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

It's Not A Sidebar.....

        I was watching a news channel yesterday and came across a story about a man cycling for awareness of a disease that killed his wife. He wants to promote awareness and raise money and I applaud him for that. My problem was the way the news sanitized his wife's illness and death.

        First, they both called her Depression a mood disorder. They did it repeatedly and then said that Depression had killed her. At no point did they mention mental illness anywhere in this supposed news article. At no point did they say that she killed herself.

        My problem with this is that it seemed very sanitized, very PC, very scrubbed clean and there is nothing clean or orderly about Depression.

        Is Depression a mood disorder? Yes, but lets call a spade a spade shall we? Depression is a MENTAL ILLNESS. Say it. Say it often, roll it around in your mouth until it feels familiar. Stop being afraid of these two words. Stop shying away from this term. We as sufferers have learned to use it without attaching stigma to it and so should everyone else. This woman didn't have Leprosy, she had Depression. It doesn't need to be dumbed down or sugar coated. It certainly wasn't sugar coated for her when she was suffering from it. She killed herself. Her Depression made her life so unbearable, so unspeakable, she was so desperate, she suffered so much that suicide, to her, seemed like the only option. Don't you dare sugar coat or undermine what she went through.

         You see, as a mentally ill person, I find the sanitizing and politically correct scrubbing of the struggles we go through on a daily basis an insult. It represents that what we go through is somehow less painful or less ugly or more acceptable.

         This woman didn't die from Depression. She committed suicide. There, I said it. I know it is hard for other people to hear that word, or read that word, or understand that word but you can not and should not whitewash that word into something less awful, less devastating. Because there is nothing beautiful or soothing about suicide. Yes, Depression is the reason she killed herself but say that. Don't over look the choice she made and the horrors she faced by saying she died from Depression and not explain what it made her do. If for some reason, you can not bring yourself to say the word suicide then simply say she lost her battle with Depression.

            Look, I am sorry that the words mental illness and suicide make other people uncomfortable. You should try living with them and see how uncomfortable that is. The point is, we don't have time to scrub away the ugly thoughts about these two words. Mental illness and suicide are ugly. We should know. In a country where suicide takes away somebody's loved one every 13 minutes, I hardly think we need to waste time trying to sanitize  something that needs to be talked about openly because only then can we get real and start making changes to a broken system that allows good people to fall through the cracks. This system is damaged and defunct and until we start looking at this problem as an actual problem nothing will change and it has to. Suicide is 100% preventable. And yet we as a society are too afraid to look into the dark abyss where it dwells because we are scared. Our society is cowardly when it comes to anything that deals with mental illness or suicide and it is proven and reiterated every single time this subject comes up. Because they white wash it. They sweep it under the rug. They look for other excuses. Or like in this case, they simply exclude these three words altogether.

            If you want to help us, if you want to change the system than you have to stop making excuses. You have to stop shying away form reality. A reality that all of us that suffer are very familiar with. You have to say words like mental illness, pain, suicide and you have to own them when you speak. You have to look people in the eye when talking about them. You have to stop promoting the stigma with your fear and be fearless. After all, we are fearless when talking about these things because we have no choice and if you want to be part of the solution than you have no choice either. We are not a side line. We are not a cutline. It is not a sidebar. It is the story. We are the story. We are real and our suffering is real and we deserve to have it talked about it, exactly like how it is. No sanitizing, no white washing, no scrubbing clean.......you cannot diminish the pain of mental illness by minimizing it's affects so you are less uncomfortable with the reality of it.

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

Not Just Today But Always...Rant....

Okay, I am mad. Seriously mad.

I just read about the "taking selfies is a mental disorder" hoax. I am mad for two reasons. One, that some asshat of a company decided that this was an amusing thing to write. Two, that people clung to it with a feverish grasp much like a man drowning in a sea of cats...

I don't know how many times I have to ask this, but apparently I have to ask it again....When will people start to take mental illness seriously? When? I would really like a date so I can mark it down on my calendar. Circle it with a bright red sharpie so I can go out that day and not have to worry about such paltry things as stigma and ignorance or shaming and intolerance. I want to know when I can walk down the street and proclaim to my peers that yes, I have a mental illness and no, it does not make a monster, or a freak, or a less worthy human being...

I am angry that a company used what I have struggled and fought against for the thirty one of almost thirty five years of my life as fodder, not just fodder, but fodder to "amuse" the masses. Clearly these people have no idea what is like to struggle on not just a daily basis but an hourly one. Trying not to let it get me down. Trying to remain hopeful even though, I know I will have mental illness for the rest of my life. Trying desperately not to let "triggers" take over my very existence. Trying not to fall into the trap many people do and become suicidal. Not to give up hope. Always be thankful. Try and remain strong...

