I hated it! I cried more in 2017 than any other year in my life because of choosing to become a Catholic Christian.
It ruined my plans for the future, affected relationships in my life, the vibe of Mass didn’t fit my personality and I didn’t like the idea of having to believe certain theology rather than the freedom to understand the Bible how I wanted to.
The hardest parts were tearing down my identity and processing that many people had taught me lies about what Catholicism teaches. I had to work through a lot of betrayal and anger and make sense of what was going on in American Christianity.
The best way I came up with to describe it is the feeling of being kidnapped and lied to about my biological family so that I hated them and never wanted to know them.
I get a lot of anti Catholic comments on my social media, but I still haven’t encountered anyone who hates Catholicism more than I did. That’s why negative comments don’t affect me. I read them and internally am like “same! I thought that just a few years ago!”
I LOVED growing up as a Christian in protestant churches and spiritually flourished throughout my life in those communities. It was heartbreaking for me having to reject what I loved.
My personality naturally did not fit well with Mass! I had to change myself to enjoy being at Mass and to flourish within it. It was not until I understood what the different parts of the liturgy meant that I started to like being there.
I also thought Catholicism would tank my career. I’d been doing YouTube for 7 years at that point and was a full time YouTuber in 2017. I talked about Christianity in so many of my videos and I knew thousands of people would unsubscribe from my channel and thought I’d have to quit doing that as my career since my income would be affected so much.
I had also planned to move overseas as a missionary and that didn’t happen when I chose to convert into Catholic Christianity.
It was so scary making that jump
If the church is not crying it’s dying! I never feel embarrassed but since this is my first baby it did stress me out the first few times I brought her to Mass. It’s always an adventure.
After the second time I was so relaxed and now no longer care if she makes noise. Of course I don’t want her to be sad or upset but that’s just for her comfort not anyone else’s.
Babies have every right to be at Mass as adults since they are also Catholics!
I remember before having my daughter that any time I heard a child make noises during Mass it made me so happy because it reminded me that our church is growing with the next generation of Catholics! It is not distracting but instead redirects my mind to the reason we are all there.
One of the sweetest things I’ve seen at Mass is someone’s toddler started running up the aisle toward the Eucharist with his dad running after him. So cute!
Something else to think about is that solely focusing on the liturgy during Mass is somewhat of a modern thing. It used to be very common for Christians to pray the rosary during Mass, meditate on the church art, reflect on their life. Of course it is incredible focusing on all the details of the liturgy but it’s certainly not the only way to experience Mass.
It is so impactful when children see their parents worshiping God and praying at Mass and that catechesis for the kids is so powerful in teaching them about Christianity.
That’s why Catholicism wants children to stay for the entire Mass while other Christian churches will put babies in a nursery or into another room for a special service for the children.
Something my husband and I do is alternate every other week which one of us holds and cares for our baby during Mass. This way the other person can focus on the scripture readings and prayers and homily all of Mass.
I have heard stories from other parishes (not mine) where people make negative comments to parents of young children or tell them to leave. If y
The “if he wanted to he would” mentality leads many women to expect their man to know exactly what she wants when it comes to dates, holidays, surprises.
I don’t think it is any more romantic if your man knows exactly what you want. That is not the ideal. It is healthy to just tell him what you want him to do and that eliminates any disappointment or bitterness.
Openly communicating expectations and what you need to be happy in a relationship will make your bond so strong!
It is repetitive and cliché but don’t expect your husband (or anyone) to read your mind. Just be direct and communicate. Your relationship will be much happier if you tell him.
I have told my husband exactly what I want him to do for holidays. For my birthday I want a written card, cake and flowers. For valentines day I want him to get me flowers and I want to bake a cake. For our anniversary I just want to go on a trip we plan.
Communicating this early on in our relationship has ensured I don’t get upset or feel unloved.
The “weaponized incompetence” accusations by women online have been surprising to me how some men genuinely mess with their wive’s mind and manipulate her by doing chores horribly because they are lazy and want a free maid. My husband has never done anything close to this.
