365 Days

To the Universe, 365 days is nothing but a breath in an Immortal life.

photo: The Helix Nebula - The Eye of God

Today is the day before my birthday.

365 days ago I walked out of my job, walked in to the doctor's office and began my journey to a new place. It's hard to believe it was only a year ago. We spend so much of our time focused on the past or looking into the future that we forget to live today.

There is a very big difference between living
through your life and actually living it. Something amazing happens when you begin to actively live your life, when you become involved and make decisions.

I have spent a long time living through my past experiences, I saw my whole life through them. Everything I ever did, any way I ever reacted, always came back to my past experiences. Things like, I freak out when I feel threatened because I lived for so long in an environment where I always had to be ready to defend myself. It's about time that I put those patterns of thinking away. It's fine to use something like that as a form of realization but not as a reason, if I find myself saying it more than once, I know that I have an issue. I must realize that although at one time I did live in a place where I had to be on the ready all of the time, I don't live there anymore. I can lose my temper with my kids and say when I was a child that is how it was in my house, but I no longer live in that house and I am no longer a child so it doesn't make sense to do that anymore.

If a an abused child grows up to be a serial killer is it excusable because that child was hurt? Does the responsibility lie solely with that child or are there others who need to share it?
Just because people were mean to me when I was growing up does that give me permission to do the same to others? Of course not, but we use these reasons to justify what we do even if we know it's wrong, I think it makes it easier to deal with.

For so long when I looked at myself in the mirror I saw a child, an angry, hurt child. It was recently that something amazing happened, I looked at myself and saw that child but I also saw me, as I am now, helping that child come to terms with the past and bring her into the now.

I will forever stand by the saying "Just because it feels bad doesn't mean it is bad." because it is the honest truth. It took a lot of seemingly bad things to happen in my life to bring me to where I am today. God knows what he's doing and I trust Him. We can't see the big picture, we only see what we allow ourselves to see. I think it's time to step back and stop trying to see the whole picture and just admire what you do see. We spend far too much time focused on what we are doing that we miss everything that is happening.

365 days truly is a long time if you live in it and with it every day, not watching it go by.

Brutal honesty?

Would you admit it?

If you were really bad at something would you admit it? I don't mean a bad singer or basketball player, I mean bad at life. If you had poor social skills or parenting skills, would you ever tell anyone? If you did tell someone would you use excuses or just say it straight up? I read an article the other day on brutal honesty and it made me think. I decided to write this blog so that I could find my way to honesty and then I realized that I have barely broken the surface. But how far do you go before it starts to become too much, is there any such thing as too much? Who decides, if you are comfortable writing it does that make it good, does it even matter how other people feel about it?

I don't think that there is much point in being honest with the things that are easier to admit but not with those which are difficult. I guess it changes from person to person, some hold their cards much closer to their chests than others. I don't want to play that game, if I just show you my cards can I stop competing?

If we admit and face the things that are hardest for us I believe that promotes healing much faster than avoidance.

I have made a decision, if it makes me nervous I will do it, unless of course it actually poses a danger to my life or to the life of someone else. It's kind of funny to watch myself react to these uncomfortable situations because I REALLY freak out!

So this should be interesting!!

Oh and GO CANADA!

I feel new

Today I feel new

Today has been a pretty strange day for me, in a good way!

I felt loved, there are people out there who are going above and beyond for me and I love them so much for that.

I just ordered the most amazing dress (pictured here) for my "surprise" birthday party, oh and the shoes too! I am so excited to get them, this was made possible by the same people mentioned above.

I went to a tanning salon for the first time in my life and it was AMAZING! I have always been very judgemental about the people who use tanning beds and for that I am sorry.

I exercised for 40 minutes today, and everyday since Monday which is very much unlike me.

I made the decision to join a gym, I sign up tomorrow!

It's funny how life seems to come in waves, just a couple of days ago I felt really crappy about myself. I was scared, insecure and depressed. It took everything I had to walk into the gym today just to get information. I always feel out of place, like I'm fooling myself, so I rarely do anything that I am unfamiliar with which leads to a predictable life.
It was just as big a deal for me to walk into the tanning salon and ask for help. I've always been afraid of things like that. When I was in my early teens I wouldn't even order my own food at McDonalds because I felt like a fool. When I worked at a grocery store there was no way that they could get me to use the loud speaker, I am so afraid of looking like an idiot but not in the ways you would expect. I am fully willing to make a fool of myself, I do it often and it's fun. It's those times when I am trying to be serious that I really fear and I try to make sure that it doesn't happen often. When someone takes my picture I make a dumb face on purpose so people can laugh when I want them to, if I take a serious picture and they laugh what happens then?

