December 3, 2024 • 44 mins
In this deeply personal episode of Completely Clueless, I’m opening up about my 15+ year journey with mental illness, sharing the raw and real moments that shaped me. From being diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder at 12 to leaving college during a depressive episode, I’m walking you through the highs, the lows, and everything in between.
We’ll start with my early teen years, navigating the everyday struggles of middle school—puberty, body changes, and friendship drama. But for me, these experiences caused distress far beyond what most would consider typical, leading me to unhealthy ways of coping with my budding mental illness. I’ll unpack how being the “Golden Child” and living an all-or-nothing lifestyle shaped my struggles and how losing my cousin to his battle with mental illness changed my perspective forever. Finally, I’ll speak about my time in college, where my mental illness reached heights I had never experienced before, forcing me to finally confront my anxiety and depression head-on.
If you’ve ever struggled with your mental health, this episode will remind you that you’re not alone—and that healing is never a straight line. Tune in for relatable insights, candid storytelling, and a safe space to feel seen and supported. Make sure to follow The Completely Clueless Podcast on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube @completelycluelesspod 💖
And for more of my personal adventures, follow me @sarahaliceliddy!
We’ll start with my early teen years, navigating the everyday struggles of middle school—puberty, body changes, and friendship drama. But for me, these experiences caused distress far beyond what most would consider typical, leading me to unhealthy ways of coping with my budding mental illness. I’ll unpack how being the “Golden Child” and living an all-or-nothing lifestyle shaped my struggles and how losing my cousin to his battle with mental illness changed my perspective forever. Finally, I’ll speak about my time in college, where my mental illness reached heights I had never experienced before, forcing me to finally confront my anxiety and depression head-on.
If you’ve ever struggled with your mental health, this episode will remind you that you’re not alone—and that healing is never a straight line. Tune in for relatable insights, candid storytelling, and a safe space to feel seen and supported. Make sure to follow The Completely Clueless Podcast on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube @completelycluelesspod 💖
And for more of my personal adventures, follow me @sarahaliceliddy!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, my coolest queens. Before we get into today's episode,
I want to give a trigger warning. On this episode,
I will be speaking about mental illness, self harm, and
suicidal ideation. If these are things that you do not
want to hear or discuss, that is totally okay, and
therefore I encourage you to turn the episode off now,
and if that's so, I'll see you next week. Thanks guys, Hello,
(00:31):
my Cruelest queens. Welcome back to the Completely Clueless Podcast.
I am your host, Sarah Alice Liddy. The first thing
we're going to do in this episode is hold space,
holding space. Do you know why we're holding space? If
you know, you know, but we're holding space for my
first review of Wicked. I'm not gonna say I was wrong.
(00:55):
We're gonna hold space for that review. However, I don't
I wasn't completely a hundred percent right. Did I walk
out of this movie a changed woman the second time
I saw it? Absolutely not? However, did my nerdy theater
brain love it so much more? Yes? I don't know
if I was awake or alive the first time I
(01:15):
saw the movie, but literally I remember walking out of
the theater when I saw the movie for the first time,
and I was like, what did I just see? What
just happened? And it reminded me that I'm a slow
processor and I have comprehension issues, yep, and I've dealt
with those things my entire life. Literally in elementary school
and in middle school, I went to these things called
(01:37):
resource room and Wilson Reading. They would literally like take
you out of your normal classroom and bring you in
for extra help. And at the time, I was kind
of embarrassed about it, because you know, it's like a
select few kids that like need this extra help. It's
not everybody. And then when I got to high school,
they were like, you don't really need this anymore. So
(01:59):
I was like, okay, Like I want to be like
one of the normal kids. So I stopped getting help. However,
my comprehension and my slow processing like still persisted. For example,
like in college, Oh my god, in college, we had
to read this crazy thick acting book. I don't know
an actor prepares. I'm pretty sure that's it. It was
(02:22):
so thick and so dense, and we would get assigned
like multiple chapters at one time. However, you know, like
a normal person, sure it would take a bit of time,
but it's not like it would take as much time
as it did for me. It would literally take me, like,
for fifty pages, it would probably take me somewhere between
two and three hours to fully read and understand what
(02:46):
I was reading, Like I would usually have to read
a couple pages and then take notes on what I
had just read to make sure I understood what was
going on, which really sucks and I probably should have
asked for help, but I didn't. Anyways, this relates to
Wicked because if you weren't here last week, I gave
a review of the Wicked movie. It wasn't a raving review. However,
(03:09):
I still stand by some of those things, and I
think some of those thoughts are refined now that I
have seen the movie another time. However, I'm not going
to get into the deep depths of those thoughts because
we have a lot to talk about today with my
anxiety lower story. However, if you are interested in those thoughts,
(03:30):
send me a DM slide up on a story and
tell me so that I can maybe make like a
mini episode that just talks about the Wicked movie. But
if we're over that, like, then we're over that and
we won't get into it, you know, like I have
to remember now everyone listening to this is a theater
kid like me. The second thing that we need to
hold space for, and I will say the more embarrassing
(03:52):
of the two, is that I went to Thanksgiving Eve.
You guys, I am a show embarrassed right now. I
literally put up the clip on TikTok of me slamming
Thanksgiving Eve into the ground. I was like, aps fucklutely
not going to Thanksgiving Eve? And then what did I do?
I want to Thanksgiving Eve? But I will say it
(04:14):
was completely spur of the moment and unplanned. The only
plan I had for Thanksgiving Eve was going with my
parents to their country club for a drink. Their country
club was hosting a Thanksgiving Eve like open bar event
for an hour, and I was like, okay, Like I
don't want to just sit in my bed like during
the holidays all by myself. My partner was away with
(04:35):
their family, only like a couple of my friends were
in town, so I had invited one of them to
come with me. I was like, that is a plan, amazing.
I was like, I'll be out till maybe nine the latest.
I go to this thing with my parents. It was
honestly very funny because I walk into this room and
it's a bunch of drunk parents, and it's parents that
(04:56):
I've grown up knowing, and so at first it was
a little awkward because there's this part of me that's
like social anxiety, like, oh god, like, what did they
think about me coming to this thing with my parents?
Are they like, oh my god, she's so lame, like
and they're thinking about their kid doing like all these
things with their friends. And then I was like, all right,
like Sarah stops, stop, like this is what you're doing,
(05:18):
and that's okay, Like just try and be present and
enjoy it, you know. Had a bunch of small talk
with parents, and then finally my friend arrives towards the
end of the event, and my parents and I and
her have a drink and then my parents leave and
then my friend and I stay at the country club
to have dinner together. We had amazing burgers, like they
(05:38):
were so good, and then we were like should we
go out because we were getting texts from two of
our friends and we're in town and one of them,
her brother, DJs at the bar where Thanksgiving me, like
a lot of people go, and so we're like do
we go? Do we not? And then my friend Liz
said something to me that really like flipped my perspective.
(06:02):
She was saying to me how her mom told her,
like try and block out like the other people tonight.
You know, if you want to go out and have
a good time with your friends, go because that's what
this is for. This is for being with your old friends.
Not like old friends, you know what I mean, like
high school friends, friends who'ven't seen in a long time.
(06:23):
You know, you're celebrating the holidays together, You're reminiscing on
old times, like it's supposed to be about you and
not the outside people and what they think about you.
Eventually I was like, you know what, you're so right,
Like our friends want to be with us, and we
want to be with them. Like let's go and do this,
and if anybody has something to say about it, like
who the fook cares? So we go to this one
(06:47):
bar and when we first got there, there was no
one there. I was like, oh, perfect, this is great,
Like we'll be fine. Literally forty five minutes later, like
so many people were there and we're like okay, Like
it's getting really crowded, like, let's go to the bar
where your brother is djaying. We walk down the street,
we go to that bar and we had a good time.
And then once we felt like all right, we're like
(07:09):
all the young people that we didn't go to high
school with were like coming in. We were like, all right,
we're gonna leave now, like now we don't want to
be a part of this. And then we left and
we went back to my friend's house and we had
like the most wholesome girlhood moment. We were just like
laughing and telling stories and gossiping and catching up. Like
(07:30):
I was belly laughing so hard, and I remember like
being in that moment being like, oh, like I missed
this and this was so fun and I'm so glad
that I was just like let's go out and like
have a good time. So that is my Thanksgiving eve tail.
