Tag: break the stigma

Afternoon Pause

On By adonkumentaryIn anxiety, summerLeave a comment

It’s a typical late-Texas summer on an early, weekday afternoon where leaves hang completely still from the treetops. The chickens have dug small holes outside of their coop in which to rest (the dirt beneath the surface being much cooler than anywhere else they may find) while the ducks drift gently in their pond with their heads tucked into their feathers. Little naps. Flapping bugs hop through the grass—pops of glittery movement in an otherwise motionless yard.

I’ve been sitting on the floor for some time gazing aimlessly out the window with gratitude for a working a/c in my house. I keep wondering if the ducks will wake or if the chickens will grab a skipping bug as it passes. I wonder if the donkeys will emerge from the barn but even they’ve foregone grazing under this afternoon sun and opted, instead, for the shade and coolness of their stalls. I suppose even I’ve been frozen for a while—perhaps time on this afternoon has simply paused.

I take a long, slow breath and as I exhale, I lay back and place my hands over my heart. I stare at the ceiling fan above and try to focus on one blade and follow it around and around, but I keep losing track. I can feel the beat of my heart in my hands. It’s wonky. It’s always wonky in heat like this. So I breathe deeper and more slowly, hoping that will calm her down. Ba dum, ba dum, baaaa dum dum. Ba dum, ba dum, baaa dum di dum dum. 

I‘ve learned to take advantage of quiet, still moments like these in an effort to find the same kind of calmness within my brain and being by trying to visualize various things depending on what I need or what’s going on. I’ve described some of these images before—things like purposefully pushing boulders down mountains in an effort to establish new grooves in the thought process. Streams of light that swirl into my body as I inhale and carry out the dark as I exhale. Muscles relaxing and releasing over the bones that support them, even the tiny ones around my eyes and ears. Lately I’ve been walking down a long hallway, slamming doors of busy thoughts as I pass while focusing on the dark end which I can’t quite make out yet. 

But anxiety is several doors pouring open at once, their insides tumbling and scattering all over the floor. Before you can even think about receiving the satisfaction of slamming the door shut, you must shuffle all the pieces back into their places, careful that you’re picking up the right stuff and not accidentally mixing up this door’s thoughts with the contents from the door across the hall that just spilled open, too. And when you’ve finally, meticulously stacked all the screaming thoughts back into their boxes and arranged them just so, two more doors with even louder and more fragile thoughts burst open. 

It’s then that I lay down in the growing pile of crashing thoughts and chatter and close my eyes into an even smaller, darker hallway with smaller, more finicky doors—a sort of inception of my own coping mechanisms. 

Over and over I do this until the darkness swallows me.

Dizzy, I open my eyes quickly. The room is bright with afternoon sun. The ceiling fan spins around and around and again, I try and find one blade, but can’t. I take in a deep breath and stand as I exhale. The ducks are splashing in the pond. The chickens are pecking through the grass. The donkeys are out in the pasture, heads down and tails flicking. 

As I wander back to my office, I wonder how many versions of me might still be laying in piles of thoughts with their eyes closed? I wonder if there even exists a hallway that can be silenced? Or maybe that’s not the point? 

Thoughts for the next pause, I suppose. For now, the afternoon is alive once more and so too is my need to return to it, spilled contents and all.

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It’s You, Baby

On By adonkumentaryIn anxiety, reading1 Comment

It’s morning rush hour as I inch along in my gray car on a 10-lane, gray highway beneath a swollen, gray sky. The whole world is a heavy gray and the weight of it all seems to rest right in the center of my gut which turns with a groaning sound. Start, stop, start, stop. Inch, break, inch, break. Sweat beads on my brow which sucks because today is a day that I have actually and carefully applied makeup. I dab at my forehead with a crumpled napkin from the center console.

On the passenger seat next to me is my travelling-reading bag which I’ve toted around to several schools who have invited me out to read my book, “Tink the Bravest Donkey,” and talk donkey rescue with their students. Within the bag are several signed copies of my book, the actual blue boot that Tink the real donkey used to wear, my laptop, a Tink story board, and little bracelets to give away. I’m on my way to an elementary school to read for several different groups and for reasons which I’m unsure, I’ve spiralled into a full on panic attack.

