We Can Not Be Diminished......Rant....Rant...Rant

XXXX.....Language Warning and Possible Triggers.....XXXX


 I read this Gawker article after reading the same story line on three different websites and I felt the need to share.  Trigger warning on the article linked.

     This, this right here is part of the reason I write what I write. Because people are ignorant and can do more damage than they realize. Because this sort of ignorance has to be put in it's rightful place (the trash can). Because we need positive articles and posts about mental illness survivors not knee jerk reactions to diagnoses by morons with access to a keyboard.

     I am not even going to touch on what all this colossal twat face says in her poorly written article about the death of her "frenemy" with mental illness and what a blessing it was to her. She has no idea what she is talking about and her ignorance is nothing new to those of us who struggle to live in a world full of self absorbed idiots that think they have a talent for talking about something they have no fucking clue about. She is typical, she looks typical, her writing is typical, and her stigma inducing misconstrued attention seeking behavior....is typical. Big deal, she is old news.

I will, however, comment on the blog site that printed the piece, and their so called apology....

I apologize for an article that was posted here yesterday, entitled "My Former Friend's Death Was a Blessing.” I deeply regret the hurt that this article has caused and understand that it has perpetuated stigma and diminished the lives of people with mental illness. I am committed to immediately reviewing our vetting process to ensure that this experience has a positive influence on the ways in which we at xoJane present all women going forward. I appreciate all of you who took the time to let us know how you felt about this issue.

http://www.xojane.com/relationships/my-former-friends-death-was-a-blessing

First of all, thank you for noticing that your article was not only offensive but damaging. Thank you for it removing after being told repeatedly how upsetting and stigmatizing it was. But don't ever make the mistake of thinking that an article written by a sniveling twenty something know it all who, in fact, truly knows nothing could diminish any of our lives because she is a fucking moron. You didn't diminish anything except the validation of a an online magazine many of us have never heard of and many of us will never read again.

You can not diminish the lives of strong, creative, unique, people and how dare you insinuate that this idiot could do so by a thoughtless article as if we were so damaged and have so little to live for, that it ruined our lives. It didn't ruin our lives, it pissed us off because once again we are having to fight against stigma from yet another place that in the year 2016 should absolutely fucking know better.

How dare you make a half attempt to say, "oops my bad" after letting such a completely inappropriate article headline your site. Something that says the death of a mentally ill person was a blessing. You did read her article before posting it right? I mean, that is what you do......

Why would it even be acceptable to post something like this? If we were talking about any other minority in place of the mentally ill you would have balked and never posted because you would feel like it was uncalled for. You would have been afraid of being seen as bigoted, intolerant, and prejudiced; but because it was just us that made it okay right?

You can't diminish us. We have already been stigmatized, lied about, cast aside, ignored, rebuked, insulted, and blacklisted. Do you really think your little corner of the web can really do anything that hasn't already been done to us for the centuries that mental illness has been unfairly punished, misunderstood, and demonized. Do you really?

Because I have got to tell you, as a mental illness suffer, I don't think that you hold that much power.

Her apology was a complete backpedal. I know that when I write something, some people may not like it. I don't cry about it. I stand by what I say. That is what real writers do.

 She didn't care that she hurt real people or may have put real people in real jeopardy, she is concerned by the backlash she got in rejoicing in the death of someone she deemed to be less than. She then played the victim and blamed the reaction on the readers claiming that if they were that sensitive they should not read it.....
Because she, clearly the victim in not only her own stories but also apparently the backlash for them, is overwhelmed. Well, I am too. I am overwhelmed by her lack of compassion, for her self imposed self importance, and for her lack of respect for other people. I am also overwhelmed that you as a website that hosts blogs felt that this was perfectly acceptable....which you, clearly, must have or it wouldn't have been posted.

I think her rush to be relevant and edgy is pathetic and I think that your rush to gain click bait for yourself regardless of who it hurts in the process is contemptible.

I just hope that no one read her article or her equally full of shit apology,   and ended up hurting themselves because that is what we are really talking about here. Not some stupid woman who has no idea what a real struggle in life is, but people losing their lives everyday. Good, decent, dearly loved people that commit suicide everyday because they feel less than, because they are told that they are a burden, because of shitty articles written by shitty writers who think they know all about mental illness from fucking facebook.  It bothers me, that online sites like yours  do not consider the wake of devastation they are allowing because they too want to be relevant. It is all about relevance in this world of self absorbance and self importance.

