Mental illness in my life has been like that unpopular family member that always shows up to family functions uninvited: destructive and consistently ignored until something breaks—like a priceless vase or glass screen door. It acted as a bulwark against forming healthy relationships in my late teen years and throughout my twenties, pushed me to leave home in the hope of escaping a desolate existence watching my brother mentally spiral out of control, and has been the lens from which I’ve viewed an indifferent, unfair world. I’ve struggled with major depression the last 20 years. In my teens I tried to ignore it, numbing myself to my surroundings and waiting for high school to end, using my dysfunctional home life and bipolar brother as an excuse to not socialize with my peers. It became a full-fledged problem after I joined the Air Force and found that despite being free from my reasons for isolating myself, I couldn’t shake the unending feelings of self-doubt, shame, and despair that rocked my mind like how the waves of the ocean rocked a sailor to sleep. Thankfully, my depression was treated by the AF and I got the help and medication I needed in order to function and enjoy life for the first time in years. I made friends that to this day I’m still in touch with. I traveled out of country and experienced what it was like to deploy. The only blip was that I was in an unhealthy trauma bond with a boy for the duration of my enlistment. It was long distance, and we validated each other and our mutual past feelings of depression, until finally I was in a good enough place to not feel the same way as him anymore. Eventually we broke things off for the last time after I got out of the AF. Eventually I got married and had biological kids of my own with a man who had kids from a previous marriage. Things were good for a while until we tried to get majority custody of the kids because my step daughter reported emotional and physical abuse. The whole case ended with my family being held in contempt by the judge after my step daughter changed her story and sung her mother’s praises. Guilt and self-hatred over believing her stories ate away at me for years, compounded by already existing feelings of doubt over my judgement. Despair returned with a vengeance until I finally couldn’t take it anymore and I had to check myself into the psych ward. Despite it being unwanted, I can’t deny though that mental illness has played a large part in my life over the years. From acting as a catalyst to leave home and pursue my dreams, to dictating what kind of romantic and social relationships I’ve been in, to coloring how I view the people in my life and why things happen. I wish it wasn’t a large part. I wish it could go the same way as that unwanted family member and just disappear or die one day. But the fact is it won’t. It will always be there, because sometimes that’s just the cards that we’re dealt. You just have to make the best of it and cherish what you can.

My uncle Dick is related to me by marriage–his wife was my fathers aunt. Though not related by blood, the man has been like a grandfather to me all of my life. It wasn't until I was in the process of joining the USAF that I heard his story: As a young man from Ohio, my uncle wanted to serve in what was then the United State Army Air Corps in 1956/1946. A basketball player and warehouse worker, he had the physical endurance to match the military's needs. Except for his eyes. As with all recruits, my uncle was required to take a sight test while in the process of joining, and if your eyesight was particularly bad, you were disqualified from enlisting. Determined and crafty, my uncle studied the process of the sight test carefully while in line and memorized the sight chart ahead. He passed with flying colors with no one the wiser. Soon after he was shipped out to Texas for Bootcamp. My husband likes to call my uncle a real-life Steve Rogers for this, and I'm inclined to agree, after spending time at the MEPS center, where new recruits are tested for qualification to serve in the US military. Determination is needed to get through the recruitment and training for the armed services. Determination and craftiness. Lackland Air Force Base wasn't called Lackland back then, and the Dorms we know from today weren't built yet either. troops were housed in wooden barracks reminiscent of the army and treated like such, though it was the beginning of the USAF formally breaking away from the army into its own entity. My uncle, despite the difference to present day training, went through what was essentially the same thing I would go through in 2013: grueling lessons on how to march, how to eat fast, how to have immaculate dress and appearance in uniform, and how to have loyalty to our country. Absolute loyalty. He formed bonds with people from all over the country, and became part of a brotherhood not unlike the sisterhood I would become a part of when it was my time to serve. He never did get to deploy to Europe–WWII had just ended and he had missed the action brought about by the Nazis. But he worked for the pentagon for a number of years as a weather troop, back when you had to eyeball the clouds and distance in the air the storm was brewing in, rather than measure with some sort of fancy machine. He told me how the computers in the pentagon were giant screens that took the entire space of a wall from ceiling to floor, and what it felt like to be working as a cog in such a massive, important machine. I wanted to become a part of that machine. I was young, bereft of a way to go to college without taking on a loan, and of friends and an identity outside of my family. I wanted to start a new life. My life. And I wouldn't have taken that leap without the encouragement of my uncle. Even before I left for Bootcamp he had no doubt in his mind that I would succeed. And I did.