Maybe I am wrong? Maybe the suffering of hundreds of thousands of people around the globe is somehow amusing? Maybe I  missed that memo???? Oh well, it says so on facebook, so it must be true. Who am I to question it? Maybe I am just stupid and my feeble mind just can't understand the need to poke fun at people like me?

And I know what stupid feels like. Because of my mental illness, I called myself stupid many times along with a bunch of other negative adjectives as well. Lost, worthless, ignorant, broken, damaged, less than, pathetic, not smart enough, not strong enough, not good enough, lazy, socially defunct, inept, and unlovable. These thoughts circled around in my head every minute of every day and because I heard them so much, I believed every word. I was broken. I was damaged. I was gross. Who would want a pathetic, worthless, loser like me?

Years I struggled with my triggers and self doubt. My pain worn on my sleeve like a red stain for all to see. I was in agony everyday. My mind betrayed me and I blamed myself because after all, it was my mind and surely I should have control of it. But I didn't and I don't....And it made me hate myself just that much more.

I find a company trying to make my pain and struggles into something stupid and laughable, a huge insult. And if you have struggled the way I have, you should too. I am sorry, I just don't find the leading cause of suicide in this country, humorous. No, you know what? I am not sorry. Because I am a human being and every human being matters in this world regardless of how badly they feel about themselves, or their diagnoses, or their perceived faults. No one deserves to die alone in some crappy place because they can't see any other way out of the pain and torment that they endure in their lifetime but to end their lives. No one and shame on you for implying that mental illness is somehow funny. It's not. It's devastating to those who have it and to all of those that love them.

And to those of you that think taking too many pictures of yourself is somehow a mental illness.....stop. Just stop already. You haven't the first notion what mental illness is. It is not "Oh this picture makes me look sexy" or "Oh here is me standing in front of my bathroom mirror looking hot in front of the toilet bowl" or "Here is me eating this huge hamburger with my friends after a night of drinking cheap beer on ladies night". Mental illness isn't about taking eighty five pictures of yourself trying to impress others with your body or your fashion choices, it's about pain and suffering. It is about feeling ashamed that you aren't like everyone else. And sadly it is about hating yourself. Because that is what mental illness does. It makes you blame yourself for every single abnormal issue about you. It is about hating that you can't be like everyone else. You can't work, or drive, or feel at ease. You can't just get up and be happy or your moods cycle so fast you feel like you just get the afterburn of them. There is no "I love being messed up" selfie. Or the "I am so sexy while I stick my finger down my throat because I am not yet the 85lbs I want to be."  There is no pic of "I love that I compulsively touch door knobs or scrub the walls til my hands bleed." or the "Look I am in so much pain I cut myself again". Nor is there an "I just can't take one more day of this agony, I going to kill myself" sexy pose. There is a reason for that.

We are not trying to be sexy or impressive. We are just trying to live in a world that is wholly ignorant of our plight and our struggles. Meating out the punishments and judgments because it just doesn't understand. In the thirty one years of my battles against OCD, I only learned to love myself three years ago. I had to learn to accept my faults and embrace not who I thought I would be, but who I am. That is a really long time to have to wade through the self blame and self hate to get to that point. Years to learn to that I am important. I matter. I count. I stand for something and that something is greatness, no matter how unlike everyone else I may think I am. Who would want that broken, damaged, and gross person I thought I was? Me, I want me because I am different and my life is hard but I am worth the struggle. Not just today but always.

We have to learn to love and accept ourselves in a world that does not. In a world that is ignorant and unprepared to accept us. In a world that thinks the struggles we go through are humorous or entertaining. We have to learn that we are not broken or damaged but different in a world that resists differences with a passion. It is intolerant of us and yet we have to learn to push against such intolerance because we deserve to be here. We count. We matter.

So don't claim that because you want to constantly take pictures of yourself looking pretty for a boy or a girl or to impress all of your friends with how cool you think you are, that you suffer from what we do. You have no idea the pain we live with on a daily bass and you couldn't possibly fathom such pain while you stand in front of a camera winking and acting foolish. We don't have time to worry about such things, we are too busy trying to live our lives one step at a time.


Neurotic Nelly

Fair Game....Rant......

I don't pay a whole lot of attention to politics. I try to, but it just irritates me and I have this no bullshit policy that I like to adhere to, which is why I do not pay attention to said politics. It's boring, confusing, and  inherently full of bullshit, much like a dairy farm. And while dairy farms may smell badly, at least you get cheese, butter, and milk from them. The cows don't lie to you while chomping on their cud and looking you in the eye and baby calves are just down right adorable...Politics....well, not so much.