Will I do it next year? Time? Well only two, honestly,
(07:53):
Like I want to have like an event at like
my home, like or like have my friends here and
we like do something here. Because I stayed out until
three thirty that morning into Thursday morning. And let me
tell you, when I woke up on Thanksgiving, like I
was not okay. I was so cranky the rest of
(08:14):
the day and I just like didn't want to go
to these like family friend's house that we were doing
Thanksgiving at. I was not happy. And it also severely
messed up my sleep schedule for like the next two days.
So you know, I may need to rein it in
a bit next year or have some boundaries, but overall, like,
it was such a fun time, and if you want
(08:36):
to on Thanksgiving Eve too, I hope you had a
safe and wonderful time. And now that we've held space
for all of my confessions, we need to get into
the bulk of this episode because it's going to be
a lot of information. And I've already decided that this
is going to be a two parter because when I
(08:57):
was writing the outline for my anxiety lore this morning,
I was like, Wow, there is just like so much
here and so much to dissect that I want to
be able to get into all of it. And if
you guys listen to this, you know I'm a rambler
and I can get off on these tangents, and so
that is what we are gonna do. And also I
(09:19):
put up and ask me anything about my anxiety disorder
on Instagram, which is at Completely Clueless pod, and you
guys gave me such great responses that I'm gonna do
it again because I think I'm gonna have Olivia join
me for part of the second episode to answer some
of those questions. We were talking about them last night,
and they just have such a smarter brain when it
(09:44):
comes to resources to help with anxiety because they are
in this profession. No they're not licensed yet, but they're
in school and they're working towards that, Okay, So I
like to call them the resident non licensed let me
say that again, resident non licensed therapists of completely clueless, Okay.
(10:08):
And they're going to come in and answer some things
that I just don't have like the best knowledge on.
And we're also going to talk about like being in
a relationship where a partner has a mental illness. We
both struggle for mental illnesses, and one of y'all asked
about that, and I just thought it was such a
great question and something I didn't even think about, just
because Olivia and I both have been in therapy for
(10:28):
so long that we can very easily understand how to
navigate this journey with each other. However, I'm aware that's
not the case for everybody, and I think it would
be so great to like get into that clueless moment
because we got to clear it up for you, queen. Okay,
so let's get into my anxiety lore. And I want
to disclaim this with none of this is medical advice. Okay,
(10:50):
do not take any of this as medical advice. This
is my journey with my anxiety disorder. I've had this
disorder for over fifty teen years. I've gone through many
highs and many lows. However, I'm so aware that everybody
has their own journey on this, and if you are
somebody who listens and feels like you are struggling mentally,
(11:14):
I highly encourage you to speak to your doctor or
somebody that you trust in your life. Okay. I also
want to give a trigger warning. We are going to
be talking about mental health, mental illnesses, self harm, suicide,
and if that is not something that you want to
hear about, that's totally okay. I would just say it's
time to turn this podcast episode off, go listen to
(11:35):
another one, maybe my last one. But anyways, let's get
into it. So I was diagnosed with a generalized anxiety
disorder when I was twelve years old, and since then,
I've also struggled with depression, insomnia, PTSD, and panic disorder,
and those things have come and gone, but the generalized
(11:57):
anxiety has persisted since I was twelve years old. But
my journey starts in middle school. Oh middle school. You
remember all the drama of middle school. Yeah, well I
didn't take that drama so well. I was struggling with
things that normal middle school girls struggle with, changes to
(12:18):
my body, puberty, boys, girls liking each other, all of that.
I was meeting new friends for the first time in
a while because there were four different elementary schools in
my town that came together to make up the middle school.
In high school, so there were new friends, new friend dynamics,
new drama, all of that. Like, middle school is just
(12:39):
filled with so much drama because everybody is going through
puberty and it causes so much hormonal change, and it
was a lot. However, unlike the average middle school girl,
I was not handling the things that were happening all
that drama very well. It was causing me distress. It
(13:01):
was causing me not to function in the way that
you should function through life. It was also causing me
a lot of emotional dysregulation, Like my emotions were not regulated,
which was therefore affecting my behavior. And so I started
to just like feel all of these things. Something about me,
(13:23):
as that has persisted throughout my life, is I feel
emotions so largely, like ah, they feel like the biggest
title wave to me. And so I've never been one
to like hide my feelings. And if I am hiding
(13:44):
my feelings and pushing them down, they come out in
other ways in like with anxiety or depression and whatnot.
And so as a twelve year old girl, I didn't
really understand how to handle these vas, very big emotions
that I was feeling about these you know, average normal
(14:06):
things that were happening to everybody else too, Like I
was taking them very deeply, very too heart. They were
causing me distress, and so I started to self harm.
And it's very hard looking back on that time when
I used that coping mechanism, because I really feel like
(14:30):
it was a product of the media that I was
taking in at the time. Those were the Tumblr days.
I had a tumbler, and often I would repost and
look at things that had to do with mental health.
As I was going through this journey and didn't know
(14:50):
who or where to turn, and on Tumblr, if you
were on the same feed or fyp or whatever it's
called that I was on, there was a lot of
content about self harm. Like, honestly, I look back and
I'm like, I cannot believe that was like all allowed
on the internet. Like some of the things that I
saw were just crazy. And so at the time, I'm
(15:14):
feeling all of these feelings and relating to the things
I'm seeing on Tumblr, and I'm seeing that this is
the way that they're coping with those feelings and thoughts,
and I'm like, okay, one plus one equals two. I
will do that. Then, and I started self harming as
a way to cope, and it was not a good
(15:36):
coping mechanism. It's not never a good coping mechanism. And now,
looking back as a twenty six year old, I'm like, Okay, Like,
I don't think I ever really wanted to hurt myself
or do that to myself. I think it was the
media I was exposed to telling me that this was
(15:56):
the solution to how I was feeling. Ultimately, I had
a close friend at the time who noticed what was
going on, and was like, no, no, this is unsafe
for you in every type of a way. I'm intervening.
We need to tell your parents. Luckily, I had written
this note to my parents because I wanted to tell them.
(16:19):
I knew that if I told my parents, they would
help me. However, it takes a lot of bravery encourage
to say that you're struggling or experiencing things that are
causing you distress. Right, So I'd written them this letter
detailing all the things that I was feeling and thinking
in the hopes that I could give it to them,
(16:41):
they would read it and I would get help. You know,
once this friend intervened, she literally had me call my
parents that moment and was like, we need to tell them. Luckily,
I happened to have this letter on me and I
read it to them over the phone, and you know,
obviously was very shocking and hard for them to hear,
and they helped me get the help that I needed.
(17:03):
So I'm very privileged and grateful to have parents that
heard me, saw me, understood me, and wanted to help
me get better. I'm grateful to that friend who was like, no,
we're not doing this anymore. Like you need to talk
to somebody about this. And I'm honestly grateful to my
younger self. I feel like we never give our younger
(17:24):
self enough credit for the hard stuff that that version
of ourself went through. You know, I think we can
look back at the past and be like, oh I
regret this, or I would do this differently, or we
don't give ourself the praise for those moments that are
really tough that we're able to get ourself through, when
we're able to be strong. And so I want to
(17:45):
give myself this moment to say, like, young Sarah, I
am so proud of you for your bravery in that moment.
It takes a lot of courage to tell somebody that
you are struggling and that you are hurting. And if
I didn't tell my parents that I was hurting in
that way, like, I can't even imagine where I would be.
(18:07):
I've been in therapy ever since then, and yes there
have been very low lows in that time. However, I
already have those support systems in place now. It wasn't
like I needed to go find them or whatnot. So
I'm very proud of my younger self and hopefully you
can take a moment too right now that if you've
been through something hard and your younger self got you
(18:30):
through it, like think that version of you because you
did that, like you did that emotional Okay. Anyways, after
I told my parents what was going on, that is
when my therapy journey started. I saw this one therapist
for a very short amount of time, and then I
found the therapist that I have been seeing for most
(18:51):
of my therapy journey. I literally it's so weird, like
not being able to say her name because when I
speak to my friends or my partner about her, I
say her name, but obviously hipA like no, but I
have been seeing this therapist for Yeah, like I said,
most of my therapy journey from twelve to I'm currently
seeing her right now. If you have been listening to
(19:13):
the podcast for a while, At the beginning of the summer,
I started seeing a new therapist for the first time
in a long time. I've known that I needed a
fresh set of eyes on me in my situation, and
you know, I've been seeing the same person for over
a decade. It was time to change it up. However,
it didn't work out and it wasn't the person for me.
