Growing, really?

In life there is a growing process. I am actually reading a book about heaven and how purgatory is not a place of punishment, but of growing. And I am all like, I want to stay in purgatory then! Anyway, that’s not what this is about. I am becoming more independent. Today my Mom must have said like six times why don’t we take the dog to Petsmart! I told her I wanted to go to the Y and work out. You see my goal right now is to lose another twenty – five pounds so that I can start fitting into the clothes at Old Navy again! And I can’t do that unless I exercise at least three times a week! So instead of doing what my Mom wanted to do, I did what I wanted to do. I mean a lot of times I just go with her because I like to talk to someone. However, since I am not isolating anymore, I have four friends that live near me that I can talk to anytime I want. Well, they have to be free to talk. I also wrote about my friend that is slowly becoming my best friend! She is one of the four, but more importantly I talk to her the most. And it’s not like talking with my Mom about relatives who put her down or who are better than her or whatever. We also don’t talk about how sucky the government is running things. I know some of my blog followers like to talk about politics, but it’s different with my Mom. It’s like there is no hope for America at ALL. You know I am actually going to call my almost new best friend tomorrow when I get out of Anxiety group while she is at the train station just to say goodbye because she is leaving for Memorial Day weekend to see her best friend from High School. I mean she is only going for four days and we are calling each other to say goodbye!

My Mom also, as I was eating dinner, kept saying to me the dog looks hot. Now we have air conditioning and if you stay in the living room (which the dog does when he is by himself because he watches PBS) then it’s really not hot at all. I mean if we had no air conditioning, when my Dad got home from work, I would have been all like let’s grab a hamburger and get that dog to some air conditioning. But I wanted to work out for me! No one else, but for the satisfaction of going to a normal clothing store, not Fashion Bug PLUS or the Avenue (Plus size store). I am not saying those stores aren’t normal. However, for one thing they rip overweight woman off. I saw a shirt at Fashion Bug Plus for about twenty – four dollars that, if I could get into one size smaller, I can get for about nine bucks at Old Navy! I mean I used to have a credit card to the Avenue and maxed that sucker out. I guess you know by now I love my clothes. Now I can go to the Salvation Army and get plus size clothes really cheap and it’s just a section not an ostracized store in the mall. However, sometimes a girl just wants the latest fashion cheap.

So you know what I did? Sorry gentlemen if I was losing you there! I told my Mom to drop me off at the Y and she could take our dog to Petsmart. We were both happy when we were done. I felt good from a workout. For those trying to get into working out, at first your muscles will scream, but after about a month it feels REALLY good when you work out! Just don’t do it too much! Know your limits. Anyway, my Mom had fun with our dog! Just to clear things up, my family only has one car. I mean I could have totally driven myself to the Y if I had my own car or if my parents didn’t share a car. But back to the story, my Mom talked and talked about Petsmart. Better than the world’s going to hell in a hand basket like usual.
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What really shows that I am independent is I didn’t have to go to the Y with her. I thought about it when I was done with the bikes. I go to the Y with her and we sit and talk while we ride the stationery bikes. However, after that our routines differ. I mean at the end of the workout sometimes we are lucky enough to get a tread mill close to each other and talk, but most of the time their way across the room! Anyway, I much rather watch the big screen T.V. while I am on the tread mill. It’s hanging on the wall at the Y. I was able to workout all by myself. Now it’s not just a big deal because I don’t like going places by myself, but because I feel self conscience. I feel like the fat girl at the Y. And when my Mom is at the Y with me, then I don’t think about it. However, when I caught my mind wondering over to the fact that the skinny girl on the next machine probably is wondering why I haven’t had a heart attack yet, I would say to myself that maybe that skinny girl may have started out like me. Maybe she’s been going to the Y for awhile and just goes now to keep the weight off and get that great feeling you have after you work out. And you know what? I also distracted myself by checking out the guys in the weight area that I can strategically see with the help of the mirrors around. Just so you gentlemen know, it’s not the muscle men that make me self conscience! It’s those skinny chicks!

