How Dare You....

It's been a while since I gave a good ole' rant. If you were looking to read one today, then you're in luck.

Dear Daily Mail,

I recently read an article on your site trying to smear a political presidential candidate's wife and frankly, it pissed me off. I would like to say that I respectfully disagree with your posting of Mrs. Cruz's personal information but that would imply that I have even a shred of respect for your paper, of which I do not. Not that I am a supporter of Ted Cruz, because honestly, I can't stand the guy. I am angry because once again a public social site is using something personal and something that has happened to many people as a smear campaign. Something that only further stigmatizes and shames people that have the complete and utter balls to get help when they are suffering from something that most people are too afraid to even speak about.

Apparently Mrs. Cruz had a bout with depression. Now, I have no idea why this is anyone's business. It seems to me, that it is her personal issue and it should only be revealed if she wants it to be. Her bout of depression is her story and her life and it is not for anyone else to judge or in this case, slander, to make a headline or to try and destroy someone else's credibility simply because they want to try and make some kind of point.

I don't know the Cruz's. Never met them. I am not standing up for her because I have some familiarity with her. I am standing up for her because in doing so I am standing up for the millions of people that suffer from mental illnesses whether it be permanent or temporary. I am standing up for us because guess what Daily Mail? Mental illness is real. It is not a sign of weakness or a character flaw. It is not something to be ashamed of or something to use to smear someone's reputation. It is not something to be looked down upon. It is simply a misfiring of chemicals in the brain. That's it. That is all it is.

And how dare you imply, that because this woman had a small bout of depression, that she is somehow less worthy to be anything that she sets out to be simply because she had the guts to openly admit that she was going through something really hard to deal with. How dare you instigate the same tired old regurgitation we have all been force fed for decades that having mental illness means that you are somehow less than or untrustworthy. How dare you make her personal battle, that is none of your freaking business, something to poke fun at and use it against her and her husband, whether you agree with his politics or not. How dare you!

 At least, she was honest about it and honesty is what we need to fight such things as depression and other mental illnesses. Because honesty keeps it in the forefront. Honesty makes it real to the masses. Honesty makes people not afraid to speak up when they need help. It makes people sit up and listen when it is important to do so. We lose more people to suicide in the US than we lose in car accidents ( As I am sure  you already know since you wrote a article about that too). People that could be helped. People that could have been saved but weren't because they didn't feel like other's would be supportive. Because they didn't think other people would understand. Because of shitty articles like yours, that seem to make suffering from mental illness either a joke to be sneered at or political fodder to be ridiculed. You article isn't informational as much as it is biased. I am glad that you have never had to deal with something like depression. I wish we all had such amazing luck. Unfortunately, this is the real world and depression actually exists.  Your article is discriminatory as much as it is insulting to those of us who live with mental illness on a daily basis. It offers no helpful advice nor any real substance at all. All it does, and poorly I might add, is use this poor woman's struggles as a stepping stone to try and make your "paper" or "online news source" appear to still be relevant. Which for me, it no longer is. So, thanks for that.

You want to get into a discussion about mental illness, then do it. Don't be coy and beat around the bush. Don't slant the article to your point of view, which is completely ignorant of facts. Don't call people out and shame them with something they have nothing to be ashamed about it in the first place. You want to write real news? Then do so, but try reporting something that is actually news worthy and Mrs. Cruz's battle with depression isn't news. It is personal and it has nothing to do with you or her husband's aspirations to become the next president of the United States of America.

There is no black and white when writing about mental illness. Either your article aims to teach others about mental illnesses and lift up those of us that suffer from them or your article aims to damn us and stigmatize us further. There is no middle ground. You can not do both. In this case, you chose to humiliate sufferers simply to make a political point and not only is that despicable, it is is completely unnecessary.

Shame on you. Shame on you for being ignorant and judgemental and shame on you for implying that just because someone has had a struggle with mental illness that they are somehow less of a capable human being than those that have not.

 My only regret after reading such drivel, is that I no longer own a pair of pet birds so that I could print out your "publication" and line the bottom of their cage with it, but that would take time out of my day and be a monumental waste of printer ink. And, frankly, your articles aren't worth the five dollar ink cartridge replacement and I could use the five minutes it would take me to print such garbage, to do something more important than your news site, like darning a sweater out of cat hair. I would rather read the back of a cereal box. You suck....

Neurotic Nelly

UnValidated...

" Sometimes the people around you won't understand your journey. They don't need to, it's not for them." -Anonymous

         Deflected. That is what it feels like when someone makes excuses to not sympathize with how you are feeling. I get irritated when someone assumes that because I am upset about something, that it is because of my mental illness. As if, I am not allowed to have true feelings unless it is related to my OCD. Like somehow my OCD means that I can not truthfully be angry or hurt. It matters not what has transpired during my day or what situation I am facing. Crying or showing otherwise perfectly normal emotional responses to something is thrown back in my face because, surely it is my mental illness's fault and not because I am truly upset over something. It can't be because I had a shitty day. It has to be because I have OCD. And since I do have OCD, my feelings are just overreactions. My diagnosis has fundamentally colored the way I am perceived. And I am apparently perceived as someone who can not feel unless my mental illness is dictating it.

I know it may be hard to believe, but just like everyone else I am a human being. And being a human means that on occasion, I actually have human feelings. And they can be trampled on or hurt. (Go figure.)

         Few things hurt  more than when I am discussing my feelings on something and someone's response to it, is that I need to get back on my medicine. (I have medication resistant OCD). I don't think it is meant to be insulting on purpose but it is insulting all the same.  What you may be saying is that I am really passionate about whatever we are talking about or that I am really upset, but what I hear is the soft click of the door of communication as it closes tightly shut behind me. What I hear is that you do not care about my feelings. What I hear is that you can not get on my level and understand where I am coming from. What I hear is that my opinion is not important and my feelings are annoying and should be kept to myself, lest I bother anyone else with them. You may not know it, but these few simple words have effectively swept my emotions under the heavily stained, moth eaten carpet that everyone has trampled and wiped their dirt covered feet on.  It pushes my feelings away and crushes them down. Leaving me to feel misunderstood, extremely frustrated, unbelievably isolated, a tad bit devastated, and just plain sad. No one likes to feel ignored or swept aside and it is no different for those of us that suffer from mental illness.

