Secret Lives

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I use to pray she had a disease that was more acceptable. I wished she had a disease that we could all wear pink ribbons for and race for a cure, a disease that a community supported. Mental illness has never had that. A child with bipolar will grow into an adult with bipolar. No races or celebrity visits to the hospital. Instead of people running in hopes of making you better they run away from you fearful that your social stigma might stick to them like a bad smell. Crazy doesn’t rub off.

That powerful quote came from a post written by Valerie Furas, titled I Have a Secret.  Her post about the social stigma she and her family endured as a result of her older sister’s Bi-Polar diagnosis really touched me and also inspired me to write about my own thoughts of the social stigma that people with mental health issues face.

I often wonder, in this day and age with so much information at our fingertips, why there is still so much stigma attached to people with mental health issues.  My personal opinion is that a lot of it is based on fear.  I am sure that some of the fear is based on misinformation and misunderstanding.  However, I believe some of it is possibly due to the fact that people may see themselves in someone who has been diagnosed with a mental illness, and it scares them.

So many people lead secret lives, where they hide what they consider frailties.  They live in fear that their own mental health issues will be discovered, or that they could get worse.  When they encounter someone who has been diagnosed with a mental illness, they are afraid that what is reflected back to them will be noticed by others and their secret will be out.  The easiest way for them to hide this, is to treat that other person with disdain and an appearance of not understanding.

I do not know about everyone else, but since I have been in therapy and have changed many things about my thinking, and speaking, sometimes it is easy to identify someone who might have an undiagnosed mental health issue.  It shows in their bodies, their speech, tone of voice and various other things.  So to me it is conceivable that we could be making people who are leading secret lives feel intimidated and frightened.

The best and possibly only solution that I can think of, is that those of us who have a mental health issue, or who have a family member with one, and are comfortable speaking about it, continue to do so.  We can be examples to others that there is nothing to fear by letting the world know.  In fact we can show them by how we interact with each other, that there are many people who are willing and able to offer them support and friendship.

The challenge I have made for myself and would like to encourage others to take up, is no matter what disdain or social stigma we may face, to always treat those misguided people with dignity and respect.  They very well could be leading a secret life and acting out of fear.

All Is Well…

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I saw my counselor on Wednesday, and she had some encouraging words for me.  However, she also had some pretty scary words.  She said she thought I was doing really well with this detour and in her opinion, it was more about relearning behavior than the medications not working properly.  She discussed how I really dislike facing strong emotions head on, and in order to traverse the detour I needed to start figuring out an appropriate way for me to do that.  The counselor gave me some suggestions, but did let me know that this was going to be a trial and error process, rather than just picking a strategy and knowing it will work.  I let her know that I really disliked trial and error, her reply, “I know”.

I have sort of fallen back into the pattern of going with the flow, only with some people, because it is easier than rocking the boat.  The counselor told me I needed to stop doing that.  So once again, I will be rocking the boat, which does not make all the people in my life happy.  In fact, it makes some of them very uncomfortable because when I change and put boundaries up and expect to be treated a certain way, that means they have to change their behavior as well.  Just like I believe depression is a family disease, recovery is a family thing as well.

I have a confession, I really liked when I first started taking this medication combo, because it really dulled my emotions, and I did not feel anything strongly.  Now that my mind and body are used to the medications, I feel emotions more.  Not as much as someone who did not take those medications, but more than I did when I first started taking them.  I would not have been upset if the counselor decided I needed my medications increased because I figure it would have dulled my emotions down again.  So now I have to figure out how to deal with my emotions rather than have them dulled down some more.

The counselor said something that I have been thinking about a great deal.  I am intelligent and I enjoy being intelligent.  She told me that my intelligence was getting in the way of my recovery.  Basically, I am spending more time examining how to deal with something, rather than just doing it.  I am over analyzing things.  At first I was rather confused by what she said, now I understand it more.

I saw my medical doctor yesterday, and he said all things considered, two hospitalizations which included steroids, he thought I was doing pretty good with my diabetes.  An unfortunate side affect of steroids is that it raises a person’s blood sugar and mine got o pretty high during one of my hospital stays. I have to have some blood work within the next few weeks, one test that will be done is something called an A1C test.  Basically, it gives you an idea of how your blood sugar has been over several months.  Ideally, a diabetic’s A1C should be under seven.  The doctor and I discussed the fact that it will be highly unlikely that mine will be within the target range because of the steroids.

Personally, I think everything I heard from both my counselor and medical doctor is good news.  Some of it challenging, that whole trial and error thing, but overall good news.

She

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She  believed she could come back from the brink of life, so she did.

