She Never Had A Chance.....

XXXX.....WARNING TRIGGER WARNING TRIGGER WARNING.....XXXX



I was going to write a post about mental illness but honestly, my mind is somewhere else right now. My Aunt has had an extremely hard life.

Picture a beautiful blonde haired, green eyed girl with a slight band of freckles across the bridge of her nose, growing up in the sixties and seventies. Bell bottoms and maxi dresses. Peace and love.  Picture her smile and her humor. Picture her life surrounded by love and laughter, and it would be true except that her life wasn't surrounded by love and laughter or very many smiles.

She was abused as a child by the same person that molested my mother. Physically, sexually, and mentally tormented. Called ugly and stupid. Her nickname by her father/abuser was "rummy dummy". He never called her by her name just "rummy dummy" as to make her feel even more worthless and ignorant over and over again. He called her a liar and so she learned to lie because no one believed her anyway. He took from her, her innocence, her sense of self, her security every child has a right to feel, and her voice. She has been a hardcore drug addict since the age of thirteen. She has lived on the streets, turned tricks, and been in prison several times. This is the reality of drug use. The ugly horrible truth of what life is like for addicts. Being used and using others all for a fix to numb the pain. So when I say that no one wakes up and says, "Today, I am going to become a drug addict", I mean it. There is no glory in living an addicts life. No comfort when you have to live in crack houses, sleep on the concrete sidewalk, steal for food, get high behind a rancid dumpster in some darkened alley way, or getting in a car with some john paying you to demean yourself all for a fix. She has been beaten black and blue, raped, robbed. She has been strangled, humiliated, and demonized. She had boyfriends beat her and turn her out. She was arrested so many times in Dallas that the police knew her by sight. None of these people she was around cared for her. All of them abused her much like the father she grew up with. No comfort. No love, only pain. She has suffered immensely.

What do you lose as an addict? You lose yourself. You lose your children. You lose your family's trust and respect. The belief that you are a worthy human being. The understanding that you deserve better. That you have a disease, because addiction is a disease and not a choice.You lose everything.

Underneath all of that my aunt is a good person, just a person that wrestles the demons of her past and has no idea how to get rid of them. My mother got therapy for the abuse, my aunt turned to the needle. It could have been my mom. I could have been raised by a drug addict. Very easily my mother and aunt could have lived on the same path. But they didn't.

There is a large amount of addicts in my family. It is a sign of the dysfunction that has seeped down the line. Loving addicts changes a person. You try and live a normal life but somethings are never truly normal. I can not explain the hardship of growing up wondering when we would get the phone call that one of our loved ones would be found dead in some ditch somewhere from over dosing or being murdered due to the dangerous people that addicts hang around.  The apprehension of any late night phone calls. Afraid that each ring was an omen of the bad news we tried to prepare ourselves to hear. Would it be my brother, my sister, my uncle, or my aunt? Thankfully, all of them have gotten clean and we never received that dreaded phone call, just the calls we got when they were arrested. The visiting a loved one in jail or reading letters from them sent from prison. The stories of the horrible things they have endured to get high. We are a remarkable family for all that we have been through and yet there are so many of us families out there. Wrestling with the loss/pain and frustration of loving our addicts because we love the person not the disease. There becomes a loss of hope as we watch the ones we love lose everything around them and spiral out of control. We have to learn not to enable and that is hard because we know why they suffer and we don't want them to suffer more and yet we can't give them money, or trust their actions. or get them out of trouble. They have to hit rock bottom and unfortunately, sometimes rock bottom kills them. It feels like watching them drown and there is no way to save them until they are ready to ask for a life jacket.

Out of all of the addicts in my family, my aunt struggles the most. My uncle was clean and sober for over ten years when he died of a heart attack. My brother and sister are relatively healthy and have been clean for years. My aunt still wrestles with addiction and relapse. She is still in the system and is on probation. She had a five year clean streak until her then husband started using and started pressuring her to use again. That was years ago. She got clean again for a bit and relapsed two years ago. She is freshly clean again. It has been on and off but she tries really hard.... Her life has been very difficult. To makes matters worse, her 54 year old body has been greatly affected by her abuse of it over the years. She has difficulty breathing. She has hepatitis. She once had gangrene in her needle marks. She has had unusual illnesses that only come with being in the dirty disgusting drug dens or from being a prostitute or injecting that shit into your veins. Now, she is on oxygen. She has something wrong with her lungs but we are not sure what, and today I learned that while in the hospital she has suffered a stroke. She can't talk right, she isn't cognizant of what is going on, and she is scared. Worst of all she doesn't seem to know who we are and she is halfway across the country from us. All I keep thinking is what can I do to help? How can I comfort her? This woman who has never really had any real comfort in her life.

My heart is just broken for this woman. This strong woman who has battled for so long. Not just an addict but a woman I love very deeply. Because addicts are not just addicts they are also the broken people underneath the disease. She is an addict but she is still my aunt, a beautiful blonde green eyed woman trapped in addicts failing body. I want to hate my grandfather. I want to rage at him but he too is dead and sadly he too was a victim of horrid sickening sexual and physical abuse. He had no childhood. He was terribly abused and by many. It doesn't excuse what he did but it explains his sick perspective. When someone says abuse is a cycle, they know what they are talking about.  I don't know how to feel right now except sad. My mother says when she thinks of my aunt she thinks she never really had a chance.....

She never knew trust. Never knew love from a man that didn't consist of rape, abuse, or drugs except her first husband but she was too far into drugs to stay and didn't understand his love because she equates love with pain. Never been told she is a worthy human being. Never been taken seriously. Never believed. Never trusted because of the drug use. Has no home, no job, no career, no family close by except her girlfriend, no pets, no car, no plans for the future that most of us have. She has never gone on a real vacation or traveled outside of the U.S. She has nothing that most of us take for granted everyday and yet she is the age most people look at to start retiring. She should have those things but drugs took those things away from her. Her disease has taken away so much. Her abuser continues to win every time she uses which also allows his abusers to win. Yes, I know she has to take responsibility for her actions but then I wonder who should take responsibility for why she uses to forget in the first place? The way she grew up and the path she took I sometimes think my mother is more right then she knows. Maybe she really didn't have a chance at a normal life because my mom found help and my aunt never could...

I sit here and write this I have no idea why. I guess I wanted other people to know her story. She deserves to be believed and her story counts. Maybe other people will understand addicts better from it. Maybe other families going through this will find comfort that they are not alone. Maybe my aunt will find comfort in the fact she is not alone....She deserved better and she still does. Maybe people will see how abuse ruins people's lives. How damaging it is. How it affects everything you do and every choice that you make. Maybe it will bring some sympathy in the hearts of those that think addicts want to live such a miserable life. They don't, they are just tortured and need help.

I am not giving up hope for her. I refuse to give up on her like so many have. My mom and grandma and my other uncle and his wife will continue to hope that she will recover as will my aunt's girlfriend. She needs to know that we love her and we believe in her. She is not "rummy dummy" she is Patti and she is beautiful. She is magnificent. She is worthy. Maybe she never had a chance, but she has one now.

So I am asking if you guys would send her some positive thoughts, or pray for her, or send her light. She needs to recover from this stroke so she can continue her path of staying clean. I would really appreciate it because, dammit that woman has had enough crap coming down on her all of her life. She could use a little support.

Thanks guys,
Neurotic Nelly

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

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

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


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


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

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

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

When he received the negative attention he did apologize stating :

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Neurotic Nelly

Maybe Just A Little Bit......

Last Sunday was my thirty fifth birthday. My mom and I celebrated our birthdays as we have always done, together. It was nice and calming and the food was good. I got to visit with my grandma which is always a plus. She is so adorable and it got me to thinking....

If you listen to the media and how it portrays mental illness you would think that sufferers look different than other people. You might expect them to look crazy or scary. Dirty or aloof. Awkward or zoned out.

For instance you might think that people with depression look sad....or that people with PTSD look unhinged. You might expect people with Bipolar Disorder to look disheveled or manic....but the truth is that underneath all of the pain and emotional dysfunction and confusion, we are all only human. We don't have our diagnoses printed on our heads in big bright letters. We do not wear our disorders pinned on our sleeves for the world to see.

Look at this picture for example: this is my mother who is a wonderful human being that just so happens to suffer from PTSD, Chronic Depression, and Bipolar Disorder. 

You would never know by looking at her that these are her daily struggles. That sometimes just to get out of bed in the morning seems like an insurmountable task.

And this one: You might never have guessed that both of these people suffer from severe Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

That I suffer panic attacks and have medical and germ fears so badly I fight them on a daily basis or that she (my grandma) worries and obsesses about things until she gets so full of anxiety she cries. That we both avoid certain triggers that make us uncomfortable. That we both suffer from a tremendous amount of undeserved guilt and shame.

