A Millennials Guide to Mental Illness

Let's talk about mental illness....because gosh dang it, sad tweets & pinterest quotes just don't do anything for anyone. People everywhere are struggling and we should talk about it with each other instead of hiding in our rooms and listening to Secondhand Serenade while strumming minor chords on their guitar (RIP 2014 me). 

In the peak of my anxiety & depression (junior year of high school) my mom brought home a picture book from the good ol public Library. It illustrated anxiety as a monster that corrupted a girl and took over her emotions. 

Anxiety was it's own thing; a monster. What a concept. 

 I had never seen anxiety as something separate than myself. Up until then, I was the monster. Something was wrong with ME. My emotions lived at a theme park and my tears were a result of too many lonely nights where I binge ate frosted flakes. I thought I was getting fat...and that everyone that stared at me for more than 2 seconds hated me. I thought my AP english teacher only talked to me because she felt sorry for me. I thought that boys who wanted to date me would end up realizing I was crazy emotional. So I didn't date. 

I WAS UNSTABLE and I didn't like myself. It's exhausting to hear about, right? And yet, did you know that 1 in 5 adults in the US experience this or similar symptoms?????? That's a lot. Hide yo' kids, hide' yo wife. But really don't. Sit them down and talk to them about their feelings because ANXIETY IS SO ISOLATING. THEY NEED TO TALK. 

Honestly, to get vulnerable with you, I have had days on days in a row where I couldn't get out of bed. I have taken sick days from work just because the thought of getting out of bed causes my hands to shake and my head to ache. During these times I become so, so desperate to distract myself. Perhaps this is why people hide behind their video games or their phones with the social media that depicts a perfect, structured life. 

I have not mastered the art of mental illness (if you have...hit me up let's get lunch.) I just want to share some ways that in the midst of this chemical imbalance, I have learned to really like myself...or even to just feel decent.  And I want to hear other people's ways so that we can combine forces and realize that we're okay. We're don't have to live as slaves to our emotions. We are more than anxiety and depression. 

Step 1: CRY (if you want to.) 

I believe in tears. My sister in law once told me "let the tears fall - it helps your acne." Amen sista. Cry it out and if you get mascara stains on your pillow?? Well HELLO...why else would they invent tide stain remover??? If you don't like to cry because it makes you feel worse, I get that. Live your dreams homie and proceed to step 2. 

Step 2: GROUND YOURSELF

Become aware of your senses. Think of the thing you are sitting / laying on (your bed or couch or whatever else.) Think about how it is grounded on a solid foundation and how that foundation goes into the core of the earth which is strongly supported by rocks and weight and structure. Look around and name two things you can smell, five things you can see and three things you can hear. It helps you come out of your mind. 

Step 2: VALIDATE YOUR EMOTIONS 

I am so passionate about this!!! This is so important!! You have to ride your emotions like a wave. The only reason you're having an anxiety attack at all is because they are pent up inside of you. The "suck it up" mentality is going to screw you over so STOP and identify what you are feeling. (IE: I am probably having anxiety because of 1. hormones 2. lack of sleep 3. Taylor Swift hasn't come out with a new album in 3 years etc.) When in the midst of an anxiety attack, I have found it very helpful to validate truths that I am sure of, including my triggers. IE: "I always get anxious when I am in a large group by myself. I am anxious because my grandpa is going to ask me about my college plans at every holiday until I am dead. I am anxious because my favorite show isn't airing on netflix again until October. ;) I have a CHEMICAL IMBALANCE IN MY BRAIN. THIS IS NOT WHO I AM. Anxiety can lead you down paths that cause you to doubt everything. I say things like, "I know my husband loves me." "I know that God helps me literally every day." "I know must be hot because my friends are hot." etc. ;) REPEAT THOSE THINGS. Force yourself to believe them. I mean FORCE. 

Step 3: GO IN NATURE & WORK IT OUT 

I get that not all of us are chaco-wearing nature enthusiasts. Some would attempt to take the elevator in a power outage. Many would rather stay in bed and eat chocolate chip cookie dough. I get it. But I don't support it....because going outside is SO CALMING AND GOOD FOR YOU. DO IT. Grab your dog - if you don't have a dog then just steal your neighbors; I'm sure the dog won't mind - and go on a hike! Walk around the block. Do some squats. Turn off your phone for a bit. You will never regret it. This one is hard because it requires a lot of motivation. Fun fact: it works like 98% of the time. 

Step 4: WHEN IT'S OVER, MOVE ON

Something that my husband has taught me, is that he doesn't want to talk about anxiety all the time. He says that it is a piece of his life, but does not need to be his entire life. If anxiety is a piece of your life - even if its just when you have to get your cavities filled - don't victimize yourself. Don't make the problem bigger than it needs to be or your mind is about to flip out 100x more. So what helps with this one? Live. Call your mom on the phone. Talk to someone!! Pray!! Gather pieces of hope via conversations or books or maybe take a nap (that one doesn't work as well for me because it makes me feel worse - but for some it totally resets them.) Do something that reminds you that you are alive. Don't go on twitter. Don't lay in bed mindlessly. Treat yoself!! Most of all, thrive for human connection. You are not alone even though you think you are. 