       
       Even when I was on medication, if I had a moment when I was struggling or upset with something that had nothing to do with my mental illness at all, I would be asked, "Did you take your meds today?"

       I wanted to scream,"What the hell does my medication have to do with the validation of how I am feeling? Is it not possible for you to see me as a whole person? To see me as someone who is hurting? What does it matter even if it is my mental illness making me feel this way, are my emotions any less important? Any less valid? Do I not still feel them just as deeply? Why are my emotions ignored and overlooked and dismissed just because I suffer?"

I want to yell these things, but I usually end up just ending the conversation. Because once my feelings have been rebuffed by someone, I have a very hard time trusting that someone with them again.

        I can not begin to tell you how incredibly hurtful the medication question is. If you really think about it, it is more of a statement rather than a question. It says you are judging me. It says, albeit subtly and well hidden, that I don't have a right to have feelings let alone express them because they clearly aren't real. It implies that no one that has mental illness has any real emotions. They are a figment of our fractured minds and therefore do not need to be validated or listened to. They are immediately suspect and mistrusted. They are almost always looked at with a wary eye and a half closed ear.


        I mean yes, sometimes my mental illness affects my mood or causes me to react a certain way. But that is not every single time I feel an emotion. When someone has been a complete asshat to me and it hurts my feelings, I get pissed. I do not get pissed because I have OCD. I get pissed because someone has been a complete asshat to me and has hurt my feelings. I should not have to explain that. I should not have to validate that to someone else. I have a right to feel the way I feel about things.

 We are not emotional zombies. We are people.


       Asking me if I have taken my pills when I am upset makes me feel like I have to constantly validate my feelings when I feel them. It makes me start to feel as if I am not trustworthy of my own emotions. Like somehow, I am defunct and incapable. That my feelings are not important on the basis that I am mentally ill and because of that, those feelings have no merit.  Your feelings count and are treated as such. So should ours.  There shouldn't be this overwhelming need to explain why we aren't faking it or not overreacting. There should be no long drawn out explanation we have to give every time we are upset by something. Our feelings matter and they are very real to us. That should be more than good enough for everyone else.

         Somehow people with mental illness are always asked to defend how they feel about something and I hate that. I hate that I have to feel like my emotions are not my own and it is okay for them to be sterilized and whitewashed over simply because I have OCD.  My feelings are not a old barn door that needs to be reclaimed and painted over. They are not grimy bed linens that need to be washed clean with bleach. They are not distasteful and something to look down upon. They are simply feelings. Not something to be scrubbed away or sanitized.  Being told I need to water down my emotions when I am hurting is total bullshit and I vehemently resent it.

We are not exempt from feeling things. We are no different than anyone else.

            I am not asking you to understand every single thing we feel. We don't expect that from you. What I am asking is that you be compassionate. That you be kind. That you listen without ridicule or judgement. That you offer support just as we do you when you are upset or hurting. That is all I want. That is all any of us want. It really isn't that complicated. We just want to be heard. We just want to not have our feelings glossed over, ignored, omitted, or have them remain unvalidated. No one deserves to remain unvalidated.

You wouldn't like if we treated you like your views and emotions were pointless, so please don't do that to us either,

Neurotic Nelly

A Letter.....

I didn't post last week because I was working on this post. Not because I had writer's block (as I sometimes do) but because I wanted this post to mean exactly what I wanted and needed it to mean and to represent something that I dearly wished someone had said to me in the beginning, when I was first diagnosed. It would have been a help to know that life was going to go on and that I would be able to handle whatever mental illness threw my way, even when many times I was not sure of that fact. Maybe this is but a small window into my life but also maybe it could help anyone else struggling to make sense of their diagnosis and all of the unknowns that follow when you live your life under the label of being mentally ill.


Dear self,

When you are first diagnosed with a mental illness, there are some adjectives you are going to hear that are unflattering and a tad bit scary. You will wrestle with whether or not these adjectives are true. It will be hard and humbling and frustrating. It will be an eye opener to how differently people treat you with your diagnosis instead of how they treat you if you had something physical happen to you like a heart attack. There will be those that do not understand and shun you. There will be those that pity you or fear you. It is almost as if your diagnoses has changed who you are in their eyes and they are blinded by the words "mental illness" and unable to see you through those words. It won't be everyone in your life (thank God) but you will see it. Then and only then, will you come to understand the stigma that surrounds carrying around the moniker of being "mentally ill".

Not to fret, we all have walked down this path and learned which winding roads to avoid and which ones are safe to cross. We have all heard the negative adjectives describing our umbrella diagnoses and we are not impressed. We know them to be false and about as scary as two years old's favorite teddy bear. These adjectives are not based in reality and are completely created by ignorance and apathy. We are not bad, or dangerous, or freaks. We are not weak, or lazy, or attention seeking. We are not broken, or ugly, or damaged goods. That is the stigma talking and we need not listen to it's lies and unfair and untrue accusations. It doesn't matter where it comes from or whose mouths it pours from. We are none of those things. You are none of those things.

Having a mental illness is not something to beat yourself up about. It isn't your fault or because of something you did or did not do. It is not something you can help or something that you choose. It is not indicative of your strength as an individual.  It does not speak for your personality. It does not mean that you have all of a sudden become weak, less than, stupid, worthless, or undesirable. It changes nothing about who you are as a person. All it means is that you have a different struggle to deal with.

Yes, there will be times you are on the floor balling your eyes out and wiping away the snot with sleeve of your sweater wondering ,"What the fuck am I doing? What good am I to the world? What life can I possibly lead? What is the point in all of this?"

There will be times when you believe the negative adjectives stated above because it is so much easier to believe the bad lies about yourself rather than the good truths. Because you now doubt who you are, now that you have a label placed upon your head like a two day old ham hock or a discontinued piece of Tupperware. And there are always ignorant people willing to step on you further when you are already down....be weary of those that trample on you and use your diagnoses as an excuse to treat you like dirt. You deserve better than that.