That being said, I read an article talking about two men running in the same party for Texas Lieutenant Governor and I was appalled. Kind of hard to shock me when it comes to the mud slinging that elections promote but this was beyond the norm of "stirring up a shit storm" as we Texans like to say.

The current TLG David Dewhurst is being accused, or rather his people are being accused, of publicly releasing his opponent Sen. Dan Patrick's medical/court records that state thirty years ago he was so severely depressed that he had to have a stay in a psychiatric hospital in 82 and 86 and "needed sitters around the clock."

There is a backlash and of course Dewhurst's people state that they did not release this information and hide behind the fact that as court records they are already public, but let's just call a spade a spade shall we. This is sigma.....pure and simple.

You can call it mudslinging. You can call it fair game. You can put it in an oven and call it a biscuit if you so desire, but it doesn't deter from the fact that this is exactly how our country views mental illness and it's issues. With disdain, confusion, ignorance, and a heavy dose of judgement.

If Mr. Patrick had his medical records released and his records said he had diabetes instead of depression,  no one would bother writing about it or implying it is a testament to his ability to lead. No one would bat an eye that he couldn't have one of those mall chocolate chip cookies with a glass of sweet southern lemonade. But they feel perfectly fine with implying because he went through an ordeal for something mentally related and he sought help, like you are supposed to, all of a sudden he isn't a good candidate.

They are trying to infer that Mr. Patrick can't handle the stress of being in that position because thirty years ago he was having issues.....and they are getting away with it.

Now, I no longer live in Texas and I haven't for almost twelve years. I do not care who is the TLG or who wins the election. What I do care about is the blatant stigma smear that has been painted against Sen. Patrick. Not because I know him. I don't. Not because I will be affected by his policies, whatever they might be, if he wins. I will not. I care because, once mental illness is allowed to be used as a defaming character assassination in something as public as an election, it becomes a huge problem.

Mental illness is and always has been the big ugly pink elephant in the room. Many don't want to talk about it. Some want to pretend it doesn't even exist. But the fact is, it does. Mental illness is real and it has no bearing on your strength of character. It does not discriminate. It affects the poor and rich alike. It affects people of all races and backgrounds. It affects people of all religions and or lack there of. Mental illness does not discriminate who it decides to affect, but people do.

As someone who has struggled with mental illness I know exactly what is like being judged, slandered, and shamed because I have a physical illness that is inside my brain. People tend to be okay with physical illness as a whole. If you have a heart attack and go to the hospital you get visitors, friends, get well cards, and flowers. People flock to your bedside with soft spoken well wishes and support. When you end up in the mental hospital because you can't cope or have had a breakdown, it is strangely devoid of that support. No cards. No flowers. No visitors. You are seen as an embarrassment, a social pariah, a freak. You are outcast and cast aside, because you are different. It does not seem to occur to people that mental illness is a physical illness. It is just a physical illness inside your head. It is not something that you choose no more than if you chose to have a heart attack, and yet they are viewed so very very differently.

No one would be waving a flag at Sen. Patrick and be claiming that he couldn't handle the position he is vying for if he had only had a heart attack. And that is the problem.

Sen. Patrick had depression and because he got help, because he did what you are supposed to do, he is paying for it thirty years later. He is being publicly shamed because of it. He is being ostracized and judged. And no one seems to be upset over it. Well, I am upset, because what Sen. Patrick is going through has a name and we need to call it what it is. Discrimination. He is being discriminated against because he once suffered from mental illness and now it is being used to promote him as weak.

If my thirty four years of mental illness has taught me anything, it is that people that suffer from mental illness are anything but weak. The fact that he got help in a time that was even more judgmental about such things is a testament to his strength as a person. The fact that he stands there with his head held high while others judge him with their ignorance is all of the proof I need of his strong character.

I am outraged that his mental illness could be used to target him because if they are allowed to do it to him so publicly, then they are allowed to do it to the rest of us.

It is sad that in this day and age, we are still being publicly shamed and judged for mental illness. It is disgusting that we are being stigmatized on such a broad level. That we are being told that we can't and we won't because we are different. When something as simple as a google search could educate these people I can't help but outraged by such ignorance.

And since his depression seems to be such a hot topic I would like help promote the education of the ignorant by giving you a statistic.

An estimated 1 in 10 Americans report having depression....

1 in 10. And yet we act like depression is somehow unusual or rare. That it is something to look down on or misjudge. That is something that could never happen to us or someone we know. Let me ask you this....how many people do you know? Is it more than ten people? Because if it is, it is very likely that one or more of those people are suffering from depression right now.

