Dreams Matter

 It's Saturday; football season is upon us, and the weather is cool enough to have the windows open. I don't know about you, but that kind of sounds like heaven. It kind of feels like it too. I had to put a hoodie on yesterday because it was chilly with the windows open. Yeah, I would rather put a hoodie on than close the windows. I'm making vegetable soup today because it feels like soup season, and because it's nutritious and fills me up, which is kind of essential to weight loss. But mostly just because I love veggie soup. I've now lost 32 pounds, and honestly I'm loving watching the scale drop more and more. I feel a lot better in my body even if my knee is still cranky.

Sometimes it feels like your dreams are so far away. Until you realize they aren't and that they're completely within your grasp. I've made quite a few changes to my life recently, slowly, of course. But they feel good, and it's crazy to me that things that once felt impossible suddenly feel very possible again. It's been a long road, as you guys well know. It's taken me a long time to get to where I am now and how okay I feel in myself. For so long, I was struggling with mental illness. Fighting with my meds and resenting my needing them in the first place. But that's given way to acceptance and honestly appreciating the meds and my doctors. Because it all gave me my life back. No one wants to have a mental breakdown or be diagnosed with a couple of mental illnesses. But I'm past the part where it bothers me and just thankful that the meds let me live a normal, healthy life.

This Fall I'm just looking to being alive and soaking up all the things I love about Fall and Halloween. I have always loved Fall because of the changing leaves and their beautiful colors. But also how the air, when it's chilly, carries the smell of bonfires and burning leaves. I love the tranquility of Fall and the magic that Halloween carries. I love scare actors and haunted houses as long as I'm not in them. Haha. I've always been that way. I don't particularly enjoy being scared, but I do really enjoy the ambiance of the season. We need to go apple picking so I can make some homemade applesauce because duh, that's amazing. I doubt I'll carve any pumpkins cause I don't have a porch to put them on. So I'll just enjoy all the pumpkin spice candles I can get my hands on. My chosen parents have their Christmas tree up, and I'm knee-deep in all things pumpkin spice with my kiddos. And honestly, I love that because it means everything is normal and normal is great. 

I think it's due to some personal growth and making peace with things I couldn't control in life when I was younger. I have decided that Thanksgiving isn't the enemy, and I'm just too lazy to be bothered with all the food. I would love to say that I want to participate in the holiday tradition, but I think I'd rather take a nap. So while I don't dislike it anymore, I kinda doubt I'll be up to my elbows in food anytime soon. Especially because Big C makes dinner for the kiddos and they all enjoy it. But here's to personal growth and laying some demons to rest forever. 

I think with time and clarity I've decided that some people and situations just needed to go for me to learn to live life on my terms again. I can't change the past, but I can definitely change the future. I don't regret the removal of certain people from my life. In fact, it was a long time coming. So the future isn't about repeating the past or setting myself up for failure. It's about personal growth and planning the life I truly want to live. Part of dealing with suicidal issues and self-harm is realizing the things that hurt don't always deserve to hurt forever. Some people, places, and things need to stay gone for you to find harmony within yourself. You can forgive yourself but still know that you have to love some people from a great distance for your mental and emotional well-being. Not everything you lose or have to put boundaries against is a loss. Some of it is an unplanned blessing you waited a long time to fulfill.

Today I'm going to make soup, play my music loud enough to annoy my neighbors a bit. I might even take a nap because I've had too much caffeine and it makes me sleepy. I have the weirdest body, I swear. If I drink more water, I'll feel energized, but honestly I like naps, so I'll probably just take one for funsies. Whatever you are doing today, I hope you love it, and it makes you happy. If you're working, it's okay to think "bah, I'm working and I don't wanna." We can love what we do for a living with our entire beings and still want to disconnect and take a break. Getting up and being productive all the time can get old. So maybe do the adult thing and then do something fun as a reward. If no one has told you today, I'm proud of you, and I hope that life is exactly what you wanted it to be. 

~Until next time, be good to each other.~

It Gets Better

It's an undeniably sleepy Saturday in my world that consists of listening to people yell on the sidewalk below my apartment and cleaning up all the stuff I tossed everywhere this week. I can't be the only one who just sets stuff in places, intending to put it away, but the week passes, and I'm still looking at it. So today consists of scooping it all up and finally putting it in its home. But also schoolwork because my genius self decided to go back to school. I know, sometimes I don't know why I do the stuff I do. Haha. Kidding, I actually do know why I did it. Music has always been more important to me than life. Not an exaggeration; it's just my thing, and it makes life worth living. So anyway, I've decided to study the entertainment business as a whole. It also includes theatre and gaming, but neither of those is of much interest to me. So far it's pretty fun, though it requires so much reading. I literally fell asleep reading the other night. Which, no surprise there, once I get comfy, I'm done for anyway.