We look fairly normal. We look like the millions of other people that walk the earth. There is nothing in these pictures that show our trials and our struggles. We look like everyone else because in reality we are so much like everyone else. We just happen to have mental illness.

I grew up in a family full of strong women. Compassionate, loving, kind, but also fearless. Not because we were born to be fearless but because there was no other way to be and survive. We are women that have lived through abuse. We are women that have lived through mental illness. We are women that have fought for our lives and triumphed because there was no other option available and we are too stubborn to back down. 

I guess what I am trying to say is that depression doesn't always show on your face. You can be a smiling face to the world but be wounded and alone on the inside. You can be Bipolar and look like the neighbor that cooks out on Tuesday nights. You can be OCD and be the mailman that wears that funny little safari hat in the middle of summer. There is no "mental illness look". There are no physical traits that show our pain or our issues. We look like everyday people because we are everyday people. We just have different struggles to deal with.....

The media would have you believe that people that suffer from mental illness look like glazed eyed ax wielding murderers. They would have you believe that we look like kidnappers and boogeymen. They try and paint pictures of us that are neither helpful nor factual. We are not the thing that goes bump in the night. We are not the monsters hiding under the bed. We look like a thirty five year old woman and her fifty six year old mother on their birthday and their seventy five year old grandmother. We look like a beloved always smiling for the public sixty three year old comedian and actor. We look like soldiers coming back home from war. We look like doctors, and lawyers, and car salesmen. We look like children, and parents, and siblings because we are all of those things..... We look like other people because we are other people. We are just ordinary, regular, everyday people that just happen to suffer. We are no different and we are no less magnificent. We are still beautiful. We are still worthy. We are still lovable, courageous, intelligent, fascinating, purposeful individuals except maybe we are just a little bit stronger. A little bit more aware of the struggle of others and maybe just a little bit more compassionate about it.

Neurotic Nelly

Heartbroken....

Heartbroken. I am angry, sad, and lost.

I didn't personally know Robin Williams. I am not famous or in the movie industry. I am neither a comic nor a comedian. I am just a person. A regular person. An ordinary person. A person that can't yet fathom never seeing new a Robin Williams movie or hearing his comedy routines live or watching him ham it up with the latest talk show host ever again.

I loved Robin Williams. His humor, his energy, his fluidity of voice changes and characters. His references were both poignant and truthful. He had a way of making everyone feel like his best friend even if their only connection to him was watching him on the television set or viewing one of his many skillfully played characters at the movie theater. He illuminated the masses with his hyper and manic humor. He brought tears to our eyes with his heart touching roles. He shared some of his life with us. Some of the inner workings of his genius mind and he did it all while making us smile. He reminded many of us that grew up watching him, of our own beloved yet goofy family members. The crazy uncle that dances around and does funny accents and silly voices or the wacky aunt that jumps from story to story, each story being bigger and more implausible than the next. Everyone has one of those kooky relatives and Mr. Williams seemed to encompass them all but with more oomph and better fashion sense. His smile brought many of us comfort. We knew no matter how hard our day was or how sad we might be, that even the smallest of his jokes would change all of that. Even if for only a few moments, we knew that Robin Williams would make us laugh and we would feel better, and he did.

That is why so many of us were so terribly shocked that we lost him in such a profoundly devastating way. He was for many of us, a hero. Not only did he make us laugh but he was open and honest about many of his struggles. He had battled with addiction and wrestled with depression and he helped raise awareness of both of those issues every time he discussed them. He was successful even though he suffered and it made him a hero to a great many of us. He made us realize that we too could reach for our dreams even though we may have mental illness or addiction issues. For me he was more than an actor, comic, or funny man. For me and many like me, he was an inspiration.

Sometimes when others make us laugh we fail to see the pain behind their eyes. Sometimes we fail to see that laughter can hide agony and despair. I do not know why Robin Williams committed suicide but I do know how devastated his family and friends must be. I know what living with a depressed parent is like and sadly I understand suicide and the fear of it on a very real level. My mother tried to kill herself when I was ten years old. She suffers from among other things, bipolar disorder and chronic depression.

Depression isn't simply feeling sad. It isn't just being overwhelmed and lonely. Depression is a black whole that sucks up every important, valued, wonderful thing in your life and swallows it whole. It decimates and devastates. It leaves you raw and numb. It smothers your other senses so completely that it tunnels your vision until all that you can see is the pain and agony in which you have lived your life in. It is not just having a bad day. It is an exhaustion, a soul crushing exhaustion that pollutes every sense of normalcy in your world. It takes everything from you and leaves you desperate for any semblance of solace or peace.  Depression isn't simply an emotion, it is an illness and like all illnesses, it can and it does kill.

I think people are surprised by his depression because he was successful and famous. Because he seemed so happy and jovial. Because he had done so many things most of us will never achieve. But that just shows how little most people know about mental illnesses such as depression. Depression doesn't discriminate. It has nothing to do with money or fame. It has nothing to do with race or social status. It has nothing to do with gender, sexual preference, or one's religious views. Depression is a mental illness and as such it can affect anyone, at anytime, anywhere.

I actually read a comment implying that if he had known the love of God this might not have happened and I was sorely disappointed by the ignorance of that statement. My mother has always loved God...she loved God while she prayed...loved God when she went to church on Sundays...and my mother still loved God just as much when she swallowed a bottle of pills...one by one while hoping to die. She never stopped loving God, she just wanted to end her misery. To imply a loss of religion is the cause of suicide is not only folly and ignorant but dangerous as well. You can not simply wash away a chemical imbalance in your brain with prayer. It does not work that way... So it, in fact, does not matter what religion he may or may not have believed in or if he had or had not known the love of God. Suicide has less to do with one's beliefs and more to do with ending one's pain.

And I am afraid that people will judge him. Some will say snide remarks and ugly comments about his life and decisions or his belief systems. They will call him weak or cowardly. They will act as if they know what was going through his mind or that they would have ended up differently but the truth is most of them have no idea what that struggle is like or how deep the pain of depression can seep into your soul. There will be internet trolls and judgy misguided people with big opinions and little ability to understand anything but their own preconceived notions of mental illness. They will try and make his battle with depression something to be looked down on or ashamed of and that is wrong. His family doesn't need judgments and ignorance, they need understanding and acceptance. He lost his battle but that does not make him weak or cowardly. I am not advocating for suicide. I believe it is devastating. It leaves a definable scar on the fabric of your family that never fully heals. However, I believe that we have to stop demonizing those that have done it and understand that they don't do it because they don't love their families, or they are weak, they do it because they truly at that time are unable to see that there is any other way to end their suffering. They do it because they suffer from a mental illness that is often times overlooked, understated, and stigmatized by the public.

If this tragedy does anything to shed light on the issues of suicide in this country, than I hope it reaches people on a very real level. I hope that it can help end the ignorance and stigma that surrounds the topic of suicide and mental illness. Robin Williams was a wonderful person, a big hearted, loving, magnificent person and he will be sorely missed as will the over 30,000  other Americans that commit suicide in this country every year.  Their loss is a tragedy just as horrific and devastating as Mr. Williams's.  The discussion of suicide is swept under the rug or discussed only in hushed voices. We owe it to those that have lost their battle with depression and other mental illnesses to stop sticking our heads in the sand. They deserve our attention and their pain deserves to be discussed. Their lives deserve to be talked about and their suicides deserve to be acknowledged so that we can help others before they get to this point of despair.

Suicide is preventable. There is help. There are other options, better options, and until we start being honest about suicide in this country sadly, we will continue lose more people that could have been saved.

My heart goes out to the Williams family and all of his friends, fans, and acquaintances. My heart goes out to the whole world that has lost such a bright, intelligent, and magnificent man that they will never get to know....and my heart goes out to Robin Williams because his pain must have been profound and daunting and because as in so many other cases, we as a society failed to be open about mental illness like we should be and because of that we failed to reach him in time.


Neurotic Nelly

Maybe It Is Just Me?...

I hated Spanish class in high school. I love the language. I love the idea of learning a new culture. I however, hated this particular class with everything in my soul. It was right after lunch and the teacher knew that I sucked at foreign languages (dyslexia) and so he would call on me to say things in Spanish...which was always wrong. The kids would laugh, the teacher would laugh....I would feel totally embarrassed. What's worse, was this was the one class I had panic attacks in. I would go sit down at my desk, start to shake, and end up bolting from the class in sheer panic mode. I got sneers and snide remarks from other students They had no idea what was wrong with me, but clearly there was something off. It was mortifying and yet I kept going back day after day after day....I rather not recall those painful days of high school and yet I often wonder what others think when they see someone freak out in that manner.


I was reading this weird little blurb last night about what to say to people that are having a panic attack and it kinda made me laugh a bit. Not that it wasn't a nice article. It meant well, but some of it was rather silly. To me anyway. It said things like "let them know you are there for them". That is a nice sentiment, but I don't need to know you are there for me in that moment. I know you care but you being "there for me" doesn't resolve my anxiety in any way while I am in the middle of the attack. It does make me feel better afterwards though.