For all I know, Sen. Patrick could be a colossal douche. He could be lying about his taxes or his political views. I don't know the man one way or the other. I am not saying you should run out and vote for him. What I am saying is that I do know he is not weak because he at one time suffered from depression. That is an 1850 mentality and this is not 1850 now is it?

I am not angry because he is the one getting blasted for having depression. I am angry because once we start to punish and villainize people with mental illness publicly we are sending a message that people who suffer from mental illness are weak and worthless. Once we allow such things as mental illness to be used as a character assassination, we will lose more people to suicide that could have been helped but did not seek it out because they were afraid of being judged and stigmatized.

This particular mudslinging should have never happened because we as American's shouldn't be looking at his depression as a character flaw. We should be as accepting of it as we would him having a physical ailment. Important but not bombshell worthy. All mental illness should be viewed as a treatable illness because it is. It is not fodder for elections or a sign of weakness.

Once we find publicly shaming mentally ill people acceptable we open a door that can never be totally closed back again. It is not acceptable and shame on you Mr. Dewhurst for supporting such vile stigma producing mudslinging.

It reminds me of a quote that speaks to the heart of any discrimination and the horror discrimination can bring.

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out--
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out--
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out--
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me--and there was no one left to speak for me.

----Martin Niemöller

I stand against discrimination of any kind and I stand against the remarks dealing specifically with Sen.Patrick's mental illness. It is not okay to shame him nor anyone else that struggles with mental illness simply because they do.

Neurotic Nelly

The Horror...

I want to share a story with you guys. Some of you may know it,  but some of you may not and I really feel that everyone should know the story of Kelly Thomas. I think it is important that he isn't forgotten and nor the fact that he mattered in this world. Even when other people may not have agreed.

..........
It was a warm summer night in Orange County California on July 5 2011, when a homeless man suffering from Schizophrenia was approached by police officers who saw him loitering in the street. His name was Kelly Thomas and he died because of stigma.

According to wikipedia:

On July 5, 2011, at about 8:30 PM, officers of the Fullerton Police Department responded to a call from the management of the Slidebar  that someone was vandalizing cars near the Fullerton Transportation Center. While investigating, they encountered the shirtless and disheveled Thomas and attempted to search him. According to statements given by the officers, Thomas was uncooperative and resisted when they attempted to search him, so backup was called. "Now you see my fists?" Fullerton police officer Manny Ramos asked Thomas while slipping on a pair of latex gloves. "Yeah, what about them?" Thomas responded. "They are getting ready to fuck you up," said Ramos. A video of the event surfaced, and Thomas can be heard repeatedly screaming in pain while officers are heard repeatedly asking him to place his arms behind his back. He audibly responds "Okay, I'm sorry!" and "I'm trying!" while the officers stretch his arm back. The police officers claim that, unable to get Thomas to comply with the requests, they used a taser on him (up to five times according to a witness statement, and the video footage), and in the video Thomas can be heard screaming "Dad! Dad!". Six officers were involved in subduing Thomas, who was unarmed and had a history of mental illness. Thomas was initially taken to St. Jude Medical Center in Fullerton but was transferred immediately to the UC Irvine Medical Center with severe injuries to his head, face, and neck. One of the paramedics testified that he was first instructed to attend to a police officer's minor injury and then noticed Thomas lying unconscious in a pool of blood.

Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas gave a detailed account of the events during a press conference on September 21, 2011. Using digital audio recording devices carried by the officers, surveillance video from a pole camera at the Fullerton Transportation Center, and other evidence, Rackauckas provided evidence that Thomas did comply with orders from Officer Ramos, who had put on latex gloves and asked Thomas "Now see my fists? They are getting ready to fuck you up." Rackauckas went on to describe how Thomas begged for his life, before being beaten to death.

 Rackauckas announced that according to the Orange County Coroner, the cause of death was "asphyxia caused by mechanical chest compression with blunt cranial-facial injuries sustained during physical altercation with law enforcement." Rackauckas said Thomas died because of the force of the officers on his chest, which made it impossible for him to breathe. This caused Thomas to become unconscious. He then slipped into a coma and died when taken off life support five days later.

According to Rackauckas, the coroner stated that the injuries to Thomas' face and head contributed to his death. Also contributing to his death were brain injuries, facial and rib fractures, and the extensive bruising and abrasions he suffered during the beating, which left him lying in a "growing pool of blood," Rackauckas said. The toxicology report shows that Thomas had no illicit drugs or alcohol in his system. Thomas was severely bleeding and struggled and pleaded, "I can't breathe," "Dad, help me." The DA stated that the officers did not reduce their level of force during the nearly 10-minute assault, however Thomas combatted with officers for almost eight full minutes.

