Tag: love

It’s Okay to Not Be Okay

 

According to the fictional character, House; everybody lies.

He’s probably right. I know I like every day. Did you hear that? I lie every, single day. I’ve probably even lied to you.

Want to know what my most common lie is?

“How are you?” People ask.

“I’m fine.” I reply with a smile.

The smile is the icing on the cake. If I’m smiling then surely I must truly be fine. If I wasn’t fine, I’d tell you, right?

Not necessarily.

People ask this question as a way of being polite, not because they have the desire or concern or time to know how you are. It’s more out of habit like, “wow, this weather sure is something, isn’t it?”

It’s a space filler. So instead of saying how I really feel, I tell people that I’m fine.

Besides, if you say how you really feel, some people don’t know how to react.

I once decided to tell people the truth for an entire day when they asked how I was. When I told them that my mind was racing and I couldn’t sleep at night because of the bad dreams they looked at me as though I had just told them I was planning a horrific crime. Like something was wrong with me.

Here’s the thing though, there is nothing more wrong with me than a person who has to wear glasses or take insulin or any other medication.

A part of my body doesn’t function properly. There are chemicals that get out of whack and cause me to not be okay…

And that’s okay.

I don’t need people to feel bad for me, or tell me how my life is better than so many others. I need people to let me know ow that it’s okay to not be okay.

Ask me what I do to feel better and if I’ve been practicing those things.

Ask me what you can do to help.

Would you tell a diabetic to just get over it? That it’s not okay to be diabetic?

No way!

Would you tell someone who needs contacts or glasses to just stop wearing them so they don’t become dependent on them?

Absolutely not!

Anxiety, depression and other mental illnesses are exactly the same as other illnesses. It’s not our fault that we have them and that a part of our body, our brain, doesn’t seem to work as well as it should.

We should never be embarrassed of our mental health issues. Everyone needs to quit stigmatizing people who have mental health issues.

I want everyone to know that it’s okay to not be okay!

I’m Nercited

Yes, that title has a made up word, that I stole from one of my daughter’s friends. Sometimes writers can’t express themselves in real words though, so they make some up.

Nercited describes how I’m feeling today to a tee.

I am excited beyond belief that my dream of becoming an author has come true and I am doing an author event at a bookstore.

I have 3 hours to get people to like my book, buy it, sign a few copies and hope that their lives are changed by what they read.

My words are in print (and digital) form and people are reading them. Talk about a dream come true. I have wanted this since I was seven years old and I wrote my first story about a jack-o’-lantern.

I’m also nervous and anxious. I usually have no problem getting in front of people and speaking. I don’t know what’s going on with me.

I actually had a dream last night in which I had an anxiety attack. In the dream I was talking myself down and doing deep breathing exercises to calm myself down. When I woke up, my heart was racing, I was shaky and my breaths we’re shallow.

I’ve been on the verge of an anxiety attack all day.

Then, this afternoon I realized I didn’t have any swag to give away tomorrow or anything to decorate with. That almost sent me into the abyss. Again, I had to talk myself down, away from the edge.

After school I went to the store, got some things I can make into swag, (if you want to know what it is, you’ll have to come see me at Barnes and Noble in Stockton from 1-4.) I also picked up a few things to decorate a table.

I’m looking forward to the author event.

I’m blessed beyond measure that God has allowed me this opportunity to help others going through tough times.

I know that the nerves and anxiety is just the darkness trying to pull me into it’s grip. I won’t let it.

I will be a light in the world.

Baby Steps to Ease Anxiety at School

My family has been back to school for two weeks now and it has been the easiest transition to a new school year that we have had in years.

My daughter has some social anxiety and is an extreme introvert, however she has made a few new “friends” at school. You know, the kind she can work in class with, maybe eat lunch with, but that’s enough for her.

To be honest, that’s huge for her. I’m extremely proud of her for overcoming that anxiety.

My son has inherited my general anxiety about pretty much everything and my ability to jump to the worst possible conclusion in a single bound.

To prepare for fifth grade he and I talked some about what he expected class to be like and how it would most likely be. Luckily I’ve had experience with his teacher so I knew some of what​ he could expect. He’s lucky to have gotten an incredible teacher this year.

One of his issues is that if someone is doing something that is particularly annoying to him, he can’t focus on anything besides the annoying behavior. Pencil drumming, pen clicking, to tapping, whatever it is keeps him from being able to focus on school and learning.

He recognized that was happening  this week and asked me to help him work out a new seating arrangement with his teacher. I’m exceptionally proud of him recognizing a problem and vocalizing a solution.