I can not tell you that life is going to be easy or that you will come out of being mentally ill unscathed. That is not reality. Reality is, that you will struggle against the tides until your arms ache and your chest hurts and you are out of breath. You will try and try and try and fail. You will pray and beg and plead and get discouraged. You will.... and then you will get off your ass and up off of the floor and slowly and deliberately carve out a life for yourself because you deserve a good life. Because you are strong. Even though you can't see it yet. Even though you doubt the validity of that strength. Even though, right now you look in the mirror and fail to see yourself as anything but weak and broken. You will prevail. You will one day see that you are never broken and are incapable of being something as paltry as weak. Because being mentally ill doesn't define you anymore than being diabetic does. Because you were never a quitter and failure is not an option. Because struggling against stigma makes your muscles stronger and your responses wittier and you always have liked a challenge. Because you can only see what you are truly made of in the face of adversity.  Yes, you will struggle....but you will also learn who you are during that struggle. You will learn what is important to you and how much courage it takes to be someone with mental illness and still be present in your own life. To still be who you are in the face of stigma and ignorance. To still be compassionate and kind and brave and honest and open. Because mental illness can do many things but it can not change who you are deep down and neither can other people's judgments and stupidity.

So, don't fret. You are going to be fine. No, you are going to better than fine, you are going to be strong. And you are going to realize that you have a purpose with mental illness. It could be to have your dream job in spite of your struggles, or raise happy healthy kids, or to go back to school and learn something new, or to advocate and fight for others that are just like you. And all of those purposes are just as good as any other purpose in life.   Because, fundamentally, this is your life and it is you who gets to decide just how much you are willing to surrender to stigma and bias. Only you can stand up for you. It doesn't matter if you are in a room full of other people that believe in you, if you don't believe in yourself, it will never work. So believe in yourself, because you can do this. In fact, you already have.

Neurotic Nelly

He Was Twelve.....Rant

This post may not be popular but I feel the need to get it off my chest. I am hurt and disgusted and I just have to say my peace because I am so angry that I can't see straight.

I don't write this as a minority. I have been unfairly judged for my hair color, my sex, and my disability but never because of the color of my skin. So, I wont pretend that I know what that is like. I do not. I am not writing this as someone who judges others because I don't, except in this case.  No, I am writing because I am a mother...of a twelve year old boy.

We have become a country afraid....so afraid of stigmas, bias, and discrimination that we have killed in the name of fear. We have been so riddled with fear that we have lost all of our common sense and in many cases, our compassion. Fear makes us do stupid things like suspend a seven year old for eating a poptart into the shape of a gun, threatening an eight year old for drawing a ninja Halloween costume at school with suspension, and punishing a five year old girl with suspension and a forced psychiatric examination for threatening to shoot another student with a Hello Kitty bubble gun that shoots...bubbles.

And last year, what can only be described as asinine behavior by adults, turned fatal.

When I look at a picture of Tamir Rice, I see a happy, normal, typical boy. I see my son because I am a mother and all of our children are equal. All children are precious. He is was the same as my son. He was in the same grade. He seemed silly, and goofy, and intelligent like all twelve year old's are. No, they are not the same race and but I don't see race. I see someone's child. I see someone's baby.

Tamir Rice was a twelve year old boy who was given a toy gun by a friend to play with. He did what many kids would do, he went to a park and played with it.  For that, he was gunned down by a police officer. It took two seconds from the time the officer pulled up until the officer opened fire on a twelve year old boy. His fourteen year old sister was wrestled to the ground and arrested for running towards her fatally injured brother and his mother was threatened with arrest if she didn't calm down when told. Tamir laid on the pavement in his local park in a pool of his own blood for four minutes before he was helped. He received no first aid by the police officers. He received treatment from an FBI agent that happened to be in the area. Apparently, his size was menacing at 5'7" and 191 lbs. Menacing enough that the armed police officer feared for his life from a boy armed with a toy. I suppose now, if your child has a growth spurt it can be used as an excuse to shoot them by substandard police officers....and they will be backed by the city that employs them.

It hurts to see the video. It was even more hurtful to hear what the city's attorneys of Cleveland Ohio said today about the shooting/murder of Tamir Rice.

Tamir and his family “were directly and proximately caused by their own acts. . .,” and they added that Tamir caused his own death “by the failure. . . to exercise due care to avoid injury.”

Later on the mayor apologized saying, "In an attempt to protect all of our defenses we used words and we phrased things in such a way that was very insensitive, very insensitive to the tragedy in general, the family and the victim in particular, So we are apologizing today as the city of Cleveland to the family of Tamir Rice and to the citizens of the city of Cleveland for our poor use of words and our insensitivity in the use of those words."

So as a mother of a twelve year old, I just want to say this....a twelve year old is a child. They are not held responsible if they drink, the person that gives it to them is. They are not held responsible if they are given drugs, the drug dealer is. They are not held responsible if they accidentally burn themselves on the stove. They are not old enough to consent to sexual activities, go to a bar, buy a pack of cigarettes, or drive a car. They are not put in the adult justice system if they are offenders because they are juveniles. If you fail to provide food, shelter, or adequate care for a twelve year old, they are taken away. They are not permitted to call the school and call in sick, a parent has to do that. They are not allowed to get a job, live on their own, buy certain video games without their parent's consent, or even see movies rated higher than PG13 without their parents in a movie theater. Hell, you have to sign a freaking permission slip for them to go on a freaking field trip for chrissakes, because they are too young to give permission on where the school takes them. They are not held responsible because at twelve years old they are not responsible....they are children.

He was being immature and "irresponsible", according to the city of Cleveland, because that is what kids do. Just like we did when we were kids. Most people in this country have played cops and robbers, or have made a poptart into a gun, or for God's sake pointed their finger like one when they were small. It's normal. What is not normal is being gunned down and then accused of being responsible for your own death because you did what all kids do. And I think adults have forgotten that. I think adults have forgotten what they were like at twelve years old.

My twelve year old is smart, funny, sarcastic, and brilliant. He is a great kid but he does stupid things, sometimes. And he does that because, like all twelve year old's, his brain has not yet fully developed enough to understand the ramifications and all of the consequences for his actions. But you know who does understand all of the ramifications and consequences? The guy that shot Tamir in the chest and claimed that he was a big twenty something year old black male. The guy who lied about the shooting. The guy who failed to protect and serve a twelve year old boy and ended up killing him instead.

