an open letter

To Whom it Concerns,

I’m not sure you’ve noticed, but I’m trying to get my life back in order these days. I’m trying to do a better job of taking my meds like I’m supposed to, eating right, not drinking alcohol, and just in general maintaining a more positive outlook as often as I can. I know, I can’t cure my mental illness with a sunny disposition and sometimes I still like to whine about how I don’t feel good. But I’m trying.

And I’m not sure you’ve noticed any of this because you seem to be really wrapped up in yourself lately. I know, your issues are a lot more important than mine, or anyone elses really. You talk about them, all of them, often enough that I know how serious your life is and just how much worse you have it than everyone.

I used to feel really bad for you. I mean, you had this incredible amount of baggage that you were always lugging around and dragging out any time someone new came around. How terrible it must be for you.

And then I remembered something – my life hasn’t always been great either. In fact, I don’t know anyone who’s life has consistently been perfect for any length of time. The people who try to tell you how perfect their shit is are filthy fucking liars.

But no, that’s not you. You want everyone to know all about how bad things are for you and how bad things have always been for you. People have always been meaner, your family has always shit on you more, you’ve been poorer, your pains have always been worse.

Only I don’t think that’s really true either, is it?

I’m not really interested in opening myself to yet another dialogue that’s really just you delivering a monologue which allows pauses for me to say things like, “wow, that must suck” or “damn, are you serious?” or “how on earth do you find the strength to go on?”

Because honestly, I know the answer to that last question now, and it makes me throw up in my mouth just a little.

You won’t be seeing me around anymore, not on purpose anyway. I’m learning that if I want to feel better and have that positive outlook, I need to surround myself with people who also want to feel better and have a positive outlook – not people who thrive on drama and negativity. And it’s sad, I’ve stuck it out this long because I kept thinking that if I could just figure out how to be a better friend and more positive influence for you that things in your life would get better. Now I know that they’ll only get better when you want them to get better and are willing to actually start doing the work required to make that happen.

And how can you do that when the monster you’ve become lives to constantly be the center of attention?

This blog I have, it’s my little corner of the internet. I try to make people laugh a little, I try to share the knowledge I have, and I do my best to help a little in any way I can. I’ve always wanted this to be enjoyable, for all of us. And honestly, you’re ruining that.

In the past when something like this has happened I’ve just shut things down, come up with a new name, and setup shop as a “new” blogger. That meant establishing my persona all over again and trying to cultivate a new group of friends. All because of one unpleasant person.

I’m not doing that again, not ever.

This is where Mama lives now and this is where I’ll be staying. I’d like you to please leave. Now. And don’t come back.

Signed,

Mental Mama

for a friend

Tags

random shit that falls out of my brain

I posted about seeing the lightning bugs on Saturday night and having forgotten how awesome they are. I really did think to myself that I should take a picture, but I didn’t. So this is a really lovely pic I found. Their little asses really do light up. They don’t bite and they don’t dive-bomb you, which makes them awesome little insects, in my opinion.

building rome – where the hell am i?

Tags

building rome, goals, motivation

Wow, it feels like it’s been ages since I’ve done the Green Embers Building Rome challenge. Life in Mamaville has just been ridiculously busy lately. I finally feel like I’m getting my shit back on track, which is good. Unfortunately, in this span of time where my shit hasn’t been on track my good habits that I was building have gone totally down the shitter.

There wasn’t a theme announced for this week’s challenge (when I decided to write my post, anyway), so I’m going to follow my own – putting the puzzle back together. (which, now that I see that this week’s theme is “metamorphosis” I think is kind of fitting)

1. Tidy up the living space and make the bed every morning before leaving.
2. Take my morning pills every day.
3. Spend time doing creative shit at least three times this week.

Given how busy shit is going to get, I’m gonna call it good with that. Let’s see how I do…

hot damn that was good

Tags

alcohol, bipolar disorder, friends, goals, life, love, mental health, mental illness, moods, motivation, projects

I kind of suck at the whole “selfie” thing apparently. We were not actually drunk when this was taken. I didn’t drink last night at all, I played the role of the DGU – Designated Grown Up. This is just the only picture I managed to take the included me or Josh last night. I was way too busy having fun. And so was Josh.

We didn’t crash until almost 2am. I haven’t been awake and outside to see stars and lightning bugs in ages. It was amazing. And we all came through unscathed. One person had to have her keys (gently) removed from her hand and given a ride home by my BFF’s 19 year old daughter because she was just too drunk. (part of my DGU duties involve monitoring such things and then sitting on people who insist on trying to leave)

That was us this morning after getting up, returning our drunken pal’s car, and tracking down food. We weren’t pretty, but we were pretty happy.

I’m headed back down Wednesday after work so that she and I can spend Thursday getting her spare room cleaned out. She’s gotten a little overwhelmed with life and needs help getting some shit back on track. That’s what besties are for.

Friday afternoon Josh and I are headed back for Fourth of July food and fireworks. It’s been awhile since we’ve done that kind of picnic and I’m really looking forward to it. Many of the same folks we met last night will be there and I gotta tell ya kids, that was an amazing crowd of people. I’ve never felt such an instant sense of acceptance and brotherly love, NEVER. And not a one of these people knew that my connection to her is through our mental health diagnoses. Because it didn’t matter. So fucking awesome.

