17. Chapter 13: Faith

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Transcript

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Chapter 13, Faith. What is faith? My Quran teacher recently asked me. Inspired by the devotion to religion that I have seen during my time in the Middle East, I wanted to study the Quran three times a week with a teacher in Egypt. My teacher Shaima explained to me that Iman is the Arabic word for faith. I didn't know the answer to her question, what is faith? So she explained to me that faith is simply believing. Whether we believe in Allah, Buddha, God, human potential, or something else entirely, she said that we all must have faith. Faith is referred to as Ishvara in the Yoga Sutras, and the fifth Niyama is Ishpari Pranidana or devotion. After my yoga teacher training, I went back to university for my fifth and final year. Things there felt different this year because I finally had faith. Of all the things to be excited about, I was mostly excited to finally see a doctor about my mental health. Fall was always a season I associated with a depressive episode as everything was getting dark and cold, but this year was going to be different. As the season was going to change, there was going to be a sense of change within me too. I was going to see a psychiatrist. I was going to be put on medication. I also felt very connected and committed to my practice and excited to begin to teach. I finally had faith, or Iman or Shrada, that everything was going to get better. This year was going to be special too, as I was moving in with my roommates that I had a strong connection with all throughout university. Nick and I no longer spoke, but his roommate Zach from first year was still a close friend of mine. Zach, my housemates, and I would spend time cooking together, pouring glasses of red wine, and playing our favorite board games. Claire and I became close friends at this point too. We were both in the Bachelor of Education degree program, so we took all the same classes. We also spent our weekend nights going out together. Once, when we left the bar after a night out and went for pizza, we ran into Nick. We couldn't stop laughing. All these years, he'd wanted us to hate and blame each other, and we'd done the opposite of that. We'd become close friends and each other's supports. We thought this was so funny. Claire later signed for a job in Dubai a few months before I signed for the job in Kuwait. And we were excited about the possibility of remaining close in the Middle East, even though we'd be a plane ride apart. I was practicing and teaching yoga regularly and on the whole doing so much better, but I still struggled with my mental health from time to time. It was an unresolved question to which I needed an answer. Did I have bipolar? And how could I deal with it? My counselor from a few months before, Sarah, assured me that this question would be solved. And finally, after five years, someone in the counselor's office at my university didn't let me down. For this referral, I went to the same building that housed the mental health counselors on the university campus. But this time, instead of the mental health counseling office on the second floor, I was referred to the physicians on the first floor. Finally, I saw a doctor. After five years of going to counselor after counselor, that doctor referred me to the campus psychiatrist. At the time, I was so relieved. I will never ever forget driving over to Providence Care, formerly known as the Rockwood Asylum for the Insane, established in 1862 on the shores of Lake Ontario in Kingston. It was a four-story limestone building built using convict labor from the Kingston Penitentiary. It felt like a spooky old scary building. The people I passed on the way in were of lower socioeconomic status and seemed to be presenting with more severe symptoms than me. I felt very out of place. I walked in in my Ug boots, my shiny Lululemon leggings, and my Canada Goose downfilled jacket, which had a fur-lined trim. As a blonde student, I was so clearly coming from a place of privilege that was not comparable to the people around me. No one else looked like me. Did I belong here? I was scared at this point. It was frightening to accept that this was where I needed to be. At the same time, I had wanted this moment since I was 18 years old and read that psychology textbook, so I wasn't going to turn around now. I walked in the wide and large doorway to the facility, which was clearly under construction. I went up to a woman sitting at a desk behind a glass wall and told her I was there to see Dr. Johns. I remember her giving me several instructions. Go down the hall, take the first left, walk up the stairs, turn on your right, go through the door, go past the cafeteria, go downstairs. There were so many directions. I forgot them before I even took the first turn. Old buildings in Canada are like this, my high school and the buildings on our university campus being similar. They were built hundreds of years ago with renovations and extensions, creating nooks and crannies. My high school even had a stairway to nowhere, which ascended to the third floor but didn't connect to the third floor itself. Old buildings in Canada are endless mazes. There were no maps helping individuals find their way around. And they were not the most user-friendly. I was terrified. I nodded and tried to force back tears as I started on my way. By the time I was midway down the first hallway, I was weeping. I carried on walking alone, and I came across a construction worker in big dusty boots, gloves, and a hard hat. Are you okay? He asked me. Through choked back tears, I could barely say I'm looking for Dr. John's. He stopped what he was doing and started to walk alongside me, asking people along the way where the office was and escorting me there. I'll never forget the kindness of this stranger in that moment. All he did was walk beside me, but