If it wasn't horrible enough that an innocent child was shot because of a toy, to purposely and willfully not offer first aid to a dying child for whatever the reason, is completely unacceptable. Period.

I am not against the police. There are some great police officers out there. This is not about the decent hardworking police officers who do their job. This is about those who do not. As for the city attorneys and mayor, there is no apology you could give that would make what has happened, right. There is nothing that can be said that would bring Tamir back or erase the pain that his family will face for the rest of their lives. But if you were to give one, it might help to not bother to apologize about the wording some asshat lawyer made about responsibility and apologize for the death of the beautiful young man who had done nothing wrong but was failed in every way by the people that were supposed to keep him safe. Failed by the police officer that swore to serve and protect him. Failed by the justice system that excused his murder. Failed by the city that refuses to accept responsibility for his death and then failed again by the city trying to put what was their fault onto an innocent, unarmed boy. Because Tamir didn't kill himself he was killed by a police officer and there is a difference.

I do not accept the apology of the mayor of Cleveland. Such drivel is back tracking and covering up what appears to be the unequivocal stupidity of a group of people that can not seem to understand the difference between a child's life and an adult's decisions. I hear a lot of police officers say that at the end of the day they want to go home to their families and I get it, but maybe Tamir wanted to go home to his family that night too. And sadly, they both could have if the officer had not decided to shoot first and ask questions later. Yes, the gun looked real but even the 911 caller said he thought it was fake. There was not an orange tip on the end but the police officer didn't even know that because the toy gun was in Tamir's waist band. Even if there was an orange tip he would not have known until he pulled the toy out of the boy's pants as he lay there dying. Tamir was not given a chance to explain. He, much like the poptart kid, was judged guilty by an adult and punished on only the merit that something looked like a gun, except this time that judgment came with a death sentence.

For the mayor to say that the attorney's words were "insensitive" is ridiculous. What they said was hurtful, smug, ignorant, arrogant, and shameful. Insensitive is when you bump  into somebody and forget to say "excuse me". Blaming the victim is not "insensitive" it is inexcusable.

And you would think that of all the education the attorneys and mayor and city "higher ups" had to get where they are today, they would have more sense than God gave a gnat to understand that. But what do they care, Tamir wasn't their son.

To accept this behavior is folly. Tamir isn't my son and yet he is. As is the poptart kid, the kids that made legos into guns and got in trouble at preschool. So is the girl with the bubble gun and the kid drawing Halloween costumes in class. These are all of our children. To accept such horrendous behavior and consequences and lack of responsibility based on our fear is dangerous, not to mention wrong. The city should care because Tamir is their son. He is all of our sons and he did not deserve to be mowed down in a hail of bullets on a freaking playground and there is nothing that can be said or misconstrued to change that fact. To accept the way he died and the lack of responsibility taken by those that killed him is the same as saying that you accept this happening to every child. Because he...was...just...a...child. He was twelve.

Neurotic Nelly

Big Tongue, Small Mind....RANT. RANT. RANT.....

XXXXXXXXX....WARNING>>>GORE AND FOUL LANGUAGE>>>WARNING....XXXXXXXX

I like Gene Simmons. His music isn't necessarily my go to music but I do like his brand. He is a very savvy intelligent guy. He happens to be in my uncle's favorite band. I am familiar with his work and I have even bought some of his merchandise as Christmas presents. That being said, I am woefully dumbfounded by some comments that he made on July 31 during an interview with Songfacts that are just coming to the surface. To be fair, this was a rather long and interesting interview and this is only a small blurb of many topics he discussed but here is the quote that has recently put him in hot water.


When asked if he still gets along with the original guys he answered the following:


No, I don't get along with anybody who's a drug addict and has a dark cloud over their head and sees themselves as a victim. Drug addicts and alcoholics are always: "The world is a harsh place." My mother was in a concentration camp in Nazi Germany. I don't want to hear fuck all about "the world as a harsh place." She gets up every day, smells the roses and loves life. And for a putz, 20-year-old kid to say, "I'm depressed, I live in Seattle." Fuck you, then kill yourself.
I never understand, because I always call them on their bluff. I'm the guy who says 'Jump!' when there's a guy on top of a building who says, "That's it, I can't take it anymore, I'm going to jump."
Are you kidding? Why are you announcing it? Shut the fuck up, have some dignity and jump! You've got the crowd.
By the way, you walk up to the same guy on a ledge who threatens to jump and put a gun to his head, "I'm going to blow your fuckin' head off!" He'll go, "Please don't!" It's true. He's not that insane.

You can read the article and interview yourself in it's entirety here:

http://www.songfacts.com/blog/interviews/gene_simmons_of_kiss/

When he received the negative attention he did apologize stating :

"To the extent my comments reported by the media speak of depression, I was wrong and in the spur of the moment made remarks that in hindsight were made without regard for those who truly suffer the struggles of depression. Somewhere along the line, my intention of speaking in very directly and perhaps politically incorrectly about drug use and alcoholics has been misconstrued as vile commentary on depression. Unkind statements about depression was certainly never my intention. I simply want to be clear that my heart goes out to anyone suffering from depression and I deeply regret any offhand remarks in the heat of an interview that might have suggested otherwise."

Now, I am happy he apologized but nowhere in that statement does he explain why his comments were wrong, leaving me to believe that maybe he doesn't understand why what he said was both damaging and completely insensitive. For me to accept his apology he would have to not only have educated himself on depression but also make an effort to educate everyone else that he made that comment to, on it as well. His apology to me speaks of backtracking and reeks of an ass covering fluff piece all people backpedal into when they say something inappropriate but have no idea why it is in fact, inappropriate. I would like to enlighten him and people that think this way about depression and other mental illnesses so bear with me and hold onto your hats girl's it isn't going to be pretty.

