Episode 38: Bipolar…A Mental Variance

Sara Lynn Willis

Brief Bio (100 words max.) : Sara Lynn Willis. Born in Canada, raised in California. She had the perfect life, with perfect stability and yet she was anything but. Between fighting and resenting herself, she tumbled into darkness and have managed to get out by learning how create her own light. She is bipolar. Always will be. But that doesn’t define her and she does not have a mental illness, she has a mental variance, because she’s not sick, she just varies.

Social media and contact information: Embracingmybrain@gmail.com

Podcast transcript:

Damaged Parents: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Relatively Damaged Podcast by Damaged Parents where cracked, distorted, broken people come to learn. Maybe just, maybe we're all a little bit damaged. Someone once told me it's safe to assume 50% of the people I meet are struggling and feel wounded in some way. I would venture to say it's closer to 100%.

Every one of us is either currently struggling or has struggled with something that made us feel less fun. Like we aren't good enough. We aren't capable. We are relatively damaged. And that's what we're here to talk about. In my ongoing investigation of the damaged self. I want to better understand how others view their own challenges. Maybe it's not so much about the damage.

 Maybe it's about our perception and how we deal with that. There is a deep commitment to becoming who we are meant to be. How do you do that? How do you find balance after a damaging experience? My hero is the damaged person.

The one who faces seemingly insurmountable odds to come out on the other side, whole. Those who stared directly into the face of adversity with unyielding persistence to discover their purpose. These are the people who inspire me to be more fully me. Not in spite of my trials, but because of them. Let's hear from another hero.

Today's topic includes sensitive material, which may not be appropriate for children. This podcast is provided for informational purposes only and is not intended as advice. The opinions expressed here were strictly those of the person who gave them.

Today, we're going to talk with Sarah Lynn Willis. She has many roles in her life. Daughter, sister, cousin, fiance. Bipolar advocate and more. We'll talk about how she was born to a perfect home with stability, and yet she was anything but. In her teens, she found out she was bipolar, which has been a challenging journey. And how she found health and healing. Let's talk.  

Welcome Sarah Willis to Relatively Damaged by Damaged Parents. I'm so glad that you're here today to talk about bipolar. I believe. Yeah.

Sara Willis: [00:02:10] Yes. That's what I'm here for. Yes. Talk about the beautiful ups and downs.

Damaged Parents: [00:02:15] Now I think I read a book, the Unquiet Mind

Sara Willis: [00:02:19] I've heard of that.

Damaged Parents: [00:02:20] And was just fascinated by the journey and my heart goes out to those who struggle with bipolar, because I could not imagine living in your skin, but I'm thinking you never knew you didn't really know any different, maybe.

Sara Willis: [00:02:34] Right. Like what happened was like so many things happened, but I like it that you use the word struggle because I have bipolar always will, but I no longer struggle with it. So I think that's a great, like turning point in my existence because as I put it, it's like I have bipolar, but it no longer has me.

Which was huge. And it started to really show up in my early teens. And the difficulty with that is a lot of it is assumed to be, Oh, you're a teenager. You're going through hormones. Like this is just the way it is. So I never thought what I thought was above average. I didn't realize that not everyone.

Went to these extremes in their mind that not everyone stayed up all night, till 3:00 AM rearranging their room with no drugs, mind you. At that time, I had never touched a drug. So I just thought that was normal because I've never communicated it and never talked to anyone to have those like reoccurring thoughts of just being worthless and pointless and hopeless, I thought I was part of being a teenager.

Because when I would act out, I lived with the thoughts internally and then I would act out aggressively. And when I acted out, people thought it was mood swings with, being a girl as well. You know, you're just start coming into your body. So there's mood suites with that. And I struggled on my own, not realizing I was alone.

If that kinda makes sense.

Damaged Parents: [00:04:03] I think I understand. Let me just re rephrase what I heard you say. So in your high school, when things start going kind of haywire for you, basically this idea was that whatever was happening was viewed as potentially normal. And yet you were also very alone in it because no one really knew the extent to what that you were going through. Okay.

Sara Willis: [00:04:25] Exactly and it wasn't actually until my second suicide attempt at 17, where it was just like, wow, something is wrong. Something is really off with Sara. Like, it's like your soul knows like something in, you knows, like this is not normal, but at the same time, it's all, you know, so you think maybe it is, but there was no way to really communicate at the time what it was.

I was experiencing. Because I use this analogy recently, and I think it kind of works is that it's like fireworks in the sense that I can take pictures of it. I could explain it to you. I can do my best to record the sound, but nothing compares to seeing and watching fireworks in person. You can never really understand that unless you live it to that detailed.

