Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / January 9, 2018 | Expresso - Kim Fertig

Transcript

January 9, 2018 | Expresso - Kim Fertig · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, ladies.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: This is my okay.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Can you hear me?
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I'm gonna start out with uh scripture verse, and I'm I'm having a hot flash, so those of you who have been through this phase can bear with me.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's just one more layer on top of everything I'm gonna talk about tonight.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um but I came I came to you in weakness and fear and with much trembling.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I am going to talk about something that I've not shared with very many people.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I'm a little nervous about it.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's not uh it's not very sexy, so um, but I think it's important, and I think it's getting more and more important and more attention.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: I think it needs more attention.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: So um just to kind of I wrote out so much stuff and then I've been trying to cut it down.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm just gonna get I'm gonna skip my cutesy introduction and just say that I struggle with mental illness and have for over 30 years.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: And uh those of you who know me, um, you know, I I have a job, I have children, I'm married, I've I'm an outgoing person, I and I enjoy people, I seem like a really normal, somewhat even think successful person.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I am two and a half to three weeks out of every month, usually.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: So um, but if I'm not doing well, you won't see me because I'm hiding somewhere.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: And um, this past year has been a really good year for me because I am learning to be a little less hidden about this, and I have turned a corner in what accepting this really means.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to start out by um, oh no, I did need that whole story, and I told Sam to take it away.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: There's a I'll just paraphrase it.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: There's a story in Mark V about a demon-possessed man, and I don't know if you're familiar with that story, but it's really a scary story.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's like right out of a horror movie.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: He's he roams around in the cemetery and the tombs, and he cuts himself with stones, and he screams out, and he's super powerful, and and everybody's afraid of him.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus comes across the lake, and when he gets out of the boat, this monster runs to him and drops down to his knees and and uh talks to Jesus and you know asks him to help him.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: And the first thing that Jesus says to him, and I think this is interesting, is what is your name?
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that to me, as I read this, this just this whole section just hurts my heart every time I read it because this this man has been pushed into isolated places because he's strange, he's there's something wrong with him, obviously, and people are afraid of him.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: They don't know what it what it is.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: And what are we most afraid of is the things that we don't we don't understand.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: So for years I've been, I always say I've been swinging at ghosts.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I I remember being um a teenager, and one day I would be on top of the world, life was good, I had a pretty good life.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying that there weren't some trauma issues going on, and I I work on that stuff too.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: But it was a definite shift, you know, like one day I'd be on top of the world, and the next day I was like ready to jump off of a building.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: And even at that stage, I remember thinking, this is not right.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I I shouldn't be suicidal today when I was just fine yesterday.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: So I really thought that I was crazy.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I talked to someone about that, and they said, no, you're not crazy because crazy people don't think they're crazy.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I found out that's not really always true, because I was really on to something and not, you know, and I say crazy in a I don't want to be um, I don't want to be hurtful in saying that, but that is what I call my issues, is it's my own personal cocktail of crazy, because like a lot of people who deal with mental illness or brain illness, which is what I prefer it to be called, since it is a disorder of a part of our body, just a physical part of our body.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there's something wrong there.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's just a little harder to figure that out sometimes.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: But um, you know, I I have struggled this with this for a long time and and had several issues.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: And most people that do have many people that have uh struggles with a brain illness have several things going on at the same time.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: So um I've been diagnosed for you know on a lot of different things, and I've been on medications, so many.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: I looked up the list of antidepressants and anti-anxieties, and I've been on almost all of them.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: And the interesting thing is when you're depressed, a lot of times they'll put you on a depressant, which I thought was really odd.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: But what turns out to be true for me is that my depression usually stems from being anxious, and I don't even realize it because I bury that.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm worried about something, but I don't, I don't think I should be worried about it, so I don't let it show.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: I don't allow myself to feel it, but I really am, and so I have all these other issues that come up, and suddenly I'm in this full-blown anxiety and depression.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a lot of um, there's a lot of ways that I relate to the monster in um Mark V.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um because I've I've been the monster, and not very many people in my life see the monster, but the ones that do, I feel so ashamed and fearful that they will leave me.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: And um my first husband did leave me, and honestly, that's probably a lot of why.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and you know, he left me for someone else, and it was always easy to just, you know, make him the bad person because he left me for someone else.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: But the truth is, you know, he he had his limits too.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not excusing that.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I I'm I I'm not saying that, but I'm just saying there are reasons that he was legitimately not happy and didn't know what to do.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so anyway, Jesus asks, what is your name?
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: So it's the most important thing to try to find out what is going on, what's the name of this issue?