Mr. Simmons, I agree with you about your mother who suffered through a horrific event. The holocaust was absolutely horrible. I am not even sure there is a word to describe the horrors of that period of time. The crimes committed against innocent people were tragic and horrendous. I stand by that statement completely. Your mother must be a wonderful, courageous, and strong person to have lived through such, and I totally see where you are coming from at this point of your statement. However, your main issue is comparing your mother's traumatic life in the concentration camp to other people's traumatic life events and you can't effectively do that. All pain is pain and there is no comparison.  Who are you to act as if this mythical twenty year old from Seattle hasn't gone through enough pain to be suicidal? Are you the pain police?  Do you know his life personally? Maybe he was abused. Maybe he was molested as a child. Maybe he has no other family. Maybe he suffers from other mental illnesses. Maybe the horrors of his life are so profound to him that he doesn't know how to deal with them any other way than to beg for help as loudly as he can. Sure, he looks like a regular twenty year old from Seattle but then again, we all appear normal on the outside. The holocaust was caused by evil people, depression is caused by a chemical imbalance in our brains. There is no one to punish or hold accountable for the horrors of depression. So we end up not only feeling hopeless but also blaming ourselves for having depression in the first place. 

I would like you to think about how much pain it takes to make someone to not want to live anymore. I would further like you to think about the fact that addicts, which you so despise, usually become addicts to suppress such agonizing things such as mental illnesses, physical pain, abuse issues, and feelings of self degradation and worthlessness. No one wakes up one morning and says," Today I want to become a drug addict." That life is neither fun nor noble. No one purposely chooses to end up with a needle in their arm in some dark scum covered alley smelling of urine and unwashed body odor.

As to the comment about holding the gun next to a suicidal person's head, let me be real with you for a minute. My great uncle decided to end his life by blowing his brains out all over the ceiling. Do you really think that if you had popped up beside him right before he pulled the trigger and put a pistol to his head he would have begged for his life? In what world does that make any fucking sense? And sadly, my great uncle wasn't loudly protesting what he was going through, although we all wish he had been. Maybe we could have saved him or gotten him help if we had known this was where he was at mentally. Or at the very least we would know why he felt killing himself was the only way out, we still don't know why and because he is not here to tell us that, we never will.

Or since you are obviously so knowledgeable about suicide and other people's pain maybe you could have been there to tell him simply to cheer up. Maybe your pep talk with a gun would have made him change his mind and my great grandparents could have ended up walking in and seeing him sitting there reading a newspaper and smoking a pipe rather than opening up the door and stepping in his brain matter....what do you think? Possible??? 

Or you could have also applied this logic to my mother the second before she swallowed a bottle of prescription pills when she was 31. You could tell her that just because she was raped from the age of seven to the age of eighteen by her father who was the community preacher, that her pain isn't as bad as your mother's so she should just quit her bitching. It doesn't matter that she suffers from Depression, Bipolar, and PTSD. Since you know all about pain and suicide and who has the right to be miserable or not, you could save us all from ourselves and our own "pity parties" before it is too late. We want you to stop us before we become too victim like for your taste, because your opinion seems to be the only one that matters.

You see Mr.Simmons, suicide isn't about attention grabbing, or pity, or unfounded misguided jealousy. It isn't about what you have or don't have, or what horrid God awful things have happened in your life, or if you were born into a perfectly wonderful family with no issues. Suicide is the final act of immense desperation. An act to simply end unbearable agony and hopelessness. As you said," He'll go, "Please don't!" It's true. He's not that insane." you have made a great misjudgment. At that exact moment in time when he/she is ready to step over that threshold and commit suicide, they are just that insane and make no mistake, they are victims.  Victims of a disease that kills more people than AIDS, car accidents, homicides, or prostate cancer. But hey, what do I know? Maybe after losing one family member to suicide and almost losing my own mother to it, I am just a tad bit sensitive on the matter. Well, then I am just so very sorry to have to put a damper on your ignorant way of thinking.

Apparently, Mr. Simmons has never had to live with depression or known anyone in his circle of loved ones that has suffered from it. Apparently, he has never had to deal with the ragged, open, gaping wound left behind from a loved one's suicide. Well, good for him, I wish that we could all be so lucky. I wish that none of the 30,000 American families each year never had to know what it is like finding your loved one dead on the floor in a pile of empty pill bottles, or bleeding from the wrists, or after shooting themselves in the face, or after suffocating themselves with car exhaust, or see their broken bodies after jumping from a building, or God forbid finding them hanging from a belt wedged between the closet door and the door frame...... 

We are all victims of this disease whether we suffer from it or not Mr. Simmons and I think it would be more wise to understand that.

Neurotic Nelly

Ignorance......Rant

Write hard and clear about what hurts- Ernest Hemingway

I love this quote. Ernest understood writing at it's finest but he also understood mental illness. Mainly because he struggled with it and sadly he eventually lost his lifelong battle with it. I admire his honesty and I have to agree that writing should be about the taboo more painful topics as well. They are just as important as the comical oddities and the feel good stories of the day. Mainly because although all of us love to laugh and feel good, it is my belief that painful things need to be purged so they can be examined and then worked on. I find that writing about them has helped me to do that. It has helped me close open wounds and heal older scars. It has made my voice heard for the first time in thirty four years and I finally feel like the struggles I have gone through have a purpose to them. If I can't let go of them than at least maybe, they can help someone else. And while ignorance may be bliss to those it that suffer from it, it is hell on the rest of us.

 I haven't ranted in awhile. It is hard to make me mad, mostly. I am the not typical red head in that fashion. But oh my God when you do anger me it becomes a boiled over pot of pissed off and it is not pretty. I don't like to get angry. It scares me a bit. I have never been violent in my life, however when angry, the rise of emotions makes me uncomfortable.

Certain things make me angrier quicker than others. Bullying for one. Whether done on the internet or to a person's face, I become irate. As a victim of bullying for most of my life, I know how bad that affects people and I know the pain it causes. In all of my situations of being bullied I do not remember the faces of those that stood by and let it happen to me. It becomes a blur of flesh colored smears. There were many. Too many. But what I do remember is the faces of those that stood up for me and stood up for themselves. I remember those people's faces in stark clarity. They were my heroes, who I strived to be like. Not a nameless faceless coward who sat back and watched other people torment me, but someone who may not have even really liked me but knew that what was happening was wrong. And even twenty years later, I am still thankful for them. They saved me not just from the bullies but from the negative way I viewed myself. I am grateful that they were there and that they refused to be part of the humiliation and pain inflicted upon me.

