Category Archives: France

St. Francis and Me

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St. Francis and Me

My St. Francis journal from 2005.

My St. Francis journal from 2005.

I’m not Catholic and, until fairly recently, I was quite adamantly against Catholicism. That’s not to say I didn’t like Catholics. Regardless of my disagreements with many of the church’s theological positions, I always felt Christ moved within Catholicism just as much as he moved in any other Christian tradition. For example, I’d known about Mother Teresa my entire life. She was the humble little nun in Calcutta who’d managed to inspire the entire world with her Christ-like love and compassion for the poor, the weak and the dying. No one could deny the spark of the divine living within her. She was brilliant yet humble, sacrificing everything to love and care for a people no one else dared to approach. If I could just have a touch of Mother Teresa’s faith, I knew my life would have meaning and purpose beyond anything I’d ever known. Once I saw a documentary wherein a reporter asked Mother Teresa who would replace her when she’s gone. Casually and without hesitation, Mother Teresa responded by saying anybody can. She knew her strength was from God, not her and God can use anyone.

Later, when I was just a sophomore in college, I felt compelled to read the old stuff by saints who lived after the apostles but before the Protestant Reformation. I began with St. Augustine’s Confessions. Through his words, I encountered God’s grace. This man had been a pagan and had lived with a woman who was not his wife. He had hurt many people through his selfish actions, but ultimately, he repented of his ways and gave himself up to Jesus.

More than a thousand years later, God was using Augustine to speak to me. His words convicted me to let go of my materialistic ways and live in simplicity. It was never an easy task for me. I still wrestle with it to this day, but at least I began to question my way of life and the way of life the world seemed to be trying to sell to me.

In my youth, particularly my twenties, I struggled to find myself. I tried to stay open to new experiences and ideas, but I never stopped believing in this loving God I’d forged a relationship with in my adolescence. Within the secret chambers of my heart and mind, I walked and talked with God. There were no audible voices or physical manifestations for me to hold onto. If God spoke to me, it was through the gentle impressions he lay on my heart and mind or the encouraging words of a friend or stranger.

The year I took a one-way ticket to France, I willingly opened my heart to as many new experiences as possible. In return, pieces of my heart I didn’t want torn open were painfully ripped apart and exposed to the elements. I could no longer ignore them.

I may not have been aware of it at the time, but I’d gone to France not only to learn a new language and “better” myself as a whole, but to lose myself as well; to be transformed; to die to who I was and become someone else. I was clearly running away from something. But since the one I wanted to run from the most was me, it didn’t matter how far I went. All my buried secrets, hurts, and fears would catch up with me in the end.

The more I tried to suppress all I hated about me, the more those hidden emotions fought to be free. All I needed were a couple of inciting incidences to weaken my resolve and drain my power to suppress the pain inside. Of course, nothing crushes the spirit like feeling you are alone in your suffering. My first three months in Europe, I’d been with friends. Then I came alone to Montpellier, rented a studio apartment, and discovered a crippling, new definition of loneliness. Though it was partially self-inflicted, it was still harsh, isolating, cold, and empty.

To ease the pain, I began reading the Bible again. Talking with God, whether it was just in my imagination or real (I’ll let you decide), became my primary way of expressing my thoughts and feelings. And even amidst the multitudes of tears, I’d lay in bed, covers pulled tightly over my shivering body, imagining the strong arms of a loving Father-God holding me, stroking my hair, and wiping away my tears.

My parents sent me a little prayer book and one of the prayers was the prayer of St. Francis. I looked at it for the first time and thought, this is was Jesus meant when he told us the last shall be first and the first shall be last – this is what he meant when he told us the peacemakers and the weak and poor were blessed and would inherit the earth.

With no one to keep my sanity in check, I began to lose my grip on reality and, soon  after my final exams ended in January, I broke. I threw my passport into the river, renouncing citizenship to any man-made political system and aligning myself with God’s kingdom – a family comprised of believers from every tongue and every nation.

Then I gave away all I had save a small backpack containing only the bare essentials,  – including a Bible – but no money and no identification. Then I walked with unspeakable joy, not knowing where I’d go but trusting God would show me the way. As I walked I sang and when night fell, I continued to walk and sing until at last I was intercepted by the police.

Fear prevented me from telling anyone who I was or where I was from. Not knowing what else to do, the police took me to the hospital and ultimately transferred me to the nearest psychiatric hospital to where they found me. In this case it was Thuir, France (near Perpignan)

What was the point of such an insane journey? To show others the love I tried so hard to find for myself, but couldn’t seem to find in other human beings. I wanted to love Mother Teresa style. But I was a little too eager back then. I wasn’t ready for that sort of thing because in order to give love, you have to experience love and know you are valuable. Love your neighbor as yourself – this phrase is meaningless if you cannot see yourself as God sees you.

My dad flew to France to liberate me from the hospital and bring me home. I still felt “called by God” to do something, but what I couldn’t say. I had a vague notion the challenges in my life had only just begun but I had no way of knowing the full weight of it all. However, the first blow following my first stay in a psychiatric hospital was the “stigma” attached to mental illness.

Soon after I returned to the States, I began volunteering as a receptionist at a mission organization that helped send missionaries to the Muslim countries around the world. I found a book there entitled Waging Peace on Islam and one of the first chapters hooked me in instantly. The chapter was called The Mad Monk. It was about one of the first people to go to the Muslim world as a peacemaker. This man was St. Francis of Assisi and he most definitely earned the title “mad.”