From the poetry book I'm writing concerning divorce: Justification I did this for you. The intake at the legal office, spilling my heart on my sleeve, my story, so frightful, so hard to believe. I did this for a future, with me, without him in our lives, leaving what’s been. I did this story. I painted it black. As dark as could be, my way to attack. I had to strike first before the moment can pass. I had to strike hard for the lie to last. You don’t understand the way the world spins, pushed by white lies and justified sins. You’ll know when you’re older. You’re still just a kid. You’ll see I was right In everything I did. I wasn’t battered. No bruises mar me. My psyche, though, is another story. Never enough, never to wow, and he had the nerve, to call me out now. And then, And back again. Listing my faults, and every sin. So what if I hurt him? He said he loved me. Doesn’t that mean I’m free to be The good and the bad that I know that I am. He should know if he loves me, He’ll receive what he can. He should have known how much of a lie it was to be us when I wanted to be I.

When I first joined the Air Force, I had a supervisor who, while well-intentioned, was a dysfunctional micromanager. needless to say morale in the office was at a perpetually low point whenever she was around, and for someone who already had social anxiety be part of their personality, this added stress only made my general anxiety worse. She would punish us for being just minute late to work with pushups, constantly ask us what we were working on from her desk, require us to submit after day reports on what we worked on, and on top of all that, tell us about her private life, which put us all in a very uncomfortable place with her husband, who we all knew. Anytime she talked to you it would be because she was nit picking something that was wrong about your performance, from job performance to military grooming habits. there was even this one time she measured my pixie cut with a ruler in front of everybody to see if my hair length was in regulation. Eventually my anxiety turned into full fledged depression and I ended up checking myself into the psych ward. Thankfully, this was perceived as corrective action and I wasn't penalized for it. I wasn't discharged. Fast forward almost ten years later and I'm starting my new job as a law librarian. It's the first job I've had after the Air Force. Within the first few hours I have nothing to do at my desk: I've read all of my training manuals, reviewed everything there is to know about the systems in place for helping patrons, I'd even made my own continuity book for future reference. And yet, as I sit there, not sure what to do with myself, I can't help but believe that either I'm in trouble or I'm about to be in trouble because I wasn't doing work. My experience with my first supervisor was so traumatizing that it resulted in me being conditioned to experience extreme anxiety when idle. What has always helped soothe my anxiety is writing. Getting my thoughts on the page not only helped me express myself, it also allowed me to expand upon my creative ideas. Its partly for this reason why I decided to try for a Master Of fine Arts Degree in Creative Writing. This degree is important to me because it feels like something that is strictly me, and not something I'm just getting because it will get me a job later on, like with my criminal justice degree. Writing is a passion, not just a skill. It's what I feel like I was always meant to do, what makes me feel like my truest self, and is with that degree, I think is something I can do a lot of good with.

I'm currently working towards a Master Of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing. I'm a full time student through Southern New Hampshire University's online masters program. I'm a law librarian with a Bachelors degree in Criminal Justice, and I do research/transcribing on the side for the Jonestown Institute. I tend to take on more than I can handle. Just recently I had to inquire about dropping out of the paralegal certification program I was enrolled in because I simply didn't have the time to focus on it this year, with my other two projects. It seemed like a good idea at first, enrolling in all of these things, and the excitement was palpable, but the truth is it's not just me anymore. I have a husband and family to think about. Especially since I'm trying to get the majority of my degree done by fall of next year, when my husband will enroll in law school. i guess you can say we both have big ambitions, despite how little time there is in the day. My day starts off at around 5-5:30 Am. I get up, let the dogs out, and usually by 6 I’ve done the dishes if they needed to be done and my 4-year-old daughter has woken up and joined me downstairs for breakfast. I pour her a bowl of cereal, make the coffee, eat breakfast too, and then get ready for work. By 7:30 I’m headed out to work while my niece gets ready to get my 2 year old son, who is by then stirring in his crib. I get to work around 8, and from then to 5 pm, with an hour lunch break in between, I’m either helping law patrons, working the front desk, or working on law library related stuff in the back office. If there are slow days (which thankfully there are a few) I work on either my graduate studies or transcribing documents released by the FBI concerning the Peoples Temple history. By the time I get home around 5:30, I’m either making dinner or my husband is. The kids have woken from their nap by then, so there’s some chaos as dinner is prepared and started, followed by some light play/nightly preparations with the kids, and then finally bed time for the kids. This is usually done by 8:30. By 9 PM I’m either heading out the neighborhood for a jog/exercise, or I’m going to the gym to lift weights. I’m home by 10. I shower real quick, maybe read my assigned reading for this class or the other for a bit, and then I go to sleep. Despite the chaos, I've never wanted to be a stay at home mom. In actuality, I've had less stress being employed and have been more personally fulfilled than if I were to just be at home. I love my kids, but I also like focusing on things like my career, and I think that's important for most moms these days— to feel like they have an identity and ambitions outside of motherhood. I think what I've learned from all of this though is that its okay to postpone things. it's ok to not start things until a certain time. Dreams don't have to happen all in one go. to make your dreams happen you have to work with what you've got and be kind to yourself.

