Reflection, meditation, Catharsism

After a rough emotional start to my Sunday I decided that I was in need of a loooooong relaxing bath. I knew I needed to relax to ease my mind of the million negative thoughts that raced through that brain of mine. It was the best Idea I have had.

As I listened to Elizabeth Gilbert in the Indian portion of her book, aka the "Pray" part, I found I wasn't doing much relaxing. Which is ironic because she was having a tough time quieting her mind as well. There were things she would say that reminded me of where I was in my life. Situations I am dealing with. Most importantly there were things I was over analyzing.

Eventually my mind found some peace. If only for a a split second. What happened next was beautiful but most people would find weird. Laying there in my purest form made me think about rawness which made me think about realness and honesty.

Looking at my wrinkly fingers made me think what a stunning image that would be. So I grabbed my phone an took this photo.

After that photo I noticed my dingy tub fixtures.

I imagined those are the original handles and spout from when my apartment was first built in the 80's. What intrigued me was that I found beauty in that dilapidated faucet. That's who I've always been. The person that sees beauty in the mundane and peculiar, The person that can tell you that the mere fact that this object being old and neglected made me ponder about bigger and deeper things that are sometimes ignored, neglected and discarded.

After snapping a few photos of in animate objects I decided to take a self portrait that turned into thetitle photo for this blog. It is not mean to be vain, nor erotic. I simply thought it was a beautiful self portrait in my purest form. I want to shatter the wall of vulnerability. What better way than exposing myself to the world this way. I share it artistically and dramatically. I hope everyone else can see that its a simple self portrait of a human in her most raw intimate way. Rene Brown, Elizabeth Gilbert and Amy Poehler all contributed to this new found courage. They inspire me to expose myself in all aspects of life.

Cleansing the body, the mind and the soul.

This last set of self new age portraits were simply for fun. But after looking at it I realized how different these filters make people look. I hope all women in the world realize that they are always most beautiful in their simple natural form, despite what social media has them believe. One is my natural self portrait...It's pretty easy to point out.

Parenting: The battle between Bruce Banner and The Hulk

Just like Bruce Banner, my emotional reactions are almost impossible contain. When I experience any form of discomfort, anxiety or rage…I turn as green as Nickelodeon’s extinct slime!

My most recent episode came yesterday when I decided to check on my 11 year old’s grades and found out he had a D in mathematics. Now before you judge me, let me give you a little background information on our current school year situation.

I have raised my children to care about their grades. I have explained to them that grades are not a true measure of their intelligence. However, when it comes to our education system, they are extremely important because it is the way society measures intelligence, work ethic and effort.

I do not demand straight A’s. “Tiger mom” is not a title I hold. I am more of a Liger mom; the balance between hippie mindset and structured discipline. A’s and B’s are acceptable. I do not accept Mediocrity, which is what I refer to as C’s. This entire school year however has been a battle with getting C’s due to assignments not turned in or careless mistakes and not rechecking their work. This year I chose to give my 11 year old responsibility for his own grades.  I let go of checking everything piece of homework and every single assignment and product.

I checked grades 3 times a marking period and had a review on why they were slipping. When he told me it was because he didn’t understand the material I made sure I was available to go over anything he didn’t understand. In December, Santa bought Jayden a new special edition Xbox One. Santa wrote a note that unless grades improved, said Xbox could not be opened…. 5 months later… the Xbox is STILL in the unopened box.

Fast forward to yesterday. I go to check grades and find that he has a D in mathematics. The D was due to a 5 page assignment that was graded individually and he got a range of C’s-F’s on each one!

Enter the hulk. I yelled to the top of my lungs

 “WHAT THE HELL IS THIS JAYDEN!!!!” 

I lost any ounce of patience that I had left. I saw red and turned green. The exact things I said are a bit of a blur to me. I may have even used profanity. It was not my proudest moment but I lost all self-control. Emotions tend to do that to me. All forms of entertainment have been banned from now until the end of the school year. No TV, no playing with toys, no Electronics unless they are for educational purposes, no going over friends’ houses, NO FUN OF ANY KIND IS ALLOWED…Monday through Friday. He is to come home from school, redo failed assignments and complete I-ready.

This evening when I came home I was still fuming. But after guitar practice and homework review with Tristan I decided to watch some Ted Talks. I encountered a Colin Powell Ted Talk about children needing structure. My first instinct when my child fails is that somehow I am failing. I wanted to know if structure is somehow missing in Jayden’s life. I will always blame myself for my children failing. I once judged a close relative for stating “My children failing in life is not my fault, I did my part as a parent providing them with every opportunity.” Jayden was only in Kindergarten at that point so that statement seemed absurd to me. My first thought was, “no, you failed to provide structure for your children.”