September is suicide prevention and awareness month. I've found myself being a little more candid with some of the people around me lately, and the responses are pretty amazing. Someone called me a legend for getting through what I've gone through. I don't know; sometimes things like that make being curled up on my bathroom floor sobbing a little less painful of a reminder. I've never really seen myself as a survivor or a victim. It's just me and my broken brain living life to the best of my ability and being happy. 

Everyone has demons; that's not exclusive to me. We all have pages and chapters we don't read out loud. But there's a huge dichotomy between who I actually am and who people think I am or used to be sometimes. I've never claimed to be perfect because I'm far from it, but I am always myself. I've come to understand that people who never saw me clearly as a person and/or really got to know my personality have assigned me a character that's not me. They don't recognize the free-spirited dreamer that I am and always have been. To them, that person doesn't exist, but that's mainly because they never actually sat down and listened to me speak. They listened from their opinion of me, but that opinion was actively formed without any participation from me. They don't recognize what's always existed because they never really tried. They think the person they see now is fake because they didn't know who I was all along, and honestly, that's perfectly okay. That's not a me problem. That's a completely outside-of-me problem because I know who I am and who I've always been regardless of how flawed I am. I'm the one that's had to build a new life on the rubble left behind from a life I burned to the ground. They don't know how long it took to look myself in the eyes in the mirror. They don't know the things that have haunted my life for practically forever. Those things don't exist in their world because they never asked. That's not on me, and it's important for us to remember that we can't control everyone or their perception of us.

I am the same person I've always been, and I'm honest to a fault. There's no pretense here. It's just me. Just me talking out loud, and for unknown reasons, people listen. I'm a dork. I say the wrong thing a little too often because my brain decides it needs to just do stuff for the hell of it. Then I'm just standing there wondering where my three brain cells went to hide. haha. But I think it's really important for everyone to understand that all we can be in life is who we authentically are. Especially us mental health beans who tend to weigh whether we are okay or not based on whether or not people try to understand us. It's hurtful when people dismiss the sheer strength it takes to be vulnerable with people knowing they can hurt us. Mental health has such a stigma, and people are usually only cool with dealing with it until they get tired of us talking about it. But the truth is, we don't get days off from dealing with it. We wake up and go to bed every night knowing that tomorrow is often more of the same. But a lot of times the people around us have already checked out and just think we should be better already. A lot of us, with or without medicine, will never just be better already. And it's important for us to understand that we can't weigh our worth based on whether or not someone has time for us.

I'm incredibly fortunate to have an amazing group of people, especially my family. They are always there whenever I struggle or need to vent. They don't pretend to have the answers, but they sit with me until I find my strength again. That's incredibly important. People don't commit suicide because it's the easy way out. They commit suicide because they can't figure out a reason to stay. They can't find their strength. They feel isolated and unsupported and, a lot of times, unloved. They feel like a burden because people unfortunately do forget that mental illness doesn't have a cure. And sometimes they can have the best village imaginable and still not be able to find a reason to stay. They don't do it to spite people or because it's easy. Giving up on life is never an easy decision. Trust me, I've been there many times in the last six years. I've spent many a time crashed out on the floor or in my bed trying to talk things out with someone and not having the words or ability to make it make sense to them. I always hear how lucky I am and how I should just be grateful to be loved by so many people. Pain doesn't recognize that. Pain is pain; it's smothering, heavy, and a lot of times feels completely inescapable. That's why we need people who will drop everything and just sit with us and keep us safe until we find our strength, no matter how long it takes. 

If you ever learn anything from me, let it be to love out loud. Tell everyone you love them. Hug everyone. Answer the phone or respond to texts no matter how boring they are. Everyone who has ever committed suicide has reached out to someone before they did it. Yet everyone always says I had no idea. Do you have no idea because you didn't listen? Maybe not. Maybe you aren't who they reached out to, and that's perfectly okay. You shouldn't feel guilty for not being able to stop something you genuinely knew nothing about. But trust someone did. There's someone they reached out to because they were drowning. Check on your people. Listen to them. Get to know them so that you recognize when the pattern changes. I've reached out to friends and gotten ignored. I've reached out to a lot of people and been dismissed. But I've always had my family through thick and thin, and that's always made a huge difference for me. Because no matter how helpless I feel at times, there's always a floor to lay on and someone to talk things through with. If someone doesn't have those people, maybe be their person. Or find that person through medical channels. It's that important. Don't let the sun set on someone who can be saved. Don't let someone leave because you didn't have time to lie on the floor with them until they find their voice again.