(19:34):
So I'm seeing the long term therapist up until the
new year, and once the new year comes and my
insurance changes, I am going to be seeking out a
new therapist to continue my work with. However, I am
so fortunate that I have this great therapeutic relationship with
this one therapist that I can go back to when
you know things are crazy or yeah, things don't work
(19:56):
out with a certain therapist. So that's when I started
therapy with her, and it was mainly CBT and DBT therapy,
which is cognitive behavioral and dialectical behavioral therapy. It's a
specific type of therapy and it's not talk therapy. So
think of if you're thinking of stuff you've seen on
(20:17):
TV like talk therapy, psychodynamic therapy, it is not that.
It more focuses on behaviors. When you if you do
an outpatient program out of hospital, you're usually doing that
type of therapy because it is for crisis management. It
gives you the skills to help with all the distress
(20:39):
and dysfunction that you were going through. So that's when
I started therapy, and then by this time I was
now in high school. I feel like high school is
when I really started living what I like to call
an all or nothing lifestyle. My partner refers to it
as a pendulum swing where sometimes I'm all and sometimes
(21:03):
i am nothing. And I think, throughout my young adulthood,
this all or nothing has become a lot worse and
a lot bigger, Like I'm able to notice it a
lot more. However, in high school, I don't think I
really understood it. However, now when I look back in therapy,
(21:24):
I'm like, oh, like, okay, there were there were signs
of me creating this habit in this lifestyle in high school.
And what I mean by all of this is like
I'm the traditional first daughter type, right, golden child, a
student has a super great work ethic, grind grind, grind,
(21:45):
grind grind, right, Like, that was what I was becoming
into in high school, especially because I have two younger
brothers with ADHD and learning disabilities, and at the time,
you know, they're still learning to hope and understand how
to live a life with those things. And therefore I
(22:05):
was getting a lot of like the golden child treatment.
You know, everyone was always looking at my accomplishments and
as a young kid, like I'm just gonna like say
it like I was accomplishing a lot, Like I was
talented for my age, and therefore I was starring in
(22:26):
like all of the musicals that were at my local
high school. I was also doing work in the city.
I was in voice lessons, and so like there was
always something that I was doing that like we could
put like a gold star on. I was also working
super hard in school and getting good grades, like right,
and so I started to like realize, okay, like my
(22:47):
worth is in these accomplishments, in these things I'm doing, like,
I will get praise, I will get love for doing
these things. However, what I was also doing that I
didn't realize at the time was I would like grind
it out, and then I would ask to not go
to school, and I would just blame it on oh,
(23:10):
like I had rehearsal late at night. I didn't have
time to study because I was in rehearsal. And so
I started building this pattern early on in high school
where because everything looked fine on the surface, I had
a group of friends, I was social with them, I
got good grades, I was talented in my extracurricular activity.
(23:31):
All was good on the surface, so it allowed me
to take these nothing breaks where I would ask my
parents to skip school and whatnot, and they would allow
it because everything on the surface looked fine, right, And
I don't even think at the time I knew what
I was doing. However, I was working so hard in
(23:56):
all these aspects of my life and not giving myself
a break that I would give myself the break by
skipping school and causing dysregulation in that way. And like
I said, I think a bit earlier, like this has
come to I don't want to use the word haunt,
but I'm going to use it. This has this lifestyle
(24:16):
has come to haunt me a bit as I've gotten older,
and has led me to become an avoid like when
I get overwhelmed, like I'm like, I'm just not going
to show up, like this is too much for me.
And I've honestly, like only in the last couple of months,
really realized how much these pendulum swings affect my life.
(24:39):
Like yeah, as I've gotten older, and especially since twenty
nineteen where I fell into a very bad depressive episode
that lasted quite a while, Like I have gone through
these phases of being like Okay, I'm on and everything's fine,
too I'm not okay at all. I can't get out
of bed, I can't go to work, I can't function,
(25:00):
and so yeah, it's only been recently that I've realized like,
this is not the life I want to live. And
recently I saw a quote on TikTok from a mutual
of mine and it spoke about self care and it
hit me in such a deep, profound way when it
comes to this all or nothing, pendulum swinging lifestyle that
I'm living currently, and the quote said something like self
(25:23):
care is not about the face mask, getting her nails done.
It's about building a life that you do not want
to take a vacation from. And that just hit me
so hard because I realized that for so long I
have been living this life where it's not sustainable, where
(25:44):
I feel like every couple of weeks I need to
crash for a couple of weeks to bring myself up,
and it's just this not fun cycle that I've been on.
And in CBT and DBT therapy, it's called building a
life worth living, and usually it's like, how you can
(26:05):
build that life worth living is through goals and value
work and other work with a therapist, and it's definitely
something I literally was telling Olivia. I was like, next
therapy session, Like, this is what we're getting into, is
how I can really start building a sustainable life that
I want to live because I just feel like, for
(26:26):
way too long, I've been in this all or nothing
yo yo. And that's the thing about mental illness is
like anxiety feeds into depression, and depression feeds into anxiety.
And that's really what I mean with this all or
nothing lifestyle. You guys like I will have these periods
where I am so activated and so anxious that it
(26:47):
fuels the grind, it fuels me working super duper hard,
and then eventually I will crash and fall into the
depressive episode of I don't want to get out of bed,
I don't want to do anything, I'm tired all the time.
But then eventually I'll start feeling anxiety because that's been happening.
I can't do this, I can't lay in bed all day,
and there we go again. So I hope that gives
(27:10):
a little bit better of an explanation of what I
mean by all or nothing lifestyle. The way that I
experience my mental health and my mental illness will be
different from the way that you experience it, And honestly,
like when I was talking to Olivia about like how
to describe like my anxiety to you guys, like what
triggers me like, it was honestly, like really hard for
(27:32):
me to do, especially because this journey has been like
over a decade long, So like looking back at middle
school in high school, it's hard for me to remember
like exactly how I was thinking and feeling at that time. However,
I'm also doing a lot of work right now in
therapy where I'm looking at the past and looking at
how those things have impacted and landed me where I'm
(27:55):
at right now, and so it's really like theme that
I can recall from those times that if like obviously
continued until now, you guys don't know, but I've been
taking so many water breaks during this episode. My mouth
is so dry, it's making it's so hard to speak
(28:17):
right now. So if I sound weird, like I am sorry,
like your girl is dehydrated. Another thing that I went
through in high school that I don't talk often about
on this podcast, I don't think at least, I'm not
even sure I've mentioned this before. However, unfortunately, my freshman
year of high school. I had just turned or was
(28:37):
just shy of turning fourteen years old. I lost my cousin,
who was also thirteen going on fourteen at the time,
to suicide. It was very unexpected. I was also the
last person to speak to him, and so obviously that
is a very traumatic thing for anyone, let alone a
(29:00):
fourteen year old to go through. And I can't even
explain to you guys, like the obviously, like the pain
and like suffering that I in my family has gone
through since losing my cousin. It's been over ten years now,
which is absolutely insane to me and very emotional. And
(29:23):
I think that's why mental health is so important to me,
because I lost my cousin at such a young age
to mental health struggles. I have mental health struggles, my
partner does. And you know, I think a part of
me sharing my allure with you guys today is not
to like spill the tea, but is to hopefully get
(29:44):
you to recognize what completely Clueless means to me on
a deeper level. And honestly, like, I think it's only
come to me recently, you know, because when Audrey and
I started it was the podcast was like Okay, we're
in our twenties. We don't know what we're doing. Da
da da da dah. However, over the years, I've realized
that this podcast is so much more than just like, oh,
(30:04):
I'm struggling in my twenties. It's really a place to
be vulnerable about the thoughts and feelings that we have
and to know that that's okay, and you know, to
kind of like reclaim the anxieties that we may feel.
Don't want to get on that tangent, but I just
hope that that's what you're getting from all of this. So, Yes,
(30:29):
I lost my cousin to suicide my freshman year and
it completely like changed my high school experience. I six
months later, my best friend at the time, who I
was also having a relationship with behind closed Doors, was
separating herself from me. She was distancing herself more and
(30:50):
more from me, and that was really really hard for me,
especially because I had just lost my cousin and had
gone through a pretty traumatic and then also because this
friend was separating herself from me. Simultaneously, I was separating
(31:10):
because like we weren't gonna be in the same friend
group anymore. I was leaving the friend group that I
had known and had for the last three or four years,
and they were also not taking my cousin's death very well.
