How to Deal With a Religious Family

Step 1: Pretend you're religious by smiling and nodding when your family mentions God.

I truly don't have any advice for dealing with family members who insist that your way is wrong and their way is right. Mr. Atheist suggests coming out to someone in your family who feels the same way that you do, and perhaps speaking with the host ahead of time. If you don't feel comfortable hanging out with your family who tends to shove religiosity down your throat, you can bow out and leave.

For the most part, my younger sister and I are in the same boat. We're not all that religious and find life to be satisfying without following the church's doctrine, but we have different ways of confronting the issue. My younger sister prefers to cut off contact and not show up to family gatherings. I show up and just play along. Sure, I'll hold hands and say grace to keep the peace. I'll even pretend to listen and keep my thoughts to myself when my aunts and uncles talk about the ways God has blessed them by not giving them a job promotion. I'll even respond with "okay" when my mom tells me to say my prayers. On the other hand, my younger sister only talks to my mom when she needs something and otherwise avoids contact with her: no phone calls, no visits.

I've never told my family explicitly that I'm an atheist even though I'm pretty sure my mom knows that I don't believe anymore. She told me she's not sure why I think and believe differently from her when she's the one who raised me. It's disappointing to hear something like that coming from your own mom. I know religion is important to my mom, so I keep my opinions to myself. But somehow I feel like I've still disappointed her. I've learned to live with that disappointment, and I think at this point, my mom has too, or perhaps I'm deluding myself.

I keep telling myself I'll come out after my grandparents pass away because after that, it doesn't matter anymore. For the longest time, I was afraid I would be kicked out of the family because I don't believe. I have avoided phone calls and letters from my grandparents out of guilt that I don't think the same way as they do. Out of guilt or perhaps fear that they'll discover a wolf in sheep's clothes and be very disappointment in me. I feel anxious around my family, especially my grandparents, and I hope they never discover my secret (that I am blatantly putting on the Internet, the least secret place in the entire universe). Last year I had a panic attack in my sleep because I was so worried about going to my grandparents' house in my dreams.

It might be easier to deal with if they shared the same values as me, but we don't share the same values and we seem to be on the opposite side of the spectrum. For now, I'll bide my time and keep my opinions to myself. I'm lucky in the fact that I don't have to live near them anymore so I don't have to hide my true self as much. It feels weird when they say things like, "Oh, we miss you since you're so far away." It feels like they're just saying it to say it and that it couldn't possibly be true since they don't even know the real me.

Family is difficult, and I'm afraid I don't have any answers. I've chosen the route with the least conflict but also with the least satisfying outcome for the relationships with my family. I don't hate my family, and I don't think they're terrible people whom I should cut off. I just wish they would talk less about religion so I didn't have to dread going to their houses for holidays.

Maggot Update

They're still in my apartment! I've thrown out trash and a couple plants and cleaned up some dishes, but they're still appearing at night on my ceiling. Where are they coming from?! It's so disgusting.

Stewing in My Own Mess

It's not uncommon for people with mental illness to have messy homes. Some of the symptoms of mental illness include going catatonic and not being able to do anything. This can happen in both depression and anxiety but for different reasons. During a depressive episode, someone may not clean because they don't have the energy or they don't feel like it's worth it. With anxiety, someone may avoid cleaning because they feel overwhelmed or feel they just can't do it properly right now at this moment. When you have both anxiety and depression, it's just a catastrophe.

I must now come clean and confess my mess. It's disgusting, and I'm pretty sure a health hazard. Some weeks, I manage to wash my dishes three times a week. Other weeks, I avoid them like the plague, and then avoid them for a few more days after they start to smell. I should get to that, I tell myself. Yes, but not now. I'm too tired. I feel too restless to stand at a sink and wash dishes. It takes too much effort. I have a lot of excuses.

The piles of nastiness pile up faster than my excuses. Sometimes I have three trash bags in the apartment. The one in the garbage can is full, so I start a new one. I put that new one somewhere on a shelf or box, out of reach of the dog. Oh, that one is full. Time to start a new one. No, I haven't managed to take out any of the bags yet. I will do that...eventually!