And that's what it's like. It's like, I can write it down in words, I can communicate it all I want, but unless you have it, you can never really get what it's like to live in it. And that's difficult because few people do understand it. And when I had my second suicide attempt, that was not really my way of saying I wanted to die as much as it was like the only way I felt like I could communicate.

I don't know how to live.

Damaged Parents: [00:05:42] That's an interesting way to look at attempted suicide. Like, I don't know how to live. I mean that wow. I hadn't ever thought of anything like that. And I'm betting that that happens more often than we realize.

Sara Willis: [00:05:57] I've connected with a lot of people that who have also had suicide attempts. And they say that that. They connect with that. And they resonate with that. It's like, I don't know how else to say, like, I don't know how to live this life.

Damaged Parents: [00:06:08] Yeah.

Sara Willis: [00:06:08] so it was like, my last one was, you know, unfortunately I've had multiple in my lifetime before I stopped struggling and started living, but the last time was definitely like, I'm done, like I'm out.

Like I can't keep fighting anymore. And that was. In my early twenties, I'd say about like 24, 25. I still blocked some things out. I feel like once I start digging more or my own, but only recently he started talking about it to anybody besides family. And my fiance is within the last year. So there's still a lot of stuff I'm sure underneath the surface that needs to get the details in, but I haven't dug that deep yet,

Damaged Parents: [00:06:51] I love that

you have the courage to say I'm still working on this and I don't have all the answers. I think that's fantastic.

Sara Willis: [00:07:00] Thank you. I appreciate that.

Damaged Parents: [00:07:02] Yeah, yeah. Come out and say, here's, this is my experience. And I'm still not totally done investigating what that means for me. I think that that is an important part of the journey and probably a part of the journey that a lot of people miss out on. When I look at social media and things like that, it's after the fact it's not during the process.

Sara Willis: [00:07:25] Yes. And I've noticed, which is one reason why I'm like, okay, I just have to start speaking about this. Is for me, I lived with like the negative thoughts and the self hate and all of that internally. And then I felt guilty about it because I had no reason to feel or think the way I did. So then there was guilt associated with it.

So then that kept it down even more because if somebody had done something to me or I had like a specific experience that , if I could go, that's where it started. I feel like I would know where to work from, but I didn't have that. So then it increase the thoughts of like, well, look at you, look at you taking everything for granted, look at you.

And then, so I stayed quiet with it a lot and So I started, you know, but then I would burst out. I would have these really angry outrage things because It would, just percolate with me until it exploded. I feel like people saw the extremes, but it's very rare to hear about that middle ground that you dance in most of the time, because most of the time.

Damaged Parents: [00:08:34] So what is the middle ground like? Because okay, here, let me tell you my understanding of bipolars. You have the super high highs and the very low lows, but you're saying , you did spend a lot of time in this middle ground. But it sounds like maybe beating yourself up with it.

I'm not certain, I totally get it.

Sara Willis: [00:08:52] Yes. And neither do I, which is why I'm still at the beginning of the digging, because I ignored it for so many years of, so I feel like the best way to explain it would be like a ping pong match. Where it's like people would only, I'd only really express it to others. If the ping pong fell off on either side and then you hear it hit the ground.

Right. So it would be like the really low lows where I couldn't get out of bed or I didn't, you know, I had a thing where like, I wouldn't bathe for like a day or two, because I wasn't even worth the water. You know, or the extreme highs of, I'm going to not just go shopping, but I'm going to clean everything in my house and I'm going to tackle all of these projects and I'm going to do this.

Like I rule the world and I'm very outgoing and I dominate everything. And that also incorporate, you know, some of my negative outburst as well is where I get really aggressive in a manic episode. But most of the time. It was this up and down that I never showed. So, it's sort of like, I'd go to class or I'd go to my job or I'd hang out with my friends and everything would seem fine.

Not knowing that internally some days it was really hard just to show up for school. It was really hard just to go out with friends or other days it was like, I didn't want to go home. And I just wanted to be out with my friends as long as I could. Because home was quiet and I didn't want to be with my thoughts, which a lot of my thoughts were negative.

And so it was just this internal thing of, okay, fine. I'll show up or I don't want to stop showing up that I'm sure went unnoticed by most because it lived in my brain.

So I think that's why I want to talk about my experiences more. When I lived in that. I felt one like everybody else did and two that.

Like

Damaged Parents: [00:10:49] Wait, hold on. You felt like everyone else did, like when you lived in that, what do you mean by that?