No really, you aren't. 

After that - Live. Adventure. Explore. CREATE. Even if to you, that means getting out of bed and trying something new for breakfast. I try my best to do one thing a day that scares me. Beforehand - I hate it so much. Afterwards - I am in sync with myself and I am a little bit stronger. 

Don't be afraid to fight for your life back and fight for your brain space because your mind is YOURS and that monster does not belong there. 

I would love to hear other peoples healthy coping mechanisms!! Let's start talking about this. 

xoxo

Hallie Jo 

(Giving up on) People.

Today I am going to write about people. 

This is on account of the fact that we're people, people are everywhere and we / they are a mystery often only understood in bits and pieces. 

I have learned a lesson from these bits and pieces that has taken me far too long to learn and quite a few relationships to get right. 

The lesson is about how it is good to give up on people. 

Wait..what?

Once upon a time in my slightly younger, slightly more hormonal life I met some people. I was very excited. "Yay! Friends!" I thought. "Finally! Acceptance!" I also thought.

Spoiler alert: these people were not accepting. 

They liked to sit in the car before school and vocally judge every passerby. At this point I was like "hmm...okay...how can I fit in with these people so that they don't judge ME?" Oh, young me. What a question that is.

So I began talking like them. I began looking critically at others on purpose. I felt like the worst version of myself around these people who looked for the worst in everyone. A couple of years went by. I didn't stop because I had to see and be around these people every day and I was too far in it to quit it. I knew they talked bad about me when I wasn't there, because they talked bad to me when I was there. 

Then, I met a very nice and cool older girl. She told me that my "friends" were not good people. Up to that point I had never let myself entertain the thought that someone could just be bad. I pondered this for weeks. I realized how I had become a bad person in many ways. I began making excuses to not be with my old friends because of the influence they had on me. 

I could humanize my old friends and we would all understand that they had their own struggles and reasons for acting the way that they did. But still, they boldly chose to not be good or kind and it was this revelation that ended our unhealthy and disgusting friendships forever. 

And so I learned, people are sometimes bad and unkind and selfish. They have let themselves get to a point where they don't accept light and goodness and feed off of the things that will never leave them satisfied. But haven't we all been in this position?? I still feel for those living ignorantly in this dark place because I HAVE BEEN THERE. But we cannot always help those people! Sometimes we have to move on from them and STOP TRYING TO HELP because those people have to choose to change on their own!!!

I never understood that and it still pains me to accept it.

 Which is why, years later and more recently when I have had to face this same battle again, I approached it with my guard down and my heart open. 

OUCH. 

I was once again treated with disrespect, but in a very different setting. I viewed these new relationships as more important than some rude 15 year olds in high school, I felt I would die trying to get close to these people even when they were rude to me. I let them be rude to me. I suppressed all negative emotions I had towards them until I would EXPLODE. I used the atonement repeatedly; practically every time I encountered these people. I was going on a lot of long, long runs, listening to angry music and ranting to my mom to try and cleanse my system. 

It never left me feeling good, just stagnant.

And that is where I have been living for months. 

Though, throughout the past year there have been some good times that I have happily latched onto, I continue to feel anxious and exhausted from these relationships. 

In the past week - past year - I have poured my heart out to God and finally an answer has come.

STOP TRYING. They'll come around.

 I never realized giving up on someone could feel so freeing!!!! And it's not necessarily what I want, because I want to see results, but it's what I'm going to do. 

My head already feels clearer. 

I'm unsure what will happen next, but I am grateful for a God that listens. I am grateful for the people who paint themselves in all shades of good; who let light in and who don't have 'judgement' listed in their emotional vocabularies. I know that only through our Savior can we become these people and I know I have a long way to go. I am grateful for the journey.

Until we all live happily ever after,

xoxo

Hallie Jo 

Pictures & Words

When 2017 began I decided that it would be my year of choices. 2016 was all about Connor and I and our relationship and now that we MADE IT and are married and living so happily (God bless!!! I wish I could tell my engaged self that it would all work out) I am dedicating time to helping myself mature and grow. 2016 was like a year long version of that time in high school when my prom dress wouldn't zip the night before prom. It was like getting hit by a train over and over. It was like that gross feeling you get when you eat too much muddy buddies. It was all the bad things. 

So of course I was ready to welcome a beautiful new year and I was so grateful to celebrate
NEWNESS and to be rid of my last 365 days!! It did not take long for 2017 to let me know that it would be very nice to me. This solidifies my belief that good will always follow the bad!! God will give us rewards for our troubles and our pains and our sacrifices ALWAYS. 

JANUARY

We spent our first week of 2017 in Portland, Oregon. We spent our second week moving into our little cute house in Provo, Utah. Our third week of January was the week I found my dream job and ran into my best friend serving a mission in Salt Lake City. Wow...it sounds even better when I write it down. :') Here's some pictures:

Portland, Oregon

Our lil house ft. Connor eating snowflakes

HERMANA MONK!! Crying in the middle of a food court. 

