T is for Tiffany

Hello, and welcome to Blogging A to Z 2017! Thanks for stopping by. Fellow A to Z-ers, please make sure to leave a link to your blog in the comments.

My theme this month is 26 of the Best Characters in Fiction.

The Silver Linings Playbook by Matthew Quick, is a great story. The thing I liked most about this story was that it portrayed characters with mental health issues as the heroes of the story. No one comes in and saves them; they save themselves (or one another).

Pat has just gotten out of the mental hospital, and is obsessed with getting his ex-wife back. He and Tiffany are the outsiders, the crazy people that everyone in the neighborhood knows. Eventually they enter a dance competition together. Practicing together every day, they become friends.

They both do things that are problematic through the story, things not usually worthy of “real” heroes. But the point is that they’re both struggling under the weight of mental illnesses, and they’re doing the best they can to survive in a world that doesn’t get it.

When I read reviews about this book, no one mentions Tiffany, and I love her. Here’s why… Tiffany has borderline personality disorder. I’ve provided a link to what that actually means if you’re interested in the diagnosis. But in a nutshell, it means that she struggles with relationships. She wants love, is desperate for it, but pushes people away. She’s done impulsive things that have gotten her all sorts of labels (crazy, slut, etc.). She hurts herself, and looks for something, anything to fill up the emptiness.

No one ever portrays people with this disorder in a positive light, a human light. Even therapists, for some reason, often look down on people with this disorder. I mean, in real life, it’s true that someone with this disorder can be exhausting for those around them. But no one wants to be that way.

Advocacy for the destigmatization of mental illness is becoming more and more common. But while most people are aware of autism and schizophrenia and substance abuse disorders, borderline personality disorder (BPD) is one of those scary illnesses that no one seems to talk about.

Brace yourself for what I’m about to say… I liked the book, but I loved the movie. Maybe it was because Jennifer Lawrence really sold Tiffany, and her onscreen chemistry with Pat (played by Bradley Cooper) was wonderful. When they argued, sparks flew. And the sweet ending was exactly what they both deserved.

Neither of them are perfect characters, and no one is trying to pretend they are. But they’re human and worthy of having stories where they’re not the villain or a punchline.

If you’re interested in a memoir about this disorder, I can recommend two: Loud in the House of Myself: Memoir of a Strange Girl by Stacy Pershall, and Get Me Out of Here: My Recovery from Borderline Personality Disorder by Rachel Reiland.

Bullying and Me

So yesterday, I wrote about my issues with being a vegetarian, and I talked a little about my weight struggles. In a moment of great timing, I saw a link to Bombshells Against Bullying on Stacy Pershall’s Facebook page. If you don’t know who Stacy Pershall is, she’s a wonderful author and advocate for mental health awareness and destigmatization. Her book, Loud In The House of Myself, discusses her recovery from Borderline Personality Disorder, probably the most stigmatized mental illness in existence.

But I digress.

I was reading the Bombshells Against Bullying page, where various women talk about their experiences with being bullied, so I’d like to share mine.

My first memory of being bullied was on the school bus. I was maybe 5 or 6, and pudgy, as I said yesterday. An older boy from church started calling me “Pigface,” and the name followed me for years. I remember I had a beautiful pink winter coat that was fuzzy. I loved that coat. A girl my age started chanting at me, “Hey ho Eskimo, don’t you eat that yellow snow. I thought I saw a doggy go.” Of course then the, “Ew, you eat yellow snow?” followed.

There were more incidents throughout the years. I’ve been called, “Elephant,” “Fido,” and many other things. The ironic thing about this is that I was really beautiful, and yeah, I had a few pounds on me, but I wasn’t that overweight. These days, I’m heavier than I’ve ever been, but I’m also more comfortable with my body than before. Would I like to be thinner? HELL YES. Am I going to stress about it or make it the focus of my life? I’m going to try not to.

I think we all need to focus on how we function. When I was struggling with stomach problems, I changed my eating habits in a way that worked for me. It wouldn’t work for everyone, but it worked great for me. I felt better and it fit my lifestyle. I love to hike and walk and swim, and I’m able to do those things. If my weight gets in the way of what I enjoy, THEN it’s a problem. If my weight affects my health, THEN it’s a problem.

