Happy Halloween everyone! I hope you all have a terrific holiday and that you all stay safe.
In my last post I discussed the fact that I wrote a pitch and sent into an online magazine that I really admire, CultNoise. Regardless, if my pitch is something they are interested in or not, I want to share their amazing site with you. It isn't just a site about OCD, although there is some very informative OCD articles within. There are opinion pieces and current affairs. There is fashion advice and an entertainment section. There is a whole slew of interesting things to check out...Basically, there is a bunch of really great articles written by really great writers and I felt the need to share all of this "greatness" with you. I am not trying to tell you what to do, or what to read, or who to be, but in my humble opinion, it is worth a good read. Maybe three or four good reads. Heck, you could even make it something you read all of the time, if you want to. I know I do.
So, please check out the link and get your read on. Have an awesome weekend full of joy, laughter, costumes, and maybe if you are very, very lucky lots of candy too. Please eat it responsibly :)
Neurotic Nelly
Saturday, October 31, 2015
Saturday, October 24, 2015
A Hermit With A Mustache...
I am tired of the OCD pushing me into a dark corner. I want to shine and feel the sun on my face again. I want to taste the air and feel it on my skin. Sink my feet into the dew dampened earth and breathe in the warm scent of rain. I want to appreciate the silence of winter only broken by the eerie skeleton bone sound, the ice covered tree limbs make whilst clinking together in the wind. I will be damned if this mental illness is going to steal one more thing from me. I don't care how small it is. I can do this. I will do this. I am doing this and my OCD can go to hell, where it belongs. I am stronger than it ever thought of being. I just want my OCD to know that I am still here, standing, climbing, crawling, and fighting even though that's not what it wants. I am not going anywhere and I clearly am not going to bow down to it. I am the warrior of my own mind and I will NEVER give up.
My son jokingly called me a hermit last night.... I have yet to bloom into my full hermit mode, in my opinion. But as I told him with a strong sense of self assurance, I fully expect to get to that point by my mid sixties. I also plan to get one of those mustache tattoos on the inside of my pointer finger so when I put my hands a certain way on my face, I can look as if I have a handle bar mustache. No, I do not care if that is cliche. It's gonna happen....
I guess I am closed inside my home more than most people, but I have been slowly working on it. I now walk outside for around four miles every other day for exercise. I sometimes sit on my front porch to read. I even went to the grocery store all by myself the other day. I dressed up a bit to go, so I felt good about myself. It was kind of nerve wracking but I didn't have a full nuclear meltdown. I was pretty proud of myself. I am thirty six years old and that was the first time I remember going anywhere completely on my own in the last few years. It wasn't too bad. I may do it again sometime. In all honesty, I was more worried about the fact that my dress was shorter than I was used to and I was afraid one wrong move could show the world my rear end. It didn't but I can't be sure if it was because it was just me being afraid of something new and well fitting or because I did some side ways calisthenics to get the things from the bottom shelves without bending over, just to be sure. All I can say, is no hind ends were shown and that is a win for me.
I also have been trying to broaden my horizons with my writing. I was actually terrified to write my piece on the Willard Suitcases. I was afraid that it wasn't good enough or that I would fail and let everyone down. I was afraid it wouldn't read well or that my opinion wouldn't come across. I not only second guessed myself, I third, and fourth , and one hundred and sixty eighth guessed myself. But I think when you have a passion you have to be willing to try even if failure is an option. Thankfully, it was readable and became a post I am very proud of. I got nothing but positive feedback from it which assuaged away any fears of what I sometimes see as my own shortcomings, whether they be real or imagined.
Last year, I pitched a writing piece to an online magazine hoping they would publish it. They didn't and I shouldn't have tried at that time, anyway, because I wasn't really ready. It just reinforced my OCD negative thinking. I want to keep trying new things and sometimes when I have gotten an opportunity to be a part of something small, I get scared and end up not doing it. That has to stop. I know that I am a decent writer and that just because something I write does not get picked does not mean anything more than it was not what they were looking for. All of the "I am not good enough", "I am a failure", "Who would want to read something a thirty six year old high school dropout would write, anyway?" OCD thinking can not be allowed to take over my life. I don't need to listen to the lies I tell myself because of my OCD. I am capable of anything I put my mind to, including writing.
To prove to myself I am at a better place mentally, I sent in a writing piece to a different online magazine. I don't feel worried about it. If they don't choose it, I am not going to be upset. I know it has nothing to do with me personally, nor does it speak of my skill set. I have to keep trying new things. So, I am going to, and see what happens. If it doesn't pan out, who cares? It is not the end of the world. Publishing doesn't define me, I define me. Getting printed doesn't make me any more or any less talented. I am secure enough in myself now, to have a to hell with it attitude. If it works, awesome, If it doesn't, I will keep trying.
I am afraid of rejection but I can't let rejection make me fear living my life. Hell, I am afraid of a lot of things. You can't live your life if fear controls it. The worst thing that could happen from this is people saying no. I mean, big deal. It's not like I have never been told no before. So, here I go slowly putting my toes in the water. I hope that it all goes well, but if it doesn't I can handle that too. My OCD isn't going to be allowed to drive me around anymore. This is my life and I aim to step out of the backseat and actually live it.
Neurotic Nelly
Wednesday, October 14, 2015
OCD Week...
This week is the International Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Awareness Week!!!!!!
I would have taken my picture holding the sign like I try and do every year but my face has decided to break out and no one really needs to see that. I have no idea why this happens to me, I am not a teenager and haven't been for a very long time. Anyway, I will just post the poster on my blog sans my face and also the links to how you can get involved with showing support of OCD Awareness week.
OCD Awareness Week
Remember you can show support by using the #OCDweek hashtag on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to help get OCD Awareness Week trending!
The biggest thing I want people to understand about having OCD is that many people that have OCD do not have the symptoms everyone associates with the disorder. Not everyone has a fear of germs, or contamination fears, or shows physical compulsions. OCD is a very complicated disorder with very complicated symptoms and although all of sufferers have the same types of feelings of guilt for our intrusive thoughts and self doubt, that doesn't mean we all do or have the same symptoms. You may know someone that suffers from OCD and have absolutely no idea that you do. We tend to hide it as best as we can. So, please support us because we could use it. Please share the awareness for our disorder. It is important that we not only teach others about just what OCD is and how hard it is living with the disorder, but also that we give those of us that suffer from it, a podium to open up publicly about it. We need to be honest, be real, and help others by tearing down the stigma that surrounds not only our disorder but all mental illness, everywhere.
Thank you for your support,
Neurotic Nelly
I would have taken my picture holding the sign like I try and do every year but my face has decided to break out and no one really needs to see that. I have no idea why this happens to me, I am not a teenager and haven't been for a very long time. Anyway, I will just post the poster on my blog sans my face and also the links to how you can get involved with showing support of OCD Awareness week.
OCD Awareness Week
Remember you can show support by using the #OCDweek hashtag on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to help get OCD Awareness Week trending!
The biggest thing I want people to understand about having OCD is that many people that have OCD do not have the symptoms everyone associates with the disorder. Not everyone has a fear of germs, or contamination fears, or shows physical compulsions. OCD is a very complicated disorder with very complicated symptoms and although all of sufferers have the same types of feelings of guilt for our intrusive thoughts and self doubt, that doesn't mean we all do or have the same symptoms. You may know someone that suffers from OCD and have absolutely no idea that you do. We tend to hide it as best as we can. So, please support us because we could use it. Please share the awareness for our disorder. It is important that we not only teach others about just what OCD is and how hard it is living with the disorder, but also that we give those of us that suffer from it, a podium to open up publicly about it. We need to be honest, be real, and help others by tearing down the stigma that surrounds not only our disorder but all mental illness, everywhere.
Thank you for your support,
Neurotic Nelly
Saturday, October 3, 2015
Their Names Matter....
When the volume of the world around us is ear-splitting, the silence of the stigma we face daily, is deafening. It is proven with the way we treat those that have suffered before us. By the looks we avert and the absence of our questions. The disregard we pass on to the past. Who were these people? What were their lives like? What were their names?
Questions that Jon Crispin and his amazing website Willard Suitcases makes us pause and think about. Questions that need to be asked and in some small way, answered. Willard Suitcases is a record of these people's lives through the contents of their personal suitcases. With four hundred suitcases ranging from 1910 to the 1960's it is an open and honest depiction into the lives of the patients that called Willard Psychiatric Center home.
A few days ago I stumbled upon Jon Crispin's work and realized that he had held a mirror to my face. What I found there was something that not only could I not turn away from but needed to see. It is a window into the past. The past of people much like me and you. People that suffered from the silence of stigma and in many ways, although they are long gone from this earth, still suffer from the affects of it. I saw these people through the eyes of an amazing photographer who showed us their lovingly packed away belongings, the little bits and pieces of their forgotten lives, the soft whispers of their past. I saw their talents as an artist, a leather worker, a budding author, an academic. I saw their dreams and their faces smiling back at me in black and white and sepia tones. At some point, unbeknownst to myself, these pictures of simple suitcases filled with their clandestine contents stopped being something to view out of curiousity and became something very personal to me. I read some of their thoughts, gathered minute traces of their lives, and in doing so found myself lying there somewhere beneath the satin shoes, little carved terriers, books written in German, old records, letters written by loved ones, blackened shoe polish, matching Bakelite hair brushes, and brightly colored embroidery string. These patients were not silent ghosts that lurked the halls invisible and forgotten. They were people. They were you and me. I could have been them if I were born in their time. One of those suitcases could have been mine...One of those notebooks could have had my name scrawled across the top in pencil.
Difference being, that my full name can be printed and photographed and their's can not. Not because they weren't real people. Not because they aren't worthy of such an overlooked privilege, but because they were mental patients and because of the New York patient privacy laws, their full names are forever redacted. Many of them have numbers on their tombstones instead of names as if their lives did not matter. As if they did not have talents, loved ones, aspirations, or dreams. As if they were simply cogs in a wheel. Nondescript. Unmentionable. Undesirables, graceless, faceless and nameless because they suffered. Their voices, or in this case names, remain silent. Much like the creator and photographer of the Willard Suitcases site, I feel this is unacceptable.
Their names matter.
The sterilization and sanitation of the ignored and forgotten has become all too familiar. The turning of a blind eye to things we do not understand or the shame we dole out onto things that make us feel uncomfortable. These hauntingly beautiful photos speak of a person's life as the individual. Not just as the inmates of an asylum scrubbed raw and washed clean only to become indiscernible from each other. These people had families, friends, lives, and dreams. Lives that don't simply disappear just because they were institutionalized. Having lived in Willard Psychiatric Center in no way makes them any less remarkable, less talented, or less human than anyone else.
I applaud Jon Crispin and his site for giving these people their dignity and individuality back and for showing us the humanity the world has stripped away from them for far too long. For showing us the human face behind the diagnoses. For reminding people that mental illness sufferers are not any less unique and individual than anyone else.
In closing:
Their names should be allowed to be said, printed, and remembered. They deserve to be heard in death as they should have been in life. They should have their names on their grave markers above their bodies. They deserve to be seen. We have to stand not just for their names but by their names because it is not just taking a stand for these remarkable people, it is taking a stand for all of those that came before them and for all of us that have come after. They deserve better.
I have never been to New York. I have never visited Willard, but that doesn't change my opinion on doing what is right. These remarkable people deserve to be recognized for the people they were and the lives that they lived and should not be allowed to fade away from history slowly and deliberately, simply because they suffered from mental illness.
Please take a a few minutes to look at Jon Crispin's site Willard Suitcases and leave him a message of support for his remarkable work in keeping these people's memories alive and in the public eye.
And if the story of these people has touched you in any way, please check out these links to help support the cause of giving back these wonderful souls the rights to their names.
For a more detailed look at Willard Psychiatric Center and it's suitcases story click here to purchase:
The Lives They Left Behind:Suitcases from a State Hospital Attic by Darby Penney.
For more information and updates on what is being done to restore the name rights to the former patients of Willard Psychiatric Center, please check out The Willard Cemetery Memorial Project.
For New York residents that want to get involved, Legislation for The Willard Cemetery Memorial Project.
For more information on the patients of Willard Psychiatric Center, check out The Inmates of Willard by Linda S. Stuhler and a link to her book The Inmates of Willard 1870-1900 a Genealogy Resource.
Their names matter. They always did, and they always will.
Neurotic Nelly
Questions that Jon Crispin and his amazing website Willard Suitcases makes us pause and think about. Questions that need to be asked and in some small way, answered. Willard Suitcases is a record of these people's lives through the contents of their personal suitcases. With four hundred suitcases ranging from 1910 to the 1960's it is an open and honest depiction into the lives of the patients that called Willard Psychiatric Center home.
A few days ago I stumbled upon Jon Crispin's work and realized that he had held a mirror to my face. What I found there was something that not only could I not turn away from but needed to see. It is a window into the past. The past of people much like me and you. People that suffered from the silence of stigma and in many ways, although they are long gone from this earth, still suffer from the affects of it. I saw these people through the eyes of an amazing photographer who showed us their lovingly packed away belongings, the little bits and pieces of their forgotten lives, the soft whispers of their past. I saw their talents as an artist, a leather worker, a budding author, an academic. I saw their dreams and their faces smiling back at me in black and white and sepia tones. At some point, unbeknownst to myself, these pictures of simple suitcases filled with their clandestine contents stopped being something to view out of curiousity and became something very personal to me. I read some of their thoughts, gathered minute traces of their lives, and in doing so found myself lying there somewhere beneath the satin shoes, little carved terriers, books written in German, old records, letters written by loved ones, blackened shoe polish, matching Bakelite hair brushes, and brightly colored embroidery string. These patients were not silent ghosts that lurked the halls invisible and forgotten. They were people. They were you and me. I could have been them if I were born in their time. One of those suitcases could have been mine...One of those notebooks could have had my name scrawled across the top in pencil.
Difference being, that my full name can be printed and photographed and their's can not. Not because they weren't real people. Not because they aren't worthy of such an overlooked privilege, but because they were mental patients and because of the New York patient privacy laws, their full names are forever redacted. Many of them have numbers on their tombstones instead of names as if their lives did not matter. As if they did not have talents, loved ones, aspirations, or dreams. As if they were simply cogs in a wheel. Nondescript. Unmentionable. Undesirables, graceless, faceless and nameless because they suffered. Their voices, or in this case names, remain silent. Much like the creator and photographer of the Willard Suitcases site, I feel this is unacceptable.
Their names matter.
The sterilization and sanitation of the ignored and forgotten has become all too familiar. The turning of a blind eye to things we do not understand or the shame we dole out onto things that make us feel uncomfortable. These hauntingly beautiful photos speak of a person's life as the individual. Not just as the inmates of an asylum scrubbed raw and washed clean only to become indiscernible from each other. These people had families, friends, lives, and dreams. Lives that don't simply disappear just because they were institutionalized. Having lived in Willard Psychiatric Center in no way makes them any less remarkable, less talented, or less human than anyone else.
I applaud Jon Crispin and his site for giving these people their dignity and individuality back and for showing us the humanity the world has stripped away from them for far too long. For showing us the human face behind the diagnoses. For reminding people that mental illness sufferers are not any less unique and individual than anyone else.
In closing:
Their names should be allowed to be said, printed, and remembered. They deserve to be heard in death as they should have been in life. They should have their names on their grave markers above their bodies. They deserve to be seen. We have to stand not just for their names but by their names because it is not just taking a stand for these remarkable people, it is taking a stand for all of those that came before them and for all of us that have come after. They deserve better.