My takeaway from the Colin Powell speech was that even when kids have structure they can still have mediocre grades in school. Apparently Colin Powell was a straight "C" student his entire life but somehow was extraordinary at following orders and eventually he became extraordinary at giving orders and managed to reach the highest rank in the military.

I decided to have Jayden watch the Ted talk with me. I had to summarize the speech for him to explain my analysis of it. I reiterated that it’s not the fact that he has a “D” that bothers me. Rather the fact that I know he is better than that. I told him it is ok to fail, but it is not ok to accept failure as an ultimate outcome. His teacher always tells her students: FAIL stand for First Attempt in Learning. It’s a wonderful message, but my first reaction to failing has always been to get overemotional and over react and release THE HULK. I usually need a day to return to my Bruce Banner alter ego. I return the same way as the comic book character always does, tattered, disoriented and filled with shame and guilt. But once I dust myself off, it is back to work to find the solution to my parenting hurdles: Which are just as complicated and difficult as physics and calculus.

To Medicate or Not to medicate...

...that is the question!

I am an adventurous soul at heart. Trying new things excite me. The outside sources and the journey to these new experiences scare me half to death. I try to make my weekends with my boys fun and exciting. I want them to experience the world. My anxiety and depression sometimes hold me back.

I have been giving medication and therapy a lot of thought. Some may say that I have not given it enough thought or given it too much thought because I have not really done anything about it. But I have given it enough though that I signed up for health insurance. I had been without health insurance for about a year and a half now. Lets pick up where I last left off in regards to my mental health.

Quick recap, when I was 23 I tried to tell the doctor I was depressed and he told me I was just suffering from displacement or something like that. For a couple of years I was genuinely happy. I had a career I loved and didn't mind working 50 hour weeks. I was so satisfied with life that I decided to have my second child because I felt that I had my depression under control. I worked my way up through a company and was making sufficient money to raise 2 children. I saved up all my vacation days to cover the cost of my benefits while I was on maternity leave. My very first week on maternity leave the company goes under and I am left without a job to return to. It gave me a reason to forcibly become a stay at home but not having a partner that was capable of stepping up to the plate and providing for his family made me bitter. I am grateful that his parents were kind enough to support us but they had already done it for 2 years with our first born. I didn't want to go back to that.

 Right before having my second child I had accepted the fact that I would be the main bread winner in the family. I was so in love with this man that I had no shame being fully employed and he only being partially employed. But I thought the loss of income would have inspired him to take the reins and find better employment. That didn't happen. Instead he managed to convince me to move back in with his parents in another city with the illusion that he had a great job lined up for him.

My depression swallowed me whole. I wanted to find a job where I was making the same amount as I was making before and all that was available were minimum wage jobs that wanted 10 plus year experience. I ended up going back to school to better my chances at finding a better job.

Going back to school sent me back on my road to seeking help. I went to the nearest clinic and admitted to the federally funded doctor that I suffer from anxiety. I was afraid that this doctor would say the same as the last and I didn't want to feel judged or called a liar. I didn't want to be told that I simply didn't know how to "deal with change." My fear of being judged has held me back from many things, including getting help from a doctor. Having mistrust and paranoia towards doctors should probably be a major sign that there is something seriously wrong with me. I literally just came to that conclusion. There is something seriously wrong with me. I like to believe that doctors take their oaths seriously but to me they are still human. They are still capable to judge. I am afraid of being judged. Even though I know everyone does it. Bottom line, I only fessed up to the anxiety and was prescribed Buspirone.

 In the middle of my second semester I was called in for an interview I had applied to 4 months back. I put my education on hold to rejoin the workforce at a decent wage. I made up the salary by always working overtime. Like I always do.

I may have rambled on but I feel like the back story is pertinent to my mental health situation. Bare with me I am getting to the point.

I started this post like a year ago. I do have the health insurance but I don't have the time to go see a doctor. I am still debating wether or not I should seek treatment for my depression. Part of me believes in this fairy tail that some magical concoction of pills will give me the will to do everything I ever wanted to do without this overwhelming fear. The other part believes it to be ludicrous. 

Manic episode or conquering of resistance?

I started reading The War of Art by Steven Pressfield today. It is a book that was highly recommended by a coworker who has a similar literary palate as mine. Just a couple of pages in and the book quickly resonated with me. I could tell why he suggested it.