I have great eyes, and people always ask me if I dye my hair because it’s such a cool color. My strengths are what is important. If it’s not a strength, that doesn’t mean it’s a weakness. Unless I allow it to be.

I’m a whole person, not just the sum total of my parts, and if I want others to treat me that way, then I need to treat myself that way. I used to wear baggy clothes that weren’t flattering because “I didn’t care how I looked.” But that was just defense. By not taking care of my appearance, I was trying not to care.

Recently, I went into Lane Bryant, Torrid, and New York and Company with a friend who dresses great and bought clothing that flatters my shape and makes me feel good about myself. If I feel better about how I look, then I feel better in general. I want to be a good role model for others, and the best way I can do that is to be me.

And in case you’re wondering if the bullying ended when I was a kid, it did, more or less. People learned in high school that I was too hard to bully to be bothered with. I cried when I was 5, but by the time they called me “Fido” in high school, I just rolled my eyes and told them to try to be a little more creative. However… about 6 months ago, I was at a buffet with an “average weight” friend of mine, and she was teasing me about how being a vegetarian is weird and I need to eat some meat. “Screw your vegetables,” she said. A random woman said, “I agree. You tell her.” I laughed until the woman continued, “And all the vegetarians I know are fat anyway.”
I didn’t say anything back because I was stunned. My feelings weren’t really hurt, but I realize that part of the reason for that is that I’ve internalized “fat” as part of my identity. But the fact that a grown woman thought that was okay to say to a stranger just tells me how far we still need to go in the fight against bullying.

*After I finished writing this post, I came across another article, Eight Things I Learned from 50 Naked People.  It relates to the topic of loving yourself, no matter your shape… I highly recommend it.  My favorite quote from the article:  “Your weight is the least interesting thing about you.”  -Kate Bartolotta

Stacy Pershall Speaks on Borderline Personality Disorder

Those of you who’ve read this blog for any length of time will know that I’m a big fan of Stacy Pershall.  She wrote a really great memoir called Loud In The House of Myself, an honest look at borderline personality disorder.

Even in the mental health field, borderline personality disorder (BPD) is often looked at as the red headed stepchild of mental illness.  Counselors who will be understanding of someone who is depressed or psychotic get a bad attitude when dealing with “a borderline.” It can be exhausting and unrewarding.

One of the things I love about Ms. Pershall’s memoir is that she talks about how miserable it was to live inside her own skin.  She didn’t want to be the way she was; she just didn’t know a better way.

She recently spoke to some students, and this article is a summary of her life and her advocacy for people struggling with mental illness.  It’s an interesting article, and I very much recommend it if you have any interest in mental illness.

Things We Don’t Talk About

I know for a fact that a lot of people are struggling with mental illnesses.  Many people look “normal,” but still struggle with depression, anxiety, as well as more serious things like suicide attempts, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and borderline personality disorder.

I’m not talking about the blues, or the “depression” everyone gets from time to time when life sucks for a little while, when someone dies, when finances go bad.  I’m talking about depression in the sense that a person needs to take medication in order to get through the day.  This isn’t a bad thing.  It’s just like people who take medication for high blood pressure or diabetes.  And I know plenty of people who take medication for a mental illness; you’d just never know they did because they seem “normal.”

It occurred to me today that you seldom read about mental illness in novels.  I’d like to see a main character who’s on anti-anxiety medication, or who is in recovery from drugs or alcohol.  Off the top of my head, I can think of two books with main characters like that.  Maybe I need to be the one to write it.  Before Jennifer Weiner, most authors didn’t talk about an overweight main character, but let’s face it; we all know women (or are women) like her main characters.

What made me think of this was an article by Stacy Pershall of Loud In The House of Myself.  She is open about her struggles with Borderline Personality Disorder, which even in the mental health industry has a great deal of stigma attached to it.  I’m attaching a link to her original blog post, which compares the similarities of Borderline Personality Disorder and Schizophrenia.

Can any of my readers think of novels with main characters struggling with mental illness?  Not memoirs, but fiction?

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/being-patient/201202/paranoia-in-borderline-personality-disorder-vs-schizophrenia