As a victim I know that to stand by and say nothing makes you equally as guilty as the person inflicting the humiliation and torment. It makes no difference whether you are the one actually bullying, if you stand by and watch it happen you are an accomplice. You condone those actions. And I will never be that kind of person. Never.

Bullying as whole is a complicated issue.  Why it occurs so frequently is a mystery to most of us except that the one main component is ignorance. Just plain and simple ignorance and fear of what we don't understand.

Suffering from a mental illness puts us, the sufferers, in a hard spot. We are so afraid of being singled out, which we often times are. We are afraid of being ostracized, because we become that way. We are afraid to openly talk about what we go through because of the ever oppressive stigma that hangs over us and our diagnoses like a damp woolen coat that smells like mildew and vomit.  And it is painful.

And even when we don't tell people about our problems we often times hear others making negative comments about mental illness and it makes us less willing to openly talk about it. I mean, if you hear someone talking bad about your particular mental illness are you going to feel comfortable actually discussing that you have that diagnoses with them? Hell no.

We have mental illness, we are not stupid. We already suffer. The last thing we want is to be harassed or punished for having it.

Stigma. It is such a small word and yet it carries such a profound weight to it. It smothers us. It suffocates our progress. It shames our sense of self worth. It stifles our growth and it prevents our treatment. It keeps us sick and in many cases it promotes our suicidal population.

Make no mistake stigma kills just as surely as does the weapon we use to kill ourselves with. It is the poison that keeps us sick. And the worst part is, it doesn't have to exist at all. If people would just educate themselves.

No I am not talking about reading a few pamphlets and watching one episode of Dr. Phil. I am talking about really educating yourself. Talking to people. Gaining insight and not becoming some deranged arm chair psychiatrist full of misquoted statistics and opinionated ideals.

It angers me. When I hear people have lost their inner fight to live with mental illness because they were afraid to get help simply because of the ramifications getting help could cause. The shame they feel and the agony of having to face the people we love or respect and have to admit that no, we are not okay. It is a hard thing to do. It's hard because stigma confines how others think about us. It confines how we think about ourselves. It confines everything we say or do.

And until we stop being ignorant and judgmental we will continue to lose good people that could have gotten help but were too afraid to. And it really pisses me off, because stigma is just another form of bullying. Yet another form of ignorance.

Mental illness is looked down upon and completely misrepresented. It makes our lives harder and harder for the ones we share our lives with as well.

Today I heard some idiot, for lack of a better word, talking about how one in five people have a personality disorder.....

Really, where did you get that statistic, a the back of cereal box? Are you serious? What the hell is that? Do you even know what a personality disorder is? I am pretty sure that people with personality disorders don't have three heads and green skin so how would you know? Do you realize that they are people just like everyone else and that they have their own issues to deal with and one of them shouldn't be your crappy attitude, unbelievable amount of ignorance, and ridiculous accusations?

Or how many times have I heard about the guy that killed those soldiers in Fort Hood this last time? The guy that was trying to get help for PTSD but was diagnosed with depression and anxiety. Now everyone with an anxiety disorder or depression gets the sideways glances. Like we are all closeted murderers in waiting. Thanks, like we didn't have enough problems already. Now people are afraid of us for being afraid. Awesome (sarcasm).

And if it weren't maddening enough with the media trying to come up with what mental illness is the flavor of the month that may make a person a mass killer, they keep saying how he was taking antidepressants and sleeping pills so he was being treated....

Listen, just because they throw a few pills and a diagnoses at you doesn't mean that you are being "treated". That is akin to cutting off your leg and slapping a few band-aids over the gaping wound and then wondering why you are bleeding to death. I mean you put band-aids over the problem area so in theory you are being "treated" right? The word treated isn't necessarily in question. What should be in question is the words "treated properly". You can treat diabetes with tomato soup and hot tea, it doesn't mean that it is going to  work.  It ridiculous!

Treatment is a long process. For some of us it is a life long process. Just because you get medication doesn't mean that it will work effectively. Doesn't mean that it won't react to other medications. Doesn't mean that you will wake up and everything be rosy and perfect in the morning. That is ignorance at it's finest right there on the nightly news.

Treatment requires the right diagnoses, which for some us takes many wrong diagnoses and treatments to figure out. It takes therapy and constant mindfulness of our  limitations and triggers. It takes time and effort and down right grit to deal with it on a daily basis. It takes the proper therapy and medications. It takes a lot and it is not an easy fix. And it certainly doesn't help to be constantly reminded of just how ignorant the rest of the world is on the subject.

We are not worthless.

We are not crazy.

We are not broken.

We are not evil.

We are not the demons living under your bed waiting to get you.

Somewhere, somehow over the millennium, mental illness has become a dirty word. A secret kept closed to the vest. Something to disregard and make fun of. Something in which to use as a scapegoat or a easily ready excuse. It has become synonymous with evil and bad. It has become something to be ashamed of and feel worthless about. It has become an entity other than itself. A curse. A damnation. A character flaw of the highest kind and it is all wrong.

We are not the danger. Stigma and ignorance are the danger that lurks behind the shadows. Lies and misrepresentation are the killers of people that could be helped. Shame and discrimination are the chains that bind us all.

We can not get help if we are too scared to admit there is a problem. We can not get better if we are to ashamed to seek treatment. We can not get treatment if we are not allowed to because of others incorrect ideals of what having a mental illness is.

For every mass murder you hear about on tv there are thousands of mentally ill people not being dangerous. Not harming others. Not becoming killers and yet we never hear those statistics. We never hear about the fact that we are less likely to be violent than addicts or domestic abusers. We never hear about the fact that the mentally ill are twice as more likely to be victims of violence rather than to perpetrate it.

So when I say ignorance is bliss, I don't mean for those of us that have to live in it's disfiguring shadow. It's crushing misrepresentations. It's shame.

If bullying is from ignorance than it stands to reason that stigma is also a form of bullying. It has the same result. It carries the same stench of discrimination.