...............

This isn't going to be a post bashing police as a whole. Police men and women have very tough and stressful jobs. Some of them take advantage of the power that is given to them as police officers but many do not and many are fine upstanding individuals that help make our streets safer at night. They protect and serve and I am thankful for that.  What this post is going to be about is how the mentally ill are perceived, and this is exactly how they are perceived. As dangerous homicidal criminals. Mr. Thomas had suffered from Schizophrenia for over fifteen years before his death. He was homeless. He had reacted violently to his family members a few times before and had, had prior contact with the police several times and because of this, he is dead. He was assumed guilty, he was judged guilty by the police officers in this case, and he payed dearly for it. Not because he was doing anything dangerous or was pointing a deadly weapon at the officers but because he wasn't able to able understand the officers shouts to put his hands on the ground. Instead he put his hands on his knees and this is what angered the police officers so much that they perceeded to beat this defenseless mentally ill man to death. Mr. Thomas was scared. As it turns out, he had every reason to be. Mr. Thomas was not a murderer. He was not a "career criminal". He was simply a man that suffered from mental demons and due to not being able to continue help for those demons, his life had spiraled into homelessness.... A crime these officers, apparently felt was punishable by extreme force.

There is a video of his attack but I will not be showing it here. If you are interested in seeing it or the gruesome picture of what his face looked like after being repeatedly smashed in the face reportedly with the butt of the tazer gun as well as the officer's closed fists, you can easily search it. I have already watched that disturbing video and seen the pictures and I truly believe it will haunt me for the rest of my life. I think it is important to note that he screamed for his father several times while being beaten to death. A voice I will probably never get out of my head. As a mother I can not imagine how awful and heartbreaking it would be to know that your child was screaming for your help while being murdered. And let's call it what is was, murder. They murdered a man in the middle of the street because they felt like it. Because he was homeless. Because he was less than to them because he suffered from a mental illness. 

This is more than just a newspaper clipping or media frenzy for me. I did not know Mr. Thomas and yet I feel like I am Mr. Thomas. That all of us that suffer from mental illness are in some small way, Mr. Thomas. Not that most of us have faced the extremes that Mr. Thomas did that night, but that we all are familiar with the treatment we often times receive from others when they learn we suffer from mental illness. The wary glances. The snide remarks. The fear in others faces. The misconceptions. The judgment that we are dangerous, scary, and or violent. That we are unhinged and could pop off at any moment and become spree killers or go on murderous rampages. It is not totally their fault for thinking this way. A great deal of fault rests on the media that glorifies murders committed by the minescule amount of mentally illness sufferers. It makes no difference to them, that most violence is committed with the involvement of addiction problems, gang violence, or domestic abuse. Those murders are much less sensationalized by the media. It isn't as thrilling to people as the false belief that crazy axe wielding murders roam the streets looking for victims to attack. In reality, violence committed by the mentally ill is a much smaller statistic than people think. I am not saying it doesn't happen, I am just saying it doesn't happen nearly as often as people are lead to believe. And there is a reason for that. Everyone feels safer if there is a scapegoat to blame all of our issues on. A more factual statistic is that people that suffer from mental illness are twice as likely to be victims of violence and Mr. Thomas's life is an extreme example of this.

And what do we do it about? How do we stop innocent people like Mr. Thomas and the estimated half of the 375-500 individuals shot by police each year, in this country that are thought to have suffered from mental illness, from being killed? Because Mr. Thomas is not alone.There has been others with less fan fare and less media coverage. And, before I am taken out and tarred and feathered, I do realize that some of these were justifiable shootings and could not have been handled any other way.

There seems to be a disconnect when it comes to how to deal with people that suffer from mental illness. How to safely arrest them or safely encounter them while conducting police business and I have to say, my honest belief is that the biggest reason this is happening is because of stigma. The fear that sets in once you learn a person has a mental illness and the perception that it makes them more dangerous. More scary. Even evil. Stigma is not just the cross that all of the mentally ill bear, it can also be a death sentence.

Something needs to change. When people can look at another human being and say such things as, "Now, do you see my fists, they are getting ready to fuck you up," knowing that person has a disorder and can't understand you properly, there is a problem. When compassion for another human being is nonexistent simply because they are considered less than, there is a problem. When people start to blame the victim because they are uncomfortable that the victim was homeless and or suffered from mental illness, there is a problem. When a jury watches a video of police officers murdering a defenseless unarmed man because he is confused, scared, and put his hands on his knees instead of the ground like they ordered,  and acquits them, there is a problem. There is a problem in this country and it has to be talked about.

