Zip It 2014 - 24 Hours of Silence for Mental Health LIVE BLOG

As I was driving home from a meeting last night I had my first proper chance to reflect on the day was to come. I quickly realised I had not much time left to say anything I wanted to say before my silence kicked in. So first things first and making sure my priorities were in order, I had a discussion about when we would both be home to watch the new Greys Anatomy tonight. Following on from that I said goodnight to my housemate and went to bed. As important as Greys Anatomy was though there was something more important I wanted to say and that was two simple words, Thank You. First Thank You to every single person who has supported my zip it  efforts thus far. More importantly though a huge Thank You to God (or the universe if you prefer) for blessing me with a voice and the gift of speech as well as the good fortune to be born and raised in a country where I do have a voice and don't have to be afraid to stand up for what I believe in. I truly am grateful for every blessing and opportunity I have been afforded in life.

5:30am
So as I woke up this morning I remembered this other fantastic gift/ability I have been given that others don't, and that's the gift of working limbs and the ability to move. So even though I was tired because I'd stayed up discussing my TV schedule, I got up early and headed to the gym. Besides being able to use the gift of movement I'm stoked to have, I've read many times and places about the importance of a healthy body for a healthy mind so I figured there was no better way to start a day of silence for mental health. As I finished and headed into the change room and almost had a head on collision with a woman, I had my first almost speaking moment but found myself having to hold back my usual "sorry" in the name of silence. Sorry random lady, I'm not a bitch I swear! Also apologies to the kind reception lady who I didn't respond to when she bid me goodbye.

I'm the anti-fan of gym selfies but I figured this was an important exception.

7:30am
Following on from the gym I decided in advance I wanted to avoid awkward exchanges as much as possible, and so keeping with the healthy body healthy mind thing I to went to the juice bar and ordered via a piece of paper with the zip it logo on the back my breakfast smoothie and a salad for lunch. The guy definitely thought I was strange with my notes and nodding but I was sure to leave a thank you note on the same paper as I left in the hopes they read it later and understand.

Healthy Body Healthy Mind

Now begins the biggest challenge of the day... Work in the craziest loudest office in the world. Although it's highly possible I'm actually the one who makes all the noise and today will be very quiet, but I'm sure an all out Nerf war will erupt at any time. (Yes that is something that happens often enough for me to predict it.)

8.00am
As I arrive at work I'm greeted with tonnes of hellos (probably more than usual as generally people find it hilarious I can't talk back - I had one person already rejoicing my silence.) a few smiles, thumbs ups and other gestures later I settle in to my standing desk for the day but not before I've stapled and sticky taped signs to my front and back for the day. I'll say in advance I'm glad I have a lot of previewing to do today and can attempt to lock myself in to my headphone zone before the majority of the office arrive at 9. Oh and I've currently been shot at once with a Nerf Bullet.

I think they call this the height of fashion

9:00am
My wonderful stand up desk (Sitting is the new smoking) is decked out in almost every poster that the Zip it team have published (so if you guys wondered if they were useful, worry no longer) I may not be able to make noise with my voice, but am more than happy to clutter the work environment with noise of a different kind.

Just a few signs

9:15am
We have a big charity short film shoot coming up on Monday and our amazingly patient office assistant has just given me a run down on what camera equipment and microphones he will be bringing me throughout the course of the day. Thankfully I have now prepared some quick go to signs to help me answer questions. I may or may not need a "please explain further" one by the end of the day. I'm so thankful for my colleagues patience and good humour!

All the necessities

9:30am
I have enlisted my desk buddy to be my personal photographer for the day, and another colleague just came by for a visit attempting to trip me up by asking me how I was followed by a question about how I feel about the state of world politics and the current happenings in the middle east. I was able to sum up my usually rambling opinions in three simple words "It's effed bigtime." The second nerf bullet for the day has been fired. I fired back this time.

I don't ask for much really

9:45am
The first of my colleagues has gotten confused and started gesturing to me because they feel weird talking to me when I can't talk back. Haha we'll see how many others fall under the same spell. It's almost 10 and I realised I'm hungry and my breakfast oats are still in the car ready to be cooked. Oops, Nothing like a late breakfast to tide you over till lunch anyway!