There were several more sayings like this but the worst one for me, was "ask them what they need". Listen, during a full on raging panic attack it is all I can do to concentrate on my own breathing. I don't want to hyperventilate and pass out. So, the last thing I want or even can do at that moment is to hold a conversation and tell you what I need. What I need is to breathe.

Maybe it is just me, I prefer to have my panic attacks in seclusion. If I have one in public (God forbid) then I go somewhere private so I can get control of it. I can not talk during one. I can not handle being touched during one. I can not deal with other outside stimuli at all. And the thought of anyone watching me break down like that, even family or loved ones, is mortifying to me. I am not a science experiment and I don't want to be stared at like one.

Unfortunately, having an anxiety disorder means that I do have panic attacks and I have had to learn to accept that I may get triggered and have one at any point in time. Most of the time, I can talk myself down out of one. But there are the big ones that hit me out of nowhere and I am left having to pick up the pieces when it is done. So, I am wondering if I am the only one.....How do you respond to panic attacks and do you find being told people are there for you or asking what you need in the middle of one helpful? And if you see someone having a panic attack and you don't suffer from them, what do you think when you see one?


Neurotic Nelly

It's All In My Head.....

Sorry about missing my usual posting on Tuesday but there was this smell in my bathroom that needed to be eradicated. I would have written but I was busy scrubbing, washing, and losing my mind. I got rid of the smell though.....I think.

Smells are a trigger for me. I am sensitive to odors and I can not stand smells that don't belong. It's a real thing for me.

Now that the offensive odor is gone, I am back. Ta Da!

Not much else going on currently except I am having issues with people pressuring me for my birthday plans and it is starting to trigger my OCD. I find I am irritated. The upside being that my house is the cleanest it has ever been and my laundry is done....which is huge because I hate doing laundry with every fiber of my being. The downside being that I am overwhelmed and stressed out.

And then it hits me.....I am still dealing with the same issues I always have. The same issues all of us that suffer have. I have been suffering for over thirty years and still people that know me expect me to be fine with stress, or plans, or pressure. I mean seriously?!?

I am just flabbergasted. I really am. I mean, these people know me. They have heard my life stories, they have even been present in most of them and yet somehow they conveniently forget I have issues.....it's remarkable to me. Sucky and unfair and frustrating, but also remarkable how people can just overlook such a completely obvious fact. An obvious fact that has hung around my neck like a fucking tire iron all of my life and yet....no one remembers it when they want something. My struggles become invisible to them because I appear to be doing so well so nothing must be wrong with me. It's all in my head....

And they are right, it is all in my head. My mind is flawed. I have issues. I keep telling people this and yet they look at me like I faking it or overreacting. Well, I think I know my own mind and my own mind is screaming at me to avoid this whole stressful situation but those people that know me keep pushing it in my face. I don't know if I even want a birthday now. It is stressing me out so much, I just want to sit down and cry. I want to sit down and wail at all of the ridiculousness of the whole fucking thing. Birthdays are supposed to be a celebration. I don't feel like celebrating. I feel like locking myself in the closet and ignoring the world. I feel like grieving rather than celebrating. Why can't things just be simple? Why does it have to be some long drawn out situation with issues and hiccups and guilt trips and emotions? Can't it just be something easy?

And so I sit here writing this, trying not to have a panic attack over a stupid birthday party for my mother and I and I am just sick of all of it. I am so stressed and I don't want to hear another fucking thing about it. I don't care if there are gifts, or cake, or food, or family there. I don't care where we are supposed to go or what we are supposed to do. I feel let down by everyone because every plan I try to come up with to be helpful fails or is shot down. I don't care anymore. I simply don't want to deal with it. I don't want to worry about it. I don't want to even think about it.

It just leaves me feeling dejected and exhausted.....Sigh....

I am sorry this post isn't very uplifting but today just really sucks. I am sure that it will all work itself out, or it won't and I just end up watching crappy reruns on t.v. in the dark with my cats.... Either way I am not going to worry about it anymore.

Neurotic Nelly

The Barn's My Mother Painted....

I have this faded memory that seems like it happened to someone else, like an old movie reel. I was around five or so and it was a hot sunny day. My mom, dad, and I had stopped driving in our old beaten down truck. My mother painted with oil colors so we would often stop near old dilapidated barns so she could take pictures of them. This time the barn was in a field of golden wheat. I remember looking at the barn ceiling and then twirling around under the sunlight dancing to whatever song had crept into my soul. It is just a jumbled memory of the sky spinning and the smell of warm dampened wheat all around me. With the sound of my mother's camera snapping pictures of a building that once was more than it had become. It is a warm and fuzzy and bright memory. I carry that memory around with me always. The time before I grew up and had to deal with the ugly things in life.  When life was simple. When all of the world hinged on what time of day it was.....

People might have looked at my mother oddly as she took picture after picture of broken down farms and disheveled buildings. They may have thought her strange to paint broken barns rather than the new shiny ones, or that she even dared look at them in the first place. Why not paint waterfalls or mountain ranges instead? But my mother has an affinity for imperfect things, much like myself. The things others take for granted or overlook. They are every bit as beautiful as everything else.

I think of my mother's barns. So many paintings that adorned our walls and hallways. Beauty in each one and yet everyone was so different. Sometimes we would drive for miles to find the perfect one to paint. Some with a rusted tractor still inside. Some solitary in the fields, some clustered together holding each other up, some with doors hanging by the hinges, some with ceilings caved in. They were remarkable. They were old beauties still hanging on even when everything else around them had gone. The houses that once adorned them had long been razed to the ground. The animals that had once walked their stalls had ceased doing so long ago. And yet here they stood, tall and lumbering, and so very stoic and honest. Standing in the face of the earth trying to reclaim what was once just fields of weeds. A marr on the view of the prairie. A perfectly lovely and glorious marr that proved of it's own existence. As if it were to say, I was here, remember me.

Sometimes I think we are like the old barns my mother painted. Strong but weathered. Tall but leaning. Stout but broken in places. Beautiful and graceful even after the pressures of time. Worthy of being painted in golden fields of wheat with the sun beaming down on our faces. We should be danced with, looked at, admired. We should be familiar and yet surprising. We should be understood and remembered fondly. We are common and yet completely unique. We are exactly what we are supposed to be....is there anything more beautiful than being exactly what you need to be. Exactly what you are.  No apologies for not being being what you thought you should be, just acceptance, and the knowledge that you matter. You will leave your mark. You will be remembered because you were here. I like to think we are all painted with oil colors and bright paints....that we are all as beautiful and unique like the barns my mother painted.

Pick Your Battles....

Some days I do well and some days I do not.... That is what I tell people when they ask how I deal with my OCD without medication. Not that with medication it is some easy pleasure cruise. It's not. It is hard both ways. Today was not going to be a good day and I could feel it from the tips of my toes as it shivered down my spine and churned in the pit of my stomach like soured milk. Today was going to be a disaster and I had better change my plans if I wanted to turn it around.

The man that has raised me since the age of 14 is in the hospital with a blood clot in his leg and I am worried about him. My youngest has been having night terrors. My internet has been rebellious and not allowed me to blog let alone stay on the internet. My grandmother just found out she might go completely blind. My sleep is virtually nonexistent and all of this shit just seems to keep piling on top of me until it feels like I am being smothered by fears and worries and an all consuming pressure. I do not do well under pressure. I crack. I break. I stumble. Pressure is my greatest enemy....Today was my three month check up for my diabetes at my doctor's office. As an OCD sufferer that has  germ a phobia as a  symptom, obviously a doctor's office is a big trigger for me. However, I usually manage to make it work and just push through my fears, albeit with my hands slathered in antibiotic gel and my shirt collar over my nose and mouth. I make it. I get through it. I go home. But now with my doctor's aggressive disposition and just down right rudeness, I am having issues not only forcing myself to be in my trigger zone but also in dealing with her on top of it. I worried all night long about it. I obsessed over her being mad at me, because she always is. Her inability to listen to me, answer any questions I may have, or allow me any type of human interaction besides looking at my vitals and telling me what to do (or in the last appointment actually yelling at me). She doesn't listen and I don't trust her and it all makes me highly uncomfortable. I cant change doctors until the beginning of the year so I am stuck having to see "Dr. Battleaxe" until then. I am pressured into to seeing her and she still has my prescription wrong on the bottle as it has been for the last seven months. Not to mention I couldn't get her to refill my diabetes medication over memorial day weekend even though I had called it in three days before and the pharmacy had to spot me some because they couldn't get her to refill it either. Apparently she was busy reading my chart so it took six days to get a refill of a medication I have to have...shameful. All of this plays through my mind and it just makes me want to scream.