My husband is excellent at cleaning and is more organized than I am, but both of us have occasionally done chores not to the standard of the other person. I always assume the best of his intentions and both of us don’t get upset at instructing the other person how to clean better.
Many women online also share how they despise making to do lists for their husband, because he should just know what needs to be done in the house. There must be a lot of other things going wrong in their marriage to cause this reaction. For me I don’t mind writing a list on occasion. I leave it on the table or on his desk. I also write to do lists for myself daily of what I need to do and find it h
It was obvious! I had to diagnose myself with bipolar because many psychiatrists and therapists are terrible at their job.
When I say “diagnose myself” I mean that I did a ton of research on bipolar when I was suspicious I might have it and then brought my symptoms to psychiatrists who said I was correct.
I had my first hypomanic episode in 2012 and then cycled between depression and mania throughout the rest of college. I was not diagnosed as bipolar until 2016.
This is typical. On average, it takes bipolar people seeing 7 different psychiatrists or therapists before being diagnosed. This takes place over YEARS.
It makes me angry because I have permanent brain damage from those years of being in unmedicated episodes. It also majorly impacted my grades in college which made it impossible for me to get into any type of grad school and also affected my relationships.
My life would have turned out so different if I was put on bipolar meds right when my first episode happened.
Bipolar disorder is genetic in my family and that was always communicated to the many therapists and psychiatrists I saw over the years. That’s the most shocking part to me, that they knew it was a big possibility but didn’t diagnose me.
I went to a new psychiatrist the summer of 2016 (I had been diagnosed with bipolar type 2 before this) and she said within 5 minutes of meeting me “you have bipolar type 1 and are currently in a manic episode.”
That’s how it should be! Psychiatrists and therapists should have an excellent radar and be able to feel if someone has bipolar to help their diagnostics. I can feel it if someone is currently in a bipolar episode upon meeting them. If mental health is someone’s job they should be able to feel it!
When my husband has watched some of my old YouTube videos and heard about my behavior in college he is shocked and has said “How did no one know?!!” because if you know what bipolar symptoms are it is super obvious.
Bipolar doesn’t create abusive behavior. There are just some people who are abusive that also happen to have a mental illness.
Here are some things NOT caused by bipolar: lying, gaslighting, emotional manipulation, having emotional extremes: going from really mad to really happy to really sad within the span of a few hours or days, yelling, physical violence, coercion into sleeping together, emotional or physical abuse, neglecting children.
Here are some things CAUSED by unmedicated bipolar: reckless spending, dangerous driving, substance abuse, physical cheating while manic caused by hypersexuality, attempts to end their own life, a pattern of randomly breaking up & getting back together, a pattern of impulsively quitting their job or getting fired, suddenly joining or leaving a religion, selling a lot of possessions.
Unmedicated bipolar can cause SO MUCH pain in a romantic relationship. That’s why I stay on my medication!
I’ve seen this the most in those who have dated a bipolar person and had a bad experience. They take every fault of their ex and weirdly assume it comes from their bipolar disorder.
If someone knowing they have bipolar intentionally goes off their meds and then cheats on their spouse THEN I do blame them, because they knew what could happen going off meds.
If the person with bipolar had not yet been diagnosed or goes into a manic episode while medicated then I don’t blame them. Same with everything else.
Accountability does need to be taken if someone chooses to go off bipolar meds. Apologies need to be given even if someone was manic and didn’t mean to cause pain.
A great example of what I’m talking about is the bipolar signifcant others subreddit! These people tell extreme stories of the most toxic behavior of people who also happen to have bipolar and then claim it’s all because of their bipolar. Nope!
7 years in! It has been 1/4 of my life in this relationship 🫶 Parenthood is the happiest era with him!
It’s not hard. How is this a problem? I LOVE attending Mass. It’s my favorite thing I do in my life.
If you can’t commit to worshipping God for 1 hour a week, can you really say you love God?
I can think of 1000 things in my life more difficult than the Mass obligation.