 I consider myself a writer but one who definitely battles with resistance. I want to say that there is a correlation between reading the book and me being inspired to write again. I was only 30% into he book when my phone died. Hipster would say “If you had a normal book you wouldn’t have this problem.”

Since I have none of my notes to reference back to, I have to rely on my short term memory which I recently discovered is terrible. There is a line in the book that says “The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.” I know I have read this before because I have mentioned it once or twice in my writing. I know for a fact I didn’t come up with it. I did start to wonder, “Was it Steven Pressfield who was quoted saying that when I first read it or heard it?” Did Pressfield say it first? This brought me back to another thing I heard before and I paraphrase, “There is no more original thought left in the world. All that is written is just recycled words and ideas that someone has already come up with.”  I don’t know where I heard this before. I have a tendency of not paying much attention to the creator of art. I much rather just enjoy the work than worry about the credit.

So for some reason as I was lying in bed trying to fall asleep, I started thinking about Brene Brown and her Ted Talk on vulnerability. The sheer mention of the word “vulnerability” makes me emotional. Vulnerability to me is my nemesis. There is nothing more vulnerable to me than being seen crying in public. I HATE IT!!!! I know people don’t know how to react when they see someone crying, much less not knowing why. I know it’s awkward and uncomfortable. I loathe being pitied. I don’t handle consolation very well.  But when I am thinking about something very dear to my heart I simply can’t control myself, much less talk about it. Lately I have been embracing vulnerability more and more but it still scares me half to death to share things. I find myself worrying about how the other person is judging me. They may very well be not but then again they very well may be.

Lately I have been very open about my manic depression. I feel comfortable talking about it out loud but then my illness is seen as a form of resistance according to Pressfield. That makes me feel like shit. He practically says that illnesses like social anxiety are made up by editors. He does say that anxiety and depression may be real. But he only said “may”. It sounded like I am making an excuse with my manic depression. I am not sure about that part of the book.

So here I am. Not knowing what came first, the chicken or the egg. Did the book inspire me to start writing again or did my mania make me do it? All I know is that a million thoughts started popping up like annoying ads. The last thing I want to do is over analyze  and read into things that are not really there. A part of me still wants to keep living in the illusion that I created. Like I have not learned my lesson of getting attached to the idea of what could be. So I’ll continue living in my mind. The book says that fear and doubt are allies and good things when it comes to art and writing….but I disagreed with that too.

Realizing I am no longer 19

The end of my 20's is approaching fast. This past weekend was like a slap to the face. A slap that made me realized I an not 19...I am 29.

First, I thought it was a great idea to orchestrate a happy hour to be able to bond with my coworkers. In all honesty it was a great idea. Everyone had fun. I got to see certain people let lose while others opened up. All in all, it was a great bonding experience. I was even proud of myself for being able to out drink certain characters.

The problem arose when I thought that I could continue with the drinking the next day. I had to work on a Saturday; which after a night or drinking, was not half bad.
Sign number one that I am getting "too old for this" revealed itself when I decided to take a nap after I got home from running a few errands. I knew I needed a recharge before Saturday night began.

Another night of drinking commenced at a friend's house. It entailed a few shenanigans like the drawing of a phallus on a dozing friend and the infamous drunk dialing to an ex. It was all fun and games until I realized I was way over my limit. I don't even know what happened. I have always been able to control my inebriation. However, that raspberry vodka has a way of sneaking up on you until it is too late!

I got sick that very night. I have no idea at what time I feel asleep but I know I was up at 8:00 in the morning, somehow still drunk and still sick.I couldn't remember where I had placed my glasses so I wore my friends.  I could not hydrate myself because even water would not stay down that morning. In laments terms, I woke up feeling like shit!

It was not until like 5:00 p.m. when I was finally able to keep some food in my stomach.

I guess since I woke up so early on Sunday and felt like I was still drunk, that my hangover did not hit me until Monday! I didn't know that was even possible. But there I was Monday morning with a raging headache realizing...So this is what the end of your 20's feel like... shame and regret.

Not really, but it was a funny and melodramatic way to end this post.

Dark Lonely Night

There is no point in trying to make something into what it is not. As vague as that statement is, it is precisely how I feel.

 I thought I had a friend in someone who I've spent the majority of my life with. But that person can't see when I need them to just listen to me for a while. I never call anyone for no reason. I call when I have something to say. The words just may not come out easily, nor eloquently nor may they sound like I have a point to make. 

Then I get brushed off as if I am irrelevant. However  I don't blame them. I blame myself for expecting them to understand me without me having to explain myself. So I continue to suffer in the cold and lonely darkness. Without being able to explain it to anyone. Without being able to understand it myself.