FEBRUARY

February was a BLUR. Sometime during that blur we went to St. George, Connor got a job working at a bike shop and my best friend Serena came up and visited. We both started working full-time = BUSY! Connor got his new love - his bike and we made a blanket fort for Valentines Day. I don't even know what else happened, soo here's a picture of Serena lookin like a babe: 

This is pretty much the first good picture I ever took...I blame it on the hot model ;) 

MARCH: 

March was amazing. March was a Ben Rector concert (!!!! DREAM COME TRUE) with Heath and then a Panic at the Disco concert a week later. It was Connor's birthday and drowning in photography in the best way and binge watching the office. It was also me officially accepting SHORT HAIR and wearing mom jeans. But everyone knows that mom jeans aren't news. ;)

What's next? Well, starting on Saturday I officially begin working full-time as a photographer for Fotfly! I am officially bookable on good ol fotofly.com!!!! General conference is this weekend and my family visits at the end of the month. Also I'm doing a juice cleanse and some squats to prep myself for a month of fitness. Woohooo! 

xoxo, 

Hallie Jo 

I Didn't Marry My Dream Boy - a Memoir

Marriage. 

As a little girl I knew it was an inevitable step in any woman's life, like going through puberty, or learning to make a really good sandwich. As I got older, expectations began to form. Disney princess movies were my vice. And then chick-flicks. I was writing song after song about my future husband?? I named our children and wrote short stories about them?? I envisioned a future with a boy in my 11 year old primary class??? I was pumped.

Reality: I was a horrible dater always. I would like a boy until he liked me and then remember that I was so scared of dating and back off like he had the black plague. It was exhausting. Like watching JoJo's season of the bachelor exhausting. I really pulled at boys heart-strings and then wrote songs about it, T-Swift style. I even fainted before a date once, I was so nervous. I would publicly apologize, but yeah RIGHT do they read my mormon girl "married life" blog! (I'm surprised YOU are! God bless you for giving another Mormon girl a chance!)

Anyways...as a teenager I remember laying awake at a sleepover with my best friend Aryn, talking about our green-eyed, brown-haired dream boys. Almost three years later..we may not have married men with the same exact features, but we did both marry a Connor with an "o." The jokes never end. ;) 

So. I'm sure you are all pondering my overdramatic title like it's a beautiful soap opera. Yes, it's true. I didn't marry my dream boy. (I'm not just saying this because Connor is allergic to dogs.) Meeting Connor felt a whole lot like a very normal experience on a very normal day. He was just a very nice, charming boy from Utah with great taste in clothes. Very tall / blonde / 10/10. I was very impressed by him. I was also very impressed to serve a mission. You can figure out how that all went down here, but I got a beautiful rock on a certain finger now so don't you fret about the end result. 

I made Connor trespass to take these pictures lol 

A few months after we started dating. Connor's little sister - most likely in the process of sizing me up- said, "so do you feel like you're dating your dream boy?"

What I think: Woah...no. I don't. My my dream boy is nothing like Connor!! 

What I say: Ohmygoodnessyesheissoamazingandniceandkindandhandsomeanda;sldkfa;sldkf. (gotta make a good impression on the in-laws!!) 

The things is...I realized my "dream-boy" was not actually a real human!! He was a creation from fairytales and that scene where Hillary Duff and Chad Michael Murray kiss in the rain on the bleachers!! My dream boy was illustrated and imagined. I always believed in soulmates and by the grace of God, that I would find mine, but I have learned that you cannot create your own soulmate in your mind. 

I have noted the exact ingredients / characteristics in my lifelong best friend to build a life that I absolutely need.

He came with a logical mind that levels out my sporadic dreaming. 

He came with a selfless heart that serves me through back massages, cooked dinners and good listening.

He came with a silly personality that fills my days with weird voices and nerf gun wars. 

ALSO HE IS SO, SO, SO GOOD LOOKING. His blue eyes seem to change every day and his dimples are what get me out of bed in the morning. 

Marriage isn't a fairytale because you have to worry about paying rent and not putting too much flour in your mom's potato soup. And guess what?? I still cry like every day!! But I have someone who levels me out and balances my life. He doesn't get mad if I get mascara tears on his favorite t-shirt and he keeps me from buying a $1200 dog every other week. We do everything - I mean everything together and the past five months have been full of more laughter than ever. 

So...you...if you remember anything from this post, remember this: trust that God will supply the right person in your life and trust yourself to see the best in every person. Try not to let your own expectations get in your way. Your dream boy can move to a land far, far away and be replaced by a wonderful 6'4 angel who has submitted to eating gluten-free cookie dough for the rest of his life just for you.

Good luck!!

xoxo

Hallie 

"And so it begins...

...lots and lots of types of days." - About Time

2016. 

It's been so packed to the brim with LIFE. 

There is, in fact, a lot I have to say about it. And I sure will.

But for now, here's a little (warm & fuzzy) visual:

Our Year in Review. from Hallie Holyoak on Vimeo.