Wellness

I'm finding this "posting everyday" thing is becoming incredibly hard. Not trying to make excuses, but I think it might be because my work schedule is all wacked out due to a 40-hour Domestic Violence training. For example, today I didn't come into work until 12:30 p.m. and I'm going to be here until 9 p.m. It's funky and weird, making life a little more exhausting.

Good news though, I've started copywriting again. When I first moved to San Diego back in August, I got hired on at a copywriting firm in La Jolla. It was an awesome gig and when I was offered the position at the YWCA, it took a lot of soul searching to decide if I wanted to leave the firm. After talking to my boss at the copywriting firm, we both agreed that I should stay on as a part-time writer, but I haven't gotten anything in terms of assignments since I started at the Y in October. That all changed last week, and I'm copywriting again!

Starting these assignments again and starting this blog has given me a renewed sense of energy -- and dare I say, I new form of happiness? But that is neither here nor there. And not the point of today's post.

Instead, today I wanted to talk about "wellness."

Last week at work we were in a "cultural competency" training, which is a fancy way of saying "treat everyone with respect, regardless of age, race, sexuality, etc." Anyway, one of the exercises we were asked to do was interview a complete stranger about their cultural heritage, and in return they were going to interview us back about our own cultural heritage. Okay, easy enough, I'm German and Swedish. In my mind I felt like I knew where the interview was going to head -- Cue me talking about Oktoberfest, IKEA and not knowing anything else about being Swedish.

And that's exactly where the interview was heading until the interviewer asked me this question: "How does your culture define wellness and being healthy?"

It seems like a straightforward answer, right? Everyone is told from a young age to exercise for 30 minutes a day, go get a check up once a year, and to avoid sugary foods. But as I started to think about my response, I thought back to all the days spent at my Oma and Opa's house (that's German for "Grandma" and "Grandpa," for all those non-bilingual people out there -- like me). I thought back New Years at The Denver Kickers Club and to all the get togethers with my aunts and cousins. And suddenly I felt like I had been hit by a bus.

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Full disclosure, when I put up my first post, I didn't describe every reason why I had decided to start this blog, exactly. There was one that was a little too personal that I wasn't fully ready to write about yet. But my "interview" last week was a kick in the gut that told me it was time.

I found out recently that my mother's side of the family has a history of mental illness -- more specifically Major Depression. My Oma is one of seven children and I found out that several of her siblings had suffered from depression and, in turn, so had their children.

My Oma herself suffers from depression and anxiety. Anybody who has a family member who suffers from depression knows how draining it can be. It's a hard feeling to put a name too, but there's just an overall feeling of hopelessness. Feeling like you want to do something for the person, but knowing you can't until she realizes that she needs the help. My Oma has had warning signs of depression for years, but it was only after my Opa died 5 years ago that it showed it's full ugly face. The depression took a physical toll on her body. She's contracted pneumonia, broken a few bones, and lost more weight than I care to disclose. She suffers from panic attacks. She's become a shadow of who she used to be.

But for the sake of this happiness themed blog, I won't detail everything about her illness.

I will say that she has made a huge step since Christmas. She has finally agreed to get help and is slowly working with a doctor and working towards finding the right medications to bring back the Oma we all knew once upon a time. Talking to her on the phone, there's a noticable change. She's brighter and more cheery and I'm hoping that it's only a matter of time before my Oma, who was once so full of life, returns. I'm grateful that the medicine appears to be working.

Now, let me be clear, I'm not much of a fan of pill popping. As I believe that everyone goes through some hard times during their life, I don't think that medicating to a state of numbness is the immediate answer. You have to experience great sorrow to understand great joy. However, I do acknowledge that medication is sometimes a necessity -- that even in times of happiness, there's something off with the body and mind that no amount of will power can overcome. When there is nothing in the world you can do to fix the problem yourself, that's when I believe that medication becomes an option of treatment. I think more often than not, however, medication is used as a cop out -- a way to avoid dealing with feelings that may sometimes be painful.

What's this have to do with that cultural competency interview? What's it got to do with that question: "How does your culture define wellness and being healthy?"