To begin, St. Francis was said to have rejected his father’s wealth all the way down to the clothes on his back. He did this in a radical public display wherein he stripped naked in front of everyone and returned his clothes to his father.

Francis had visions as well. The first one he misinterpreted as sign that he should take up arms and fight in the Crusades. But then he deserted and came home. This is beautifully portrayed in Franco Zeffirelli’s film Brother Sun, Sister Moon.

There were other stories as well, stories of Francis preaching sermons to the birds, hiding out in a cave when his visions became too overwhelming, and ultimately suffering the “miracle” of stigmata. He inspired St. Clare to form a band of sisters very similar to the brotherhood Francis had begun. It is said she and him were very close and, in their later years, she would tend to his wounds, the wounds caused by his stigmata.

Knowing that Francis became a saint despite his alleged “madness” brought comfort to me. The world was so different in Medieval Europe than the world we live in today. Imagine if Francis had been born in our generation. Would he be considered crazy and sent to a psychiatric hospital as I was? Would he have been court-ordered to take psychiatric medicine and would all his marvelous visions of championing the poor and living as he felt called be discredited? Many missions and humanitarian organizations will not risk sending someone who’s done time in a psychiatric hospital to a poverty-stricken country to help the weak because we could be considered a liability. We don’t want to risk potential suicides (although essentially that’s what’s killing most of our soldiers these days). Would someone like me even be able to pass the ordination process in churches where women are ordained as preachers?

These questions used to plague me. I hated them because they seemed to greatly limit my possibilities. The problem was, by allowing these things to bother me, I was putting limits on God. St. Francis has made a greater impact on the world since his death than he could ever dream of in his life. And, in the Catholic tradition, you can’t become a saint while you’re still alive. St. Francis probably never knew God would use him in such a profound way to encourage and inspire others, such as me. When all is said and done, St. Francis was just trying to be obedient. He believed God for the impossible. Can you believe God for the impossible?

Eponine

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A dream come true! Les Misérables the musical is coming to movie theatres on Christmas Day! My long obsession with this musical dates back almost 20 years when I was a kid going to see the touring company as they came through Fort Worth, Texas. Right from the start I latched on to the tragic heroine, Eponine, not only because she had the most beautiful solo, but because she was so often unnoticed and unappreciated by those she loved. She essentially lived in two worlds: the world as it was and the world as she longed for it to be.

No doubt Les Misérables played a role in my decision to learn French, study abroad, and eventually earn my bachelors in French. Victor Hugo and I crossed paths when I read the English translation of Notre-Dame de Paris as a teenager as well. And who would have imagined I’d one day learn that Victor Hugo and I were born on the same day? I can’t tell you the whys and the wherefores for such bizarre coincidences, but to me there must be a reason – there must be.

It was October 2002 and at last I could walk through the streets of Paris, alone, pretending to be Eponine dreaming hopelessly about her sweet Marius. The temptation to sing “On My Own” aloud was difficult to resist. There was the Seine, right beside me, singing softly and mournfully. I could feel the emotional weight baring down on me again. I could’ve been with my friends. I didn’t have to be alone. But I changed my mind at the last minute for the same reason I’d recently bought those new, long-sleeved shirts. I didn’t want my friends to see the cuts on my wrists.  I wanted to prove to them I was strong. I didn’t want to disappoint them.

Of course Les Misérables sounds prettier than “The Miserable People” as one might say in English. Like many people do when they realize they can’t control the circumstances surrounding them, Eponine retreated into her imagination.

“On my own, pretending he’s beside me / All alone, I walk with him ‘till morning / Without him, I feel his arms around me / And when I lose my way I close my eyes and he has found me.”

Imagination is one way to escape from a world we can’t control. Sometimes, when I’ve had to take a walk to find peace away from crowded dormitories and chatty housemates, I’ve taken a walk with my grandmother who died when I was a baby or imagined long conversations with friends I hadn’t seen in ages. And with all my might I’d try and imagine someone holding me and whispering in my ears the simple phrase “everything’s going to be all right.” But my imagination can only take me so far.

Prayer requires imagination as well. I’m not saying I have to imagine the existence of God (although to some extent that may be true). But God is not physically tangible (as you probably already know). All the way back to the ancient Hebrew texts, God is too sacred and too powerful for our human eyes to see. Moses was told not to look at God on the mountain top, for he would surely die.

But when I am walking alone at night, I sometimes imagine God walking with me. I have conversations with him in my head. Sometimes I smile at what I imagine him saying.  Most of the time I try and imagine him reminding me that I’m still important and I still have a purpose in life. My story isn’t over yet.

Eponine dies in the arms of Marius, the friend she loves who is not in love with her. Still, she masks her pain to make him happy. It is what she’s always done from the first time he set eyes on his bride, Cossette, until her fall at the barricades.

This is the strange thing about human relationships. We don’t want to burden our friends with our troubles and yet we feel sad when our friends withhold their troubles from us.

We all know how the France chapter of my story ended. I tried so hard not to let the people I most cared about see me when my pain had become too difficult to bare that my mind could no longer distinguish between what was my imagination and what was real. And yet even when I woke up in a psychiatric hospital and a couple of my friends took time to call, I didn’t tell them anything was wrong.

