Thankful....

So Thanksgiving is rapidly approaching and although I find "thankful" posts on facebook to be annoying and self serving, it is only because people feel the need to post them every day of the month of November. I just find them silly and quiet honestly over done. Usually they revolve around family, which one should always be thankful for in my opinion, unless your family is mean, in which case feeling thankful may be hard to do. And they always say something about the spouse being perfect or the children being angelic....No one is perfect and children are supposed to be little dirt spewing, world upturning, darling little monsters. They are supposed to be difficult and wonderful. They are children and children are miraculous little human beings full of crazed energy, innocence, curiosity and imagination. They are not angelic and that is okay because what they are is better than any words we could possibly dig up, scour through, or make up to describe them.

I guess the posts irritate me for their lack of detail and the implication that we forget to be thankful everyday and only remember now because some stupid trend arises on social media one month a year and that bothers me for some reason.

Maybe because I hate smarmy things that make me cry or maybe because I detect a slight air of bull shit when I read such posts. No one's spouse is the best spouse to walk the earth, they are the best spouse for you. They would most likely be a horrible match for someone else. That makes them the best spouse in the world to you, but alas, not the entire world. That is kind of a tall order and those shoes are too big for any human being to fill. Be real and say that you are thankful for your spouse because they make you coffee in the morning or they put up with your snoring or your PMS. Be less vague and more descriptive of why you are thankful for them because they mean a great deal to you and probably deserve more than just some generic post about how they are the bee's knees.

Children are wonderful, lovely, exhausting and exhilarating but they are not little angels.  They aren't angelic because they are human beings. Tiny human beings that drive you crazy but human beings none the less. Reality is you should be thankful for them because they are yours and they make you happy and you are a family but cut the bullshit already. You know  that your kids refuse to even let you sit on the toilet without asking you where the black lego piece went or where the cat hid, or without them sticking their tiny little fingers under the door just to remind you that you are not alone while you are trying to "do your business". Be thankful for them yes, but not the false advertisements you pretend they are. Be thankful for them exactly for who they are now because one day they will grow up and you will get to use the bathroom quietly because they are off to college and you will never again see their tiny fingers wiggling under the bathroom door....and believe it or not you will miss it. Be thankful for them because they are your children and your husband and you are blessed to have them, flaws and all, miracles and all, love and all.

And I guess maybe I get irritated reading the simplicity of people's "thankful" posts. There is so much to be thankful for that they never seem to post. They have a whole month to talk about all that they are thankful for and it is always the same generic things everyone else blabs on their posts. Be original. Almost never do you see them being thankful for small things like being able to get out of bed in the morning. Because a lot of people struggle with such things and to be able to do so is something to be thankful for.

There is no thankfulness for food on the table when so many struggle to provide such for their families. No thankfulness for the job in an economy that has so little jobs available in certain areas. No thankfulness for the neighbors that may shovel snow out of your walkway just because they want to be helpful or thankfulness for the medications so many of us have access to when in many countries something as small as antibiotics are hard to come by. There are so many many things to be thankful for and they deserve to be thanked more than just one month a year. They should be thanked every single day because without these many things that make our lives bearable and easier, our lives would be completely different.

I am thankful for so much in my life and no I don't need to schmooze or be dramatic about them or use generic generalizations to describe them. I don't care what people think of just what I am thankful for or how it may appear to others. I am thankful for them and I am thankful for them every single day.

I am thankful for my family even though they are crazy and silly and broken and odd. I am thankful for my children who keep me on my toes and have shown me the true meaning of unconditional love. I am thankful for my husband who drives me insane and makes me mad and makes me laugh and is the one person in the world that knows me better than I know myself. I am thankful for my home and heaters and clean water and medicines and neighbors and pets. I am thankful for a pillow to rest my head on and thankful to be able to get in up in the morning and not let things like depression keep me there with my head on said pillow all day. I am thankful for my friends and my readers, and this blog. All of which have supported me and helped me to see things in a way I may have missed all on my own. I am thankful for the freedom of speech and God and the ability to believe what I choose and not have to be afraid that those beliefs would imprison me or endanger my family. I am thankful for the sun coming out today even though it was frigid outside and the ground was covered in ice. I am thankful that I didn't slip and fall on that ice even though I was expecting too. I am thankful for the internet and books and paper and pens. I am thankful for the flowers in Spring and the leaves that turn such pretty colors and drop to the earth in the Fall. I am thankful for the snowmen we will make in the Winter and the shorts we will wear in the Summer. I am thankful for music because it is one of the few things that drown out my obsessing about stuff. I am thankful for only washing my hands ten times today instead of the usual twenty times I wash them daily. I am thankful for being able to rant to my best friend so I can stop worrying over things that make it impossible for me to sleep. I am thankful for my Dad who listens to all of my medical fears and never gets frustrated with me even when I am disgusted with myself because I can't stop being afraid. I am thankful for my Mom and Grandma who understand what I go through and always offer support and acceptance. I am thankful for the many other OCD sufferers out there that go through what I go through and help me to feel less alone. I am thankful for those that fight the stigma against mental illness because we deserve to be treated like the wonderful human beings that we are. I am thankful for the  voice to speak and the words to write because for so long I felt I had neither of those things in my life. I am thankful for the struggles I have gone through because they made me stronger and although I hate the things my OCD does to me I am thankful that I will keep fighting because I know I have to. I am thankful for so many many things and I will be damned if I just think about them on November of every year. I will be damned if I make them sound paltry or normal of less amazingly life changing as they are. I will be damned if I post "thankful" posts on facebook in November because I am always thankful and I don't have time for that. I am too busy being thankful than to throw some regurgitated peice of fluff on a fb post and hope that it makes me fashionable and acceptable. I don't care if I am acceptable and I am thankful for that as well.