This isn’t the first time this has happened, not by a long shot. As a person living with anxiety, it’s not uncommon for my mind to spin out without warning at the most inopportune times. I used to think there was something wrong with me—like physically wrong—when this would happen. I’d be fine, going about some mundane task, when all of the sudden, I’d start having trouble breathing in. Was something wrong with my circulation? Was I having a heart attack? Stroke? Only in the past couple of years have I understood that these symptoms were not physical sickness, but unrest from deep within my mind.

Google maps (my forever driving companion) tells me my exit is in half a mile, but still, it takes me nearly 15 minutes to get there because of the heavy traffic. Inch, break, inch, break. I’m so worried that the giant, shiny pickup truck that’s been riding my tail with what must be only centimeters between us is going to bump into me. Why won’t they back off? Why do people do that?

I feel nauseous and the idea of being sick to my stomach only deepens the worry that I’ll have to take a vomit break while trying to read my story to eager students. You have to breathe, I tell myself over and over, but it’s about as useful as telling my dog to stop barking when the squirrels chirp at her from high up in the branches. Try as I might to pull my breath down to the bottom of my lungs, over and over it breaks at the base of my throat.

Finally, I exit and pull off to a gas station on the corner of a busy intersection and park in front of the Stop-n-Shop which advertises Monster Energy drinks, buy one get one free. I imagine two of those would make your heart explode. Mine feels like it might right now. I’d planned my commute to get to the school about 20 minutes early, so I have a few minutes to spare. I unbuckle my seatbelt, lean back in my chair, turn up my music, and close my eyes.  

I’ve learned over time that panic attacks are not situations from which you can just “calm down” because they’re not a mood and at least in my experience, they’re not even circumstantial—at least not consistently. They’re sporadic, sudden, and often inexplicable. In the case of this morning, am I nervous about doing several presentations at this school? Sure, a little. Who isn’t nervous to perform no matter how well they know their subject? Also, this is my first children’s book: it’s a really big deal to me. But I’m not afraid. I’m not panicked about it. This attack is coming from somewhere else—somewhere deeper and over high heat. It’s water bubbling up and beginning to boil because the fire’s hot under that pot.

After several minutes of trying to picture jellyfish-like movement of my breath, I open one eye to look at the clock and realize that I need to be on my way. I don’t have time to sit here and wait for the panic to pass, so I sit up, pop myself on the cheeks a few times, and back out of my parking space.

In my mind as I near my destination, I start reciting lines from my book. “Cock-a-doodle-doo, what’s with the shoe?” The kids love this part because I ask them to make rooster sounds with me (and as loudly as they can). I also recall a comment on one of my Instagram posts a while back where someone told me that the rooster is their child’s favorite character.  “‘Cock-a-doodle-cool!’ The rooster said.”

I pull into the school’s parking lot and grip my steering wheel tight. You’re going to be fine, I tell myself again and again, even if I can’t quite believe it.

I check to make sure I haven’t smudged my makeup, grab my travel bag, and head towards the school’s front door.

—

I’m happy to report that the presentations I gave all went wonderfully. It seems that as soon as I got busy with the task at hand, there was no more oxygen left for panic to consume. The children were amazing, the staff was amazing, and I suspect that donkeys gained some new, little advocates.

I write about this because there are many of us out there—many of us with anxiety, panic, and depression in our brains and I for one have spent a lot of time scared and ashamed to admit it. I’ve feared judgement, distrust, and condescension because to much of our society, mental health is still wildly misunderstood and often pushed aside or swept under the rug. The more we avoid talking about it, the more stigmatized it becomes and the more myths about it perpetuate. Studies show there are 40 million people in the US who have anxiety disorders. That’s no small thing. And it also means you’re not alone.

So my victory I share with you in case you might need it as a tool in your toolbox: apparently the remedy to my sudden and inexplicable panic was busyness with something that I couldn’t (and certainly didn’t want) to wiggle my way out of. I put one foot in front of the other until without me realizing the shift, I was breathing normally again. The distraction must’ve snuffed out the panic attack. I suppose it’s along the lines of what we give oxygen to is what will live and breathe—although I recognize that it’s not always that simple. An anxious mind rarely has the ability to compartmentalize, so it’s not always easy to pick and choose what you allow to breathe. But who knows, maybe in some instances, it’s exactly what’s needed.