It’s so easy because there are 3-4 Mass times each Sunday and a Saturday night option too just at one parish. If you go to Masstimes.org you’ll find DOZENS of different times at other churches in your city.
Even when I travel it is extremely easy to go to Mass each weekend.
The fact that anyone has an issue with this blows my mind.
It is a huge privilege to worship God together with other Christians at Mass. It brings me so much peace, helps me reflect on my life and challenges me to be a better person. I have a video on my YouTube channel called “50 FAVORITE parts of Mass” it’s truly so much fun!
Btw I got the 0.006621% calculation by adding on 6 more hours for the additional 6 holy days of obligation we have each year!
1/4 of us end our lives. Not worth the risk! If you love the people in your life and believe you have intrinsic value you wouldn’t risk it.
The problem is giving up too easily.
It’s normal for it to take over a year or even several years of trying different medication dosages and combinations to find the right meds.
This can be a frustrating process, but because there are SO many psych meds available there is great hope.
Bipolar meds affect each person differently. Some possible bad side effects of meds that would make someone go off like weight gain, feeling a lack of emotion, low libido, acne, hair loss, tremors will affect a small minority of people on the medication. There’s no way to know if you’ll have that side effect without trying it.
Most meds I’ve tried have 0 side effects. Luckily the newer meds have no side effects in the majority of people.
If you do have a bad side effect, go off & try different meds!
I had an experience on olanzapine where a high dosage made me gain weight and I started losing hair at the very top of my head. I went off it completely because of this and my psychiatrist was fine with that! Then my hair grew back normally and my weight went back.
I found my perfect combination: 300mg lamictal & 400mg seroquel after almost 2 years of trying different medications and have been on them since 2017!
With bipolar there’s usually no way to know which med will stabilize you so it’s lots of trial and error. If a genetic family member with bipolar has had good results with a med it is likely to work on you!
Through the years I have sometimes had to add on an additional antipsychotic and be on 3 meds (and during 3rd trimester of pregnancy & postpartum increased seroquel to 600mg) but those 2 meds have been amazing in stabilizing me.
There are SO many reasons people with bipolar go off all their meds and this is just one of them.
The other biggest reason is feeling emotionally numb on meds because the dosage is
You won’t be sleep deprived if you sleep in separate rooms & share the night shift!! I sleep 8-12 hours a day with an infant, but also breastfeed on demand 18 hours a day.
When I was pregnant I mostly heard negative things about taking care of an infant in 4th trimester so I wanted to share how for me it has been really positive and happy! So much easier than pregnancy.
I have bipolar disorder and cannot be sleep deprived because I’ll go manic or into psychosis, so we came up with a plan that keeps me well rested but also my husband.
Not being sleep deprived makes ALL the difference!
I know people hate hearing “sleep when baby sleeps” but each of us getting a 6 hour stretch of sleep every night and naps during the day works for us. I never drink caffeine which helps me sleep when I need to. Breastfeeding also helps with sleeping because the body releases prolactin which makes mom sleepy after feeding.
This is not at all to invalidate women who struggle postpartum. I had colic as a baby and know how chaotic a time that was for my parents. Many women are also in pain recovering from birth or have postpartum depression and anxiety. Some babies are more fussy. Some husbands have to work long hours and many don’t have paternity leave.
I have the luxury of having my husband at home with me for 3 months because he’s a professor and is on break. We timed our pregnancy for that. The United States does not have any mandated paternity leave so it would be different for me if he was home less.
Also my husband is fully involved and does not view taking care of our child as “helping with the baby” or “babysitting” or something that is more my job than his. A lot of men even when wife works full time make their wife do a majority of the cleaning, cooking and childcare. My husband isn’t like that.
Even if husband works full time and mom is SAHM I think the husband needs to help at night. If husband works 8 hours a day why does mom have to work
If only I could have seen the future then! I never imagined how joyful having a child would be.
My pregnancy involved so much suffering. I was very sick for so long, continuing throwing up into third trimester. I had major depressive episode level exhaustion and I was basically bedridden for so much of it. Being a first time mom, I couldn’t fully know the ending.
