on Perfection on mental health
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Trigger warning: pieces in this issue include mentions of eating disorders, anxiety, disassociation, and suicidal ideation.
One Report is spiritually-minded content for and by young people. This publication is borne from a reflection of the teachings of the Baha’i Faith and many of our contributors are Baha’is, but not all. The goal is for One Report to offer space for people from all faith backgrounds and beliefs to discuss issues of faith and spirituality. In a time of turmoil, One Report hopes to be a source of unity and collaboration. It is an opportunity for young people to learn from one another and share reflections that feel relevant, pressing, stirring, and elevated. Thank you.
One Report is edited by Anisa Tavangar with Maya Mansour. Images in this issue are by Nabil Burias.
(re)turning to therapy Written by Meher Goel
“So, how was your week?” she said, starting like they usually do. This wasn’t my first time starting therapy, although admittedly, it had been a few years since the last time I sat in a room like this. I was a little rusty at giving someone full access to all my vulnerability. Why did this feel so awkward? Afterall, I had done it before. In retrospect, it was probably because that was the first time I thought I really “needed” it. Being raised in a culture where therapy is considered crazy-talk and taboo, I had subconsciously built this perception that if I really thought I needed it, perhaps it meant that I was crazy. All the daunting and unhelpful remarks like “What’s wrong with you?” and “Just say some prayers!” played back in my head but this time, I fought past the doubts and looked for clarity. I was spiritually in the best and emotionally in the worst headspace I had been in for a while; something about how tribulations bring you closer to the purpose of life through
discomfort and uncertainty. Fortunately, I was met with support from my loved ones on this decision and I’m pleased to report that months into therapy, I can confidently say that this was the best commitment I made to myself. Sometimes, we need to show up for ourselves, especially if that means just for one hour every week. Enclosed by white walls, hearing the echoes of my wonderful therapist, I found a space to be introspective and reflect with the right tools. Therapy acted as a catalyst to creating better habits for my strengths and weaknesses. Meanwhile, walking the path of my spiritual journey through meditation, prayer, and service gave me the courage to be mindful and intentional in moving forward with purpose. For me, both these aspects play important roles in my well being and go hand in hand to restore balance in my life. A few weeks into therapy, I made a resolution that the same way I wake up, brush my teeth, and work out, I would add a mentally productive action to my routine. It’s been a few months since this resolution and I can’t really imagine my day without a quick mental check-in using my toolbox of guidelines. While I’ve had many “Aha!” moments in therapy and a dozen fulfilling moments of stillness in prayer, my biggest take away from showing up for myself week after week has been: “everyday something has tried to kill me and has failed” (Lucille Clifton) and for this “my heart is in a constant state of thanksgiving” (Baha’i Writings).
spinning with silver rings Written by April Davidson
When I was hospitalized for the second time, my mom decided to call my dad, who lives 3000 miles away. His reaction was simply that I was psychic, just like him. I was fifteen and experiencing feelings and sensations that I couldn’t explain. Life seemed like a big secret that no one would talk about. Institutionalization only deepened my sensation of emptiness. The explanation of a special clairvoyance or sensitivity felt closer to the truth. When I was a child, I used my allowance to buy silver rings with gemstones. I believed I could talk to God and the Angels through them. No one told me to do this or that God and the Angels needed this access point but it seemed true. One day, while playing by myself outside, I spun around in circles with my arms outstretched. There was no reason— it just felt right. I did this again, over and over, not thinking of the devastation I would feel when the rings inevitably flew off my hand. I crawled for hours through the grass and dirt to re-collect my rings, my access points. Eventually, the rings were lost forever and for many years, I thought my connection to God and the Angels was lost too.