I will note it’s much easier to hide your pain from your friends when your friends live far away. People like me have trouble regulating their emotions. I can’t stop the tears once they’ve been triggered and it’s often made for awkward situations. But I can weep silently while listening to a friend’s voice on the phone and they never have to know.

As Eponine died in the arms of her Marius, she sang a kind of lullaby with him.

“Don’t you fret Monsieur Marius I don’t feel any pain / A little fall of rain could hardly hurt me now / You’re here that’s all I need to know / And you will keep me safe / And you will keep me close / And rain will make the flowers grow” 

 

 

International Students are Awesome (Part 1)

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Since I first left home at 19, it’s been fairly common for people to hear my story for the first time and then look at me with befuddlement. They wonder how a woman like me could’ve been raised in a religious and conservative family and yet somehow manage to grow-up to be reasonably left-leaning and open-minded. Contrary to conventional thought, I’ve also never completely rebelled against my upbringing, nor have I ever felt compelled to conform to it. There are many theories as to why I differ so profoundly from my family and yet maintain the capacity to respect their points of view.  But for simplicity’s sake, let’s just say I’ve always felt foreign – at home, at school, everywhere.

My introduction to different cultures began quite early in my life. Mom always wanted to travel the world but finances in my youth were always somewhat tight. Nevertheless, Mom and Dad made sure my sister and I visited museums and art galleries as well as cultural festivals and exhibitions throughout our growing-up years.

My dad never showed as much enthusiasm as Mom for world travel – then again, Dad’s not good at showing any emotion. However, Dad’s mom (my grandmother) did have a hankering for travel. I learned about it after I’d already grown and gone on my own trans-Atlantic travels. In 1948, she wrote her Master’s thesis on “Employment and Exchange of Teachers on an International Basis.” She believed strongly in the value of international education, even though she wasn’t able to make her own trek overseas until she was almost retirement age. My dad tells me her journey around Europe was one of the great highlights of her life.

In sixth grade, I sent a request for a pen pal to a service specializing in world pen pals. In return the agency gave me the name and address of an Irish girl around my age and our correspondence lasted for more than a decade.  To this day I’ve saved all her letters.

Many foreign exchange students experience their first time abroad in high school. My sophomore year of high school, I met a girl from Japan. She and I walked home from school together sometimes. I’d ask her about her experiences as a foreigner and stand in awe at how well she spoke English. From Japan to Sri Lanka to England and to Swaziland, Egypt, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Cameroon, to Colombia, Haiti, Chile, and Senegal – my fascination with places vastly different from my homeland continued to grow.

Some of my initial observations came while spending time with foreign students. It was embarrassing to realize almost all the students I’d meet were from countries where English was not the primary language. In other words, most of them were at least bilingual and many spoke three or more languages. I felt like I’d been somehow cheated in the monolingual, public education system I’d been forced to endure.

I could’ve been a foreign exchange student in high school too. It was a temptation with one major drawback: American students usually had to take an extra year of high school upon their return. I longed to go to France because I’d been studying French and fallen in love with the language . Unfortunately I was already set to graduate at 19 years old. It would’ve been utterly humiliating to graduate at age 20.

After high school, I went to Azusa Pacific University in Southern California because I wanted to get as far away from home as possible and APU was the furthest I could handle at the time. I must’ve lucked out because APU became my first insight into being an international student.

For starters, I lived in a residence hall and my own profound feeling of not belonging anywhere (feeling “foreign”) began to surface. I was shy among the more “normal” spectrum of American students, but for some reason I could easily talk with the foreigners. In turn, the foreign students found an American who cared about them and we became friends. I longed to see the world through their eyes and I’d often shower them with questions about their homes. Then I’d walk to my room and imagine what it must be like to leave everything you’re familiar with and fly to a place where the language, the culture, everything is new. 

That first year of university, I wasted no time in going overseas. But wasn’t interested in being a tourist. Instead I joined a short-term mission team from APU and flew to Romania for 5 weeks. For me, this would be my first time overseas. But my roommate was from Japan and had been an international student in the US for about four years already. Her first-hand cross-cultural experience made her an excellent guide for my ugly-American manners. It wasn’t easy for me to receive correction for my cross-cultural blunders, but I was grateful for what I learned. A few things she taught me were:

  • Don’t converse with her in English in front of our host-family because they don’t understand what we’re saying and it’s rude.
  • Don’t complain about the food even if you don’t like it. It is a great kindness for your hosts to have prepared something for you in the first place.
  • Put others before yourself. You can go without food for one me if someone needs your lunch more because they haven’t eaten in days.
  • Don’t assume your problems are larger than anyone else’s. Be strong and encourage one another.
  • Be grateful for all you’re given. Remember, you’re a stranger in a foreign land. You are not automatically entitled to kindness.

When the time came to leave Romania, I cried, my roommate cried, and our host parents cried. I’d fallen hopelessly in love with a country I’d known nothing about just a few months prior. My host family and I exchanged letters for several years after. They didn’t speak any English, but since all the young people were perfectly bilingual, it was easy for my Romanian family to find translators. Just as I’d been with my Irish pen pal, I was ecstatic each time I found a letter in the mailbox postmarked Romania.

The next leg of the journey would include my dream-come-true of studying abroad in France.  To be continued….

