The Most Important Thing I'll Write all Year. Really.

"Happiness is not  unlike the Emperor's Clothes; no one really experiences it. Yet everyone pretends to be it for fear of being the only one who doesn't have it, when in reality, it doesn't exist at all." 

-Anna Cvetko, 2013

Let me be clear on one thing, I am happy. Sometimes when I'm alone in my car driving or at work or even walking between classes, I'm so happy I can hardly even believe it. I'm excited about life. I love who I am. But this is 2016. And it hasn't always been that way.

In a way, I'm glad that I'm writing this with a real name. Because hopefully it will mean more this way, even if it's harder to type. This is going to be a back-space-less piece. 



I want to write about Depression, and some of my opinions may not be overly popular. And if you disagree, that's quite fine. I won't be offended if you say so in the comments. 




Depression crept in slowly for me. Little things stopped having value. My family and friends became unimportant and I lost them all. It was an intense feeling of detachment for the rest of the world, like I was watching my life unfold in front of me in a movie. And I was the only one in the theater.

Depression was grey skies on sunny days and the holidays were the worst time because it made no sense that I was so sad when everyone was so happy. Like what was even wrong with me?

For me, depression was silence. A disappearing personality-I lost everything about myself because how can you hold it all in when your skin is starved and frail? You can hardly hold on to life how can you be expected to hold onto your favorite music, political opinions, or friends? 

It was sleeping while being awake, and silently crying for an hour every day before I could get out of bed, praying to a God I was sure had abandoned me for the strength to go to school.

But I always went to school. And work. And debate. And symphony. And church. Even through the worst of it I never wanted anyone to know.

And it was bad. It was months of my theory and deep fresh cuts across my stomach and left arm every single night for months turning into years. Long selves on warm days. It was my therapist begging me to take a prescription and the constant phrase "I'm fine."


It was the very fact that I didn't even want to be happy after a while. Sadness was comfortable.


. ...................................................................................................................................................................
That was a long introduction. The important thing I talked about in my title is how I beat it. Because that was a process that started as recent as 5 months ago.


I love nonfiction books. And I'm a left-brain, so none of this ooey-gooey "find happiness in your relationships and rainbows." I needed specifics.


***CAUTION- the next few paragraphs are science. If you don't want to read, skip down to the asterisks.

At this point I had stopped going to therapy. It wasn't doing anything for me to sit around and talk about my feelings. So naturally, I looked for an answer in science. Dr. Brian Hanson's "Hard wiring Happiness" changed my life.  His thesis was all about Cognitive Neuroplasticy in the Brain. He argued that evolution has created a human brain that is wired to focus more on the negative and ere on the side of caution. An overly reactive amydala and an implicit memory that takes in bad things naturally, are the result of the unforgiving world of early humans, where optimism got you killed.

Cognitive Neuroplasticity is the theory that the way you think can fundamentally change the biological patterns of your brain.
Your brain is composed of neurons, and a thought nothing more then a specific pattern of neurons sending and sharing a single electrical pulse. It's like an empty field. The more a specific path is walked, the deeper into the ground that path is dug, and the easier it is to follow that path over its alternatives. The biology of our brain simply makes it easier to think negative. Once those paths are dug, they are much easier to follow than paths of positivity, which in turn, only carbe the negative paths deeper. These paths are called neural networks.

His book was ultimately about how it's  easier to be sad than happy, but by changing the way we think, we can cognitivly shape our brain.

*****


Empowered with this new knowledge, I created a strategy. Literally, I mapped out a plan on paper of how I was going to fix this problem of clinical depression without the pills or therapy.
This was what it looked like:

1. Physical 
1. Get at least 5 hours of sleep every night 
2. Exercise at least 30 minutes every day 
3. Eat Healthy 
1. If needed, end vegetarianism to increase B12 vitamins in my body 
2. Mental 
1. Tell friends how you feel
2. Play music for at least 1 hour every day, (guitar and piano) 
3. Start talking to your family 
3. Misc. 
1. Start volunteering at the Family Crisis Center 
2. Hike all the time 
3. STAY BUSY- plan your week in advance so that you're always doing something productive. 

All helped, but it turns out 3.3 was the key. To this day, I have every moment of my week planned out, because I've discovered that the moment I feel like I have nothing to do, I become sad. The analogy I use is running on water. Because I always have to be moving, always have to be DOING SOMETHING, otherwise I plunge into darkness and it's hard to get back up.

But as a result, I became happy. Obviously everyday has its ups and downs, and that's normal. But as of January, 2016, I've stopped considering myself depressed for the first time in 3 years. And I never want to go back. 

And I'm not naive enough to think that anyone's depression can be fixed this way. But I don't think self-harm scars are "beautiful signs of strength" because I'm never going to show them to my 3 year old sister with pride.
But all I want to say, coming from my heart as honest and as empirical as possible, is that we have more control over our minds than we often give ourselves credit for.  And I think, in a both scientific and personal way, that it's beautiful.

See, they say the debate is between nature and nurture: the canvas you are given and the colors you have. But I've got to believe that even if that canvas is morphed, you hold the paintbrush, even when you can't pick your colors. 


