Because My Brain Isn't

Staring at the ceiling, all I see are the black dots that cover my field of view after I've taken in too much coffee. It's an anxiety symptom, it's a dehydration symptom, it's perfectly explainable from a biochemical perspective.

Let's pretend for a moment that we can chalk it up to a bad week. A bad semester, even, but maybe that's going too far already. What am I doing here? I thought I knew. I was built for academia. But, I would also like to stop feeling powerless in every aspect of my life. Academia is not the place for that.

Now let's pretend that it's just because I have that (un)fortunate case of wanderlust that prevents me from being content where I am, regardless of where I am. There's no cure for that, besides incessant travel. And I incessantly travel.

Now let's pretend that I've placed myself inside of a seemingly perfect situation, and that it's somehow wrong, or I'm wrong, or it's too much.

It's too much.

I won't get a therapist. Don't believe me when I say that I will. I should, but I won't. I know myself enough to know that much. I'm closer to getting a double mastectomy than I am to getting a therapist. It's not easier, but it's...easier.

And in general, things are wonderful.

It's just that my brain isn't.

That Was Unexpected

If you would've asked me which traumatic event in my life would've been capable of sending me busting out of a Starbucks in tears, panicking and shaken and unsafe, I would've guessed, you know, that whole sexual assault thing. I mean...obviously.

But that would've made way too much sense to be a scene from my life. Because in actuality, I was minding my own business and studying Classical Mechanics at the Starbucks in Anderson, when the worst anxiety trigger in the whole world walked through the door.

Church people.

(and the crowd gasped in horror)

It was my own fault. South Carolina is lousy with Christians, and it was Sunday afternoon. But the thing about these church people is not just that they're Christian; I'm Christian. I've just spent the past year of my life completely and utterly embarrassed by that fact, because I can't handle the baggage that comes with the label. My relationship with God became extremely personal this year; so much so that a once harmonious topic of conversation now has the power to disintegrate my voice into a symphony of atonal shakes and sounds. I can't talk about Jesus anymore. He is profoundly inside of me, and that is where He shall remain. Buried deeply. A constant companion, and a great comforter and friend. But this is for me to experience, and for you to mind your distance.

So, these church people. I recognized them. There was such familiarity there, almost tangible, glaringly obvious; aggressive, even. Aggressive because they all arrived at the same time, wearing blinding highlighter green t-shirts with their new service times in giant font on the back like some glorified heavenly billboard meant to litter the streets of gold upstairs; and their smiles and high-fives and "do you think the sound was extra loud today" and their iced teas and cappuccinos and their laughter and camaraderie and community and "let me tell you about Jesus, bro!" 

I can't.

I realized that it was too late. I had thoughtlessly chosen the one seat at Starbucks that was literally in the corner of the wall; I had cornered myself, with no hope of escape. I shuffled my papers. Everything about normal mode theory seemed unimportant and distant, and the Hillsong album pumping into my ears seemed almost woefully ironic. 

Pitifully, I scampered into the bathroom and let fall the developing tears. Because I can't help but grieve for my lost community that they are so blessed to have. And I couldn't imagine that I'd ever be welcome in a group like theirs ever again.

Anyway, I managed to escape. And I cried all the way home, furious at the Great I Am for being "so mean" as to let this happen, the day before a big exam for His sake, and furious at myself for having a bad anxiety day; I had been doing so well.

So, why had I reacted like a serious PTSD victim? It surprised me, too. But I think it's because I invested the majority of my life involved in what I believed to be (and what very well may have been, for a while) a healthy, inspiring church environment with a church family who loved and accepted me just the way I was. But the more I reflect on this belief, the more diluted I find it to be. Yes, I have some deep, genuine, grace-filled, Christ-centered friendships that still exist from my years at Trinity, but there is a devastating flip-side to this coin. I've realized that nobody has made me feel worse about myself than some of my church "family." I mean, besides my own self. But, really? A church family is supposed to stand behind its members in trying times, not kick them while they're down or fire relentless accusations out of context, standing on dated scriptures and peering through narrow perspectives, spitting venom yet speaking of love. That's dysfunctional.