She believed she could go from being unbalanced to having her feet firmly planted, so she did.

She believed she could go from an internal and eternal sadness to a place of peace and hope, so she did.

She believed that she could nimbly step around detours, so she did.

She knew she could grow and change and live and learn, so she did.

She believes she will have a life filled with beauty, love, satisfaction and happiness, so she will.

Beautiful Bloggers

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Who or What is a Beautiful Blogger?

A Beautiful Blogger is someone who blogs with truth, honesty and integrity.  They blog from their heart, sharing their story, humor, and life with others.  They go out of their way to support others, giving of themselves to provide encouragement and brighten someone’s day.  They glow with a beauty that comes from within, and it shows in what they write and how they interact with others.

The people who are getting the first of the Beautiful Blogger Awards are:

Livi from Livi’s Little Bubble

Angela from Your Story Matters

@VoiceinRecovery

Amy from Una Vita Bella (Living A Beautiful Life)

Bipolarette Dana from Bipolarette

Kris from Our Journey through life

bubbleboo from The Thought Bubble

Susan from A Journey

There are no rules, or requests attached to this award.  You can pass it on to someone you think fits the description or not pass it on, whatever you feel like doing. If you do pass it on maybe you could ask  whoever receives it, to post a little comment here, with the link back to their page.  I think it would be cool to see who all ends up with it.  You can either use my description for the award or make one up of your own.

I hope you understand and like why I picked the picture I did for the award.

All you have to do to claim your award is to right click and then click on save image as.  It will then be on your computer and you can use whatever you normally do to put pictures on your blog.

Three Things I have Learned From Blogging

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I am constantly amazed by the things I continue to learn in my blogging journey.  It goes beyond learning what other people are interested in, or even what people think about my writing.  I found something in my blogging that provides me with food for my soul.

Through blogging I learned that I have an awesome support system, outside of my family.  I have met people that I would not have any other way. In the last week my support has been there with encouraging words for me, an understanding of what I am going through, and a clarity that I did not have at the moment.

Blogging has taught me a lot about expressing myself.  Although I have a long way to go, it has been here, on these pages, that I began my first forays into the art of self expression.

Learning that I can make difference from my blog has really made me feel proud.  During the month of May, when most if not all of my posts were centered around Mental Health Awareness, I was able to use my blog to get information out to people.  I hope that what I wrote helped in the efforts to get rid of the stigma that surrounds people with mental health issues.

What three things have you learned from blogging?

Thank you, Joshua Pitts, for inspiring me to write this.

My Daughter's Inheritance

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When I think of the word inheritance several things come to my mind, money, property. a house, and personal items.  Sometimes I think about a bumper sticker I occasionally see on cars around here,  it says, “I am spending my children’s inheritance”.  In other words, what I usually think of when it comes to the word inheritance is material things.  Tangible items that can be owned, sold or fought over.

Today, I started thinking about the intangible things that our children inherit from us.  Body type, personality traits, facial features, and diseases, are just a few of these.   Obviously some of the intangible things that they can inherit are more desirable than others. Big, beautiful eye lashes (which my brother got) are more desirable than ending up with a replica of the big, hairy mole that mom has on her nose.  There is a benefit to this type of inheritance, most likely no one will fight over who gets what, like they would over who gets dad’s toenail collection.

Unless I win the lottery, my daughter will probably not inherit much in the way of material things from me.  She will get a few, very special, sentimental items, but nothing of any real value.   As far as her intangible inheritance goes, she has already received a sizable portion of it.  I wish I could say all of what she has inherited is good, but that is simply not true.  She is stuck with a gene pool she partially inherited from me, as well as personality and behavioral traits she received from the examples I displayed in front of her.

Some of what she has inherited is being at a higher risk for developing diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and restless leg syndrome.  She even has a higher chance of developing depression.  She already exhibits symptoms of the anxiety I modeled in front of her (starting when she was very young), causing her to be painfully shy at times. Her inheritance also includes migraines, skin that is easy to sunburn, and a gift for sarcasm.

She inherited my love for books, staying up late, reading with a flash light just like I used to do.  She got her beautiful, red, curly hair from both sides of her family.  Her annoying stubbornness definitely came from her father, there is no doubt in my mind where her intelligence comes from.  Her ability to roll her eyes around in her head when she is annoyed seems to be an inherited trait that the women on my side of the family all seem to possess.

Her inheritance has included a good sense of humor, a caring nature, and a love of animals. She has my nose and her father’s chin, and has received some tall gene, because at thirteen she is almost taller than me.

The things I would like her to inherit in the future are a strong sense of self worth, the ability to be open about her feelings, the strength to never give up and the knowledge of how much she is loved.