For as long as I could remember, I didn't have a voice. Not in my household, and definitely not among my friends, because growing up, I didn't really have any. The only times I ever felt like I could speak freely was in my English classes, when I would have to analyze poetry or literature, or my own feelings. I had a lot going on in my household that I felt like I couldn't talk about to anyone. From a mentally ill brother to a mentally ill and flighty mother to an emotionally distant dad, I was seemingly the only sane one in the family. Most people didn't think there was anything wrong with me, so they never thought to ask how I was, or if they did, they expected a short, mild response, which they usually got. And then I surprised everyone by joining the Airforce at 20 years old. My writing had started before that, but it really took off once I shipped out to bootcamp. Like everyone else in my flight, I spent my nights writing letters home and telling my family about my experiences in San Antonio, the good and the bad. For once I could talk about something new with my family, and for once they could see a different side of me they never knew existed. As time went on and my career in the USAF progressed, letters home turned into poetry and creative writing, and I found that when I wrote, I could process and articulate things in a way I never could growing up. I wasn't stuttering or stumbling over my words and I could be as truthful and harsh as I wished I was in real life. I could get my reasoning and feelings out without interruption and paint pictures with my words. Looking back, what I loved most about writing (and what I love about it now), was/is that I could be myself in the truest sense and not be ashamed of it. I'm about to enter a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program at the end of this month, and couldn't be more excited. While I have always loved to write, I've felt in the last couple of years that I needed some form of instruction to help me navigate the direction I want to go with my writing. I've felt...aimless, like a ship out at sea, with plenty of material to tide me over but with no idea which way to go. I want to further my education in this field so I can know how to start and continue on without someone holding my hand. I want to be able to turn this into a career, and I want to talk about my childhood and my experiences growing up, the choices I made, the feelings I've felt, in a way that no one expects, whether it be through fiction or nonfiction. The way is see it, there are three ways we live on after we're gone: through our children, other peoples memories, and through the stories we tell. Before I die, I want my legacy to be two things: my kids and my writing.

I was always invisible during my teen years. An island of one. I found solace in books, in characters just as isolated and ignored as I was. Nothing encapsulated that feeling more than, “Unwind,” by Neal Shusterman. In reading that book, I ironically didn't feel alone, though the characters most certainly were. Unwind is a young adult series centered on three youths living in the near future. By then, America has developed a way to cross transplant any type of body part to another person and has gone through a second civil war concerning pro-life/pro-choice rights. The war concludes with a compromise: abortion will be banned, but adolescents/teens between the age of 13 and 18 can be subject to the newly found “Unwind” initiative, which grants parents the option to rescind their child’s rights as a living human being and essentially opt for them to be “unwound.” That is, to be taken apart surgically, their body parts donated to people in need of replacement body parts. What is essentially a legalized way to unborn a person has permeated every facet of society by the time the book starts. The book series is a social commentary on how society exploits our most vulnerable members-children and teens- for profit and personal agenda through the use of religious and political rhetoric and manipulation of the media, while at the same time showing that that same pool of people its exploiting is the most capable of instigating reform, which is perhaps why they have been targeted in the first place. This is a series that needs to be read by as many people as possible. It’s a stark reflection of America’s flawed religious, political and judicial reasoning at its finest and dregs up the difficult questions that pro-lifers, pro-choicers and the juvenile justice system doesn’t want to answer: Where does life begin, and if we have the right to end it, does that mean we have the right to rescind it? Is it ever too late for someone to be reformed? And if so, how do you justify rejecting them? Most of all, it's a book series about being up against the world and trying to make your voice heard. I think most young people are going through the same thing and need that reassurance that they are not alone, and that they have the power to change things for the better.

