Author: leohblooms

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Accepting Hell

So, this is it? Really? I can’t quite believe it. I keep asking myself over and over…is this it?

There have been a few days where I got really close to replying to that question with, ‘No, this will not be it.’ and it’s those days that are the worst, as I look for a way out.

The past few months have been insane. Literally. I feel like such a failure as a mother. As a wife. As a proponent of mental health. As a human being. I’ve struggled so hard and fierce, using every, single muscle trying to hold on to reality and then given up, fallen back and tried to accept what reality is and let it fold over what I keep trying to make it.

Reality is that for the rest of my life I’ll be on some kind of medication. Reality is that even though I went through therapy for years and years and then integrated and then brushed the dust off my hands, thinking I was done with the diagnosing and drugs and really hard parts, I will never be done. There is no such thing as done for me when it comes to brain disorders. I will continually have new and fun streaks and variations come out that will need attending to. Drug cocktails that will need adjustment. More weight to gain. More side effects to wade through.

Reality is that I should never, ever try to have any more children. It would be irresponsible to do so. Reality is that my kids have it so much better than they even know. Maybe they do know. After all, they chose the life they have now, not living with me. They must have had some internal compass that told them to stay the course at their dad’s. And, good, because life with me is not much of a life. Reality is that my feelings about that, about them and towards them are so huge that they threaten to splinter my mind again and I have a gray area lurking in the background that needs addressing and months and months of work to repair.

Reality is that my husband will be working with me and trying to help keep me stable for the rest of our life together. I have good spots, to be sure. I do some things that are fun, creative, and not always crazy. But more likely than not, those things do intersect with the crazy. And sometimes getting out the Dyson for a long-overdue vacuuming party is preferred to a new project’s birth.

Reality is that my life is hell and I make it hell for those close to me.

I don’t think I’m conveying how disappointed I am accurately. Your emails and letters have been sweet and I do appreciate them. Very much. But not one comes in that I don’t think, ‘They don’t really know who I am.’ If you did, you wouldn’t say the things you do. I am not the person that I thought I was and that I led you all to believe I was. I’m not healed. I’m not better. I’m no authority on anything, least of all mental health. I’m just one more person trying to figure out how to make it another day. One more person just like everyone else in the entire world that struggles with mental disorders. And to all of you? Wow. You inspire me with your getting up every day and trying again. Because I don’t know how long I can do this.

I’ve gone to the psychiatrist and a couple of therapists in the past few weeks and tomorrow I have another one. At one point three weeks ago, I was ready to go to Seattle. That is where Dr. Clancy lives. Dr. Clancy was the one who integrated me and the thought of trying to find someone else here was too daunting. My sister told me to get on a plane immediately. I made plans with a company up there to take a position. But Dr. Clancy’s first opening was mid-November and somehow, no one thought it was a good idea for me to go up there and wait that long. I mean, what good is a job at a great company if you’re crazy? So then it was off to our couple-counselor who suggested some people here in the area and made me promise to call if I started feeling suicidal. As did the other therapist, the psychiatrist and Joe. Which is kind of a joke since if I was really going to kill myself, I wouldn’t call them or anyone. But I couldn’t kill myself, anyway, because no matter how you slice it, it would hurt the kids and that is the last thing I want to do. There is no accident I could contrive that at some point wouldn’t fall apart and prove to be self-inflicted. I’ve thought it through. And, I’ve seen way too many episodes of Law and Order and Without A Trace to think otherwise.

I’m baking. And cooking. This weekend alone I’ve made fish chowder, beef stew, corn bread, butternut and spaghetti squash, apple crisp and Boston Cream pie besides all the normal meals. I’ve made thousands of lists in my head with all the things I need to do. These lists include things like wipe the downstairs bathroom counter, change out the mousetraps, find the canvases in the garage and make tomato sauce and that is four things on a list of a few hundred things. I’ve drawn a million shapes from the television, over and over and over while sitting in front of it, to the lines on the road and the clouds and the mailboxes and the trees when I make a trip to the store for butter. I’ve crocheted hats. Many hats.

One night, I had a dream about the egg sandwiches I was going to make the next day at lunch. It was very vivid and included the print on the paper towel that I used to hold the shells until I threw them out. I dreamed I peeled all the eggs, rinsed them and then separated the yolks from the whites, placing them in two bowls on the counter. Then I carefully took the whites, two at a time, and put them in the small canister for the Bullet. I pushed the cup down quickly, twice, and then dumped the perfectly chopped whites into the bowl with the yolks. I didn’t comment out loud in my dream, but in my mind I was remarking on how perfectly shaped the whites were and how two was the perfect number for everything.