From Prison

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One of the tough lessons I had to learn in dealing with the darker side of mental illness was how to relate to my friends. When I was suicidal and frequently self-injuring, my closest friends backed away from me and, though I understood why, my heart still sank at the thought that the people I needed and wanted the most were the same people I was pushing away. In 2006, self-injury led to yet another hospitalization during which my closest friends decided it was best for all of us to not be in contact with me. Unable to change their minds, I wrote a letter to them in my journal from the hospital. I never showed this letter to them, until now.

 

July 2, 2006

My Dear Friend,

Because we cannot speak to one another; because we cannot see one another… I write to you.  I write to you from the darkness of my prison; from my sea of guilt and shame I write to you.

If the time has come when we must let go of our friendship and renounce the trust we once held so dear, I will let go and I will cherish in my heart the beautiful days and bury the pain of old wounds. But please, with gentleness forgive me. Release me from my demons. Cover me with hope. Then we can truly move on – me in the branches of the weeping willow and you in the strength of the tall oak.

I know no anger as far as our friendship is concerned. You’ve lived your life wielding the sword of truth but have never destroyed the life of another. I’ve laid down all my weapons and allowed every part of my body to be pierced with arrows. Now I wait until my wounds are healed so I can walk – even run – toward my destiny.

All that once was is gone. All that is now will soon be gone. Time is never our friend – it never was. Tomorrow will always be too late. For my sake at least do not let your ill feelings toward me linger. Help me to heal.

Love,

Clara

Prehistory and Making History

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I had intended to give you a break from the serious stuff now and share what I’ve learned about France’s language and culture. This is a generic email I sent to my friends in my pre-blogging days about my travels with Fleuriane around the region of Dordogne in France. I was 22-years-old and had never been hospitalized. The world was at my feet and you’ll probably note that in the tone of this email. I give this disclaimer: I did quite a bit of revision before posting this to my blog tonight. Believe me, when this was initially sent out, it was full of flaws. I thought a cleaner version would be easier for my readers to take in. You’re welcome.
 
 

Subject: Pre-history and Clara making history

Date: Saturday, July 6, 2002

Well, everyone, I was going to hold back and write this email tomorrow because I’m actually quite exhausted from my first week of traveling with Fleuriane, but hearing from many of you energized and inspired me.  So I will write and any spelling or grammatical errors you can just attribute to my fatigue and the fact that my fingers are still adjusting to the French keyboard.

Our trip began on Tuesday, late in the morning (sometimes I can be a little bit slow when vacationing – even more so now that I’m in France and don’t have to worry about classes yet). We managed to get on the road and rolling in time to see some interesting things, but we failed to plan for unpredictable weather.  Instead, Fleuriane and I had optimistically packed our bags exclusively with summer clothing only to be rained upon subsequently spoiling our original plan to camp in a tent all week too.  So we spent two of our nights in cheap hotels.  It could’ve been worse, granted the first one was a bit noisy and we dared not use the sheets for fear of whatever strange and disgusting things previous guests might have done in them.

I also saw my first French movie in a French movie theatre.  Astérix & Obélix : Mission Cléopâtre. I laughed even though I didn’t understand everything. Sadly I doubt if it would ever find its way to an American movie theatre because it’s based on French comic book  characters that the majority of American’s have never heard of.  Still, there were a lot of actors I recognized from other French movies I’ve seen.

To spare you from the boring stuff, I will tell you some of the other highlights of the trip during which we saw many beautiful castles and Medieval buildings and caves.  Yes, caves.  This is what Dordogne is known for.  It is the region where the well-known Lascaux cave was found, however it is now closed to the public.  Not far away, though, there is a very impressive and meticulously done reproduction of the cave cleverly named Lascaux 2 and we were fortunate to visit that.  It was very cool-looking, but knowing that it was only a copy of the robbed it of its splendor.

I was most impressed with Gaume, the last of the caves where visitors can see the original, prehistoric cave paintings.  But it’s still so protected that they only except 100 visitors each day and Fleuriane and I were fortunate to be among them.  I imagine that one day this cave, too, will be closed to the public. But at least it will remain embedded in my memory.

Among the castles and Medieval buildings we saw, I fell in love with a quaint town called Sarlat, which, according to my travel book, was of little significance until I think the 1960’s when it’s buildings, dating from the 13th century, were restored and making it a tourist attraction and the backdrop for some well-known movies, including Ever After (I’m told).  Fleuriane and I imagined how it would be living near the town center, perhaps in apartments across from one another so that we could shout at each other from our windows as we’d observed some Sarlat  residents doing .

There were some new cultural experiences I enjoyed. One was canned duck, or canard in a can as I prefer to say with my best Texas accent (but Fleuriane doesn’t like my little combo of French and English in that phrase, so I don’t say it much anymore).  Yes, we being the poor students that we are brought all our food with us, most of which was given to us by Fleuriane’s grandma.  Each day we bought a baguette and, as long as it didn’t rain, we would eat outside.