Sara Willis: [00:10:54] when I lived, in the self hate, cause a lot of it, I feel like is the extremes, right? Everybody knows bipolar as being the extremes. And I have these feelings because I'm human. What makes it extreme is that those barriers that most people have between like thought and action or feelings and,  consequences, there's something to slow them down.

So if you're like, I did horrible at, you know, on a test today at school. Well, that's, you know, that's no fun. I'll do better next time. But mine would be, look at that. I did bad. I'll never learn this. I'll never get to college. I'll never get a degree. I'll never get a good job. I'm just worthless. And they would just be this diatribe in my head that would go to these dramatic extremes.

And I thought everyone had those traumatic extremes in their brains. And that everyone walked around with just fighting misery every day, because I never talked about it. And I didn't know that there is a different way of existing.

Damaged Parents: [00:11:59] Yeah.

Sara Willis: [00:12:00] So that's, I genuinely thought like, everybody's like this, you know, when you're a little kid and you just think everybody goes home to a home like yours.

You're like, if you have two parents at home, you just assume everybody else does. Or if you're raised with a single mom, you just kind of think everybody else does. You don't realize that where people live might be different than yours. And I felt like that in my brain. Like I just assumed everybody lived in a brain like mine.

So this is just the agony of being human.

Damaged Parents: [00:12:29] So it sounds like a, of no matter, really, a lot of all or nothing thinking or black and white. So I'm either going to have everything. Or if I make a mistake, then I'm this horrible, miserable person.

Sara Willis: [00:12:43] Right. And my results of my actual work it's far from like, I was a great student. I have my degree now because I finally put time and effort into myself. Once I found out I was actually worth it. No longer allowed my brain to win in the thought struggle, which took time and effort. We could get into that.

That was not an overnight battle, but my results, like I was a good worker. I was always great at getting jobs. I did well in school. The results of my existence were much different than what my brain was telling me it was.

Damaged Parents: [00:13:16] Yeah. And it sounds like it was really hard to live that way because you're talking about multiple suicide attempts

Sara Willis: [00:13:22] Yes.

Damaged Parents: [00:13:23] The first one being before 17, it sounded like in the last one being in your twenties sometime, is that what I heard?

Sara Willis: [00:13:30] Yeah. So the first one was when I was 16. And before that I was, I did a lot of self harm, but I remember being 15 years old and I just cut myself in a bathroom on a marching band trip cause I was in the marching band and I loved it. But anyway, I digress. And I showed my friend and I said, I just did this and I don't know why.

And she looked at it and she threw my arms down and she said, if you ever do that again, I'm going to tell on you. And I knew at that moment, okay, this is a secret and it wasn't like, I'll stop. It's bad. It's wrong. Nothing. It was like, okay, well this is a secret. And the reason why I did it was because if I felt physical pain, the pain in my head stopped.

Like for that moment in time, it was this relief. And also it was like, well, I deserve it. Cause I was mad at myself.

Damaged Parents: [00:14:23] For whatever reason you were mad at yourself.

Sara Willis: [00:14:26] Just the guilt of the negative thoughts again. So, and then that led to suicide attempts. When I got older, it progressed like it didn't start with one day. I just decided, to take a handful of pills. It were as these slow, steady things of just self aggression to take things out on myself, because I had a lot of guilt with the way that I thought and felt because I did grow up in this amazing household.

I have two amazing parents. I have an amazing older brother. Like I said, I did well in school. I never went for one. It was never, Oh, I can't join soccer because we might not have the money. Like that was never a thought process. We had everything, but the white picket fence and dog, so how dare I like my life.

And so there's a lot of self hate, not realizing that it's something that I was born with. Not something I could control. I just thought I was a horrible person for even feeling the way I felt. So it was a lot of self hate.

Damaged Parents: [00:15:24] Yeah, it sounds like a lot of shame around you had all of these great things, the house, everything, except for the dog and the white picket fence. I heard you say. And yet you still had these negative thoughts and it sounds like probably being like, well, I shouldn't be having these negative thoughts and they're here, so I just need to relieve the pain because there's no reason for me to have them.

Sara Willis: [00:15:49] Yeah.

Damaged Parents: [00:15:50] Okay. And I heard you say you loved the marching band, and yet it's on a trip when you're in marching band that you first cut yourself. So was it, were you worried about the periphery? What was going through your mind that, or could you even remember if there was anything specific?

Sara Willis: [00:16:07] I was, I believe as social interaction that didn't go well. And then my brain just went. To that extreme, right? Like this didn't go well, I'll never be good with people it would just progress into like, everything's hopeless, everything's pointless and you're worthless. And then, so that would always create a lot of just self hate.