Now my start to the school year. My anxiety was knocking when I had to report back for professional development the week before students started.

The first morning my heart was racing, my hands were shaking and I couldn’t catch my breath.

Each thought quickly led to another until my thoughts were a jumbled mess I couldn’t figure out.

There wasn’t any one thing I could pick out that I was anxious about, it was just an overwhelming feeling of sinking in shallow water knowing the bottom was close, but unable to get my feet down to save myself.

Luckily, a friend asked me how I was doing. I told her I felt like I was drowning. She asked me why and I couldn’t explain. So she helped me focus on the good stuff in my life. I smiled thinking about my kids, husband, house, you know all the good things.

Her question, her concern, saved me from drowning in another bout of anxiety. Her caring, reminded me that I am not my anxiety and I have so much more in my life than that darkness that so often threatens to pull me under.

So, we all took positive baby steps I dealing with our anxiety to make this new school year a little easier for ourselves. Now we just need to keep baby-stepping forward to keep anxiety at bay as the year progresses.

Together I think we can handle it. Baby steps.

It’s Working!

Let me start with a big THANK YOU!!! To the 18 amazing people who subscribed to my blog last week. You are awesome!

Next I want to let everyone know:

It’s working!

“What exactly is working?” You may ask. We’ll, let me tell you.

My book is working.

There were two main reasons I wrote my story: 1) to help myself deal with some issues from my past once and for all and 2) to let others know that they are valuable and lovable and worth finding people who love them for real not for what they can get from them.

It was successful, the book worked, both of my goals have been achieved.

First, it helped me tremendously to write my story. There were things that I brought up in the story that I had never even told my husband. I wasn’t trying to hide them from him, but I didn’t want to deal with those things. Writing about them helped he and I to have good conversations and strengthen our relationship. Writing those things also helped me seek a counselor to talk through some of the more severe emotions.

Secondly, I wanted people to know they are valuable and lovable. During summer school there was a student who I was lead to give one of my books to. She came to me a few days later and told me that she realized some things about herself that she wanted to change and would be working on those things.

Then when school started this week, she found me and let me know that she had passed the book to her mom and a cousin. Her mom realized that she had been going from guy to guy to fix herself and decided she needed to fix herself and not rely on anybody else to do that and has gotten herself into a program to heal. Then she shared a similar story about her cousin.

When I was afraid of publishing my story and having people read things about me that I’ve never shared I decided that if one person could be helped it would be worth it. I have had others tell me how the book  has helped them. Then this week I found out that two more people were helped because of my story.

I’m amazed.

I’m in awe.

I’m humbled.

I’m thankful.

My story is working.

I wish everyone who needed to could read it. So far about 180 copies have been sold or downloaded. That’s a lot of people reading my story.

Please share it. Either loan out your copy or point them to this website or Amazon to purchase Worthless No More.

Oh, yeah… If you haven’t subscribed yet, please do.

If you have subscribed please share with a friend and encourage them to subscribe too.

  1. Love to all of you!!!!

Please Subscribe

I realized this past week that I don’t have any subscribers to my blog. The only way anybody knows that I have written a new post is through Facebook, and we all know that sometimes posts on there just get buried.

I have 200 plus Facebook friends and each week my blog is only seen by between 30-60 people and I would love more people to read it. I think that what I write about can help people, but not if they don’t read it.

So, this week I have a request to everyone who read this blog:

please click the button on the screen to subscribe to my blog

My goal this week is 100 subscribers.

Please help me meet my goal.

Thank you all for reading this far and for subscribing to my blog.

You Matter!

Chester Bennington, the lead singer for Linkin Park took his life yesterday. Hearing that shook me. I like Linkin Park songs because it seemed he knew what I felt and was surviving it and if he could survive so could I. Their song “Numb” was especially important to me.

Here are the lyrics:

I’m tired of being what you want me to be
Feeling so faithless, lost under the surface
I don’t know what you’re expecting of me
Put under the pressure of walking in your shoes
Caught in the undertow, just caught in the undertow
Every step that I take is another mistake to you
Caught in the undertow, just caught in the undertow

I’ve become so numb, I can’t feel you there
Become so tired, so much more aware
By becoming this all I want to do
Is be more like me and be less like you

Can’t you see that you’re smothering me?
Holding too tightly, afraid to lose control
‘Cause everything that you thought I would be
Has fallen apart right in front of you
Caught in the undertow, just caught in the undertow
Every step that I take is another mistake to you
Caught in the undertow, just caught in the undertow
And every second I waste is more than I can take!