And I tried. I really tried to ignore the unease that was rapidly coursing through my veins. I did the pep talk with myself. I was going to force myself to go and just get it over with, like usual but this time it was different. I knew even as I was "talking myself down" out of the anxiety that it wasn't going to work. Oh,  I could have went but getting out of the car once we got there would not have happened. I would have cried and had a full on panic attack right there in front of God and everyone. Then we would have to had gone back home without seeing the doctor anyway and I would have been left feeling embarrassed and defeated at the same time. I would blame myself and be angry that I could not push through the fear and dread. Sometimes you just can't push over a brick wall even when you think you should be able to. I don't want to have to be angry with myself today. I have enough things going on to have to deal with that right now.

Usually I push through it but sometimes you have to know when to step back. You can't win every skirmish of the war and it is wise to learn when to pick your battles. This was one not worth having right now, so I rescheduled for another day. Hopefully, I will get some much needed sleep before I am forced to face my triggers again....for I am battle weary and too exhausted to fight tonight. Tonight I just want to sit back and pretend to be relaxed......I am picking my battles today and I think I am just going to sit this one out. I need a fucking break before I crumple to the floor. Time to let myself off the hook for a bit.


Neurotic Nelly

Chameleon.....

I have been wrestling with some new issues lately and I am unsure what to do about it. I have lost about forty pounds in the last nine months. I was overweight. I carry it well and most people had no idea how much I actually weighed, and honestly I was perfectly comfortable being the weight that I was. I had no bad feelings about my body. I knew I was beautiful. I felt attractive. I was just fine with my weight except the lack of energy aspect. And then I got diagnosed with diabetes. Not necessarily from my weight, I have had several surgeries that affect your pancreas. I was on a liver medication for a while and there is a family history of diabetes in almost all of my senior family members. I also had it with both pregnancies and I was told that I would most likely get it when I was old. I didn't realize that old was translated as 34 but whatever.  And so in hopes to better control my diabetes and hopefully get off the medication, I have been healthily losing weight.

My issue is that now that I have gone down two dress sizes, I am uncomfortable with my body. I haven't been this size in years. I no longer know how to dress it in a flattering way. I still feel like I am the same size I was nine months ago. I am stuck in the fatself mindset. I know I have lost weight and yet I still think of myself forty pounds heavier.  I can't seem to accept my weight loss and if I am being honest, I am unhappy because it is new, and we all know how well new things go over with people that have OCD.

I have been thinking about why I was happy being my old weight and I have come to the conclusion that I was happier that way because it helped in not bringing attention to myself. I don't like a lot of attention about my body. I have a large bust and I always got rude or pervy comments that made me feel uncomfortable or dirty. I always got picked on because of my red hair and being poor. Suggestive comments make me feel uncomfortable. I don't know how to respond when hit on, it makes me feel strange. And losing weight makes my bust size more obvious and I am uncomfortable with the comments I know I will receive. Maybe I was fine being heavier because I felt protected by the fat. I felt safe. Because I have always garnered attention from my red hair, my OCD, my larger bust. Maybe being fatter was a way to hide myself from the world and not be looked at and commented on. Maybe it was my way of remaining invisible to the masses when I wanted to be invisible. It was my security blanket and I carried it with me everywhere, except I wore it on my thighs and stomach rather than in my backpack. Maybe, now that my security blanket is shrinking and I am uncomfortable with the loss of it. And I don't want to live like that. I want to wear cute clothes and feel comfortable doing so for the first time in my life. I want to be able to wear lower cut clothing and not feel embarrassed because I have bigger breasts. Not feel dirty or ashamed that people say things I don't ask them to, because when they do I feel like I did something wrong or I asked for their pervish comments. I sometimes wonder if my sexual assault made me shutter away from wearing more low cut or attractive clothing because I am afraid of the attention it can promote. I guess I am uncomfortable with being viewed as sexy because it means people will look at me and I have tried to avoid being looked at that way all of my life. I want to be free of feeling like my body is something to be ashamed of. I want to be able to be proud of my body and not be afraid of what other people will say about it.

Don't get me wrong, I love the new energy I have. I love that my diabetes is more easily controlled. It may not go into remission even when I do get to my target weight. It all depends on if my pancreas was damaged by the surgeries or medicine I was on. I may always be diabetic, which sucks. But I can be healthier and stronger with it so I don't get the complications that diabetes can have. I just find it strange that the weight loss makes me feel less beautiful and more objectified. I have lived in the shadows away from that for so long I am afraid of it and not sure how I am going to become comfortable with it.

I think all sizes and shapes are beautiful and I wonder why I can not equate that to myself. Why do I feel less safe skinnier than I did fatter? Why do I feel less attractive? Is it because I force myself to look at my body now that I have lost weight and I never looked when I was bigger? I also have fear of becoming obsessed with my weight and falling into the old anorexia pattern I had when I was a teenager. I wasn't full on anorexic but I was dangerously close. It scares me. I don't want to become obsessed with my body image again, but I also want to be happy with myself. Ugh, it is all so confusing to me right now.

So, I will keep trying to get healthier and stronger. I will keep losing weight in a healthy pattern and do what I am supposed to do as a diabetic to further avoid complications and remain healthy. I don't know what to do about figuring out what clothes look better on me, maybe I need to try everything on in the store till I find something that looks good. Maybe after time, I will get used to my security blanket being gone and I will learn to accept a skinnier me, a healthier me. Maybe I will finally stop being trapped in the " I am fat" way of thinking as I grow used to being less big. Maybe I can get over this fear of the whole thing. Maybe I can learn to love myself skinny, and accept my beauty with a smaller figure like I did with my bigger one. I don't know. Most people are thrilled when they lose weight...I am scared of the changes that come with it. Oh well, you know me, I will just keep trying until I get it right and learn to adapt. I have been a chameleon all of my life, changing as my life changes and adapting when I need to. Guess this will just be yet another thing I have to learn to adapt to.



Neurotic Nelly

Letter To A Husband.....

So a few weeks ago I was feeling down and under appreciated which comes with being married and a stay at home mother.  I actually think in any relationship we can get bogged down with feelings of being overlooked under the amount of work we do whether it be laundry, cooking meals, or being an office worker. As a mother I sometimes forget to feed both sides of myself, both the mother but also the woman.
As adults we get so wrapped up in our daily lives that we forget to say what we need from our partners or that we need anything at all. And we all need to be reminded that we are loved and cherished. I wrote this to just get out my feelings and then after my husband read it, he said I should publish it. And yes he does find me beautiful and he is my best friend but like everyone else sometimes life gets in the way and we forget to actually say these things to each other.  He felt that the way I was feeling might be how other wives feel and maybe it would be helpful for their husbands to see that side of them. The side we often overlook and don't explain because we feel we are too busy to talk about it. So, I guess this is a letter from the perspective of the busy mother to the busy father to emphasize that no matter how busy life gets, you should always take time to say what you feel and feel what you mean because partners need to be honest with each other but they also should be the greatest supporters of each other.


Dear Husband,

I love you with all of my heart and I am thankful for the things you do for me. Understand that I do know that you do them for me. You go to the store for me. You buy my pads. You buy my favorite kind of cereal or my favorite pop. You make sure the bills are paid after we discuss when to pay them. You work a very hard job and you don't get paid enough for the crap you  put up with there. I know your body hurts, and you are tired, and you are hungry. I know all of this and I try my best to support you and make you comfortable when you are home. I try my best, which I understand may not be always enough to make it better.

Everyday while you are at work I am up to my eyeballs in laundry, filth, dishes, and cat litter. I wash and clean. I kiss boo boo's for the kids and settle disputes. I do homework and windows. I don't get much sleep. I am up late at night to stave off nightmares and answers the universe's questions right before bedtime. I read stories and sing bedtime songs. I often times forget to brush my teeth as I prepare lunches for school and fill out field trip slips early in the morning. I make doctor's appointments and coffee. I am literally both physically and emotionally exhausted but I still make time for you as much as possible. Maybe it isn't always enough time, but I try. I am so much for other people. I am mom to our kids, and wife to you, and daughter to my parents,  but I am more than that. Used to be, I was a woman. I was a person. I forget sometimes, what it  was like to be just a woman, just a person. I try my best and at a lot of things I fail. Like that one time I burned the bacon so badly it was literally black strips of char. Or the time I cut up our oldest's homework into a Christmas snowflake because it got stuck in with the throw away paper we were using to make crafts with. I can't drive because of my eyesight. I am unable to hold down a "real job" because of my anxiety. I am flawed and I am imperfect and I own up to every single thing that makes me that way. And I hear all of the things that I don't excel at, but rarely do I hear the things I do well and it makes me feel like I am unable to accomplish anything of worth. Like I am terrible at everything and that makes me feel bad. I need to hear that I am worth something to you.