Damaged Parents: [00:16:32] Right. Okay. And then.

Sara Willis: [00:16:34] It felt like those are the three thoughts, all of thoughts lead to like that was no matter what, like that's where it ended up. It could be anything. It could be like, I sat down and broke a pencil. Well, I you're so big. You broke a pencil.  You know? And then all of a sudden that would go to like you're worthless.

It's quite impressive. If you think about it.

Only went to that point. I call it like the darkness of my brain was very clever and manipulative.

Damaged Parents: [00:17:00] Yeah. And I love that you point out to the, that it saying it's impressive when I, because when I think of thoughts in the brain, or even not even just the brain, but physically. Can happen in the body, neurologically, right. Which is all tied to the brain and it's, fascinating. And yet it can totally suck.

Sara Willis: [00:17:20] Yeah.

Damaged Parents: [00:17:21] So it sounds to me like you have that belief that you can, that you're looking at it going, yeah, this is really fascinating and it sucks and I don't like it and that's okay. Like you're to the point now where you can say, Oh, and that's okay. I can get through this.

Sara Willis: [00:17:35] Yes. And I know I take medication, which was within itself, a huge battle. I was diagnosed when I was 17 and I went to a mental institution. It was my second suicide attempt. That's when everything was sort of very clear, like something's wrong with Sara. Because there was this, leveling up of me, just not knowing how to exist.

And how to deal with it. . And I couldn't, now that I realized not everybody does live that way. That's why not everyone is suicidal. But then I was diagnosed and I was prescribed medication for bipolar and I didn't start taking medication for it regularly till I was about 25.

Damaged Parents: [00:18:22] So you took it in your teens, but you weren't taking it regularly.

Sara Willis: [00:18:26] yeah, exactly.

Damaged Parents: [00:18:27] was it because it. That's the way it made you feel or what happened?

Sara Willis: [00:18:31] Well, the first, prescription did make me a little bit like a zombie. Like there were no emotions at all, but really what it was is I thought I would lose me. And that is terrifying because, and I've heard somebody say this on your podcast before about something completely different, but it resonated with me.

It's like, if this is gone, who am I. So this is the foundation, the ups and the downs. Like we talk about the downs a lot because that's the most internally destructive, but the opposite or it can be fun, although it can be destructive within itself, you know, going out and spending all your money and like stating anything that walks into the room.

Did you have changing like 10 jobs in a year? Just cause you want variety? Like that's a destructive outside thing, but it seems exciting. So we talk about the downs a lot, but the ups were fun and I found myself to be very creative and I'd get on these manic streaks and I'd make things and I'd write things.

And I was terrified of losing that because I felt like I would lose me if I took medication also I felt like it was a way for people to just not have to deal with me. And that broke my heart to think that other people might just want to toss me aside. Like I want to toss me aside, although that's not the case.

That's how it felt.

Damaged Parents: [00:19:57] That's really interesting. And I could, I think I can understand or see at least how you would get to that thought process of, well, they just don't want to deal with my ups and downs. That, which means they don't love me maybe. Is that where you kind of went in your head?

Sara Willis: [00:20:15] A little bit. I just like a lot of obviously being a teenager, I lived at home and in my early twenties, I lived at home as well. So. I always knew my parents loved me. They showed up for me way too much through all of it. Like every step of the way every hospital stay. I did drugs to stop my brain to like, just to get it to not talk for a minute.

So they would show up to rehabs. They showed up to mental institutions on family nights. Like they never stopped showing up for me, which I feel like is part of the reason I made it through. So it was never, they don't love me. It was sort of like, nobody wants to deal with me. Like, we'll just have Sara stop being Sara.

That's what I felt even though kind of like circling back to the beginning where the results weren't the reality of my thoughts. The reality of the thoughts were not true. Like the way they showed up the way they were there, the reality is they want Sara, but I felt like and my head was telling me, no, they're just trying to toss you aside and cover you up with this blanket of medication so they don't have to deal with you.

So they don't have to see you. The irony is that once I realized I couldn't keep living my life in this dramatic existence. It was going to kill me, whether it was me finally, following through with that thought of, I should just drive off the freeway or it being just continuously destructive behavior that my body shuts down.

Like it was going to kill me. And when I got to the point where I was like, I'm either all in or I'm all out, I can't do half and half anymore. And I was like, okay. I'm all in. Like, I'll try this. Like I've tried to kill myself multiple times. Haven't followed through. Obviously I don't really want to.

And then was so I was like, all right, I'll just give this a shot. I'll just take my medication regularly. This is what all the medical professionals are telling me I need. And I didn't lose me. I found me. And I had no idea that's what was going to happen.