And that's the most important thing I could write.


http://iheartintelligence.com/2016/01/22/stephen-hawking-advice/

My Story- How I became the Best Driver in all of Utah

            So apparently in Utah, street racing is a class B misdemeanor with a $2000 penalty. That’s in addition to the actual speeding ticket, which in itself is a class c misdemeanor with a penalty of $750.

            These were the charges I found myself facing as I saw in the Utah Country Civil Court last December.            

            I’ve always had a bit of a problem with speeding. I just listen to my jams as loud as possible and get so pumped up and excited that before I know it, I’ve got the gas pedal floored and my windows rolled down and am singing along with my music as I race down the street. I was a notoriously bad driver among my people. I didn’t even know how to turn the cruise control in my car ON until a few months ago.

            On evening when the deed was done, I topped of at 125, and luckily wasn’t clocked until I started to slow down. 105. Not too bad.

            Now was I street racing..? Usually when I tell this story, I like to make it sound like I was, because being a street racer automatically raises your street cred like 5000%.

Like “hey yeah the cops caught me with my marijuana and now I’m facing all these fines.” “Ah man, I know what you mean. I was in court a few months ago for street racing, and ah, dat legal system am I right?”

            And they’re all like, “hey Anna’s one of us.”

            But I’m being honest with you, I was just driving really fast. Don’t know why the cop charged me with the other things.

            But yeah, there’s the back story, pulled over, he yelled at me a little bit, threatened to arrest me and impound the car, and then gave me my ticket and sent me on my way.

            When I looked up the charges to prepare for my mandatory court date, I was shocked to learn that not only was I facing a $2750 penalty, I was facing things like the revoking of my license, mandatory 24 hours in jail, and crazy insurance stuff.

            That freaked me out. I had 4 weeks until my court date, and in that time I went crazy studying Utah traffic law. A traffic lawyer is like $500, and I make minimum wage. So, being the debate president and I, I figured I could just talk my way out of the ticket if I knew enough about the legal system. So I absorbed every part of the traffic laws surrounding Title 41 Chapter 6a  Part 6  Section 606, Utah exhibition of speed.

            The court date rolled up. Getting ready that morning was a very strategic part of the game. If I showed up like, this, (mangy, rebel) the judge gonna be all like, “dang, that kid’s a rebel, gotta whip them into shape.” So I wore black jeans, a light pink blouse, a black blazer, and pulled my hair back into a neat bun with little pearl earrings. Anything to give the aurora of sweet, intellectual, feminine innocence.

            And the moment I walked into the building, I knew I had made the right choice with my clothing. All the people that were also going to court that day were all ripped jeans, leather jacket, an ‘F the police shift’ and surprisingly, had a very prominent smell of marijuana. I don’t know who thinks it’s a good idea to smoke weed before court. Apparently everyone there.  

            I had everything planned out. They called me up, read my charges, and I plead not guilty. I rescheduled a court date to come back and negotiate my charges.

            I came back a week later with the same air of professional, feminine, humbled. I was ushered in to a room where I sat alone with a nice lady from the state department to discuss the ground of my charges. I smiled and shook her hand and turned on the charm.

            I was, very sorry for the inappropriate and risky behavior I had exhibited on the road and could not believe that I put my friend’s lives in danger.

            -here it is important to note, that even though I beefed it up big time in court, I really did feel bad. Speeding is stupid, especially that fast.

            BUT- after a long discussion, she decided to drop my street racing charge, and lower my speeding ticket my 3 brackets.

            I met with the judge, plead guilty to the speeding, and walked away with a $300 ticket.

OH- but it’s not over there. A few weeks later, I found out that I also walked away with 75 points on my driving record, enough to get my license taken away. So I had the opportunity to meet with state public safety office, who put me on probation.

            Probation means that I can still drive, but if I get another ticket, even for something as little as 1 mph over the limit, I lose my license.

TO THIS DAY, I have my probation papers stuck on my dashboard, sticking up right where they are always in my vision when I drive. That, combined with the fact that as of 3 weeks ago, I no longer has a physical copy of my driver’s license, means that I am THE SAFTEST driver you will ever ride with.

Yellow light, can maybe make it? STOPS.

Back road, can probably go how fast you want? CUISE CONTROL THE SPEED LIMIT

I am not the crazy person I once was. And I almost feel bad about how easily the legal system took me down. 

Why So Serious? Who I am

I am a left brain- don't get me wrong, I love writing music and all, but music theory is extremely mathematical.

I am political. So political that my car is the only one at Lone Peak with a Bernie Sanders bumper sticker and on my 18th Birthday I had a ceremony where I officially registered as a Democrat. I wait in line for hours to go to political rallies, watch every single presidential debate, read the news like the Bible, and am a Utah State Democratic Delegate.

I am a manager at Pizza Pie Cafe and President of the Lone Peak Debate Team and run the Street Music Club and it's taken me years to finally realize that being nice doesn't always mean you have to be passive. 

I do a lot of things. 

I don't smile unless I actually mean it and I flip people off way too often ah

And in all honesty, I'm not the red-type-personality-robotic-work-machine-untouchable-brick of emotion" that I usually pretend to be. 

My biggest fear isn't failing, it's succeeding and being lonely at the top.

(ALSO-I swear I had the timing and everything perfect on my video editing program, but then when I converted it to MP4, suddenly it got all screwed up, so sorry that I repeat some phrases in this short film during transitions. Movies are not my thing.)