Category Archives: Mental Illness

Living A Truthful Life

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Are you living a truthful life? What does living a truthful life mean anyway? To me, living a truthful life means living an authentic life. It is a life where you are honest with yourself and the others in your life. It is life that follows the old saying of “The Truth Will Set You Free”. Stacy Sheasby of Inspring Joy Today does an excellent job of explaining that old saying.

Living a truthful life is not for the faint of heart. It is difficult, painful, confusing, and joyous all at the same. It requires effort, and internal introspection. It requires a person to be accountable for their own life, without any excuses.

I am attempting to live a truthful life. It is not something I have always attempted to do. In fact the majority of my life has been spent living an untruthful life. I have spent a lot of years lying to myself, lying to others, and just flat out living a lie. The different parts of me were compartmentalized. Part of me shown to this person, another part shown to me, while still yet another part for that group over there. No one, not even me, had access to the whole of me.

In her post, Stacy Sheasby, suggests that if the truth will set us free, then if we are not living a truthful life we are living in a prison. I agree with her. It is a prison of our own making, but never-the-less it is still a prison. My prison took the form of depression, a depression that endured most of my life, becoming more and more severe as I got older. Included in my prison were the Anxiety Guards, and the Panic Attack Warden. If I ever tried to step out of my depression prison cell the Anxiety Guards and the Panic Attack Warden would set off such fears in me that I always scurried back to my “safe” cell.

After many, many years in my self made prison, I grew tired, and hopeless. I chose a way of escaping that gave me an easy way out, one where I did not have to encounter the Anxiety Guards and the Panic Attack Warden. Even that escape did not work. I found myself waking up in a hospital, tethered to a bed and still in my prison.

I was told I had no choice but to begin therapy. I did. I really did not want to, but I did. The smartest move I made in my life was promising myself and others that I would always be truthful in my therapy sessions and with my psychiatrist and actually following through with that promise. So began my journey of attempting to live a truthful life. I could only manage it during those once a week, hour long sessions, but at least it was a beginning.

As time has gone by, and I have gained confidence, began to care about myself, and learned to look at and tell the truth about myself, I have gotten more into the habit of living a truthful life. It is still not easy, I do it more out of habit than actually wanting to do it, but I am attempting, every day, to live a truthful life.

I have experienced a few rewards as a result of my attempting to live a truthful life. My relationships with my family has improved. To think, all these years they have been waiting to hear what was on my mind and for me to set boundaries with them. My depression and anxiety has lessened a great deal. The best reward has been passing the lesson of living a truthful life on to my daughter and her “getting it”.

Anna recently had a accident and broke something of hers that had significant monetary value. She made the decision to not say anything to either me or her father about it. She had decided that since it was an expensive item that we would be mad if she told us. This morning I asked her about that item because I had noticed she had not been using it. She looked like a deer caught in headlights and then she ‘fessed up about the item being broken. I was mad, but I was able to use that as an opportunity to explain to her that there is nothing wrong with being mad, it is a real emotion. It is a truthful emotion. I was also able to use this incident to talk to her about living a truthful life. An hour or so after we had this conversation, she said that she “felt better” because she was no longer worried about being “found out”. She explained the feeling by saying it “felt like an annoying bug that would not go away”.

My hope is that by teaching her to live a truthful life now, she will not find herself locked up in a prison of her own making in the future. There is nothing more beautiful then someone who can live a truthful life from a young age and never has to experience the pain from being in prison for most of their life.

I have ventured more and more outside my depression prison, walking past the Anxiety Guards and Panic Attack Warden. In some ways I am still bound by that prison, but the more attempts I make at living a truthful life, the less hold depression, anxiety and panic attacks have on me. I am looking forward to the day when that prison has absolutely no hold on me.

Are you living a truthful life? Are you living in a prison of your own making? Are you honest with yourself about yourself? Are you honest with others about your thoughts and feelings? Are you honest without excuses? example, I could be happy but…

I am looking forward to seeing how everyone answers those questions.

Good Versus Bad

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Intellectually, I have always known that there is good anger and bad anger, however, emotionally any type of anger would cause me a great deal of anxiety. This would be true whether I was the one who was angry or if it was someone else. Learning how to deal with my anger and the anger of others appropriately has been a life long battle that I have only managed to get a little ahead of since I have been seeing my counselor.

