Older and Wiser

In a few months (March 7, 2026) I will be turning 30. In so many ways, I expected this birthday would mark something. It's thirty, after all. The birthday for sitcom friends having a midlife crisis. A birthday away from your 20s, an entrance into your adult life. A birthday when you're expected to be in some kind of committed relationship, married, maybe even starting a family. Maybe you put a down payment on a house, and set your sights on a blossoming career.

That's not where I will be this March, and I am pleasantly surprised with that reality. I will be turning 30 with complete control of my healing. For me, that is more than enough. 

5150: Tales from the Psych Ward

On December 5 of 2023, my maternal grandmother-- my bubbie-- passed away after years of struggling through dementia. She was my first grandparent to pass away. I know I'm lucky to have all of my grandparents around for as long as they were, but it didn't make the grief any easier. At the same time, I was finishing up my first semester in an expressive arts therapy program that had so much potential and yet so much was going so wrong. 

In October of 2023, Hamas massacred hundreds of innocent people and took hundreds more hostage. And it was not easy, to say the least, to be a Jewish woman who loved Israel in a radically liberal graduate school space. People I considered my best friends blocked me on social media because I posted condemning Hamas (it wasn't even pro-Israel stuff-- it was literally just anti-Hamas!). I lost friends, I felt distant from my classmates, and I kept pushing. 

I should've taken a break, I see that now. My mental health was in the toilet, and still, I tried to smile and put on a happy face. I was up late every night finishing papers about mental health diagnosis and treatments that I morally disagreed with. I was reliving trauma from high school, a time when doctors wrote me off with more medications as I suffered in silence.

In March of 2024 (so recent and yet a lifetime ago), I was put on a 5150 hold. I was hospitalized for the first time, and honestly, I'm impressed that this is the first time, that it took this long. I believe at some point I was put on a 5250 hold, and was forced to stay longer than 72 hours, because the paperwork was messy and I had dissociated so intensely I could not speak. 

It was a horrible time in my life, but I made it through, and I know that I am stronger because of it. I have coping tools now, I have set boundaries and made difficult decisions (including withdrawing from that graduate program). I have healed more in the past almost two years than I had in the decade preceding it.

I believe it's important to speak about these things, these causes of intense shame, to give light to others. I was unwell, and being hospitalized made everything worse. It is a place for people in crisis, and it is not friendly to neurodivergent patients. If you can avoid it, for yourself or for a loved one, I recommend doing literally anything else. But it is a real thing that happens to so many people stuck in the throws of mental illness, who feel there is no way out. Sometimes, it is what has to be done.

Asking for Help

It's that time of year again. The days are shorter, the nights are longer, and the darkness overwhelms me at times. I made it through the high holidays, which are an annual struggle for me. And still, here I am, trying to make sense of it all. 

A couple of weeks ago, my depression hit hard. It was a long week, and I had been concerned my long living depression demon was taking hold once again. It came at me slowly, then all at once.

At my weekly therapy session, I fought tears until I could fight them no longer. I cried, a visceral and cruel cacophony echoing my quiet thoughts. I admitted depression, and the dam broke loose. It was a relief and a defeat all rolled into one. 

I fought back tears for the rest of the week. In some senses I knew I was not myself, as depression never allows me to be. I was a shell of myself, a hollowed out piece of a hole covered quietly with plywood. And I was about to crash down.

I had a big weekend planned. I had registered for this big fun steampunk convention in Redwood city, and on Saturday night, I was going to see one of my favorite podcasts recording live. I didn't really want to do any of that, but I didn't trust myself to keep occupied alone all weekend. 

Ah, shoot, my thoughts echoed. I'm going to have to take my own damn advice.

Hermit Crab Essay

A few weeks ago, I started a weekly non-fiction writing class with The Writing Salon in Berkeley. It's a five week class, titled "Writing from the Core: Finding the Emotional Truth in Nonfiction". Since non-fiction is my current writing outlet with this blog, I decided to expand my skills and my social circle, learning more about something I am so passionate about.