When I worked at an apartment building for people with severe mental illness, I was struck by how they perceive the world. Their art and expressions were beyond my grasp but I could not, if I was to gain their trust and do my job of supporting them, openly disagree with their reality. Once, I confided in my co-worker that sometimes I didn’t disagree. Sometimes our clients spoke truth to reality better than anyone else, like that little girl spinning in complete freedom and trust. I was told, for my safety, that I couldn’t openly agree too much with their reality either. I no longer think that I am sick because of a disturbance that I have in common with many people. I refuse to let myself be isolated just because there’s a risk my reality will be too upsetting for who I’m with. The world is a confusing place, it’s no surprise to me that people feel uneasy. Energy grips me, splits me apart, and I still don’t understand why. Accepting uncertainty, that I can’t and maybe shouldn’t understand gives me more relief than definitive knowledge.
"I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world." - John 16:33
Spiritual Food Written by Olivia Land
I was hungry for four years. For most of high school, I moved through life with a gnawing, stale pain lodged deep in my stomach. Eventually, the feeling grew so intense that it made other parts of my body stop working. But like an ancient martyr upon a pyre, I knew no pain; I knew nothing but the ecstasy of feeling my bones unfurl beneath my skin. During the hungry time, I dreaded any instance when I could not control my food. One of these was communion, which I went through every Sunday. Bread— “I have never felt more the body Christ, the connected with my “soul food” of my spirituality than during faith— represented the ultimate carbohydrate the long, ugly process of indulgence. Each unwinding the parts of me week, I received a that want to be hungry.” wafer soaked in port with trembling hands. I dreaded the process, yet I relished the feeling of the tasteless disk disintegrating on my tongue. I did not know it at the time but I was experiencing what it meant to be fed. Eventually, my fascination with emptiness gave way and I ate. I ate until the gnawing monster was silent and then I ate some more. Once my body was full, I finally noticed the holes left in my character. In my quest for physical “perfection,” I neglected the fact that our bodies, as Deepak Chopra puts it, are merely hosts for our deeper, more
“On the night he was betrayed, he took bread, said the blessing, broke the bread, and gave it to his friends, and said, ‘Take, eat: This is my Body, which is given for you. Do this for the remembrance of me.’” –Book of Common Prayer
transcendent self. As it turns out, the ache of spiritual yearning is neither as easy to ignore nor as quick to satisfy as physical hunger. For the first time since childhood, I studied the Bible. I explored familiar chapters and unfamiliar ones; the translucent pages of small text were a refuge from my tumultuous relationship with my new body and the more mundane stresses of college life. I delved into what various writers had to say about the text and I grappled with my own questions on the pages of my journal and out loud with my chaplain. And still, I hungered. We are sold the idea that we can be perfect in the eyes of God by following certain moral codes. But I do not think God wants us to be perfect, physically, spiritually, or otherwise. I have never felt more connected with my spirituality than during the long, ugly process of unwinding the parts of me that want to be hungry. Over the past several months, I have come apart more often than I have come together and still, my faith has been there for me. When we celebrate the eucharist, we are supposed to recall the Passover Christ shared with his disciples on the eve of his crucifixion. When I was hungry, this ritual made me focus on myself. The more I reject my fixation with physical emptiness, the more room I have for genuine communion— with God, with those around me, and, most importantly, with my soul.