On our way too and from we met up with Fleuriane’s best guy-friend whom she hadn’t seen for a long time. With genuine enthusiasm, she introduced him to the American hug.  I enjoyed watching his stunned reaction.  On the way back to Fleuriane’s village, we visited her friend and joined his family for dinner.  They were all from Algeria so we ate couscous and were entertained by some of their traditional music afterwards.  It was beautiful! Once more, I found that, for the first time since my month in Annecy, I wasn’t afraid to speak French with them. Their kindness and hospitality seemed to dissolve my inhibitions.  I think I shocked Fleuriane a little because I’d been so shy on this trip when it comes to speaking French.  You know, having only had 2 years of the language, it can be a bit intimidating to suddenly be immersed in it, but I’m learning and Fleuriane is a tremendous help.  Since all of our tours were conducted in French, she was kind enough to help me understand anything that I couldn’t pick up.

On our journey home tonight, Fleuriane told me that road trips like this weren’t normal for French people.  She told me that usually they find a favorite destination and spend their 4-week vacation there.  The reason she did this for me, she said, was because I took her on road trips and the US – well, that and by her own admission, she’s “not really French”.

We have a whole month in which we will be traveling throughout France and parts of Germany, Austria and Italy.  That trip, however, will be by train and I expect the experience will be completely different, yet just as unforgettable.

There are so many more stories I could tell, but I suppose I will reserve them for my personal journal and leave all of you to experience your own lives, wherever you are at the moment.  Fleuriane and I embark on our next journey Monday.  For the next month my emails will be scarce, but I will try and keep in contact as much as possible.  Take care and stay cool!

Luv, Clara

 

La Fête de la Musique

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This blog is going to veer ever so slightly away from my typical blog – and I think that’s a good thing – for all of us.

Today is not only the first day of summer, but it’s also the annual “Fête de la musique” in France.

In 2002, when I went to la Fête de la musique with my friend, Fleuriane, in Clermont-Ferrand, I wrote:

[La Fête de la Musique] is a grand French tradition which takes place each year on the first day of summer. There are bands of every genre and on each street corner. The streets are swarming with people who come for a night of pure enjoyment…the experience was unbelievably great and I hope that I will be able to go again next year as I most likely won’t be leaving France until the end of June.

Music touches all of us in different ways, but I think for those of us with mood disorders, it tends not only to be our comfort when emotions run high, but the language of the turmoil within us. For me, I’ve been gifted with a good singing voice and the ability to read and interpret music with voice, piano, and a little bit of guitar. I’m not anywhere close to being a professional musician, but, nonetheless, music has been my favorite form of self-expression.

My favorite musical genre to express myself in has been in the context of a musical simply because songs from musicals are set within stories that the artist must interpret  from the perspective of the character she is portraying. For me it has always been easy to “become” the character for whom the song was created. Now, I’m no actress so if I tried to give a dramatic stage performance without music, I’d probably break character in no time. But music has always been a more accessible realm for me.

Here in the US, we have a strong tradition of book musicals such as Oklahoma!, The Music Man, West Side Story, My Fair Lady, Hair, Sweeney Todd, A Chorus Line, and, more recently, Rent, Wicked, Spring Awakening, and Next to Normal. France, on the other hand, has been less appreciative this genre. In fact, their best musical composers flopped in France but scored big in the US and the UK.  Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schöneberg wrote the hit musical adaptation of Les Misérables followed by another success, Miss Saigon.

When I began studying French at university, I stumbled upon an English version of another French musical adapted from a Victor Hugo novel, Notre-Dame de Paris. Once I found the original French version, a new world of musical theatre opened up to me. And with the purchase of a region-free DVD player, I have been able to enjoy performances that 15 to 20 years ago would not have been available this side of the Atlantic.

So, to celebrate La Fête de la musique 2011, here are some clips from my favorite French musicals.

Notre Dame de Paris – Condamné

Roméo et Juliette – On dit dans la rue

Les Dix Commandements – Liberté

Le Petit Prince – Puisque c’est ma rose

 Mozart l’Opèra Rock – Tatoue-moi

Transformed by the Hard Stuff in Life

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This conversation plays itself out over and over again in real time.  I meet someone for the first time.  We swap life-stories.  When it’s time to tell my story, I am often compelled to frame it by warning him that he probably wouldn’t have liked me five years ago.  Ten years ago he would’ve thought me a different person altogether.

The fact is, in my teens and early twenties, I was wishy-washy and emotionally fragile.  I completely lacked self-confidence and a sense of self-worth.  I wasn’t even sure who I was.

At fifteen years old, I wrote this is my journal:

November 25, 1995

 

I don’t write much but when I do, it’s because I need someone to talk to; a person who’ll not laugh or make fun of what I have to say.  God and this book are the only two things that fit the bill…

 

Do you know what I really want…right now…at this instant?  Someone to hold me.  No one holds me when I’m sad or offers me sympathy.  I may not be small or beautiful, but there’ve been times when I’ve cried oceans of tears and was all alone.  I don’t want my kids to go through that someday.  I want to be there for them.  Then, when I die, they’ll be left with the memory of a good heart.

 

Amongst my peers, I was shy and reserved.  I naturally gave off a sweet-and-innocent vibe.  I wasn’t rebellious.  I was a people-pleaser.  But at the end of the day, I’d go home and fly into wild rages, sometimes even violent rages, leaving my family with the impression that I was an angry, temperamental, spoiled and ungrateful, child.  So there I was, angel at school; devil at home.  But even I couldn’t decipher which side of me was the real me.