No one is really considering the loss those families feel. No one there, clearly, is considering the loss of the woman your writer complained about. No one is considering the reality that is living with a mental illness and just how fucking hard it is and just how fucking brave we are for doing it.

Writing a piece that slanders a dead woman that had mental illness  is low. It isn't brave. It isn't informative. It is pathetic. It is inappropriate and it is wrong.

You want edgy, you want courage, you want spectacular then look at us. Cause we are not hiding in the shadows, we are not sitting on the sidelines or cowering under the bleachers. We do not back down from paltry articles like this, we do not break under adversity. That is all we have ever known. This "story" is no different than the drivel we are force fed everyday about how different we are or how someone can't look past themselves long enough to understand what we go through.

You want to know what is a real blessing?

Living..... Living when it is hard because we know that we are worth it. Fighting on the worst days when you are exhausted and broken and numb. Having real friends, unlike the writer of your article, that stick by us and help us and support us. Knowing that we are creative and wondrous human beings that are capable of so much. Seeing the beauty in this world and knowing that it is something that we too possess. Knowing how important we are because we are just important as everyone else. Standing up for ourselves in the face of stupid people, and God help us, there are so many that we seem to run into. That's living. That's a blessing.....something that your writer obviously has no idea about.


No, we don't back down when we read or hear about discriminatory fluff pieces  like the one you posted but I will tell you what we actually do. We shine. We shine in the face of stigma, and lies, and petty people writing petty things while trying to seem not as petty as they actually are. We are better than that and we are better than them. We are the warriors of our own minds and some of the best damn people you will ever meet.

So, no, you didn't diminish us by posting that article. You diminished yourselves and whatever it is you claim to stand for.

That's all on you, bud....that is what your online site strived to be when you allowed her post to be on your page.

I don't want to say how badly you suck for that but, hey, if the shoe fits....lace that bitch up and wear it.

Neurotic Nelly

The Greatest Tragedy......

         I am going to go into a territory that is going to make everyone uncomfortable and I am going to go there because someone has to. It needs to be said but more importantly it needs to be heard.

         This country and it's media are adept at avoiding it's problems head on. We are masters of deflecting and sensationalizing. We stick to our ideals and angrily attack others for theirs and yet no one is listening to anyone and no one is getting the bigger picture. Someone needs to step up and be honest and I think it should come from our community because we know what is really going on. I am a representation of this community. The mental illness community. I am mentally ill.

         We have had these horrible incidents of mass murder, carnage and pain, blood and bullets. Yet instead of reporting the facts, instead of having an honest conversation, what we do is sensationalize and look to the first thing we can look to to explain the events.

          In the eighties asylums and mental hospitals were shut down at such a rate the many mentally ill people who had resided in them were left destitute and homeless. Unable to get the proper support they needed, they lived on the streets ignored and overlooked for decades. And as the people that needed help languished in poverty and filth, laws were passed to make having adults committed to mental illness facilities almost impossible unless the person first tried to harm themselves or had committed a violent crime. Problem being, that many of our mass shooters have never committed a violent crime until they became mass shooters.....pretty terrible loophole right?

           America, we do not have a gun problem. We do not have a racism problem. Are these two things problematic and causing issues? Yes, but that is not what is going on here. America, we have a mental illness problem and it needs to be addressed.

           We as a country love symbols. They are simple and neat and convenient to blame when things go horribly wrong. We want to look at inanimate objects as the cause of our issues instead of the root of the whole problem. It is much easier to blame guns, or flags, or people that have been dead for over 150 years and make it seem like we are making progress because in this country we have accepted that we don't really need actual progress, just the symbolism of it. Symbols make great scapegoats. They are easy targets. Take them away or call for their desecration and on the surface it appears that we have solved our ills. We have cut out the offending issues. We have accomplished something.

          The only problem is, we are not looking at the right problem to fix. We are not even addressing the real issue. Symbols are neat and tidy and fixing the actual issue is messy and hard. We have become lazy and we accept our laziness as long as we are able to sleep peacefully at night because we have gotten rid of inanimate objects instead of the very animate issue. Our denial makes us feel safer. Our denial is slowing killing us.

