Tag Archives: Mental Health

Hi, Robin!

11 Saturday Jun 2022

Posted by in Make Someone Smile, Mental Health, Non-Fiction

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

This post is about how sometimes we do things to make other people smile, because it makes us feel good.

My own mom died four years ago. I miss her terribly and I think of her constantly. In my dreams she’s almost always alive. Sometimes she’s sick. Sometimes she happy. Once in a while she’s mad at me.

I work with a girl named Abby. She’s a good kid. She friendly and fun to talk too. Abby doesn’t drive so her mom brings her too and from work, and has been for ages.

Abby’s mom’s name is Robin. Robin reminds me of my mom. She’s friendly and always seems bright when I see her.

Turns out she has been parking behind me for ages. Abby and I work the same shift, so we get off around the same time. Nine times out of ten, I’m late, but once in a while I see the both as I’m leaving work.

It quickly became a silly inside joke that Robin always parks behind me if the space is open. So I told Abby one day, “You know what? I’m gonna use my Cricut, and I’m gonna make a sticker for the back of my truck that says, ‘Hi, Robin!’“

Abby said she’s get a kick out of it. I don’t know if Abby thought I’d actually do it.

But I did. I cut the sticker about a week ago, when I was making my own earring cards. I already had the Cricut out so I figured I’d do it.

I remembered to put it on yesterday. Abby didn’t work yesterday. I saw her today.

“Abby, let me show you something.” I showed her the sticker on the truck. She laughed and said her mom would love it (Robin likes frogs). I told her to be sure to let me know her reaction.

This evening, I was talking to my nephews, who showed up at my work, and Abby walked up. Apparently, she had something to show me.

Robin and videoed herself reacting to the sticker. The video was basically of the back of my truck and the sticker, with her giggling and gleeful in the background. I think all three of us were ecstatic over the whole thing.

Of course, some random stranger is gonna wonder, “why in the world?!” But it’ll be our inside joke.

Here’s the kicker.

Yesterday, I gave my mind permission to dwell intrusively on my past mistakes and failures. The combination of that and having been sick for a week or more, and back issues for three weeks, I was most definitely in a bad place.

I was to the point where I was being short with The Kid, and looking back, even hours later after she’d gone to bed I felt terrible about it.

To be honest I just wanted nothing more than to crawl in a cave and never come out. That way all the things that trigger me wouldn’t be a factor.

But then, the next day, I made someone happy. I made someone smile. I did that. I can do something, and that something, is make someone smile. It’s a little thing, yes. But it’s something, and despite still being sick (I have medicine now), I made my entire evening.

So, go out. Make someone smile. I bet you’ll feel good too.

Thanks for reading.

-c

Advertisement

Over the last few days I’ve been in a rough place.

08 Wednesday Jun 2022

Posted by in Non-Fiction

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

Well, more like months but probably years?

Lately though, between a combination of back issues, illness, and other factors, I have emotionally and mentally not been in the best place. Not to mention that I did something I told myself I wouldn’t do again.

For anyone concerned that last thing has nothing to do with physically hurting myself or harming anyone else in any way. It’s just a thing that causes me dismay that I promised myself I would avoid.

Side note/Life Hack: if you can’t get at a good angle to see under something use your video feature with flash on to look. I found my off brand mucinex.

Overthinking things and letting my mind hope and wonder, but also knowing that I’m probably not strong enough to fight against all the things coming at me at once, makes for a harsh internal climate.

And you DO NOT want to know how many times in the last three weeks I’ve wanted to cut off all my hair. Myself. We’re it not for my young child I would be intentionally bald. She likes my hair.

In the last three weeks my back has gone out about three times (really it’s just been the once but it’ll feel better then get bad again). I’ve coughed so much my head hurts and my chest hurts, not to mention the coughing until I gag.

Also and this is slightly more funny than the rest of it, my voice is kinda fine but kinda not, to the extent that my child asked me at one point to stop singing to the music we were listening too, because—and I quote, “it sounds bad.”

I personally found it absolutely hilarious that when I hit the high notes my voice was basically nonexistent. But also the force required to speak is exhausting.

Over the last few days I’ve consumed my weight in ibuprofen and cough medicine. Multiple people at work have told me I smell like a cough drop so at this point it’s probably coming out in my sweat.

But I did finally finish a short story related to the #PretendFantasyNovel. It’s currently up but password protected until the group members have had a chance to read it.

It might end up being available to all in a week. Or I might keep it just between us.

Anyway the melatonin is taking over and I’m gonna let it. Gonna go dream about millipedes on my pillow. Goodnight

Thanks for reading!

-c

I’ve been logged off of Facebook for 118 days and these are the reasons why

09 Saturday Apr 2022

Posted by in Mental Health, Non-Fiction

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , ,

I think it’s time to share.