The bottom line is this: your mind is a beautiful thing—lined with panic or not. It’s powerful and complex and nothing to be ashamed of. Love and care for it deeply and always because it’s you, baby. It is your most powerful tool, your most valuable asset, and it’s you. You are worth nurturing. You are worth taking the time to understand. You are worthy of love. You as you as YOU.

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Scatterbrained Showers

On By adonkumentaryIn donkey, farm2 Comments

Finally, my favorite days. I’ve written about them before: the days where it’s warm in the sun and cool in the shade. On and off I take my flannel shirt as I move across the yard beneath spotted shadows of spring-heavy trees. The ground went from washed out to tangled jungle in a mere handful of days, so I’m tending to her with my myriad of second-hand tools that clink and clank with rusted age. Yard work is my favorite work, especially on temperately blissful days like this one. Like the eager plants around me, I could swear every cell in my body is reaching for the sun.

Bodhi and Tee are playing donkey games in the yard while Bunny stands at the fence  grooming the neighbor’s horse with her teeth. Around my legs, Ron Swanson the Rooster and Trixie the dog chase each other endlessly. This unlikely friendship is one that even the grumpiest of curmudgeons can’t help but smile about. I post about them often on my Instagram, if you’re a ‘grammer.



My last post was a dreary one in which I swore the storms were never going to end. It’s difficult to feel optimistic when the ground is continually washed away along with any real hope for stability and growth while the world around is a blur of colors that you can’t see through clearly even though you want to so badly. And indeed there is more rain in the forecast in the coming week.

But as I stand outside among my funny family of seemingly sunshine-drunk animals and leaves that are practically unfolding before my eyes, I’m reminded that all of this is just an infinite series of small moments. One after another they come, an endless film strip that moves so quickly sometimes, it’s hard to tell what you’re looking at until it’s passed—images already fading softly in your memory.

The sun has dropped behind the trees now with only small bits of light shining through the holes between the leaves as a chill crawls along my arms. I untie the flannel shirt from around my waist and head towards the barn where the donkeys bray because sunset means dinner time and they know I’ll be there with their hay. I always will. I suppose those routines are roots in their own way.

As light slips down the barn walls, I take pause with my donkeys, stretching the fleeting moment as long as I can because with them, I am present. I am here. I am rooted so firmly that no amount of scatterbrained showers can wash me away. Day after day, the donkeys remind me of this. They hold down my kite string when the wind turns wild.

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Like pulling eggs delicately from the chicken coop, I think the best we can do sometimes is pick up one moment at a time as they come, examine them, and tuck them carefully into our apron. Some of the eggs might be bad—it happens—but typically, as long as you’re handling them the right way, they’re going to be just fine.

Moonlit Mind

On By adonkumentaryIn anxiety, UncategorizedLeave a comment

It’s the middle of the night. Last time I looked at the digital clock on my nightstand, it said “2:44” and that seems like hours ago. I’m laying on my back with the blanket balled up beneath my chin and my eyes closed, hoping that somehow, someway, sleep will take me. I know in my gut that it won’t, but I try anyway.

I do this more often than not—lay awake at night hoping for sleep typically without success. It’s a common thing for us to do, to have our minds flooded with fragments of every small memory, distant worry, running checklist, and distracting thought the second our heads hit the pillow: I know this because I see enough of my friends post memes about busy-minded insomnia to know I’m not alone. But damn, if it isn’t exhausting. I sigh, roll over into a fetal position, and open my eyes to see that it’s 3:30 now. One of my dogs must sense my movement because from across the room, I hear the tinkling of a collar.

At this point, the bed is no longer comfortable and the silence and darkness have become a perfect and chaotic breeding ground for toxic thoughts to pour from the pockets of insecurities that I carry around, so I slide out from under the blankets. It’s cold out here. Draped over the dresser is my flannel shirt which I grab and wrap myself in as I head into the living room. Tucker, the dog with the tinkling collar, follows me.