Damaged Parents: [00:22:18] Before you really thought you're going to totally lose you. And the opposite happened.

Sara Willis: [00:22:24] Yes, it was like bipolar thoughts. And then the repercussions of choices, you could just see it as like these. Dark blankets just being thrown over me. You know, like kids love being, like, you throw blankets on them. They think it's the funniest thing. And they like walk around. Right. But you don't think like, Oh, that blankets the child, the kid's like underneath it.

So, but I lived in this existence of like, just over time, these heavy blankets being tossed on my soul. And I thought that was me. And what medication enabled me to do was to just like remove these blankets of lies. I was telling myself, and then I found me in it. It centered me for me to be able to find me and I'm still creative.

I still write, I still make things. I keep jobs for longer than a day now, which is great,

Damaged Parents: [00:23:18] So literally you would have a job for a day here and there.

Sara Willis: [00:23:21] There was one job that I had for a week. And I was just like, Nope, don't like it I'm out. And I, it was the only job I put my apron down and said, I quit and walked out, but, I just, I needed variety.

Standing still drove me crazy. I could not sit still. But like I said, I was able to find that. That beautiful beam that was trapped underneath all of those self-imposed lies.

Damaged Parents: [00:23:47] Yeah,

Sara Willis: [00:23:47] And, you know, I have great days and I have really bad days still there. The pandemic did not help. And even though I take my medication regularly, I am still human.

And there was a day where I was like, that's it. I'm not getting out of bed till like one on a Saturday. Cause I was like, I need a mental health day for myself and that's okay. I would use to see that as failure or the days where I was like, Oh my gosh, I started it's six projects today, that and not completing any of them.

Of course. And I would see that as failure and now I'm able to go, Nope, that's not failure. Part of that self care. If you just take a day and you're like, all I can do today is show up to work. And watching the TV show like that extreme thinking of, well, then you're just a pointless human being gets cut off, which is something I was never able to do before.

Damaged Parents: [00:24:45] Okay. So before you would take a nap or not get up till one, and instead of recognizing that you were just tired and exhausted, even after taking the medicine, I'm thinking. That you would still sometimes have those thoughts of, Oh, I'm a failure because I'm thinking there's more work than just the medicine I could be wrong.

I don't understand totally yet, but I'm trying

Sara Willis: [00:25:08] No, I, and you're a hundred percent correct for my experience. You're hundred percent correct. Like the medicine enables me to take the wheel. So those thoughts and like, I call it like that evil voice in the back of my brain that I was always terrified to talk about because I thought I would sound crazy and then people would just dismiss me in the crazy pile.

So I never talked about my internal thoughts. Because there's lots of different mental variances. That's why I put it. Cause I, I'm not a fan of the word mental illness, because I'm always going to have bipolar, but I do have mental health today and you can't be sick and healthy simultaneously. So I have a variance and I'm enabling myself to have mental health with that variance.

Damaged Parents: [00:25:53] Right. I love that perspective.

I really do. I really well because I think we all think differently. We all behave differently. If somebody was a. I think they were joking a little bit , you know, there's the autism spectrum disorder and they're like, yeah, pretty soon we're all going to be on the spectrum somewhere.

And it's like, yeah, we were already all on the spectrum somewhere. I don't on the, whether it's the autistic or the bipolar or the depression or the anxiety. I think, I don't know that there is one set of normal.

Sara Willis: [00:26:25] And I fully agree with that. And how beautiful is that? Because one of the amazing gifts and. Superpowers of being bipolar is I get to experience the world to these extremes. And like you said, those thoughts do creep in still every now and then now being the one in control of my own existence.

I'm able to cut them off and say, you know what? Yep, that's true. That's one way to think about it, but that's not how I'm going to think about it today. And I didn't have that ability to do that before. But because I've had those highs of, I'm just the coolest thing ever to exist and I can conquer the world.

And those lows of my clearest memory is being in the fetal position on my bed when I was 23, like just bellowing to my dad. If a dog was in this much pain, you'd put it down to be kind, but I'm forced to be alive because I'm human. And I resented that. And because I've experienced those, I have the ability to have compassion to those extremes because I've experienced those extremes and also to have hit those lows.

Now cuddling with my fiance, watching a movie on the couch. Some people might think is just a normal day, but I'm like, do not understand what amazing blessing these simple gifts are because I've had such low lows. Beautiful light moments in my existence. I don't take for granted at all because I know how hard that's been.

