10-31-19

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ORTHERN IOWAN

THE

the University of Northern Iowa’s independent, student-produced newspaper since 1892 UNIVERSITY OF NORTHERN IOWA CEDAR FALLS, IA

CEDAR FALLS, IA

THURSDAY, APRIL 5

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 31

VOLUME 114, ISSUE 42

VOLUME 116, ISSUE 18

FOREIGN POLICY

FILM REVIEW

WOMENS BB

NEWS PAGE 2

CAMPUS LIFE PAGE 5

SPORTS PAGE 6

Former U.S. ambassador and UNI alum leads foreign policy discussion.

Film Critic Hunter Friesen reviews “The Current War.”

Panthers defeat Upper Iowa 67-40.

Author Sandra Cisneros visits UNI ELIZABETH KELSEY News Editor

For author Sandra Cisneros, writing is a personal and restorative process. “As artists, we have to break our hearts open in two every time we write,” she said, addressing the full Lang Hall Auditorium on Monday, Oct. 28 at 7 p.m.

Cisneros is the best-selling author of “The House on Mango Street,” “Woman Hollering Creek,” “Caramelo,” and many other short stories and poems depicting the Latina experience. She visited UNI as part of the Hearst Lecture Series, founded in 1988 by James S. Hearst in honor of his late wife, Meryl Norton Hearst. Cisneros is

the first of five speakers in the 2019-2020 Hearst Lecture Series, hosted this year by the Department of Languages and Literatures. Throughout the night, Cisneros emphasized the healing power of writing. “If you want to write about something important, try writing about the things you can’t talk about, and better

GABRIELLE LEITNER/Northern Iowan

yet, write about the things you wish you could forget, rather than the things you can remember,” she said. “Writing for me is about transformation, and it’s about transforming those memories that could kill us into illumination.” Cisneros opened the lecture by reading her short story “Eleven,” published in “Woman Hollering Creek” in 1991. The story describes a young girl’s humiliation when, on her eleventh birthday, she is forced to wear an ugly sweater which her teacher incorrectly believes to be hers. Before reading “Eleven,” Cisneros addressed the young people in the audience, including two children who were ten and eleven years old. She said that, though many of her works are not written explicitly for children, they are books that children “approve of ” and “insist on reading.” After reading the story, Cisneros encouraged attendees to persevere in the face of rejection. “As soon as I sent that

story into the press in Boston hoping to get a nice big check, they sent it back and said, ‘This isn’t for kids!’” she said. “But you should never be defeated by rejection, because that story is my best-seller. It’s my big hit.” Next, Cisneros read excerpts from her 2012 book “Have You Seen Marie?,” written in the wake of her mother’s death. In the story, the main character searches for a missing cat while coming to terms with her mother’s passing. Cisneros said that the process of writing the book helped her process and heal. “When you lose your mom, it’s one of those losses that you never get over. You just learn how to live alongside it,” she said. Reading from the afterword of “Have You Seen Marie?,” Cisneros said, “I knew as I was writing this story that it was helping to bring me back to myself. It is essential to create when the spirit is dying.” See CISNEROS, page 2

Speaker encourages mental health discussion COLBY WEBER Staff Writer

Trigger warning: The following article contains themes of suicide, mental health, bullying and drug use. Over the course of Ross Trowbridge’s hour-and-a-half long presentation on mental health, an average of 90 people lost their lives to suicide. In total, nearly one million people die by suicide worldwide each year. Included within that number are individuals diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), which has a suicide rate of 10 to 15 percent. During his presentation on Tuesday, Oct. 29 in the Maucker Union ballrooms, Trowbridge hoped to encourage discussion about mental illness. “I’m not a motivational speaker or a comedian,” he said. “I’m some dude with BPD. It’s good to have a discussion about mental health

and issues. Everybody has been impacted by mental illness in some way in their life. I’m not unique. I’ve battled mental health issues for 25 years, and I’ve had two to three suicide attempts and suicide ideation.” Trowbridge was diagnosed with BPD at the age of 35 after being misdiagnosed with OCD, general anxiety disorder, bipolar disorder and addiction. Symptoms of this disorder include behavior such as unstable personal relationships, harmful impulsivity, intense anger and suicidal behavior. Although Trowbridge doesn’t believe he had a bad childhood, he mentioned that his parents were divorced. He showed early signs of potential mental illness such as being overly sensitive and analytical. In addition, he felt that he was very passive and paranoid. From a young age, he learned to shut off his emotions and

escape through substances. “I smoked my first cigarette when I was 12,” Trowbridge said. “I bought cigarettes from a vending machine and my friends and I would sneak off. I had my first drink at the age of 13. Baseball was my first drug, I was obsessed. I never felt like I had a purpose, so I really clung to that. I wasn’t scholarly, so I focused on sports and girls.” Trowbridge hung out around jocks, but he was bullied to the point of crying after school. After being forced to try out for a play, he began to gain more confidence in himself through various acting roles. In 1997, he was pulled over for an OWI, and he was diagnosed with major depressive disorder at the age of 18. He’s currently 40, and the diagnosis that he was given at that time made him feel labeled and broken. Between the ages of 20 and 35, Trowbridge felt that he

GABI CUMMINGS/Northern Iowan

was functional. “I was able to handle BPD with the right support system,” he said. “I went from zero to six kids in three years, and I had two sets of twins within 22 months. I really clung to that identity, but it only lasted for four years and then I fled. My identity was career and work.” In late 2014, Trowbridge left a senior management

position that he had held for seven years. He moved from Dubuque, Illinois to Des Moines, Iowa, and married a woman two months after they had gotten together who also had BPD. He smoked methamphetamine for the first time and had an allergic reaction to it, and after that he hasn’t felt the same. See MENTAL HEALTH, page 5


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