This is undoubtedly going to be a very busy week, but I want to get back on track here. I’m going to do my best to squeeze in a Building Rome/goals post, Top 10 Tuesday, we’ll kick off 7 Weeks of Weird on Wednesday, I’ll drop in something for Mental Health Thursday, and hopefully a 4th of July themed pretty/shitty on Friday. For the time being I think that the “organizing with Mama” and “10 things of thankful” will likely get moved to the back burner, but I don’t know that for sure. Right now I’m just going to try to take this one post at a time.

suddenly saturday

Tags

bipolar disorder, friends, love

This evening is my very best friend in the whole wide world’s birthday party. She lives about an hour south of here and I haven’t seen her in ages. We chat on FB and text now and again. We have that kind of friendship where we don’t have to be in constant contact to stay close – we just pick things back up where we left them and keep going. I love her, plain and simple.

That was taken at my wedding reception. You would never in a billion million years guess who old she is this year. I know it’s a fact and I don’t even believe it.

Anyway, the conference is going really well. I actually need to get off my ass, fix my hair, put some clothes on, and get moving. I’ll try to catch up with y’all tomorrow.

finally friday

Tags

pretty/shitty

I will most likely just be rolling my happy little ass out of bed when this post gets published. I have stayed up past my bedtime tonight working ahead on the “7 weeks of weird” posts. Fortunately I had the good grace to remember that I didn’t have anything ready for y’all before shutting everything down and packing it all up for the conference.

At any rate, given all of the bullshit that’s been going on lately, I thought this week’s pretty/shitty needed to be extra special. I have never been one to put much stock in what most people think of me. If you’re a member of my family, I want you to be proud of me for being a good person, which I am. If you’re my boss, I want you to think I do good work, because I do. If you’re my colleague, I want you to know that you can count on me to do my share of the work and then some, because I will. If you’re my friend, I want you to know you can count on me in a crisis, because you can.

If you’re not any of those people…

preparing for the weird

Tags

7 weeks of weird

Not sure if anyone remembers or not, but next Wednesday begins the official 7 Weeks of Weird. To see the weekly prompts or to sign up, either click the tab under my blog header or click here to go to the page. I still haven’t setup the link-up thing, but I’ll try to get that done. Again, feel free to swipe the “weird” banner above or make your own, matters not to me. I’m really looking forward to reading all of these.

mental health thursday

Tags

anxiety, bipolar disorder, depression, family, friends, hypomania, life, limits, love, mental health, mental illness, moods, normal, stress

Last time we talked about mental health I wrote about my suggestions for staying on top of things, and I hope that information was useful. The problem that a lot of us (read:  ALL OF US) run into is that sometimes, in spite of our most valiant efforts, we just can’t keep our shit together. And that’s ok.

Let me say it again – it’s totally ok if you can’t keep your shit together provided you let someone know you need help.

That’s the trick, kids – knowing when to admit temporary defeat and call for reinforcements. None of us is always strong enough to do this shit all on our own, and anyone who says they are is beyond full of it. We all have times when we need help.

There is no shame in asking for help when you need it, not one fucking bit.

Ask your folks if you’re on good terms with them, ask your extended family, your spouse or partner, your girlfriends, your bros, your boss, your clergy person or other spiritual guide, your therapist, your shrink, the dude who bags your groceries if you’re tight with him – just ask somebody.

I’ll let you in on a secret – even the “normal” people need help sometimes. We will all experience feeling overwhelmed, or unprepared to handle a situation, or just entirely out of our element at some point in our lives. And that’s ok, 100% ok. In life it’s really not what you know, it’s whether or not you know how to find what you need.

Here’s where Mama makes a confession – I HATE asking for help.

I would rather pop my own eyes out with a rusty spoon than admit that I need someone to help me. No lie. I have this ridiculous notion that I should be able to do every single thing that’s asked of me, plus all the stuff that needs to be done for my care, plus anything else I can think of – All. By. Myself.

So I’m working on it. I was having some difficulties recently and realized that I had a choice. I could continue keeping everything locked inside and not ask for help which would likely result in a trip to the mental ward, or I could suck up my pride and tell the people who could help that I needed them and keep my happy little ass free of the padded rooms.

I hated it, utterly fucking hated needing to ask for help, but I’m really glad I did.

for your amusement

Tags

humor, music, random shit that falls out of my brain, shiny things

Oh I do love when I need to make a new banner…

I doubt that I’m quite ready to be back to “business as usual” around here, but I do want to start nudging myself in that direction. To that end, I’m going to try to take advantage of the evenings Josh is at school to schedule some goodies for y’all. Wednesday was “weird” day for awhile, but when I got to thinking about what I could put together for y’all this time, the idea of distracting you with shiny things came to mind. At any rate, I’m going to see how this goes and we’ll take it from there.

One of the faculty members I worked with recently is teaching a course that deals with Native American culture and media, and she introduced me to Powwow Shades of Grey. It’s a novel that was written entirely via Twitter and it is hilariously raunchy.

If you’re not familiar with the comic genius that is The Oatmeal, I cannot recommend visiting the site enough. Matt, the brains behind it, has a totally sick sense of humor that I find delightful. Everything he puts out is awesome, but I must say I find his “Horrible” greeting cards exceptionally awful.

Mr. B The Gentleman Rhymer with an Ode to the Commode.

I leave you today with a watercolor pencil drawing that Josh did for me awhile back. Hey, even I can’t do snark all the time.

for crimsonowl63

Tags

crochet

Fantasm Shawl, crochet

Sonata Shrug

Sonata Shrug, crochet

These are some pieces I crocheted, probably close to 2 years ago now. The shrugs are the same pattern just done in different yarns – both sock weight that would stripe. The shawl was a lace weight yarn that I dyed myself. Both patterns were free and I think I found them through Ravelry. The shrug is super easy, just one row repeated until it was deep enough and then you tacked the corners together. The shawl was a little more involved and was done mostly from a chart if I remember right.