What I realized in my 10-second search to answer that question is my family focuses more on mental health as a state of wellness, than on physical health. As I thought back to all my time spent at my Oma and Opas house, I don't recall there ever once being a discussion of what me and my brother needed to eat to be healthy (other than Opa's firm belief that one really spicy pepper a day kept the doctor away). I don't remember them telling me to continue to play soccer because daily exercise kept me healthy.

What I remember during my conversations at Oma and Opa's, as well as my conversations with my Tantes and cousins, were discussions about happiness and extreme sadness. I remember the conversations about distant family members who had died and how the rest of the family was dealing with it. I remember conversations about relationships and whether they were healthy and happy... or not.

For my family, health and wellness is not the physical state of the body. It's the state of the mind. More than that, it's the constant assumption that we need to be happy in order for our minds to be healthy.

My Oma, with her clinical depression, is not well. She is not healthy.

Let me go back to what I was saying before about my intensions in starting this blog. It was true that I'm searching for those things in my life that make me truly happy -- and it was true that I'm searching for the ultimate happiness. But I'm also searching for those things in my life that don't leave me feeling depressed.

Full disclosure: there's been a couple of times in my life that I think I suffered from depression. And that scares the hell out of me. So much so, that I don't know if I've even shared some of this information with my family.

The first time was when I returned from studying abroad (I wish I could link to my study abroad blog here, but blog.com has told me that it's been deleted -- those a-holes).

During my junior year of college, I studied abroad for 5 months in Florence. Italy was beautiful and everything I ever imagined. As an art history major, I was in awe of my ability to stand 2 feet away from a Michelangelo, Dontaello, Leonardo, Raphael (and all those other Ninja Turtles). But at the same time, I can't say that I was completely happy in Italy. Here I was having this incredible experience and I couldn't enjoy it. I convinced myself my unhappiness was homesickness. So when I returned back to the U.S. and college at Santa Clara University, I thought things would return to normal, and I would be the bubbly person I always had been.

We were warned that we would experience a certain degree of culture shock when we came back from abroad, but I don't think what I was experiencing was culture shock.

There were nights that I broke down into tears, without knowing why. I didn't want to do anything and didn't want to leave my room. I couldn't sleep. When I did go out and spent time with friends, I felt like I was putting on a mask the whole time, like I was plastering a fake smile across my face, but wondering the whole time if they could see it didn't reach my eyes.

There was something wrong with me, I knew it.

I thank The Santa Clara newspaper for pulling me out of whatever it was that I was experiencing. When I took on my role as the News Editor for the campus paper, I was thrown into a heap of work that kept my whole mind preoccupied. More than that, I found myself suddenly surrounded by a great group of people who became my closest friends. We depended upon one another. We were a team and I knew I had a purpose on that team. I felt wanted.

Until recently, I was back to normal, only experiencing the ups and downs that are a part of life. In Phoenix, despite our year of headache, I handled things with as much grace as could be expected. All the while, I counted down the days until August 5, the day I could get out of there and start over again.

Cue the move to San Diego.

If you haven't heard, San Diego is pretty much heaven on earth. It's a beautiful city with a ton of fun things to do. Not to mention the weather is fantastic and the beach is always 10 minutes away from you at any given time. Compared to Phoenix, it's night and day.

Upon moving to San Diego, I had a week of honeymooning, where everything was new and exciting. I couldn't get enough of the city and wanted to go somewhere new every day.

Then that feeling I experienced returning from Florence surrounded me like a dark cloud. And it started raining.

I didn't get it. Here I was in this great city, with great people, and great things going for me.

But I wasn't happy. In fact, there were times that I felt like I was wearing that mask again. Smiling on the outside, but trying hard to hold on.

No, I'm not a basketcase. I know that.

No, I don't think the neurons in my brain are messed up, causing me to experience sadness in times of great happiness.

Yet, a part of me is worried that this might be hereditary, that my Oma, aunts and cousins have somehow doomed me.

But I refuse to believe that. That's another reason why I'm writing this blog. I know that I'm experiencing things that don't have an explanation. But while part of me feels like I'm doomed, another part feels like whatever is going on with me is just a part of life, something that I need to sort out. And somehow this blog is going to help me do that.

And so far, it has. I've noticed a change in myself during the last few weeks. If wellness really is a state of mind in my family -- then right now, I consider myself healthy.