Eliza in Progress

I've been very open here and elsewhere about my journey  (that word is forever ruined by the "Bachelor" contestants and every other reality tv star, but I literally googled synonyms and couldn't find a good one, so the bachelorettes and I are just goin' with it)  journey through depression.  I really have struggled with varying degrees of depression since as long as I can remember.  I've read dozens of books, researched for hours online, tried every natural and modern medicine approach and have spent many hours with therapists.  But it wasn't until one day in a therapy session with my amazing therapist (btw, it's taken a lot of time to find the right fit, so don't give up on therapy, just find a good one)  that really changed my life.  She was able to see through all my efforts for what it was; shame.  I have always been so keenly embarrassed and self-conscious about my depression.  I felt so so stupid and wimpy and just wrong that I stru

Who wants to be a Serious Susan?  I have fought my whole life against that because ironically even though my whole focus and a huge part of my identity was being "funny", I still came across as a serious Susan. I hated that.  I tried everything to rid myself of that label. I wanted to be loud, fun, bigger than life and of course hilariously funny.  Roughly .7% of the population has seen me as that party in a bottle personality, but man those 3 people could tell you some stories ;). What I pictured myself as...    But for the rest of the 99.3% I just kept trying to prove that I wasn't the old British butler I appeared to be.   What I come across as.... Blogging and social media came along which was a perfect forum for my introverted little heart so that is where I let it all out.  Finally I was getting recognized as funny, a label I had dreamed of my whole life.  Nevermind the backhanded compliment that almost everyone, especially those that had known me m

In the Bible there is a story of two disciples who were discouraged and grieved.  Their leader and exemplar and friend Jesus Christ had died and they thought he was gone forever.  They were walking to a town called Emmaus when a stranger came up to them and they conversed and walked together.  The stranger asked what troubled them and they told them all about the horrific death of their beloved Jesus.  The stranger quoted scripture and told them to not worry, that Jesus Christ would rise again.  That stranger was Jesus Christ, but as it says in Luke 24:16 "But their eyes were holden that they should not know him".  Painting by Liz Lemon Swindle Here these two downtrodden, and sorrowful men were mourning the loss of Jesus and that whole time they were walking and talking with the Savior himself, but their eyes were "holden" so they didn't recognize Him.   I have had my own sort of road to Emmaus, one that lasted for 3 years, where I felt alone, scared, bl

Imagine hearing about an amazing band.  All of your friends and family members have just raved on and on about them and you're dying to hear them.  Even better they're coming to your city and your friend got a bunch of tickets so your whole group can go together.  You anxiously count down til the day of the concert.  You paid a lot of money and are fully invested in enjoying yourself.  You get there and they play their first song.  Everyone around you is singing and dancing and clearly having the time of their life.  You're not.  You're a little confused as you feel disappointment but you think that it's maybe your unfamiliarity with them or maybe that that one song was an anomaly.  There's a whole concert left, surely you will love something.  The more they play the more you feel flustered.  Your friends couldn't be happier and keep remarking on how incredibly beautiful that one song was and how amazing that other one was, and you start feeling really disco

Dear Girls, You are More than Your Body Have you ever felt like your whole value was based on your weight, size, and appearance?  That everywhere you go, media is pushing products that only sell based on how bad and inadequate you feel?  Do you feel that society only values what you look like and is the only way to “contribute”?   If you answered yes to any of those, I would argue you are a) most likely a woman and b) you have been objectified.  If you feel like those don’t ring true, you are either a man or will most likely relate to what I hear from conservative women that say things like “I have never felt discriminated against because of my gender.”  “We have every right that men do, why are feminists always protesting?”  I hope to prove that we are being discriminated against so automatically and pervasively by being objectified, that some don’t even recognize it and see the enormously negative effects on individuals and our society at large.   When we talk about objectif

Aren't you excited to read such a fun lighthearted post?  Buckle down, and get the prozac out cause I'm going to take you to a deep dark place.  :) English teachers look away because besides my horrifying spurts of punctuation, I'm about to break a big rule in telling you why I'm writing this post.  I know it should be clear but I feel I need to explain.  I am writing this post because even with all our progress as a society in understanding and tolerating differences, we still have such a long way to go.  Yes we don't lock new depressed mom's away in asylums and do electric shock therapy but I still hear phrases and descriptions of people with mental illness that at best make me cringe and at worst pain me.  And honestly in most cases I know its just a case of misunderstanding.  For people that have never experienced it must seem so hard to wrap your head around it.  How can we begin to understand something so inward, so personal and so intangible. Even I, a