The next afternoon, in real life, Joe was helping me peel the eggs. I got out the Bullet canister and two bowls and started separating the whites and the yolks just like in my dream. He looked at me, first sidelong and then full-on. As he asked what I was doing, I was ashamed. So embarrassed. But I couldn’t stop doing it the way I saw it. I pushed the canister down twice and then dumped the contents in the bowl. They were not chopped perfectly. Far from it. Half of them were mush and the other half were hardly chopped at all. But I kept doing it. And Joe kept trying to be helpful by suggesting ways to load the whites and how about we don’t use that thing at all and just do it the way we always do it? I finally told him that I dreamed about doing it this way and so I was trying it. I did two more whites and then realized it was not going to get any better and that I had to STOP. So I took a spoon and scraped out the mushy whites at the bottom. I turned to Joe and said, ‘You know what’s funny? What’s funny is that I thought doing something the way I dreamed it would be the right way to do it! I listened to something in my dreams!‘ And then I laughed. Hard. Manic. Harsh. And then I started bawling and it took everything I had to pull it together, not get tears or snot in the egg salad and keep making the sandwiches.

The kids were here for the weekend. Their dad went out of town and for some reason, they agreed to come over here instead of having someone in their dad’s family come up and stay with them at their home like they’ve done in the past. It was wonderful to have them here. Truly wonderful. And just around every corner I was about to lose it. I hope they didn’t know, but hell, I think it’s been established that my kids know much more than I give them credit for. It’s not at all impossible that they were very aware that mom was barely there some times. That mom’s face is red because she just got done crying in the bathroom. That mom is so busy in the kitchen because she has no idea what to say to anyone and sitting down for 2 minutes in the living room was just not in the realm of practical. That mom accidentally fell asleep on the couch in the afternoon and is sleeping in until 11am every morning because she is on new drugs that make her so, so tired.

I’m taking Invega for now. The Effexor, which was the sixth mood stabilizer I tried and the only one to work, and Wellbutrin, an antidepressant, are soon to follow. Do you know what Invega is? It’s for schizophrenia. It’s a paliperidone derivative and when the dose is halved, it’s supposedly good for Bipolar. It’s an anti-psychotic drug.

I’ve been diagnosed with Bipolar twice before and once I was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder. The former I never took seriously because the first time it was called Manic-Depressive Disorder and I knew I was not depressed all the time! So it could not be true! Oh, how much I sometimes miss my former mental health naiveté. The latter diagnosis scared the hell out of me and was given to me mere days before my first mental hospital stay. However, once I was diagnosed with DDNOS, there was no more reason to even look at that one because the dissociative disorder was well enough to keep everyone very, very busy.

Now I don’t even care. Honestly, who cares what the diagnosis is? I’m fucked up and always will be. The End. And that is what I have to accept. But I can’t.

The first night I took my new drugs was so hard. I thought about it all afternoon and evening and the closer it got to bedtime the more out of control I became. I couldn’t stop crying. I cleaned up dinner and bawled. I showered and bawled. I brushed my teeth and bawled. It would have been funny if it wasn’t so awful. And by the time I crawled in bed next to Joe I was a complete mess. I tried to tell him what was so awful about taking the new meds but I don’t think he could understand much of what I said between my gulps for air and wiping the snot off my face. And really, it’s not anything I can explain very well. It is just really, really hard. It represents the rest of my life. It says that I understand that there is no other way, that this is the ONLY WAY to get my brain under control. No amount of coping skills, positive talk, shaping my Universe, affirmations and prayer will change anything. This is it. This is me. This is the rest of my life and I don’t want to be here.

I was also crying because I was petrified. Anti-psychotics are well known for some really tantalizing side-effects like confusion, dizziness, weight gain and ticks/muscle spams, just to name a few. Being known as my kids’ crazy mom is one thing. Being known as their drooling, morbidly obese, dumb as a stick, spasmatic mom who is house-bound and afraid to drive in case she forgets how to get home is something else.