There needs to be some kind of training on how to deal with those that suffer from mental illness without it being shoot or kill now and ask questions later. The stigma and false belief that everyone that suffers from mental illness is dangerous has to stop. The lies and glorification by the media that helps reinforce these ridiculous accusations has to stop. People are dying. Innocent people that have committed no crime but are are judged to have because they suffer from mental illness, has to stop.

It sickens me. It breaks my heart. It scares me. This isn't just a tragedy it is also a sign that something is very wrong here. That something is broken. Our system is broken when it comes to dealing with the mentally ill. Suffering from a mental illness should not be a death sentence and yet for Mr. Thomas and many others like him, it has become one. Often times, it is swept under the rug and receives little to know media coverage because people don't understand mental illness and people have always been afraid of what they don't understand. It has become acceptable to label anyone violent as possibly mentally ill. It has become commonplace to place blame of all the ills of our country on the mentally ill. It has been protocol to call murders, abusers, and kidnappers as mentally ill even when there has been no actual diagnoses to confirm that. News broadcasters have spoken such gems as, "Ariel Castro, who is arguably the face of mental illness, a man described as a monster". It is a no wonder people assume incorrectly that mental illness is dangerous.

And I am not just referring to Schizophrenia. I am referring to those that suffer from any mental illness. OCD, Bipolar, Personality disorders, DID, GAD, SAD, Depression....the list goes on and on. We are all under the same umbrella. We are all mentally ill. We are all looked at the same way. We are all dealing with stigma on a daily basis and it is wrong. It is hurtful and in the case of Mr. Thomas, it was deadly.

We have to continue our efforts to speak out. We have to keep informing the public the truth about mental illness and the truthful statistics that the media is so inclined to ignore. We have to keep pushing our law makers to stand up for us and to funnel money back into treatments for the mentally ill that work. Back into homes and hospitals that can help those of us who have become homeless and unable to receive proper psychiatric care. We have to demand that this country come up with  better training for our police officers on how to work with the mentally ill safely for both the sufferer and the officer. And we need to demand to stop being portrayed in the negative, false, and hurtful light that we have been placed in by the media. We have to keep trying to erase stigma before it kills more innocent people.

We need help. We need resolution and we need to work in earnest to end the stigma that has crippled us for so long. The horror of stigma has to end and only we can end it by being advocates for ourselves and other like us. Mr. Kelly Thomas and the horrible and unjust crime that happened to him should never be allowed to be forgotten. We should never allow ourselves to forget just how deadly stigma can be. Just how awful we can be treated simply because we suffer. How false misconceptions can have serious and extreme consequences. Most all of all we should never forget Mr. Thomas because he was a person and his life mattered. He mattered and he deserves not just the remembrance that he suffered from a mental illness and died tragically and unjustly because of that fact, but that he was a person with family and friends. We must never let ourselves forget what the police officers in this case so obviously did. That Mr. Thomas had a right to live, a right to love, and a right to be treated like a fellow human being. Because he was one.

Neurotic Nelly

Dropping the Ball.......

Another horrid tragedy has befallen America. As our hearts go out to the families that were ripped apart from a lone gun man that took it upon himself to systematically murder innocent people I feel lost and greatly disturbed. Not just because the action of this sick and demented man, but also because of how the media is portraying him. My post probably wont be very popular. It may even anger some people, but it is the truth. It is the way I see it.

I know that this tragedy will become a hot bed of gun haters and gun lovers clawing at each other's throats. I know there will be sign waving and name calling. These people miss the point entirely and the irony is not lost on me.

The point is our system is broken. That in every recent mass shooting in this country there has been warning from people that stood up and informed those in charge that something was amiss. That these shooters were unhinged and possibly dangerous. In every instance there were warning signs and they were ignored.

Seung-Hui Cho- Virginia Tech shooter
It was reported that two years prior to his attack on fellow classmates, an English teacher recognized the signs that his behavior and writings were violent and disturbing. She asked him to seek counseling and reported him to the school. Because he had not committed any crime the school was unable to force him to receive treatment. She reported him and nothing was done. The signs were there. The ball was dropped.

James Holmes- Aurora Theater shooter
One of his psychiatrists reported before the shooting that they thought he suffered from mental illness and was also a danger to others. A month before the shooting his doctor reported to the campus he was attending that he had made homicidal statements and he was a threat to the public. She did not however, try to have him committed for further treatment. Other people were also afraid of him as he sent texts declaring that he was bad news and to stay away from him. The signs were there. The ball was dropped.

Adam Lanza- Sandy Hook shooter
His mother was in the process of getting him committed by some reports but as he had no criminal record she may have had a harder time trying to do so. Regardless if she was or was not in the process of committing him she was taking him to a psychiatrist who did not have him committed. The signs were there.The ball was dropped.