         I am not a doctor, but I can see the problem very clearly because I belong to the community of those who are overlooked or ignored. I know when someone goes and shoots up a theater, or a church. or a school that it isn't because of guns or flags or whatever the media wants to spew out of it's mouth hole. These people are insane.  These are the people who's families have tried to get them help but were turned away. These are the people who can not get or do not take the medications they need to stay functioning. These are the people that said and acted as if something was very wrong with them and people ignored it. The world ignored it. The system ignored it.

       And why? Because this system is fundamentally broken. Laws have been passed with loopholes so large you could drive a train through them. Lack of funding. Lack of desire to try and fix it. Lack of understanding. Lack of staff. Lack of empathy. Lack of proper medication. Lack of fighting stigma. Lack of accurate representation. Lack of media truth. Lack of proper places to go. Lack of places that are willing to help. Lack of education on mental illness. Lack of honesty about just what is going on here. No this isn't just a symbol problem...this is a "lack there of "problem.

      Many people knew these people needed to be committed but there was no one left willing to take them, no place left to help them, and nothing left to stop them.

      I say it isn't solely about guns because when someone has gone this far they will use anything to kill whether it be bombs, knives, or sharpened spoon handles. I say it is not solely about racism because there is racism all around this world for every single race and yet most people, ignorant as they may be, do not go and shoot up a church and murder nine innocent people. I am not saying he wasn't a racist, I am simply saying he killed because he is insane.

       President Obama in a speech once said that America doesn't have a monopoly on crazy people and he is right. Except that what America does have a monopoly on, is a poor understanding and an extreme sense of denial when it comes to "crazy" people. We are one of the few countries still willing to bury our heads in the sand and pretend that mental illness plays no part in our daily lives....

These people didn't slip through the cracks, they were thrown out of the door without so much as a second thought.

Adam Lanza's mom tried to get him help but was turned away.
James Holmes's family knew something was wrong but was unable to stop him.
Aaron Alexis was known to be violent and had acted violently but it was all brushed over.
Dylan Roof's friends had seen his bizarre behavior and said nothing.
John Russel Houser's family was so terrified of him that they fled and got a protection order against him.

No one listened and no one cared....until it was too late.

       None of their victims had to die. It was not inevitable. It was not unpreventable. It was not fate. It was ignorance and the lack of support. It was pure and simple denial and it makes me wonder how many more times this will have to happen before people stop making it about their political agendas, stop making excuses, stop blaming symbols, and start to open their eyes.

      The truth is that until we fix the system that is supposed to catch people that are like this, this will continue. You can protest and shout about the symbols all you want. It changes nothing. Change comes with fixing the problem that creates the shooter in the first place. Change comes from fixing a broken system that makes helping people like this before they get this bad, impossible. Change comes from seeing the truth.
This system is supposed to protect not just the rest of the world from these people but also protect them from themselves.

       We, in the mental illness community, don't like to talk about these mass killers because we do not like to be associated with them. Statistics prove that we are far more likely to victims of violence rather to commit it. We don't want to blamed when these nut-jobs do this but on the other hand, it is everyone in America's fault because although we know it's a problem, no one wants to really look at it. No one wants to do the arduous task of fixing it. No one wants to get their hands dirty with this. It is much easier, much safer to claim it is because of something else and not look the problem directly in the eye. No matter how many people it kills before we get intelligent about it.

      If anyone had bothered to ask the mental illness community, we could have told you how broken this system is. How inadequate it has become. How ridiculous the laws to prevent people that need to be committed are. How tiny the funds for mental care facilities are. How many mental illness sufferers are taking up most of our jails rather than being treated. How many hospitals don't have enough beds for those that need them. How we are running a race to a finish line that makes no sense nor has any rewards because the decks are stacked against us. We are either blamed or ignored but no one wants to actually listen and that is probably the greatest tragedy of all. These types of acts could be minimized and maybe even prevented all together if only people stopped ceasing to ignore the obvious, simply because it is the easier thing to do.

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

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

Discrimination......