I’ve become so numb, I can’t feel you there
Become so tired, so much more aware
By becoming this all I want to do
Is be more like me and be less like you

And I know I may end up failing too
But I know you were just like me with someone disappointed in you

I’ve become so numb, I can’t feel you there
Become so tired, so much more aware
By becoming this all I want to do
Is be more like me and be less like you

I’ve become so numb, I can’t feel you there
I’m tired of being what you want me to be
I’ve become so numb, I can’t feel you there
I’m tired of being what you want me to be

Written by Brad Delson, Chester Charles Bennington, Dave Farrell, Joseph Hahn, Mike Shinoda, Robert G. Bourdon • Copyright © Universal Music
Publishing Group
and the music video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXYiU_JCYtU
When I listen to that song I always think of my relationship with my mom. I was never good enough for her as a kid, everything I did was wrong. I grew up and realized that I just had to be me and not do what other people expected me to. When I was comfortable with myself, people would accept me.
I thought that was what the song meant to. I thought he had it figured out. I thought he had traveled through the darkness and come through it.
What I have also learned in this life is that once you’ve traveled through the darkness you never really leave it behind. It is always there threatening to consume you again at any moment.
If you have traveled the darkness before, or are in the darkness now, know that you are not alone. Know that you matter. Know that the people around you will miss you terribly if you are no longer with us.
Know there is help available:

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 1-800-273-8255

Truth is Free

For some people believing a lie is easier than believing the truth. Sometimes the truth is too painful or dirty or harsh and people want to be like an ostrich and bury their head in the sand, ignoring the truth around them.

Truth is not always easy or pretty, but it is always true, no matter who believes it. Just because someone doesn’t believe the truth doesn’t make it any less true.

Recently, I have been called a liar by a person that I used to hold in high esteem, because I have told some not so pretty truths that involve that person.

When truth comes out it is always better to accept your responsibility in the situation, make amends and move on. If you attempt to perpetuate the like, it could cost you more than you’re willing to pay.

It could cost you your job, your reputation, your friends, your family. That’s a high price to pay for a lie.

Along the same lines, I have been accused of trying to destroy the person who called me a liar. That me speaking truth is hateful and ugly and I should just keep it to myself.

I can’t do that anymore.

I have kept so much to myself in my life that I’m going to explode. I have to tell the truth. I have to expose evil where it is present. I can’t hide it just because it’s ugly and messy and some people will get offended.

Telling the truth has cost me nothing. I still have a job. I still have my family, I still have friends who support me.

Not only has telling the truth been free, I’ve even benefited from it. I’ve made new friends. I’ve been able to help others struggling with similar situations.

It’s been amazing to see so much good come from speaking the truth.

Saying Goodbye is Hard

This week I had to say goodbye to a pet that I’ve had for 22 years, my turtle, Herman. He was the perfect pet for all those years. He wasn’t cuddly, he never demanded my attention, and I couldn’t take him for walks, but he was always there, quietly listening to whatever I had to tell him.

Granted, since my life has been good, I haven’t talked to him quit as much as when my life was a wreck all those years ago and he was a captive audience on my dresser in his tank. He listened without judging and I liked that. He never spoke back or asked questions I didn’t want to or wasn’t ready to face. When I was in the midst of anxiety I could watch him swim or crawl around his tank and some of his peace would transfer to me.

Tuesday morning, I went to feed him and he was dead. I cried. Even though he’s a turtle and I couldn’t cuddle him or whatever, he has been a part of my life for the past 22 years. He was moved with me too many times to count. The water fall in his tank is a relaxing sound that fills my house.

This experience made me think about all the people I’ve had to say goodbye too in my life. Grandparents, parents, friends. Some who have passed away, some who have left and some who I have had to leave behind.

Whatever the reason that we have to say goodbye, even if its good for us, its difficult. I hate saying goodbye! I only see my sister once or twice a year. When we leave each other, we don’t say “goodbye,” we say “see ya later.” It’s less final that way. Saying goodbye is just too sad.

Unfortunately, we always have to say goodbye. We are left with the lessons that we learned and the imprint they left on our lives and good or bad we can learn from them, no matter how hard saying goodbye is.

Evil Triumphs

Last week I watched the movie Spotlight, about a sex abuse scandal and the Catholic Church that was uncovered by the Boston Globe in 2001. This week I have been watching the Netflix series, The Keepers. It’s a docuseries about a sex abuse and murder cover up in the Baltimore, Maryland Catholic Church Diocese. One thing that these two cases had in common is that people knew about the abuse and kept quiet about it.