My brother, Matt, has always inspired me to write. Growing up, he was constantly misunderstood. I got it into my head early on that if people understood his point of view, if he knew he wasn’t alone, he wouldn’t be in so much turmoil now. Nothing encapsulated this notion more than when at nine years old he got in trouble at school for drawing a picture of a gun during class. It wasn’t a fatalistic wish for violence. He was just simply following the days assignment of drawing your interest. Matt loved video games and playing army as a child. He used to collect G.I. Joes and stage them strategically around the house at various vantage points to simulate missions. His interest extended to Goldeneye 007 because of his affection for his uncle who always played the game. In short, his drawing was innocently done. His teacher didn’t think so. With Columbine still fresh on everyone’s mind, his teacher contacted the school’s police liaison and arranged for him to have a talk with Matt after school. I’ll never forget the hunched over, defensive way he sat in his chair as the two talked down to him like he was a common criminal. It was nothing short of an attack on his character and beratement for his actions. The event of watching my brother get torn down over a misunderstanding incited in me an urge to tell his story. As the years went by that urge grew to include telling the stories of kids like him, others who were dismissed at first glance, and issues that were stigmatized. To feel you are alone is a tragedy in and of itself. To not have that mindset challenged is even worse. I write because I want to challenge that mindset.

Mental illness in my life has been like that unpopular family member that always shows up to family functions uninvited: destructive and consistently ignored until something breaks—like a priceless vase or glass screen door. It acted as a bulwark against forming healthy relationships in my late teen years and throughout my twenties, pushed me to leave home in the hope of escaping a desolate existence watching my brother mentally spiral out of control, and has been the lens from which I’ve viewed an indifferent, unfair world. I’ve struggled with major depression the last 20 years. In my teens I tried to ignore it, numbing myself to my surroundings and waiting for high school to end, using my dysfunctional home life and bipolar brother as an excuse to not socialize with my peers. It became a full-fledged problem after I joined the Air Force and found that despite being free from my reasons for isolating myself, I couldn’t shake the unending feelings of self-doubt, shame, and despair that rocked my mind like how the waves of the ocean rocked a sailor to sleep. Thankfully, my depression was treated by the AF and I got the help and medication I needed in order to function and enjoy life for the first time in years. I made friends that to this day I’m still in touch with. I traveled out of country and experienced what it was like to deploy. The only blip was that I was in an unhealthy trauma bond with a boy for the duration of my enlistment. It was long distance, and we validated each other and our mutual past feelings of depression, until finally I was in a good enough place to not feel the same way as him anymore. Eventually we broke things off for the last time after I got out of the AF. Eventually I got married and had biological kids of my own with a man who had kids from a previous marriage. Things were good for a while until we tried to get majority custody of the kids because my step daughter reported emotional and physical abuse. The whole case ended with my family being held in contempt by the judge after my step daughter changed her story and sung her mother’s praises. Guilt and self-hatred over believing her stories ate away at me for years, compounded by already existing feelings of doubt over my judgement. Despair returned with a vengeance until I finally couldn’t take it anymore and I had to check myself into the psych ward. I was altered by what had happened with my step daughter. No longer sympathetic to her situation or herself. I came to believe what Littlefinger of Game of Thrones said: “There is no justice in this world. Not unless we make it.” The judge presiding over our case didn’t care about my husband’s ex-wife’s wrongdoing’s. She didn’t care that she was vindictive and only raking us thought the court system to get even. I came to hate the world. And my step daughter and her mother. I left the psych ward with a new prescription—Abilify— and a borderline personality disorder diagnosis. Not letting the black and white thinking of borderline personality disorder has been a constant struggle. I don’t hate my step daughter anymore, though I think that’s more due to the medication I’m on. Where there was once an all-consuming fire of hatred licking my insides there is now a dry space. Extinguished and empty. I still hate her mother. Its just a matter of fact now, and again, no emotions fuel it. Focusing on logic and reason helps. Talking to my husband and friends too. have more friends than I did growing up, but less than when I was still active duty in the AF. I’m currently slated to start paralegal certification classes and a graduate program this summer, while also working on my notary application. Despite the large workload, I don’t mind the stress, whereas before I would buckle and snap form the pressure and drown in the ensuing despair. Medication and years of rational emotive behavioral therapy, along with a supportive husband, has made sure that I don’t fall back into old habits. I’ve come to realize that while the world is a cruel place, some battles aren’t worth investing your time in. That it’s alright sometimes to not play the game. Most of all, that if the world is this cruel, cherish the good times even more. They are few and fleeting, but they make the bad times worth it. Despite it being unwanted, I can’t deny though that mental illness has played a large part in my life over the years. From acting as a catalyst to leave home and pursue my dreams, to dictating what kind of romantic and social relationships I’ve been in, to coloring how I view the people in my life and why things happen. I wish it wasn’t a large part. I wish it could go the same way as that unwanted family member and just disappear or die one day. But the fact is it won’t. It will always be there, because sometimes that’s just the cards that we’re dealt. You just have to make the best of it and cherish what you can.