I have never been to New York. I have never visited Willard, but that doesn't change my opinion on doing what is right. These remarkable people deserve to be recognized for the people they were and the lives that they lived and should not be allowed to fade away from history slowly and deliberately, simply because they suffered from mental illness.
Please take a a few minutes to look at Jon Crispin's site Willard Suitcases and leave him a message of support for his remarkable work in keeping these people's memories alive and in the public eye.
And if the story of these people has touched you in any way, please check out these links to help support the cause of giving back these wonderful souls the rights to their names.
For a more detailed look at Willard Psychiatric Center and it's suitcases story click here to purchase:
The Lives They Left Behind:Suitcases from a State Hospital Attic by Darby Penney.
For more information and updates on what is being done to restore the name rights to the former patients of Willard Psychiatric Center, please check out The Willard Cemetery Memorial Project.
For New York residents that want to get involved, Legislation for The Willard Cemetery Memorial Project.
For more information on the patients of Willard Psychiatric Center, check out The Inmates of Willard by Linda S. Stuhler and a link to her book The Inmates of Willard 1870-1900 a Genealogy Resource.
Their names matter. They always did, and they always will.
Neurotic Nelly
Wednesday, September 30, 2015
Update!
It has occurred to me that I have not changed anything on my blog in about year. I have this thing where I have to rearrange my furniture about every three months or things seem dirty and stale. I guess this is my way of rearranging my furniture in blog form. I have a new blog post coming up that I am really excited to share with you guys but I just couldn't stand to post it in the old format. It somehow felt...well dirty and stale. I even made myself change the description because even though the old description was me trying to be inspirational, it somehow seemed to lack the fact that I am a severe OCD sufferer with a sense of humor. (I am not claiming it is a sense of humor everyone else gets, but it a sense of humor of some kind.) Speaking of titles and descriptions, it really irritates me that the title has to be on the side and can not placed in the middle. It also frustrates me that I had to put the three dots to separate the "by Neurotic Nelly" because it was all stuck together. Ugh.
I'm just not going to look at it. I refuse to be beaten by Blogger's refusal to make titles go where they are supposed to. This me ignoring it.....after three hours of fiddleling with it and slowly driving myself insane.
I hope you guys like the update and that it is easier to read. Please ignore the fact that my cat's ear seems to have become some odd superhero ear that stretches all the way to the left side. I have the worst luck in figuring out how to make the background fit perfectly. Everyone has a cross to bear...never having a background that fits correctly is mine. What can ya do? I'm just not going to look at it....I am not going to even mention how long I fiddeled with the background. We don't have enough time to go through all that. It was too painful to relive...(place various excuses here).
My new post should be posted in the next few days. I hope you all have a great rest of the week and please let me know how you feel about my blog changes, unless it is about my cat's ear. Just don't look at it and it will go away. That's how I am dealing with it currently...
Neurotic Nelly
I'm just not going to look at it. I refuse to be beaten by Blogger's refusal to make titles go where they are supposed to. This me ignoring it.....after three hours of fiddleling with it and slowly driving myself insane.
I hope you guys like the update and that it is easier to read. Please ignore the fact that my cat's ear seems to have become some odd superhero ear that stretches all the way to the left side. I have the worst luck in figuring out how to make the background fit perfectly. Everyone has a cross to bear...never having a background that fits correctly is mine. What can ya do? I'm just not going to look at it....I am not going to even mention how long I fiddeled with the background. We don't have enough time to go through all that. It was too painful to relive...(place various excuses here).
My new post should be posted in the next few days. I hope you all have a great rest of the week and please let me know how you feel about my blog changes, unless it is about my cat's ear. Just don't look at it and it will go away. That's how I am dealing with it currently...
Neurotic Nelly
Friday, September 25, 2015
It Might Have Been Hobbs.....
Last night, I returned from my four mile walk, thirsty. As I opened my refrigerator I noted a pitcher of fresh tea, a half gallon of milk, and a mysterious shiny brown flat Lego piece just haphazardly laying on the shelf. Now as a parent of two boys, I have run across some odd things in my fridge that don't belong. A slinky, a pair of foam hulk hands, a ball, peanut butter, a half eaten cookie dried and gross just to name a few. My oldest likes to put the little rubber holder for my e-cigarette on the back inside of the fridge to mess with me because it is a suction cup....but these things have happened over the years not recently. The Lego placement was new. Mind you, my kids are now thirteen and almost nine. So, I asked each of them separately who put it there. After the foam hulk hands incident, I no longer ask why because kids are weird and there is absolutely no answer they could possibly give you that would make any kind of sense. It isn't really important why there was a Lego in my fridge. It doesn't stop time and open up a parallel universe. I just like to know for sanity's sake, who put it there, because otherwise I am going to think I did it. Like the time I put the block of cheese on top of the refrigerator instead of inside the refrigerator. I just want to make sure I am not sleepwalking or losing what little sanity I have left now that I am homeschooling two children. I know it wasn't my husband and I am certain it wasn't me unless I truly am a sleepwalker, and since I have never woke up in the bathtub after eating a cat food sandwich, I am fairly confident I am not. That leaves the two other humans in this house.
Neither child "claims" to have done it. I tried the parental eyeballing while asking politely. My oldest laughed a bit, something he does when he might be telling me a story. He claims it because my face is funny when I do that. I claim it is because he is a bad liar. My youngest however, offered up fanciful explanations on who could be responsible. His answer? The cats.
Let me just give you a rundown of my four cats my youngest has named as suspects, for a moment.
Higgins is a two year old slightly crossed eyed cat that spends his days laying on homework but only as you try to work on it. He is lovable and funny albeit slightly stupid. I love him but he is not the brightest cat I have ever seen. He isn't completely innocent as he plays with stolen goods. He loves playing with balls but only the balls he has shredded off of my favorite pair of house slippers last year. He plays with them right in front of me too unabashed and unashamed.
Lola is Higgins's sister. She is smarter, goofier, and squshily fat. When she is not catching and eating flies and then throwing them back up in neat tidy piles around the house for me to clean, she can be found laying around on her back like an overstuffed burrito on my youngest's computer chair. She too is not completely honest as she demands you to sit on the chair with half of your butt hanging off because she has claimed this particular chair as hers and refuses to leave it even if you really need to sit down.
Then there is Marley, who is an outside light orange cat we took in before we moved. He is sweet and very much a lap cat although he has some serious boundary issues. He likes to lay on your face when you lie down, possibly in an effort to suffocate you in your sleep. He has a chubby face though, which makes him irresistible even if does he has a disturbing habit of forcing you to make eye contact while he poops in the litter box....ew.
And finally that leaves the last suspect, Hobbs. Hobbs is my 13 year old dark orange, great and wonderful, gelatinous ball of flab and fur that insists on being petted constantly especially by strangers that come to the door. He Loves boxes and children and sleeping on your head like a hat. He occasionally tries to eat your hair, has an affinity for licking grocery bags and plastic shower curtains, meows with a meow that can only be described as sounding like an 80 year old woman with a smokers cough, drinks with his paw like a princess, and has an addiction to yogurt and amaretto coffee creamer. Which he does only when you are not looking because even though he weighs twenty two pounds he is somehow very sneaky. He also makes it a point to swipe the inside side of the litter box lid instead of covering his own poo because he feels the rules just don't apply to him.
I mean, none of these cats seem like putting a Lego in the fridge is beyond their pattern of behavior. I might even consider it as a strong possibility if the fact that cats don't have opposable thumbs didn't keep getting in the way.... Sure they are sneaky, and rude, and selfish but that is all cats.
I don't know does this face seem guilty to you?
On second thought, it might have been Hobbs.....
Neurotic Nelly
Neither child "claims" to have done it. I tried the parental eyeballing while asking politely. My oldest laughed a bit, something he does when he might be telling me a story. He claims it because my face is funny when I do that. I claim it is because he is a bad liar. My youngest however, offered up fanciful explanations on who could be responsible. His answer? The cats.
Let me just give you a rundown of my four cats my youngest has named as suspects, for a moment.
Higgins is a two year old slightly crossed eyed cat that spends his days laying on homework but only as you try to work on it. He is lovable and funny albeit slightly stupid. I love him but he is not the brightest cat I have ever seen. He isn't completely innocent as he plays with stolen goods. He loves playing with balls but only the balls he has shredded off of my favorite pair of house slippers last year. He plays with them right in front of me too unabashed and unashamed.
Lola is Higgins's sister. She is smarter, goofier, and squshily fat. When she is not catching and eating flies and then throwing them back up in neat tidy piles around the house for me to clean, she can be found laying around on her back like an overstuffed burrito on my youngest's computer chair. She too is not completely honest as she demands you to sit on the chair with half of your butt hanging off because she has claimed this particular chair as hers and refuses to leave it even if you really need to sit down.
Then there is Marley, who is an outside light orange cat we took in before we moved. He is sweet and very much a lap cat although he has some serious boundary issues. He likes to lay on your face when you lie down, possibly in an effort to suffocate you in your sleep. He has a chubby face though, which makes him irresistible even if does he has a disturbing habit of forcing you to make eye contact while he poops in the litter box....ew.
And finally that leaves the last suspect, Hobbs. Hobbs is my 13 year old dark orange, great and wonderful, gelatinous ball of flab and fur that insists on being petted constantly especially by strangers that come to the door. He Loves boxes and children and sleeping on your head like a hat. He occasionally tries to eat your hair, has an affinity for licking grocery bags and plastic shower curtains, meows with a meow that can only be described as sounding like an 80 year old woman with a smokers cough, drinks with his paw like a princess, and has an addiction to yogurt and amaretto coffee creamer. Which he does only when you are not looking because even though he weighs twenty two pounds he is somehow very sneaky. He also makes it a point to swipe the inside side of the litter box lid instead of covering his own poo because he feels the rules just don't apply to him.
I mean, none of these cats seem like putting a Lego in the fridge is beyond their pattern of behavior. I might even consider it as a strong possibility if the fact that cats don't have opposable thumbs didn't keep getting in the way.... Sure they are sneaky, and rude, and selfish but that is all cats.
I don't know does this face seem guilty to you?
On second thought, it might have been Hobbs.....
Neurotic Nelly
Monday, September 7, 2015
The Right Choice...
I have begun to dread bedtime for my kids and the morning time right before we have to leave the house. Waiting to see if anxiety is going to plague my youngest child and make it impossible for him to go to school. I had once thought that having the same diagnoses and issues would make it easier for me to know how handle this. I now know better. What I have learned through all of this is I now see both sides of the coin. I see what is like to be the parent of a child with extreme anxiety but I also know what it is like to suffer from the extreme anxiety my child suffers from. Neither side is pleasant. I thought it would make it simpler to deal with. That it would offer some unforeseen help in this matter. That I would have a better handle on things because I can relate. It was supposed to make this easier. It doesn't. What I have found, is that I think it in some ways makes it harder. I do not have the luxury of pretending I don't know what he is going through. I do know and it guts me every single day.
The decisions I have to make are like a weight hanging over my head, threatening to crash down on me at any moment. Do I make him go to school through his horrid panic attacks or do I give in? When do I make this decision? What do I do with the disapproval of others thoughts on the matter (the school) that don't have to look at his tiny little face welling up with tears and agony? How do I wade through all of the over emotion and mental baggage while still holding my child's hand as I plaster on a brave face and not get frustrated because I do not have the answers I once thought I would have? How do I do the right thing when I am often unsure of what the right thing is? It feels like every decision I make is of monumental importance and yet has perilous consequences all at the same time. What if I make the wrong choice and it causes more anxiety? What if I home school but it damages his future to be productive because he becomes unable to leave the house at all? What if I force him to go to regular school and it scars him further? What if? What if? What if? Which do I choose? What is the lesser of the two evils?
Where as I am more than comfortable talking about my thirty two year struggle with my OCD, I am left paralyzed by my son's. Frozen with the fear of the things he will go through and the struggles he will have to deal with. I know the suffering too well, too intimately to pretend it does not affect him the way it does. I am crazy not naive. I am frustrated by my lack of being able to help him with something I have immense experience in. It is a great irony that I should know so much about my OCD and yet feel completely helpless on how to help him with his. I am afraid of the anxiety stealing away parts of his life. Small bits at first like it did with me. So small one doesn't pay much attention until it is too late. A day or two of school. Then a few weeks, then months. Having to drop out because you have missed so much or are too overwhelmed to walk out the front door. The slow but deliberate taking of dreams. The loss of going to college, the loss of going out freely in public, the inability to finish any trade school and get a license. The taking of the ability to work part time and then eventually the ability to work at all. The loss of being able to leave the house without a great amount of discomfort and stress. The gross amount of time it took from me, pilfered from my existence, stole out from underneath my clinched hands as I tried so desperately to hold onto it, is not what I want for anyone let alone my own child....I don't think even then, I really appreciated the extent of anxiety''s hunger. It is always waiting, it is never full. Once it gets a taste of your dreams, hopes, and desires it becomes a ravenous beast, devouring everything in it's path.
I go on and try and portray positivity to my son. I make his lunches for school each night and hold back the tears of feeling completely defeated. Will he even be able to get to eat this today? Will he even be able to smile again in the mornings? I miss that. His smile before heading off to school with his friends. Anxiety has stolen that from me as well but even more, it has stolen it from him and that is unacceptable.
We have made appointments for more therapy beyond the school therapist, because the school therapist is not able to help him like he needs, but there is a wait. One for almost a month away and one for an actual month away and I can't help but wonder what we are supposed to do in the mean time. Do we keep going on like there isn't a big pink thieving elephant in the room taking up space in our lives and grasping away bits and pieces of my son's life? Do we just keep calling the school and saying he had a panic attack and couldn't make it in again? I feel so helpless, so stupid, so unprepared. He needs more than what he has right this second and he needs it yesterday, not a month away. What happens when the negative self talk starts in? Because it will. Is he going to think badly of himself because he has this? Is he going to hate himself and think of himself as weak or broken like I did at his age? How do I combat that? How do I stop that from happening to him as we wait for more time pass before we can get the help he needs?
I have been open and honest with him and told him he is like me, we will do this together, he can do it, and how much I love him and yet I feel like a complete failure as a parent. Your one job as a parent is to protect your child and be there for them. To be their champion. The only thing I am the champion of right now is a bunch of unanswered questions and a whole bunch of fears that somehow either path I choose to help him is fraught with disaster. I just need someone to tell me what to do...which is the right path....because there is too much riding on this...it has to be the right one.
Monday he had a two and half hour long panic attack at school and they did not let him go home. I am over this. I have decided to pull him out and have him home schooled for the rest of this year as we get him the help he needs. We can try regular school again next year but he can't go to regular school, which is his biggest trigger, if he doesn't have the therapy and support he needs to get through it. I just hope I am making the right choice for him. I hope I am doing right by him not only as his mother but as a fellow anxiety OCD sufferer. I hope I am picking the right path for him to take.....because it is all about him and what works for him and what helps him. Everyone else's opinion, including the school's, at this point has lost it's validity and is background noise to me. I must do what I feel is best. Just please, please, please God, let this be the right choice....