Anyway, I am proud that I accomplish a long term goal all by myself. Maybe you can say that I accomplished several long term goals in one night. Independence is a beautiful thing. I think it’s important for anyone trying to live with a mental illness. We don’t live in asylums anymore. God gave us this wonderful meds, that the psychiatrist is not even sure of why it works, so that we can get up from the couch and go watch animals in the park or have jobs or go work out.

My Zen Place

My Zen Place
By Amanda Robin

No one every explained
Or maybe I should have
Got off my sorry butt
And looked through
A book.
I didn’t know that
My Zen Place
Could be my
God center of Being

You see last Monday
Was in my book
One of the best days
Of my life!
I went to a program
Where I really didn’t
Pay much attention.

But then like an angel
From Heaven
This ordinarily beautiful
Nun informed me
My God Center of Being
Could be my Zen place!

The Passionate Blogger Award!

Hello my followers and guest stopping by,

This is a first for me. I am either blogging once a week or later than that. This is going to be the first time I blogged six days apart, but I am just so excited and wanted to pass the joy around! My blog buddy Lil, Bowling Borderline Lil (borderlinelil.blogspot.com), gave me a special award that means a lot to me. She also said something really nice about me that touched my heart! I wanted to pass it along because Lil says I get to pick five people. Thanks again Lil, you don’t know how much this means to me!

This is who I choose: I want to honor: Amber, Gaining insight (gaining-insight.blogspot.com). She is the one that got me started blogging and gave me great tips and advice on how to get my blog read by all the wonderful people that read my blog and make my blog worth reading. Right now Amber just had her first child (Lucas Joshua) so she hasn’t been blogging for a while, but Amber is passionate about helping the mental health community. She also has awesome artwork, check that out!

I also want to honor: Ashley, Overcoming Schizophrenia (OvercomingSchizophrenia.blogspot.com). She is so passionate about being active in the mental health community. Ashley has started support groups and been on a local radio station to promote mental health awareness. She uses her blog to tell us about all the exciting stuff going on in her journey to help others. Ashley is also special to me because she is a paranoid schizophrenic just like me!

I also want to honor: J.B.R., Just Be Real (justbereal77.blogspot.com). This person is one of my favorite religious bloggers. J.B.R. struggles with an abusive past and is in therapy. However, this person uses Jesus in a big way. J.B.R. inspires me to be myself and let Jesus heal me. Also with all the followers J.B.R. has this person always answer my comments and I am being a little selfish here, but this person always reads my blog too!

I also want to honor: Charlie, Professor B. Worm (thefirstbookoftesticles.blogspot.com). He makes me laugh. I also get to indulge in my next love only second to Jesus and that’s literature! Some of you may not know, but I have a B.A. in Literature. Charlie reviews great books and some not so great (so we don’t have to waste time reading them). Also when he is passionate about something he will blog about it. Check out his most recent one about Arizona and racism going out there.

Finally I want to honor: The Soulmate Guide (thesoulmateguide.blogspot.com). This is one of my new followings. I don’t know if it works, but I am sure finding the steps interesting. When your thirty years old and never been really in love with a good person, you need all the help you can get!

Sorry everyone, I don’t know how to put links on my page like Lil did so that’s why I wrote the addresses for you, because these are some passionate bloggers you should check out. And if Lil hadn’t given the award to me then I would have given it to her! All those awarded could copy the picture and put in on their post and honor five other deserving passionate bloggers! Thanks.

One little thing makes all the difference in the world!