What is your child/ren’s inheritance?

Time Management Progress

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Based on a post I did last week, Time, I decided that I would try and improve my time management skill, and post about my progress.

I have not had to be on a schedule since I posted that, except for keeping up with my counseling appointments.  In an effort to not miss anymore of my counseling appointments due to my forgetfulness, I posted this weeks appointment time in several locations.  Even with doing all that, I still got it in my head that my appointment was today, and it really is tomorrow.  My notes are all correct, it is just the information in my brain that is wrong. Oh well, at least I caught the error before I showed up at my counselor’s office today, the wrong day.

Despite that, I do think I am doing better.  I put reminders up to make sure I remember to post this, and also a reminder for the Thankful Five post I did yesterday.  Small steps.  As long as I am moving forward that is all that matters.

Six Word Definition Of Me

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I read something on Tomato Baby that caught my interest.  It was challenge to condense your life story into exactly six words.  This is not the first time I have read this, the first time was at least two months ago.  Quite frankly, when I read it the first time, I thought condensing my memoir into six words was an impossibility.   I like to use too many words when I write, and all I could think of was how in the world would I be able to describe my life with only six words.

I decided to revisit the challenge and attempt to come up with my six word life story.  This is my six word memoir.

was broken, now healed, totally free

If you had to condense your life story into exactly six words, what would they be?

Thankful Five

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As I said I would, I am going to post five things I am thankful for every week. It all started from a post I did last week called A Time To Be Thankful which I was inspired to write by a blog post by Chere Michelle.

  • I know I said this last week, but I am still thankful for being thankful.
  • I am thankful I received so many blog comments today, it means a lot when people take the time to say something about what I have written.
  • I am thankful for a husband who has stuck around even when things were so incredibly hard on him.
  • I am thankful for my little dog, Minnie.  She provides me with so much comfort.
  • I am thankful for the ability to laugh.

I would love to see what five things other people are thankful for.

Super Cool Mom!

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Olive Garden Feast - salad, mussels, crab stuffed mushrooms, calamari, 5 cheese fondant

I had a Super Cool Saturday with my mom! My mom treated me to a day of shopping and feasting. However, as much as I really appreciated my mom treating me, that is not what made it so much fun. What made it fun for me is that this is the first time, in a very long time, that my mother and I had an outing that did not involve doctor’s appointments and other people.

One of the things that dawned on me yesterday, is that my Mom is probably one of the most thoughtful people I know. She simply gives of herself, and the impression I get is that she does not expect anything in return, except maybe some appreciation. Yesterday was a great example of that. Mom had set aside some money for me to go shopping with. She did not make a big deal about it, she just handed me some folded up bills and told me to do some shopping too. Mom knows without me having to say anything, that I just do not get to shop for clothes as much as I would like. She also knows that I am slowly trying replace my wardrobe. Being depressed for several years and not interested in wearing anything other than pajamas and worn out clothes, means many of my clothes are not decent to wear out in public. As much as I appreciated the money, and believe me I do, the fact that she was that thoughtful, trying to make sure I enjoyed myself and was able to purchase things that made me feel good, means more than any amount of money she could have given me.

Our conversations during the day meandered around from the serious, to the silly.  We talked about my depression and how much better things are going, to what my life is like with a thirteen year old and what her life is like with a sixty-five year old, who is talking about retiring (my dad).   There were also times of comfortable silence. It is evident to me that my mother is trying very hard to understand my depression, and how it affects me and my thinking.  She really listens without judging.

It makes me feel good that I cause her less worry, at least I think I do.  She has noticed the change in me and comments about it often.  She even told me she thought I was wise.  It made me feel proud when my mother said that.  Me wise? That is probably a word I never would have applied to myself.

The highlight of the day for me was when I made her laugh out loud, a very loud honking laugh.  We had gone to Petsmart and bought a couple of toys for the dogs. I said something about giving the toy to Anna when we got back home and telling her that I went shopping and brought her back a dog toy.  As soon as I said that mom honked out a very loud “HA!”  It was great!

The picture of our Olive Garden feast is in the thumbnail.  We had salad, bread sticks, calamari, crab stuffed mushrooms, a really terrific oven baked cheese dish (it had five different cheeses in it), and mussels.  An all appetizer lunch.  The waitress even said that she was going to have to do that sometime.

It was a wonderful day.  Not because of the clothes that were bought, and the wonderful meal we had, but because of the special time I was able to have with my mother.  I am truly blessed we repaired our relationship, and that I have this time with her.

These are pictures of most of the shirts I bought yesterday.  I am wearing one of them.