So far, I can tell I’m gaining weight around the middle. All my shirts are tight. I’m slightly dizzy most of the day and so, so tired. I get headaches about once per day. I see odd things out of the corner of my eyes. I’m absent minded and do things like load the coffee maker with the very last coffee in the house which I have just lovingly ground, turn it on and then forget to put the carafe under the spout. Guess what happens when you do that? You get an overflow and coffee grounds all over the counter, down the side of the oven where you can’t really reach and mud all over the floor. And no coffee that morning. I still cry. I still want to do a million things at once. Pretty much the only thing that has changed is that my mind races a little bit less and I’m too apathetic to kill myself. Or, too lazy because I can’t think of a good plan. (DO YOU HAVE A PLAN??) (That’s a joke for anyone who’s ever had suicidal ideation and talked to an authority figure.)

Wow, this post got really long.

Belinda’s husband Alex left a comment on my post on Real Mental the other night where I talked about getting back on drugs. Insights like his, from people who struggle with mental disorders, like all the good people that write me emails and send me letters and frequent Real Mental, are so inspiring. And I know at different times in my life I’ve given some not-too-horrible advice to people. But at the moment? I can’t find any of it. I can’t hear it. I can’t remember it. I feel frustrated and angry and like something was stolen from me. And I know what it was. It was the dream of being well. The story I told myself for so long where I was well, happy and a great mother to my kids. That has been irrevocably taken away from me and there is no way to get it back. All there is left is to accept it.

These past five years have been great and awful. Great because I had this dream to keep me alive and to work towards. It made everything hard worthwhile. I woke up telling myself how great it would be at some point in the future when the kids lived with me half the time or some of the time and how I would get to be their mom. I went to bed telling myself the same story. And every afternoon I told it again. And every hour in between. I feel like I should expound on this for a few more paragraphs just so it’s clear how much this was a part of my life. But, basically, that is all there is – I wanted to be a great mom. And the awful? well, the awful is, because that was my complete focus, I have nothing as a backup plan. My universe literally cracked in half and I don’t know what is next. And this is where the disordered thinking comes in – not only should I have had at least one back up plan, but I should have had some kind of maintenance program going with interval therapy going on and reality checks. But, I’ve been to so much therapy! I know what they’d say! I’ll just tell myself and it’s the same thing, right? Right?? Wrong. If you think you know everything, there is nothing left to learn and no one can tell you anything. If I had been on some kind of program, monthly, bi-monthly, hell, even quarterly and there would have been someone there to tell me WHAT IF then maybe I wouldn’t find myself in dire straits. And if I wouldn’t have taken off right after I was integrated and stayed with Dr. Clancy for a few more months like he wanted me to five years ago, maybe things would be different. Maybe, maybe, maybe. Or maybe things would be just the same. I’ve put off looking at this closely because it was easy to blame all this stuff on other things, like my thyroid. Avoidance and confusion.

I haven’t self-harmed in years. Since right before my last mental hospital stay. But it crosses my mind every five minutes. I won’t do it but it’s there. Instead of allowing myself to think of it, I obsess about getting a new tattoo. Where will I put it? What will it look like? Can I just cover up one that I have with a new design? What would that look like after? And then I draw it in my mind for hours.

I obsess about smoking again. About not smoking again. The last time I smoked was at a friend’s home during the summer and my kids saw and that was just a few days before my kids told me that they didn’t want to live with me ever. Never. What if that was the reason they don’t want to? What if I do smoke again and they say to themselves, yep! We knew it. Good thing we picked our dad. But I’ve got to keep my hands busy and I can make only so many hats before I have yarn coming out of my ears and I throw it at the wall and then can’t stop pacing like a caged animal that can’t get out. But, there is no where to go that is away from me.

The mania is so stealthy sometimes. I’ll be feeling so good, like I finally have it together for the morning and I can breathe a little easier and then I realize that I’ve been standing still, staring at the toothpaste in the little basket for who knows how long and wondering why it isn’t moved two inches to the left because THAT IS WHERE IT GOES. And if the toothpaste isn’t right, nothing can be right. And then when I get downstairs, there is a load of laundry from last night still in the washer. This of course means that Joe doesn’t love me because if he did love me, he would have moved it to the dryer so it didn’t go sour and then make me smell it when I go to check it. The sour actually assaults my nose and makes me cry. It’s that harsh to my nose. And it’s so awful, so HUGE that I can’t even think it or explain it. I just cry and then try to figure out how to make it through this god-awful day. Somewhere around lunchtime I’ve decided I have no friends. None. Not a single one. The people I know from high school are nice when I call them but let’s be honest, if I’m always the one calling them first to talk and catch up, if I’m always the one to make first contact and they never do, and they could just keep going years without hearing from me, then who’s friends with who? And who cares and who doesn’t? And why should I call them first anyhow? If they don’t care about me at all. And the same goes for anyone I’ve know in the past five years since I’ve been Healed (just thought I’d capitalize it now that I’m making fun of it) because none of them ever call me first. Why am I always making the extra effort to check in or stop in? Am I that needy? Why am I that needy? No one likes me. And by the time Joe gets home from work I’ve thought of about a million reasons why our relationship will never work out and how we should get divorced immediately and how I’m friendless and no one will ever consider me their best friend in the world. I might as well be dead. Now THAT is fun to come home to. Quite a treat.