Aaron Alexis- Navy yard shooter
Aaron does have a history of being violent. He was reported to have shot out construction worker's tires in their truck because he felt they disrespected them, even though there were never any words exchanged. He shot through his upstairs neighbors apartment after he threatened her because he felt she was being too loud. He had told officers he heard voices, felt vibrations and was paranoid. The officers called the Navy to warn them. They countered that they would look into it. The signs were there the ball was dropped.

It is heartbreaking that so many had to suffer needlessly simply because the signs were swept under the carpet. Because people that should be in the position to recognize that these individuals were no longer capable of functioning and had become dangerous either did not do so or chose not to do so.

The media has blathered on about mental illness. It has tried to explain that it was only because of mental illness that this has happened. I watched CNN and MSNBC. I watched as they slung mud into the mental illness community damning us for the actions of those that could have been helped but were turned away or couldn't be helped but could have been committed and treated. I watched as they refused to put blame on others or even on the shooters themselves but on the mentally ill as a whole. I have read comments or heard quotes of," lock all the crazies away, the mentally ill are dangerous, they should bring back asylums, they shouldn't be allowed to walk our streets." As the media tries to armchair diagnose the shooters with whatever illness they think best fits the symptoms. Never taking to account that others with that same diagnoses are getting pelted and hurled by insults and side glances. People that were and are not a danger to anyone are now rooted out and discriminated against.

No one stands up for us on the news and states that most murders are the result of addiction, greed, or gang violence. No one stands up and states the fact that most shootings have nothing to do with mental illness. That the mentally ill are twice as more likely to be the victims of a violent attack rather than commit one. Facts aren't sexy. Statistics don't sell newspapers or get viewers but fear does. Fear and misrepresentation are great for entertainment value. Not to mention a great way to promote yet more stigma against those that are just trying to live their lives peacefully. People that are doing their therapies, taking their medications,  supporting each other, and doing what they are supposed to do to stay as healthy as possible.

How bad has the misrepresentation gotten lately for the mental illness community?
Well. last month Brian Williams of NBC's news broadcast described the scene of the sentencing of kidnapper, rapist and pedophile Ariel Castro and topped it off with describing him as" arguably the face of mental illness".

Doctor Phil claimed in one of his episodes that insane people howl at the moon and suck on rocks.


It is disturbing that people that bring us our news or people that are supposed to be doctors that care for our mental health feel this way. It's hurtful and it is wrong.  The blame should not be put on the mental illness community because some people have crossed over a line and became violent. It is simply not fair nor is it helpful to anyone to spout of lies or implications otherwise. I do not know what made these people do these horrid things. What I do know is that the mental illness community is not at fault. The fault lies in the laws that effectively tie hands of schools that can not force treatment options to stay enrolled. The laws that make it almost impossible to commit a child that has become an adult and is exhibiting dangerous and violent behavior simply because they do not have a criminal past. The doctors that knew that their patients had crossed into a violent and homicidal delusions but sat by and did nothing. The people that received information that a employee had become increasingly violent and had used a firearm twice against perceived disrespect where there was none but failed to look at it in time. The fault lies in responsibility and taking responsibility. The fault lies with the shooters. The fault lies in a broken system that needs to be reevaluated. There is a lot of place fault lies. All of these balls were dropped and many innocent wonderful people have paid for the dropping of them.

So I would like to close this post with a truth that the media has decided to purposely ignore.We are not a threat. We are not vile violent creatures to fear and despise. We are many. We are one in four people in the United States of America.We are fat and thin. We are old and young. We are doctors and lawyers. We are parents and children. We are the man who pumps your gas and the woman cashier that checks out you purchases. We are actors, politicians, and teachers. We are professionals and home makers. We are construction workers and artists. We are your broken soldiers that come back form a war your country asked us to fight. We are not Seung-Hui Cho, James Holmes, Adam Lanza, or Aaron Alexis. We are just people just like you are. We have many faces and none of them are Ariel Castro's.

Neurotic Nelly

Poisonous Platter....

For hundreds of years the Europeans were afraid to eat tomatoes. True story. Why you ask? Well for three reasons. Number one the tomato plant and roots are poisonous if consumed. The only edible portion is the fruit a.k.a. the tomato. Number two is the fact that it is in the same family of  the deadly nightshade plant. Not something you want to mess around with. Number three and possibly the most interesting fact of the three is that in the medieval ages the more influential families had dinnerware made of pewter. Now pewter back then was not made like it is now. Pewter then was made with copious amounts of lead. Some even as high as 50%. The issue with the tomato was that tomatoes are full of acid. It's a wet gooey kind of fruit and therefore the acid was much more evident, shall we say. The acid would leach the lead form the pewter plate causing lead poisoning. So they were afraid of the tomato when truthfully what was killing them was their pretty plates and silverware.