Worry and breath Written by Anisa Tavangar
I had my first anxiety attack at the mall. Wading through the forest of shoe displays, I felt the people, the boxes, the heels, the sandals, the benches, the carpet, the florescent lights, closing in on me. I wanted to get out of there but I had to keep my eye on my mom, who charged ahead to the next section, swarmed with mothers and daughters just like us. I tried to explain what I had never felt before but instead of words, I had tears. I cried and threw a fit, the only reaction I could express in the fog of pressure in my head and chest. We finally went home and my mom made a comment that was small to her— “I can’t take you to the mall anymore”— but meant everything to me. “I can’t take you to the mall anymore” meant that it was my fault. “I can’t take you to
the mall anymore” meant that I had some unexplainable, completely illogical, irrational, and unique disorder that made me incapable of being in any space that was remotely overwhelming. No one had ever talked about anxiety with me before. I don’t know if I had ever heard of it. I knew what it meant to have too much homework or feel social pressure. But I didn’t know about this feeling where you didn’t have control over your own breath or body anymore. Then, while watching YouTube videos in my bedroom, procrastinating whatever chapter of my AP Chemistry textbook I was supposed to be reading, I clicked on the latest post from a beauty guru. And she spoke, not of new drugstore lipsticks or the latest eyeshadow palette, but of anxiety and anxiety disorders and this feeling I couldn’t explain. I immediately started crying and Googling. I couldn’t believe that something I felt so alone in was shared by this pretty peer on my computer screen. But when I called my mom, who wasn’t home, to
share my discovery, she didn’t believe me. Or, she didn’t understand me. She had never had that distinct feeling of being overcome by your heartbeat and trapped in a spiral of worry and breath. When she came home, she walked up to my bedroom and found me on my bed in a slurry of curiosity, relief, sadness, and confusion. I don’t remember if I was still crying. But she played me a prayer— “Create in me a pure heart,” sung by Luke Slott— and I know I cried then. My mom was not equipped to help me with my anxiety and still, it’s the one piece of myself that I don’t let her fully in on. But she gave me prayer in times of stress and distress. She gave me a new lullaby to use when I feel that tightness entering my chest or my head gets too light, as if it’s floating off of my shoulders. The work of learning about and caring for my anxiety has been mostly solitary. Through research, patience, and prayer, I know my anxiety well now. I accept that it has been part of me for the last ten years and that even when I can keep it dormant, it’s there. Therapy gave some room for reflection, breathing exercises from yoga taught me to create control in my chest, but prayer and meditation are the vast open spaces where I can explore how my mind, my body, and my soul communicate with one another. I return to that same song my mom played for me when I feel anxiety coming on, or when I need to sit in a state of calm. And while I hope I can eventually feel more open with her about mental health, I am grateful for the lessons and the resources that she has given me, gifted from her own experiences with using prayer as a tool for tranquility.
Create in me a pure heart, O my God, and renew a tranquil conscience within me, O my Hope! Through the spirit of power confirm Thou me in Thy Cause, O my Best-Beloved, and by the light of Thy glory reveal unto me Thy path, O Thou the Goal of my desire! Through the power of Thy transcendent might lift me up unto the heaven of Thy holiness, O Source of my being, and by the breezes of Thine eternity gladden me, O Thou Who art my God! Let Thine everlasting melodies breathe tranquillity on me, O my Companion, and let the riches of Thine ancient countenance deliver me from all except Thee, O my Master, and let the tidings of the revelation of Thine incorruptible Essence bring me joy, O Thou Who art the most manifest of the manifest and the most hidden of the hidden! -Baha’u’llah
To be in the Likeness of God Written by Nneanata Echetebu To be in the likeness of God is to suffer. External pain, doubt, trauma, anxiety, & depression met both Christ and his mother. I question why God forsakes me every time He betrays my faith. I question where God is when I find myself in the darkest place. The devil keeps sneaking in my brain Taunting his sayings again and again. Aches and throbs overwhelm my head —these words leave me dead. Shooting the happy one by one six his number—the shots in his gun. Each wound lasting seemingly long leaving the dreary repeats of his song. How can it cease and when will it stop? Are these little tests the Lord has brought? Or am I further, less woke to the Divine? Are these the moments that push me closer to Him with time? I’m internally cringing and trying to find the essence of free Each door of my head, sealed shut and trapping me Those I find open are filled with external frights, my ears hear pain— my eyes struck with traumatic sites. I try to sleep but sometimes the hurt reaches my dreams. I pray for no nightmares But they come in the day when my reality is not what it seems.