Scarcely a month after my eighteenth birthday, I wrote:

March 11, 1998

 

 Dear God,

I’m not sure if I want to live any longer.  The world is hurting me deeply!  I have yet to find my place here.  What am I meant to do?  I’m not good enough at anything anymore.  People used to think I was perfect.  You know I’m not.  Now everyone else knows too.

If I have to stay here longer, Lord, I want to prove to Mr. K that I’m not stupid.  I want Mr. D to know I can write great essays, no matter what the topic.  I want W to know I still care about him, even though I don’t always show it.  I want N to rekindle her friendship with me.  I want to be certain we’ll see each other in heaven someday.

After high school, I went away to college to escape and it was the distance and the pursuit of independence that ignited my desire to see the world and learn how other cultures perceive life and the universe.  Ultimately, my quest led me to the most pivotal moment of my life so far: my 9-month long study-abroad in France.

For those fortunate enough to do so, studying abroad is almost unanimously a life-changing experience.  And, for the most part, it’s a positive experience as is evident when you hear the enthusiasm in the voices of students who have just returned from overseas and are telling their stories.

The short version of my story is this: I arrived in France and went immediately from fast-paced adventure to acute depression and then up again to the point of full-blown mania.  The manic episode registered as a religious experience in my mind, thus being involuntarily admitted to a French psychiatric hospital and then prematurely repatriated was a very traumatic experience for me.

The anger, frustration, and depression worsened when I returned home and was told that my religious experience was not real but instead a symptom of bipolar disorder.  My mind interpreted this diagnosis as a death sentence.  I was convinced my world-traveler days were over, that God had abandoned me, and I should never have been born.  Thus from ages 23 to 29, I thrust myself into an intense effort to self-harm, hoping and praying at least one attempt to kill myself would take.

This emotionally draining period of my life destroyed all prospects of romantic love and even shattered some of my most cherished friendships.   The relational damage still remains as some I once called “friend” still can’t see me as transformed because they’re hopelessly blinded by my failure to meet society’s definition of “success.”  Five years ago, that might have triggered suicidal thoughts.  But all I can do is to try and see things from their perspective because the likelihood of them seeing from my point of few is very small.

I don’t know why any of us suffer the way we do, but I do know that beautiful things often grow out of painful experiences.  I used to try and hide my scars with long sleeves, but now that I’m no longer ashamed of them, others who continue to hide their scars or have no visible scars at all, open up to me.

Suffering has taught me a great deal about compassion.  It doesn’t matter if a fellow human being suffers from a different ailment to mine.  I can still hold his hand and listen to his story.

I think the blessing with mental illness, particularly mood disorders, is this burning desire to tell the world there is nothing shameful about suffering from something that affects the mind.  So we write, we make music, we paint, and we speak.  I believe beauty is more abundant in our imperfections than in our efforts to be perfect.  Ten years ago, I would never have fathomed living at home, writing about mental illness, and feeling happy.  But through it all, I’m just reminded that I’m part of a much bigger story and very little of it is in my control.

How has your journey been transformed by hardship?

In Search of a Loving God

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Sometimes words are not enough.  Sometimes emotions, ideas, and concepts are best represented through music, pictures, and spoken word.

Many years ago I made a mixed tape for a friend of mine.  This was back in early 2003 when my emotions were going haywire and I hadn’t the knowledge to interpret them as anything but a religious experience.  In my mind, I believed God was using these songs to reach out to me and call me in my agony and despair.  To me, the extreme emotions were a gift enabling me to experience compassion in the true sense of the word.  The emotions helped me to share in the world’s sorrows.  Thus, in a very real sense, I felt the weight of the world on my shoulders.

The recipient of this very bold and vulnerable collection of songs never received a detailed description as to why the music was sent to him.  The distortion of my thoughts led me to the belief that I didn’t have to tell him why these songs were important to my story.  That was going to be conveyed to him through the power of the Holy Spirit; through the power of God.

Since my friend was French, he also received a collection of French songs that, though secular in nature, still contained the hidden spirituality that somehow links humanity.  I sealed the packages, left them in plain sight on the table at my apartment alongside my journal which was opened to my last entry.  Later, after my whereabouts were discovered, the person who collected my belongings for me also mailed the packages.

My French friend received them, along with a French translation of the Bible, but I don’t know what thoughts crossed his mind when he did.  I am a rarity amongst my friends, particularly my international friends, in that my heart is readily exposed, vulnerable to great joy but also to great pain.  But then I hear music that often appeals to the masses and seems, at any given moment, to speak everything I wanted to say but could not find words for.  Then I think, I’m really not alone in all this.  Why else would the same songs that move me move others as well?

The spoken part of this was recorded roughly six months after my return from France.  I was twenty-three at that time and France was my only hospital experience ever.  I was very close to finishing school, but I still didn’t feel I had all the answers.  A few months later, my friends would be rushing me to the emergency room a watching me tearfully be admitted into the psyche unit for attempting suicide.

I didn’t know my emotions were tied to bipolar disorder and, after I received the diagnosis, I didn’t want to believe it.  I wanted, instead, to believe I was following a loving God who really was and is in control.

Mania, I heard someone tell me once, manifests itself from the very essence of your being.  If you crave love and believe that God islove, you might set forth on a journey in which you believe you can help heal the pains of this world.  You might even go so far as to develop a savior complex.  But when the doctors cut those ideas down little by little, you begin to feel an unbearable emptiness as your life is drained of meaning.