A few things I have learned about anger is that good anger propels us into action and promotes growth. Bad anger is destructive and stifles growth. Good anger causes us to protect ourselves from harm, physical or mental. Bad anger causes harm.

Expressing anger appropriately is a freeing experience. That is part of what makes it good anger. People who can express their anger appropriately can let go of what made them angry in the first place and then move on. They feel less weighed down because they are not carrying a bunch of anger with them every where they go.

Bad anger is expressed in an out of control manner. It is often the result of not expressing ourselves when we are angry about something and it sits there and simmers, finally boiling over and taking out anyone in its line of fire. People who express their anger in this way have a hard time distinguishing between what is something that truly makes them angry and something that just irritates them. In both situations they react with the same out of control behavior.

When I was growing up, due to how things were in my family at that time, I did not express my anger very often. I did not speak up to the person that made me angry. My anger would just sit there, it took on a physical feeling. It literally felt as if the anger was just sitting in the pit of my stomach. It helped contribute to why I was a sad and angry teenager. I can remember going weeks and weeks without really talking to anyone, even in school, and then someone doing something to irritate me. I would then react horribly and say things that were not very nice.

Through my whole adult life I have done that same thing. Stuffing my anger into the pit of my stomach, with it only coming out in an uncontrolled manner. Soon all that anger and perceived wrongs that I was stuffing away, started seeping out. I became a very bitter and angry person. Apparently, it was even noticeable to people who did not know me well. I would often hear comments, like I needed to smile more, or how pretty I looked with a smile. I just could not manage to smile though, not with what I had boiling inside me.

This bad anger allowed me to see the world and the people in it as ugly things. It allowed me to keep people at least an arm length away from me. It contributed to the anger I felt towards my parents. Bad anger made it easy for me to be a negative person all the time.

This bad anger did not cause my depression, it was just one of the contributing factors. One of the ways in which my depression manifested itself was a very nasty, hair trigger temper. The anger I would feel would be considerably out of proportion to what actually triggered it. It was as if all that anger I had stuffed inside of me needed to be let out and I would pick the first handy target to take it out on.

With the aid of my counselor and my medications I have managed to let a lot of my anger go. Most of that anger that I have had boiling inside me for over 20 years, is gone. I feel lighter and freer than I can remember having felt. before. Unfortunately, when this anger starting going away and my anxiety lessened as well, I initially failed to see the balancing act I would need to maintain

I was so pleased at not dragging around all that bitterness and anger anymore, that I avoided feeling angery at all costs. Even when someone treated me disrespectfully. I would allow them to treat me in a way that I did not deserve and not say anything about it as a way to avoid getting angry.

The other day I finally got it. There is nothing wrong with feeling angry. It is a valid emotion. It is how we manage our anger that determines if it is going to be a good anger or a bad anger. If we choose to let it sit and boil and then come out in inappropriate ways we are not managing it very well and we have allowed it to become bad anger. However, if we take the time to express it in an appropriate way and release it, and not allow it to reside in us, we are managing our (good) anger well.

In what ways do you express your anger? Would you consider it good anger or bad anger? Is there anything you would like to change about your own anger management?

March Comment Challenge

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I wanted to share with ya’ll a really cool contest that is running on another blog. You can find it at Harriet and Friends. Harriet has challenged her fellow bloggers to make 1000 comments in the Month of March. The first one who gets to 1000 comments wins and the prize is a very cool blog button made by Harriet.

The rules are pretty simple, a few of them are listed here. For the complete list of rules please go to Harriet’s site.

Grab the Comment Challenge Button, you can see mine on the right hand side of my blog.
List your link on the linky
Post a comment on that page, that will get you started.
I am using a ticker from Ticker Factory to keep track of my amount of comments.

I really encourage ya’ll to check out the contest. I have met some really cool people hanging out at Harriet’s Place

I hope to see you there, Neighbors!

I Here-by Cancel Mother's Day

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I here-by cancel Mother’s Day in my house, and maybe after you see my reasons why, you might consider canceling it in your house. At the very least, if you cannot bring yourself to cancel it, you will view it from a different perspective.

The United States officially recognized Mother’s Day as an international holiday in 1914, as a result of a campaign by Anna Jarvis. Two years after her mother’s death she had memorial for her mother and at that time decided she would embark on the campaign to make “Mother’s Day” a recognized holiday.