And dysfunctional it was. I backed away from church. And almost a year later, clearly, I'm still in an excessive amount of grief over the loss of such a deep foundation to which I had held fast. I am happy for the lovely, smiling green-shirted church people that came to Starbucks...all at the same time. I am also green, with envy. I'm tired of feeling like an outsider. It's a giant blow to anyone with a relationship with Jesus when one feels unwelcome in God's own home. It makes it difficult to establish trust, or believe in grace from what proclaims to be a gracious community.

But, I digress. I feel no better about the situation, so I'll probably go to the damn church. Otherwise, these things will keep happening. I will keep feeling terrible. Little by little, I'll start attending; I know when the new service times are, after all, thanks to the green shirts. And who knows? Maybe it'll blossom into one of those genuine communities that I crave so heavily, and I will grow because I love to do that. I will find other people like me. I will have the opportunity to share my gifts and my grace.

Or, the green-shirted people could start an exaggerated rumor that I'm a Godless lesbian with an alcohol problem.

Either way.

Hello Operator

I would say that a bottle of wine will convince you to love Quantum physics, but the truth is, it will convince you all by itself. We love things that we can understand; but more importantly, we love things that we cannot understand. Quantum mechanics is both, neither, and some star-crossed state in between. It's everything.

It's literally the reason I crawl out of bed every other day after sleeping far, far too little. It's captivating. It's my one saving grace in graduate school; the passion for the fundamentals, the moment when I realize that I'm ready to go back to basics in order to understand the basis. Genuinely, this time, and with great relish.

And now, for Quantum and everything else:

"The work will teach you how to do it."
-Estonian Proverb

Conservation of Energy

"So, if you don't mind...what grade did you get in your undergraduate classical mechanics class?"

My, what a loaded question. I assume, professor, that you're asking me this so that you can understand how I weaseled my way into graduate school after handing in such a preposterous first homework set, furthermore seeming almost smug and extremely aware of how much sense my answers didn't make. I assume you believe me to be some sort of system-playing fraud; a woman about whom people should be advised and warned. Someone who does not put in the required effort; someone who might not survive this school.

But, let's go back to undergraduate classical mechanics. Let's see if we can dissect what really happened that year. Never mind the fact that I think that most of us were rather bored and confused in that class, or that it was three years ago, or that I hadn't written a Lagrangian since I had last been asked...never mind all that. There's quite a deeper story.

You see, I lost months of my life that year. Honestly, I can't even construct a decent continuum of memories; only bits here, bits there, bits that may come back someday...but I hope not. I do remember a few things, though; unfortunately, none of them involving how to define forces of constraint. Instead, I remember laying on the ground, unable to move, bright fluorescent lights above. I remember the never-ending days of self-imposed routine, the work, the not sleeping.

Because I knew that I had to sleep quickly and wake up early before the sun would rise. I would trudge in the dark through piles of snow on bitter cold mornings, and when I arrived at the pool all bundled up, I'd strip down to barely anything and swim as if my life depended on it, because it did. I knew that my morning swim would be the only thing to sustain my energy, my life, that day. 

The day I found out, part of me died. And everything is jumbled up after that. The phrase "sexual abuse scandal" barely begins to scratch the surface of the horrible things that were being unveiled in front of my family's eyes, but any other phrase cuts too deeply. And then, the bad press. Every inaccurate news article about our private lives was taken and laid  bare for the internet, at the mercy of any bored, ignorant passerby. And oh, how they relish in the opportunity to volunteer a digital opinion! Some expressed keystrokes of sympathy and disgust, others essentially called us liars, and probably everything in between. And we hid. We pretended it wasn't about us. We tried to protect ourselves.

I lost my mind that year. I became severely unwell. I was exhausted, unreliable, ridden with anxiety, useless, helpless, defenseless, and depressed. I was a little more than a high-functioning corpse. Even now, just the memory of it...it is by grace that I do not remember most of this, but, oh! I'm being rude. You asked me a question!

See, I'm caught in a nuance of the memory now, scrambling so that I don't drown in it. It is several years later, and I have certainly healed considerably. But the mention of that year, of anything during that time, has the potential to send me reeling backwards. Because sadly, I lost everything I once knew about classical mechanics. I lost almost everything that year.

But you didn't ask for that. You didn't ask for details, or context. You asked for a number.

"I received a 2.5 in classical mechanics."