10:15am
Sticking to the Healthy Body Healthy mind thing I'm enjoying my Amaranth Flakes, psyllium, mixed seeds, and goji berries porridge for late breakfast. I have also cut up a celery and put it out in our "snacks" area - yes we actually have one of those - for everyone else to eat, as we are in a bad habit of eating biscuits and cake (partially my bake sale's fault) as a snack. As soon as I put it out one of the amazing ladies got some dip (I couldn't ask but I think it's Tzatziki) to go with it. I LOVE my work family!

10:30am
Not gonna lie, I'm starting to get a little over not speaking. Not because I have anything important to say, but I miss the little exchanges in the kitchen or hallway and feel like I'm being rude to people and awkwardly smiling at them - sooo glad I don't have a mirror. Have just been shot in the back with another nerf bullet in our designers attempt to get a reaction out of me haha, but war hasn't erupted yet AND nothing will make me falter. I'm on high alert for the two colleagues who have threatened a tickle attack sometime today but in the meantime I'm full into headphones on JFK watching and sub clipping mode for the History Channel. I LOVE my job. 

11:00am
Chad our amazing office assistant came back for part two of our microphone tutorial. I could nod at most things, but when he and Michael (also working on the film) asked if we had a boom mic I had to write a longer response. Chad found it entertaining and fun and said we should try a day where everyone writes to each other in notes only, and Michael said the anticipation of what the note was going to say was killing him. For anyone interested I accidentally wrote a poem as a response which said: "We don't have a boom, but I'm borrowing Simon's mic which goes into the zoom." This JFK doco called 1pm Central Time is super interesting. Yes, there is still more to learn about JFK!

11:45am
Nothing much to report, working hard. However I have been furiously snacking on celery and it wasn't until I took my headphones off for a second that I realised how loud my celery munching is. Oops. I may not be speaking but I'm unknowingly making noise!

12:50pm
I ate my delicious Kale and Quinoa salad from the juicebar this morning. I don't know what else was in it but it was delicious, and I figure with two superfoods I can't go wrong. I think I'm getting better at gesturing things without using notes. I still wouldn't want to look in a mirror and see my funny "Natty's silent face" (dubbed by my friend this morning) though. Someone is playing a song out loud where the only lyrics seem to be "everybody get down today" on repeat and so I had a 10 second dance break. It's a good thing I'm getting better at gesturing as I've used almost all my coloured paper. I made this short video (30 secs) for instagram before realising I could only upload 15 seconds of it there - I popped my instavideo cherry yesterday so I wasn't aware of such restrictions. In any case, here it is in full. I've had the odd question here and there, and had one person in the kitchen ask me what the sign said. I'm not sure if he was trying to be funny or he legitimately couldn't read it. Anyway, here's my video complete with amazing acting skills... ahem.

2:00pm
Post lunch I went down to our other building on the hunt for a microphone which I couldn't find sadly, and now have to figure out who has taken it and how I can get it back without speaking, but that's an issue for later. On my way back up I visited our always cheerful editors where fun times ensued. One has been away for 6 weeks so I greeted him with welcome back notes and a compliment on his hair. He proceeded to respond to all my notes in amazing interpretive dance which sadly wasn't captured on film. We did try to recreate it for film purposes but the spontaneity was gone and it ended up being awkward me dancing by myself. One of the other editors walked past and made a joke about me being rude because I didn't respond to him so when he came back I gave him a little slip of my self made zip it note paper to explain but things got weird when he turned it around and saw the notes from an earlier conversation about when my silence started and how I can't talk. As you can see by the image below it is slightly questionable. I was having far too much fun with the guys who are always hilarious so I left them reading my blog (and promised they'd feature in the next update) and came back upstairs ready for mandatory TV classification training. 