And we're just lacking empathy. And you know, I actually
talked about it in my therapy session last week because
(31:31):
we were just talking about things in the past, and
I was like, oh, yeah, like, if only, you know,
I could, you know, just talk to some of the
girls that I was no longer friends with about some things.
And my therapist like reminded me, and it's so cool
to have somebody that like literally can remember back to
like when you are fourteen, and you know, she reminded
(31:52):
me that, you know, those girls were did not have
empathy for me or my situation at the time, and
you know, we kind of knowledge that we were fourteen
year old girls, like we did not have the emotional
intelligence to understand how to help somebody who has been
through such a traumatic event. And it deeply affected the
(32:13):
way that I was feeling and the way that I
trusted people and also like wanting to tell people how
I feel. Like those were some of like the triggering
events that caused me to like struggle with being open
and honest with the people in my life, which is
all very very interesting, And so I mention this because
(32:38):
this event had a profound impact on my mental health,
and you know, it also had a profound impact on
me wanting to always be getting help from my mental health.
You know, I saw how mental health can take somebody's
life and how that event changes a family's life for ever.
(33:01):
And I never want to let myself get to that place,
and I never want to let the people I love
get to that place. And so please, if you are
struggling with any type of thoughts about on the living yourself,
please go seek help. Please. Your life is so worth it.
(33:24):
Oh guys, I'm gonna get emotional, sona, We're gonna move on.
So at the end of high school, I feel like
I had a little bit of a depressive episode about
not getting into musical theater colleges that I wanted to
go to. I feel like I had this little low
moment where I was coping in not the best of ways,
(33:47):
a lot of emotional eating, a lot of like avoidance.
And then when I decided to take a gap year,
I switched on my like go get yourself, you know,
and I was taking on these classes and whatnot and
I had a good ending to my college audition story.
I went to Elon University and got my BFA in
(34:08):
musical theater, and for the first year of school, I
feel like I was okay. I honestly felt like I
was thriving. If I look back on it, you know,
sure I was anxious, and I was in a very
bad relationship at the time, which was causing me some dysregulation. However,
for the most part, I was either now like thinking
(34:29):
about I'm like, oh my god, was I just like
avoiding stuff? But for the most part, like I was
sound and stable. My sophomore year is when things really
really got bad with my anxiety, specifically my physical anxiety.
I feel like I was in a state of anxiety
my entire sophomore year of college. There was never a
(34:51):
moment I did not feel like my chest was tightening,
my throat was swelling or enclosing. Like. I just remember
being in libraries and cafes studying and doing work and
on the outside looking very calm, but on the inside
I just felt like my body was vibrating. That's how
much anxiety it was having. I was waking up in
(35:13):
the morning with extreme anxiety. I was going to bed
with anxiety. It was starting to affect my sleep, And
this is where it was really starting to affect my
life to the next level, right it was like disrupting
my functioning, not being able to sleep, not wanting to
(35:34):
go to social things like that was when it first
started happening. Like I remember my roommate's deaph coming into
my room my sophomore year one time, and she's like, Oh,
let's go out, like let's go have some fun, and
I literally was like I can't, Like I don't think
I can, Like I have so much anxiety right now,
like I don't think I can. And so that year
(35:55):
is really when my anxiety just like took a whole
leap into the e stratosphere. And like there's times like
that I can recall, just like being in the shower,
being by myself and thinking like how am I supposed
to live with this anxiety? How am I supposed to
wake up every day feeling like I can't catch my breath,
(36:17):
like my body is vibrating and it won't stop. Like
how much longer am I gonna wake up and feel
anxiety from the moment my eyes open to like the
moment they close. And I'm unconscious. Like again, I've never
wanted to take my life, and there were definitely these
times where I was like, how am I supposed to
(36:38):
live my life like this? And it got very scary, right,
And so I do remember my sophomore year reaching out
to my mom about just feeling very anxious, and I
believe I went back on prozac that year in high school,
I started seeing a psychiatrist and she had prescribed me
prozac for the things I was feeling and going through,
(37:00):
and I was on it, I think for maybe like
a couple of years, and then I stopped because I
wasn't feeling as anxious. And then my sophomore year, when
everything just ramped up to a degree that I had
never felt before. I had reached out to my mom
and I had gotten back on prozac for a while,
and so by the end of my sophomore year and
(37:20):
just completely pushing down my anxiety. Like sure, I was
feeling it and I knew something was wrong, but besides
getting prozac, I wasn't doing anything about it, and like
the prozac didn't work for me. Now, knowing what I
know about mental health and psych and psych meds, like
I would go immediately to my doctor and be like, hey,
(37:42):
I've been doing this for a month. This isn't working.
It's it's not making me feel any better. Like now
I'm in a place where I'm like, okay, like you
need to advocate for yourself and your mental well being. However,
at the time, like I just thought, oh, like you
take prozac, like it'll be fine. But it wasn't fine.
And so this was persisting for months and months and
(38:05):
months on end, and then when I got home over
the summer, I describe it as falling off a cliff.
I got back for the summer, I was living at home,
I was working at a Broadway production company doing an internship,
and I just remember feeling like I didn't want to
do anything, like everything was really hard and took so
(38:29):
much effort. My friends and I had also turned twenty
one that year because I took a gap year before
going to school, and so we were doing a lot
of drinking and a lot of partying, which was definitely
not helping the situation. And so by August I remember
saying to myself like, okay, like I'm really not feeling well. However,
(38:51):
when I go back to school and I'm on my
grind and I'm back in classes, and I'm working towards
my dreams, like it'll all come. I'll be fine, like
all my positive emotions will come back. Right, you may
know where this story ends. I went back to school
in September and was still struggling so much. Like y'all,
(39:12):
I had never felt this way, right, I'd always been anxious,
and yes, like we said in high school, I had
taken these little like you know, days off from school
like maybe was having some mindor depressive episodes. But I
had never felt this way. And by that I mean
the things that I loved at the time, the things
(39:33):
that I was so passionate about, I did not care
at all about anymore. And that was very scary because
the thing for me was the thing that always kept
me going, was my dreams of being on Broadway, Like
I was always so passionate and determined to make that
happen for myself and to be like amazing that that
(39:57):
would keep me going and keep me working and whatnot.
And when I went back to school in September, you
could could not get me to do anything. I could
not do anything. And I think the biggest alarm for
me was when I didn't want to do any of
my singing like work. I was so dedicated to my
(40:17):
voice and my vocal training. In college, I worked so hard.
I would always go to the practice rooms do what
my teacher expected of me. And so by the end
of September, things had gotten really bad and I was
about to go to a vocal lesson and I had
nothing prepared for this vocal lesson, and that was the
(40:40):
opposite of who I was and what I did. And
I was sitting in my bed and I didn't even care.
I wasn't even trying at all. And I went to
this voice lesson. I sat down, and I was so grateful,
and I am so grateful for the professor who gave
me the space to open up about what I was
(41:03):
going through. And so we spent that vocal lesson talking
about everything I was feeling, and I remember saying to her, like,
why don't I care about anything anymore? Like I just
don't want to do anything. I don't care about anything,
And that's when she said to me, like, Sarah, you
may be, you know, experiencing depression. And I'd never gone
(41:25):
through something like this before Anyways, By the end of
that session. We had called my parents and the therapist
I was seeing at the time, and three hours later
I was on a flight home to take a semester off.
And that's where we're going to leave the story, the chronicles,
(41:46):
the lore for right now. In the next part of
this episode, I will get into my journey in an
outpatient program. I went to an outpatient program to seek
treatment for the semester that I came home for medical leave.
I will also get into the journey that I've had
(42:07):
postgrad with my mental health because honestly, I you know again,
I can't remember middle school in high school, but I
can remember what's going on now, and it's hard. It
can be really, really hard sometimes. So definitely come back
for part two, and I will make sure to put
and ask me anything box so that you guys can
(42:28):
get all your cluelest moments when it comes to mental health,
mental illnesses, anxiety answer to the best of mine and
Olivia's ability. Remember, none of us are drained professionals. And
I just want to thank you all, especially those two
who have made it to the end, for listening to
me story, for making space for it, for holding space
(42:50):
for it. I really hope you were able to take
something away, whether that's you feeling understood, heard and seen
for the experiences that you've gone through with your mental health,
or that you can hear my story and hopefully it
can give you some more empathy and understanding two friends
or loved ones that experience mental health issues or mental illnesses.