It's amazing for me to realize how truly selfish I am and not in the "I-want-everything-for-myself" way but in the "I-never-stop-thinking-about-myself" way. It's odd to be selfish and dislike yourself at the same time, we usually think of someone who is very conceited and frivolous as being the selfish one. If I give these thoughts any time they spread rapidly and I go from being afraid to walk into the gym to fearing what we will have for supper because someone might get hurt by a boiling pot of water.

It's becoming very annoying and inconvenient.

My House

My House

I was just in the process of writing an email to someone and I realized a few things. First, there seems to be a general misconception that I am unhappy with my life. Considering what I write I can understand why that would be the general consensus, however it is not true. I love my life, because it's mine. I love being alive everyday. I am just unwilling to accept the idea that my life has to fit into a certain set of standards or that my past (or that of my family) predicts my future. It all boils down to a desire to be the best me I can be.

If you would please join me on a short ride into my mind, keep your hands and feet inside at all times and keep your eyes directly forward (there is a lot in there you don't want to see), and allow me to show you how I see it.

If my life, my body, my mind and my spirit were a house it would be a beautiful house. Large, warm and pleasant but not without flaws. There is mould in the walls and there are rats in the attic, but it doesn't directly affect the beauty or functionality of the house, it does however, affect the integrity. The longer I ignore the problem the worse it gets. In the beginning it is quite understandable if one doesn't notice these problems, the mould is still invisible and the rats are quite.
When we come into existence we start with one room, our spiritual place, our heart; for me it's my kitchen. My kitchen was built by the universe's greatest architect and it is perfect. As we grow we begin adding to our house, but never consider that it would be a good idea to call in a professional who knows a little something about structure. The first few rooms are pretty good as we have modelled them after the kitchen and allowed the architect some room to help us build. At some point we decide that we have a handle on what to do and venture off to do it on our own. It usually starts off well but as we build without guidance we realize that there are some things that we're not too sure about. Instead of consulting the professional we improvise and continue. It looks amazing, but we can't see the instability of the structure at this point.
We continue building and living, all the while our structure weakens and our patches start to crumble.

I still love my house but I recognize these structural flaws, I can see the mould growing on the ceiling and I can hear the rats in the attic.
I also know that there are some rooms in my house that I built out of desperation, perhaps to hide, I don't know. Those rooms were built in haste and once I left them I didn't go back. There was no amount of precision, care or professionalism that went into the structure of these rooms so they are on the verge of collapse. The big problem is that there are many rooms above and below that will be damaged, maybe severely if that happens. Those are the rooms that I fear, but I don't want to knock down and rebuild my whole house, it's not necessary nor is it a good idea because there are many rooms that I have been working on for a long time and I love them. So for now I go and spend some time in the kitchen and observe the architecture. I have to allow the architect and his team of professionals to show me how to repair and rebuild what is necessary.

Unfortunately, the last architect to help exposed a problem, really a slew of problems and didn't come back to fix them. Now they stick out like sores and I'm upset that I have to keep looking at them with no real idea of how to fix them. One thing I will do is cover them up and pretend they're not there. I just need a new architect to help me learn.

I love my life, I love my friends and for the most part I love my house, it just needs a little TLC.

And that's that!

Psychiatrists are stupid

Psychiatrists are stupid.

I have been seeing my psychiatrist for about seven months now and I am no farther ahead then I was when I started. It all started with "that day" at work, I started seeing my family doctor first, had a social worker with the outpatient program with the mental health clinic and then I was referred to my psychiatrist.

It took three people to figure out that I was depressed and anxious but not crazy. As usual it all starts way back with a dysfunctional family, poor coping skills and a general lack of self respect. I have been on meds for that for nearly a year and it's all working out quite well, or so I thought.
As far as the day to day, things are pretty "normal". I have my days when I can't find the will to get dressed but I think that a lot of people have that at some time or another. Today something was exposed and I'm still not quite sure what it is.

My last appointment with my psychiatrist was about three weeks ago and it was quite revealing. In just over one month we claimed bankruptcy, lost our house, our car and my Gramma passed away, on Christmas morning. Now those are pretty heavy life events but I handled them well, I cried but no more than a normal person would in the same situation. I didn't get depressed (in the case of our bankruptcy I was kind of excited to start again.), I wasn't "down in the dumps" as they say. I reacted like a human being, a normal, functioning, human being.

It was when I realized this that things started to get really interesting. My whole life, at least as long as I can remember, I have been a bit of a paranoid person and quick to stress. When I was 16 my friends would tell me that if I didn't relax I would be grey by the time I turned 20. It seems that quite often we accept these things as personality traits, it's just who you are. It was at my last appointment that I decided that was not at all true.