The truth is while I am covered in cleaning products and cat hair and whatever drink our youngest has spilled on me I am still just a woman underneath all of that. I still need the same things all women need. I need to feel respected and understood. I need to feel loved. I need to feel beautiful. I know that we got swept up in life and kids and work but I honestly can't remember the last time you told me I was beautiful. No, I don't need to hear it everyday but when I am at my worst on the most busiest or hardest of days, hearing that you still thought I was beautiful even underneath all of the things I achieve at or even better, the things I fail at would certainly make all of this easier. I have forgotten what feeling beautiful feels like from your eyes and I miss that. I need to know that we have not become just habits to each other. That I have not slipped into just the role of maid, butler, laundress, and mother. I need to know that I matter to you. Not just because I do things for you but because you love me. Flaws and all. Greatness and all. Completely.

I need you to be compassionate when I am hurting like I am with you. Otherwise, I am left feeling alone and that hurts a great deal when you give everything to everyone else and have nothing left for yourself. Understand, I am not asking you to coddle me or put me on a pedestal. I am simply asking to be held, or to be caressed, or even to just be said I am sorry to. It goes a long way to hear from my partner that you heard me and that you feel for me. That my pain means something to someone else besides myself. Because many times I feel like it only matters to myself and that feels lonely. I don't want to feel lonely in a room full of people that I love. I want to feel like I am important. I know that I am, mind you, but I need to know that you feel that way too. Sometimes we caught up in our daily lives and we lose sight of each other's needs. I don't want to lose sight of yours and I don't want you to lose sight of mine. Before we were parents we were friends. We loved to love each other and I feel like we have forgotten that part of us. I don't want to just go through the motions I want to actively be in this relationship and I need to know that you are there for me. That I matter to you and yes, that after twelve years of diapers and formula and pets, and bills that you still find me just as beautiful as you did the first time we met. I need to know that you still see me, the real me underneath all of the layers of our daily lives.  Because right now I am not sure that you do anymore and it breaks my heart.

I love you. I am loyal to you and I want to be closer to you. I want you to know that you matter me. You are not just the father of my children and my husband but you are the man I love with all of heart. You are beautiful to me. You are worth more than you know. You are my partner, my friend, my love and I am blessed to have you in my life.

Love, your frazzled exhausted but always loving, wife.



Neurotic Nelly

I Choose To Win.....

I try and take inspiration in all things around me. As I was sitting here trying to figure out what I wanted to write about today this song popped into my head. I like the message and it inspired me to continue to get help for my OCD after my divorce.  Which was scary and it was hard because it had meant I had to admit to myself that I was not okay and that I still had more work to do on myself.

I am so glad I went through that journey. Pain and all. Blood, sweat, and tears and all. The ups and downs and everything in between. Getting help is worth it. It is hard but everything in life that matters is hard. There are no short cuts when it comes to doing what is best for you.


I still wrestle with my issues but it is always going to be a work in progress. I have accepted that. I am okay with that. But I have learned that I am worth the fight. And so my friends are you. You are worth the journey and worth the struggle. It can be done. You can learn to manage your mental illness and live. You are not alone. You do get to choose whether you will fight or deny. I urge you to take the steps to get help, because you can come out of that tunnel of darkness and start living in the light again. It will not be easy. It will not always be roses and rainbows. But the alternative is so lonely and so very frightening.  SO if you are wrestling with choice of getting help or not, I truly hope that you will choose the help. Because this is your life and this is something that you can do. I know sometimes it seems like that you can not do it, but that is just the negative self talk. You can reach out and take those first steps. You deserve to be better. You deserve to be the best you can be. It may not be like everyone else, but you don't need to be like them. You only need to be you.

"In life you get to choose whether you win or lose and I choose to win" is today's motto for me. I choose to continue to open and out there. I choose to continue to work on myself each and everyday. I choose to not let my mental illness beat me by keeping me silent and afraid. This is my life and I choose.....and you do to, whether you know it or not. So choose wisely and choose greatly because you deserve to be happy. You matter. You are worth it.





Neurotic Nelly

Teeny Tiny World We Live In...

I know that as mental illness sufferers we often times feel like we are the only ones out there suffering. That only we know the pain and struggles we go through. I am guilty of this kind of thinking as well. I know I am not the only one and yet sometimes I feel like I am...I think everyone struggles with these kinds of thoughts.

A few weeks ago something happened to remind me that I am not alone. Not just one something but two somethings completely unrelated to each other and yet very much the same. It was an eye opener for me, to say the least.

The first "something" was a few days before my last scope/surgery. I got the usual call from the hospital asking me all of my latest medical information of what I do and don't suffer from. I should have caught on when the lady went into a big spiel about the personal will question and how it was a question they had to ask but not something that that meant they felt my life was in any danger. And while I appreciated that sentiment, as I hate that question because it creeps me out, I felt she was trying to not only calm any fears I might have, but also because she was uncomfortable with asking it as well. And then it was on to the do you have anxiety issues question. After I chortled for a bout five seconds I went on to explain that I had severe OCD and while I would try my damnedest not to have an anxiety attack while I was there I could ,in fact, not make any promises. As she looked in my chart she saw that I do not currently take medications for my OCD and she asked me about that. After I explained that the only medicine that has ever worked for me was dangerous in large doses and I had become immune to lower doses than the huge amount I was used to taking she was quiet for a few seconds. She did something unexpected, she confided in me that she too had OCD.

"How do you do it?" She asked me....and I thought about it and I answered as honestly as possible. I told her that some days I do okay and some days I do not. That it was one day at a time for me. That I have learned to push through as hard as I can simply because for me, right now, there is no other option. I would do medication again, if I was able to find one that worked but apparently I seem to have, medication resistant OCD. At least for the time being.


After the call ended I felt really good. No, she didn't have to tell me that she was also a sufferer. I don't know her name or what she looks like. It was simply an exchange of two sufferers saying that they understood each other because we have the same disorder.

A couple of days later I was playing a computer game still in beta that I am seriously addicted to right now. In it I was typing to another player who is working to become an addiction therapist. We were in game messaging each other about something in the game when I made the comment that I thought his choice of career was a wonderful thing, since I have so many addiction issues in my family. He thanked me and then he said something that just blew my mind. He wanted to be an addiction therapist not because he has addiction issues but because he has OCD and he wanted to work with people with OCD as well. There it was, a second person with OCD that I had run into totally by accident and totally unexpectedly. We ended up talking about OCD for an hour and totally forgetting about the game. I was just so surprised and honestly, excited to have the chance to talk to someone else who totally got what I go through.

And there you have it.... the proof I needed that I was not only not alone but that fellow sufferers were everywhere even in the most unexpected of places. Just a click from a mouse or a answer of a phone call. None of us usually lead conversations with the declaration of of our mental illness, for obvious reasons, but when we find fellow sufferers it is a relief to be honest about our diagnoses without the fear of judgment or misunderstanding.  I can't describe how freeing it is to talk with others that share your same disorder. Even if the conversation never goes past the "I also suffer from that" phrase. There is a knowing. An understanding. We share the same demons and even if our particular demons are different they come hand delivered to your door decorated with the same ugly ass gift wrap. We get each other. We know.

And so it got me to thinking that on days when we feel very lost and totally alone maybe statistics could be helpful.

One in five Americans have, will, or are currently suffering from mental illness.

About 6.3 million American people suffer from OCD in a given year.........

http://psychcentral.com/library/ocd_facts.htm


More than 2 million Americans suffer from Bipolar DIsorder.......

Disorder....http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/conditions/bipolar-disorder

More than 2.2 million American people suffer from Schizophrenia...

http://www.schizophrenia.com/szfacts.htm#


And there are so many more mental illnesses and statistics out there to share that it would take me all day to cut and paste. Statistics that show no matter what mental illness you may suffer from, there are so many others that share that same illness with you. You are not alone. There are people that understand. It is not as vast of a void as we tend to think it is. In realty, it is a teeny tiny world we live in and it is populated by a great number of people just like us.


Neurotic Nelly

It's An Idea Though.....

Tuesday was not my day folks. I wrote and I cleaned but I also suffered self inflicted boo boo's. Not on purpose mind you, but due to my ever present clumsiness. I often wonder if I was meant to be the fourth of the three stooges. I am still recovering and mad at myself for being so......me.

First I was cleaning the litter box and stood up without realizing I was under the valley of the ceiling and hit the back of my head so hard, I literally saw stars. I didn't know that could actually happen. I always thought that was a cartoon thing not a real life thing. Well, it is and it hurts. Then I managed to bump my head two more times on the table and cabinet door while picking up things.....wonderful.

The worst part was when I made dinner in the wok. I was cooking pepper steak and I had failed to realize that the meat was still frozen on the back side. When my oil was hot and ready I dumped the frozen meat into the wok and instead of it being chunks falling into the oil the whole slab of frozen meat clunked into the  pan. The frost on the back side of the meat hitting the hot oil coupled with the force of the meat hitting the pan made it splash all on the underside of my left arm.....wonderful. Now I have several red angry burn marks and a headache. Tuesday was just dandy.