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: So I was told I had anxiety, depression.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, these are all different times, different counselors throughout the years.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, ADD was a new one.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: I never thought that made sense because I was tired all the time.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: It didn't make any sense to me.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't have any hyperactivity.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um also um bipolar.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: I went and talked to a counselor one time through work, and um I talked to her for an hour, and she goes, Well, it's obvious to me what you have.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: You have bipolar disorder.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, okay, you know, you've talked to me for one hour, and you, you know, and I totally disregarded her because again, everything that I knew about bipolar disorder did not fit with me.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um bipolar disorder, you know, you have your highs and your lows, really high, really low.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um what I didn't know about was, and and you know, the highs for you know the extreme cases, you know, they you can have someone who thinks they can fly and and they jump off buildings or they on a whim spend a lot of money or go to Vegas or you know, that those types of things that I did not do.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I thought that didn't relate to me.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: What I didn't know about was bipolar too, which I jokingly call the kinder, gentler bipolar.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it the difference is it doesn't really do this.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: Your lows are still as low, but your highs aren't as high, which is kind of a bummer.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's like, well, we'll bring this one up too, but it doesn't work that way.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um but when I found out about bipolar too, I was like, okay, this makes a little more sense for what I experience.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because what I didn't realize is that I would always have these golden times where I felt like for once I really felt like I could organize, think through how to file something, um, make a list and actually be able to follow it down.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, for for you normal people out there, when you make a list, like when I was in college, for example, I had five classes and I had homework in all those five classes.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: And when I was struggling, I would, I could not see those as five separate things.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: It was like one mountain of stuff.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I would get stalled because I would start here, and then I was like, oh, but I gotta do this, I gotta do this, and I would just jump back and forth, and it was this manic.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry, I'm sweating so badly.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so sorry.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it's these spotlights.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: These are spotlights are just where am I on time?
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: No, yeah, come up and fan.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: I'm joking, don't.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, um, so anyway, I ran to Jesus as soon as I became a Christian in '99 when I started coming to TBC.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: I did run to Jesus, and that helped me a lot in so many ways, but it didn't heal me.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: I still had this problem.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: I was exhausted.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: I still, especially right before my period, I would just um like have a terrible time, a terrible time.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so fast forward, um I talked to a friend of mine here at church, and she was telling me that she'd been so tired, and she went to a doctor in Kansas City.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so I went to this doctor, and hers had been a thyroid issue issue.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: So I thought, oh great, okay, it's probably thyroid.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: I like that.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's always nice when it's something normal sounding.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, a thyroid issue.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: So I went and she told me, Um, I think I need to test you for, you know, I'm not even doing my slides at all.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: There I am.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the man with the here's the man with the demons.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I'm gonna talk a little bit about this.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: Has anyone heard of the MTHFR gene mutation?
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: A few of you, but not very many.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why I wanted to talk about it, because it actually affects about 40% of our population.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: And what it is, it's it's a lot, but briefly, um your body doesn't activate folate.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: So folate does a lot of things in your body, but one thing is it gives you energy, and so my body, I could take vitamin B all day long, and my body won't activate it, so I have to take an active form of methyl folate to actually get folate into my body.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: This has been huge for me because I was so tired all the time, especially as a single mom, and you know, all that.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: I I don't really know how I survived.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I do, like Cindy and and all my friends that are here that I see, Rosalie and uh yeah, all these people.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: So um that stepped in.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: But it also causes there's a link, and if you have any questions about this, just go to this link because it talks about what it is.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: People who have um numerous miscarriages, a lot of times they have this, and if all you have to do is get on this active folate, so it's a pretty easy fix.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I ended up going to another doctor who was recommended by a friend of mine, um, a psychiatrist in Kansas City, and I told him that I had this MTHFR gene mutation, which, not to get too much into genetics, but the variation that I have, the variant I have is called the psychiatric gene.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: So because it's got this mutation, I'm more likely to have issues with uh bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, depression, anxiety, all these things.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: So it was all kind of coming together and making a little more sense.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: But one thing that I found interesting is that when I told him I had that, he said, Are you on methylfolate?
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, oh my gosh, he knows about this.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: Because a lot of times you talk to different doctors and they they don't all know kind of what's going on out there.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um we have to help them.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: We have to help them learn about some of these things.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um but he said, You do do you realize that if you have this mutation and you're not on methylfolate, that a lot of these um anti-anxieties or antidepressants, it's one of them, they don't work because whatever's in them doesn't isn't processed by your body.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: So that explained to me why um for many years a lot of these medications I was on wasn't helping.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I was having a lot of a lot of issues.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: Where am I on time?