(43:15):
It is very hard because these are invisible disabilities that
you cannot see on the surface. Like I've told you
in my stories today, so much of me looked absolutely
fine on the surface, but was really struggling beneath. So
please keep that in mind when you are, you know,
(43:36):
moving through your everyday life. So that being said, thank
you guys so much for listening to this episode today. Truly,
it means so much to me. And if you've resonated
with anything you've heard today, please DM me. It's been
so much fun getting to know you all and communicate
and build community through the DMS. I honestly should start
a broadcast channel. Maybe I should do that this week.
(43:57):
We'll see if that happens. And you can follow the
Completely Cololess podcast on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube at completely
Clueless pod. You can follow me and my Personal Journeys
at Sarah Alice Liddy. Honestly, I post more about the
podcast on my personal channel. These days, it's too much
having like four freaking social media channels. That's hard. And
(44:18):
so if you want to go, rate reviews, subscribe, follow,
tell a friend, t heal an enemy, tell somebody with
anxiety to listen to the podcast. I would deeply, deeply
appreciate that. Thank you guys again for listening. Have a
terrific Tuesday, have a wonderful week, and do not forget
to be motherfucking clue. So find you, guys,
Hello, my coolest queens. Before we get into today's episode,
I want to give a trigger warning. On this episode,
I will be speaking about mental illness, self harm, and
suicidal ideation. If these are things that you do not
want to hear or discuss, that is totally okay, and
therefore I encourage you to turn the episode off now,
and if that's so, I'll see you next week. Thanks guys, Hello,
(00:31):
my Cruelest queens. Welcome back to the Completely Clueless Podcast.
I am your host, Sarah Alice Liddy. The first thing
we're going to do in this episode is hold space,
holding space. Do you know why we're holding space? If
you know, you know, but we're holding space for my
first review of Wicked. I'm not gonna say I was wrong.
(00:55):
We're gonna hold space for that review. However, I don't
I wasn't completely a hundred percent right. Did I walk
out of this movie a changed woman the second time
I saw it? Absolutely not? However, did my nerdy theater
brain love it so much more? Yes? I don't know
if I was awake or alive the first time I
(01:15):
saw the movie, but literally I remember walking out of
the theater when I saw the movie for the first time,
and I was like, what did I just see? What
just happened? And it reminded me that I'm a slow
processor and I have comprehension issues, yep, and I've dealt
with those things my entire life. Literally in elementary school
and in middle school, I went to these things called
(01:37):
resource room and Wilson Reading. They would literally like take
you out of your normal classroom and bring you in
for extra help. And at the time, I was kind
of embarrassed about it, because you know, it's like a
select few kids that like need this extra help. It's
not everybody. And then when I got to high school,
they were like, you don't really need this anymore. So
(01:59):
I was like, okay, Like I want to be like
one of the normal kids. So I stopped getting help. However,
my comprehension and my slow processing like still persisted. For example,
like in college, Oh my god, in college, we had
to read this crazy thick acting book. I don't know
an actor prepares. I'm pretty sure that's it. It was
(02:22):
so thick and so dense, and we would get assigned
like multiple chapters at one time. However, you know, like
a normal person, sure it would take a bit of time,
but it's not like it would take as much time
as it did for me. It would literally take me, like,
for fifty pages, it would probably take me somewhere between
two and three hours to fully read and understand what
(02:46):
I was reading, Like I would usually have to read
a couple pages and then take notes on what I
had just read to make sure I understood what was
going on, which really sucks and I probably should have
asked for help, but I didn't. Anyways, this relates to
Wicked because if you weren't here last week, I gave
a review of the Wicked movie. It wasn't a raving review. However,
(03:09):
I still stand by some of those things, and I
think some of those thoughts are refined now that I
have seen the movie another time. However, I'm not going
to get into the deep depths of those thoughts because
we have a lot to talk about today with my
anxiety lower story. However, if you are interested in those thoughts,
(03:30):
send me a DM slide up on a story and
tell me so that I can maybe make like a
mini episode that just talks about the Wicked movie. But
if we're over that, like, then we're over that and
we won't get into it, you know, like I have
to remember now everyone listening to this is a theater
kid like me. The second thing that we need to
hold space for, and I will say the more embarrassing
(03:52):
of the two, is that I went to Thanksgiving Eve.
You guys, I am a show embarrassed right now. I
literally put up the clip on TikTok of me slamming
Thanksgiving Eve into the ground. I was like, aps fucklutely
not going to Thanksgiving Eve? And then what did I do?
I want to Thanksgiving Eve? But I will say it
(04:14):
was completely spur of the moment and unplanned. The only
plan I had for Thanksgiving Eve was going with my
parents to their country club for a drink. Their country
club was hosting a Thanksgiving Eve like open bar event
for an hour, and I was like, okay, Like I
don't want to just sit in my bed like during
the holidays all by myself. My partner was away with
(04:35):
their family, only like a couple of my friends were
in town, so I had invited one of them to
come with me. I was like, that is a plan, amazing.
I was like, I'll be out till maybe nine the latest.
I go to this thing with my parents. It was
honestly very funny because I walk into this room and
it's a bunch of drunk parents, and it's parents that
(04:56):
I've grown up knowing, and so at first it was
a little awkward because there's this part of me that's
like social anxiety, like, oh god, like, what did they
think about me coming to this thing with my parents?
Are they like, oh my god, she's so lame, like
and they're thinking about their kid doing like all these
things with their friends. And then I was like, all right,
like Sarah stops, stop, like this is what you're doing,
(05:18):
and that's okay, Like just try and be present and
enjoy it, you know. Had a bunch of small talk
with parents, and then finally my friend arrives towards the
end of the event, and my parents and I and
her have a drink and then my parents leave and
then my friend and I stay at the country club
to have dinner together. We had amazing burgers, like they
(05:38):
were so good, and then we were like should we
go out because we were getting texts from two of
our friends and we're in town and one of them,
her brother, DJs at the bar where Thanksgiving me, like
a lot of people go, and so we're like do
we go? Do we not? And then my friend Liz
said something to me that really like flipped my perspective.
(06:02):
She was saying to me how her mom told her,
like try and block out like the other people tonight.
You know, if you want to go out and have
a good time with your friends, go because that's what
this is for. This is for being with your old friends.
Not like old friends, you know what I mean, like
high school friends, friends who'ven't seen in a long time.
(06:23):
You know, you're celebrating the holidays together, You're reminiscing on
old times, like it's supposed to be about you and
not the outside people and what they think about you.
Eventually I was like, you know what, you're so right,
Like our friends want to be with us, and we
want to be with them. Like let's go and do this,
and if anybody has something to say about it, like
who the fook cares? So we go to this one
(06:47):
bar and when we first got there, there was no
one there. I was like, oh, perfect, this is great,
Like we'll be fine. Literally forty five minutes later, like
so many people were there and we're like okay, Like
it's getting really crowded, like, let's go to the bar
where your brother is djaying. We walk down the street,
we go to that bar and we had a good time.
And then once we felt like all right, we're like
(07:09):
all the young people that we didn't go to high
school with were like coming in. We were like, all right,
we're gonna leave now, like now we don't want to
be a part of this. And then we left and
we went back to my friend's house and we had
like the most wholesome girlhood moment. We were just like
laughing and telling stories and gossiping and catching up. Like
(07:30):
I was belly laughing so hard, and I remember like
being in that moment being like, oh, like I missed
this and this was so fun and I'm so glad
that I was just like let's go out and like
have a good time. So that is my Thanksgiving eve tail.
Will I do it next year? Time? Well only two, honestly,
(07:53):
Like I want to have like an event at like
my home, like or like have my friends here and
we like do something here. Because I stayed out until
three thirty that morning into Thursday morning. And let me
tell you, when I woke up on Thanksgiving, like I
was not okay. I was so cranky the rest of
(08:14):
the day and I just like didn't want to go
to these like family friend's house that we were doing
Thanksgiving at. I was not happy. And it also severely
messed up my sleep schedule for like the next two days.
So you know, I may need to rein it in
a bit next year or have some boundaries, but overall, like,
it was such a fun time, and if you want
(08:36):
to on Thanksgiving Eve too, I hope you had a
safe and wonderful time. And now that we've held space
for all of my confessions, we need to get into
the bulk of this episode because it's going to be
a lot of information. And I've already decided that this
is going to be a two parter because when I
(08:57):
was writing the outline for my anxiety lore this morning,
I was like, Wow, there is just like so much
here and so much to dissect that I want to
be able to get into all of it. And if
you guys listen to this, you know I'm a rambler
and I can get off on these tangents, and so
that is what we are gonna do. And also I
(09:19):
put up and ask me anything about my anxiety disorder
on Instagram, which is at Completely Clueless pod, and you
guys gave me such great responses that I'm gonna do
it again because I think I'm gonna have Olivia join
me for part of the second episode to answer some
of those questions. We were talking about them last night,
and they just have such a smarter brain when it
(09:44):
comes to resources to help with anxiety because they are
in this profession. No they're not licensed yet, but they're
in school and they're working towards that, Okay, So I
like to call them the resident non licensed let me
say that again, resident non licensed therapists of completely clueless, Okay.