  1. After obsessively posting about and telling literally everyone, not a single soul showed up to my child’s birthday party. We sent invites to her class, I created an event on Facebook which I shared repeatedly, I told people numerous times and verbally invited them. Most people said they’d try to come, said “maybe” to the event invite. One person messaged in the middle of the party and sent a gift but had “more important” things to do. No one else messaged or called or even said anything when I saw them in person. We paid a lot of money and no one came. Except my sister and her crew and I will be forever grateful to her. My baby had fun because of them. I couldn’t help but wonder if perhaps I was the reason no one came. So I needed space from the people who swore they would have been there.
  2. I’ve spent way too much time falsely believing that I could find acceptance on social media. I found myself spending more time trying to think of posts that would make people like me than I should have. I like making people laugh—whether or not it’s at my own expense. My brain believes that it means they truly like me when in fact they’re just laughing at me. All I’ve ever wanted was to have friends and for people to like me. But perhaps it’s not my fault if someone doesn’t like me. They don’t have too.
  3. HATE: hate on each other, hate on one’s personality, beliefs, hating people for things they cannot change about themselves. people hating other people for their political affiliation, for their actions, for their way of life. Hate hate hate. Hate is poison and gets us absolutely no where.
  4. Scams for views: On Facebook, if you have a page, the more likes you get the more/easier you get seen. I have a Facebook page as my readers well know. I can access how much my page has be viewed. Views lead to new views. Views equal money. Nefarious pages post scams or clickbait in order to gain views. I’ve gotten pretty ok at spotting these. There are several people on my friends’ list that share these without a second thought.
  5. “Friends” People who have added me on Facebook, but barely speak to me in real life. Heck most of them barely spoke to me o Facebook. There’s a list, to be honest, of those people. I’ve begun the “don’t speak first” protocol to determine whether I’m a reality friend or a Facebook friend. It’s been leaning pretty exclusively to Facebook.
  6. My mental health: I have lost a lot of friends without even trying. They’ve just disappeared. Not in reality. No they’re alive. They’ve just decided to make a new Facebook and not re-ad me. Or they just ignored me completed despite a direct message, so I was done. This is the “Don’t Push Where There is No Pull Protocol”. If you try to be a friend and they don’t reciprocate, give up. Dwelling on whether or not someone likes you or their lying is absolutely damaging.

Regrets?

A few. That the people that actually cared about what I did on Facebook are missing me. That I don’t get to see when my sister posts or my friend’s babies are posted. My my family. That all the people who have their own Pages for their small businesses don’t get my attention anymore.

But because I use a dummy account to access my Facebook Page, I can search for certain things I want to see. My Kid’s school page, her daycare—though they don’t post her anymore. I can still view my Friend’s pages. I don’t like them with the Dummy, because I don’t want it to be found. Dummy has no friends and she likes it that way.

I can’t say my mental health has improved immensely. I probably have several undiagnosed issues. But I don’t go to a doctor when I feel like I was hit by I was struck by a BUS. But I can say that it hasn’t helped.

Well, the kid is rubbing her eyes and I’m yawning. So time for bed.

Gonna try and be more consistent. It’s been bonkers lately. Goodnight!

Thanks for reading

-c

I have tried…

11 Saturday Sep 2021

Posted by in Friendship, Mental Health, Non-Fiction

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , ,

…And tried and tried a million times to write a blog post conveying what is going on inside my head.

For example: I’m paranoid that people are talking about me behind my back. Like EVERYONE AT WORK. They are all in on it. But some of them think they need to laugh harder at my jokes. Or some of them just don’t talk to me anymore. Maybe some of them are trying to ruin me.

Maybe they think I’m a thief.

I’m not I hate thieves.

Or also, I feel like I don’t have any friends anymore. Like, I’m someone’s friend when it’s convenient or the people who really want to be my friends are far away and just have closer friends.

Anyway I almost had a mental breakdown the other day

Maybe it was a mild one? I couldn’t not cry at the songs I was scream-singing to in the truck on the way home. Anyway it was happening. And now I’m starting to get depressed. It’s creeping up on me, like a leopard stalking it’s prey. If I sit and think too long about what’s happening around me I either panic/get anxious, get depressed, or get angry.

No matter what happens I know I would never kill myself

There is no question. I refuse to leave my child without a mother and my husband without a spouse (honestly this child wouldn’t sleep with him if I were desperate for sleep, I don’t know how he’d parent without me lol).

Plus I utterly fear death. And don’t say it’s because I haven’t gotten right with God, leave him outta this he knows what he did/didn’t do (I’m kidding). But the question of the unknown scares the ever loving

Poop

Out of me. So, I refuse to shuffle off this mortal coil until my child is grown and thriving on her own (or at least until she’s sleeping in her own bed).

I never imagined I would ever consider myself to be depressed or have anxiety until I was an adult.

Because when you’re an adult you see/read/encounter more adult things than you do as a kid or teen. And the bulk of humanity has been trying to normalize mental health issues over the last several years. For positive reasons. And I realized that I’ve had problems with anxiety and depression my whole life. I never recognized it because my family did not have the luxury of being able to afford to see a professional.

Not that my mom wouldn’t have made it work if she thought myself or my siblings needed it. And I can guarantee ALL of us need some kind of help, especially now.

My theory is that no one I know actually reads my posts.

Unless they involve free fiction. Or something that could benefit them. I’ve limited my Facebook of late, and I highly doubt a single person on my friends list, or even in my Facebook page, has even glanced at the titles of my blog posts (which post automatically to my page).

I could probably say whatever I wanted about anything here and no one I really know would even know. Something like

I killed a man.

Fictionally. Several actually.

Sorry. I didn’t have the nerve.

How about: I secretly believe no one actually likes me they just humor me for the hell of it and I think I’d rather someone look me in the eyes and say “I don’t like you all that well”. And walk away. I would cry a little but eventually I’d get over it. I’m an adult after all. Semi-functional, but an adult none-the-less.

Thanks for reading!

-c

Someone once said they think I’m bipolar. I didn’t have doubts.