I keep getting the night terrors: The evil face gracelessly gleams—It’s smiling. My suffering overpowers my mind’s place of ease—I’m hiding. Trying to hold on to my sanity. My sanities —Deciding If I’m ill or if I’m possessed —My trauma’s name, “Miss. Guiding.” I should follow the birds and fly with no ounce of anxiety but anxiety seems to plague my brain. I question why God forsakes me. Knowing a dying Christ asked God the same.
To know pain was promised To feel the magnitude of the world’s weight Humbly entitled to nothing but suffering A suffering in this world not even God could escape. Flaming sadness becomes intertwined with hurt. Throbbing hatred directed from the outside inward Then from the inside out. The self, tormenting the clay. Destroying the potters work —cracking off a piece by the day Wanting to feel pain so what’s inside can seem controlled and measurable The self-inflicted hurt becomes cherished and even pleasurable. Trauma — an inevitable fate. God left us with Christ— a story to relate. He left us needing each other, needing self-elevation in order to heal. He left us with science and all its advances and therapeutic skills. Healing —like the steps of enlightenment. Discovering how we can become whole in this world broken to pieces. To discover God not only wanted us to need Him but to need each other and to need oneself— the journey seemingly never ceases. A fearful Christ prayed but persistently sought out & begged his disciples for support —it was both he needed. All together and each individually healing and emulating the essence of God — to God it pleases.
ease and longing Written by Tahere Arjomandi
There is nothing as soothing as listening to the rain at night, everything at ease, everyone quiet, the streets empty, the night full, the sky endless. There is something soothing about endlessness. I look at it and it tells me that life doesn’t end. I look into myself and I feel the omnipresence of God. On nights like this, my soul longs for something I have yet to find a name for— a certain depth within me, an ocean to be discovered, a truth to be found. There is something special about quiet rainy nights. They make me vulnerable, they make me thirst for truth.
constructing my self Written by Iris McComb
My first serious mental health crisis began at twent-one. I had just experienced ego-death for the first time, which was as transformative, transcendent, and world-shattering as mysticism led me to believe. However, it was incredibly difficult for my young self to integrate it into my life. I spent the next three years without any sense of self. It started out with small things, like losing touch with what clothes I liked or forgetting what my passions and interests were, but soon escalated into full-scale existential doom. I didn’t seek out mental health care at the time, but a couple of years into my recovery, what I had undergone was defined to me by a psychoanalyst as depersonalization disorder. Putting a clinical label on my experience and recognizing it as something that other people have gone through offered me a staggering amount of comfort.
“As I connect more sincerely with this inner Self, the construction of my outer self becomes more playful, lighthearted, and in alignment with this deep sense of purpose�
My personal healing work was of a less clinical nature, though. It started with the more tangible process of reconstructing my self and gaining back a small sense of ego, the necessary artifice of personhood we use to engage
with the world. I started experimenting with my fashion sensibilities again, took classes in areas that intrigued me, and read books about topics that interested me. Though I developed a refined appreciation for the joy they offer, I also learned how unimportant these things were to the true Me. Ultimately, the quest to find the true Self is different for everyone. For me, it involves extensive yoga asana practice, self-inquiry, meditation, deep conversations with wise women, intimate relationships with authentic humans, and countless other subtle and grand gestures. As I connect more sincerely with this inner Self, the construction of my outer self becomes more playful, lighthearted, and in alignment with this deep sense of purpose and devotion I have accessed. We are multi-layered beings. Different ailments can originate on different levels of ourselves: physical pain causing us sadness, mental obsession leading to tight muscles and anxiety, joy rippling out into feelings of supreme physical comfort. Integral to the pursuit of wellness is the pursuit of wholeness, and whatever your beliefs or practices, there is an undeniable spark of divinity in all of us that longs to be set free. It is with this spark that we are enabled to not only survive this often harrowing journey of being alive, but to truly thrive.
“You must always remember, no matter how much you or others may be afflicted with mental troubles and the crushing environment of these State Institutions, that your spirit is healthy, near to our Beloved, and will in the next world enjoy a happy and normal state of soul.� From a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi
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