(10:08):
And they're going to come in and answer some things
that I just don't have like the best knowledge on.
And we're also going to talk about like being in
a relationship where a partner has a mental illness. We
both struggle for mental illnesses, and one of y'all asked
about that, and I just thought it was such a
great question and something I didn't even think about, just
because Olivia and I both have been in therapy for
(10:28):
so long that we can very easily understand how to
navigate this journey with each other. However, I'm aware that's
not the case for everybody, and I think it would
be so great to like get into that clueless moment
because we got to clear it up for you, queen. Okay,
so let's get into my anxiety lore. And I want
to disclaim this with none of this is medical advice. Okay,
(10:50):
do not take any of this as medical advice. This
is my journey with my anxiety disorder. I've had this
disorder for over fifty teen years. I've gone through many
highs and many lows. However, I'm so aware that everybody
has their own journey on this, and if you are
somebody who listens and feels like you are struggling mentally,
(11:14):
I highly encourage you to speak to your doctor or
somebody that you trust in your life. Okay. I also
want to give a trigger warning. We are going to
be talking about mental health, mental illnesses, self harm, suicide,
and if that is not something that you want to
hear about, that's totally okay. I would just say it's
time to turn this podcast episode off, go listen to
(11:35):
another one, maybe my last one. But anyways, let's get
into it. So I was diagnosed with a generalized anxiety
disorder when I was twelve years old, and since then,
I've also struggled with depression, insomnia, PTSD, and panic disorder,
and those things have come and gone, but the generalized
(11:57):
anxiety has persisted since I was twelve years old. But
my journey starts in middle school. Oh middle school. You
remember all the drama of middle school. Yeah, well I
didn't take that drama so well. I was struggling with
things that normal middle school girls struggle with, changes to
(12:18):
my body, puberty, boys, girls liking each other, all of that.
I was meeting new friends for the first time in
a while because there were four different elementary schools in
my town that came together to make up the middle school.
In high school, so there were new friends, new friend dynamics,
new drama, all of that. Like, middle school is just
(12:39):
filled with so much drama because everybody is going through
puberty and it causes so much hormonal change, and it
was a lot. However, unlike the average middle school girl,
I was not handling the things that were happening all
that drama very well. It was causing me distress. It
(13:01):
was causing me not to function in the way that
you should function through life. It was also causing me
a lot of emotional dysregulation, Like my emotions were not regulated,
which was therefore affecting my behavior. And so I started
to just like feel all of these things. Something about me,
(13:23):
as that has persisted throughout my life, is I feel
emotions so largely, like ah, they feel like the biggest
title wave to me. And so I've never been one
to like hide my feelings. And if I am hiding
(13:44):
my feelings and pushing them down, they come out in
other ways in like with anxiety or depression and whatnot.
And so as a twelve year old girl, I didn't
really understand how to handle these vas, very big emotions
that I was feeling about these you know, average normal
(14:06):
things that were happening to everybody else too, Like I
was taking them very deeply, very too heart. They were
causing me distress, and so I started to self harm.
And it's very hard looking back on that time when
I used that coping mechanism, because I really feel like
(14:30):
it was a product of the media that I was
taking in at the time. Those were the Tumblr days.
I had a tumbler, and often I would repost and
look at things that had to do with mental health.
As I was going through this journey and didn't know
(14:50):
who or where to turn, and on Tumblr, if you
were on the same feed or fyp or whatever it's
called that I was on, there was a lot of
content about self harm. Like, honestly, I look back and
I'm like, I cannot believe that was like all allowed
on the internet. Like some of the things that I
saw were just crazy. And so at the time, I'm
(15:14):
feeling all of these feelings and relating to the things
I'm seeing on Tumblr, and I'm seeing that this is
the way that they're coping with those feelings and thoughts,
and I'm like, okay, one plus one equals two. I
will do that. Then, and I started self harming as
a way to cope, and it was not a good
(15:36):
coping mechanism. It's not never a good coping mechanism. And now,
looking back as a twenty six year old, I'm like, Okay, Like,
I don't think I ever really wanted to hurt myself
or do that to myself. I think it was the
media I was exposed to telling me that this was
(15:56):
the solution to how I was feeling. Ultimately, I had
a close friend at the time who noticed what was
going on, and was like, no, no, this is unsafe
for you in every type of a way. I'm intervening.
We need to tell your parents. Luckily, I had written
this note to my parents because I wanted to tell them.
(16:19):
I knew that if I told my parents, they would
help me. However, it takes a lot of bravery encourage
to say that you're struggling or experiencing things that are
causing you distress. Right, So I'd written them this letter
detailing all the things that I was feeling and thinking
in the hopes that I could give it to them,
(16:41):
they would read it and I would get help. You know,
once this friend intervened, she literally had me call my
parents that moment and was like, we need to tell them. Luckily,
I happened to have this letter on me and I
read it to them over the phone, and you know,
obviously was very shocking and hard for them to hear,
and they helped me get the help that I needed.
(17:03):
So I'm very privileged and grateful to have parents that
heard me, saw me, understood me, and wanted to help
me get better. I'm grateful to that friend who was like, no,
we're not doing this anymore. Like you need to talk
to somebody about this. And I'm honestly grateful to my
younger self. I feel like we never give our younger
(17:24):
self enough credit for the hard stuff that that version
of ourself went through. You know, I think we can
look back at the past and be like, oh I
regret this, or I would do this differently, or we
don't give ourself the praise for those moments that are
really tough that we're able to get ourself through, when
we're able to be strong. And so I want to
(17:45):
give myself this moment to say, like, young Sarah, I
am so proud of you for your bravery in that moment.
It takes a lot of courage to tell somebody that
you are struggling and that you are hurting. And if
I didn't tell my parents that I was hurting in
that way, like, I can't even imagine where I would be.
(18:07):
I've been in therapy ever since then, and yes there
have been very low lows in that time. However, I
already have those support systems in place now. It wasn't
like I needed to go find them or whatnot. So
I'm very proud of my younger self and hopefully you
can take a moment too right now that if you've
been through something hard and your younger self got you
(18:30):
through it, like think that version of you because you
did that, like you did that emotional Okay. Anyways, after
I told my parents what was going on, that is
when my therapy journey started. I saw this one therapist
for a very short amount of time, and then I
found the therapist that I have been seeing for most
(18:51):
of my therapy journey. I literally it's so weird, like
not being able to say her name because when I
speak to my friends or my partner about her, I
say her name, but obviously hipA like no, but I
have been seeing this therapist for Yeah, like I said,
most of my therapy journey from twelve to I'm currently
seeing her right now. If you have been listening to
(19:13):
the podcast for a while, At the beginning of the summer,
I started seeing a new therapist for the first time
in a long time. I've known that I needed a
fresh set of eyes on me in my situation, and
you know, I've been seeing the same person for over
a decade. It was time to change it up. However,
it didn't work out and it wasn't the person for me.
(19:34):
So I'm seeing the long term therapist up until the
new year, and once the new year comes and my
insurance changes, I am going to be seeking out a
new therapist to continue my work with. However, I am
so fortunate that I have this great therapeutic relationship with
this one therapist that I can go back to when
you know things are crazy or yeah, things don't work
(19:56):
out with a certain therapist. So that's when I started
therapy with her, and it was mainly CBT and DBT therapy,
which is cognitive behavioral and dialectical behavioral therapy. It's a
specific type of therapy and it's not talk therapy. So
think of if you're thinking of stuff you've seen on
(20:17):
TV like talk therapy, psychodynamic therapy, it is not that.
It more focuses on behaviors. When you if you do
an outpatient program out of hospital, you're usually doing that
type of therapy because it is for crisis management. It
gives you the skills to help with all the distress
(20:39):
and dysfunction that you were going through. So that's when
I started therapy, and then by this time I was
now in high school. I feel like high school is
when I really started living what I like to call
an all or nothing lifestyle. My partner refers to it
as a pendulum swing where sometimes I'm all and sometimes
(21:03):
i am nothing. And I think, throughout my young adulthood,
this all or nothing has become a lot worse and
a lot bigger, Like I'm able to notice it a
lot more. However, in high school, I don't think I
really understood it. However, now when I look back in therapy,
(21:24):
I'm like, oh, like, okay, there were there were signs
of me creating this habit in this lifestyle in high school.