Wednesday was better albeit sore and that leaves today. Good ol' Thursday.

I was checking the news and reading about mental illness as I usually do. I like to know what is being done or rather mostly not being done to help with our cause, our issues, and our treatments. I'm obsessive like that. Anyway, I was reading a really good article from USA Today called, "People With Mental Illness Face Legal Discrimination" and my initial reply to the title was, "no shit Sherlock". I mean, the article is great but this is hardly news. All of us with a mental illness are aware of this fact. I like that the article is bringing to light how the U.S. government views mental illness but I am not sure that articles and news stories will change a great deal. They are often overlooked and ignored, sadly.

What do I think we should do to change this? Well, I have some ideas, keep in mind I am crazy, but my main idea is to be counted. In the past when a group of people were openly discriminated against they protested. They held parades, they made flags, they were and are public and open. There is a gay parade. There is a Martin Luther King day. The reason many of these ideals and discriminations were changed was by the sheer force of numbers of minorities standing up and being proactive. Being public. Showing that they were out there and they were tired of being ignored and judged.

Yes we have walks, but they are not broadcast on the news. Yes we have mental illness month but it is largely ignored. We are not represented in a way that is positive enough nor are our protests heard as much as they need to be to make said changes to our broken system. We are still very much afraid. Don't get me wrong, news articles help but it is not enough.

Yes, even though there are parades and special days for other minority groups that have been discriminated against there is still some discrimination going around. But the big difference is that it is now considered politically incorrect to talk negatively about someone because of their religion, race, political affiliation, or sexual preference. It is looked down upon and is considered to be rude and ignorant and yet, it is perfectly acceptable to talk despairingly about people with mental illness. It is done in books, movies, and even on the nightly news. There is no political correctness  preventing people saying that we are worthless, scary, dangerous, or broken.

It's okay to deny us medical coverage when we need to be hospitalized for long periods for mental reasons. It is okay to say that we aren't employable or productive. That we are a plague on society. It is okay to arm chair diagnose people with supposed mental illness on television when they haven't even been seen by the diagnoser. Or to promote the idea that all mental illness sufferers are homeless or vice versa. It's kinda crazy out there folks.

And no one shames them for it. No one stands up and calls them on their obvious ignorance and misinformation. It is left where it lies and we are the ones that have to deal with the negative labels and false misconceptions.

We need a peaceful showing of solidarity. A walk through cities and towns with not just thirty or forty people but with thousands. We need our own color shirts and our own support ribbons, our own flag, our own representation that is positive. Just like how AIDS is looked at now. Where it was once treated with stigma and shame people now openly discuss it and wear support ribbons for it. It is no longer shrouded in ignorance and left under the shadows of indifference. It is remembered and recognized, mental illness is not.  And in many ways it is our fault because we let the fear and stigma hold us back. We do not convene by the thousands and walk so we can be positively promoted on the news. We do not hand out pamphlets that promote acceptance and understanding of mental illnesses. We are covertly operating when we need to be openly active. We have to demand change in this country and the only way to do that is by being seen and heard not by a few articles when the news is slow or a post or two as an after thought but by large numbers, by masses of sufferers and their supporters saying,  'We are here and we matter". We need to erase the stigma and shame that the title mental illness has draped over it. We shouldn't be ashamed. We have no reason to be. We shouldn't have to live fear. We shouldn't have to hide ourselves from the rest of the world. Mental illness should be viewed the same way as every other ribbon represented illness. It should be viewed the same as diabetes or heart disease. It should be viewed the same as lupus or cancer. It is an illness not a crime. It is not evil. It does not make you a threat no more than having HIV and yet there is plenty of support for all of these other medical issues. There should be no difference in support just because our issues are mental rather than medical.

And if you really think about, mental illness is discriminated against but it does not discriminate who it affects. It affects all races, all incomes, all religions, all sexual preferences. Statistically, that would mean it shouldn't be a minority, There are literally thousands upon thousands of us and that is just the people that have been diagnosed. What if we are not a minority group? What if we are just led to believe that because believing that we are small makes it easier to ignore what we go through and easier for us to not stand up and ask for our rights as human beings?

Every group that has changed the way they are viewed has had to do this and if we want things to change than we have to peacefully do it as well. We can't just hide behind our fear. It changes nothing when we do.

I don't maybe I hit my head too hard and I just over thinking things. I just feel like if we want things to change we have to be more outspoken and more visible....maybe this headache is taking it's toll and I am just rambling on like a mad woman. It's an idea though. What do you think?

Neurotic Nelly

Feeling Inadequate.......

You ever get that feeling where you are so annoyed you could literally claw your own face off? Yeah, I am in one of those moods. But I am perplexed because I have no reason to feel that way, I just do.

So I need to clean....like really bad. I am not sure if my house is really disgusting or if it is just my OCD but then again four cats, two kids, and a husband can really mess up a house quick. After dinner dishes can make my tiny kitchen look as though a food massacre has occurred.  A few misplaced cups can make my living room look like a factory that produces dirty drinking glasses. I don't know, it could be my anxiety. I feel on edge lately....edgy....like waiting for the other shoe to drop and I have no idea why. It bothers me, when I get like this. I mean, I get that OCD does that but I would like to have a discernible reason as to why I feel like I am waiting on something that never truly arises. I am just left feeling like this in a sort of anxiety ridden limbo. It sucks.


I have been feeling burnt out lately. Irritated. Annoyed. Frustrated. Under appreciated. Just all around yucky. I think I am going stir crazy. I think I need to get out and start walking again....I don't know get some air or something which leads me to my current dilemma.


I have a hard time finishing things. I mean, I can start them. I can even do them halfway but finishing them...that's a crap shoot. Usually ending more on the crap and less on the shoot. I have hundreds of examples. High school, beauty school, choir, craft shows, video games, my G.E.D test, learning french, making more videos of me singing, putting together my blog posts as a book, learning to ride the bus, walking more to lose more weight,  blah blah blah, ect, ect, ect. I don't know why I do this. I mean, I do want to or have wanted to desperately do these things and yet even if I get a running head start, I usually end up not finishing any of these tasks. Why? Sure, anxiety played a huge part in the schooling issue. My dyslexia makes me have to actually take time out of my day for tutoring for my G.E.D. I am still undecided on what posts I want to use in my book. I mean, there are reasons but holy crap, people have reasons all the time not to do things and yet they still manage to get them done....I am aware of that fact. You would think as someone with OCD I would be a master of scheduling and timing. Well, my OCD centers around the fear of germs and medical fears which is not conducive nor helpful in any thing currently going on in my life.....great (sarcasm). In fact, the only thing I have managed to do consistently in last year is write my blog posts. For some reason I haven't given up on that. I am thankful that I still write but I have no idea why I can write posts and not do these other things as well. Surely, writing in a blog is not an exclusive activity.

And then comes the dread and slight niggling of fear.....my oldest is going to the do the online school thing. It's a great option but I have this horrid fear that I am going to mess it up some how. I will be the one responsible for logging in his hours and checking e-mails from the teacher and I suck at schedules and repetitive actions that require me to be punctual and routine. I mean, I can't even remember to take my pills half of the time without telling my husband I did first, just in case I have to ask him whether or not I took them because the times get jumbled up in my mind. Damn OCD self doubt. The thought of having to actually keep all of this straight terrifies me. I am going to need a stop watch so I can log correctly because I want to do it right and I can't rely on me remembering what time he did which thing with just a normal clock. Trust me, I will get it all jumbled and most likely wrong. And the even worse fear is that I will have to finish doing this. I can not simply just let it fall to the wayside like other things. I am going to have continue no matter what. Which is a good thing because I have to stop starting things and then never finishing them. That's no way to live your life. I am so unhappy that I never finished doing something that I love, said no one ever.

So, I have to make some changes. Scary but doable. I am going to have to be more responsible and if that means getting a stop watch and an alarm to remind me to do certain things until they become a habit then I am just going to have to do it. I have to get over this not finishing curse that has plagued me my whole life and get with it. I am not going to allow my short comings to affect my kid's schooling. And I need to be happy with my choices, which means actually finishing some of the crap I seem to crap out on, like walking again. And sticking with it. I mean if I can blog for over a year I can certainly walk down the road and log into e-mails for God's sake. I just want to feel the satisfaction of finishing something meaningful and be able to say that I can do something all the way. I have some real fears that I am incapable of finishing things but then again that is probably just this stupid self doubt I carry around with me. It's hard to believe in my finishing things when I have so many examples of things I have not finished and so few examples of things I did. I guess I am just going to have to start dissecting my life and start working on finishing more of them until this fear of me being inadequate goes away. That's my plan anyway. Can't hurt to try, try, and try again...

Neurotic Nelly

A Disorder.....