A few weeks later, I’ll feel completely opposite. Everyone loves me, or would, if they knew me. I start awesome new projects like writing groups and reading groups and artist groups and mental health groups. Time sometimes eludes me. I’ll feel like it’s been 3 hours but it’s only been long enough for one song on the radio to finish. I’ve just thought of THAT MANY THINGS. Because I’m so awesome. See? Can’t you see how awesome I am? I could travel the world and interview everyone that interests me. I could go overseas and write a travel log. It would sell. Of course it would sell. Why wouldn’t it? I am AWESOME. Sadly, by the time some of the groups come around to needing me to actually do something like be in charge of a meeting, I’ve cycled back down to not feeling worthy of grime on the side of a quarter and I can’t function. I just can’t do it. Everyone will be looking at me and wanting me to say something. You know, because I am in charge.

Finding a job is never easy but in this new reality that I’m living in, I’m well aware that my options are limited. The regular 9-5 job does not work for me. In the years I’ve done it, it’s all I can do. I don’t do anything else besides commute, work and sleep because I can’t factor anything else into the equation. And then after about a year straight of it, I’m burned up and sick and have to quit. I can only ignore it for so long before it demands that I pay attention. And this sucks for many reasons, not the least of which is financial and probably making Joe feel alone and stressed and working 3 jobs so we can survive. I’ve written so much down in this blog over the years that any potential employer will find it and immediately throw my resume in the garbage. I couldn’t change that if I wanted to. But I don’t think I want to. I just have to have some kind of hope that a flexible position exists out there where I will fit in. Where I can make enough money to contribute to my well-being and take some weight off my partner. And if I can’t and that doesn’t happen, that is so unfair. And here we go on the downward slope again on the unfairness of life and how Joe is trapped and will never have a good life.

So, I don’t know how to answer all of your heartfelt questions. I’m fine? Maybe? But not really and never will be? But thanks for caring enough to send me your warm thoughts and wishes and I wish I was fine and could be different for you. And be the person you thought I was. But I’m not. And I don’t know how much I’ll be updating this blog for awhile still. It’s so hard to write the truth right now and I just can’t get into lying on purpose and saying I’m fine or alternately, revealing all the grisly details of the suckage. Instead, go here to see a photo of my bird, Bird, that Alison has made insanely, fiercely awesome to show the true spirit inside him.

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Before You Can Snap Your Fingers Twice

I’ll be taking a short break, friends. Don’t forget, LA Angst is on the 20th. Sign up to be a reader of just drop by. Don’t tell LA Bloggers Live!, but Angst is my favorite. I mean, I love Bloggers Live! almost as much, but with a gun to my head, I’d have to pick Angst. It’s just that great. LA Angst has been canceled for this month. I’ll let you know when it’s rescheduled.

You might find me over at RealMental.org. I’ll be putting up a few posts. The other writers over there make a visit worthwhile, though. They are pretty amazing. And maybe I’ll post at Schmutzie’s, if I can think of anything remotely engaging to say. I’m getting gaggy at the downer theme that’s been happening with all my writing, so we’ll have to wait and see if I can manage to think of anything else. And I’ll probably be Twittering. See? It’s like I’m not really gone at all.

In the meantime, know that I think you’re ACES and I love you like GANGBUSTERS. xo
p.s. have you listed your blog on BloggerNetwork yet?

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A Girl Can Only Do So Much

Last weekend I spent a lot of time thinking about what I want to spend my time doing, both employment wise, working for the man, yo, and also the rest of my time. If you know me at all, you know I like to start new projects. Sadly, I don’t have all the resources in my fingertips or in my brain to complete them all by myself. This can be a most frustrating fact sometimes. And other times, like this weekend, I think I would do myself a favor if I let some of them go and quit worrying about them and exerting mental energy towards them because DUDE they probably would have happened by now if they were going to happen.