2:30pm

Just before classification training I checked my bank balance as aside from being World Mental Health Day it's also Foxtel monthly payday - my favorite day of the month! I was expecting my pay of course, no surprises there, but I discovered I'd also been credited with my tax return which was almost 3 times what I expected. This was unexpected exciting and confusing all at once but nobody was looking in my direction so I couldn't express that to anyone (I refrained from starting a Nerf battle to draw attention to myself. Instead I texted my amazing friend and accountant with an "ummmm is this all meant to be for me." He called me shortly after and like a rude bitch I rejected his call. Thankfully he's one of my generous sponsors so when I texted him to explain why I hung up on him he understood and gave me the good news that I get to keep it. Again though it's hard to share my excitement about not owing the government money with anyone around me without using my voice or writing complex notes. This made me a little sad that something actually exciting happened and I couldn't say anything, but there's always next week!

2:45pm

Classification training is always an interesting time. Often it involves awkwardly watching porn with your colleagues, but thankfully today it's about violence. A little less weird. Training is taking place in our mini theatre called the skyline lounge. As I walked in people were spread across a few rows, but like the rebel I am I went straight to the back where nobody was sitting so that I wouldn't be tempted to engage in conversation. It was a little lonely in the back row as I couldn't even get eye contact with anyone to share smiles or glances when something funny was said or happened, apart from at the very start when three people were having a debate about whether the point of zip it was for them to tempt me and challenge my silence and make me work for my money or whether it's just about letting me do my thing in the name of mental health awareness. I'm sure the second is the point, but I'm happy to be challenged because it shows my resilience and willpower and also keeps me entertained and not feeling ignored or isolated.

With all my friends

3.00pm

Is it possible for your throat to feel dry and sore when you haven't used it all day? I don't know that talking would fix this but it's. Weird sensation. Maybe it's in my head... I want to talk so I'm feeling sore in my throat perhaps? Who knows. I guess I'll drink more water! Also finding that I want to add input into conversations (especially in classification) about my thoughts or comments, but being totally silent is different because I feel like I'm no longer an active participant which is weird for me because I'm an extrovert and so I'm very used to contributing to conversations. Oh some good news right at the end of training, next quarter's classification training is about sex. Here come the awkward side glances.

4.00pm

All out Nerf war has finally erupted. Got hit with a good one in the face by the guy in the back near the window and almost squealed. Closest I've come to making a sound all day. He was proud.

Hair tied back for complete concentration

4.30pm

I feel like the last half an hour has been the longest all day, yet I've done many things. We carried all the gear to my car in silence and then there was the awkward moment I couldn't apologise profusely for the terrible state of my car - I'm cleaning it this weekend I swear. Then We had a discussion, rather the team had a discussion and I nodded and wrote notes about whether we have everything ready for this shoot on Monday, and I checked some promos for on air. I don't know if it's stress but I am sooo hungry but I have now eaten all the celery. In the last half hour my phone has also run out of battery so I walked around with a note saying "Do you have an iPhone charger" until the lovely Jon lent me his. This stressed me a little because I'm already down on one communication method and once I'm out of the office I need it for emergencies. In any case, crisis averted and it is now charging. I was asked an interesting question though... If I get pulled over for an RBT what do I do? I'm more than ok with writing notes to the cops, but what would I do if they asked me to count to 10? Praying that doesn't happen, but it begs the question of whether or not I'd be a failure if I had to count numbers. How exactly does a breath test work anyway, if I mouthed the words and no sound came out would they still have my breath? As you can see I have not frequently been breath tested and until about a month ago had never been breathalysed in 6 years of driving.

I'm not going to lie, the fact I just rambled about breath tests gives you some kind of indication of the fact that I'm starting to get sick of not talking, and it's clouding my ability to concentrate. Snap out of it Natalie! JFK is waiting.

5:30pm
It has now been 12 hours of awake silence. 19 hours if you include sleeping, but I couldn't confirm that I didn't sleep talk. I've had reports from people I've shared rooms with in the past that I say some weird stuff sometimes. I'm about to leave the office. Pretty much everyone else is gone so it makes it less hard to resist the urge to talk. I think I have everything ready for the shoot next week, and if I don't I've got two days of talking to figure it out. Things are about to get interesting though in my silent journey as I'm about to travel to the local shopping centre to jump start my housemate's car. Before you ask, yes she should have NRMA but it's a long and confusing story as to why she doesn't. In any case, helping her start her car will improve both our mental states, hers because well, she'll have a working car, and mine because she's getting me delicious dinner while she waits for me, AND both our mental states because we'll be home at the same time to watch Greys Anatomy. I don't know what you do on your silent Friday nights, but we know how to party! Hopefully I'll be back in an hour or so to report the outcome to you then, and continue this LIVE blogging fun.