Sometimes I run out of clean underwear for two or three days before I actually do laundry. Like I said, it's a health hazard.

I've tried to take a page out of Dana White's playbook and just do a little at a time. This "little at a time" only lasts for one day or so.  I checked out Clean Mama's blog and followed her Instagram, but I scoff every time I see her post. Cleaning takes a lot more effort than she suggests. It's easy if you keep up with it! That's what they say. And maybe it is easier when you only have one bag of trash to take out instead of three, but even that one bag of trash requires a lot of effort when you have to walk out of your apartment, down the stairs, and 50 yards to the nearest dumpster.

I don't have any solutions to this health hazard problem yet. I have to constantly catch myself leaving trash or stuff all over and then have to force myself to put the item in its correct place. Doing this is exhausting. Maybe it becomes easier over time, but cleaning seems to require so much mindfulness and energy that I don't have right now. It's extremely disheartening, and I beat myself up constantly for not having a clean apartment and for not being able to do the basics, such as wash my dishes and put away laundry.

My therapist says that chores can always be done another day, but I'm not so sure that's the case when you have maggots in your house, and you're not sure where they're coming from. But at least getting maggots on my ceiling encouraged me to finally take out the trash.

Mental Health in the U.S. Workplace

By now, I think many people are well aware that there are limited protections for workers in the U.S., and when it comes to healthcare, employees are at the mercy of employers. Even though I was not a good fit for my last position, I was afraid to leave because I would lose my insurance if I did.

In order to keep up with the large workload that I had, I had to work overtime, which meant I worked 45-50 hours a week (for less than $40,000 per year). To be honest, even working an extra hour or two a day didn't help me keep up with the work. I felt constantly overwhelmed. I did eventually have a mental breakdown, and it took four weeks for me to recover and finally go back to work full time. During that time, I was able to use my vacation hours and sick time, and thankfully, my supervisors didn't give me too much flak.

I got the flak later. The last couple of months before I left my position, I decided to stop working overtime because I was incredibly stressed out and didn't feel like I could handle it without my health taking another dive. But the department head then gave me a huge spill about how salary workers are required to work overtime sometimes, and that I had to work overtime to finish projects before I left the company. It made my blood boil. I had worked overtime for a few years, and it was my last two months. It was pure bullpoop. I angrily responded I couldn't work overtime because I was in pain, and she required that I submit a doctor's note. So I did. I was so pissed off that I asked two different doctors for notes. If she wanted notes, she was gonna get them. I thought about perhaps contacting a lawyer and trying to figure out how to invoke ADA. Perhaps I should have gone to HR to ask for accommodations, but I didn't trust them. HR exists to protect the company from getting sued, not to protect the employees.

In the U.S., there is nothing to stop a boss from abusing salaried workers. And let's be honest. Requiring salaried workers to work overtime every single day in order to keep up with the workload is abuse. It's extremely unhealthy and causes harm to the workforce and productivity. Working long hours can lead to burnout and to the development of physical and mental health disorders, such as tension headaches, anxiety, and depression. (By "requiring" here I mean that there are many employers who will say to your face that you shouldn't have to work overtime or you should only work overtime occasionally, but then there is an implicit company culture that suggests you should be working overtime and checking email all the time.)

The U.S. does have the Americans with Disabilities Act, which requires employers to provide accommodations to employees with disabilities. But I feel like the act doesn't do enough to protect those with disabilities. And is mental illness a disability in the first place? My mental illness did cause me to procrastinate, and I feel it took me longer to get started and to complete work than expected. However, I'm still not sure that my anxiety could have been considered a disability, even though my doctors had classified it as "severe."

In my supervisors' defense, I didn't tell them I had been diagnosed with multiple mental illnesses or that my anxiety disorder caused physical symptoms, such as stomachaches and headaches. I felt uncomfortable disclosing my conditions because I thought they would have treated me even more poorly than before due to the stigma of mental illness (and yet, here I am talking about it on the Internet, a more public forum than the workplace). I thought there might have been a possibility that I could have been fired since my mental illness slowed my work down and reduced my output.