I was reading an article today in which this person said he was proud to have OCD and didn't believe that it was a mental illness. In fact, he detested the implication that having OCD was anything other than a difference of personality. He did not consider it a disorder. He did not have negative feelings about it. He believed that almost all things listed as disorders were not necessarily disorders. He did not trust the people labeling them as such....and honestly the comments back at this guy were pretty aggressive. From other OCD sufferers claiming that if he thought it were just a difference of personality he must not actually have it. And I was left wondering why we do that. Why do we feel the need to judge other sufferers and scold them if they have a difference of opinion on their own diagnoses?

I don't agree with the guy mind you. OCD is definitely a mental illness. At the same time I can understand his side of the argument. Somethings that are considered "disorders" in my opinion may not actually fit the definition.

Disorder- a state of confusion.

Like ADD for instance. It is an impairment but only to the conventional ways of learning and thinking. And there are a lot of people with ADD and ADHD that look at it as something other than a disorder. When we look at people that have suffered from ADD and ADHD, we may see a lack of focus on certain things but a huge amount of creativity and focus on other things.  In fact, some of the greatest minds in history have been diagnosed with ADD and ADHD and even though they struggled they were still able to do amazing things and create new ideas that one else had ever considered before. Is ADD or ADHD a disorder or do we need to really look at it as a different way to learn and experience the world? And before I am taken and tared and feathered for saying that, my oldest has ADD. He is bright, intelligent, funny, and extremely creative. He struggles in classes he finds monotonous and boring but in classes where they are hands on and teach him in a way where he is actively involved....he does much better. I have started to look at his ADD as something else rather than just a disorder. I look at it as a way he learns. Which is different from mine, but that doesn't make it wrong. It just makes it different. It makes him different and in many cases smarter than I was at that age. I have a hard time believing that what he has is wrong and have started to believe that the way we teach may be flawed. He has to learn a different way and maybe instead of trying to confine all children and forcing them to learn the old way isn't necessarily right. Maybe he has an impairment or maybe he is of a higher intelligence and the regular way of teaching lacks the way to reach him. Maybe his brain simply has to be stimulated and sitting in a class where power points and long drawn out lectures are the norm, just may not be stimulating enough. Maybe he has an ability we confuse as a disorder because we lack the ability to understand it. I don't always understand what he goes through but the one thing I do know is that what he has is not a state of confusion. He is inattentive not confused. I sometimes think maybe we are the ones that are confused because we are unable to get on his level and understand how his brain retains knowledge. Maybe it isn't him...maybe it is us. Maybe we have the disorder rather than those that have ADD and ADHD.

And if we follow this way of thinking, I can understand what the guy was trying to say with his post.

For me, OCD is a disorder. It is a state of confusion for all of those involved. It does have some positives as well as many negatives. It is a different way of living. It does make things complicated and yet you tend to appreciate things more.

And that leads me to why I understand this man's post. I disagree with him, but on the other hand I do believe that all of us deal with our issues the way we deal with them. I for one, feel that my OCD is a huge part of who I am. I can't say that something I have had since the age of four hasn't changed me or shaped who I am. It has and it does. It makes me more sensitive to other's pain because I understand pain on a very real level. It makes me hold all that I have dear to me, because at one time I felt very much alone. It does have an impact on my day to day life and not all of it is positive. In fact, on many days it is a visceral struggle to accomplish my plans. It has left me unable to work. Unable to go out of my house as much as I would like. Unable to do a great deal of many things that I fight to do on a daily basis. I don't know what life is like when you are "normal" because I have had it since early childhood so I do not remember what "normal" feels like. And therefore, I do not know who I would be without it or what my life would be like. I can't say that it doesn't define me because in many ways, it does. It isn't all of me but it is a great deal of me. I could say otherwise but that would be a lie, and I don't lie.

I am not proud to have OCD but then on the other hand I am proud that I am a survivor of it. That I am a fighter. That I am open and honest and trying to turn my struggles and hardships into something more positive by writing and trying to help enlighten others on how OCD affects people. I am not proud of OCD but I refuse to be ashamed of it either. So I can understand his point of view to a degree. And I believe it is his right to believe what he chooses. Whether he wants to be proud of it or not.

Then I am disheartened by the comments he received. Why are we jumping all over his beliefs? We don't have to agree with him but we don't have to be defensive and insulting either. We know what OCD is like. We know the pain and devastation it causes. What right do we have to insult and demean his ability to accept OCD as anything other than how we perceive it to be? If he feels that for him it is a way of life and not a disorder then why can't we just let him believe that way? Why must he conform to our ideas of OCD?


Is OCD hard? Yes. Is it hell? Absolutely. Do we suffer? Yes. Does that mean we have to be insensitive to the other people that suffer the same disorder? No. And we shouldn't judge. Because frankly, every single one of us has been judged for having it. We are all familiar with what that feels like. Maybe he doesn't want to see OCD as a bad thing. Maybe he has decided to accept it in a different way? Maybe he wants to view the beast in his mind as something positive? Is that so wrong? Is it so wrong to believe that different is okay?

I wrestle with this conundrum. I hate my OCD and yet I am also thankful for it because although I suffer I know who I am. I like who I am. I like my life and without it, my life would be completely different. Maybe it wouldn't be as good as this one. Maybe I would never have had my children or spent the time to really have gotten to know myself. Who knows?

But what I do know is that we shouldn't be yelling and condemning each other. We should be supportive of each other especially, since we know what it is like to live with OCD. Weird opinions or not we should have each other's backs. In a world when we are judged by everyone else do we really need to be throwing that same judgement at our own sufferers? Can't we have different beliefs about our diagnoses and still support one another? I wonder....I really do.


Neurotic Nelly

She Believes I Can.......

On a day that we celebrate Dads, I would like to write a post celebrating my mom. Weird I know but my biological father has never been in the picture and the most hardships of raising me for many years, solely fell to my mother. I can not imagine the frustration, the agony, the devastation she must have went through....raising me. A good kid. A smart kid. A sensitive kid who suffered from severe OCD. It was hard to deal with, especially in a time when OCD was not well known or diagnosed. As a parent I can now understand more the trials she went through with me because no loving parent wants to watch their children suffer and I suffered everyday.

It is like having an invisible beast living inside your head. The fear and anxiety it drums up are insurmountable. We know, as the sufferer, that what we are afraid of makes no sense and yet the fear is so very real. Palpable. Tactile. You can almost taste it. You can feel it physically and we know that is not possible but yet here it is. Making us feel like our skin is covered in it or worse.

As I got older the symptoms changed from the usual ones associated with OCD to more terrifying and more hard to understand pureO symptoms. What must have it been like for her to watch me turn from touching doorknobs twenty four times a day to me jamming my fingers in my ears with tears in my eyes asking her why I should continue on living when my life was pure hell? It must have been totally devastating. I can not imagine what it was like for her to watch her child be in so much pain.

And although I got therapy, there was no CBT at that time. Very little understanding of treatments for OCD except  drug trials and therapies that often times didn't work. I kept wondering when I would get over this curse. This hell I called a mental disorder. This life altering, painful, life stealing mental illness that was slowly sucking away everything good in my life.

School became almost impossible. Some days I would make it to the car. Some days even to the school building. Some days I even made it inside only to have a panic attack and go home after lunch. And those were the good days. The days when I wasn't washing my hands till they bled or praying to God to fix me while rocking back and forth on the floor in desperation. I just wanted to be normal like the other kids. Why did I have to live like this? What could I have done to deserve being punished by my own mind this badly? How was this fair?

Having no CBT meant I had to do my own form of it. Baptism by fire, so to speak. We did all of the things I was afraid of. We even went to the school and I made myself go, even if I had to leave. Even if other kids didn't understand what was wrong with me. Even if I seemed like the oddity, the weirdo, the freak. I played normal well a lot of the time so some days it worked and some days it didn't. My poor mother would wait for me in the parking lot and watch me walk up to the doors. She would wait and pray that I could go inside the building but she would be there to pick up the pieces if I couldn't. She would be there to calm me when I would blame myself for failing to do yet another normal thing other people could do. She would be there to hold my hand. Wipe away my tears. Remind me that tomorrow was another day and we would try again.

God knows how many times I would ask her if I was still a good person, a worthy person, a lovable person. If I were worth all of this struggle and complication. How many times my OCD made me seek reassurances that I would be okay, that she would be okay, that she would not die from lupus when I was at school, or that the car wouldn't crash and kill us both when we were going to the store. Silly fears that to others seem unimportant, became breath stopping, heart pounding realities for me. How many times did I repeat my fears (and there were so many) to her over and over again. Ask and repeat, ask and repeat, ask and repeat....then came the medications and all of the issues that came with side effects. Drowsiness, mania, loss of hair and nails breakage to the quick, stomach pains, rashes, sometimes confusion. Many medications over the years with little to no success. That must have been hard for her as well. Always she was there to offer support. Never reprimanding me for being repetitive or scared. For being what I felt was broken. She never yelled at me or chastised me even on the most frustrating of days or the the most painful of nights. And looking back she must have cried, she must have been utterly dumbfounded and devastated. But I never knew, she never let me know....