Neurotic Nelly
The decisions I have to make are like a weight hanging over my head, threatening to crash down on me at any moment. Do I make him go to school through his horrid panic attacks or do I give in? When do I make this decision? What do I do with the disapproval of others thoughts on the matter (the school) that don't have to look at his tiny little face welling up with tears and agony? How do I wade through all of the over emotion and mental baggage while still holding my child's hand as I plaster on a brave face and not get frustrated because I do not have the answers I once thought I would have? How do I do the right thing when I am often unsure of what the right thing is? It feels like every decision I make is of monumental importance and yet has perilous consequences all at the same time. What if I make the wrong choice and it causes more anxiety? What if I home school but it damages his future to be productive because he becomes unable to leave the house at all? What if I force him to go to regular school and it scars him further? What if? What if? What if? Which do I choose? What is the lesser of the two evils?
Where as I am more than comfortable talking about my thirty two year struggle with my OCD, I am left paralyzed by my son's. Frozen with the fear of the things he will go through and the struggles he will have to deal with. I know the suffering too well, too intimately to pretend it does not affect him the way it does. I am crazy not naive. I am frustrated by my lack of being able to help him with something I have immense experience in. It is a great irony that I should know so much about my OCD and yet feel completely helpless on how to help him with his. I am afraid of the anxiety stealing away parts of his life. Small bits at first like it did with me. So small one doesn't pay much attention until it is too late. A day or two of school. Then a few weeks, then months. Having to drop out because you have missed so much or are too overwhelmed to walk out the front door. The slow but deliberate taking of dreams. The loss of going to college, the loss of going out freely in public, the inability to finish any trade school and get a license. The taking of the ability to work part time and then eventually the ability to work at all. The loss of being able to leave the house without a great amount of discomfort and stress. The gross amount of time it took from me, pilfered from my existence, stole out from underneath my clinched hands as I tried so desperately to hold onto it, is not what I want for anyone let alone my own child....I don't think even then, I really appreciated the extent of anxiety''s hunger. It is always waiting, it is never full. Once it gets a taste of your dreams, hopes, and desires it becomes a ravenous beast, devouring everything in it's path.
I go on and try and portray positivity to my son. I make his lunches for school each night and hold back the tears of feeling completely defeated. Will he even be able to get to eat this today? Will he even be able to smile again in the mornings? I miss that. His smile before heading off to school with his friends. Anxiety has stolen that from me as well but even more, it has stolen it from him and that is unacceptable.
We have made appointments for more therapy beyond the school therapist, because the school therapist is not able to help him like he needs, but there is a wait. One for almost a month away and one for an actual month away and I can't help but wonder what we are supposed to do in the mean time. Do we keep going on like there isn't a big pink thieving elephant in the room taking up space in our lives and grasping away bits and pieces of my son's life? Do we just keep calling the school and saying he had a panic attack and couldn't make it in again? I feel so helpless, so stupid, so unprepared. He needs more than what he has right this second and he needs it yesterday, not a month away. What happens when the negative self talk starts in? Because it will. Is he going to think badly of himself because he has this? Is he going to hate himself and think of himself as weak or broken like I did at his age? How do I combat that? How do I stop that from happening to him as we wait for more time pass before we can get the help he needs?
I have been open and honest with him and told him he is like me, we will do this together, he can do it, and how much I love him and yet I feel like a complete failure as a parent. Your one job as a parent is to protect your child and be there for them. To be their champion. The only thing I am the champion of right now is a bunch of unanswered questions and a whole bunch of fears that somehow either path I choose to help him is fraught with disaster. I just need someone to tell me what to do...which is the right path....because there is too much riding on this...it has to be the right one.
Monday he had a two and half hour long panic attack at school and they did not let him go home. I am over this. I have decided to pull him out and have him home schooled for the rest of this year as we get him the help he needs. We can try regular school again next year but he can't go to regular school, which is his biggest trigger, if he doesn't have the therapy and support he needs to get through it. I just hope I am making the right choice for him. I hope I am doing right by him not only as his mother but as a fellow anxiety OCD sufferer. I hope I am picking the right path for him to take.....because it is all about him and what works for him and what helps him. Everyone else's opinion, including the school's, at this point has lost it's validity and is background noise to me. I must do what I feel is best. Just please, please, please God, let this be the right choice....
Neurotic Nelly
Friday, August 28, 2015
What About Our Asses?
I am now afraid of the toilet...and it is all my mother's fault.
Two weeks ago while my husband was cleaning out the garage he asked me to come downstairs and look at a little friend he found. By words such as little and friend I was under the impression that this little friend would be something cute and well, little. What I saw, however, ran a chill in my bones. He motioned me to the sewer drain and proclaimed that something adorable was inside. This is the point where I should have realized my husband loves animals a little too much.....It was not some tiny little mouse, or a playful puppy, or a tiny kitten. No, when he removed the drain cover what popped out was a beady little eyed monster that kept washing it's face in sewer water. This was not friendly, this was not cute, this was a rather large sewer rat.
My pulse quickened. My mouth became dry. I could feel the icy fingers of my OCD niggling in the back of my neck. "Isn't it cute?" he said.
Oh, sure, sure it was. If by cute you mean cute like the Bubonic Plague, Weil's Disease, Rat Bite Fever, or Hanta Virus cute. If you mean cute like tearing off your own arm with your own teeth rather than touch anything it has ever touched as cute then yeah, it's cute alright. I am sure people that got the Black Death just thought these creatures were truly adorable. I know I felt all warm and fuzzy as it made eye contact with me, watching me watching it, as it cleaned it's disease covered hands with it's disease covered face.
And I may have possibly screamed (not going to confirm or deny) as it decided to go back into the pipe it so hideously came out of and back into whatever sewer system it dwells in. I felt better after it was gone. I felt safer and cleaner.
But then, I mention this whole incident to my mother because I now question my husband's sanity a tiny bit and she mentions that sewer rats can climb out your toilet.... .... .....I am just going to pause here a minute and compose myself while letting that little "I probably didn't need to fucking know because ignorance is bliss" factoid sink in.
My reaction was that of a total nuclear meltdown. I begged her to explain to me why she felt the need to share this little nugget of information with me knowing how truly fucked up in the head I am. I mean, I have been hovering my pasty white rearend over the toilet for thirty six years in my own houses and never once have I ever had a second thought about whether or not I could be hovering over a rat washing it's face in poop water. Did I need to know this? Um....no. Fear welled up in my voice. Panic set in. I immediately went into the bathroom and shut the toilet lid. The last thing I needed was to be thinking that beady eyed bastard was walking around in my house somewhere after it took a Sunday stroll through my toilet pipes only to munch on my face while I was asleep. Assuming I will ever truly sleep again...
I was told it can't happen to me because I have cats but let's be real for a second, I know my cats. I have had them for years. I have watched them as creepy crawly spiders have run across the floor and they were to busy licking their own butt to give a damn. They saw said spiders, they just didn't care. They won't even get up off of the couch for a treat. They expect you to bring it to them. They are so lazy you could leave the house for six hours, come back and they would still be in the same spot napping. Maybe someone else's cats would be a deterrent. Not my cats. They are lazy fat asses. I love them to pieces but it is the truth.
I get that there are rodents, I know there are such things as sewer rats, I am not judging. We are all God's creatures. I just prefer that some of God's creatures stay the fuck away from where I sleep, eat, and poop. I don't think I am asking too much. I mean, I don't pop up in his little rat house unannounced washing my face with his poo water now do I? It's common courtesy. That is all I am saying.
Pooping will never be safe for me again....Great just great.
And finally, just as I got these images out of my mind after a week of obsessing and deflecting my new found terror of the commode, I go on facebook and my dear friend, who I had not told the rat story to, had felt the need to post an article about how easy it is for a rat to crawl out of your toilet. Seriously????? Is there some kind of rat in the shitter conspiracy I am unaware of? Did she too find an "adorable little friend" in her drain? Because if so, I think I am going to just start pooping in the yard. I don't need this kind of anxiety in my life....
I mean, we can put a man on the moon but nobody has figured out in the 400 years of having toilets how to create one that prevents Cinderella's little helpers from getting into your house and biting your ass? Am I the only one a little freaked out about this? What about our asses, people? Who is protecting our asses???!!!????
If I ever lift that lid and see one of these evil disease spreading bastards looking up at me I am going to burn my house down, starting with the toilet. I am not even kidding. I can go back to pooping like it is the 1300's. I can find a bucket like that crazy hobo my mother saw last year copping a squat by a junked out car on the side of the road as she drove downtown. We all thought he was gross and crazy but maybe just maybe he once had a toilet and lifted it's lid only to be bit on the ass. Maybe he's not the crazy one. Maybe we are, playing poop russian roulette every time we sit down unawares and unconcerned on the porcelain throne. Eh? Eh?
I mean if you think about it, the only thing that could possibly keep a rat from coming out of your toilet is the lid that we all take for granted as a seat because it is implied that is what the lid is for. And as times have changed we made the lid out of cheap light plastic so it is more sleek and stylish instead of the first lids created out of heavy wood. Now I ask you, if a rat can hold it's breath for fifteen minutes, can tread water for three days, can survive a fall from five stories, can swim a half a mile in the open sea, can dive 100 feet underwater, can crawl vertically along walls, and can chew through aluminum sheeting, plaster, wood, rubber, and concrete block.....are we actually naive enough to believe a thin light weight lid made of plastic is going to keep them from crawling out of your toilet...yeah, right, sure it is. I don't know about you but I no longer feel safe in my own bathroom.
I am now afraid of the toilet.....and I just want to thank my Mom. Thanks Mom. I needed to be just that much crazier.
Neurotic Nelly
Two weeks ago while my husband was cleaning out the garage he asked me to come downstairs and look at a little friend he found. By words such as little and friend I was under the impression that this little friend would be something cute and well, little. What I saw, however, ran a chill in my bones. He motioned me to the sewer drain and proclaimed that something adorable was inside. This is the point where I should have realized my husband loves animals a little too much.....It was not some tiny little mouse, or a playful puppy, or a tiny kitten. No, when he removed the drain cover what popped out was a beady little eyed monster that kept washing it's face in sewer water. This was not friendly, this was not cute, this was a rather large sewer rat.
My pulse quickened. My mouth became dry. I could feel the icy fingers of my OCD niggling in the back of my neck. "Isn't it cute?" he said.
Oh, sure, sure it was. If by cute you mean cute like the Bubonic Plague, Weil's Disease, Rat Bite Fever, or Hanta Virus cute. If you mean cute like tearing off your own arm with your own teeth rather than touch anything it has ever touched as cute then yeah, it's cute alright. I am sure people that got the Black Death just thought these creatures were truly adorable. I know I felt all warm and fuzzy as it made eye contact with me, watching me watching it, as it cleaned it's disease covered hands with it's disease covered face.
And I may have possibly screamed (not going to confirm or deny) as it decided to go back into the pipe it so hideously came out of and back into whatever sewer system it dwells in. I felt better after it was gone. I felt safer and cleaner.
But then, I mention this whole incident to my mother because I now question my husband's sanity a tiny bit and she mentions that sewer rats can climb out your toilet.... .... .....I am just going to pause here a minute and compose myself while letting that little "I probably didn't need to fucking know because ignorance is bliss" factoid sink in.
My reaction was that of a total nuclear meltdown. I begged her to explain to me why she felt the need to share this little nugget of information with me knowing how truly fucked up in the head I am. I mean, I have been hovering my pasty white rearend over the toilet for thirty six years in my own houses and never once have I ever had a second thought about whether or not I could be hovering over a rat washing it's face in poop water. Did I need to know this? Um....no. Fear welled up in my voice. Panic set in. I immediately went into the bathroom and shut the toilet lid. The last thing I needed was to be thinking that beady eyed bastard was walking around in my house somewhere after it took a Sunday stroll through my toilet pipes only to munch on my face while I was asleep. Assuming I will ever truly sleep again...
I was told it can't happen to me because I have cats but let's be real for a second, I know my cats. I have had them for years. I have watched them as creepy crawly spiders have run across the floor and they were to busy licking their own butt to give a damn. They saw said spiders, they just didn't care. They won't even get up off of the couch for a treat. They expect you to bring it to them. They are so lazy you could leave the house for six hours, come back and they would still be in the same spot napping. Maybe someone else's cats would be a deterrent. Not my cats. They are lazy fat asses. I love them to pieces but it is the truth.
I get that there are rodents, I know there are such things as sewer rats, I am not judging. We are all God's creatures. I just prefer that some of God's creatures stay the fuck away from where I sleep, eat, and poop. I don't think I am asking too much. I mean, I don't pop up in his little rat house unannounced washing my face with his poo water now do I? It's common courtesy. That is all I am saying.
Pooping will never be safe for me again....Great just great.
And finally, just as I got these images out of my mind after a week of obsessing and deflecting my new found terror of the commode, I go on facebook and my dear friend, who I had not told the rat story to, had felt the need to post an article about how easy it is for a rat to crawl out of your toilet. Seriously????? Is there some kind of rat in the shitter conspiracy I am unaware of? Did she too find an "adorable little friend" in her drain? Because if so, I think I am going to just start pooping in the yard. I don't need this kind of anxiety in my life....
I mean, we can put a man on the moon but nobody has figured out in the 400 years of having toilets how to create one that prevents Cinderella's little helpers from getting into your house and biting your ass? Am I the only one a little freaked out about this? What about our asses, people? Who is protecting our asses???!!!????
If I ever lift that lid and see one of these evil disease spreading bastards looking up at me I am going to burn my house down, starting with the toilet. I am not even kidding. I can go back to pooping like it is the 1300's. I can find a bucket like that crazy hobo my mother saw last year copping a squat by a junked out car on the side of the road as she drove downtown. We all thought he was gross and crazy but maybe just maybe he once had a toilet and lifted it's lid only to be bit on the ass. Maybe he's not the crazy one. Maybe we are, playing poop russian roulette every time we sit down unawares and unconcerned on the porcelain throne. Eh? Eh?
I mean if you think about it, the only thing that could possibly keep a rat from coming out of your toilet is the lid that we all take for granted as a seat because it is implied that is what the lid is for. And as times have changed we made the lid out of cheap light plastic so it is more sleek and stylish instead of the first lids created out of heavy wood. Now I ask you, if a rat can hold it's breath for fifteen minutes, can tread water for three days, can survive a fall from five stories, can swim a half a mile in the open sea, can dive 100 feet underwater, can crawl vertically along walls, and can chew through aluminum sheeting, plaster, wood, rubber, and concrete block.....are we actually naive enough to believe a thin light weight lid made of plastic is going to keep them from crawling out of your toilet...yeah, right, sure it is. I don't know about you but I no longer feel safe in my own bathroom.
I am now afraid of the toilet.....and I just want to thank my Mom. Thanks Mom. I needed to be just that much crazier.
Neurotic Nelly
Thursday, August 20, 2015
A Shit Day and A Piss Pot.....
Well today is going to be a shit day.....
I was going to write on Tuesday like usual but life got in the way, as it often does, and more stress has decided to take up residence in my life. I am trying to breathe.....I am not sure I am doing it right. I mean, it looks like I am breathing but I don't feel any better about it. I think I am breathing through all of this but between my clenched teeth and white knuckles, I am not so sure...I may just be drowning and am too busy paddling the waves of stress to realize it. Can you actually drown from stress? If you don't hear from me on Tuesday, I guess we will have an answer to that....Hopefully I will find a life jacket soon.