Mental illness does negatively impact my work, and it cause delays in productivity. I feel like the stress of the workplace environment, working overtime, and just generally struggling to complete daily tasks makes mental health worse, and that supervisors who do not provide compassion or mercy for struggling employees only add to the employees' distress and pain. I wish there were more protections for disabilities and mental illness in the U.S. workplace.

Doctors: The Bane of My Existence

I do not like doctors. I never really have, and I can't tell you when my dislike of the medical professional started. I can tell you that now my dislike of doctors stems from the fact that they don't seem to listen. They seem to talk to the diagnosis, but they don't talk to your humanity. When I sit across from the doctor in the small exam room, I don't feel that they take my questions seriously.

I can understand why some patients distrust doctors' professional opinions. Doctors, in general, don't listen very well, and they often dismiss your concerns or cut you off. They may be experts in medicine, but they are not experts in calming irrational fear.

When you have a chronic disorder, such as anxiety, you have no choice but to interact with doctors. It's a pain in my butt. I have a hard time advocating for myself, but unfortunately, when you deal with doctors, you have to be able to speak up and stand up for yourself. I've never developed the skill of assertiveness, and I feel when I've tried to stand up and speak out, I've been shot down. It's a difficult thing to do, especially if you lack self-esteem, like I do.

There are calls to change the way doctors interact with patients and to introduce empathy into the medical system. In particular, some clinicians and patients are using graphic novels to tell their stories. They've even developed a whole website and conference for this genre: Graphic Medicine.

But I think waiting for the medical system to change to favor patients' humanness over diagnoses will take entirely too long and will not help me in the long run. I'll need to learn how to stand up for myself and my medical needs even when doctors are dismissing my concerns. This feels like an extremely uncomfortable position for me to be in, especially with anxiety because sometimes my anxiety does blow things out of proportion. I can't tell if what I'm feeling should be taken seriously or if it should be dismissed as irrational, and unfortunately, the people who do have knowledge that can help me aren't sharing it as much as I would like.

If I had one wish for the medical community, it would be for my doctor to offer more information on how biological mechanisms work and also for our appointments to be longer so that we could actually talk. The current system does not allow doctors to really spend time with their patients and discuss their concerns.

Disclaimer: I used to work for the Press that publishes the Graphic Medicine book series.

Social Blunder: He Needs to Learn Some Manners First

When young children approach my dog, I tend to tense up. My dog isn't aggressive, but he does have a lot of energy and could easily knock over a child. I don't let him approach children, and a few times young kids have asked to pet my dog, I've told them no and held my dog back. While I love my dog, I don't let him near children because I don't want him to accidentally hurt a kid. This is all a bit funny since my dog loves young kids and always pulls towards them.

A few weeks ago I took Neeko for a walk in the park. Everything was going well until I saw a young boy, around 2 or so, petting a large calm dog. Oh, no, I thought. Please don't let them come this way. And of course, they came my way. I held Neeko back as best as I could, and I moved off the walking path. When the young boy approached, I tried to dissuade him from petting my dog, and a couple seconds later, his guardian encouraged him to walk away. You can't pet all dogs. Some dogs have too much energy, his guardian said. I was grateful for the guardian's intervention, but I also felt a bit sad. A tear rolled down the young boy's cheek as he walked away (I'm not making that up either). That boy really loved dogs.

As they walked away, I exclaimed, "He needs to learn some manners first!" with a smile. The guardian gave me a strange look, like I had just insulted him, and then I realized with horror, he thought I was talking about his kid! I was talking about my dog! My dog needed to learn how to calm himself and keep his paws on the ground while people pet him.

This incident keeps replaying over and over again in my head, and I find it difficult to shut off the shame. I didn't mean to insult the well-behaved toddler, who was much, much better behaved that my overexcited pooch. Every time my brain reminds me of the episode, I talk a deep breath and remind myself it was a silly miscommunication. It's not a big deal. Perhaps over time, the shame of yelling "learn some manners" will fade away.