What I find ironic is that Anna Jarvis,the woman responsible for the official Mother’s Day holiday, became disenchanted with the holiday due to its over commercialization. She was quoted as saying:

A printed card means nothing except that you are too lazy to write to the woman who has done more for you than anyone in the world. And candy! You take a box to Mother—and then eat most of it yourself. A pretty sentiment!

In the end, both she and her sister spent their inheritance campaigning against the holiday and died in poverty.

If Anna Jarvis got fed up with how Mother’s Day is treated, it is no wonder that I am. The four and five dollar Mother’s Day cards, all the little knick knack gifts devoted to Mother’s with cute sayings, the Mother’s Day breakfasts, lunches, and dinners at all the restaurants, adult children only showing appreciation to their Mothers on that day….the list could go on.

I believe all the commercialization of Mother’s Day has, in a way, puts pressure on our loved ones to make sure they get that “perfect” gift for us. Or take us out for that perfect meal. Or serve us the perfect breakfast in bed. (By the way I hate breakfast in bed, too many crumbs.) All of which, they feel compelled to do on that one “special day” There is also all of the adult children who do not grace their mothers with their presence most of the year, and then feel pressured to “show up” on Mother’s Day.

That same commercialization compels husbands and fathers to buy their mothers, mother-in-laws, wives and mother’s of their children diamonds and other jewels for Mother’s Day. Why not give them something glittery on the second Tuesday of a month? I would think that the jewelry would mean more on an unexpected day like that, than on Mother’s Day when every mother knows she is going to “get something”.

Personally, I appreciate the way my family shows me they appreciate me all through the year, much more than any grand Mother’s Day gesture. I love it when my husband is at the store without me and brings me home a new pair of pajamas. Or when out of the blue he comes up to me and gives me a hug or tells me he loves me. Or like what Anna did for me just the other night. She remembered how much I enjoyed looking through doll magazines, and how cute I found the little baby dolls with the funny/ugly faces. When she was out at the store with her father she found, what she thought, was the perfect little gift for me. A little baby doll with a funny face. She did it for no other reason than that she thought it would make me happy. Today Anna volunteered to help with doing the dishes.

I believe that the over commercialization of this holiday, starting close to the time it was created, turned what could have been a truly special time for mothers, into a time of stress for our families. The commercials on the TV and in newspaper ads make it seem like you are not a good person if you do not get your mother or wife a particular product or jewelry for Mother’s Day. It has made it so that Mother’s Day is a contest of sorts. “Hey! Look what I did for/got my mother.” While in our family member’s minds they are comparing their Mother’s Day gesture to what someone else did, with a secret hope that they out did the other person.

That is why I propose we cancel Mother’s Day. Rather than have an over commercialized holiday that pressures families to buy the perfect gift or go out for the perfect meal to celebrate the mothers in their lives, why not do away with the holiday altogether and celebrate the mothers in our lives all year long.

What do you think? Should Mother’s Day be canceled? Why? Why not?

Enjoy my rant, Neighbors!

Deep Breath In And Blow It Out

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I really appreciate everyone’s kind words. We could not find a vet to take Rosie last night, however, my husband found a vet that would take her early this morning. I could not bear to go with him to the vet, but he stayed with Rosie until everything was over.

Now that I am more calm I can relay what happened yesterday that made it so we had to put her to sleep.

She was an old dog, 14 years old. She had been a great family dog. As big as she was she had always been good with the kids. When Anna was an infant and crawling, Rosie would stand over her and herd her through the house. She would let Anna crawl all over her and when she got tired of it she would just wander off to another place in the house. She did not bark much and was friendly with most people. The only time she seemed to get upset about people coming to the house, was if a strange man came to the house when my husband was not home. When she was younger she loved to play soccer with the kids. She loved tennis balls and would play fetch with them for hours. However, she enjoyed fetch so much that she would bring sticks, rocks, or almost anything to you for you to play fetch with her.

As she got older she developed the normal things that older dogs do. She was mostly blind and deaf. She also had pretty bad arthritis. My husband, Farrol, and I had begun having discussions on how much pain she was probably in and how we did not want her to suffer anymore. However, we never really decided on doing anything for sure.