Signs down from the desk as I leave

5:45pm

Honestly didn't think I'd have anything to report between my desk and the car, but had two weird exchanges. First as I came out of the fire door (stairs are the healthier option than the lift) and a guy jumped and said "you scared me to death" and I smiled weirdly and then as I was walking out of the building a guy said "excuse me I think there's something stuck to your back." He was obviously trying to do a good deed but I can't help but think he'd be embarrassed if he'd actually read the sign and understood. I smiled and nodded and we parted ways.

6.15pm

Good news, I'm still alive. Sounds like a dumb thing to say but I have had previous bad experience jump starting cars and accidentally shocking myself when I let the leads touch. I'd blame my blonde hair, but that hasn't been around since I was about 6 years old. Thankfully my housemate gave me a good description of where to find her and we we got the car started easy. We had a brief game of charades as I tried to tell her I'd get Greys Anatomy ready while she warms the battery. It took a while but eventually after I pointed at the grey steering wheel many times and pointed at my eye she got it and now I'm heading home.

Leads in in silence no worries #idontneedaman

You'll be hard pressed to find a cooler pair

6.55pm

OMG Pad Siew is delicious. I mean if I was forced to pick a meal for the rest of my life Chicken & Tofu pad siew would probably be it. I may or may not have started eating it in the car it smelt so good. Other than the deliciousness I really enjoyed the car ride home in silence. I turned the radio off this morning because I get too tempted to sing along. Being alone in the car there was no pressure for me to talk to anyone which was nice. Home now though and Ellen is on the TV and I'm so desperate to comment on the ridiculousness of some of the segments, or discuss what I'm seeing with my housemate. Need to get something on that doesn't require interaction stat!

7.30pm

Greys Anatomy time! It may not be how you'd start your Friday night in silence, but I'm pretty damn happy to be chilling on the couch right now. It's not an over stimulating program so there are only a few things I've wanted to comment on to my housemate and I've refrained. It's not like it's world changing stuff I need to say so it's all good.

Chillaxing like a boss

8.00pm
I love my housemate, but every time she talks to me I want to talk back, far more than I wanted to talk back at work. Can't work out if it's because I'm tired and so I want to engage in mindless talk about television (as opposed to the work television talk during the day that actually requires concentration). It's definitely me though that's struggling with the silence, but it's too early for bed still, and I've got to learn lines before my acting class in the morning so I'm thinking I might try the bath and candle thing for some me time.

9.30pm

Did the bath and candle thing while watching episode two of History's The Bible which I have to watch for work but is actually really well made and interesting. Once the relaxation was over I started myself on a dangerous road of watching the HBO show girls. It's purely for script research but the more and more I see YouTube clips, the more I think I should start watching it for real! Have kept to myself since post Greys Anatomy and I think I'm almost ready for bed.

10.00pm

Part of me would like to stay awake until midnight just for the joy of saying a word and then going to sleep, but the tireder I'm getting now would suggest that if I don't go to sleep I'll end up talking to myself and break my silence. With that in mind it is time for me to bid you all goodbye and goodnight. It has been a long day and as I wrote on my fundraising page this is one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. In saying that though, it was a fun day, and regardless of both those things I am so excited to as of now raised almost $2500 for the Black Dog institute. Unfortunately for the competitor in me that means I need to raise even more next year. Gulp. And in saying that, donations will be accepted through to the end of the month. If you doubted I could do it before, I've now (I hope) proven it to you and have successfully smashed 24 hours of silence which will be over 30 all up by the time I wake up. 

I hope you've enjoyed my ramblings today, and I'll be sure to post my first words in the morning for you. Until then, peace out, oh and donate please! Xo Nat

Good night all!