I am sure about now you are asking yourself what on God's green earth does tomatoes and superstitions about the gloriously gooey red fruit have to do with a mental illness blog. We are the tomatoes of the world, my friend. We are perceived to be dangerous when we are not. We are thought to cause harm when statistics prove otherwise. We are feared and it has nothing to do with us personally just the preconceived notions and stigma placed on us. Mental illness isn't the dangerous and treacherous condition is is made out to be......it is the poisonous platter it is served on that is the real danger. The media, the false rumors, the scary misinformation that is spread about mental illness and those that suffer from it. We are the sweet, tart, harmless fruit that has been discriminated against and feared. Not because we are likely to turn into the monsters that roam in the dark shadows at the stroke of midnight or the boogedy man we all feared lived under our beds and hid in our closets just waiting to get us as children, but simply because people are afraid of what they don't understand. And when people are afraid they make judgment calls that may not be appropriate to the actual situation. They panic and fear and make up silly superstitions that unknowingly continue to promote stigma. So you see it isn't us they are really afraid of, it's the lies and falsehoods that they have been served. These falsehoods and lies are essentially the pretty dinnerware that masks it's beauty with poison. Mental illness is not something to be ashamed of or frightened of.....what we should be afraid of is the poisonous platter it served on.


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

Please Sir Can I Have Some More???

Welcome to Cafe De Mental Illness.


Hi my name is Nelly and I will be your server today............

Our special is the mental illness platter. It is a large portion so it is perfect to share with your family and friends.

Let's start off with something to drink. We have regular guilt and diet guilt. The diet has artificial sweetener but the carbonation will still rot your teeth, however the diet seems to be a little less pungent in flavor. Diet you say, excellent choice. Do want ice with that?

Our appetizer special is crispy fried shame sticks with marinara sauce on the side. They are gooey and cheesy and stick with you all night long. They are my personal favorite for that oh so full feeling. Great I'll put your order in right away.

For an entree we have Stigma glazed steak, medium rare. You have an option of side dishes such as steamed asparagus sprinkled with I think I have lost my mind. Mashed potatoes covered in brown I am not sure the voices are real gravy, or the home made mac n' cheese made with organically grown snide remarks, misinformed comments, hurtful knee jerk reactions  and aged smoked cheddar .

Oh, you don't want the sides you would prefer a salad? Okay, we currently serve salad greens with sliced judgment and unearned fearful glances with a nice raspberry vinaigrette dressing. Tart and healthy.

For dessert we offer a smooth chocolate mousse complete with negative feelings of self worth and low self esteem. If we make it extra creamy we might even throw in some despair, free of charge of course.
We only serve the best. Don't forget to take a doggy bag with you in case you can't finish it all in one setting.
How was your meal? Awesome. Here at Cafe De Mental Illness we aim to please. I hope you had a wonderful time.
Don't be a stranger and Ya'll come back now ya hear?


Sounds yummy right?
Please Sir can I have some more?..............said no one ever.

This is an interpretation of all that we, the mental illness sufferers, go through everyday. This is the putrid meal fed to us over and over again. We are forced to swallow judgments, stigma, shame, and guilt that we do not deserve. Everyday we have obstacles to climb over and figure out how to go around. It makes it harder to do this if we keep being fed ignorant notions of what we can be or who we are. Notions that are wrong and hurtful. Notions that are not based in fact but based in the fears of the masses.  Notions that are no more than painted ashes and lies. The truth of the matter is that if you are fed the same stories over and over you start to believe them. If all you hear is negative remarks you start to believe that they are true. If all we hear is that we are bad, wrong, useless, unlovable then we start to forget how to believe in anything else. I am here to let you in on a little secret. We can be whatever we choose to be. We are whomever we want to be. Nothing stands in our way but the notions we have been force fed and have started to believe. They are only powerful if we give power to them. I don't know about you, but I would like to eat at a different restaurant. The waitress was really nice but I would like to cut my teeth on better choices of food. I would like to fill my stomach with positive connotations of who I am and what I can be. I want to be able to hold my head up high. I can't do that if I let every ignorant remark push me down. I have been pushed down long enough and I am tired of sinking down. Tired of believing that I am what others have projected upon me. I am not any of those things. I am simply me. Me a mother, me a wife, me a blogger, and yes, me with a mental illness. How does that make me any less amazing than the next person? It doesn't.

Neurotic Nelly