Yesterday, our neighbor came down in his truck to pick Farrol and Anna up and take them to pick up Farrol’s new truck. Rosie has known our neighbor since he was a kid and she was a puppy. They liked it each other. It seems when our neighbor was backing up to leave, Rosie was behind his truck. Something she never has done before. We think she did not hear when he started his truck up and she was in his blind spot. When he backed up, one of his tires rolled over her back, pelvis, and her back legs. It was a horrible, horrible accident. The fact that Anna was there when it happened and for something like to happen in my own front yard, just made it worse. I have to admit that I was angry and sad last night.

I feel so bad for our neighbor, he is a young man that really cares about animals and he is very upset. My daughter has known Rosie her whole life and she is terribly upset as well. My son was the one who named her, and I have been trying to get a hold of him and let him know but I have not been able to reach him. He was six when we got her. My husband, who was never a dog person until I married him, is very upset as well.

I have spent the day mostly just goofing off. Deep breathing and using my new relaxation techniques to deal manage my stress,  anger and sadness. I am feeling much better now. Has horrible as things played out, she was in pain before the accident happened, so at least now she is feeling absolutely no pain anymore.

Thanks for listening, Neighbors.

Sad News

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A young Rosie with a young Anna

Our fourteen year old german shepherd has taken a sudden bad turn. We are going to have to put her to sleep. I think our town has an emergency vet, if so my husband will take her tonight. If not then he will take her first thing in the morning.

I knew this day was coming, but I am still extremely sad.

The Art Of Procrastination

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I read a great blog post today, written by April Whitzman, titled Procrastinating? Click Here. She approaches the topic of  procrastination from the point of view that it is a good thing if it is done correctly. She even says that procrastination can improve the quality of our lives.

On the surface, I suppose it could be very easy to totally disagree with her views about procrastination, however,April Whitzman does an excellent and humorous job in presenting her case. She actually makes a list of things she does when she is procrastinating. Here are a few highlights from her list,

Twitter: There is nothing better than reading about pointless things that celebrities have done. If you’re really into procrastinating add me and watch me be a twit! @Alleycat17

Check Facebook for updates (Warning: This can become very addictive).

Clean. You’ll be surprised how many people sweep the floors or clean their dorm rooms to avoid doing the term paper. This is a great way to procrastinate as it’s definitely more productive and of course, there’s nothing like that great feeling of seeing that floor again

I can see value in some of the ways she procrastinates, the clean one for example. While she is avoiding tackling one icky project, she works on another that she has probably been procrastinating about doing. I think it is an amazing use of time that would otherwise be wasted.

There are things you can do while you are procrastinating that will help you relax, let go of some anxiety, and attempt to relieve some stress. If you get rid of any of those things it will instantly improve your life because it would just make you feel better.

Here are some things I do when I am procrastinating:

1. I pace the house, it gets my walking in for the day.

2. I check my twitter updates and have fun posting randomness, “The pepper jack cheese tastes good on my sandwich.” You can find me on twitter @melissamashburn

3. I hate to admit it but I play Yoville and Farmville on facebook when I am procrastinating.

4. I will do the dishes. I hate doing the dishes, the only time I truly seem to motivated to do them is when I am trying to avoid doing something else.

5. I work on my blog. Not just work on a post but I start messing around with the colors, graphics and plugins.

6. I will cook something

7.To put it delicately, I enjoy some alone time with my husband.

8. I will take a nap.

9. Play with my dog

10.  Now that I have some new relaxation techniques, I will be throwing them into my procrastination arsenal

I have to say, looking at procrastination in this way eliminates any guilt I was harboring about my own procrastination habit.   With less guilt, comes less stress, less stress makes me a happier person. If   I am careful about when I choose to procrastinate, like not doing it when I am supposed to be getting ready to go see a doctor, then I can see no reason to stop procrastinating altogether.

What do you do to procrastinate?

Have a wonderful, procrastinating day, Neighbors!

Funny How Things Work Out

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We are in desperate need of a vehicle. My husband had made plans to buy a truck from a friend for $300. It is actually a pretty decent truck for that little bit of money. It would be my husband’s vehicle because it is a stick and I do not know how to drive a stick shift. Unfortunately, his paycheck was not enough to cover buying the truck, and pay our bills too. He was very disappointed but knew there was nothing that could be done about it.

On his way home he stopped at his usual gas station and bought his usual scratch off lottery tickets. He buys them once a week and he never buy more than three or four. He usually just buys the lottery tickets that cost one or two dollars. I guess he was feeling so rotten that he decided to splurge and get himself a $5 scratch off lottery ticket. He won $500 off of that $5 lottery ticket. He was so excited. He used part of that money to get the truck, and then we used the rest for groceries. I was excited about going to the grocery store and not having to pay attention to the budget as much as I usually have to.