Sometimes I can catch a glimpse of my childhood. When the dusk changes the sky a kaleidoscope of pinks, oranges, and purples and the warm breeze glides over my skin. I am taken back to hot summer nights where the air is so still you can actually feel the vibrations of the cicadas and crickets buzzing. The warmth surrounds you like your favorite childhood blanket. No matter how far away I am, anytime I cross the border into Texas I feel a sense of completeness. I feel Home. I think it is that way for everyone that comes from there. The smell of dirt and sun baked shirts hanging on the line to dry. The cool refreshing taste of southern sweet tea. Strangers driving by that wave to you or strangers that open the door for you. A place where people are inviting and open. People that are friendly. It isn't just a place you are from. It is a part of you. Good or bad, it is something that sticks with you for the rest of your life.

My children have odd ideas of what it means to be southern, especially to be a Texan. Their only ideas of being Texan are from my whole side of the family and Sandy from Sponge Bob or ,God forbid, Hank Hill. I say funny things. I talk funny sometimes. It has been pointed out to me that I say,"I tell you what," after some sentences.

I am a redhead. I was a stepchild (several times). I grew up rather poor. I wore glasses and to top it off I moved to the north so everyone made fun of my accent. To say I understand being picked out, bullied, and discriminated against would be an understatement. And that was all before they knew I also suffered from mental illness. Discrimination is a word that misleads. Many think it only happens to those that have a different skin color or social status.

Discrimination is the prejudicial and/or distinguishing treatment of an individual based on their actual or perceived membership in a certain group or category - Wikipedia

Growing up was fraught with negative feelings about myself. I never seem to fit into any kind of situation. A family friend one time sat me down and told me that being different was a hard thing to be and maybe I should make it easier on myself and try to fit in.....Like I wasn't already trying to do that. I couldn't very well change my hair color or pale skin with freckles, or eyesight, nor my financial situation at thirteen years old now could I. I decided if fitting in meant I would have to be mean to others, than I rather not try to fit in at all. I was a complete anomaly or at least that is what I was told by my peers. It was what I learned as they tormented me, tripped me in the halls, stole my belongings, laughed at my pain. It was what was thrust upon me as some of my teachers made it clear if I wasn't so different I wouldn't have a problem. It was an extremely painful process. It made me really look at myself and I must say it shaped how I treat others. 

I am sensitive to being judged or discriminated against. I know what it is like.  Therefore, I refuse to do that to others. I refuse to judge or shame others. It is not my place. I do not pretend others are invisible simply because some people choose to overlook them because they deem them unworthy to be seen or heard.

Having mental illness makes discrimination come to the forefront. We deal with angry comments, side ways glances, and preconceived notions. It hurts. In an age of information, we are confronted with the fact that many times the information that should be spread is not being shared. Instead, ignorance has taken over scaring those that do not know better and being perpetuated by the media and news sources. It makes us a target and it is extremely unfair. 

Discrimination has no place in our society. It solely based on fear and differences that others have a hard time accepting. If growing up the way I did has taught me anything, it is that differences are what make us who we are. They make us a world full of interesting and colorful possibilities. That in a world of black and grey, we are vibrant. We are to be experienced not feared. We are all human beings, mental illness or not, glasses and unusual hair colors or not, accents and strange sayings or not,social status and belief systems or not. We all deserve the same respect and consideration. No one deserves to be singled out and discriminated against.

We are supposed to be a society if not a world full of people that are better than our ancestors. We are supposed to have learned something from their mistakes hundreds of years ago. You would think we would have learned how to treat each other by now and the fact that we still hold onto these false and hurtful beliefs saddens me greatly.

Sincerely mentally ill, former glasses wearing, poor, southern girl, redheaded stepchild,

Neurotic Nelly

Nobody Nose Except Only Us

Yes, today is about self image. Pardon the pun about noses. I like them. Not in a sick pervy way. Many people first look at the bone structure of other's faces. Others like eyes or cheekbones. I like noses. I am not sure why except I find them quiet unique. I like the way they make faces so different. Go ahead and call me weird. It's not like I have never heard that before. If eyes are the windows to the soul and your mouth is the door, that leaves the nose suspiciously out of the house.
 Everyone who knows me well, knows that I have this interest in noses. It is not uncommon to have someone say , "I met this person today, and you would have loved his nose!" Yes, my phone conversations are just that awesome and profound.