So before you continue to spout degrading, incorrect, misrepresentations of what you think mental illness is like, educate yourself. Because if you don't stand up for us and say something then you are condoning the ignorance that has been allowed to be broadcast all over the world for hundreds of years. Are you going to be a hero or an accomplice? It's your choice but make no mistake it is our lives that hang in the balance and we deserve better.

Neurotic Nelly

What If We Could...

I was thinking the other day. I know scary right?

I am a lot of things. A woman. A red head. A mother. A wife. But first and foremost, I am a Texan. It's not my fault that I place being a Texan as my identity. It ,like so many of us children born and raised in Texas, has been ingrained in me since my very first days. Even in school we were taught for the first five years in history class all about Texas. Until we all knew everything about Texas's past and it becomes a sense of belonging, a sense of pride. It is almost a brain washing to some extent. Want proof?

Ask a Texan, any Texan, what the state flower is, the state bird, the first and only president of Texas, and or the state capital.  They can name them off from memory without hesitation. Start to sing "Deep in the heart of Texas" out loud in Texas and watch how everyone stops and finishes it with you regardless of what they were doing before you started singing it. Ask what the state rose is or how long their family has been in Texas. All of us know when our families first became Texans. My family has been in Texas for almost two hundred years. Yea, really, I am just that Texan. ( Except I moved and married a wonderful but ever deemed "Yankee" so my children are only half Texan even though they have never set foot in that state) It is treated as not just a place but also a pedigree.And even though we have a pride of being from the deep south we have even more pride of being specifically from Texas. We have to be, it was taught to us to be that way from our parents, and them from theirs, and so on and so on. It becomes more than just a place that we are from and becomes part of who we are.

Ask a Texan what is the greatest state in America. Ask a Texan if they are a Texan ( HINT: you wont have to, we tell everyone we are a Texan in the first five seconds of any conversation when we are out of state) And even though we have many military members that serve America you can bet that most of them identify as being Texan before they identify as being American. Not that they don't love America with every waking breath, it's just that they love Texas more. We are a proud people and that is why every ten years or so there is the same talk of succession. Not that it will ever happen, not even sure we actually want it to, but we Texans just like to get all riled up at the possibility. It was taught to us to love God first, Texas second, and then America. That may seem wrong in some people's eyes but it is a tradition that has been passed down for hundreds of years and will probably continue for hundreds more.

It becomes something to belong to. If I see a license plate of Texas where I live, I feel the need to wave to the driver. Because even though I do not know them personally, I feel as if we are some how connected. Like we have something very important in common. We are Texans and we are brethren. Not from genetics but from location. We are tied together from our experience of simply being from the great state of Texas.

Now you may say, we get it Nelly, you love Texas but what the hell does this have to do with mental illness?

So glad you asked.

It got me thinking. The reason we are so proud of Texas is because it was ingrained in us to believe such. What if we took that same teaching methods and turned it to a belief system that is positive for future generations. What if we taught small children that beautiful doesn't have a size or a color or a religion? What if we taught that beauty is on the inside? What if we could give these children a reason to feel that they are worthy ,beautiful, important individuals that belong in our society? Would fourteen year old girls that weigh eighty five pounds still post selfies on facebook claiming that they look fat? I mean if they believe that weight doesn't depict beauty, would they be so hard on themselves? Would at risk youths still join gangs because they want to belong to something other than the only painful existence that they have ever known, if they already felt they had a place in today's society to belong to that didn't end up in violence, prison, or premature death? Would there be so much bullying if children were reinforced with the idea that different is a good thing and not everyone should try and be similar? Would there be so many suicides if people that suffer or feel lost and hopeless felt that they were not alone and that what they felt and had to say was valid to the rest of the world?

Would people like us, that suffer from mental illness have to be afraid of stigma if stigma was erased and replaced by compassion? What if we could eradicate discrimination in all of it's forms?

After all children are born free of such things. Stigma discrimination, self hate, and even pride are things that are taught and learned not genetically predisposed.

What if we could somehow take all of the things that make us broken adults and teach our children and their children that it doesn't have to viewed in a negative way? That people are human first and individuals second. That we all fundamentally desire the same things. Love, acceptance, respect, hope, friendship, and happiness. What if we could give them the sense that they belong to this world no matter what life has burdened them with, no matter what they look like, what family situation the are in, what belief system they have, the color of their skin, or the struggles they may encounter? That they are beautiful unique worthy beings that have the power to change the world with one simple sentence, "I love you."

What if we could teach love and a sense of belonging the way Texas teaches it's children to love and feel a sense of belonging to Texas? How different would our world be? How different would our children's lives be? Could we make our fractured children become whole if they were taught to love rather than ostracize? Have compassion instead of annoyance? To believe that they are worth more than what ridiculous unrealistic magazine articles and misguided self beliefs say they are? To believe that they matter because every person in this world matters and has the right to know that they do. They belong, you belong, I belong, we all belong and we are all important.


Just a thought....
Neurotic Nelly

Meds, Meds, Meds!

There are generally three types of opinions when it comes to mental medication. First there is the anti medication movement. These are people who believe that medication is poison and created solely for the purpose of drug companies to turn a profit. They believe that we are slaves to the government and it's corrupt drug companies. They do not take medication and feel others would follow suit.

Then there is the pill popper movement. This movement is the extreme opposite of the anti medication movement. These people feel all mental illness sufferers need medication. They feel people should take the medication in spite of severity of symptoms. They believe drugs make everything better.

Then there is a group of people that are neither anti medication or pill poppers. They feel there is truth to both parties but the also false beliefs in both parties. Kind of like political parties, where things are lied about and misrepresented and you have to weed out the truth.  These people feel medication can be helpful but do not agree to the concept that everyone needs to be medicated. There are diagnoses that require medication for stability. There is nothing wrong with that. There are some that do not need medication and there is nothing wrong with that either. What has happened is between the movements of these beliefs the mental illness sufferer is confronted with unfair judgments. You are judged if you do not need medication and judged if you do. It's a damned if you do , damned if don't situation and it is unfair.

Medication is not an easy out. Not only is it a coin toss which ones will work, you also have to combat the side effects they can cause. You have to deal with dosages and refills. Deal with others snickering about what types of medications you are on. You may have months or even years of being a guinea pig to find out what if any medications work for you. It is not easy.