I have always been afraid of the dark, seriously terrified. I can't walk through my own house in the dark, if the power goes out I have a panic attack, I can't sleep with the closet or the bathroom doors open, I have to either go to bed when someone else is still awake or sleep with the light on if I want any chance of actually sleeping. I have intense panic attacks even if someone says certain words like ritual or demon. I am afraid that even if I think these words that something will happen. If I start to run just because I want to move quickly I panic and think that there is something I'm running from. I am afraid to close my eyes in the shower, I can't meditate because I fear silence. I see an old man fall and I can't stop myself from remembering every few hours, I imagine what I will do if there is a fire/burglar/zombie sometime in the night. I have gone so far as to get out of bed and check all of our outlets, doors and windows, and make sure all of the curtains are closed. It is so bad that I toss in bed for anywhere between two and four hours before I fall asleep.
That's a lot of stuff, so I told my psychiatrist that I needed help, that I realized that this wasn't funny or silly, it was real and scary.

She told me that all she could do at the time was to give me a sedative to make sure I fall asleep and refer me to an anxiety clinic where they could help me because what I was suffering from was a specific phobia which can't be treated with medication. When I left her office I was so excited at the idea that there could actually be a solution and maybe I could one day sleep without a light or walk through my own house without fear. She told me that the waiting list was really long, nine months to a year, but I didn't care at least it was something more than nothing.
So I've been taking my pills like a good patient and I've even been going to bed crazy early to make sure I get enough sleep (or to make sure that Ryan is awake so I can relax and be asleep before everything was shut down for the night). The pill has been awesome, it totally knocks me out which is great because even if I have to get up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night, the dopiness I feel far outweighs the fear. The fear isn't gone but I've rendered myself incapable of feeling it.

So yesterday my psychiatrist's receptionist called to tell me that the anxiety clinic denied me because they felt that what I was dealing with was a mood disorder not an anxiety disorder. Seriously. I told the receptionist that I needed an appointment as soon as possible so I could speak with the doctor about it so she put me on a cancellation list. Again this morning she calls and tells me that the doctor said that she has no control over the decisions they make so I should try contacting the family counselling centre or the hospital to see if they can help. My doctor is telling me to seek my own treatment because apparently she's done enough. Seriously. I don't even understand why she's ok with this, so she is prepared to leave me undiagnosed, she's not even trying to help.

I am so frustrated, and scared, and tired. I don't want the people who are helping me to be satisfied just doping me up because I don't want that. When it was something temporary just until I got the chance to be treated by someone who could help I was ok with it, even excited to get some sleep. Now it's no so awesome, knowing that she's willing to just leave me here like this.


Psychiatrists are stupid.

I don't even know

...

I don't even know where to start today, I guess that's one of the problems with not writing for three days.

I think that the decision not to write this weekend was a very important one, I think it had to happen. It was Saturday when things really started to change. Have you seen the Untied Way commercial when that guy is sitting on the street and his skin starts to break, he starts peeling all over and he crawls out of the shell that was the old him? Well that is what this felt like.

I have come to realize that the anxiety that was hanging over my head last week was not a sign of something bad, it was a sign of something different. It's as though there is something in you that knows things are going to change but you don't know how or when so it stresses you out.

Loving with more than words is too hard. That was my revelation.

It started on Saturday when I was at the grocery store. We had just finished shopping and I wanted to run into the dollar store, as I was crossing the parking lot I heard someone grunt and I turned around to see an old man lying face down on the pavement. My stomach turned and I ran to where he was. He had a really big gash on his face, and on his arm and hand as well. The staff at the grocery store came out and took care of him but even as I walked away I knew this was something I wasn't going to be able to shake off.

I love to love, I want nothing more in this life than to love so that people know what they truly mean. There are times that the love I feel for another is so strong that it causes me physical pain, my heart aches and I want to squeeze them and tell them how much I love them. Unfortunately, it usually happens with strangers, as it did that day with the old man in the parking lot. It was that evening I realized how afraid I am to love people.

When I was growing up love was a word used often but that's all it was, a word. I was also taught that kindness was best when other people were looking.

At first I thought that my fear of loving was perfectly normal considering where I had come from, where love was more like desperation. But it's not what other people can do to me that I fear, people have done enough already and I've learned how to deal with it. It's what other people can do to themselves that scares me, or maybe just what life can do to them. It seems that most of the time the love I feel comes with a sadness, I don't really understand it or know why, it just does. The funny thing is that it doesn't happen with the people I know, only strangers. When it comes to the people I know, I am so afraid that I will fail and my love wont mean anything anymore. There is no fear in love but there is fear in pain and far too often love and pain stand next to each other.

This all feels like it's all over the place. I was shown something, a single sentence really and it rocked my world but I don't know anything about it yet. So I guess for now that is all.