It is funny how things work out in the most unexpected ways sometimes.

I Love My Neighbors!

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Not Exactly What I Wanted To Hear

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Last week’s counseling session went pretty well. I was able to discuss something that had been on my mind for a couple of weeks. At the end of the session, my counselor said something that I thought was really good. She told me that if I were to walk into her office now, she would diagnose me with mild depression. She did also say we could not change my diagnosis at this point since I first started seeing her when my depression was so severe and I still need the extra care that someone with clinical depression needs. However, I did take what she said about my depression at this stage as a positive thing. I can see and feel that I am better than I was, but it sure is nice to have my counselor validate what I am feeling.

Yesterday it was time for me to see my psychiatrist for my regular medication check. I had question for him about my medications. When I was in the hospital for my asthma, my medication doses were not changed but instead of taking 150 m of effexor in the morning, the hospital had me take it 75 m at a time, once in the morning and once at night. With my welbutrin, they had me take 150 m in the morning rather than 75 m, morning and night. I asked him if changing how I took them for that length of time would make any difference in how they worked. He asked me if I had any symptoms come up during that time and they had not. So he said in his opinion changing them the way the hospital did was not detrimental to me at all.

I also told him I was back to almost no sleep at night and it was wearing me out. I asked if it was time for me to start taking something to help me sleep.

The answer he gave me was not exactly what I wanted to hear. The psychiatrist said that he could detect a great deal of anxiety in my voice and he thought that I was experiencing some extra anxiety that was making it difficult for me to sleep. He went on to say that he thought part of my anxiety was coming from me stressing about my medication. That I had gotten myself worried about things that were actually nothing to worry about. I know last week my mother said something about me getting “wound up” over making sure I had plenty of mirapex for my restless leg syndrome. He actually wrote in my chart that he felt I was moderately anxious. He said he wanted me to have my counselor teach me some more coping skills for anxiety and he felt that would be more helpful than prescribing anymore medication.

I guess he wants to keep an eye on me while I work through this anxiety episode, because instead of having to wait three months to see him again, like I had been doing, he wants to see me in four weeks.

I saw my counselor today, so I did not have to wait long before I could get her to teach me some more anxiety coping skills. The counselor did remind me that she had told me a number of months ago that I would experience some break through symptoms at some point. The time for that to happen seems to be now.

The counselor told me she thought I was handling it very good compared to how I would have last year. She also told me to not be hard on myself since I did not realize what was going on until the psychiatrist told me, and that if it had been given a few more days I would start to realize what was going on because the symptoms would be much more pronounced.

I am using my support system and using the people in my life who are the most helpful and trusting them to let me know when they think I am not doing as well as I could be.

The counselor also reminded me that learning about my emotions is probably the hardest part of my recovery process to date.

I will definitely have to manage my anxiety a bit better. I think the relaxation techniques my counselor will be helpful. I just have to remember to use them when I feel that anxious feeling.

Have a great evening Neighbors!

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The Queens Tuesday Meme – March 10, 2010

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The Never Should Meme
Brought to you from the sunny beaches of Somewhere whilst on vacation.

I actually believe that if “shoulds” and “nevers” were banned from the English language we’d all be better off. Who needs to live in absolutes? Should evokes unnecessary and unhealthy guilt.
Never is never enough no matter what you should be doing. Not ever! See? But in this fill-in-the-blank exercise you can be as dogmatic and brutal as you dare.
After today’s meme, lose the words.
Seriously.
You should.
Oh, never mind.

1. If I never see _hospital turnip greens_again it will be too soon.

2. Should I meet my Maker tomorrow, I would ask for one more day on earth to write letters to those i I love.

3. Never in my life have I __watched the rain__like I did today.

4. I should always allow more time to __talk to my daughter_.

5. I should’ve never listened to _Mr. Rogers__ while under the influence of _cold medicine.

6. I never _breakdown _in my car but I should always carry __flashlight_with me just in case.

7. I should spend more money on _my computer__ because it makes me happy. I should spend less money on _bills_because it makes me sad.

8. _Secrets__ should never be shared with strangers.

9. I should tell _a certain person_that I never really meant to _hurt their feeligns.

10. Never in a million years would I want you to know __I am not saying.