cookie category once again in college

They too called be an Oreo 

I was too white to be accepted by my black classmates… 

An Oreo who didn’t know how to play spade, or code switch …

I grew exhausted of trying to be something and someone I didn’t know how to be, so I left that all black school and went to a multicultural school… and I stopped trying to be black and started just trying to be me…

GGC Storytelling Nights: It Keeps Getting Better

Danita Myanne shares from her book

 

WOW! I'm still in awe of how many people came out to support our most recent storytelling night, and the powerful stories that were shared. March 1st I hosted my  sixth storytelling night!  8 brave people shared their recovery stories, survival stories, mental health stories, parenting stories and so much more. It was an incredibly powerful evening.

 

I saw attendants crying, laughing, hugging, and finding similarities with so many of our storytellers. These storytelling shows prove that when we share our stories, we give it power to help, comfort, heal, and motivate others.

I want to thank each of our storytellers Amy Walton, Mike "The Fitness Junkie" Lambert, Brandy Anderson, Chanita Stone, Natasha Ewa, Tanecia "SweeTee" Newman, Danita Myanne, and Vernard "The Laugh Therapist" Hines for sharing!





This Instagram post from storyteller Nastasha Ewa captures what so many storytellers felt after the show------->


Also for the first time we had a few businesses sponsoring our event. Special thanks to Danielle McDowell of The Healing Space, Carol Rood of Sugar and Skin Spa, and Michelle Layne of The R.Y.D.E. Foundation sponsored our event!


Special thanks to Gourmet Burger Bistro from Portsmouth,VA, Bearded Bird Brewing Co. in Norfolk for allowing us to host our events at their venue, and Pownd Cakes by Jen for bringing her delicious treats to our event.

Pownd Cakes by Jen








                                        Gourmet Burger Bistro

Because our events are growing next month we're moving to a larger venue. April 19, 2019 we'll be hosting our show at Dave & Busters at Lynnhaven Mall in Virginia Beach.

Storytellers for this show include Tyler Layne, Neisha Hines, Eliza Stinson, Naderjh Minerva, Florenza Lee, Your Neighbor's Hood Podcasters, Marcia Ali, and Regina Mobley. You can get tickets now online. Click here