To Donate go to:

https://www.mycause.com.au/page/80140/nataliezipsitformentalhealth2014

Mental Health and Me

This World Mental Health Day, 10 October, I am giving up my voice for 24 hours to raise funds for mental health charity The Black Dog Institute. The passing of a relative is what led me to speak out about mental health and to do this challenge in 2012, but underneath I realised that even though I was doing a good thing, I wasn’t doing all I could to reduce the stigma associated with mental health. I was keeping my struggles as a teenager silent, and in order to truly make some noise about mental health I needed to be 100% transparent, so here goes...

On my thirteenth birthday I woke up feeling sick. I assumed it was just because I hadn't eaten and headed off to the bus stop with an apple. By the time I arrived at school I was feeling even worse so I went to the school office and they called my mum to pick me up. This seemingly normal sick day was the start of many more to come. For the next and last six months of year seven the number of sick days I had grew exponentially to the point where I was missing whole weeks of school.

I went to the doctor many times and tried to explain to them that I would wake up every morning feeling really sick and I didn't want to go to school if I was going to be sick. They did all the blood tests they could, and they all came up negative. They told me I was fine and needed to just go to school because it was all in my head and I wasn't sick. When they decided it wasn't anything physical, the first thing the doctors, the school and my mum asked was whether I was being bullied or if there was something worrying me at school, did I find the work too hard and so on. The answer to all of the above was no. I loved school, I loved my friends, and I wasn't being bullied. I was so frustrated that nobody believed me, I wanted to be at school and I didn't want to feel sick, but no matter how much everybody told me I was fine, I didn't feel it.

My family and neighbours rallied around trying to make me go to school by offering to drive me, or by promising rewards if I went to school. None of this stopped me from feeling sick, and so as my family got angrier at my unwillingness to go to school, I got craftier in my avoidance. I was so scared of going to school sick that I started preplanning my way to get out of going by announcing how sick I was feeling before I went to bed. That didn't last very long, and soon I was barricading myself in my bedroom until my siblings and my mum had to leave for school and work. I would not come out again until they had left, returning to my room when they came home in the afternoon or evening.

I kept up with my school work the whole time, with my friends sending homework home with my sister for me. Explaining to my friends why I wasn't at school became harder the longer I was sick. Eventually I reluctantly agreed to go see a psychiatrist who specialised in adolescent disorders. It was then that I was diagnosed with depression and an anxiety disorder, and was put on anti-depressants.

I couldn't say whether this helped or not, as even though for the last few months of year seven I was able to attend school most days, I still found myself feeling sick, and other than riding my bike or hanging out in the street and the park with my neighbours, there was nothing I would leave the house for, and the last thing I wanted to do was get into a car or on a bus. I was so glad when the school year finished and it was school holidays, again, not because I didn’t like school but because it meant I could get up every morning and not worry about getting on a bus or being away from home if I didn’t want to be. I remained on the antidepressants, and everyone assumed (me included) that when term one of the following year started I would be back into the swing of things and have no further issues. Unfortuntely that was not to be the case and from day two of year eight I started missing school again.

At this point my family and the school started growing more concerned. I went to meetings with the school counsellor, with the year advisers, and even had a few teachers visit me at home to bring me work. I hated the way I was feeling, but couldn’t make it go away no matter how hard I tried. I remember crying to my mum and the doctors about just wanting to be better. I was missing school and my friends and normalcy and wanted a magic cure. As anyone else who has ever experienced anxiety or depression would know, there isn’t a simple cure.

I was taken to an appointment at Redbank House, which is a school located on the grounds of Westmead Hospital. It has small classes of students who (at the time I was a student) experienced a range of mental illnesses and disorders ranging from schizophrenia and psychosis, to anxiety, depression and eating disorders. Its aim is to rehabilitate, (for lack of a better word) students who face these various challenges. For some students it means just coming to the school daily instead of their regular school and meeting with nurses and doctors, and for others it means living on the ward during the week, with school in the day, and going home on weekends. I started off only attending daily, however because I was as reluctant to leave the house to go to this school as I was my own, I was quickly (with much protest) moved to a live in student.