Not needing medication is not an easy out. Without medication there can be other issues such as panic attacks or other symptoms that are hard to control or foresee. It is not easy to combat your mental issues without the help of a medicinal aid and only go with therapy. It is hard work to constantly be aware of your issues.

Both medication and not medicating are very hard roads to go down. They both take bravery and strength. Neither one is better than the other. Neither one is an easier situation. We should stop making judgments on those who medicate and those who don't. It doesn't matter, we both suffer.

I have been medicated on and off all of my life. I had many side effects and issues that I dealt with. I also had mixed results of effectiveness.

These are a list of medications I was put on and my side effects. This is my experience and may not reflect other people's experiences. Many of these medications did not work for me that does not mean they will or will not work for others.


My first mental medication was a little triangular blue pill. I have no idea what it was or what it was supposed to do. I was in the mental hospital in the children's ward. We all were different and I know I was the only one who suffered from OCD. However, it is my belief most of these kids did not suffer from mental illness. Many were truant and compulsive liars or kids that ran with the wrong crowd. A few simply threw fits. They were not what I would class as suffering from anything that was admitting worthy. Neither was I. I was admitted because my doctor and the hospital was fraudulent. They lied to parents and scared them. Then we were kept until our insurance ran out. Every night we all had to line up at the water fountain and take the little blue pill. Then a nurse would inspect our mouths to make sure we swallowed it. We all did because we did not want to spend the night in restraints or the "quiet" room. A room that was white and consisted of only a bare mattress, that we would be locked in if we did not follow the rules. I believe that this was a drug trial. There is no reason we all had to take the same pill. I believe it was also illegal. Illegal because my parents were not told that I was being medicated. They never were informed or signed anything that would allow the hospital to do so. They were shut down for fraud a few years later. I was ten.

At fourteen I had my actual diagnoses and was put on Prozac. I was only on this medication for about three months. I do not remember it doing anything for my OCD but I do remember it causing me to become extremely manic and hyper. I had hot flashes so bad that I would stand out in the snow in shorts and a tank top and still sweat. I developed twitches and became fidgety. I looked more like an intravenous drug user rather than a fourteen year old who was trying medication.

At sixteen I was put on Luvox. It really didn't seem to help me with the OCD issues as I became more concerned with washing my hands. I washed them until they cracked and bled and burned. My hair started to fall out and I gained a gorgeous receding hairline. My nails became so brittle that they would break off to the quick and cause me agonizing stinging in my fingers. I also dealt with such constipation that my stomach bloated and I became unable to eat much due to the constant stomach pain. I do not remember how long I was on this medication exactly but I do believe it was around three years.

Then they prescribed me a low dose of Xanax. It made me unable to function. I started drooling and falling asleep. I was unable to stay awake. I was taken off of it right away.

I started self medicating with St.John's Wort at the insistence of my ex husband. It did not work and I became much worse.(NEVER SELF MEDICATE)

I was then placed on Depakote. A seizure medication that they felt would make me less prone to anxiety and intrusive thoughts. They were right, I no longer had anxiety or intrusive thoughts because I became basically an Alzheimer's patient. I lost all reality. I was missing days and losing time. I was confused and scared. I became angry and irrational. I could not remember how to function on my own. I was unable to speak certain words as if my mind had erased them from my vocabulary. I could no longer comprehend what was going on around me. I was twenty years old.

I was then put on Zoloft. It seemed to calm me a bit. My only side effect was weight gain. It did not work as well as I had hoped.

Then I was placed on Riseperdal. I was told it was a seizure medication but I learned later it is used to treat schizophrenia and bipolar. I am not Bipolar or Schizophrenic. I assume that is why the doctor told me it was a seizure medication so I would try it.  Again they felt that this would help me. I became confused. I  lost time again. The worst part of this drug was that I became dizzy and faint with no warning. I would just be walking and fall over. I would feel like I was going to pass out and my legs would completely collapse on me. I believe I was on it for about two months.

Back to Zoloft. I was again placed on Zoloft as it worked to a degree and my side effects were limited. I stayed on it for around five years.

After my first child was born I developed OCD Postpartum. Zoloft did nothing for this. My then psychiatrist who was unfamiliar with OCD suggested Haldol......Seriously. I was terrified. I suggested a pill I had heard had great reviews and I was able to try it instead. It worked.

Celexa was by far the best medication I had taken. It made my intrusive thoughts and images become much quieter and less. However, the dosage I was taking and had built up to was highly dangerous. I was taking four times the dosage the UK recommends as safe. I was taking twice the recommended safe dosage from the US. And I did so for ten years. Not realizing that my medication at that high of a dose could stop my heart.

So I am no longer medicated. The only drug that I found that worked for me is not able to help me because my tolerance is too high. I have tried a lot of medications but this is fairly common as we try to find what helps us. Right now my OCD is under control so I do not feel the need to take medication. That does not mean that I will always be that way.

Basically what this post is about is to show that whether we are on medications or not that the road we walk down is a twisted and bumpy one. There are no easy answers. There is no magical power that makes every issue go away. That either way, we are dong the best we can to function.

Some people need medication and they should not be judged for it. You have no idea the hell side effects can place on a person. It's hard work to find something that works without making you completely miserable at the same time. It could take weeks, months, or even years to find the right one.

Those that do not take medication should not be judged either. Most of us have tried medication and we all have our reasons for doing so. I am not biased on this issue because I tried medications for many years and I have also been medication free. Both ways are hard. Both ways are challenging.

The most important part is to be open and honest with your doctors. It is important to take medications if they say you need to. It also is important, in my opinion, to research the drug you were prescribed and keep an eye out for updates on side effects. That way you are knowledgeable about what you are putting in your body and can talk to your doctor about it. Ask questions! Always ask your doctor about any and all concerns you have. That is their job. Getting off of your medications without your doctor's advice and consent is dangerous and should never be done.

We need to stop being divided on this issue. Whether you take medications or don't we both suffer. We both are equally mentally ill. We need to stop judging each other. We need to support each other. After all, who knows how we suffer better than ourselves?

Neurotic Nelly