It’s really funny how life works, but one little thing makes all the difference in the world. This past Friday I got paid so I went and got my hair cut (holla’ at you Charlie;) Anyway, I got my haircut and I was sitting in the chair with my long light brownish - blondish hair thinking to myself, “What could I do to change my look.” I didn’t want to cut it more than the typical dead ends because every time I do I got to bed that night crying because I miss my over the shoulder length hair. It just blurted of me to my hair dresser, “What about bangs?” I haven’t had bangs since I was in high school and my ten year reunion was two years ago this summer. My hair dresser said that it would look nice to have something on my face. Well, I had an appointment with my therapist the same day and she all like “Your hair looks beautiful!” And I went to Saturday evening mass yesterday and got some compliments on my hair. All I did was get bangs. Now it is true that when I get the dead ends cut off the rest of my hair, my layers become more pronounced and my hair is softer because it’s healthier. However, I get this done every two months and I don’t get quite the response I got this time with the addition of the bangs!

Now life is sort of like that. About two or more years ago I decided to apply for housing so I could move out of my parents home for yet the third time in my life! It’s nearing the time when my apartment will be ready and let me tell you as a thirty year old living with dysfunctional parents it can’t come fast enough. Well, I would say in the past eight months it’s been very difficult. I wrote you all about the bankruptcy piece, but there is other little things that annoy me and are in fact things that are unhealthy for my emotional well being that my parents do. I have had friends before and I have hung around them. It true when I get very sick, I isolate. However, for longer than the last eight months I have been doing stuff with my friends like my mommy to be friend, Amber who is responsible for helping me get on blogspot. However, I haven’t really had a best friend since the woman who raped me. I wrote a whole blog on that maybe a month ago. Well, I am happy to report I am slowly becoming best friends with my friend Chrissy. We talk on the phone at least every other day. We tried to spend at least one day a week doing something fun together. And then there is the most important piece, I am actually confiding in her! It will take some time, but I think she will probably be the only one who knows all my secrets that are worth telling outside of individual therapy! It’s like one little thing, having a best friend to call up and drive over to her house when my parents are getting on my nerves, has made all the difference in the world. Also May is Mental Health Month and every year I go to the Citizen Committee dinner. However, Chrissy also convinced me to go to one of my old psychiatrist’s retirement dinners. So there will be a night when I just get dressed up and go with my best gal pal to a fancy dinner. And this one little change, having a best friend, has made all the difference in the world with waiting on my apartment.

My Spiritual life is like that too! I can remember growing up believing in God, but not really understanding or having a personal relationship. Then when I got into college I just knew God was there, but I didn’t have much interaction with him. Sometimes a bed time prayer, but that was about it. Then I got diagnosed with my mental illness. I was actually court ordered to a mental health unit in the state of Indiana, five hours away from my family. And you know what? I had no one else to turn too. My mind was playing tricks on me. For example, I almost blow up the organic chem. Lab. I felt my friends really didn’t understand. I mean really? How can nineteen and twenty year olds relate to something as big as a major mental illness? I mean I was going through it myself and I couldn’t understand it so how could I expect my friends too? And the doctors and nurses on the mental health unit, I didn’t really know, so how could I trust them? When someone tells you that hearing voices is normal for your illness, how can you wrap your mind around the fact that they are telling the truth? So there I was in the common area of the unit and tears just started streaming down my face! I called of the name of Jesus and ever since then my life has been different. Just one little difference, believing that Jesus the Nazarene died for my sins, has made my whole life different. Never after that point have I made an elaborate plan to meet my own demise. I am not going to lie, just like anyone with a major mental illness, there are times when I seriously thing about it. However before I can get to the point where I think, “O.k. I am going to do this, this, and this, and I will meet my end,” I go to the ER and talk to the crisis nurse. Having a personal relationship with Jesus, that one little thing, also makes my life brighter. When I face a decision, I can go and talk to my creator and see what His will is. I don’t have to take on big things alone.

So, I have found that sometimes it not major milestones that make our lives better. It the simple little things like getting bangs, a best friend, or calling to my redeemer, that makes life living more bearable! You don’t have to climb Mt. Saint Helen or circumnavigate the globe, just make a little change in your life and world just might seem a little brighter!