Mental illness doesn't take days off, nor does the insanity of life. Sometimes it just kicks the shit out of you, and then you're looking around like, what the hell was that? If you don't have a person, I'm here; I'll be your person. If I can't be that person, I will find you a person; I can guarantee you that. Never give up because tomorrow, no matter how elusive, will be better. Don't make a permanent decision caused by a temporary emotion. It takes a village; build your villages.

~Until next time, I love you, and be good to each other.~

Finally September

Well, hello September, you sexy beast. It's Labor Day, which means tomorrow marks the official start of all things pumpkin spice. I actually cheated and bought a pumpkin roll the other day because I absolutely could not resist. But I did wait to light the first pumpkin spice candle, so I'll do that tomorrow morning. My pumpkin-loving heart is so happy! Now if only the weather would get with the program, because what do you mean it's almost 90 degrees outside? I am so ready to put my summer black clothes away and get out my black Fall hoodies. So someone come get Mother Nature and put her to bed cause she's acting up again. I would say ground her, but then summer will never leave, and honestly, no thanks. I'm tired of sweating in places that have no business knowing how to sweat. It's been an uncomfy summer here in Ohio. haha

September is also Suicide Prevention and Awareness Month, and in this house that's an important month. I normally do a whole blog on it, but you guys have had that talk a lot. So I'll just say, please check on your strong friends and listen to your people who struggle with mental illness or suicidal impulses. It takes a village, and if someone doesn't have their person, think about maybe being their person. Or helping to connect them with the right resources so they can find their person. In this family, no one suffers alone, and I know you all will do your best to help support and love your people who struggle. We've spent years destigmatizing mental illness in this corner of the world. Having a mental illness or struggling with suicidal thoughts doesn't mean you're broken. Needing medicine or psych help doesn't make you less of a person. In my opinion, having the strength to ask for help makes you an amazing person.

I heard someone quote the no white after Labor Day thing today and was so confused. I thought we discontinued that practice a long time ago. Also, why not white after Labor Day? What did white clothing do to you? I mean, I don't own any white clothing, so it doesn't actually affect me, but it seems like a silly practice. I say wear whatever makes your little heart happy. We don't clothes-shame in this house, even if the only thing I wear is black. No, that's a lie. My Converse are cute colors. So I guess I do own something not black. Though with this weight loss, I'mma just need a whole new wardrobe in the near future.

I thought about getting Botox recently and was informed that I have to have wrinkles to do that. So I guess I gotta get back to them when my face decides to crease in places? I swear I try to get old, but it just doesn't seem to be working. I mean, granted, I get it because, duh, great genetics, but still. I also thought about dying my hair cause other than purple, I've never really dyed my hair. Then I remembered my hair goes down to my waist and decided that it would have to wait a minute. But like, what color would I even dye it if I didn't do the dark purple? Midlife crisis? Nah, just general boredom, honestly. Maybe I just need some new piercings to shake things up a bit. I dunno, but it is also almost knee surgery time, so I might wanna chill on getting new holes for a minute, but I don't wanna. Typical me: stubborn and impatient. haha

Mental health-wise, things have been pretty chill. No new hallucinations to report unless I forgot about them already. I am going to start writing letters and articles for one site. I'll let you guys know when I start publishing them. I already know what the first one is going to be about, but have I written any of it? Nope, because procrastination is my superpower. haha. I was supposed to do a writing contest and got completely distracted by a really cute guy. I have another one to do, so someone remind me to write the damn thing before the 17th of September, please. I swear my memory is a permanent part-time employee, and I don't know when that happened. Maybe it's selective memory because I can still tell you when each concert is, to the day and start time. Either way, I need to remember to submit my letter for this contest. The award is pretty cool, and I'm kind of determined to win the next 5 of them just for fun.

Otherwise, life has been pretty chill. Everyone is happy, healthy, and just doing the adult stuff. Gotta love those times when you can just chill and relax without stressing about life. Concert season this year officially ends in November when my kid, my niece, and I go see Motionless In White, which is something we're all super excited about. And yes, I'm going even if I'm still on crutches because there are seats. I don't know, I really kind of love how much my kids have taken after me when it comes to music. How cool is it to be able to plan to do fun stuff with them, and it be such an easy thing. I just have to mention that I want to go, and suddenly I have a whole squad buying tickets and making plans. Had you told me when they were little kids that I'd spend more time with my adult kiddos than I do with anyone else..... I would have believed you. Cool how that works out. People always say you have to be a parent and not a friend. That's not true; you can be both, you just have to work hard at it. Who knows, maybe they'll hit the teen years at some point but it's looking unlikely so far. 

~Until next time, be good to each other.~