I think people sometimes get irritated with me because I am a positive thinker. I can understand that the glass is always half full can be an annoying concept. But reality is, that I can not afford to dwell in my misery with no hope of salvation. No hope of a light at the end of the tunnel. No hope that things will eventually work themselves out. I have to believe that, because if I didn't I would not be able to get out of bed in the morning and face, obvious shit days like today is going to be. I need hope to keep fighting. I wish more people could understand that. I am positive not because I am a positive person but because I have to be to survive. I was not born a ray of sunshine, I will myself to be a ray of sunshine because beneath this happy looking exterior I am a boiling pot of over pressurized stress. I am simply trying to continue to hold the walls around me up. Granted my walls are currently held together with chewed bubble gum, used tape, and wet newspapers but I am a firm believer in working with what you are given. And I was given recyclable refuse.
Again, I am confronted with the same ole, same ole issue of people thinking I am dealing well because I appear to be dealing well. Well, I am not dealing well. I am just really good at faking it and I would love to let my hair down and just fall apart at the knees but I have responsibilities, and kids, and shit to do today so I do not have the luxury of full nuclear meltdown this morning. I am not sure anyone would understand if I lost it right now and locked myself in my crappy closet sized bathroom and shut out the world for a few minutes while I ball my eyes out, anyway. I need sleep. I need a break. I need a good old cry.......I don't have time for that right now though. I guess losing my complete composure will just have to wait. What I wouldn't give for the fairy God mother to be real so she could turn that sewer rat I saw in my basement drain into a a beautiful white horse so I could ride away. I don't have a pumpkin to make into a carriage but I think I saw a half rotted peach in the back of my fridge this morning. She's a fairy so surely she could make something you could ride in out of that...
If I were still in Texas, I would say that I don't have a pot to piss in nor a window to throw it out of but there seems to be an over abundance of piss in my life right now. I don't have money for a pot to piss in but I can't have this much piss and not have one so maybe I just have a cheap hand me down pot that smells of old bologna and asbestos that used to belong to my great great grandfather and I am unaware of it........I am pretty sure this is too much piss for one person. Clearly someone else is pissing in my pot uninvited and unannounced....How rude. They could at least have the decency to rent it from me first.
Yes, today is going to be a shit day and I accept that but because I strive to see the positive side in things, I am going to see this piss pot as half full of shit instead of half empty...although, I am uncertain if that is actually a positive thing to want...
Till next Tuesday my friends, I hope today is treating you far better than it is treating me,
Neurotic Nelly
I was going to write on Tuesday like usual but life got in the way, as it often does, and more stress has decided to take up residence in my life. I am trying to breathe.....I am not sure I am doing it right. I mean, it looks like I am breathing but I don't feel any better about it. I think I am breathing through all of this but between my clenched teeth and white knuckles, I am not so sure...I may just be drowning and am too busy paddling the waves of stress to realize it. Can you actually drown from stress? If you don't hear from me on Tuesday, I guess we will have an answer to that....Hopefully I will find a life jacket soon.
I think people sometimes get irritated with me because I am a positive thinker. I can understand that the glass is always half full can be an annoying concept. But reality is, that I can not afford to dwell in my misery with no hope of salvation. No hope of a light at the end of the tunnel. No hope that things will eventually work themselves out. I have to believe that, because if I didn't I would not be able to get out of bed in the morning and face, obvious shit days like today is going to be. I need hope to keep fighting. I wish more people could understand that. I am positive not because I am a positive person but because I have to be to survive. I was not born a ray of sunshine, I will myself to be a ray of sunshine because beneath this happy looking exterior I am a boiling pot of over pressurized stress. I am simply trying to continue to hold the walls around me up. Granted my walls are currently held together with chewed bubble gum, used tape, and wet newspapers but I am a firm believer in working with what you are given. And I was given recyclable refuse.
Again, I am confronted with the same ole, same ole issue of people thinking I am dealing well because I appear to be dealing well. Well, I am not dealing well. I am just really good at faking it and I would love to let my hair down and just fall apart at the knees but I have responsibilities, and kids, and shit to do today so I do not have the luxury of full nuclear meltdown this morning. I am not sure anyone would understand if I lost it right now and locked myself in my crappy closet sized bathroom and shut out the world for a few minutes while I ball my eyes out, anyway. I need sleep. I need a break. I need a good old cry.......I don't have time for that right now though. I guess losing my complete composure will just have to wait. What I wouldn't give for the fairy God mother to be real so she could turn that sewer rat I saw in my basement drain into a a beautiful white horse so I could ride away. I don't have a pumpkin to make into a carriage but I think I saw a half rotted peach in the back of my fridge this morning. She's a fairy so surely she could make something you could ride in out of that...
If I were still in Texas, I would say that I don't have a pot to piss in nor a window to throw it out of but there seems to be an over abundance of piss in my life right now. I don't have money for a pot to piss in but I can't have this much piss and not have one so maybe I just have a cheap hand me down pot that smells of old bologna and asbestos that used to belong to my great great grandfather and I am unaware of it........I am pretty sure this is too much piss for one person. Clearly someone else is pissing in my pot uninvited and unannounced....How rude. They could at least have the decency to rent it from me first.
Yes, today is going to be a shit day and I accept that but because I strive to see the positive side in things, I am going to see this piss pot as half full of shit instead of half empty...although, I am uncertain if that is actually a positive thing to want...
Till next Tuesday my friends, I hope today is treating you far better than it is treating me,
Neurotic Nelly
Tuesday, August 11, 2015
Blow Out The Candles and Laugh Out Loud....
Monday was my 36th birthday and my mom's 57th. We celebrated on Saturday at her house.
Birthdays mean a lot to most people but for me it is deeper because I get to share mine with one of the strongest women I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. I am honored to share that special day with her.
It started on Friday night when we decided to try and dye our eyelashes at home. My advice is don't....Redheads have blonde/red eyelashes and it makes us look like we don't have any. Mascara is nice but there tends to be gaps near the root where the mascara won't get. We tried the dye and other than thinking I may have blinded myself, I saw no difference except where the dye had gotten on my skin. My mother had a slightly better outcome but I didn't feel the feeling of chemicals in my eyeball was worth it. I think we will just get it done professionally next time...
Then when went to the store to get me a new dress. Every woman should have at least one fancy outfit for special occasions and none of my old dresses fit anymore. We found really great deals and I got out of there fairly cheap.
After makeup and doing my hair we left to go to our chosen restaurant....we picked the wrong one. It took 45 mins to get our cokes. The waitresses were really busy so I wasn't upset about it but after another twenty minutes I was starting to wonder if the kitchen area that all the waitresses kept going back to was actually the Bermuda Triangle of wait staff. We were given spinach dip that resembled something scraped off of the windshield. It tasted so strongly of onions that I had to resist the urge to expel it from my mouth with such force it would have ended up on my mother's forehead, I forced myself to swallow this offending spinach. I almost didn't make it. I thought I was going to die. I was not so secretly hoping that the rest of the food would be better.
Then after an hour and a half our food order came. Well, more accurately my mother's food order came. Mine had apparently been given to another table on accident and they ate it. The manager came over to apologize profusely and offer my meal for free. He acted as if the people of the table had stolen my sandwich. I wasn't too worried about it, I mean if someone has given my plate to another table I sure hope they eat it after they breathed all over it because I sure as hell am not going to.
Thirty minutes later my food arrives. My only regret is that someone else wasn't there to have "stolen" my second sandwich. It was terrible. It tasted as if someone had drenched it in pickle juice. I later found out my mayo may have been separating. The manager came over to ask me how it was and he had so much hope in his eyes I lied to him and told him it was great.....I just couldn't do it. I could not tell him that I would have rather went out to the parking lot and licked the tar off the tires of my car rather than finish this sandwich. This free sandwich....beggars can't be choosers.
So I ate half of it just out of hunger and we left. It was so funny. I rarely get upset at hiccups like this. I do however laugh my ass off. I mean as far as birthday dinners go it was pretty bad. But it was the company I had rather than the food I ate and I was happy to have just spent the day with my mom. To talk to my mom. To laugh about my bad luck with food with my mom.
We then had cake at mom's with the rest of the family and opened gifts. I got some cool things and I was really excited to get my new fangled cheese grater........Moral of the story is always appreciate the good things you have, especially the people, and learn to laugh at the small stuff. It isn't important and it makes for great story telling. Just blow out the candles and make a wish and laugh out loud.
I also learned that with my dress on sale and my meal being free, I am a cheap date, so there is always that. :)
With sincerest regards,
Neurotic Nelly
My mom picked out the candles.....
It started on Friday night when we decided to try and dye our eyelashes at home. My advice is don't....Redheads have blonde/red eyelashes and it makes us look like we don't have any. Mascara is nice but there tends to be gaps near the root where the mascara won't get. We tried the dye and other than thinking I may have blinded myself, I saw no difference except where the dye had gotten on my skin. My mother had a slightly better outcome but I didn't feel the feeling of chemicals in my eyeball was worth it. I think we will just get it done professionally next time...
Then when went to the store to get me a new dress. Every woman should have at least one fancy outfit for special occasions and none of my old dresses fit anymore. We found really great deals and I got out of there fairly cheap.
After makeup and doing my hair we left to go to our chosen restaurant....we picked the wrong one. It took 45 mins to get our cokes. The waitresses were really busy so I wasn't upset about it but after another twenty minutes I was starting to wonder if the kitchen area that all the waitresses kept going back to was actually the Bermuda Triangle of wait staff. We were given spinach dip that resembled something scraped off of the windshield. It tasted so strongly of onions that I had to resist the urge to expel it from my mouth with such force it would have ended up on my mother's forehead, I forced myself to swallow this offending spinach. I almost didn't make it. I thought I was going to die. I was not so secretly hoping that the rest of the food would be better.Then after an hour and a half our food order came. Well, more accurately my mother's food order came. Mine had apparently been given to another table on accident and they ate it. The manager came over to apologize profusely and offer my meal for free. He acted as if the people of the table had stolen my sandwich. I wasn't too worried about it, I mean if someone has given my plate to another table I sure hope they eat it after they breathed all over it because I sure as hell am not going to.
Thirty minutes later my food arrives. My only regret is that someone else wasn't there to have "stolen" my second sandwich. It was terrible. It tasted as if someone had drenched it in pickle juice. I later found out my mayo may have been separating. The manager came over to ask me how it was and he had so much hope in his eyes I lied to him and told him it was great.....I just couldn't do it. I could not tell him that I would have rather went out to the parking lot and licked the tar off the tires of my car rather than finish this sandwich. This free sandwich....beggars can't be choosers.
So I ate half of it just out of hunger and we left. It was so funny. I rarely get upset at hiccups like this. I do however laugh my ass off. I mean as far as birthday dinners go it was pretty bad. But it was the company I had rather than the food I ate and I was happy to have just spent the day with my mom. To talk to my mom. To laugh about my bad luck with food with my mom.
I also learned that with my dress on sale and my meal being free, I am a cheap date, so there is always that. :)
With sincerest regards,
Neurotic Nelly
Tuesday, July 28, 2015
The Greatest Tragedy......
I am going to go into a territory that is going to make everyone uncomfortable and I am going to go there because someone has to. It needs to be said but more importantly it needs to be heard.
This country and it's media are adept at avoiding it's problems head on. We are masters of deflecting and sensationalizing. We stick to our ideals and angrily attack others for theirs and yet no one is listening to anyone and no one is getting the bigger picture. Someone needs to step up and be honest and I think it should come from our community because we know what is really going on. I am a representation of this community. The mental illness community. I am mentally ill.
We have had these horrible incidents of mass murder, carnage and pain, blood and bullets. Yet instead of reporting the facts, instead of having an honest conversation, what we do is sensationalize and look to the first thing we can look to to explain the events.
In the eighties asylums and mental hospitals were shut down at such a rate the many mentally ill people who had resided in them were left destitute and homeless. Unable to get the proper support they needed, they lived on the streets ignored and overlooked for decades. And as the people that needed help languished in poverty and filth, laws were passed to make having adults committed to mental illness facilities almost impossible unless the person first tried to harm themselves or had committed a violent crime. Problem being, that many of our mass shooters have never committed a violent crime until they became mass shooters.....pretty terrible loophole right?
America, we do not have a gun problem. We do not have a racism problem. Are these two things problematic and causing issues? Yes, but that is not what is going on here. America, we have a mental illness problem and it needs to be addressed.
We as a country love symbols. They are simple and neat and convenient to blame when things go horribly wrong. We want to look at inanimate objects as the cause of our issues instead of the root of the whole problem. It is much easier to blame guns, or flags, or people that have been dead for over 150 years and make it seem like we are making progress because in this country we have accepted that we don't really need actual progress, just the symbolism of it. Symbols make great scapegoats. They are easy targets. Take them away or call for their desecration and on the surface it appears that we have solved our ills. We have cut out the offending issues. We have accomplished something.
The only problem is, we are not looking at the right problem to fix. We are not even addressing the real issue. Symbols are neat and tidy and fixing the actual issue is messy and hard. We have become lazy and we accept our laziness as long as we are able to sleep peacefully at night because we have gotten rid of inanimate objects instead of the very animate issue. Our denial makes us feel safer. Our denial is slowing killing us.
I am not a doctor, but I can see the problem very clearly because I belong to the community of those who are overlooked or ignored. I know when someone goes and shoots up a theater, or a church. or a school that it isn't because of guns or flags or whatever the media wants to spew out of it's mouth hole. These people are insane. These are the people who's families have tried to get them help but were turned away. These are the people who can not get or do not take the medications they need to stay functioning. These are the people that said and acted as if something was very wrong with them and people ignored it. The world ignored it. The system ignored it.
And why? Because this system is fundamentally broken. Laws have been passed with loopholes so large you could drive a train through them. Lack of funding. Lack of desire to try and fix it. Lack of understanding. Lack of staff. Lack of empathy. Lack of proper medication. Lack of fighting stigma. Lack of accurate representation. Lack of media truth. Lack of proper places to go. Lack of places that are willing to help. Lack of education on mental illness. Lack of honesty about just what is going on here. No this isn't just a symbol problem...this is a "lack there of "problem.
Many people knew these people needed to be committed but there was no one left willing to take them, no place left to help them, and nothing left to stop them.
I say it isn't solely about guns because when someone has gone this far they will use anything to kill whether it be bombs, knives, or sharpened spoon handles. I say it is not solely about racism because there is racism all around this world for every single race and yet most people, ignorant as they may be, do not go and shoot up a church and murder nine innocent people. I am not saying he wasn't a racist, I am simply saying he killed because he is insane.
President Obama in a speech once said that America doesn't have a monopoly on crazy people and he is right. Except that what America does have a monopoly on, is a poor understanding and an extreme sense of denial when it comes to "crazy" people. We are one of the few countries still willing to bury our heads in the sand and pretend that mental illness plays no part in our daily lives....
These people didn't slip through the cracks, they were thrown out of the door without so much as a second thought.
Adam Lanza's mom tried to get him help but was turned away.
James Holmes's family knew something was wrong but was unable to stop him.
Aaron Alexis was known to be violent and had acted violently but it was all brushed over.
Dylan Roof's friends had seen his bizarre behavior and said nothing.
John Russel Houser's family was so terrified of him that they fled and got a protection order against him.
No one listened and no one cared....until it was too late.
None of their victims had to die. It was not inevitable. It was not unpreventable. It was not fate. It was ignorance and the lack of support. It was pure and simple denial and it makes me wonder how many more times this will have to happen before people stop making it about their political agendas, stop making excuses, stop blaming symbols, and start to open their eyes.