So, in short don't be thankful for what you have in the month of November. Be thankful for them always because even in the darkest of days, in the worst of hours there is always.....always something to be thankful for. You simply have to take a moment, breathe, look around and see it.



Neurotic Nelly

My Stained Life

Wash, Rinse, Dry, Repeat.

Life is like a load of our favorite laundry. We spend an enormous amount of time washing it. We sort it by colors and fabric type. We sort it by underwear and socks, towels and sheets, jeans and shirts. Some of it has to be hand washed and fluff dried. Most of it we throw in the machine without a second thought and are surprised when we come out with pink socks. Then it's off to the dryer. Too hot and the sweaters will shrink. Too cool and it will covered in mildew and be damp.  Then it is folding time and putting it in the proper places. We spend our time trying to wash away the dirt and stains. Some of us wash and clean. Some of us would rather air out their dirty laundry to others. Some of us are color coordinated and some of us are color blind. In which case pink socks are not a big deal.
As my husband will tell you, I hate doing laundry. I feel like I am being sent down to the cave like basement to be punished by toiling away all of my time to wash, rinse, dry, and repeat.

Laundry is necessary. We all have to do it or we would look dirty and smell badly. Not really what most people strive to achieve. If life is like laundry then mentally ill people are forever in the laundry room. We deem ourselves dirty and stained. We are constantly trying to wash it away. We just want to be cleansed. We scrub the stains till our hands crack and bleed. They never come out despite the hours of elbow grease and specail soaps we apply. We just can't get the desired effect. It is time consuming and upsetting to work and work and never achieve what we are certain one more good scrub could eradicate.  I have decided that too much of my time is wasted by trying to scrub and wash away my mental illness. It is what it is. I want to jump in the mud puddles and play in the dirt. I don't really care if my clothes get dirty. I don't care if I have to wear the dreaded pink sock. I don't care if you see my stains. Getting dirty is a life well lived. It means you didn't stand on the side lines watching everyone else play jacks and marbles. It means you made mud pies and built sand castles. It means you allowed yourself to have fun. To live life. I am not saying I never need to do laundry again, but I'll wash it when my clothes are caked in the glorious aftermaths of  having a really fun and hard working day. I will wash them when I am good and ready. I will not bother to try to erase the stains I have been given. They are part of me and make me who I am. They are a timeline of how hard I participated in my own life, and proof that I was active. It is my story written by one stain at a time. The grass stains are from me crawling until I could stand. The mud stains are from me falling and getting back up. The  blood stains are from the scrapes I got when I forgot to be careful and had to learn my lesson the hard way. The food stains are from good meals shared with family and friends. The paint stains are from reinventing and rebuilding my life, which is always under construction. I will wear this garment until it is  worn and thread bare. I will dot it until it is marbled with the stains of my well lived life.I will stretch it out until it becomes ill fitting and uneven. And then and only then will I wash, rinse, dry, and repeat.
                         Neurotic Nelly

It hurts

This week was bad. The pain has gotten better but depression has crept up on me. It has washed over me like a wave of fire licking at my wounds. Cauterizing and burning them. I am angry, frustrated, hurt, and devastated. It is not because of any mental issues. It is because I have been in so much physical pain. The pains before the surgery, after surgery, the fall, the bruises and broken finger, and another very painful problem that I am not going to go into. It is not just one thing after another. The pain has been overlapping the situations. I have been in agony. My nights consisted of pain pills and crying myself to sleep. It is frustrating to my family to watch me be in so much pain. It is unacceptable to me to make them miserable. I am frustrated that I can not do the things I used to do everyday. Pain has stolen away the only things I can do.Things that make me feel useful and important. Pain has stolen what little my mental illness hasn't taken away. Pain has entered my sanctuary and devastated it. I am angry that I am helpless. If I could curl up in the fetal position and cry I would, but I can't even manage to do that. I am a positive person. I believe that I am tested and that I learn from pain. I ,however, have no idea what this is supposed to be teaching me. I feel stupid and I am annoyed. I have to have help doing the simplest tasks and it irritates me. I hate the feeling of being weak and vulnerable. I am so tired. I have listened to my music to help but it fails to lift my spirits. The only thing that has helped is knowing that none of these things are permanent and it is just a temporary situation. I told my husband yesterday the only thing that keeps me from yelling out in pain is I am afraid I will never be able to stop. I have cried and have not been able to stop. Why should yelling be any different. I can't remeber what it was like a month ago when I had no pain. I know it existed but I can't really remember it in detail. I have stopped talking to my friends. It is too much to listen to their lives and not be annoyed. It is too much to concentrate. I am just trying to hold onto the walls and prepare to go down the rabbit whole again. I am thankful that these pains are temporary but now I have an understanding of how life is with chronic pain. I now get how depression affects those that suffer from it. I now see.  Now that the pain is getting much better I am dealing with the blah feeling. I am sure the depression will lessen but I am hoping it will go away quickly. I am not a depressed person regularly. I am just going to fake it until I make it. I am going to force myself to sing loudly with the music. I am going to call my friends and tell them what has been going on. They are my friends ,after all, and I have always been there for them. They have always been there for me.I don't know why I feel this need to suffer and not talk to them. It's silly. And they would be pissed if they knew that I was hurting and didn't tell them. I have amazing friends. I also have an amazing husband. He has been helping me out and been there for me. I know it must be hard and frustrating. I am so thankful for him. I am thankful for my family and my friends. I am thankful for my blog readers who read my blog. I am thankful that my pain is less and temporary. I am thankful for my life even though I am currently feeling less than productive. This too shall pass and I am going to be back to my nerdy, crazy, regular self in no time.
                                                         Neurotic  Nelly