American “hugs” vs. French “cheek-kissing”

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So, my friends, I have begun work on a novelization of my story.  I feel compelled to make it fiction as opposed to memoir due to the fast that fiction offers much more artistic freedom!  Here is a brief excerpt from my first rough draft.  But let me begin with a synopsis of the story.

The main character, Colleen, finds herself in a dilemma.  She has been home from studying in France for a year and has been an inpatient in the psyche hospital twice, once in France and once in the US.  She feels lost and confused, floating between two worlds.  In this scene, she’s reflecting on her time before France and before she was told she had a mental illness.  This is actually one of the light-hearted scenes.  Guy, Tristan, and Elise are the three French students mentioned here.

I loved the Frenchies!  And what better way have we Americans to express our love than to give each other hugs?  I mean, I’ve seen those people carrying around the “free hugs” signs at carnivals and such.  It’s like we love our hugs so much here, we’ll even risk hugging complete strangers!  But the Frenchies were less willing to be won over by the “American hug.” 

I learned this the hard way.  Guy came over to my dorm for a party and I was so happy to see him that I impulsively hugged him.  As I did so, I could feel him stiffen.  In response I backed away, assuming I’d just caught him off guard but otherwise had done no harm.

Shortly thereafter, Guy and Tristan pulled me aside and explained why they found the “American hug” so uncomfortable.  I gulped, lowered my head in humiliation, and listened.

“Colleen,” Tristan began.  “We do not like this thing you do where you embrace us in your arms.  How do you call it?  A hug?”

“But I hug everybody!” I argued.  “It’s just what we do here in America!”

Guy remained silent as Tristan continued.  “Sorry but we don’t like.

“Why?” I firmly demanded.

This time Guy spoke up.  “It is too close; too personal.  That’s all.”

“Serious?  That’s so sad!” I lamented.  “I love to get hugs!  And I love to give hugs too!”

“As I say, it is too personal for us.  Too bad for you.  That just how it is.” Guy stated matter-of-factly.

“So what you’re saying is, when I hug you, it’s an invasion of personal space?  Then how am I supposed to greet you when you come over?”  A legitimate question, I thought.

“Shake hands,” they both kind of blurted out together, nodding to one another in agreement.

“Shake hands?  That’s too formal!  Don’t you do that kissing on the cheeks thing in France?  You know, “la bise” or whatever you call it.  I mean, as an American, I think that’s way more personal than a hug.  Would you like me to give you that instead?”

Victory!  I thought.  How are they going to maneuver around that one?

To my dismay, they both shot that idea down sans hesitation.  So I surrendered: no hugs and no la bise from that point forward.  Except, of course, on the last day of school just before Guy and Tristan left the States for good.

Elise, on the other hand, loved the “American hug” and vowed to introduce it to France and improve the French culture with it.  The stark contrast in her reception of the hugs and that of the French guys threw me for a loop.  The French students rationalized it all by informing me they weren’t really like the French stereotype or they weren’t really French.

The Boiling Point

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This email was written in my pre-blog days while I was studying abroad.  It was sent to multiple individuals, all of whom were friends and family.  This particular one is very revealing of my transition into the manic phase that led to my first hospitalization.  My present-day commentary is in red.

Date: Tuesday, January 21, 2003 4:56:56 AM

Subject: The Boiling Point

This is it.  I’ve had it with the system and am overflowing with pent-up anger!

Here’s the deal:

I came here full of lofty ideals and dreams of the tables turning and me being the international student amongst the French.  For a while, I was teased with this notion.  I traveled with Fleuriane and we rarely ever hung out with people from my country.  Not that I’m anti-American, it’s just that I’m here for the international experience.  If I wanted America, I would’ve stayed there.  This was influenced by the observations I’d made of the international students at my university the year before. They had worked more independently instead of under the close surveillance of a director of students from their country of origin.  Even the students from the European exchange (Erasmus) were not “babied” like the Americans.  They actually had to struggle to find a place to live and acquaint themselves with the culture.

So I came to Montpellier, filled with desires and expectations.  I remember that I was just starting to feel comfortable with the language and, believe or not, having a great time on the train talking to fellow students in French.  I knew about pré stage and that I’d be surrounded by Americans in just a little bit, but I didn’t realize at the time just how miserable that would make me. Pré stage was a necessary evil for Americans from my university at l’Université Paul Valéry in Montpellier.  It was basically a “mini-America” because the Americans were all housed together in the same dorms.  We took French classes only with other Americans and we were required to go on excursions involving large buses and Americans who had yet to learn how to treat other cultures with respect.

After that, they stuck me in grammar and phonetics classes exclusively set aside for the American students.  Most people were satisfied with that, but for me it was like putting me in a cage.  I didn’t want to be treated different just because I was American!  But I survived.  What other choice did I have?  On top of that, advice from home was “be patient.  You’ve already been here a while; the others have just arrived.  Things will change, I assure you.”  I still made every possible effort to avoid the other Americans.  A therapist I spoke with not long after I returned from France described my behavior as isolationist (and she certainly didn’t see it as positive).  But, in hindsight, nothing short of an immense attitude adjustment would have convinced me to voluntarily befriend another American.