The floor glows blue in stretched out moonlight and is cold under my feet. I sit in my favorite spot on the couch and pull a throw blanket over myself. This side of the couch—my preferred side—is a perfect looking spot next to a window that faces the barn where my three donkeys are snuggled in, hopefully nuzzled together and not busy-minded like me. The thought of their thoughts makes me smile. Last week, my vet came out to perform Bodhi’s castration and as he was waking from his sedative, the vet told me he often wonders if donkeys dream. “They’re so smart, you know,” he told me in his gruff, East-Texas accent, “and I’m just curious what they must dream about. Surely they do.” I adored my vet before this comment but when he said that, my admiration for him leveled up. He gets donkeys. He wonders about their dreams.

He, my vet, was there the day Tink died. It was a Saturday afternoon and we had to call him out in an emergency. He was there within 20 minutes of our call and stayed until we said our final goodbye. At the time, I didn’t know him very well, but he hugged me tight when I crumbled and began to weep. I left smudged mascara marks on his brown vest. I think about that often.

The barn is blue in the moonlight and above it, a perfectly clear, cold sky twinkles with a few, bright stars. It’s been dropping down to the 20’s at night which for us here in Texas is brutal. The throw blanket tugs and I break my gaze with the barn to see Tucker nosing the blanket. Tucker will be 10 this year and for at least the past 6 years, he finds his way to me every single time I sit in my spot on the couch with a throw blanket and my legs curled up beneath me. I adjust myself and lift the blanket, allowing him to hop up and curl into a perfect dog ball next to my legs. I cover him with the blanket and he sighs. This is our assumed position.

I stroke the shape of Tucker’s back and look back to the barn. Bodhi’s recovering beautifully from his castration. I’ve seen many donkeys castrated and it’s never phased me a bit, but seeing your own baby who you used to bottle feed under the knife like that is a whole other story. He’s a little fighter though, our orphaned donkey who tried to steal the Christmas tree. He’s already back to his same, silly shenanigans.

Somewhere in the distance, I hear a dog bark. Tucker tenses and from under the blanket, the shape of his ears perk. “Shhh,” I say to him, stroking his head, “it’s okay.” He sighs again and relaxes.

But is it? Is it okay? Who am I to know? Maybe a dog is barking because someone’s house is getting robbed somewhere. Or maybe someone has abandoned their dog and he or she is terrified and calling out for rescue. Or maybe that dog heard another dog who heard another dog and the bark chain actually started out in Louisiana somewhere because a tree fell down in someone’s backyard. I don’t know. I don’t know if it’s okay.

I wonder if my vet was able to get the mascara smudges off of his brown vest? I haven’t been able to work up the nerve to ask him or to offer to buy him a new vest if he wasn’t able to get the stains out. I mean, in my experience, mascara comes out of clothes pretty easily, but what if? How can I know and why am I afraid to ask? And how is it that we can exist on the cellular level and a cosmic level all at the same time? Our cells are constantly regenerating and our imaginations can wander anywhere in the known (or unknown) universe. Isn’t that wild? How infinite we are? And so how, in our vastness, can insecurities about trivial things travel around with us everywhere we go? Why does it matter? Who cares about what other people think and why am I still worrying about a conversation that went badly with an old friend a decade ago?

Tucker sighs again and I realize my whole body has become tense. I close my eyes and take in a deep breath all the way to the bottom of my lungs. I hold it there for a few seconds, then sigh it out. I do this again, breathe in all the way, hold it, and let it go. I do this over and over and over until it’s quiet…until my muscles relax over my bones like jelly.  Mascara does come out of clothes. I know this. And sometimes, dogs bark for no reason and conversations go badly. It just happens. That’s okay.

The clock above the mantle says it’s nearly 4:30am and so I figure I ought to go ahead and get my day started. I pat Tucker on the rump, grab my coat and boots, and head out in the cold morning to feed the donkeys and muck their stalls. The moon is bright behind the trees leaving everything a glowing blue.

I breathe in deep, the air cold in my gut, and sigh it out in a small cloud that floats away towards the few stars competing with the moon’s gaze. Cosmic, indeed.