Our assignment for last week was to write a "Hermit Crab Essay". Hermit crabs take on the shells of other crabs, fitting their little squiggling bodies into their makeshift new home. Hermit crab essays take on the form of other styles and formats of writing-- a recipe, a rejection letter, a glossary entry-- with the final form fitting the content in a way that gives new meaning to both the content and the form.

Since I teach preschool, I formatted mine as a lesson plan, a real theme I teach about to classrooms of toddlers. The instructor was impressed with my work, and I want to share it here now. Enjoy!

High Holy Day Struggles

Content warning for topics around depression, misdiagnosis/medical trauma and suicide. Take care of yourself first, always.

When the sun sets tonight, likely around the time I post this, we will have begun a new Jewish year. Today is Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement-- the holiest day in the Jewish calendar. This time, every year, challenges me in regards to my mental health. It is a beginning, it is an ending, it is a challenge, and it is a celebration. It is everything and so much more jam packed into a couple weeks. I don't believe it will ever be easy, but this year, for the first time, I felt okay.

As many of you reading this know, I have had a decade and a half long journey with my mental health. When I was only 12 years old, I was misdiagnosed with Bipolar II. This led to years of overmedication, dissociation, doctor's appointments, and deep, painful, horrifying, untreated depression. When I was 16 and a half years old, that changed-- right around the high holidays.

I have written and shared extensively about this challenging time in my life, and I am ever so grateful to my parents for giving me the privacy I needed then and for supporting me as I made the active choice to share my story of misdiagnosis, depression, and mental illness. I suffered for years in silence and in shame, and it is time now to speak up.

When we thought I had Bipolar disorder, success had a very different meaning than it does now. I have a tendency to experience burnout and crisis annually around my birthday, due to the existential intensity of living in adulthood. 

Trigger warning for discussions of suicidality.

Depression is a cruel beast, and misdiagnosis is the web of lies it lived within. We had no family history of Bipolar disorder, and objectively, 12 years old is dangerously young to start someone on these very intense psychiatric medications. It never felt right, but I never felt right questioning it. I never felt right, in general. I felt broken in every possible way.

Falling off the Walls

If you follow my Facebook or Instagram stories, you may have noticed my new hobby of rock climbing. I have another post detailing my fitness journey, but I wanted to take this one to discuss the less visible parts of the sport: the falls, the blisters, and the mistakes.

I started rock climbing in August of 2023, but only began to seriously train for it over the past year. Rock climbing came to me out of sheer convenience-- my dad often joked that it was "not on my yearly bingo card". And it's true. The climbing gym was the closest gym to my apartment, and they did have an area in the back with a Stairmaster and stationary bike if I never built up the courage to climb.

But I did. 

It took me so long to move past my fear, and even longer to build up the strength and fitness needed to actually scale up the wall. The sheer amount of upper body strength I have developed shocks even me. I went from a woman who needed to catch her breath after walking a block or two, to a teacher who can easily carry two toddlers across the play yard. 

About a year ago, I started posting videos of my climbing successes to my Instagram and Facebook stories. I would receive kind words and impressed reactions, and it felt good. I liked being able to share a piece of my life with my social media community, especially a piece I had worked so dang hard to accomplish.

I don't post nearly as often anymore, even though I am still very consistently climbing at the gym and getting in workouts every couple of days. Which leads me to the title of this post-- the ways I still come up short. The many times, every session, when I'm falling off the walls. 

Community Belonging in Uganda

A few weeks ago, I posted a piece about feeling less alone in my misdiagnosis story. I learned one of my favorite podcast hosts, Marcus Parks, had an extremely similar journey to mine of being misdiagnosed with Bipolar, suffering for years, and only recently learning of his severe ADHD diagnosis that was, for years, misread as Bipolar. That's my story, and I want to keep telling it. Here it is.

Hindsight is 20/20, or so they say. The beginnings of my journey with mental illness and misdiagnosis were scattered, with my only recently being able to see the neurodivergent roots of it all. But I want to outline the exact pieces and places where I was misread, to maybe give some hope and answers to others-- parents of neurodivergent girls, lonely teenagers, and everyone else who can relate with being squeezed into a box, feeling shamed into silence.