I’m not talking about the victims or their families staying quiet. They were silenced by their abusers and society with shame, fear and accusations of the abuse being their fault.

I’m talking about the ministers and police officers who knew about the abuse and kept it to themselves, moving the abuser from one place to another, rather than stopping the evil and putting the abuser in prison where they belonged.

When a minister, police officer or other person in authority, especially as a mandated reporter, chooses to remain silent, they are just as guilty of abuse after they were made aware of it as the abuser is.

Many people in authority work to silence the victims when the victims find the strength to finally confide in them. They may attempt to shame the victim by telling them the abuse was their fault. They may attempt to make the victim fearful of  retribution by the abuser for telling. They might silence the victim with their disbelief of the story. They may make the victim feel overwhelmed by the questions they will be asked by the police and make the victim doubt if that’s what they want to do.

There are many ways that someone in authority allows abuse to continue by their decision to remain silent and not act on behalf of the victim of abuse.

When a person allows abuse to continue, as so many did in the cases I’ve seen, that person is just as much to blame as the abuser. The person who knows what is happening and just moves the abuser from church to church becomes an accomplice to the abuse. They have allowed the abuse to continue.

In the case shown in The Keepers, Sister Cathy was killed because she knew what was happening within her church and school and was going to expose it. Some “Christians” are more worried about how the abuse will cause people to look at their ministry than they are about the abuse.

I am currently involved in exposing a group of accused, admitted and convicted child molesters who were allowed to work around youth. Some were allowed to work with kids even after those in charge new the allegations about the sexual abuse.

One of the people who allowed an abuser to continue to work with children isn’t too happy with my friends and I telling people that an admitted child molester worked with him at youth camps and taking youth on mission trips to Mexico.

In my opinion, he is more worried about those of us who are exposing the evil that happened, instead of worrying about the evil and how to help the people who were hurt. He has had his attorney draw up a lawsuit against us and is threatening to file it in court if we don’t back down. However, the truth is the best defense against a defamation lawsuit and we have the truth on our side.

Truth will stop evil!

 

 

Stop Silencing Victims

Lately, I have been dealing with a lot of my past between writing and releasing my book and and being part of a news story that aired last Friday night on abc7news.com.

I have read and heard responses from so many people who are proud of me and the others that I am proud to call friends, for standing up and telling our stories. It hasn’t been easy, but it is necessary to help others.

I have also been asked, “what took so long?” Or “Why now after all these years?”

What is the answer to these questions?

Society, as well as our abusers, silenced us.

Our abusers told us they’d do worse things to us if we told. Or they convinced us that nobody would believe us anyway.

Maybe we believed our abusers. Maybe our abusers were right, nobody believes us. If you watch or read that news story above, people didn’t believe the victims when they told what happened to them.

The pain we suffer from the acts of abuse however aren’t what keeps victims silent; it’s society that keeps us from telling our story.

Society tells us it’s our fault, because of what we’re wearing, or not wearing, o because of what we said or didn’t say.

Society says we must be lying because so and so is a nice upstanding member of society.

Churches tell us that our worth lies completely in our purity and that nobody wants to marry used goods.

Parents tell us to wait until marriage to have a sexual experience because that’s what good kids do.

We are shamed into silence. We don’t want people to know we’re “used”, that we’re no longer “good”. We don’t want to be accused of “asking for it.”

The pain caused by the act of abuse is mild in comparison to the pain caused by being shamed into silence.

Keeping silent kills marriages and families. Keeping silent allows the pain to bounce around inside until you can’t take it anymore. Keeping silent is the most painful thing a person can endure.

When a former victim decides to speak out, listen to them. Know that for them to tell you their deepest pain is difficult and they know you can’t fix it, but it’ll ease their burden.

If a former victim decides to speak out, encourage them to file a police report if they are an adult, if they are a minor, do it for them, go with them, hold their hand and offer them a piece of your strength.

Sometimes victims may speak up years or decades after the abuse, because they can’t carry the burden any longer. Allow them to. Healing can take a lifetime, especially when the abuse is buried deep inside.

If a former victim tells their story, believe them. The vast majority of us are not going to make this stuff up; society is too hard on victims for us to want that.

I hope that every victim of every abuse gets the nerve to speak up and tell their story. Maybe then the abusers will be too scared to continue, but I don’t think that will happen until society stops silencing victims.