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The Cutest Grinch

On By adonkumentaryIn Uncategorized1 Comment

It’s a typical mid-morning here at the ranch where I’m folding laundry back in the bedroom and King Ranch is fixing something (I’m not sure what) in Little Foot’s room. Outside, it’s unseasonably warm (thank you, Texas weather) and everything has a golden crispness to it beneath a cloudless sky. I have an audiobook playing through my phone, “First, We Make the Beast Beautiful” by Sarah Wilson. It’s an amazing listen and for anyone who lives with or struggles with anxiety, I highly recommend giving it a go. It’s a book that for me, is full of life-changers.

I’ve nearly reached the bottom of the laundry basket when from the living room, I hear a crash and the tinkling sound of delicate things bouncing across the tile floor. I drop the yoga pants from my hands and rush toward the noise. Both of our dogs are barking and running in nervous circles and from down the hall, King Ranch and Little Foot come running.

At a shaky, 45 degree angle, our Christmas tree is headed towards the open back door. Ornaments and needles are falling like raindrops and the light cord is about to pop from the wall outlet.

King Ranch lunges for the tree as I dash to wrap my arms around the culprit engaging in this Grinch-like thievery…Bodhi, our not-so-baby donkey. Somewhere beyond the barking dogs, I can hear Little Foot crying, “No! Not the tree! No!” and small, grunting curses from a struggling King Ranch. Bodhi whips his head back and forth with a branch clamped between his teeth, sending more ornaments and needles scattering across the floor when finally, he lets go.

I shuffle Bodhi outside as King Ranch props the tree back up vertically. “No. Bad donkey,” I say to Bodhi, pointing my index finger at his nose which has a few pine needles stuck to it. He looks at me with wide, playful eyes — I swear, he’s laughing. Ha. Now I am, too. I can’t be mad at this face. I wrap my arms around Bodhi’s neck and scratch the sides of his face. He leans his weight into me. Little stinker.

I’m sad to report that none of this was caught on video, the chaos having exploded too abruptly, but I do have video evidence of what it looks like to have a baby donkey know how to open your back door:

 

After re-adjusting the tree, picking up the ornaments, and reassuring Little Foot that Bodhi was just trying to share the tree and not steal it (we had to make a deal with him that we would put a tree in the barn next year so the donkeys could have one, too), our day resumed with its mundane tasks. I backed my book up to where I’d left off and, although covered in donkey hair and pine-needles, I picked up the yoga pants I’d dropped and resumed folding.

—

This happened a few weeks back and I’ve only just had the opportunity to write about it. Since then, I’ve been trying to list out my goals for this year and besides the usual trying to live healthier, watch our money, do good deeds daily, etc., I’ve landed on wanting the new year to be filled with a bit more sobering innocence. This is an already mean enough world with lots of dark and scary things…but sometimes, your baby donkey sneaks into your house and tries to steal your Christmas tree. And sometimes, days are just otherwise mundane.

One of the things Sarah Wilson talks about in her book I mentioned above are tasks that you do daily — making the bed every single morning, for example, or spending a little time every day while the coffee is brewing to meditate (the cool thing about meditating being that even if you’re bad at it, it still helps!) and how grounding those rituals become if you actually stick to them.

Most importantly, there is a lot of good happening everywhere all the time. There are sparks of light in the dark. There are people who hear you and see you and want to embrace you for your good and your bad because they see that at your core, you are a being worthy of love. There’s a lot of cute and a lot of innocent and I think those things are worth highlighting. It may not make the bad stuff go away, but like that old saying goes, “It’s better to light a single candle than curse the darkness.”

I think that’s what I’d like to do better this year: light more candles.

Happy New Year, y’all. Let’s take this a day at a time 🙂

NamasBRAY.

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P.S. I want to thank all of y’all who have shown so much support for my children’s book that came out nearly two months ago. I would love to hear your feedback / see photos of you, your kiddos, your critters enjoying the book. If you’d like to share, please send me an email at adonkumentary@gmail.com. And if you haven’t snagged your copy yet, there are still some available! Get yours here: Tink the Bravest Donkey

P.P.S. If you’re interested in getting a copy of the book I mention above, “First We Make the Beast Beautiful,” you can find it here. I promise, it doesn’t disappoint.