Becoming Elsa

I know the world is probably about to the point where a vast number of people are entirely tired of hearing about Disney's Frozen. It's been all over the internet since the movie's release Thanksgiving weekend, "Let it Go" has been covered dozens of times, and young children seem to be watching parts or all of it every moment they get the chance since the movie came out on DVD. And I've pushed the hype as much as many. After seeing the movie once, I sent a close friend a long list of reasons that she should want to go see it. I saw the movie 5 times in theaters (3 times in 2D at a cheap theater near me, 2 times in 3D at pricier establishments). I got the soundtrack only days after first seeing the movie and have listened to it nearly nonstop since, eventually also getting a hold of the piano/vocal music book as well. But all of the hype surrounding the movie regarding how progressive it is, how feminist it is, how amazing the music is, etc. - all of these things play only a minor part in why I love this movie so much.
I love Frozen because of how it parallels my own life - because of how Elsa's journey parallels my own life. While the rest of the world is obsessing over Anna and her loveable quirkiness, awkwardness, and imperfection, I find that there is only one other fictional character in existence that I identify with as much as I identify with Elsa. And it's because both Elsa and the other character parallel my experiences with mental illness.
The first time I saw Frozen, I'd had a rough day, almost didn't even want to go, and spent the first part of the movie just kind of experiencing it and trying to escape from all the emotions that were welling up inside. Then I heard "Let it Go" and basically bawled through the whole song because this character was able to accomplish something that I'd been striving for for a long time and never able to grasp. In the days that followed that first viewing, I reflected on the story I had just seen and realized how much it paralleled mental illness. Not that Disney necessarily intended to do that, but I saw so many of the parallels. I started digging online and found that I wasn't the only person who felt that way, discovering dozens of blog posts where people related to Elsa because of their depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, autism, etc.
Do you want to gain some understanding of what it feels like to have a panic attack? Watch the scene where Elsa loses control of her powers at the end of the coronation ball through when she runs away into the mountains (the portion of the movie that accompanies the portion of the score entitled "Sorcery" - I know too many things...) When a situation gets uncomfortable, I can usually feel the panic attack coming on, and my first instinct is to try to escape whatever the situation is, especially if I'm surrounded by people, even more so when the people around me don't know about my anxiety. When my escape is blocked, the panic attack comes anyway but now in front of everyone else, most of whom don't understand what's going on. Unlike some people with anxiety, I don't fear having panic attacks or not being able to stop them; I had some tension-related breathing issues in high school and use the same relaxation techniques to work myself out of a panic attack that I did back then. But with my social anxiety, I fear having a panic attack with other people around to see it; I even avoid having panic attacks in front of my parents, whom I trust more than even my closest of friends. So starting to have a panic attack in front of other people, especially ones who don't understand what's going on, is a completely mortifying experience for me. All I can think about it getting out as soon as I can. And when people don't understand what's going on, they tend to overreact. Some people bombard me with questions that satisfy their needs but not mine. Some people expect me to be able to just shut it off. Some people look at me awkwardly like I'm a crazy person. I even once had someone ask if they should call an ambulance. And when people overreact, it makes me feel even worse and makes me want to escape more. And the more that I try to escape and fail, the worse it gets. All I can think about is getting away where no one can judge me for what just happened and where my problems won't bother anyone else because if I've learned one thing about people in the last 5 years of my life it's that they don't want you around when you can't at least fake being happy 100% of the time.
The first times I watched Frozen, I was so jealous of Elsa up on her mountain. The opportunity to escape and be completely free of the expectations of others. Is it lonely sometimes? Sure. But it sure as heck beats trying to hide your deepest secret from people or deal with their reactions after they find out. If it weren't for the necessity of making a living, I would probably already be a hermit. As much as I enjoy the presence of others, 90% of the time it's not worth the pain that comes with it.
Soon after watching Frozen, I decided that I was going to embrace "Let it Go" as my anthem for the year. I focused on accepting myself as someone who is less than perfect but tries to do their best. My therapist praised me for this as it's what she'd been encouraging me to do for almost a year where, after hearing about all that my job as a teacher requires, she as a former teacher declared the expectations unrealistic. And the three weeks that the feeling lasted, I felt more amazing than I had in a long time. But it didn't last.
One blog post I read soon after seeing Frozen criticized Elsa's "Let it Go" as a declaration of "screw it all" that left a mess that she really should have paid for. And in a way, I think she kind of did have to answer for her actions when she was captured and brought back to Arendelle to "bring back summer." At the time I was offended and enraged at the post because of how closely I identified with Elsa; understanding at some level the motivations behind her actions, I fiercely defended her (but entirely in my head because getting into internet comment wars is a fruitless waste of time). Except, let's be serious, there are some aspects of the blog post that are kind of right, as I was about to learn the hard way.