The truth is that until we fix the system that is supposed to catch people that are like this, this will continue. You can protest and shout about the symbols all you want. It changes nothing. Change comes with fixing the problem that creates the shooter in the first place. Change comes from fixing a broken system that makes helping people like this before they get this bad, impossible. Change comes from seeing the truth.
This system is supposed to protect not just the rest of the world from these people but also protect them from themselves.
We, in the mental illness community, don't like to talk about these mass killers because we do not like to be associated with them. Statistics prove that we are far more likely to victims of violence rather to commit it. We don't want to blamed when these nut-jobs do this but on the other hand, it is everyone in America's fault because although we know it's a problem, no one wants to really look at it. No one wants to do the arduous task of fixing it. No one wants to get their hands dirty with this. It is much easier, much safer to claim it is because of something else and not look the problem directly in the eye. No matter how many people it kills before we get intelligent about it.
If anyone had bothered to ask the mental illness community, we could have told you how broken this system is. How inadequate it has become. How ridiculous the laws to prevent people that need to be committed are. How tiny the funds for mental care facilities are. How many mental illness sufferers are taking up most of our jails rather than being treated. How many hospitals don't have enough beds for those that need them. How we are running a race to a finish line that makes no sense nor has any rewards because the decks are stacked against us. We are either blamed or ignored but no one wants to actually listen and that is probably the greatest tragedy of all. These types of acts could be minimized and maybe even prevented all together if only people stopped ceasing to ignore the obvious, simply because it is the easier thing to do.
Neurotic Nelly
This country and it's media are adept at avoiding it's problems head on. We are masters of deflecting and sensationalizing. We stick to our ideals and angrily attack others for theirs and yet no one is listening to anyone and no one is getting the bigger picture. Someone needs to step up and be honest and I think it should come from our community because we know what is really going on. I am a representation of this community. The mental illness community. I am mentally ill.
We have had these horrible incidents of mass murder, carnage and pain, blood and bullets. Yet instead of reporting the facts, instead of having an honest conversation, what we do is sensationalize and look to the first thing we can look to to explain the events.
In the eighties asylums and mental hospitals were shut down at such a rate the many mentally ill people who had resided in them were left destitute and homeless. Unable to get the proper support they needed, they lived on the streets ignored and overlooked for decades. And as the people that needed help languished in poverty and filth, laws were passed to make having adults committed to mental illness facilities almost impossible unless the person first tried to harm themselves or had committed a violent crime. Problem being, that many of our mass shooters have never committed a violent crime until they became mass shooters.....pretty terrible loophole right?
America, we do not have a gun problem. We do not have a racism problem. Are these two things problematic and causing issues? Yes, but that is not what is going on here. America, we have a mental illness problem and it needs to be addressed.
We as a country love symbols. They are simple and neat and convenient to blame when things go horribly wrong. We want to look at inanimate objects as the cause of our issues instead of the root of the whole problem. It is much easier to blame guns, or flags, or people that have been dead for over 150 years and make it seem like we are making progress because in this country we have accepted that we don't really need actual progress, just the symbolism of it. Symbols make great scapegoats. They are easy targets. Take them away or call for their desecration and on the surface it appears that we have solved our ills. We have cut out the offending issues. We have accomplished something.
The only problem is, we are not looking at the right problem to fix. We are not even addressing the real issue. Symbols are neat and tidy and fixing the actual issue is messy and hard. We have become lazy and we accept our laziness as long as we are able to sleep peacefully at night because we have gotten rid of inanimate objects instead of the very animate issue. Our denial makes us feel safer. Our denial is slowing killing us.
I am not a doctor, but I can see the problem very clearly because I belong to the community of those who are overlooked or ignored. I know when someone goes and shoots up a theater, or a church. or a school that it isn't because of guns or flags or whatever the media wants to spew out of it's mouth hole. These people are insane. These are the people who's families have tried to get them help but were turned away. These are the people who can not get or do not take the medications they need to stay functioning. These are the people that said and acted as if something was very wrong with them and people ignored it. The world ignored it. The system ignored it.
And why? Because this system is fundamentally broken. Laws have been passed with loopholes so large you could drive a train through them. Lack of funding. Lack of desire to try and fix it. Lack of understanding. Lack of staff. Lack of empathy. Lack of proper medication. Lack of fighting stigma. Lack of accurate representation. Lack of media truth. Lack of proper places to go. Lack of places that are willing to help. Lack of education on mental illness. Lack of honesty about just what is going on here. No this isn't just a symbol problem...this is a "lack there of "problem.
Many people knew these people needed to be committed but there was no one left willing to take them, no place left to help them, and nothing left to stop them.
I say it isn't solely about guns because when someone has gone this far they will use anything to kill whether it be bombs, knives, or sharpened spoon handles. I say it is not solely about racism because there is racism all around this world for every single race and yet most people, ignorant as they may be, do not go and shoot up a church and murder nine innocent people. I am not saying he wasn't a racist, I am simply saying he killed because he is insane.
President Obama in a speech once said that America doesn't have a monopoly on crazy people and he is right. Except that what America does have a monopoly on, is a poor understanding and an extreme sense of denial when it comes to "crazy" people. We are one of the few countries still willing to bury our heads in the sand and pretend that mental illness plays no part in our daily lives....
These people didn't slip through the cracks, they were thrown out of the door without so much as a second thought.
Adam Lanza's mom tried to get him help but was turned away.
James Holmes's family knew something was wrong but was unable to stop him.
Aaron Alexis was known to be violent and had acted violently but it was all brushed over.
Dylan Roof's friends had seen his bizarre behavior and said nothing.
John Russel Houser's family was so terrified of him that they fled and got a protection order against him.
No one listened and no one cared....until it was too late.
None of their victims had to die. It was not inevitable. It was not unpreventable. It was not fate. It was ignorance and the lack of support. It was pure and simple denial and it makes me wonder how many more times this will have to happen before people stop making it about their political agendas, stop making excuses, stop blaming symbols, and start to open their eyes.
The truth is that until we fix the system that is supposed to catch people that are like this, this will continue. You can protest and shout about the symbols all you want. It changes nothing. Change comes with fixing the problem that creates the shooter in the first place. Change comes from fixing a broken system that makes helping people like this before they get this bad, impossible. Change comes from seeing the truth.
This system is supposed to protect not just the rest of the world from these people but also protect them from themselves.
We, in the mental illness community, don't like to talk about these mass killers because we do not like to be associated with them. Statistics prove that we are far more likely to victims of violence rather to commit it. We don't want to blamed when these nut-jobs do this but on the other hand, it is everyone in America's fault because although we know it's a problem, no one wants to really look at it. No one wants to do the arduous task of fixing it. No one wants to get their hands dirty with this. It is much easier, much safer to claim it is because of something else and not look the problem directly in the eye. No matter how many people it kills before we get intelligent about it.
If anyone had bothered to ask the mental illness community, we could have told you how broken this system is. How inadequate it has become. How ridiculous the laws to prevent people that need to be committed are. How tiny the funds for mental care facilities are. How many mental illness sufferers are taking up most of our jails rather than being treated. How many hospitals don't have enough beds for those that need them. How we are running a race to a finish line that makes no sense nor has any rewards because the decks are stacked against us. We are either blamed or ignored but no one wants to actually listen and that is probably the greatest tragedy of all. These types of acts could be minimized and maybe even prevented all together if only people stopped ceasing to ignore the obvious, simply because it is the easier thing to do.
Neurotic Nelly
Tuesday, July 14, 2015
The Doctors......Warning Possible Triggers....
No one really likes to go to the doctors office but for me it is like the seventh level of Hell. I don't actually know where that saying comes from, but if Hell has levels than the doctor's office has to be somewhere in there right?
It isn't just that I have contamination fears and will be around sick people (which is bad enough) but I have had some bad life lessons from the doctor's office. I don't remember hating them before the tooth pick debacle of 86 unless I had to get shots, which all children despise even thought they are a necessary evil.
When I was about seven years old I had to go to the doctors because of my foot. My Dad had this annoying habit of chewing tooth picks and breaking them and throwing them on the ground. I had the bad habit of walking everywhere barefoot (still do). I stepped on something and felt it go into my foot but saw nothing when I looked at it. I continued to play. I told no one and no one was the wiser until a few days later when I was no longer able to put weight on it. Then came the red streaks which meant I had an infection and there was definitely something in there. So, we went to the doctor and sure enough they had to numb it as best as they could and remove whatever I had stepped on. Mind you, past a certain point numbing medicine doesn't work and this was one of those points. I remember flailing and screaming and finally they were able to cut and pull out a half of a toothpick out of my heel. I remember all of it, the pulling, the grabbing it, the cutting.....not a real great memory to remember.
Then I had this wonderful doctor that used to whistle bird calls when he looked into your ear. He was kind and funny and kinda looked like Colonel Sanders. We moved away after having him as my doctor for about a year. He was one of the only doctors that made me not hate going to the doctors office. He made me feel comfortable and less scared. I found out that a few years later he had contracted A.I.D.S. and most of his patients left making him have to shut down his practice. He was later found stabbed to death in his own bathtub. Very sad. He was a really great kid's doctor and the whole story makes me really upset. He deserved better than that.
Then there was the asshole fraud psychiatrist that scared my family into committing me so he could abuse the system and suck up all of the insurance money when I was ten. I hope he lost his ability to commit children when he was sued for fraud. Actually, I hope he rots in Hell but that isn't a very nice thing to say so I have to say I hope he is rotting in jail somewhere instead. But I highly doubt us, his many victims, could get so lucky.....Bastard.
Not to mention, the doctor who gave me my first stitches but didn't realize, I at the time, had a huge fear of needles. He thought he would just say out loud it needed a couple of stitches and go on like it wasn't a big deal for me. That went swimmingly....not. Just ask my mother, she probably still has bald patches where I snatched her hair out. I was around twelve years old.
Or the perv psychiatrist I had when I was twenty one, who made sexual comments to me when I was in need of actual counseling even going so far as to make me lift up my tank top when I was braless once to "check my heart rate". Something he never had done before the whole time I had been seeing him ....He too should be in prison but I was too embarrassed to say anything. Not to mention I figured I had no proof of his actions. He made sure we were alone. I was really ashamed and uncomfortable.....he was also a Bastard.
Or the E.R. doctor that felt the need to shove his finger into my open wound after I had accidentally impaled my shin on a stick when I was twenty six. No he did not numb it first. No he did not warn me first. He just stuck his finger in it up to his knuckle and moved it around.....That was pleasant. I secretly think he may have been a sadist.
So, yeah doctors are not my favorite past time for obvious reasons. And I have a new appointment with my new doctor tomorrow and I am absolutely freaked out about it. I know it will go fine, probably. I am worried about my test score for my diabetes. I am worried he will be an asshole. I am worried he will be inept or mean or just plain rude. I really hate when that happens. Anyway, I have waited six months to see him and my anxiety is literally through the roof. Ugh, I don't want to go but I have to. Ugh and double ugh. Anyway, I am just really hoping above all else, I can get my anxiety under control and make it to this appointment without a panic attack because I have to take good care of myself and that , unfortunately, means going to my biggest triggering place, the doctors office.
Wish me luck,
Neurotic Nelly
It isn't just that I have contamination fears and will be around sick people (which is bad enough) but I have had some bad life lessons from the doctor's office. I don't remember hating them before the tooth pick debacle of 86 unless I had to get shots, which all children despise even thought they are a necessary evil.
When I was about seven years old I had to go to the doctors because of my foot. My Dad had this annoying habit of chewing tooth picks and breaking them and throwing them on the ground. I had the bad habit of walking everywhere barefoot (still do). I stepped on something and felt it go into my foot but saw nothing when I looked at it. I continued to play. I told no one and no one was the wiser until a few days later when I was no longer able to put weight on it. Then came the red streaks which meant I had an infection and there was definitely something in there. So, we went to the doctor and sure enough they had to numb it as best as they could and remove whatever I had stepped on. Mind you, past a certain point numbing medicine doesn't work and this was one of those points. I remember flailing and screaming and finally they were able to cut and pull out a half of a toothpick out of my heel. I remember all of it, the pulling, the grabbing it, the cutting.....not a real great memory to remember.
Then I had this wonderful doctor that used to whistle bird calls when he looked into your ear. He was kind and funny and kinda looked like Colonel Sanders. We moved away after having him as my doctor for about a year. He was one of the only doctors that made me not hate going to the doctors office. He made me feel comfortable and less scared. I found out that a few years later he had contracted A.I.D.S. and most of his patients left making him have to shut down his practice. He was later found stabbed to death in his own bathtub. Very sad. He was a really great kid's doctor and the whole story makes me really upset. He deserved better than that.
Then there was the asshole fraud psychiatrist that scared my family into committing me so he could abuse the system and suck up all of the insurance money when I was ten. I hope he lost his ability to commit children when he was sued for fraud. Actually, I hope he rots in Hell but that isn't a very nice thing to say so I have to say I hope he is rotting in jail somewhere instead. But I highly doubt us, his many victims, could get so lucky.....Bastard.
Not to mention, the doctor who gave me my first stitches but didn't realize, I at the time, had a huge fear of needles. He thought he would just say out loud it needed a couple of stitches and go on like it wasn't a big deal for me. That went swimmingly....not. Just ask my mother, she probably still has bald patches where I snatched her hair out. I was around twelve years old.
Or the perv psychiatrist I had when I was twenty one, who made sexual comments to me when I was in need of actual counseling even going so far as to make me lift up my tank top when I was braless once to "check my heart rate". Something he never had done before the whole time I had been seeing him ....He too should be in prison but I was too embarrassed to say anything. Not to mention I figured I had no proof of his actions. He made sure we were alone. I was really ashamed and uncomfortable.....he was also a Bastard.
Or the E.R. doctor that felt the need to shove his finger into my open wound after I had accidentally impaled my shin on a stick when I was twenty six. No he did not numb it first. No he did not warn me first. He just stuck his finger in it up to his knuckle and moved it around.....That was pleasant. I secretly think he may have been a sadist.
So, yeah doctors are not my favorite past time for obvious reasons. And I have a new appointment with my new doctor tomorrow and I am absolutely freaked out about it. I know it will go fine, probably. I am worried about my test score for my diabetes. I am worried he will be an asshole. I am worried he will be inept or mean or just plain rude. I really hate when that happens. Anyway, I have waited six months to see him and my anxiety is literally through the roof. Ugh, I don't want to go but I have to. Ugh and double ugh. Anyway, I am just really hoping above all else, I can get my anxiety under control and make it to this appointment without a panic attack because I have to take good care of myself and that , unfortunately, means going to my biggest triggering place, the doctors office.
Wish me luck,
Neurotic Nelly
Tuesday, July 7, 2015
It's Not A Sidebar.....
I was watching a news channel yesterday and came across a story about a man cycling for awareness of a disease that killed his wife. He wants to promote awareness and raise money and I applaud him for that. My problem was the way the news sanitized his wife's illness and death.
First, they both called her Depression a mood disorder. They did it repeatedly and then said that Depression had killed her. At no point did they mention mental illness anywhere in this supposed news article. At no point did they say that she killed herself.
My problem with this is that it seemed very sanitized, very PC, very scrubbed clean and there is nothing clean or orderly about Depression.