And that is a huge blessing to be able to enjoy and appreciate things that might be some people might overlook or that might be their standard. Right. I thought everybody walked around with this brain internal thinking of just self hate and maybe their standard is this positive existence, not realizing how much of a blessing that is and taking it for granted.

And I don't. And that's fantastic. I live in an apartment with two toilets. I think it's the greatest thing ever. Cause my fiance has one and I have one. And if somebody was like, what's your top 10 things in life right now, I'd be like, we each have our own bathroom and some people might overlook that, but it's just these little things in life where I'm just so grateful.

I'm really, really grateful for everything. And if I didn't have that experience of being so low, I don't think having that gratitude would come as smoothly.

Damaged Parents: [00:29:00] I think that's fantastic that you're turning it into a positive. That had you not been to the depths of the despair, you wouldn't be able to recognize the positives that you have in the moment. Right now, my question is because of the highs and the lows.  So when it gets quiet and you're able to lay on the couch and watch the show, and there's this peace in your life. And there's not all this chaos going from high, high to low bow. At first, when you started really taking seriously, the bipolar and, working on staying on the medicine, was that hard at first?

And how did you keep moving forward?

Sara Willis: [00:29:42] It was hard because I associated peaceful with boring. So that was a struggle within itself to even attempt to have peaceful moments, because I was afraid of becoming boring or having a boring existence.

Damaged Parents: [00:29:58] Of all the high highs and the low lows that would, that would be surprising and exciting and something new would always be happening probably. Right.

Sara Willis: [00:30:10] Oh, yeah, there was always a story to tell. The idea of having a weekend with no story to tell at the end of it just seemed like a waste of time. You know, it was like, I was the one that people would be like, what'd you do this weekend? And it would be, how I'd go out or I'd meet a stranger or I do this or that, and I don't regret.

A lot of those events, but I would not have any desire to do them now. And I equated that with just this boring existence. So I would have to say like, okay, I'll try it tonight. I'll try reading a book tonight. I'll try going to bed before 2:00 AM tonight, because that was always a big thing too, is I'd stay up till.

Two or three or four in the morning. And the wonder why I had a hard time getting up,

Damaged Parents: [00:31:02] Right. And this is even after the medication you started the medication.

Sara Willis: [00:31:06] Well, the medication enables me to go to bed around one or two, but I still have those tendencies of wanting to get things done at night. And so it's just really myself back in, like I said, like having that control, but I remember. after a couple of weeks of being on the medication, just kind of looking around in my brain one day and being like, Oh, this might be how most people live. I haven't hated myself in days. Like, this is amazing and now it would be things that I would beat myself up for. I find for opportunities for growth. Cause we all have things we'd like to improve upon ourselves. How boring would life be if we felt like we've hit maximum capacity. So the fact that there's always something to work on and something to grow on is this beautiful gift of existence.

I used to see it as like, well, I haven't reached it yet, so I'm pointless, but now I just see it as like, I haven't reached yet. How fun is this process like, once I reached that  goal, I know there'll be another one and it's no longer the fear of accomplishment or the destructive behavior to come back from.

So I was fearful of peaceful, but it turns out it's all right.

Damaged Parents: [00:32:24] So you really had to practice just for today. I'm going to try this today. And then did it ever go down to, like, I'm going to practice this for an hour or a minute, or did you have to get that small in, steps?

Sara Willis: [00:32:41] Yes. And I have a spiritual life coach, and she has helped me out more than I could put into words. And I've been working with her for a few years now in genuinely at the beginning, it was like, okay, this week, Try to sit still for 10 seconds. It was 10 seconds, just 10 seconds, trying not to let your brain race.

And that was after years of taking medication because it's just a personality trait at some point in time. And like also retraining. Cause it was a habit. Those habits are very hard to break even internal ones. So it was genuinely. Can you sit still with your eyes closed and trying to meditate for 10 seconds.

And just like when you have something in the microwave, 10 seconds feels like the longest amount of time when you're trying to meditate for the first time. I always say, if you want life to go slower, just put something in the microwave. Cause that's like the longest minute of your life is waiting for that thing to heat up.

So it's so hard for me to just sit still in my own brain. So it took time and now I can meditate for like 10 minutes at a time, which is great, but familiarity breeds comfort. That's part of humans and it's not good things, breed, comfort, or what's best for you. Breeds comfort, or like the things will make your life move in the right direction.

It's just familiar. That's it. And chaos was familiar. Racing. Thoughts was familiar. So the idea of not thinking about 10 things at once, scared me, because I wasn't used to that.

And I felt like I was ignoring something if I focused on one thing in particular. And so, although that might've grown because of my manic episodes, there's still this part of me that was like, well, how do I think otherwise?