As I grew I began to realize that my OCD was not going to go away. I would always live with it. I would not ,in fact, ever be like the other kids in my school I admired so much for their ability to do the normalist of tasks, without fear. Without that overwhelming sense of dread. This was me and this was going to be my life whether I liked it or not. Whether I was prepared to deal with it or not. I would always be a good person, a smart person, a sensitive person but also a person with severe OCD.  And I was blessed at the same time. Because although, I was always going to have to deal with fears and anxiety and intrusive thoughts, my mother was there to help me. To make sure that I knew I was worthy. I mattered. I had a place in this word, even when I was younger and I wasn't sure of that fact.

I always knew that my mother was a great mom, but I am not sure I understood just how great until I became a parent myself and was able to look at it through new eyes. The eyes of someone who would do absolutely anything to help their child and to take away any pain that they go through. I can now see how difficult and heartbreaking it must have been to not be able to remove my pain or even lessen it like a parent would wish to. I marvel at her strength and her love. I am humbled by her persistence. I am thankful that she is my mother because quiet honestly I am not sure I would have made it without her by my side.

I am not sure why I wrote this, except to say to those of you out there struggling with this disorder, it can be done. You can learn to live with it. It is hard but it is worth it. You can live a life with OCD and not just a life but a good one. Maybe you wont be like other people but you will be you and you are worthy of happiness and love. You do matter in this world. You are important and you do belong.

I guess I wrote this to honor my mom who has been my champion all of my life and to thank her. To thank her for inspiring me to keep trying even when it seemed impossible to try. For always being there for me to talk to and to offer me support. For always believing in me and remaining positive when I was not so positive about myself. She believes that I can use my hardships and pain from my OCD for good. That my blog can be helpful to others. I hope so. I hope it can shed some light on not just OCD but mental illness as a whole. I know that I try because she believes I can. Just like she always has.

Thing's I Learned.....

Well, I have found at that being more social is fun albeit, exhausting. This weekend was rife with family and trips and such. As a virtual shut in, it was exciting to get out and be out of the house. Away from the regular activities and scenery.  I haven't gotten the bus pass and tried the bus trips. I am planning on doing them to learn the bus system and to get out more. Working on it and I am still a little apprehensive but I think I can do it. Anxiety be damned. Sometimes I am irritated by the way I have become. I remember when I was able to do such things without a second thought. Ugh.

And as a history buff, I so want to go downtown and take pictures of the ghost signs painted on a number of the buildings. (ghost signs = old painted advertisements that are faded). That is a good incentive I think.

So, we spent the weekend at my mom's house. We had water fights and tried to grill my famous bacon wrapped pork chops but the grill caught on fire and after we finally got that put out, we ran out of gas and had to bake them....I hate gas grills for obvious reasons.  The night time was calm and serene and we listened to the people on the lake boats get drunk, play Sweet Home Alabama, and sing badly to it. We did work around the house for my grandma and I was going to give her a pedicure and paint her nails but we ran out of time. Her toenails will have purple glitter polish on them next time, trust.

I learned a few things. One, that my mother has developed a new type of snore that sounds a bit like eating an apple. That her husband has full conversations in his sleep with himself. That the quietest place in the whole house is my grandma's apartment because her oxygen machine drowns everything out and that will be where I sleep next time. I seriously thought her husband was talking to someone on the phone for the first twenty minutes until I realized he was talking in his sleep next to my mom who was busy eating imaginary apples made of air.....

I also learned that this is out there somewhere....I don't know what it is. What freaks me out is not just that it looks like some kind of moth, spider, alien snot hybrid...but that this is an exoskeleton. That's right folks, it's not just out there......it's bigger.......yikes.

Then after the wonderful weekend at mom's we went to the zoo to celebrate my youngest getting on the A honor roll twice this year. Something that our school district does to support better grades and the kids love it. We had a good time. It was thankfully overcast so I did not end up looking like I belonged in the lobster exhibit.  However the amount of people was sometimes overwhelming for me. I almost had a panic attack in the reptile house. It had alligators in it which I don't like, but the real issue was it was stuffy in there, and crowded, and there were very loud angry babies screaming to their mothers about something or other. I had to make a quick exit before I totally freaked out.

Then it was on to the gorillas which also made me sad because they looked depressed in their tiny habitats. I wish they would make it bigger so they could have more room and not have to see some of the people being total asshats trying to get them to be more monkey like and do something impressive. They are animals people, not your television sets. They are not here to amuse you. Poor things. It just made me want to cry. What kind of life must they have to be stared and mocked at constantly with no where to run or be free. I felt like I knew what that may be like, the urge to run free but the inability to do so.  I understand the feeling of being caged, we are not so different.

I think my favorite animal was the manatee. God, it looked like this glorious grey bubble of blubber that floats and swims and it was.....well freaking adorable. It had a baby with it which made the warm and fuzzies come back to me. It got tired halfway through the swim though, and decided to take a nap at the bottom of the pool. It's habitat also looked quite small.

I don't know maybe it is just me but I feel like the animals need more respect and bigger places to live. It just seems sad to me that they can see us. The lack of privacy is staggering, and I understand that it is a zoo but jeez do we have to be so close to them. Can't we give them a better place to live that doesn't seem so damned dreary and depressing? Maybe I am just projecting my own feelings but it seemed wrong somehow. This zoo is just not big enough for these magnificent animals. They deserve better.

Then we took the train ride. I love the train ride. The kids liked it too. I was distracted though, because this kid walked by me in line. He looked like he was looking for someone. He was about 9 or 10. I could see his bottom lip quiver and I got that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. I know the signs of anxiety sure as I know the back of my own hand and I knew he was feeling it. I knew just knew he was lost. I thought surely someone would say something to him but no one did. I watched him as he scoured the line and when he walked past me again I asked if he was alright. He was so upset he just unloaded with tears and panic that he had lost his family member and I grabbed him, hugged him and told him it would all be okay. We would get help. He was going to find them. I used the same pet names I use with all kids, honey, baby, son, ect. Trying to calm him because you could practically feel his fear emanating from him in waves. Well, I could anyway. He calmed a little as I promised I wouldn't leave him till we found some help. My husband pointed out one of the zoo workers and I handed him off to her but it took me like 5 mins to stop the tears falling from my face. Ugh. I hate that I get so overemotional. I was worried about that kid the whole 30 mins waiting on the train and the whole train ride. I knew when it is was over I was going to have to track down the zoo worker I handed him off to so I could make sure he was okay. I just kept imagining my kids going through something like that and it was tearing me up inside. I found her and yes, he had found his family member...Thank God. After that everything was great and we were on our way home. The trip was good but oh my god I was sooooo exhausted both physically and emotionally.

We all went to bed early that night. Lol.

I learned somethings on that trip as well. One, animals deserve more respect. Two, always keep an eye on your kids because it is so easy to get separated and lost. And three look around at the people around you and pay attention.. Someone might need your help and if you can offer that help, then do it for the love of God. Get involved. Don't just sit back and watch things unfold. We are all human beings and we all need to treat others with love and respect.

So, in short I had a great and tiring weekend. Learned lot's of things. I am behind on my blogging and house cleaning. But it was all worth it. Also I promise to make it out of the house more and be more socially active outside of the computer because, you know I can do this stuff. Even if it freaks me out a little.


Neurotic Nelly

Awesome....

So I had my scope and it was great news. No stones! Small ulcer but nothing that is tragic or scary... I am so relieved. Thank you all so much for your prayers and supportive positive thoughts. I know they helped me immensely!!! Will be back with my regular post on Tuesday. Till then have a great weekend!

Neurotic Nelly

Ughhhhh.....

I didn't write yesterday as I knew it would be about my upcoming scope/possible surgery tomorrow and I was trying to distract myself from the thought of it.  That is the only thing i have left in my bag of tricks. Distraction = less anxiety. And I was doing well until today, because, well you know it is tomorrow. So I am scared. Scared hell, I am petrified. Ugh I hate this sooo much. I really do.

The anxiety is broiling up inside the pit of my stomach and is creeping into my my chest. My heart races and my eyes water. I feel like I am on the verge of having a complete panic attack. That awful feeling of dread and impending doom. I am so sick of these stupid surgeries and scopes and all of this crap. Ugh!!!!! Just, Ughhhhhhhhh!

I am so scared and I get this way every time. I don't want to go. I don't want to have it done. I don't wanna!!! But I have to find out what is wrong. Sigh...God help me.

So obviously I won't be writing a post tomorrow. Sigh. I am sorry guys this post isn't very upbeat or inspirational. I promise to write better ones soon. I just can't stop obsessing about this issue right now.

Please pray for me if you are the praying sort and for those of you who are not, I could use all of your positive vibes/thoughts. Thanks and see you hopefully on Friday explaining how everything went.

Neurotic Nelly