The Perils and Perks of Medication

A lot has changed since the last time I wrote in 2018. I was officially diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder, and my primary care doctor persuaded me to go on medication. I took escitalopram (Lexapro) since it was thought to cause fewer side effects than other SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibtors; essentially the medicine blocks neurons from absorbing serotonin so that the serotonin lingers longer between the synapses inbetween neurons, causing your serotonin levels to artificially increase).

Side effects warnings are always terrifying. The FDA requires companies to list all side effects, even those that are rare but have been reported, such as death or blood clots. The worse side effects are typically the rarest, but my anxious brain latches onto them, focusing on the biggest threat (even though they are highly improbably). So, as you can imagine, after I read the side effects of the medication, I did not want to take it. My biggest fear is that I would experience depression again. I didn't want to go to that dark place a third time. However, my doctor was convinced that since we had exhausted our other venues, which included yoga, therapy, and reducing caffeine intake, he thought it was best that I go on the medication. I eventually relented.

SSRIs are drugs that take a while to build up in your system before they can actually work. While the medication was building up, I did experience some side effects. The two biggest side effects for me were nausea and feeling tired 24/7. I struggled to get work done in the office, and all I wanted to do was nap. Even though the pharmacy recommended that I take the medicine in the morning, I decided to take the medicine at night so that I could hopefully avoid falling asleep at my desk. It did work. I felt like I had fewer side effects throughout the day, but I also feel like the medicine didn't work as well. I also felt more anxiety during the day, though not as much without the medicine.

The medication did work. It didn't prevent all of the anxiety, but it did numb it so that I could combat it with my thoughts. I felt calmer and had less trouble falling asleep at night. For once in my life, I felt normal and that the anxiety that I was feeling was manageable.

Fast forward to February when I decided to foster a dog (and eventually adopt him). That dog managed to grab a full bottle of medication that I had just gotten from the pharmacy off of the table, and he destroyed the bottle. He ripped the plastic to pieces. When I opened the door to my apartment and saw what had happened, I gasped and went into panic mode. I immediately cleaned up the plastic and counted the pills. Phew. All 30 were accounted for, and the dog hadn't eaten any. But I hadn't vacuumed that carpet in over 4 weeks (nasty, I know). I tossed the pills in the garbage and didn't look back. There was no way I was putting those in my mouth.

I still had half a bottle from last month, so I started to ration the pills. Going off SSRIs cold turkey leads to some very unpleasant side effects, and those side effects tend to mimic anxiety. It sucked. I took the pills every other day and then every three days, hoping the pharmacy would refill the prescription soon before I ran out of pills. I ran out three weeks ago, and these last few weeks have been extremely difficult. I've had a lot of nausea and brain zaps. I also dealt with muscle pain and vertigo. It's felt like an emotional roller coaster, and sometimes I cried at the drop of a hat. For three days last week, I had insomnia, especially on the days before and after my annual performance review at work. However, since American insurance companies only pay for so much medication a month, I didn't think I could afford another bottle of pills without insurance. I didn't even bother to call and negotiate since negotiating is just unpleasant for a doormat like me and I expected to get denied anyway.

I just got the automatic refill on Saturday, but I still haven't taken it yet. The anxiety is welling up, and I'm so anxious that I can't even sit down to enjoy some leisure time. I turned on the Xbox to play a video game, but then turned it off when I thought I most likely couldn't beat the difficult level I'm stuck on. I laid down in bed to take a nap with my dog curled by myself, but I was unfortunately unable to calm my mind. I think I should start the medicine again, but I feel anxious about it, not as anxious as before I started it, but anxious enough that I'm not ready to take another pill.

Since adopting my dog, I've been getting more bruises. I had a huge system of 4-5 bruises on my thigh where you can typically see a large vein. There were bruises on my other thigh, on my calves, and on my forearms. I don't know how they got there. It could be that all the walking we do is causing me to bruise. I haven't gotten as many bruises since I've been off the medication, and I think I'll talk to my doctor before starting again. I should have called my doctor weeks ago, but I've been putting it off. If I'm going to get my anxiety back on track, I'll need to make that phone call.