sometimes all you need is someone to walk beside you. It made me feel much less alone. When I arrived at Dr. John's office, I told him my story. He listened patiently while I cried and shared with him all the issues that I had experienced, most of which I've forgotten now. At the end, when I was done, he told me what I'd been so desperate to hear for so many years. You're in a depressive episode. We will give you mood stabilizers. It's likely that you could have bipolar. Putting someone who has bipolar on antidepressants is very dangerous, as it can trigger mania. I can't confirm you have bipolar, as I've never seen you in a manic episode. So the smartest thing for me to do is to give you mood stabilizers. He put me on 12.5 milligrams, a very, very small dose, and had me follow up a week later. A week later, my mood was normal. I was smiling, laughing, and feeling optimistic about everything. Dr. John said that I most likely had bipolar disorder. As he explained, most bipolar patients react very positively to seroquil, whereas patients with major depressive disorders take longer to recover. We increased another small amount to 25 milligrams, and because he had seen such a positive recovery in such a short period of time, we left it at that. Having a diagnosis was a relief, and being on medication, I started to feel okay again. My case was transferred to physicians who continued to prescribe my medication, and I never saw the psychiatrist again. I continued to take the medication and thought my problem was solved. I presume, looking back, that the university I went to was overwhelmed with many students struggling with their mental health. And at the time that I saw that particular doctor, I was a milder case than most. During my first year at university in 2010, a few students died by suicide, and mental health amongst students was a growing concern. Given the long wait lists and the number of students struggling, there wasn't a necessity to keep seeing me, which is why I was transferred back to the physicians and never saw the psychiatrist again. I seemed healthy enough and the medicine seemed to work. Neither me nor the psychiatrist followed up. There are many things that I wish had been done differently. I wish instead of being placed on the medication at such a young age, I was first educated on the importance of food and drink that I was putting into my body. I wish I was taught some practical coping skills, such as journaling, meditation, and sharing circles for my stressors and struggles. I also wish that I had been more honest with the doctor about how much I had been drinking alcohol. I did a disservice to myself by downplaying what an unhealthy lifestyle I was living. At that point, I was happy and bubbly and showed immediate change. And the fact that I was practicing and teaching yoga probably made the doctor think that I was on the path to recovery. I was probably one of the most proactive patients he ever had, getting on medication when I was still highly functioning before I hit a severe downward spiral. I projected that I was a yoga teacher and I was struggling with a hereditary mental illness. And to a doctor, it seemed like putting me on a small dose of mood stabilizers and sending me on my way would be fine. The reality was that I was struggling with alcohol consumption and binging on sugar regularly. I lived across the street from a beer store. My three roommates were often out of the city of Kingston for long stretches of eight weeks at a time, doing placements in the city of Toronto, leaving me home alone to drink. On the weekends with my friends, I'd binge even more. To me, drinking was normal, so I didn't see it as a problem or red flag. The same day that I got prescribed the medicine, my roommates and I hosted a party at my apartment. Everyone was there. Claire, Zach, and all of our friends. I started off the night by saying, I'm only gonna have one drink. This lasted 30 minutes. Before long, I was the drunkest girl at the party, once again. One of my idols at the time was a yoga teacher that I often quoted in my yoga classes. She would post on Instagram that balance was all about having tequila shots by night and practicing yoga by morning. Drink wine, but don't forget your green juice. Walk in stilettos by night and barefoot on the beach by day. I still love this teacher very much, but I use this attitude as an excuse. I was the balanced yoga teacher, the one who told everyone to be zen by day and blacked out by night. Moderation. It is accurate that there is an element of yoga philosophy that speaks to moderation called brahmacharya. More traditional schools of thought consider this yama abstinence. This is the fourth yama in the Patanjala Yoga Sutra text. Many people use this nod to moderation as a free ticket to continue to engage with substances and behaviors that are destructive for them. I know I have my whole life, from consuming too much fast food to drinking alcohol to my addictive relationship with social media. Only you can look inwards and identify if the relationship you have with a person or substance or behavior is getting in the way of who you want to be. Sometimes abstinence is a more healthy choice if moderation isn't a possibility. At this point in my life, I thought I was acing the moderation game. I thought I was done. I thought my mental health was managed and I could handle Kuwait. I thought I was ready for the move, but I later realized that no, I was not as ready for it as I thought I was. This wasn't like a move to the UK or the United States with similar cultural norms and values. This was Kuwait. This was a culture, history, climate, and society that was completely foreign to anything I'd ever known. I wasn't aware that the next two years would be the greatest and most difficult years of my life. And so when I got on the plane to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, a few months later, I had no idea what I was in store for.