• 13:33
  unknown: You're fine.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um I want to tell you a little bit just briefly about what my monster looks like.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um I used to be able to look at a calendar, I knew my schedule when when I was going to have my period, and I could X out the the week before and say, don't do anything this week.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: Don't plan anything, don't buy anything, don't don't see your husband very often.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it was just like, you know, do anything you could to keep your stress level down because it was just, we just had to plan on that.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um but then I hit pre-menopause, which added this whole entire weird layer on top of everything because in addition to all these hot flashes and crazy things like that, um I didn't have a schedule anymore.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I have one, sometimes I don't, sometimes I have two in a month.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's all over, so I can't plan anymore.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: So my crazy times have um have changed because I never know what to what to do, what to when to expect them.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: The Kansas City doctor who originally said that I had um the MTFR, MTHFR gene mutation, she also told me, she said, I definitely think that you have PMDD.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: Has anyone heard of PMDD?
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: It what it sounds like what?
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: PMS, right?
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm thinking, lady, this is this is not PMS.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's what I'm thinking to myself, you know, kind of like with the whole bipolar thing.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, okay, I know what this is, and it is so far beyond PMS.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: And not that PMS isn't serious, but this is like, well, I'll get there.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: You'll see.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's just, you know, but when I went to the psychiatric doctor, psychiatrist in Kansas City, and I told him about PMDD, he knew about that too, and he said, Oh, he goes, Yeah, it's like PMS on steroids.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Yes, it is, you know, I'm like really impressed with this guy I knew.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: But for example, what will happen?
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: And it just it it kind of you know starts slowly, but I don't always know when it's coming, especially now.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: But for example, I was headed, I was looking forward to having lunch with my friend over in Lawrence.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: We've been friends since eighth grade, uh, sixth grade.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: On the way there, I started feeling like my brain wasn't functioning.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like my brain quits working, right?
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I can't think through things, things go too fast, they all come at me at once.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's like the filter that protects us so that we can survive every day from all the negative in the world, you know, all that the filter that allows us to function just evaporates, and everything in the world starts hitting me.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: Everything I need to do at home, everything I'm worried about globally.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's just I become very anxious.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: And it's the static in my head, it's very hard to explain.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um so then I'm like, well, I shouldn't go to her because I shouldn't, I shouldn't go to her house and see her because this is what this will burden her.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: This is this is my craziness.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to burden her.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: So then I'm thinking, but I have to show up because I told her I would.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: I turned off my phone, I didn't want anyone calling me.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's another thing, is I can't talk very well.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um this is all very, you know, hard to share.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: But um, it's just it's like I know what I'm capable of, and it all goes away.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: And if I have a project or a job, something big, I mean I I do some big events and things like that, and the constant worry that this is gonna happen right before an event, which it did, it happened.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um so anyway, just to wrap this up a little bit, I ended up driving around aimlessly, Lawrence, for like hours.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: I had my phone turned off, my husband was looking for me, my friend was looking for me, the police were looking for me in Topeka and Lawrence.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: And all I could think about, I got to the point where I was like, I'm either I've gotta just go.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: I've just gotta drive.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: I can't face another day.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: I can't face anything.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: I have to go.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's so uncomfortable.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: So I was envisioning going to a hotel and killing myself, and then the worry of, oh, but who will find me and how will that burden them?
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: And who's gonna, you know, tell my family and who will call my mom?
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I mean, it was like all these things that you worry about, you know.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: And but but yet it was like, but I can't stand it.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: I can't stand this craziness happening every month.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: I know it's gonna happen every month, and there's nothing I can do about it.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: And the hard thing is that when I'm in it, because it's a a disorder of the mind, I can't logically think myself out of it.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's very hard.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: So a big help has been my husband who reminds me gently, this goes away.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: This is only gonna last like two or three days, and then you're gonna be back to normal.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: So it's good to have someone to help with that.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um but this uh but this PMDD, that's what this is.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it means uh premenstrual dysphoric disorder.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: And it is it's very similar to let me go here.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so um the symptoms of bipolar disorder.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: This talks about some of those.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: And if you look at these, um there's a lot there, but if you look at these and compare them side by side with the the symptoms of PMDD, they're almost identical.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: The only thing that's different is the time of the month.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: The PMDD only happens right before the period starts, like from ovulation to when you have your period.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I remember when I remember when uh Scott Hamilton, the Olympic skater, do you remember him?
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: And he in 77, I believe, he got testicular cancer, and he said, give me cancer twice, but not there, because he knew he was gonna have to talk about it.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, one reason I don't like one never want to talk about this is because who wants to talk about your period?
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: And guys already think we go crazy when we have our period, and who wants to give them some more ammunition in that area, right?
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: But the facts are the facts, and this is a very serious thing, it affects a very small percentage of women.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's they're still learning about, they're still treating it.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's like it's like four percent of people of women have this.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's more than that.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: I think a lot of women hide this.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: But just to tell you, I'm on a oh, let me just get back to Lawrence so you know what happened.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: I did finally show up at my friend's driveway.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: I don't remember how I got there.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: I remember at one point driving through a cemetery, I don't really know where I was, and it's not like I'm out of my mind.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I I kind of am, but it's that there's so much distraction going on in my mind that I don't even really notice what's going on.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I showed up and she came out and like a worried mother, where have you been?