How do I feel otherwise? And. Medication can take you so far. Like I said, it removes those blankets, but there's still that beautiful soul underneath that goes like, okay, well, how do I live now, I've had all this weight on me for so long. How do I live? And that has been a beautiful journey within itself that I really, trying to grow in day by day.

Damaged Parents: [00:35:02] So it sounds like what the medication started working. And then on top of that, for you, working with a coach and trying to, and just taking tiny little steps here and there

Sara Willis: [00:35:16] Yes, because  like you said before with like the all or nothing or the black and white thinking, that was what I lived in. So to be able to go down to gray, Was really hard and that's what I had to do. So those small steps and those tiny achievements that were huge achievement was what I had to like, just bring myself back in and not classify as, success or failure, but simply as like growth and progress,

Damaged Parents: [00:35:46] Ooh. So literally changing those words from success and failure to growth and progress to me ,  when I hear you say growth and progress, I'm envisioning complex, whereas six, six a failure. It's like I'm either winning or I'm losing.

There's no complexity to that there. I can't do both, but growth and progress. I can do both of those at the same time.

Sara Willis: [00:36:07] And the beautiful thing with that too, is even if you attempt something and you don't do well in it being okay with that is progress. Absorbing, not falling back a thousand steps because you tripped over one. Is progress. And so to live in that mindset has been a true blessing, not just for me, but for those that love me, because

one thing too, that I feel like is almost terrifying for others that don't have bipolar and they meet somebody with it is like, how is this going to impact me? Right. Oh, no. Are you going to be really sad one day or really aggressive the next or whatnot? And my black and white thinking created these extreme reactions in myself that then fell on to others.

So by me being calmer with myself, I no longer have that aggression, which means my loved ones no longer live around that aggression.

Damaged Parents: [00:37:10] Okay. So they lived in like a waiting for the other shoe to drop. They were always waiting.

Okay. So it must have been hard for them to then

Sara Willis: [00:37:21] Oh, I can only imagine how difficult I made their lives because it's like watching a show that you have no control over, but it can still fall off the sidelines and impact you. Pretty sure my parents didn't plan to take me to the hospital the day. Like they found out that I swallowed a bottle full of pills, you know, like I'm impacting their life.

My brother, when I went to the first mental institution, I'm 17 and he had gone off to university already. He came back home to be there for the first family night. And that, I mean, Talk about being shown that you're loved and cared about, but that impacted him too, just because I was a stayed away, I'm still, I'm still a sister.

He still thinks about me. And so it's not just my parents that I lived with or my friends that I would act up around, you know, even my family members, our seats away are impacted by these things. So they did live in this egg shell of existence with. How am I going to be the next day and every now and then like, Who I really was, would like pop out, right.

Like pop out from underneath the blankets and you'd be like, that's her. And that's the girl I love. And then I, fall back into it. So I feel like that's something that's scary about being around severally with bipolars. Like, Oh no, what are you going to do to me? Because you have diabetes.

It's not like that's gonna ruin somebody else's day. If you walk in and you're like, Oh, you know, I have this, so I can't eat this dessert. When we go out to lunch, you're like, Oh, that's their existence that they have to experience with and take care of. But with me and bipolar, If I don't take care of it.

Like I could react on you. I could blow up on you. I could do something that impacts you. And I'm sure that's terrifying. And because of that, there's this like mild knowledge or just within society, like just thin enough to like hit everyone with an assumption. So do you say bipolar, I've never heard anybody go like, well, what is that?

I have seen like the fear in their eyes when I told them, cause there was twice that I told people before I became comfortable, like speaking out about it. And one time I told my friend and her husband was there and she was like, Oh, okay. And the look of fear in his eyes who I'd known for seven years, the look of fear on his face.

When he heard me saying like, Oh, well I'm bipolar. That caused me to retreat even more like he had this look like all of a sudden I'm like, and now I'm a bear and I may or may not attack you just fear. So like on a lot of people have that because when you're in an episode, it does impact people. And so I feel like because of that, there's just this automatic.

Negative assumption by others that causes people in it to not want to talk about it because I don't want to be isolated. I don't want to be rejected. I don't want to be looked at that way because I do understand that impacts people. But when we get to a point where we can talk about it while it's in that ping pong match, before it spills over the edges, we can get it to a point where it doesn't impact people.

And then we can grow. And be in that growth in progress before it goes over the edges to suicide attempts , or to spending all of your money and , having no stability, creating no stability because that's like fun and exciting you know, , before it gets to those extremes. If we talk about it, we can then own it before it owns us.