Mental illness in my life has been like that unpopular family member that always shows up to family functions uninvited: destructive and consistently ignored until something breaks—like a priceless vase or glass screen door. It acted as a bulwark against forming healthy relationships in my late teen years and throughout my twenties, pushed me to leave home in the hope of escaping a desolate existence watching my brother mentally spiral out of control, and has been the lens from which I’ve viewed an indifferent, unfair world. I’ve struggled with major depression the last 20 years. In my teens I tried to ignore it, numbing myself to my surroundings and waiting for high school to end, using my dysfunctional home life and bipolar brother as an excuse to not socialize with my peers. It became a full-fledged problem after I joined the Air Force and found that despite being free from my reasons for isolating myself, I couldn’t shake the unending feelings of self-doubt, shame, and despair that rocked my mind like how the waves of the ocean rocked a sailor to sleep. Thankfully, my depression was treated by the AF and I got the help and medication I needed in order to function and enjoy life for the first time in years. I made friends that to this day I’m still in touch with. I traveled out of country and experienced what it was like to deploy. The only blip was that I was in an unhealthy trauma bond with a boy for the duration of my enlistment. It was long distance, and we validated each other and our mutual past feelings of depression, until finally I was in a good enough place to not feel the same way as him anymore. Eventually we broke things off for the last time after I got out of the AF. Eventually I got married and had biological kids of my own with a man who had kids from a previous marriage. Things were good for a while until we tried to get majority custody of the kids because my step daughter reported emotional and physical abuse. The whole case ended with my family being held in contempt by the judge after my step daughter changed her story and sung her mother’s praises. Guilt and self-hatred over believing her stories ate away at me for years, compounded by already existing feelings of doubt over my judgement. Despair returned with a vengeance until I finally couldn’t take it anymore and I had to check myself into the psych ward. I was altered by what had happened with my step daughter. No longer sympathetic to her situation or herself. I came to believe what Littlefinger of Game of Thrones said: “There is no justice in this world. Not unless we make it.” The judge presiding over our case didn’t care about my husband’s ex-wife’s wrongdoing’s. She didn’t care that she was vindictive and only raking us thought the court system to get even. I came to hate the world. And my step daughter and her mother. I left the psych ward with a new prescription—Abilify— and a borderline personality disorder diagnosis. Not letting the black and white thinking of borderline personality disorder has been a constant struggle. I don’t hate my step daughter anymore, though I think that’s more due to the medication I’m on. Where there was once an all-consuming fire of hatred licking my insides there is now a dry space. Extinguished and empty. I still hate her mother. Its just a matter of fact now, and again, no emotions fuel it. Focusing on logic and reason helps. Talking to my husband and friends too. I have more friends than I did growing up, but less than when I was still active duty in the AF. I’m currently slated to start paralegal certification classes and a graduate program this summer, while also working on my notary application. Despite the large workload, I don’t mind the stress, whereas before I would buckle and snap form the pressure and drown in the ensuing despair. Medication and years of rational emotive behavioral therapy, along with a supportive husband, has made sure that I don’t fall back into old habits. I’ve come to realize that while the world is a cruel place, some battles aren’t worth investing your time in. That it’s alright sometimes to not play the game. Most of all, that if the world is this cruel, cherish the good times even more. They are few and fleeting, but they make the bad times worth it. Despite it being unwanted, I can’t deny though that mental illness has played a large part in my life over the years. From acting as a catalyst to leave home and pursue my dreams, to dictating what kind of romantic and social relationships I’ve been in, to coloring how I view the people in my life and why things happen. I wish it wasn’t a large part. I wish it could go the same way as that unwanted family member and just disappear or die one day. But the fact is it won’t. It will always be there, because sometimes that’s just the cards that we’re dealt. You just have to make the best of it and cherish what you can.