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: You know, crying, where have you been?
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody's looking for you.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: But I ended up getting some um some hospitalization.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: And um I did that last January, and that was that was good.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't perfect.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: There's it's you know, I'm still paying for it, it's just expensive.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I think of these people I see out on the street, you know, I look at homeless people and I go, they just need some good meds and they can't afford them, you know.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: I had ancestors who were put away in asylums, and again, I'm like Aunt Lizzie just needed some good medication, she would have been just fine.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: But um, but one thing that I did learn while I was there, and it's so true, sometimes you just have to hear things a different way, but is radical acceptance.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I had accepted the fact that this I dealt with this every month, you know.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um But I hated it.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: I hated it.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: I prayed every month that it wouldn't happen.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: I took different vitamins.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: I did different diets.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: I did different exercise programs, thinking maybe this will be the key.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: And it happened anyway.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: And God did not heal me.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: And there were a couple angry times at God, but most of the time I just didn't really understand it.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I was just like, well, I'm just like Paul.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's like the thorn in my side that Paul had, you know, it's just going to be there.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: And when I went into uh I was there three nights, Storm at West, and I just heard about this radical acceptance.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to like it, uh, you don't have to agree with it, but you just it is what it is.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so it has changed my perspective.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, okay, thank you, God, for this.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you have a reason for allowing this in my life.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I have had to be very transparent with the people around me, including my work, because I dropped a ball, the ball on a big project.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I had to tell my boss, you know, he called me and he's like, What do you want to do?
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: You know, what what's going on with you?
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I had to tell him I didn't go into PMDD, you know, and that's just it.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: You don't want to explain that to your boss.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: So, but I was just like, I am having some bipolar type issues, and I I don't know.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: So just cut me, cut my salary, I mean, cut my job in half, cut my salary, and they kept me on.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: And my co-workers have been really good about this.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um they've been very understanding, very helpful when I say my mind's not thinking today, you know.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: Let's try tomorrow.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: And they're really good with that.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it reminds me of uh the beautiful mind, the movie, Who's Seen the Beautiful Mind?
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: A beautiful mind.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: I just love that movie.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, the scene where if you haven't seen it, you need to go rent it right now.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: But if you have seen it, there's the scene where he's the the guy comes up to him after when he's older and he asks the student, he said, Is is this man, is there a man standing here?
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: And she says, Yes.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: And he goes, Well, I always have to check, you know.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like they all have accepted the fact that he has this illness, but it doesn't keep him from still having some real real value to them.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: He's a he's a genius, and that has always been my hope is that I will find a safe place where I can be valued for the things that I can do, and that they will understand the things that I can't do.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm having to be more understanding about those things as well.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so I've moved from this illness, this monster, as being uh a character flaw that I hate to an illness that I have to care for.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: This one week a month is like uh I kind of think of it as my chemo week.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if I was if I had cancer and I was going through chemo, I wouldn't plan a lot during that week.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't host a party during that time.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I need to allow myself that that care, that special care time.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: So um I I'd written this uh about a beautiful mind.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: I said, I think in the movie A Beautiful Mind, he and his wife's struggles were severe, but he was still an amazing and gifted professor, and by the end, he was teaching surrounded by colleagues and students and people who knew about his illness and helped him manage it.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm on this site on Facebook, and then I will I will close with this.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm on a PMDD Facebook page, and uh ladies, it is it's so sad to see.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's good for me because I've never met anyone else who has this.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: I've never personally known anyone who once a month goes crazy right before their period and wants to destroy themselves, you know.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I know on my good days, that's not, I mean, I love my life.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: I love my kids and my husband, and my life's not perfect, but I don't want I don't want to die.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like I have to protect myself during that time so that my brain doesn't do something really weird that I wouldn't normally like.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but on this page, um, I asked the ladies, I said, I'm going to speak to my church women about this, and I'm really nervous, and they were helping me with that and everything.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: But I said, What would you want people to know?
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: What would you want them to learn about this?
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: And one woman said, and they all said yes, she said, mental illness has nothing to do with one's relationship to God.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: Prayer is the solution, but sometimes the answer to that prayer is therapy and medication.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm sharing that with you, that if you know of any of anyone who struggles, if you struggle yourself, that there's not a, you know, there shouldn't be any stigma about being on medication.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't make you a lesser Christian or a lesser woman just because you have to be on medication for a brain illness as opposed to a heart illness or a kidney illness or something like that.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm happy to, if any of you have struggles in this area or know someone who has struggles in this area, I'd be happy to visit with them.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: I would love to meet someone else who goes crazy once a month and we can help each other out.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you for listening and I appreciate it very much.