Over the next two terms I grew to really love the place. I made some great friends, and loved all the staff members (most of the time). I loved that when school was finished I got to go back to the ward where we would play games, watch tv, play pool and generally have a good time. My school sent me all the work I needed to do, so I stayed up to date with everything I needed to learn. This meant that when I did eventually go back to school I wasn’t struggling to keep up.

In saying all that though, it wasn’t the easiest of six months. It also involved daily and weekly meetings with my case worker, psychologist and doctor, as well as family sessions. I can’t recall a specific point where I started feeling better in control of my anxiety, but by the end of my time there I was going to my own school a few days a week. I was really glad to see my old friends and school again but was still worried about returning.

In all my counselling sessions we discussed my anxieties and what I was feeling. Even though I hate being psychoanalysed and I’m not sure we ever came up with a concrete reason for why I was feeling anxious all the time. Somewhere in those six months I changed and grew and was able to cope with what I was feeling.

It wasn’t a magical cure though. For the next few years I still struggled with my anxiety, and although I was going to school every day, I sometimes found myself having a sudden sick day on days of school excursions. By the time I finished high school in year twelve to anyone else it was as though there was no more problem, and for the most part there wasn’t. I still get anxious about flying, and leaving my comfort zone, but am constantly challenging myself.

I know now what my fourteen year old self couldn’t work out, that the world isn’t going to end if I am sick away from home or in public. I developed along the way my own strategies of combatting anxiety, and it has worked. I stayed on the anti depressants until I was about halfway through uni, mostly because of a fear of relapse if I stopped taking them. That relapse didn’t come, and hopefully never will, but I am always conscious to keep my mental health in check whether that means talking to friends, or writing or just taking time out for me.

I have never thought of ending my own life, but if I hadn’t had been forcefully encouraged (if you like), to go get help, and if my mum, my family, my neighbours, my school, and my doctors hadn’t pushed for me to do it I may not have and if I had lived in that anxiety for an extended period of time, who knows where I would be now. Mental illness is a struggle, and when nobody wants to talk about it, or you have people (even close friends) around you telling you to “suck it up” and make yourself better because “You’re being a big cry baby” it makes it even harder to speak out.

When I had the flu I would tell people I had the flu, and when I broke my arm and missed a few days of school due to hospital visits I told people about that too. Why wouldn’t I? It was the truth right? While I was absent due to mental illness though I would tell my friends I had an undiagnosed mystery illness and that I had been sent to boarding school for a while and I’d be back to my normal school soon. I don’t know if my friends believed me at the time, and I didn’t really discuss it with them afterwards. Why did I need to? I was fine now.

I’ve added to the stigma associated with mental illness as much as everyone else. I felt ashamed that I had anxiety and depression, and even more I felt embarrased that I couldn’t just make it go away. I felt like there was something wrong with me, like I was a lesser person because everybody else at my school was fine. I didn’t want to try and explain what was wrong with me because I didn’t believe any of them would understand, and I was happier allowing people to believe terrible rumours about why I had been absent from school instead of just telling the truth. The truth is that even though it shouldn’t, stigma surrounding mental illness still exists today.

There are alarming figures about mental illness rates, with one in five Australians experiencing some form of mental illness in their lives. When there is an outbreak of chicken pox in a class of 20 kids once in a year it makes the news. One in five Australians is over four million Australians, which is far too great a number to stay silent about.

This Zip it campaign was a chance find when I felt a call to action in 2012. I felt lost and wanted to do something to help. I had given money to the Black Dog Institute, but knew I couldn’t just make a donation. I felt a need to speak out, and the best way to do that was to not speak at all. I love talking (a lot) and knew that besides being an easy money maker (given the number of people who would have paid money years ago to have me silent for a while), it was important for me to be an ambassador for mental health given my own struggles. So here I am back for round 3.

I know I don’t have the skills or resources to help every person who is struggling with mental illness, and to end suicide in Australia or in the world. I do have the freedom to be able to talk (minus one day) and write about it, and raise funds for the people who have the means to be able to make a difference. It doesn't have to be a life sentence, and you don’t have to struggle in silence.

To sponsor me or to find more out about Zip It, go to the link below.

https://www.mycause.com.au/page/80140/nataliezipsitformentalhealth2014