I once watched a t.v. show about bizarre hobbies and this older lady sculpted noses. I thought wow, that's me in thirty years sculpting nose shaped tea pots and drinking copious amounts of earl grey tea. Not from a nose teapot of course because that would just be weird.

For all of my love for noses I hate mine. There is rarely a picture taken of me that I like. I know my nose is not huge and yet every picture reflects Jimmy Durante staring back at me. Not that I don't love his amazingly glorious nose, it's just not what I am trying to shoot for....my perception is skewed.

That is exactly what having mental illness is like. Knowing that you are perfectly normal looking but seeing something there that truly isn't. We, as sufferers, see things that are either not there or things that no one else seems to notice. Carnival mirrors and false readings of the mental geiger counter. We hear blips telling us something else is going on. It is very hard to live with being different let alone trying to explain it to others. We tend to be extra sensitive to criticism, mostly because we have been harshly judged not just by others but the real judging, the real hate comes from within. Learning to not only accept yourself, broken as we may feel we are, but also forgive ourselves for being so. It is a full time job where the pay sucks and raises are out of the question. To add to that fear that we are not being good enough to be accepted, is the negative thoughts we carry about ourselves. It takes years to learn to forgive yourself. It takes years to accept yourself. It takes years to get over grieving the life you thought you would live until you had to be forced to realize that this is you, now. Not that you can't still do or be what you wanted but that you are not who you always thought you were. Not something better or something worse, just different. It certainly doesn't help to be faced with stigma or ignorant individuals who want to spew their blame or anger on you. It can be overwhelming and frightening. It can make us internalize the thoughts we have fought so hard to eradicate. The thoughts that we are bad, broken, sick, ugly, unworthy. Thoughts that have always lurked in the background. Thoughts that only gain power if we believe them. Therein  lies the problem. They can only hurt you if you believe they are true and most of us deep down, at one time or another, do. They are no more true than me having Jimmy Durante's nose but in that moment they seem real. They seem to be factual to us. Perceptions again...ugh.

So for this reason I started writing. I wanted to show others that they are not alone. That we are worth more than we ever thought we were. That we are capable magnificent individuals. That whether we end up sculpting nose shaped tea pots or we are CEO'S of a major company it doesn't matter.  What matters is getting the message out there. That we are many and we are worthy of everything life has to offer. That we are not scary or dangerous. That we are not what the media spews. That we are not what ignorant people think we are. That we matter. That the voices in our heads have no power because they are false. We are not bad, we are beautiful. So the title nobody nose, is correct. Nobody knows what we go through but us. Nobody knows accept others that have been discriminated against, belittled, and feared whether it be because of skin color, sexual preference, religious beliefs, or mental illness. We all experience the same discrimination and it hurts. It sickens. It violates and harms. Only we can change this by standing up and talking. Only us.


Neurotic Nelly

It's All In Your Head

I can't tell you how many times I have read stories or heard stories about the treatment of physical illness being overlooked because the patient has metal illness. It is often met with questions like,"Are you sure you are not just having a panic attack?" or " Are you sure it's pain or are you just upset?". Basically asking us if it is all in our heads.

I have a dear friend who lost her mother, because her mother had OCD. When she kept complaining of severe pain in her abdomen she was treated with kid gloves. No real x-rays or treatments were applied to see what was going on to cause such pain. Instead they gave her a nice pat on the head, threw some pain pills at her, and sent her home. They believed she was over exaggerating because she had mental illness. Six months of pain and hospital visits had the same equation over and over. When the medicine seemed not to help, her daughters both took time off to drive their mother two and half hours to a different hospital where much the same treatment was applied on and off  for five months.Until she became septic. You see, my friends mother had gallbladder stones. The hospitals were not aware because they refused to look. Her gallbladder became infected. She developed a fatty liver due to the medications they gave her. She lost weight until her face no longer was recognizable. Her skin became yellow. Her eyes became yellow. She was weak and having a hard time breathing. She became unable to walk. Her organs started to shut down. She finally got a surgeon who cared and did everything she could to save my friend's mother but it was too late. The emergency room doctors had repeatedly dropped the ball so much that nothing could be done to repair the damage they had done.  She became septic and all she needed to prevent this was to have a gall bladder removal. Because the hospital had decided that my friend's mother was faking it and not worth their time they sent her home in agony over and over again, killing her with the pain medications they decided would solve all of her problems, because obviously she was a mental case and was just out for attention. She died of renal failure with both of her daughters , her husband, and her grandchildren by her side. She was 45.