And what I mean by all of this is like
I'm the traditional first daughter type, right, golden child, a
student has a super great work ethic, grind grind, grind,
(21:45):
grind grind, right, Like, that was what I was becoming
into in high school, especially because I have two younger
brothers with ADHD and learning disabilities, and at the time,
you know, they're still learning to hope and understand how
to live a life with those things. And therefore I
(22:05):
was getting a lot of like the golden child treatment.
You know, everyone was always looking at my accomplishments and
as a young kid, like I'm just gonna like say
it like I was accomplishing a lot, Like I was
talented for my age, and therefore I was starring in
(22:26):
like all of the musicals that were at my local
high school. I was also doing work in the city.
I was in voice lessons, and so like there was
always something that I was doing that like we could
put like a gold star on. I was also working
super hard in school and getting good grades, like right,
and so I started to like realize, okay, like my
(22:47):
worth is in these accomplishments, in these things I'm doing, like,
I will get praise, I will get love for doing
these things. However, what I was also doing that I
didn't realize at the time was I would like grind
it out, and then I would ask to not go
to school, and I would just blame it on oh,
(23:10):
like I had rehearsal late at night. I didn't have
time to study because I was in rehearsal. And so
I started building this pattern early on in high school
where because everything looked fine on the surface, I had
a group of friends, I was social with them, I
got good grades, I was talented in my extracurricular activity.
(23:31):
All was good on the surface, so it allowed me
to take these nothing breaks where I would ask my
parents to skip school and whatnot, and they would allow
it because everything on the surface looked fine, right, And
I don't even think at the time I knew what
I was doing. However, I was working so hard in
(23:56):
all these aspects of my life and not giving myself
a break that I would give myself the break by
skipping school and causing dysregulation in that way. And like
I said, I think a bit earlier, like this has
come to I don't want to use the word haunt,
but I'm going to use it. This has this lifestyle
(24:16):
has come to haunt me a bit as I've gotten older,
and has led me to become an avoid like when
I get overwhelmed, like I'm like, I'm just not going
to show up, like this is too much for me.
And I've honestly, like only in the last couple of months,
really realized how much these pendulum swings affect my life.
(24:39):
Like yeah, as I've gotten older, and especially since twenty
nineteen where I fell into a very bad depressive episode
that lasted quite a while, Like I have gone through
these phases of being like Okay, I'm on and everything's fine,
too I'm not okay at all. I can't get out
of bed, I can't go to work, I can't function,
(25:00):
and so yeah, it's only been recently that I've realized like,
this is not the life I want to live. And
recently I saw a quote on TikTok from a mutual
of mine and it spoke about self care and it
hit me in such a deep, profound way when it
comes to this all or nothing, pendulum swinging lifestyle that
I'm living currently, and the quote said something like self
(25:23):
care is not about the face mask, getting her nails done.
It's about building a life that you do not want
to take a vacation from. And that just hit me
so hard because I realized that for so long I
have been living this life where it's not sustainable, where
(25:44):
I feel like every couple of weeks I need to
crash for a couple of weeks to bring myself up,
and it's just this not fun cycle that I've been on.
And in CBT and DBT therapy, it's called building a
life worth living, and usually it's like, how you can
(26:05):
build that life worth living is through goals and value
work and other work with a therapist, and it's definitely
something I literally was telling Olivia. I was like, next
therapy session, Like, this is what we're getting into, is
how I can really start building a sustainable life that
I want to live because I just feel like, for
(26:26):
way too long, I've been in this all or nothing
yo yo. And that's the thing about mental illness is
like anxiety feeds into depression, and depression feeds into anxiety.
And that's really what I mean with this all or
nothing lifestyle. You guys like I will have these periods
where I am so activated and so anxious that it
(26:47):
fuels the grind, it fuels me working super duper hard,
and then eventually I will crash and fall into the
depressive episode of I don't want to get out of bed,
I don't want to do anything, I'm tired all the time.
But then eventually I'll start feeling anxiety because that's been happening.
I can't do this, I can't lay in bed all day,
and there we go again. So I hope that gives
(27:10):
a little bit better of an explanation of what I
mean by all or nothing lifestyle. The way that I
experience my mental health and my mental illness will be
different from the way that you experience it, And honestly,
like when I was talking to Olivia about like how
to describe like my anxiety to you guys, like what
triggers me like, it was honestly, like really hard for
(27:32):
me to do, especially because this journey has been like
over a decade long, So like looking back at middle
school in high school, it's hard for me to remember
like exactly how I was thinking and feeling at that time. However,
I'm also doing a lot of work right now in
therapy where I'm looking at the past and looking at
how those things have impacted and landed me where I'm
(27:55):
at right now, and so it's really like theme that
I can recall from those times that if like obviously
continued until now, you guys don't know, but I've been
taking so many water breaks during this episode. My mouth
is so dry, it's making it's so hard to speak
(28:17):
right now. So if I sound weird, like I am sorry,
like your girl is dehydrated. Another thing that I went
through in high school that I don't talk often about
on this podcast, I don't think at least, I'm not
even sure I've mentioned this before. However, unfortunately, my freshman
year of high school. I had just turned or was
(28:37):
just shy of turning fourteen years old. I lost my cousin,
who was also thirteen going on fourteen at the time,
to suicide. It was very unexpected. I was also the
last person to speak to him, and so obviously that
is a very traumatic thing for anyone, let alone a
(29:00):
fourteen year old to go through. And I can't even
explain to you guys, like the obviously, like the pain
and like suffering that I in my family has gone
through since losing my cousin. It's been over ten years now,
which is absolutely insane to me and very emotional. And
(29:23):
I think that's why mental health is so important to me,
because I lost my cousin at such a young age
to mental health struggles. I have mental health struggles, my
partner does. And you know, I think a part of
me sharing my allure with you guys today is not
to like spill the tea, but is to hopefully get
(29:44):
you to recognize what completely Clueless means to me on
a deeper level. And honestly, like, I think it's only
come to me recently, you know, because when Audrey and
I started it was the podcast was like Okay, we're
in our twenties. We don't know what we're doing. Da
da da da dah. However, over the years, I've realized
that this podcast is so much more than just like, oh,
(30:04):
I'm struggling in my twenties. It's really a place to
be vulnerable about the thoughts and feelings that we have
and to know that that's okay, and you know, to
kind of like reclaim the anxieties that we may feel.
Don't want to get on that tangent, but I just
hope that that's what you're getting from all of this. So, Yes,
(30:29):
I lost my cousin to suicide my freshman year and
it completely like changed my high school experience. I six
months later, my best friend at the time, who I
was also having a relationship with behind closed Doors, was
separating herself from me. She was distancing herself more and
(30:50):
more from me, and that was really really hard for me,
especially because I had just lost my cousin and had
gone through a pretty traumatic and then also because this
friend was separating herself from me. Simultaneously, I was separating
(31:10):
because like we weren't gonna be in the same friend
group anymore. I was leaving the friend group that I
had known and had for the last three or four years,
and they were also not taking my cousin's death very well.
And we're just lacking empathy. And you know, I actually
talked about it in my therapy session last week because
(31:31):
we were just talking about things in the past, and
I was like, oh, yeah, like, if only, you know,
I could, you know, just talk to some of the
girls that I was no longer friends with about some things.
And my therapist like reminded me, and it's so cool
to have somebody that like literally can remember back to
like when you are fourteen, and you know, she reminded
(31:52):
me that, you know, those girls were did not have
empathy for me or my situation at the time, and
you know, we kind of knowledge that we were fourteen
year old girls, like we did not have the emotional
intelligence to understand how to help somebody who has been
through such a traumatic event. And it deeply affected the
(32:13):
way that I was feeling and the way that I
trusted people and also like wanting to tell people how
I feel. Like those were some of like the triggering
events that caused me to like struggle with being open
and honest with the people in my life, which is
all very very interesting, And so I mention this because
(32:38):
this event had a profound impact on my mental health,
and you know, it also had a profound impact on
me wanting to always be getting help from my mental health.
You know, I saw how mental health can take somebody's
life and how that event changes a family's life for ever.