Before I begin, I want to give a note of hope to all my readers: Your voice matters. That was probably what I struggled with the most in that time, and afterwards-- the feeling that no one cared about how I saw the world, because they just wanted to write it off to a prescription pad and medication adjustment. I found writing and art in the darkest of times-- it saved me then, and it saves me now. 

You may have retrospect and clarity, once your brain finishes developing in your 20s and you feel like you belong to this world once again. And it's okay if it all feels so foggy right now, as if there is no possible answer, no clear path. It's okay if you feel alone and silenced. Keep making art, keep writing your truth, and be gentle with yourself. You are fighting battles in a world that doesn't understand you. Keep fighting, keep writing, and keep speaking truth. The world needs your story.

HALT! Self Care Should Be Boring

I used to hold the idea of self care in such high regard. One of my best friends, Arielle Davis (a blessed memory) and I used to makes jokes about “treat yo self”, a concept popularized by one of our favorite shows, Parks and Recreation. We’d have shopping sprees at target and late night sushi runs.

And these hold so much treasure to me now, because they are my favorite memories together. But as I have gotten older, understood my neurodivergence and my brain, and learned more and more about healthy coping mechanisms, I’ve come to the somewhat disappointing epiphany that self care should be, well, boring.

These days, self care for me is going to bed early and not playing on my phone in bed. It’s brushing my teeth and cleaning my kitchen even when I don’t feel like it. It’s choosing to eat strawberries instead of chocolate cake. It’s a dozen little things, small choices, that keep me in working condition. It's system mantainence. It's caring for my body and my mind. It is, in the truest form, self care. 

One of my favorite DBT (dialectical behavioral therapy) acronyms is HALT: hungry, angry, lonely, tired. I have been able to halt countless meltdowns simply by checking in on those four needs. 

Political Philosophy (or Maybe...I'll move to Australia--Part 2)

I wrote a post about a week ago, lamenting the everyday frustrations of being an adult, building furniture, cooking for myself, and having it all go wrong. But the title was inspired by a different issue. A political lament. A hostile government takeover. A righteous anger at an ongoing system of injustice. 

Allow me to elaborate.

In one of my favorite children's books of all time, "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day", our titular character bemoans lists of grievances of his terrible day. Every few pages, Alexander contemplates moving to Australia, and these days, I feel that in my soul.

It was around the time I wrote that post that Trump's "Big Beautiful Bill" was narrowly passed and has quickly moved to become law. I don't know why this was what broke me, but it was.

In case you don't know, I am incredibly left leaning. Moving to Berkeley in 2019 only solidified that, with my political philosophy falling somewhere around the anarchist socialist stance. I believe that my 4 year old students should have the autonomy to choose their pronouns and be supported for their gender identity, whatever that may be. I believe abortions are a morally neutral medical choice that should be widely available, regardless of what state you live in. I believe a country as wealthy and hyper-developed as the USA needs to have a single payer healthcare system with guaranteed health insurance for every single American.Yes, I am that radical lefty feminist conservatives are terrified of.

At this point, I do need to clarify that these are my opinions only and they are fully disconnected from my teaching work and my profession (at a recent staff meeting, teachers were reminded to keep our social medias private so that we can appear professional in our field. These are my opinions only and this is my personal blog)

Maybe...I'll move to Australia

In one of my favorite children's books of all time, "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day", our titular character bemoans lists of grievances of his terrible day. He wakes up with gum stuck in his hair, and it just goes downhill from there. Every few pages, Alexander contemplates moving to Australia, and these days, I feel that in my soul.

Today for me, was one of those terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days. Actually, the day wasn't all bad, but my afternoon and evening frustrated me to meltdown territory. 

About a month ago, I ordered a new swivel office chair off of TikTok shop, despite know the perils that come from ordering things from an app I know every time I open it will just feed into my carnal desires. When it arrived, it was straight up impossible to put together. The little holes where the screws go just WOULD NOT line up, because of the way the cushion was designed and WHY THE HECK was the cushion DESIGNED THIS WAY when you know it needs to be ASSEMBLED?