She did everything right. She went to the doctor. She went to the hospital. She told them what symptoms she was having. She told them of her medical history and she did what responsible people do, she told them the truth about her mental illness. She told them she had OCD and after that the doctors and nurses ceased to see anything else. They judged her a mental case and their judgment killed a mother, a sister, a wife, and a grandmother. She was a kind woman. She had been a teacher. She loved children. She taught Sunday school. Her life was unimportant to them because she had mental illness. That is unacceptable. Because of their actions my 25 year old friend and her 22 year old sister are motherless. They had no one to hold their hands when they got married. No one to tell stories of their birth on their birthdays. No one to call when they are sick and they just want to hear their Momma's voice. That was denied them because their mother had had mental illness and was treated differently because of it.

Now Nelly you say, that is one very sad story but surely this is a one time incident. No, sadly it is not.

I have experienced the discrimination myself with my first surgery. I had a stint put in my bile duct. I had a nurse who I could tell was not really happy to have me as a patient. I could not figure out why. I am a fairly nice person. I am not a difficult patient.

After my surgery my surgeon left the country for vacation so I was left to the mercy of the hospital. I started to have severe pain where my liver is located. I pushed my nurse button and told them I was feeling pain. The nurse at the desk said my nurse would be there in a minute. Fifteen minutes later and my pain was making it hard for me to breathe and still no nurse. I pushed the button again and told them the pain was much worse and I needed to see the nurse. I was scolded for pushing the button a second time and was told my nurse was with another patient and she would get there when she got there. By this time the pain was so bad I was crying. My husband had called to check on me and hearing my uncontrollable crying he decided to drive to the hospital and see if I was okay. He got to my room after a  fifteen minute drive and still no nurse. I was frantic and doubled over in pain. Finally my nurse strolls in with an angry expression on her face and doles out some morphine in my IV. The morphine did nothing for the pain and made me feel like I was going to vomit. Still in pain she decided what I need to "snap out of it" is to be wrenched out of my bed and walked down the hallway. I made it ten steps and doubled over. I couldn't breathe. She dragged me back to my room and called the cats-scan people to have me looked at. My wheelchair arrived pushed by another lady and I was wheeled down to the x-ray room. My wheel chair was run into every trash can, every wall, every cart in the hallway, and every door. I was bumped into the elevator doors so many times I had to actually reach out in my pain and pull myself in.
After my cat-scan was done I was told it was because they blow air in you bile duct to be able to see in there during surgery. I was still in pain and by the time the wheelchair lady got me back to my room I was still in a lot of pain. My nurse was waiting for me. She looked at me with disgust and said in the most ugliest and snarky tone,'"Is she still crying?". It scared me knowing that until her shift was over I was going to be left alone with this woman as my only source of care. She never once came back into my room. I could hear her talking about me and laughing with others in the hallway. On my chart it says I have OCD because I am honest and it is a real illness.  I want others to know because they are taking care of me and it is important that they do know. I do however, feel that if my mental illness wasn't on my chart that she would not have treated me like I was faking it to get attention. I have a hard time believing she would have ever treated a normal person with such discrimination and thinly veiled disgust. I believe that she thought I was trying to get attention and therefore treated me like I was a burden and someone to mock to her friends.

And I am not the only one who has been treated like this by medical staff. It is apparent to me that when faced with mental illness written on your medical chart, some doctors and nurses tend to feel you are just having a panic attack or you are just complaining to complain. Often times your medical needs are overlooked because they can not see past your mental illness diagnoses. Because they believe it is a possibility it is all just in our heads and we are just fine physically.

I have heard of people having head injuries and being asked if they are sure they are not just having a panic attack. I have had people wrongly assume that my physical pain was just me getting upset. I have seen medical staff leave mental illness sufferers in their hospital beds and not check on them their whole shifts because they don't want to "deal" with whatever complaints the person may have. After all, it's not like they are real people that deserve real care. Who would believe them if we made a formal complaint anyway, they are crazy.