Recharged after seeing my friends in Strasbourg, my family in Ireland, and Linda in England, I bounced back.  It might be interesting to note that Linda pointed out how I was a people person because I was playing the same role I did with international students last year, talking to people so that I could learn more about where they were from.  I was in denial, but when I realize how miserable I am when I’m alone, I start to think she’s right.  The point when my mood began to dramatically shift from down to up happened just before the winter holidays.  That was the last time I saw all three of my Strasbourg friends and the only time I’ve ever been to Belfast and London.

Upon returning to my cherished Montpellier, I went to my first class.  What was it?  Dare I say?  It was phonetics!  Naively I thought the other Americans would be, like me, ready to speak French after their vacation.  Needless to say, I was wrong.  I poured out my French words and they responded in English (dagger!)  I was on the verge of crying out in frustration, but instead, restrained myself and moseyed off in another direction until class started, trying hard not to listen to the painful language I was trying to forget for the next 6 months.  I will be fair, there were maybe two Americans who responded to me in French, but the rest were lazy, in my view.  What I didn’t write about was my overwhelming desire to prove to the folks back home that, despite being a C-student in French in the United States, I was fully capable of becoming bilingual and my passion for learning would prove it.  I’d also developed a fear of losing the French I already knew, having heard such horror stories of Americans mastering French and the losing it completely after spending too much time with other Anglophones.

No matter.  I had bigger things to think about at the time.  After all, I had my exams, one in particular which loomed over me as if to say not passing it would mean the end of the world.  So I confined myself to my room and to the library for the next two weeks except to go to class.  I went through the 400 or so years of human thought as if it were a mystery to be solved.  The case of the missing religion in France.  After cramming my head full of dates, philosophers, and events, I landed at the same conclusion as always. Technology and the construction of society have all changed, but the hearts of men haven’t.  They are still greedy for money and power, and they’ll do what they can to suppress other ideas to achieve this goal (the irony of it all is that will eventually die and leave all their messes for the next generation to clean up).  More on this in my upcoming book…  Up to this point, I had a noticeable lack of self-confidence.  But somehow – whether it was Fleuriane’s encouragement to make the most of my last semester or simply observing Linda jotting down the names of people immortalized as statues (to research later) – I felt determined to give my remaining time in Europe everything I had.

I came in as ready as I’d ever be for this exam with the goal being equality.  This was the one class where I had to work to be equal because I was the foreigner, doing two tasks, understanding the subject and understanding the language.  So, the test was a commentary on a text.  I read it, no problem. There was just one word I needed to look up.  Then, I marked up the text, trying to find as many references to things we’d learned in class as possible.  I strategically made my outline, then dug into my favorite part, writing the paper.  I still don’t know the end result.  I keep looking to see if the grades have been posted, but not yet.  My determination to do well in this class had literally become an obsession.  My parents, too, were doubtful as to whether or not I’d complete a full year there and withheld making travel arrangements to visit me until they knew I’d passed all my classes the first semester.  I felt hurt that my parents had such little faith in me.  At the same time, I became even more determined to excel.  Ultimately, my grade was the equivalent to a “B+” in the US.

The institute classes were much easier.  I studied for these exams the night before and had no problem remembering the material the next day.  My bitterness came when, after all the work and effort I put in, I found that only a small fraction of what I’d learned was needed for the exam.  I guess some people would be pleased with that.  After all, it means that, for me, the exams were easy.  However, like the runner who has trained harder than all the rest runs the race he has trained for, shouldn’t the student who has studied hard be tested on all she has learned?  The unfairness of the system!  Adaptation.  Assimilation.  The “institute” was the school for students learning French as a foreign language (Français langue étranger).  I resented being there in the first place, but since my grades the previous semester were on the low end, I was only permitted to take one class with the French students.  Although the tone of this paragraph was angry, there was a bit of sarcasm as well.  I felt like I was on fire when I wrote this.

As for the rest of the semester, I don’t feel my French is nearly where it should be.  Not to worry, though.  I have a plan.  The problem is, they still keep throwing obstacles at me!  Problem: the other Americans.  I can’t just avoid them and say “I don’t want to hang out with you ’cause you’re American.”  Solution: well, as long as we’re both here to learn French, why not speak French with them?  Problem: the French already have established groups of friends and aren’t especially eager to go out and meet new people, especially us who they know will eventually leave.  Solution: don’t let them intimidate you!  I wasted an entire semester not being social, I’m not going to make the same mistake twice.  After all, life is an experiment of trial and error. One of my favorite songs is sung by an alternative/Christian group called DC Talk entitled The Hard Way (see link below).  It says

Some people have to learn the hard way / I guess I’m the kind of guy who’s got to find out for myself / I’ve had to learn the hard way, Father / I’m on my knees and I’m cryin’ for help

This is me, this is you, this is everybody.  We all have to learn the hard way.  But once you’ve learned, there’s no turning back to the old ways.  I’m angry, frustrated, and confused, but just having these emotions will get me no where.  I gotta do somethin’ ’bout it!  They may have put this bird in a cage, but she’s not going to stay there.  She will fight.  She will be free.  The caged bird reference is from the musical Notre Dame de Paris in which there is a duet between Esmeralda and Quasimodo called “Les oiseaux qu’on met en cage” (the caged birds). 

My friends, 6 months is not enough.  One year is not enough.  Nope.  It’s all just the beginning.

Allez!

Clara