I’m only a few weeks in and I love being a mom 10x more than I thought I would and I knew I would LOVE being a mom!!! I can’t describe the feelings I have for my baby like she is the most important part of my life which supersedes everything.
I feel like I’m a completely different person than I was before she was born. A lot of moms say they feel like they lose themselves in having a baby, but I don’t feel that at all. I feel like who I am is just more.
I love cuddling with her, breastfeeding her, watching her sleep, waking up with her in the middle of the night, changing her diaper, picking out outfits for her, doing her laundry, and comforting her when she is crying. All of it is so amazing and it already feels like it’s going by way too fast 🥺
I dealt with this my first 3 years of being Catholic. Any time I saw a Mary statue or icon, heard Mary mentioned in Mass or heard another Catholic talking about Mary...I felt SO scared and uncomfortable like loud ALARMS going off in my brain.
I thought Catholics worshiped Mary for all of my life up until 2017. I had been taught as a child that it was a HORRIBLE sin to put emphasis on Mary and that Catholics sinned because they worshiped her. I grew up in a very anti-Catholic Protestant denomination. Any statue, image, prayer, necklace, mention of Mary in Catholicism felt so horrible to me and I hated it.
This feeling didn’t just go away when I learned the truth that Catholics do not worship Mary or anyone other than God. It is a horrible sin in Catholicism to worship Mary or anyone else. Yet I had HATED Catholicism because of this lie. So those 2 decades of emotions took years to fade away.
What helped was I never blamed myself for feeling uncomfortable. I knew they were just emotions beyond my control and so I was patient with myself.
I also did not rush into praying the rosary, owning any Mary art in my home, wearing a miraculous medal or asking her to pray for me. It took over a year until I was comfortable beginning any of that. I didn’t put pressure on myself and I’m grateful my RCIA and priest did not either.
The only thing that helped me was reading what the early Christians wrote about Mary. I had trusted the Church fathers on the Eucharist, purgatory, apostolic succession of bishops and priests, infant baptism, Confession, original sin, the Deuterocanonical books…and so reading their writings on Mary as the New Eve, New Ark of the Covenant, Queen of Heaven, perpetual virgin and the immaculate conception gradually changed my emotions.
I recommend the books “Mary and the Fathers of the Church” by Luigi Gambero and “The Life of the Virgin” by Maximus the Confessor and “Our Lady of Guadalupe” by Carl Anderson and Eduardo Chavez.
Happy Ash Wednesday!! 🎉 Since converting into Catholicism Lent has always been my FAVORITE time of the year… it has been immense spiritual growth for me!
👩🏼💻 2018 on Ash Wednesday is the day I came out online about my conversion in a YouTube video! Every year at this time it reminds me of those SO EXCITING weeks in RCIA leading up to my confirmation & receiving the Eucharist!
💒 This year, I’m teaching RCIA with my husband at our parish and it has been so exciting seeing the future Catholics in our class getting ready to become part of our Church! 🥹
🤰🏼But being 6 months pregnant during Lent this year just feels like it’s not Lenting, because I can’t do the fasting from food, have ALREADY been fasting from alcohol coffee and other things for 6 months, have been going through so much suffering and spend all my free time sleeping!
Instead, Advent this past year was extremely special because I was pregnant at the same time as we were reflecting on Mary being pregnant with Jesus 🥰
So for Lent this year what I’m doing is very chill listening to prayer apps, listening to the Bible, Formed app… and specifically doing this during weight lifting at the gym since I’m there for SO many hours each week. Gymming is my only hobby this pregnancy besides cooking & cleaning. And I only started these 3 things after first trimester was far over when I was feeling better.
Baby is coming in less than 3 months 😄
Had to try this trend with my nephew, the newest member of the family! 😽 It was Grizzly’s first year celebrating Christmas with us this year. He is SO sweet!
We have ✨bipolar disorder ✨ part 2!!
We have ✨ bipolar disorder ✨ part 1!