Damaged Parents: [00:41:09] So it sounds like, because I've been, I've heard a lot of about what it felt like inside of you and how the negative thoughts would take over the excitement of having the high and the low. It's not the excitement of having the low, but the fear of having the low, even though you knew it would go there and then shifting.

And learning to grow with them, again, shifting and knowing, okay, well, I'm not going to have that high and low, but it doesn't mean I lose me. In fact, if anything, I find me. And so it sounds like education so that people can catch it sooner. So maybe they don't lose themselves to the disease and the disease doesn't rule their life.

I don't know if it's a disease actually, but so that the bipolar doesn't lose you don't lose yourself to being bipolar. So if we can catch it earlier, maybe then more people will have access or want access to those tools because they'll be able to recognize it.

Sara Willis: [00:42:03] Yeah.

Damaged Parents: [00:42:04] I was trying to round out everything I've heard throughout the process of the conversation and be like, okay, I could see that.

Sara Willis: [00:42:11] Yes. Since I'm still in the process of digging things, get dirty and not, everything's clear in my

communication.

Damaged Parents: [00:42:19] Some of my favorite podcasts I'd have to say are the ones where the answer is. I don't know, because I think that sometimes those answers change.

Sara Willis: [00:42:30] So, yes. And that's part of the reason, I guess, why I'm getting to a point comfortable talking about it, even if it's still unclear what I'm trying to talk about. Because maybe somebody else can connect with that and be like, Oh, okay. Like I can come out too. Like, this is the messy part of clarity of just, what is this?

Now I quietly got my life together. How do I show that? Because one of the major turning points in my life, as I was speaking with this woman, and she said, well, I don't know if this is how you felt. But here's how I felt. And here's where I've been. And like, I know how hard that was. Like, it felt like the end of everything.

And here she was on the phone, this woman that was very poised. That was very confident that had a great job or her life was going in direction. Like she would walk into a room and it wasn't her being better than the room. It was her kind of like the energy was like, I'm really comfortable with me and I'm not going to change who I am for anybody else in this room.

It was just this like quiet confidence. And to hear that somebody has, that also has felt what I was feeling gave me hope that I could get there too. And that was a huge turning point of like, wow, she has everything I want. And she's been here. Okay. I, that means I can too. And I guess I just hope that perhaps by speaking about my experiences, somebody else can go, like maybe I can too.

And also for the family, just to hear, like, don't give up, just don't give up and. Like you're heard, even if it seems like you're not, like I said, my brother came out from another state to come see me. My parents showed up at all of the family nights. Like no matter how much I was screaming, get away, I was still so grateful.

They just showed up anyway. And it wasn't about them knowing the answers. It was literally just always being there, even if it's just answering the phone. It just let me know somebody wanted me to stay and that I think also encouraged me to try.

Damaged Parents: [00:44:46] Yeah. Okay. We are at the time in the podcast where I asked for three tips or tools, and I think if you could focus on those going through it. Because, I mean, you just gave us tips and tools for family, but you know, the three top tips you want people to walk away from this pot, you know what, let's just make it three top tips.

You want people to walk away from this podcast with how about that?

Sara Willis: [00:45:09] Uh, okay. That is a great question and a great thing to work at, but I think one would be like, if it's for the family of just don't give up, you know, just keep I could, the main one actually would be like, just keep showing up. If you feel like you've lost your loved one in their flare ups of their mental variances, like they're still there.

So just keep showing up for people in it. Don't give up your brain is going to tell you to, and you're going to find a million reasons to, but just don't give up because if you take away the option for tomorrow, you can never know what it will give you.

And the third one would be. Talk about it  because it's amazing how much we can connect to if we simply share what we're feeling.

Damaged Parents: [00:45:54] I love that. I love your message. I love the idea of shifting to mental variants instead of mental illness. I really do it just, it, it opens up the world to complexity.

Sara Willis: [00:46:07] Yes.

I'm not sick because I have it. I just, vary.

Damaged Parents: [00:46:12] Yeah. It's amazing. Thank you so much for coming on the show, Sara I really enjoyed our conversation.

Sara Willis: [00:46:19] Thank you so much for having me. It was a pleasure and an honor to be able to be here today. So thank you. It really means a lot.

Damaged Parents: [00:46:26] Oh, you're welcome.

Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Relatively Damaged by Damaged Parents. We've really enjoyed talking to Sarah about how she found that when taking medication for being bipolar, she didn't lose herself. She found herself. We especially liked when she said she doesn't have a mental illness. She just has a mental variance. To unite with other damaged people, connect with us on TikTok. Look for damaged parents. We'll be here next week. Still relatively damaged. See you then.