In my three weeks of "Let it Go" I pushed myself to do the best I could without sacrificing my personal wellness. And it got me into some seriously sticky situations at work, dealing with which sent me into the worst bout of anxiety I have ever experienced in my life. For about a month I was having multiple panic attacks nearly every day, and, on schooldays, often multiple panic attacks before even making it to school in the morning. There were days when I could barely hold it together teaching, when I would cry or have a panic attack at my desk in the corner during passing time. Certainly days when I probably should have called in sick but knew that if I didn't come one day, it'd be even harder to show up the next. I couldn't focus enough in the evening without having anxiety about not getting everything done, which meant that everything took longer so that everything didn't get done, and it became a vicious circle. And I missed out on other things that I didn't want to miss out on, like dinner celebrating the birthday of one of my closest friends, but I felt like it was better to isolate myself. And, not unlike Elsa, I had people telling me "This is your mess. Fix it. Now." And the only response running through my head was, "Dude, if there were just a switch that I could flip and fix it and be able to function like a normal person, don't you think I would have done that already?" I don't know how to not see other people as threatening presences who will turn on me, think less of me, or hate me for being anything less than perfect. Even when it's a stranger. Even when it's something tiny like not knowing where to find something in a store. If I knew how to do that, my life would be much easier than it is. But I'm trying to get there.
It's a process that I'm working through, that, after spending most of college in more of a "crisis management" mode with my on-campus counselor, I'd actually been working on going through for almost a year with my current counselor at the point that everything exploded. And, outside of the fact that I now feel comfortable going to see a movie by myself, I feel like I've lost all of the accomplishments that I had made. I'm back to having panic attacks every time that I see a parent email show up in my inbox or on nights that I have conferences. I'm convinced that if I make a mistake or can't be as much of a super-teacher as my coworkers, they'll hate me and think I'm dumb and unworthy to be a teacher (which I had just started getting past after my rough end-of-the-year experience last year). And, as I mentioned before, it's not even back to square one but has gone backward further than that - I've never had so many panic attacks in a day before or had panic attacks so many days in a row before. It's defeating. I can't even work to make the improvements I'm being asked to make because I'm so busy just trying to get back to being functional and feeling like a person. Even through Spring Break I couldn't relax because the whole time I felt guilty for not doing all of the school stuff that I should have been doing to both catch up and get ahead.
Right now I'm Elsa trapped in a white-out blizzard of my own accidental creation striving to find a way out. And, while unlike Elsa I do  have some supportive people in my life, I haven't found my Anna figure who can not only accept me for who I am and defend me to other people but who can help me learn to control my anxieties and who has the power to help everyone around me to see past my weaknesses. Not that I can't do it on my own, but mental illness is so much easier to cope with when you have someone who can both support you and help advocate for you when advocating for yourself isn't enough.
Now, while Elsa certainly isn't perfect, I will still defend her to the end because, at least on some level, I understand why she does what she does. And at least her motivations involve protecting the people around her because she's afraid that her power will hurt them. My motivations are based entirely on wanting to protect myself and how other people see me no matter how it affects other people. Where some of her critics judge her as a selfish person who does whatever the heck she wants no matter who it hurts, I see someone who's spent her whole life giving up what she really wants in an attempt to save the people around her from something inside herself that she thinks is dangerous. If she's selfish, than I must be an awful person because when my anxiety gets out of control, I isolate myself for my own sake without caring who it hurts because I spend most of my life trying to live up to other people's expectations of how I should act and sometimes it takes being selfish to turn back into a functional human being. I've been known to sit in one of my church's only two women's bathroom stalls for 20-30 minutes on a Sunday morning not caring about the massive line than I'm causing because I'm trying to calm myself out of a panic attack (or out of having a new one every time I consider leaving the bathroom stall). Others of Elsa's critics criticize the transformation of her appearance during "Let it Go" as anti-feminist and a bad image for little girls where I see someone who discards the style that she's expected to wear (it was her coronation outfit after all) in favor of something that suits the person she feels like she is and that's more comfortable. I do the same thing every day after school when I discard my teacher clothes (which I absolutely hate) and throw on something more casual. In the warmer months, this usually means throwing on a cami and short shorts; at least Elsa still looked classy whereas I'm fairly certain my outfit probably looks pretty trashy.
I say "becoming" Elsa because, as mentioned earlier, I identify with and relate to so many of her struggles, but I'm still waiting on the happy ending. Not that life is all about a "happily-ever-after," which I'm well aware is totally unrealistic. Mental illness is an everyday battle that never goes away. But I'm told that it can be controlled and coped with well enough to live life like a relatively normal person. I'm not there yet. I'm in the worst of the storm. But there's hope.