Is Depression a mood disorder? Yes, but lets call a spade a spade shall we? Depression is a MENTAL ILLNESS. Say it. Say it often, roll it around in your mouth until it feels familiar. Stop being afraid of these two words. Stop shying away from this term. We as sufferers have learned to use it without attaching stigma to it and so should everyone else. This woman didn't have Leprosy, she had Depression. It doesn't need to be dumbed down or sugar coated. It certainly wasn't sugar coated for her when she was suffering from it. She killed herself. Her Depression made her life so unbearable, so unspeakable, she was so desperate, she suffered so much that suicide, to her, seemed like the only option. Don't you dare sugar coat or undermine what she went through.
You see, as a mentally ill person, I find the sanitizing and politically correct scrubbing of the struggles we go through on a daily basis an insult. It represents that what we go through is somehow less painful or less ugly or more acceptable.
This woman didn't die from Depression. She committed suicide. There, I said it. I know it is hard for other people to hear that word, or read that word, or understand that word but you can not and should not whitewash that word into something less awful, less devastating. Because there is nothing beautiful or soothing about suicide. Yes, Depression is the reason she killed herself but say that. Don't over look the choice she made and the horrors she faced by saying she died from Depression and not explain what it made her do. If for some reason, you can not bring yourself to say the word suicide then simply say she lost her battle with Depression.
Look, I am sorry that the words mental illness and suicide make other people uncomfortable. You should try living with them and see how uncomfortable that is. The point is, we don't have time to scrub away the ugly thoughts about these two words. Mental illness and suicide are ugly. We should know. In a country where suicide takes away somebody's loved one every 13 minutes, I hardly think we need to waste time trying to sanitize something that needs to be talked about openly because only then can we get real and start making changes to a broken system that allows good people to fall through the cracks. This system is damaged and defunct and until we start looking at this problem as an actual problem nothing will change and it has to. Suicide is 100% preventable. And yet we as a society are too afraid to look into the dark abyss where it dwells because we are scared. Our society is cowardly when it comes to anything that deals with mental illness or suicide and it is proven and reiterated every single time this subject comes up. Because they white wash it. They sweep it under the rug. They look for other excuses. Or like in this case, they simply exclude these three words altogether.
If you want to help us, if you want to change the system than you have to stop making excuses. You have to stop shying away form reality. A reality that all of us that suffer are very familiar with. You have to say words like mental illness, pain, suicide and you have to own them when you speak. You have to look people in the eye when talking about them. You have to stop promoting the stigma with your fear and be fearless. After all, we are fearless when talking about these things because we have no choice and if you want to be part of the solution than you have no choice either. We are not a side line. We are not a cutline. It is not a sidebar. It is the story. We are the story. We are real and our suffering is real and we deserve to have it talked about it, exactly like how it is. No sanitizing, no white washing, no scrubbing clean.......you cannot diminish the pain of mental illness by minimizing it's affects so you are less uncomfortable with the reality of it.
Neurotic Nelly
First, they both called her Depression a mood disorder. They did it repeatedly and then said that Depression had killed her. At no point did they mention mental illness anywhere in this supposed news article. At no point did they say that she killed herself.
My problem with this is that it seemed very sanitized, very PC, very scrubbed clean and there is nothing clean or orderly about Depression.
Is Depression a mood disorder? Yes, but lets call a spade a spade shall we? Depression is a MENTAL ILLNESS. Say it. Say it often, roll it around in your mouth until it feels familiar. Stop being afraid of these two words. Stop shying away from this term. We as sufferers have learned to use it without attaching stigma to it and so should everyone else. This woman didn't have Leprosy, she had Depression. It doesn't need to be dumbed down or sugar coated. It certainly wasn't sugar coated for her when she was suffering from it. She killed herself. Her Depression made her life so unbearable, so unspeakable, she was so desperate, she suffered so much that suicide, to her, seemed like the only option. Don't you dare sugar coat or undermine what she went through.
You see, as a mentally ill person, I find the sanitizing and politically correct scrubbing of the struggles we go through on a daily basis an insult. It represents that what we go through is somehow less painful or less ugly or more acceptable.
This woman didn't die from Depression. She committed suicide. There, I said it. I know it is hard for other people to hear that word, or read that word, or understand that word but you can not and should not whitewash that word into something less awful, less devastating. Because there is nothing beautiful or soothing about suicide. Yes, Depression is the reason she killed herself but say that. Don't over look the choice she made and the horrors she faced by saying she died from Depression and not explain what it made her do. If for some reason, you can not bring yourself to say the word suicide then simply say she lost her battle with Depression.
Look, I am sorry that the words mental illness and suicide make other people uncomfortable. You should try living with them and see how uncomfortable that is. The point is, we don't have time to scrub away the ugly thoughts about these two words. Mental illness and suicide are ugly. We should know. In a country where suicide takes away somebody's loved one every 13 minutes, I hardly think we need to waste time trying to sanitize something that needs to be talked about openly because only then can we get real and start making changes to a broken system that allows good people to fall through the cracks. This system is damaged and defunct and until we start looking at this problem as an actual problem nothing will change and it has to. Suicide is 100% preventable. And yet we as a society are too afraid to look into the dark abyss where it dwells because we are scared. Our society is cowardly when it comes to anything that deals with mental illness or suicide and it is proven and reiterated every single time this subject comes up. Because they white wash it. They sweep it under the rug. They look for other excuses. Or like in this case, they simply exclude these three words altogether.
If you want to help us, if you want to change the system than you have to stop making excuses. You have to stop shying away form reality. A reality that all of us that suffer are very familiar with. You have to say words like mental illness, pain, suicide and you have to own them when you speak. You have to look people in the eye when talking about them. You have to stop promoting the stigma with your fear and be fearless. After all, we are fearless when talking about these things because we have no choice and if you want to be part of the solution than you have no choice either. We are not a side line. We are not a cutline. It is not a sidebar. It is the story. We are the story. We are real and our suffering is real and we deserve to have it talked about it, exactly like how it is. No sanitizing, no white washing, no scrubbing clean.......you cannot diminish the pain of mental illness by minimizing it's affects so you are less uncomfortable with the reality of it.
Neurotic Nelly
Tuesday, June 30, 2015
I Am Howard Hughes...
I am Howard Hughes. Well except for the whole being a rich man that designs and flies planes thing. I am also not a playboy....or dead. I am however a Texan...and I have OCD.
Last night, I watched The Aviator for the first time. A movie that I have purposely avoided watching till now. I sat there, palms sweaty, terrified of the mirror that would be held in front of my face. Before I hit the play button, I swallowed the lump in my throat that felt like a mini bus and asked my husband, "How much of myself am I going to see in this film?" He had seen parts of it before. "A lot." he said.
"Wonderful." I thought in my purely sarcastic tone.
I have avoided watching this film for fears of triggers. You see, Howard had contamination fears and so do I. I was very afraid of having to sit through and hour and a half, triggering while Howard was triggering and trying not to completely freak out alongside the main character. It was daunting. It was unsettling. It was... magical.
For the first time, I saw a movie that did not glaze over my disorder. It did not present my disorder as something to laugh at. It did not show the character as being unaware of what was going on. Something that many OCD depictions overlook and try to cover up with humor. He clearly saw that what he was doing made no sense. It showed the clear agony of OCD on his face when he compulsed. It showed the hesitations. The little pauses we take when triggered. I had never seen that before in any film or read that in any book. It was like my typical day of what social dictations demand vs what my mind forces me to feel and I was blown away and thankful. I mean, I do not have all of Howard Hughes's symptoms, but I totally understood them and it was, for me, a relief.
The raw meat scenes.....totally my reactions. With the door in the public restroom scene, I could feel the complete panic. Not just because of the superb writing of the script and terrific acting of the actor, but because I do that. I look at the door knob with fear of knowing that I just washed wash my hands and I do not want to do it again. The complete panic and dread that sets in.
( WARNING possible TRIGGERS on video )
(I do not own this video or any part of this video)
There is this part when he is in the plane with Kathrine Hepburn and he drinks after her. The hesitation before he takes a sip. I was yelling at the television. Oh my God. I don't think people understand what that means for a person with contamination fears. I do, but I am not sure other people can. I remember the first time I found someone I could drink or eat after. It was freeing and it is the first time I caught a glimpse of what it must be like to be like everyone else. To be not OCD.
Yes, I was triggered watching this movie but it moved me. It made me want to scream when they used Howard's OCD against him. It made me hold back tears when he was in pain and isolated himself. It made OCD real for the viewers and no, maybe they don't understand every nuance but they got the gist. And that means something. More than anyone else (normal) will ever know.
The hardest part of the film was the reality that many of us joke about. The dirty, unshaven naked man, reduced to peeing in his recycled milk bottles because he is afraid of being contaminated. I have often said I am one step away from being Howard Hughes. That isn't true, really. I am not to the point Howard got to but the idea of that I could become like that, terrifies me. That is what has kept me from watching this film, despite it's raving reviews, for eleven years. It was too close. It was too real for me because I can not simply walk out of the movie theater and pretend it was all just a movie. I live it everyday. I can not simply just turn off the television and go on about my day like everyone else. It wasn't a film that taught me about OCD because I know it too intimately, already. No, I am not peeing in milk bottles. No, I am not unwashed living in one tiny room afraid of contamination. No, I am not repeating myself over and over and over again. But I could have been and that is the point. I didn't really need to learn about Howard because I already am Howard Hughes on some small level. I knew him even before I didn't. And I think most OCD sufferers would understand that because I know them too. Just as they know me like only we can. Because only we know what it is like to live with this disorder. But now, because of this movie, maybe others will start to know too and that is....beyond gratifying. It is magical.
Neurotic Nelly
Tuesday, June 23, 2015
This Burden....
I have spent my whole life trying to make up for being broken. I have always been a nice person, hoping people will accept me before they know my dysfunction. My life has been full of apologies and trying to swim through the swamps of my mind while trying desperately just to keep my head above water. I have always wanted to be liked. I put everyone else before me. Laying down my feelings on the sacrificial alter for others to trample on.....I have always tried to be so good to prove the things my mind was showing me were wrong. I am always trying to help others while helping myself. Sometimes I fail on the myself parts. And I apologize for that.
I beat myself up for not being perfect. I chastise myself for not being good enough. For not being a hero. For not being able to fix myself. For not being able to fix everyone else. For not being able to be there for everyone and everything that goes on this world. I blame myself for too much and do not forgive myself nearly enough. I lay my body on the concrete steps letting others scrape away my flesh and pick apart my bones till only my faults lie there in my place. Still it seems as if it is not enough. The suffering has become something that somewhere along the line, I picked up thinking it is all I deserve.
This burden has become too heavy and exhausting.
I know now that this is untrue. No, I am not perfect but I am no longer certain that is something I have to apologize for. I am a good person and I do not need to sacrifice my emotions to prove that to anyone, least of all myself. After all of this time, I should know who I am and what I am. I do not need to prove my worthiness or my sweetness or my goodness. I am a good person. I am a sweet person. I am a worthy person. I do not need reassurance for the first time in my life and it is exhilarating and terrifying all at the same time. I feel hurt by those that have hurt me simply because they can and yet I feel stronger than I ever have. Finally, I have broken through this wall made of bricks and clay that I had carefully erected with my own childish hands trying not to keep others out but to keep myself in. Because I felt that is where the monsters belong. I can see the light shining through the holes I have clawed away and I can feel the sun's warmth on my face. I will no longer live with the darkness that I placed myself in. The empty blackened chamber I made for myself. The punishment I have inflicted upon myself for simply existing. I am no longer afraid. I do not believe that no one will ever love me, truly. I am no longer afraid others will not accept me. I am no longer unsure of my place. Those people's feelings about me do not change who I am. Their opinions on who I should be or what I am do not change my worth. I am not them. They are not me.
The more I look at myself in the mirror, the more I reflect on my own reflections, I realize that this burden I have been dragging behind me is not my burden to carry. No one is perfect.
The blame I have carried is not my blame to cock and point at myself. I do not need this damp and musty overcoat of shame anymore. It never fit me very well anyway.
I am Learning... I don't need anyone else to confirm who I am. I already know and I deserve to treated like the good, caring, responsible person that I am. I don't need to hold on to this self hatred any longer. There is nothing I could ever do that would make me deserve the punishments I have given myself on top of the suffering I already have. This stops today. I will no longer apologize for who I am or what I can and can not do. No one is held to these kind of standards and I shouldn't be held to them either. Even if those standards were something that only I have placed on myself. So this is me dropping the lies, the blame, the guilt, and the overwhelming sense of shame and letting them all fall away. This is me accepting me, wholly and completely...and I am learning that those that can't stand be behind me on that, don't deserve to be standing beside me as my friends. It is they who are not worthy enough to be in my life and not the other way around....
Here is a short video of me talking about my acceptance of my OCD.
Neurotic Nelly
I beat myself up for not being perfect. I chastise myself for not being good enough. For not being a hero. For not being able to fix myself. For not being able to fix everyone else. For not being able to be there for everyone and everything that goes on this world. I blame myself for too much and do not forgive myself nearly enough. I lay my body on the concrete steps letting others scrape away my flesh and pick apart my bones till only my faults lie there in my place. Still it seems as if it is not enough. The suffering has become something that somewhere along the line, I picked up thinking it is all I deserve.
This burden has become too heavy and exhausting.
I know now that this is untrue. No, I am not perfect but I am no longer certain that is something I have to apologize for. I am a good person and I do not need to sacrifice my emotions to prove that to anyone, least of all myself. After all of this time, I should know who I am and what I am. I do not need to prove my worthiness or my sweetness or my goodness. I am a good person. I am a sweet person. I am a worthy person. I do not need reassurance for the first time in my life and it is exhilarating and terrifying all at the same time. I feel hurt by those that have hurt me simply because they can and yet I feel stronger than I ever have. Finally, I have broken through this wall made of bricks and clay that I had carefully erected with my own childish hands trying not to keep others out but to keep myself in. Because I felt that is where the monsters belong. I can see the light shining through the holes I have clawed away and I can feel the sun's warmth on my face. I will no longer live with the darkness that I placed myself in. The empty blackened chamber I made for myself. The punishment I have inflicted upon myself for simply existing. I am no longer afraid. I do not believe that no one will ever love me, truly. I am no longer afraid others will not accept me. I am no longer unsure of my place. Those people's feelings about me do not change who I am. Their opinions on who I should be or what I am do not change my worth. I am not them. They are not me.
The more I look at myself in the mirror, the more I reflect on my own reflections, I realize that this burden I have been dragging behind me is not my burden to carry. No one is perfect.
The blame I have carried is not my blame to cock and point at myself. I do not need this damp and musty overcoat of shame anymore. It never fit me very well anyway.
I am Learning... I don't need anyone else to confirm who I am. I already know and I deserve to treated like the good, caring, responsible person that I am. I don't need to hold on to this self hatred any longer. There is nothing I could ever do that would make me deserve the punishments I have given myself on top of the suffering I already have. This stops today. I will no longer apologize for who I am or what I can and can not do. No one is held to these kind of standards and I shouldn't be held to them either. Even if those standards were something that only I have placed on myself. So this is me dropping the lies, the blame, the guilt, and the overwhelming sense of shame and letting them all fall away. This is me accepting me, wholly and completely...and I am learning that those that can't stand be behind me on that, don't deserve to be standing beside me as my friends. It is they who are not worthy enough to be in my life and not the other way around....
Here is a short video of me talking about my acceptance of my OCD.
Neurotic Nelly
Tuesday, June 16, 2015
Insomnia and Being A PureO.....