This has to change. People are being judged by the one group of people that are supposed to be caring for us. Hospitals are supposed to give you care not leave you to suffer and send you home with pills or violently push you down the hallway because they think you are just trying to be difficult. How many people have gotten very sick or died because the medical field tends to not take us seriously? How many people have suffered because they deem us to be undesirable or unworthy of their time? I have had great nurses and doctors but I have also stared in the face of discrimination and been punished for a mental illness I didn't ask for in the first place. It's wrong and something needs to change. People are being mistreated and on a more scary scale people are dying just because they are being overlooked because of the words mental illness written on their medical charts. No one would put up with this if it was a racial discrimination. Racial discrimination is wrong and disgusting. No one would sit by and accept it if it was a religious discrimination. There are laws against such unacceptable behavior. Why would it even be conceivable that it is acceptable to discriminate against the mentally ill?  And if you can figure this out, please let me know so I can let my friend know why it was acceptable to have to watch her mother suffer needlessly and  die from something that could have been easily treated, I can explain to my children who were in the room with me why I was crying and my nurse was yelling at me and pushing me around, and I can tell all the others who have been swept aside, overlooked, and punished why we are supposed to be treated like this. I really would like to know.

Neurotic Nelly

It Doesn't Discriminate

Most people have preconceived notions of what mental illness looks like, sounds like, and acts like. There are images of the old asylums and dirty hospital walls. Moaning drooling people rocking back and forth in filthy tattered hospital gowns. Vintage pictures depicting scary unkempt looking people with malformed sneers and strange far off stares.

These are not accurate depictions of mental illness today. Yes, there are drooling moaning people but most of us are not. Most of us look perfectly normal. This creates issues because a lot of people have a hard time separating the fact that just because we look normal does not meant that we are.

One in four people will suffer from mental illness in their lifetime. One in four. Let that sink in for a second. How many people do you know?  How many groups of four can you come up with? Just because they do not talk about it does not mean that they do not suffer from mental illness. It usually takes a while for us to be comfortable to share that information with people. They may suffer and you may have no idea. You could even be the one person in four.

Some people are born with mental illness. Looking back in my long line of family members, I only can name two or three that did not suffer from mental illness. Both my siblings and I suffer from different mental illness. My oldest uncle , my mother, and my aunt suffer from mental illness or suffered from it.  My grandmother and grandfather, my great grandmothers on both sides and my grandfather's father. There are too many of them to count. It is no wonder that I am the way I am. We grew up in a house that was slightly cracked. Our homes which seemed normal to the outside world had slight or sometimes major signs of mental illness.
Some people develop mental illness from genetics and some develop mental illness from trauma. Some are rich, some are poor, some educated, some not, some are raised in abusive homes, some had normal healthy childhoods. It doesn't matter what race you are, your upbringing, your social status or monetary value, your gender, your sexual preference, your religion or views, mental illness does not discriminate. It is not prideful or judgmental. It is an illness and as such it will not care how much money you make a year or how much your outfits cost. It is not selective.

Some people have mental illness in their family history and yet are perfectly fine. Some do not have a family history and are sufferers. There really is no way at this time to gauge why it affects some people and not others.

What is certain is that no matter what we do in life, if we are sufferers we have to stand up and be counted. We have to erase the notion that we are dirty, unkempt, frightening or scary. We need to show our faces and show the world that we are the faces of mental illness. We need to show the world that we are what mental illness looks like. That we do not look like vintage pictures. We look like normal people. I believe that these out dated notions promote stigma. They help to create false notions of what it is to suffer from mental illness. We have to talk openly about not only what we go through but about the negative connotations that help promote stigma. We can not stay silent and expect anything to change.  We have to be able to enlighten the people that do not understand. We have to promote the truth and tear down the images and preconceived ideas about who we are, how we act, and what we look like. We have to remove stigma and we have to start by being honest. Mental illness does not discriminate and we need to show that by unveiling the truth. We need to stop acting like it only affects the poor, the uneducated, the fringe of society. Mental illness can and does affect all classes, all genders,all races, and all ages. [tweet this].


 I am one of the four that suffer from mental illness. I am one of the many faces of mental illness. This is what mental illness looks like.

I am not a scary, filthy, drooling, sneering, unkempt, person that stares off into space and drools. I am just a person trying to live my life as best as I can. I don't want your pity or your condemnation. I want your respect and your understanding.