(33:01):
And I never want to let myself get to that place,
and I never want to let the people I love
get to that place. And so please, if you are
struggling with any type of thoughts about on the living yourself,
please go seek help. Please. Your life is so worth it.
(33:24):
Oh guys, I'm gonna get emotional, sona, We're gonna move on.
So at the end of high school, I feel like
I had a little bit of a depressive episode about
not getting into musical theater colleges that I wanted to
go to. I feel like I had this little low
moment where I was coping in not the best of ways,
(33:47):
a lot of emotional eating, a lot of like avoidance.
And then when I decided to take a gap year,
I switched on my like go get yourself, you know,
and I was taking on these classes and whatnot and
I had a good ending to my college audition story.
I went to Elon University and got my BFA in
(34:08):
musical theater, and for the first year of school, I
feel like I was okay. I honestly felt like I
was thriving. If I look back on it, you know,
sure I was anxious, and I was in a very
bad relationship at the time, which was causing me some dysregulation. However,
for the most part, I was either now like thinking
(34:29):
about I'm like, oh my god, was I just like
avoiding stuff? But for the most part, like I was
sound and stable. My sophomore year is when things really
really got bad with my anxiety, specifically my physical anxiety.
I feel like I was in a state of anxiety
my entire sophomore year of college. There was never a
(34:51):
moment I did not feel like my chest was tightening,
my throat was swelling or enclosing. Like. I just remember
being in libraries and cafes studying and doing work and
on the outside looking very calm, but on the inside
I just felt like my body was vibrating. That's how
much anxiety it was having. I was waking up in
(35:13):
the morning with extreme anxiety. I was going to bed
with anxiety. It was starting to affect my sleep, And
this is where it was really starting to affect my
life to the next level, right it was like disrupting
my functioning, not being able to sleep, not wanting to
(35:34):
go to social things like that was when it first
started happening. Like I remember my roommate's deaph coming into
my room my sophomore year one time, and she's like, Oh,
let's go out, like let's go have some fun, and
I literally was like I can't, Like I don't think
I can, Like I have so much anxiety right now,
like I don't think I can. And so that year
(35:55):
is really when my anxiety just like took a whole
leap into the e stratosphere. And like there's times like
that I can recall, just like being in the shower,
being by myself and thinking like how am I supposed
to live with this anxiety? How am I supposed to
wake up every day feeling like I can't catch my breath,
(36:17):
like my body is vibrating and it won't stop. Like
how much longer am I gonna wake up and feel
anxiety from the moment my eyes open to like the
moment they close. And I'm unconscious. Like again, I've never
wanted to take my life, and there were definitely these
times where I was like, how am I supposed to
(36:38):
live my life like this? And it got very scary, right,
And so I do remember my sophomore year reaching out
to my mom about just feeling very anxious, and I
believe I went back on prozac that year in high school,
I started seeing a psychiatrist and she had prescribed me
prozac for the things I was feeling and going through,
(37:00):
and I was on it, I think for maybe like
a couple of years, and then I stopped because I
wasn't feeling as anxious. And then my sophomore year, when
everything just ramped up to a degree that I had
never felt before. I had reached out to my mom
and I had gotten back on prozac for a while,
and so by the end of my sophomore year and
(37:20):
just completely pushing down my anxiety. Like sure, I was
feeling it and I knew something was wrong, but besides
getting prozac, I wasn't doing anything about it, and like
the prozac didn't work for me. Now, knowing what I
know about mental health and psych and psych meds, like
I would go immediately to my doctor and be like, hey,
(37:42):
I've been doing this for a month. This isn't working.
It's it's not making me feel any better. Like now
I'm in a place where I'm like, okay, like you
need to advocate for yourself and your mental well being. However,
at the time, like I just thought, oh, like you
take prozac, like it'll be fine. But it wasn't fine.
And so this was persisting for months and months and
(38:05):
months on end, and then when I got home over
the summer, I describe it as falling off a cliff.
I got back for the summer, I was living at home,
I was working at a Broadway production company doing an internship,
and I just remember feeling like I didn't want to
do anything, like everything was really hard and took so
(38:29):
much effort. My friends and I had also turned twenty
one that year because I took a gap year before
going to school, and so we were doing a lot
of drinking and a lot of partying, which was definitely
not helping the situation. And so by August I remember
saying to myself like, okay, like I'm really not feeling well. However,
(38:51):
when I go back to school and I'm on my
grind and I'm back in classes, and I'm working towards
my dreams, like it'll all come. I'll be fine, like
all my positive emotions will come back. Right, you may
know where this story ends. I went back to school
in September and was still struggling so much. Like y'all,
(39:12):
I had never felt this way, right, I'd always been anxious,
and yes, like we said in high school, I had
taken these little like you know, days off from school
like maybe was having some mindor depressive episodes. But I
had never felt this way. And by that I mean
the things that I loved at the time, the things
(39:33):
that I was so passionate about, I did not care
at all about anymore. And that was very scary because
the thing for me was the thing that always kept
me going, was my dreams of being on Broadway, Like
I was always so passionate and determined to make that
happen for myself and to be like amazing that that
(39:57):
would keep me going and keep me working and whatnot.
And when I went back to school in September, you
could could not get me to do anything. I could
not do anything. And I think the biggest alarm for
me was when I didn't want to do any of
my singing like work. I was so dedicated to my
(40:17):
voice and my vocal training. In college, I worked so hard.
I would always go to the practice rooms do what
my teacher expected of me. And so by the end
of September, things had gotten really bad and I was
about to go to a vocal lesson and I had
nothing prepared for this vocal lesson, and that was the
(40:40):
opposite of who I was and what I did. And
I was sitting in my bed and I didn't even care.
I wasn't even trying at all. And I went to
this voice lesson. I sat down, and I was so grateful,
and I am so grateful for the professor who gave
me the space to open up about what I was
(41:03):
going through. And so we spent that vocal lesson talking
about everything I was feeling, and I remember saying to her, like,
why don't I care about anything anymore? Like I just
don't want to do anything. I don't care about anything,
And that's when she said to me, like, Sarah, you
may be, you know, experiencing depression. And I'd never gone
(41:25):
through something like this before Anyways, By the end of
that session. We had called my parents and the therapist
I was seeing at the time, and three hours later
I was on a flight home to take a semester off.
And that's where we're going to leave the story, the chronicles,
(41:46):
the lore for right now. In the next part of
this episode, I will get into my journey in an
outpatient program. I went to an outpatient program to seek
treatment for the semester that I came home for medical leave.
I will also get into the journey that I've had
(42:07):
postgrad with my mental health because honestly, I you know again,
I can't remember middle school in high school, but I
can remember what's going on now, and it's hard. It
can be really, really hard sometimes. So definitely come back
for part two, and I will make sure to put
and ask me anything box so that you guys can
(42:28):
get all your cluelest moments when it comes to mental health,
mental illnesses, anxiety answer to the best of mine and
Olivia's ability. Remember, none of us are drained professionals. And
I just want to thank you all, especially those two
who have made it to the end, for listening to
me story, for making space for it, for holding space
(42:50):
for it. I really hope you were able to take
something away, whether that's you feeling understood, heard and seen
for the experiences that you've gone through with your mental health,
or that you can hear my story and hopefully it
can give you some more empathy and understanding two friends
or loved ones that experience mental health issues or mental illnesses.
(43:15):
It is very hard because these are invisible disabilities that
you cannot see on the surface. Like I've told you
in my stories today, so much of me looked absolutely
fine on the surface, but was really struggling beneath. So
please keep that in mind when you are, you know,
(43:36):
moving through your everyday life. So that being said, thank
you guys so much for listening to this episode today. Truly,
it means so much to me. And if you've resonated
with anything you've heard today, please DM me. It's been
so much fun getting to know you all and communicate
and build community through the DMS. I honestly should start
a broadcast channel. Maybe I should do that this week.
(43:57):
We'll see if that happens. And you can follow the
Completely Cololess podcast on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube at completely
Clueless pod. You can follow me and my Personal Journeys
at Sarah Alice Liddy. Honestly, I post more about the
podcast on my personal channel. These days, it's too much
having like four freaking social media channels. That's hard. And
(44:18):
so if you want to go, rate reviews, subscribe, follow,
tell a friend, t heal an enemy, tell somebody with
anxiety to listen to the podcast. I would deeply, deeply
appreciate that. Thank you guys again for listening. Have a
terrific Tuesday, have a wonderful week, and do not forget
to be motherfucking clue. So find you, guys,
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