Some things have been going on lately, making it hard to sleep. The night is my worst enemy. It is too quiet. It is too long. And my brain starts to thinking it's most when it is quiet and too long. I can't clean to occupy myself because everyone is asleep. There is nothing on television to mindlessly space out and stare at. No music to distract myself from myself because to do that the music would have to be loud enough to drown out my thoughts and my thoughts are very very loud. I could have read but I was feeling too lazy. I could have written but the words wouldn't come to me. So, I just laid there praying to get exhausted enough to override my own mind. I just laid there and listened to the silence. Well, at least I think it was silence in the background of all of my thoughts.....I am not completely sure.
Insomnia blows.
I am so tired right now.
I will get over it, probably.
Please take few seconds to check out my new video about being a PureO. Thanks, and I promise to write a better post next Tuesday.
Neurotic Nelly
Tuesday, June 9, 2015
Why OCD Is Not Funny....
Hurt.
That is what I feel when someone makes fun of my disorder. We live in a time where information is just a click away and yet such ignorance abounds us all, it is amazing to me we can see through the fog of it. On a weekly basis I am confronted with people making light of my disorder or minimizing it's effects with dumb t-shirts or ignorant coffee cups and I become disheartened and offended. It seriously happens to me all of the time. And as frustrating as it is, I can not totally blame the people that do it. They just don't know any better. So I ask myself how I can change the perceptions of things like Obsessive Compulsive Disorder to the masses. Granted, I will most likely not change the world with my posts on this blog, but if I can help just one person understand OCD a little better or help a fellow sufferer feel less alone, then I feel all of this has been worth the struggle.
In looking through several videos on youtube about OCD, I have noticed that although there is a great deal on OCD, they aren't necessarily specific. There are several videos on compulsions that go hand in hand with Obsessive Compulsive disorder but not many on the obsessional or intrusive thought part of OCD and I would like to change that.
So, I have decided to make a few videos about my life with OCD and the things I have learned while suffering from it for almost thirty two years. They wont be anything spectacular. There won't be any animations or flow charts. No, art work being drawn as I speak or anything fancy. Just me talking about the things many of us OCD sufferers are afraid to talk about (the scary, guilt inducing, upsetting intrusive thoughts that rule our lives). I will be discussing what it is like to be a PureO because we are OCD sufferers too. Just not the ones most people think of when they think about OCD because our symptoms are not readily seen to the naked eye. I will be discussing why OCD is just as serious as every other mental illness and just why we do not find your Obsessive Cat Disorder shirts or Obsessive Coffee Disorder coffee mugs hilarious. I will admit I am a little terrified of doing this. Writing is one thing, being on camera talking about it is quite another. I may even have hives and a panic attack before, after, or even during filming. Who knows. But I do feel it is important to try and I hope that it helps even in some small way.
So, here goes nothing...
(you may need to use headphones the volume is low).
Neurotic Nelly
That is what I feel when someone makes fun of my disorder. We live in a time where information is just a click away and yet such ignorance abounds us all, it is amazing to me we can see through the fog of it. On a weekly basis I am confronted with people making light of my disorder or minimizing it's effects with dumb t-shirts or ignorant coffee cups and I become disheartened and offended. It seriously happens to me all of the time. And as frustrating as it is, I can not totally blame the people that do it. They just don't know any better. So I ask myself how I can change the perceptions of things like Obsessive Compulsive Disorder to the masses. Granted, I will most likely not change the world with my posts on this blog, but if I can help just one person understand OCD a little better or help a fellow sufferer feel less alone, then I feel all of this has been worth the struggle.
In looking through several videos on youtube about OCD, I have noticed that although there is a great deal on OCD, they aren't necessarily specific. There are several videos on compulsions that go hand in hand with Obsessive Compulsive disorder but not many on the obsessional or intrusive thought part of OCD and I would like to change that.
So, I have decided to make a few videos about my life with OCD and the things I have learned while suffering from it for almost thirty two years. They wont be anything spectacular. There won't be any animations or flow charts. No, art work being drawn as I speak or anything fancy. Just me talking about the things many of us OCD sufferers are afraid to talk about (the scary, guilt inducing, upsetting intrusive thoughts that rule our lives). I will be discussing what it is like to be a PureO because we are OCD sufferers too. Just not the ones most people think of when they think about OCD because our symptoms are not readily seen to the naked eye. I will be discussing why OCD is just as serious as every other mental illness and just why we do not find your Obsessive Cat Disorder shirts or Obsessive Coffee Disorder coffee mugs hilarious. I will admit I am a little terrified of doing this. Writing is one thing, being on camera talking about it is quite another. I may even have hives and a panic attack before, after, or even during filming. Who knows. But I do feel it is important to try and I hope that it helps even in some small way.
So, here goes nothing...
(you may need to use headphones the volume is low).
(( I apologize for the overuse of the word "um", I was nervous))
Neurotic Nelly
Tuesday, June 2, 2015
UnValidated...
" Sometimes the people around you won't understand your journey. They don't need to, it's not for them." -Anonymous
Deflected. That is what it feels like when someone makes excuses to not sympathize with how you are feeling. I get irritated when someone assumes that because I am upset about something, that it is because of my mental illness. As if, I am not allowed to have true feelings unless it is related to my OCD. Like somehow my OCD means that I can not truthfully be angry or hurt. It matters not what has transpired during my day or what situation I am facing. Crying or showing otherwise perfectly normal emotional responses to something is thrown back in my face because, surely it is my mental illness's fault and not because I am truly upset over something. It can't be because I had a shitty day. It has to be because I have OCD. And since I do have OCD, my feelings are just overreactions. My diagnosis has fundamentally colored the way I am perceived. And I am apparently perceived as someone who can not feel unless my mental illness is dictating it.
I know it may be hard to believe, but just like everyone else I am a human being. And being a human means that on occasion, I actually have human feelings. And they can be trampled on or hurt. (Go figure.)
Few things hurt more than when I am discussing my feelings on something and someone's response to it, is that I need to get back on my medicine. (I have medication resistant OCD). I don't think it is meant to be insulting on purpose but it is insulting all the same. What you may be saying is that I am really passionate about whatever we are talking about or that I am really upset, but what I hear is the soft click of the door of communication as it closes tightly shut behind me. What I hear is that you do not care about my feelings. What I hear is that you can not get on my level and understand where I am coming from. What I hear is that my opinion is not important and my feelings are annoying and should be kept to myself, lest I bother anyone else with them. You may not know it, but these few simple words have effectively swept my emotions under the heavily stained, moth eaten carpet that everyone has trampled and wiped their dirt covered feet on. It pushes my feelings away and crushes them down. Leaving me to feel misunderstood, extremely frustrated, unbelievably isolated, a tad bit devastated, and just plain sad. No one likes to feel ignored or swept aside and it is no different for those of us that suffer from mental illness.
Even when I was on medication, if I had a moment when I was struggling or upset with something that had nothing to do with my mental illness at all, I would be asked, "Did you take your meds today?"
I wanted to scream,"What the hell does my medication have to do with the validation of how I am feeling? Is it not possible for you to see me as a whole person? To see me as someone who is hurting? What does it matter even if it is my mental illness making me feel this way, are my emotions any less important? Any less valid? Do I not still feel them just as deeply? Why are my emotions ignored and overlooked and dismissed just because I suffer?"
I want to yell these things, but I usually end up just ending the conversation. Because once my feelings have been rebuffed by someone, I have a very hard time trusting that someone with them again.
I can not begin to tell you how incredibly hurtful the medication question is. If you really think about it, it is more of a statement rather than a question. It says you are judging me. It says, albeit subtly and well hidden, that I don't have a right to have feelings let alone express them because they clearly aren't real. It implies that no one that has mental illness has any real emotions. They are a figment of our fractured minds and therefore do not need to be validated or listened to. They are immediately suspect and mistrusted. They are almost always looked at with a wary eye and a half closed ear.
I mean yes, sometimes my mental illness affects my mood or causes me to react a certain way. But that is not every single time I feel an emotion. When someone has been a complete asshat to me and it hurts my feelings, I get pissed. I do not get pissed because I have OCD. I get pissed because someone has been a complete asshat to me and has hurt my feelings. I should not have to explain that. I should not have to validate that to someone else. I have a right to feel the way I feel about things.
We are not emotional zombies. We are people.
Asking me if I have taken my pills when I am upset makes me feel like I have to constantly validate my feelings when I feel them. It makes me start to feel as if I am not trustworthy of my own emotions. Like somehow, I am defunct and incapable. That my feelings are not important on the basis that I am mentally ill and because of that, those feelings have no merit. Your feelings count and are treated as such. So should ours. There shouldn't be this overwhelming need to explain why we aren't faking it or not overreacting. There should be no long drawn out explanation we have to give every time we are upset by something. Our feelings matter and they are very real to us. That should be more than good enough for everyone else.
Somehow people with mental illness are always asked to defend how they feel about something and I hate that. I hate that I have to feel like my emotions are not my own and it is okay for them to be sterilized and whitewashed over simply because I have OCD. My feelings are not a old barn door that needs to be reclaimed and painted over. They are not grimy bed linens that need to be washed clean with bleach. They are not distasteful and something to look down upon. They are simply feelings. Not something to be scrubbed away or sanitized. Being told I need to water down my emotions when I am hurting is total bullshit and I vehemently resent it.
We are not exempt from feeling things. We are no different than anyone else.
I am not asking you to understand every single thing we feel. We don't expect that from you. What I am asking is that you be compassionate. That you be kind. That you listen without ridicule or judgement. That you offer support just as we do you when you are upset or hurting. That is all I want. That is all any of us want. It really isn't that complicated. We just want to be heard. We just want to not have our feelings glossed over, ignored, omitted, or have them remain unvalidated. No one deserves to remain unvalidated.
You wouldn't like if we treated you like your views and emotions were pointless, so please don't do that to us either,
Neurotic Nelly
Deflected. That is what it feels like when someone makes excuses to not sympathize with how you are feeling. I get irritated when someone assumes that because I am upset about something, that it is because of my mental illness. As if, I am not allowed to have true feelings unless it is related to my OCD. Like somehow my OCD means that I can not truthfully be angry or hurt. It matters not what has transpired during my day or what situation I am facing. Crying or showing otherwise perfectly normal emotional responses to something is thrown back in my face because, surely it is my mental illness's fault and not because I am truly upset over something. It can't be because I had a shitty day. It has to be because I have OCD. And since I do have OCD, my feelings are just overreactions. My diagnosis has fundamentally colored the way I am perceived. And I am apparently perceived as someone who can not feel unless my mental illness is dictating it.
I know it may be hard to believe, but just like everyone else I am a human being. And being a human means that on occasion, I actually have human feelings. And they can be trampled on or hurt. (Go figure.)
Even when I was on medication, if I had a moment when I was struggling or upset with something that had nothing to do with my mental illness at all, I would be asked, "Did you take your meds today?"
I wanted to scream,"What the hell does my medication have to do with the validation of how I am feeling? Is it not possible for you to see me as a whole person? To see me as someone who is hurting? What does it matter even if it is my mental illness making me feel this way, are my emotions any less important? Any less valid? Do I not still feel them just as deeply? Why are my emotions ignored and overlooked and dismissed just because I suffer?"
I want to yell these things, but I usually end up just ending the conversation. Because once my feelings have been rebuffed by someone, I have a very hard time trusting that someone with them again.
I can not begin to tell you how incredibly hurtful the medication question is. If you really think about it, it is more of a statement rather than a question. It says you are judging me. It says, albeit subtly and well hidden, that I don't have a right to have feelings let alone express them because they clearly aren't real. It implies that no one that has mental illness has any real emotions. They are a figment of our fractured minds and therefore do not need to be validated or listened to. They are immediately suspect and mistrusted. They are almost always looked at with a wary eye and a half closed ear.
I mean yes, sometimes my mental illness affects my mood or causes me to react a certain way. But that is not every single time I feel an emotion. When someone has been a complete asshat to me and it hurts my feelings, I get pissed. I do not get pissed because I have OCD. I get pissed because someone has been a complete asshat to me and has hurt my feelings. I should not have to explain that. I should not have to validate that to someone else. I have a right to feel the way I feel about things.
We are not emotional zombies. We are people.
Asking me if I have taken my pills when I am upset makes me feel like I have to constantly validate my feelings when I feel them. It makes me start to feel as if I am not trustworthy of my own emotions. Like somehow, I am defunct and incapable. That my feelings are not important on the basis that I am mentally ill and because of that, those feelings have no merit. Your feelings count and are treated as such. So should ours. There shouldn't be this overwhelming need to explain why we aren't faking it or not overreacting. There should be no long drawn out explanation we have to give every time we are upset by something. Our feelings matter and they are very real to us. That should be more than good enough for everyone else.
Somehow people with mental illness are always asked to defend how they feel about something and I hate that. I hate that I have to feel like my emotions are not my own and it is okay for them to be sterilized and whitewashed over simply because I have OCD. My feelings are not a old barn door that needs to be reclaimed and painted over. They are not grimy bed linens that need to be washed clean with bleach. They are not distasteful and something to look down upon. They are simply feelings. Not something to be scrubbed away or sanitized. Being told I need to water down my emotions when I am hurting is total bullshit and I vehemently resent it.
We are not exempt from feeling things. We are no different than anyone else.
I am not asking you to understand every single thing we feel. We don't expect that from you. What I am asking is that you be compassionate. That you be kind. That you listen without ridicule or judgement. That you offer support just as we do you when you are upset or hurting. That is all I want. That is all any of us want. It really isn't that complicated. We just want to be heard. We just want to not have our feelings glossed over, ignored, omitted, or have them remain unvalidated. No one deserves to remain unvalidated.
You wouldn't like if we treated you like your views and emotions were pointless, so please don't do that to us either,
Neurotic Nelly
Tuesday, May 26, 2015
A Letter.....
I didn't post last week because I was working on this post. Not because I had writer's block (as I sometimes do) but because I wanted this post to mean exactly what I wanted and needed it to mean and to represent something that I dearly wished someone had said to me in the beginning, when I was first diagnosed. It would have been a help to know that life was going to go on and that I would be able to handle whatever mental illness threw my way, even when many times I was not sure of that fact. Maybe this is but a small window into my life but also maybe it could help anyone else struggling to make sense of their diagnosis and all of the unknowns that follow when you live your life under the label of being mentally ill.
Dear self,
When you are first diagnosed with a mental illness, there are some adjectives you are going to hear that are unflattering and a tad bit scary. You will wrestle with whether or not these adjectives are true. It will be hard and humbling and frustrating. It will be an eye opener to how differently people treat you with your diagnosis instead of how they treat you if you had something physical happen to you like a heart attack. There will be those that do not understand and shun you. There will be those that pity you or fear you. It is almost as if your diagnoses has changed who you are in their eyes and they are blinded by the words "mental illness" and unable to see you through those words. It won't be everyone in your life (thank God) but you will see it. Then and only then, will you come to understand the stigma that surrounds carrying around the moniker of being "mentally ill".
Not to fret, we all have walked down this path and learned which winding roads to avoid and which ones are safe to cross. We have all heard the negative adjectives describing our umbrella diagnoses and we are not impressed. We know them to be false and about as scary as two years old's favorite teddy bear. These adjectives are not based in reality and are completely created by ignorance and apathy. We are not bad, or dangerous, or freaks. We are not weak, or lazy, or attention seeking. We are not broken, or ugly, or damaged goods. That is the stigma talking and we need not listen to it's lies and unfair and untrue accusations. It doesn't matter where it comes from or whose mouths it pours from. We are none of those things. You are none of those things.
Having a mental illness is not something to beat yourself up about. It isn't your fault or because of something you did or did not do. It is not something you can help or something that you choose. It is not indicative of your strength as an individual. It does not speak for your personality. It does not mean that you have all of a sudden become weak, less than, stupid, worthless, or undesirable. It changes nothing about who you are as a person. All it means is that you have a different struggle to deal with.
Yes, there will be times you are on the floor balling your eyes out and wiping away the snot with sleeve of your sweater wondering ,"What the fuck am I doing? What good am I to the world? What life can I possibly lead? What is the point in all of this?"
There will be times when you believe the negative adjectives stated above because it is so much easier to believe the bad lies about yourself rather than the good truths. Because you now doubt who you are, now that you have a label placed upon your head like a two day old ham hock or a discontinued piece of Tupperware. And there are always ignorant people willing to step on you further when you are already down....be weary of those that trample on you and use your diagnoses as an excuse to treat you like dirt. You deserve better than that.
I can not tell you that life is going to be easy or that you will come out of being mentally ill unscathed. That is not reality. Reality is, that you will struggle against the tides until your arms ache and your chest hurts and you are out of breath. You will try and try and try and fail. You will pray and beg and plead and get discouraged. You will.... and then you will get off your ass and up off of the floor and slowly and deliberately carve out a life for yourself because you deserve a good life. Because you are strong. Even though you can't see it yet. Even though you doubt the validity of that strength. Even though, right now you look in the mirror and fail to see yourself as anything but weak and broken. You will prevail. You will one day see that you are never broken and are incapable of being something as paltry as weak. Because being mentally ill doesn't define you anymore than being diabetic does. Because you were never a quitter and failure is not an option. Because struggling against stigma makes your muscles stronger and your responses wittier and you always have liked a challenge. Because you can only see what you are truly made of in the face of adversity. Yes, you will struggle....but you will also learn who you are during that struggle. You will learn what is important to you and how much courage it takes to be someone with mental illness and still be present in your own life. To still be who you are in the face of stigma and ignorance. To still be compassionate and kind and brave and honest and open. Because mental illness can do many things but it can not change who you are deep down and neither can other people's judgments and stupidity.
So, don't fret. You are going to be fine. No, you are going to better than fine, you are going to be strong. And you are going to realize that you have a purpose with mental illness. It could be to have your dream job in spite of your struggles, or raise happy healthy kids, or to go back to school and learn something new, or to advocate and fight for others that are just like you. And all of those purposes are just as good as any other purpose in life. Because, fundamentally, this is your life and it is you who gets to decide just how much you are willing to surrender to stigma and bias. Only you can stand up for you. It doesn't matter if you are in a room full of other people that believe in you, if you don't believe in yourself, it will never work. So believe in yourself, because you can do this. In fact, you already have.
Neurotic Nelly
Dear self,
When you are first diagnosed with a mental illness, there are some adjectives you are going to hear that are unflattering and a tad bit scary. You will wrestle with whether or not these adjectives are true. It will be hard and humbling and frustrating. It will be an eye opener to how differently people treat you with your diagnosis instead of how they treat you if you had something physical happen to you like a heart attack. There will be those that do not understand and shun you. There will be those that pity you or fear you. It is almost as if your diagnoses has changed who you are in their eyes and they are blinded by the words "mental illness" and unable to see you through those words. It won't be everyone in your life (thank God) but you will see it. Then and only then, will you come to understand the stigma that surrounds carrying around the moniker of being "mentally ill".
Not to fret, we all have walked down this path and learned which winding roads to avoid and which ones are safe to cross. We have all heard the negative adjectives describing our umbrella diagnoses and we are not impressed. We know them to be false and about as scary as two years old's favorite teddy bear. These adjectives are not based in reality and are completely created by ignorance and apathy. We are not bad, or dangerous, or freaks. We are not weak, or lazy, or attention seeking. We are not broken, or ugly, or damaged goods. That is the stigma talking and we need not listen to it's lies and unfair and untrue accusations. It doesn't matter where it comes from or whose mouths it pours from. We are none of those things. You are none of those things.
Having a mental illness is not something to beat yourself up about. It isn't your fault or because of something you did or did not do. It is not something you can help or something that you choose. It is not indicative of your strength as an individual. It does not speak for your personality. It does not mean that you have all of a sudden become weak, less than, stupid, worthless, or undesirable. It changes nothing about who you are as a person. All it means is that you have a different struggle to deal with.
Yes, there will be times you are on the floor balling your eyes out and wiping away the snot with sleeve of your sweater wondering ,"What the fuck am I doing? What good am I to the world? What life can I possibly lead? What is the point in all of this?"
There will be times when you believe the negative adjectives stated above because it is so much easier to believe the bad lies about yourself rather than the good truths. Because you now doubt who you are, now that you have a label placed upon your head like a two day old ham hock or a discontinued piece of Tupperware. And there are always ignorant people willing to step on you further when you are already down....be weary of those that trample on you and use your diagnoses as an excuse to treat you like dirt. You deserve better than that.
I can not tell you that life is going to be easy or that you will come out of being mentally ill unscathed. That is not reality. Reality is, that you will struggle against the tides until your arms ache and your chest hurts and you are out of breath. You will try and try and try and fail. You will pray and beg and plead and get discouraged. You will.... and then you will get off your ass and up off of the floor and slowly and deliberately carve out a life for yourself because you deserve a good life. Because you are strong. Even though you can't see it yet. Even though you doubt the validity of that strength. Even though, right now you look in the mirror and fail to see yourself as anything but weak and broken. You will prevail. You will one day see that you are never broken and are incapable of being something as paltry as weak. Because being mentally ill doesn't define you anymore than being diabetic does. Because you were never a quitter and failure is not an option. Because struggling against stigma makes your muscles stronger and your responses wittier and you always have liked a challenge. Because you can only see what you are truly made of in the face of adversity. Yes, you will struggle....but you will also learn who you are during that struggle. You will learn what is important to you and how much courage it takes to be someone with mental illness and still be present in your own life. To still be who you are in the face of stigma and ignorance. To still be compassionate and kind and brave and honest and open. Because mental illness can do many things but it can not change who you are deep down and neither can other people's judgments and stupidity.
So, don't fret. You are going to be fine. No, you are going to better than fine, you are going to be strong. And you are going to realize that you have a purpose with mental illness. It could be to have your dream job in spite of your struggles, or raise happy healthy kids, or to go back to school and learn something new, or to advocate and fight for others that are just like you. And all of those purposes are just as good as any other purpose in life. Because, fundamentally, this is your life and it is you who gets to decide just how much you are willing to surrender to stigma and bias. Only you can stand up for you. It doesn't matter if you are in a room full of other people that believe in you, if you don't believe in yourself, it will never work. So believe in yourself, because you can do this. In fact, you already have.
Neurotic Nelly
Wednesday, May 13, 2015
Inhuman....
May is Mental Illness Awareness month! I am glad that mental illness is being more openly talked about because to get help and eradicate stigma we have to be more open and be more in the spotlight to further awareness of all that we go through.
And while we are talking about ways to be more aware of things like mental illness, I wanted to touch on a topic today that isn't directly about mental illness but often times has a negative affect on those of us that suffer. I read comments on news stories often. I play video games occasionally. I am on the internet almost everyday and I have noticed a trend that highly disturbs me.
Apathy is rampant. In this country and in this world, there is a great amount of apathy and that bothers me. It has gotten so bad that I felt the need to sit my twelve year old son down and have a discussion about apathy, not because he is insensitive but because in a world where so many people are I want him to be able to see it for what it is. I want him to be able to pick it out so that he never becomes apathetic to someone else's suffering. Because pain is pain and no one is immune to hardships. Something that I think is paramount to keeping all of us connected and to remind us all that we are all human.
I can not tell you how many times I have read comments about how mentally ill people should all be rounded up and put somewhere like an asylum. I have read comments calling for the sterilization of all mentally ill people. I have read indifferent posts about how mental illness affects it's sufferers but also their loved ones. And my son needs to understand that when people negatively talk about mentally ill people they are talking about me and my mother and my grandmother.
I can not count how many times I have read stories about drug addicts overdosing and read comments that say it is a good thing or that the person deserves it. I have even read a few where people have said they don't feel anything about it at all. And that bothers me because all loss of human life due to drugs and or violence is a tragedy.
It is a shame to me that I have to have this conversation with my child so that he doesn't do what many children have done and just slowly accepted the apathy of the world towards other people and their plights. Not because they mean to or are inherently bad people but because they simply know no better. Whether it be because of race, religion, age, social status, mental stability, life ideals, sexual orientation, or upbringing we are all subject to comments and opinions by those suffering from a bad case of apathy. There is a lack of responsibility for what people say because those that are apathetic hide behind the excuse that it is only the internet and the internet is where such things are acceptable. And that is a bullshit excuse in my opinion.
We live in a world where just stating an opinion or playing a video game can get you bullied or threatened. And often times, it is ignored by those that hear or read it because they feel vindicated that it only being on the internet makes it okay to do so and to not stand up for that person being victimized. In a world full of keyboard warriors, people have become apathetic to the things that are said and that is wrong.
So, as I sat there talking to my child about apathy and bullying I had to find a way to explain that bullying on the internet and those that turn a blind eye to it, are just as guilty as people who would bully you at school or at work. It is the same pain felt as it would be being attacked in person. Because words are words there is absolutely no difference between hearing them and reading them. They have the same affect to the person they are wielded at and we as humans need to recognize that.
I find that people are more prone to being rude and mean online because they sit behind a computer screen and do not have to face the person they are hurting. So, it feels acceptable to them to do harm to others and live behind an excuse that is really no excuse at all.
And to make my point clear that apathetic people often times do not even realize that what they are doing is wrong at first, I used an example.
The horrors of the Nazis did not start over night. If it had, people would have never accepted what was happening to their neighbors and their friends. It started with ostracizing and little yellow stars sewn into innocent people's jackets. Making them stick out and become something to be seen as different. Then it was the removing of their personal property and destruction of said property and propaganda claiming such things were acceptable. And then it was moving them to the ghettos where many saw them starve and die and yet many felt nothing because they were led to believe such atrocities were not only acceptable but the way things should be. And then it became the mass murder of those innocent people whose only crime was that they had been judged to be different....and yet still many were indifferent to their plight.
All of this was allowed due to apathy. Because indifference causes excuses and lack of responsibility. Apathy propagates misinformation and ignorance. And when no one takes responsibility and no one refuses to be indifferent to other people's pain, it is the same as condoning those actions and that is wrong. Apathy is deadly and it must be seen for what it is and never accepted as the social norm. Even on the internet. Because apathy is apathy and it makes no difference what device spreads it or what source it is written on.
And in truth, we will never truly eradicate ignorance and stigma of any issue as long as apathy is accepted.
It makes me sad to have to have this discussion with my child because in a perfect world he would see these things as being bad and hurtful and yet in this world he sees it everyday. So much so, that people become oblivious of it and blind to it. And I do not want him to ever be blind to someone else's suffering. Because one person's suffering should affect us all and should make us all strive to be better people.
"The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that's the essence of inhumanity" - George Bernard Shaw
To be human is to feel. To be inhuman is to turn away and do nothing. The real question is which one are you willing to be?
Neurotic Nelly
And while we are talking about ways to be more aware of things like mental illness, I wanted to touch on a topic today that isn't directly about mental illness but often times has a negative affect on those of us that suffer. I read comments on news stories often. I play video games occasionally. I am on the internet almost everyday and I have noticed a trend that highly disturbs me.
Apathy is rampant. In this country and in this world, there is a great amount of apathy and that bothers me. It has gotten so bad that I felt the need to sit my twelve year old son down and have a discussion about apathy, not because he is insensitive but because in a world where so many people are I want him to be able to see it for what it is. I want him to be able to pick it out so that he never becomes apathetic to someone else's suffering. Because pain is pain and no one is immune to hardships. Something that I think is paramount to keeping all of us connected and to remind us all that we are all human.
I can not tell you how many times I have read comments about how mentally ill people should all be rounded up and put somewhere like an asylum. I have read comments calling for the sterilization of all mentally ill people. I have read indifferent posts about how mental illness affects it's sufferers but also their loved ones. And my son needs to understand that when people negatively talk about mentally ill people they are talking about me and my mother and my grandmother.
I can not count how many times I have read stories about drug addicts overdosing and read comments that say it is a good thing or that the person deserves it. I have even read a few where people have said they don't feel anything about it at all. And that bothers me because all loss of human life due to drugs and or violence is a tragedy.
It is a shame to me that I have to have this conversation with my child so that he doesn't do what many children have done and just slowly accepted the apathy of the world towards other people and their plights. Not because they mean to or are inherently bad people but because they simply know no better. Whether it be because of race, religion, age, social status, mental stability, life ideals, sexual orientation, or upbringing we are all subject to comments and opinions by those suffering from a bad case of apathy. There is a lack of responsibility for what people say because those that are apathetic hide behind the excuse that it is only the internet and the internet is where such things are acceptable. And that is a bullshit excuse in my opinion.
We live in a world where just stating an opinion or playing a video game can get you bullied or threatened. And often times, it is ignored by those that hear or read it because they feel vindicated that it only being on the internet makes it okay to do so and to not stand up for that person being victimized. In a world full of keyboard warriors, people have become apathetic to the things that are said and that is wrong.
So, as I sat there talking to my child about apathy and bullying I had to find a way to explain that bullying on the internet and those that turn a blind eye to it, are just as guilty as people who would bully you at school or at work. It is the same pain felt as it would be being attacked in person. Because words are words there is absolutely no difference between hearing them and reading them. They have the same affect to the person they are wielded at and we as humans need to recognize that.
I find that people are more prone to being rude and mean online because they sit behind a computer screen and do not have to face the person they are hurting. So, it feels acceptable to them to do harm to others and live behind an excuse that is really no excuse at all.
And to make my point clear that apathetic people often times do not even realize that what they are doing is wrong at first, I used an example.
The horrors of the Nazis did not start over night. If it had, people would have never accepted what was happening to their neighbors and their friends. It started with ostracizing and little yellow stars sewn into innocent people's jackets. Making them stick out and become something to be seen as different. Then it was the removing of their personal property and destruction of said property and propaganda claiming such things were acceptable. And then it was moving them to the ghettos where many saw them starve and die and yet many felt nothing because they were led to believe such atrocities were not only acceptable but the way things should be. And then it became the mass murder of those innocent people whose only crime was that they had been judged to be different....and yet still many were indifferent to their plight.
All of this was allowed due to apathy. Because indifference causes excuses and lack of responsibility. Apathy propagates misinformation and ignorance. And when no one takes responsibility and no one refuses to be indifferent to other people's pain, it is the same as condoning those actions and that is wrong. Apathy is deadly and it must be seen for what it is and never accepted as the social norm. Even on the internet. Because apathy is apathy and it makes no difference what device spreads it or what source it is written on.
And in truth, we will never truly eradicate ignorance and stigma of any issue as long as apathy is accepted.
It makes me sad to have to have this discussion with my child because in a perfect world he would see these things as being bad and hurtful and yet in this world he sees it everyday. So much so, that people become oblivious of it and blind to it. And I do not want him to ever be blind to someone else's suffering. Because one person's suffering should affect us all and should make us all strive to be better people.
"The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that's the essence of inhumanity" - George Bernard Shaw
To be human is to feel. To be inhuman is to turn away and do nothing. The real question is which one are you willing to be?
Neurotic Nelly
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