This post marks the end of Project Cathartic, may you rest in peace. I’ve loved the idea of a place for artist to put their work and share the therapeutic process of creating them and maybe someday that will happen. But, for now, I’m letting it go.

Also, I’ve taken the t shirts down from Zazzle and Cafepress for a bit. I’ve been told they aren’t the best quality. I’m going to look into some other options and then bring them back. In the meantime, if you’ve bought one and are unsatisfied, email me and I’ll buy it back from you. Or, replace it for free when the new ones come out, up to you. Just let me know.

My religious study has been removed as well. And I’m also not working on the video interviews at this time. That one hurts me the most, because I have been so excited about saving the history of the internet though profiles and interviews, but without the support I need, I just can’t do it.

So, goodbye, you awesome and worthy projects. I hope to see you again someday and take you out for a soda. In the meantime, I’m ready to embrace what’s next.

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Slice Of Americana

The summer I was fifteen was the summer I wasn’t sure if I had a steady boyfriend or not. Teen communication being what it was, his ‘Well, have a good weekend. And summer. I’ll see you around.’ had left me problem solving our togetherness. Sure, I wanted to still be going out with him. He was two years older than me. What was not to like? But if I wasn’t, the summer might be more fun. I decided to just play it by ear.

One afternoon, I took my jean-squared blanket backed with flannel out onto the front lawn. Normally, if I was actually tanning, I would have laid out in the backyard on top of the flat, tarred carport cover. But, not today. I wasn’t actually trying to tan. I was trying to be seen.

I heard that my (still?)(ex?)boyfriend was driving around town, dragging main with some friends. I figured being on the front lawn drinking a 42 ounce Dr. Pepper with lemon and tons of ice, with tanning lotion all over every exposed part of my body, casually painting my toenails or reading a book would look completely normal and it gave me a great vantage point with which to watch for his car coming and going on my block.

I had the orange extension cord coming from under the ivy, which was long, full and very green early in the summer, before the hot end of July hit and made it turn slightly brown. On my boombox was the Top 40 countdown and Boys of Summer came on. I kid you not. It was the part of the show where they play what was hot last year or the year before that. And Don Henley’s voice, with the guitar echoing came out of my speakers right as my boyfriend’s car came around the corner and stopped in front of my house.

He was with a couple of his friends. All so very, very cool. He yelled a hello. I yelled a hello back. His friend punched him in the arm and then he yelled, ‘See you around!’ and they took off. I was underwhelmed. Seriously, after all the effort of getting everything outside and after trying on every item in my closet, picking the plaid shirt with the tiny red lines that I could tie at the waist to show just enough belly and finding the jean skirt that was just short enough to almost give my parents a heart attack but they would allow me to own and popping every zit on my forehead and then covering it up with foundation and applying 5 coats of mascara and heavy eyeliner on my inner lids and searching everywhere in the bathroom drawers for the banana clip that matched my shirt and two hours getting my bangs just right, it wasn’t much of a payback.

I sat there, legs stretched out, fresh pale pink polish named ‘Cotton Candy’ on my toes, musing how unfortunate my life was at the moment when a car stopped in front of the house. A boy from Australia got out, came over and asked me for directions to Denny’s Wigwam. He was cute. Very cute. But more than that, he had an accent. Holy crap, an accent from AUSTRALIA. Only the very best place in the entire world that I wanted to visit more than anything.

I told him how to get there and he thanked me. He started to pull away and then unrolled the window, leaned his head out and said, ‘You’re just about the cutest visual a guy could ask for on a summer afternoon. You’d make a great postcard.’ And then he smiled and drove away. Something about the way he said the word ‘visual’ kind of cracked my heart a little and it made all the effort worthwhile.

But that wasn’t even the best part of the day. No, the best part of the day was later, when I walked downtown with my friend and we strolled past Denny’s Wigwam about 8 times, asking each other important questions like I wonder if that cute boy is still in town? Why was he here in the first place? Who’s car had he been driving? What was his name? Was he really lost or did he just want to stop and talk to me because I was so cute? I relished every second of that evening, the possibilities that could have happened.

I didn’t run into him again. I’ll never know if he really stopped just to talk to me or if he was so blind that he couldn’t find the biggest landmark on the only main street right in the center of town. But I imagine he’ll always think that every small town American girl sat outside on a summer afternoon, painting her toenails on a blanket on the front lawn listening to Casey Kasem and America’s Top 40.

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Alison Is Back

Alison is here for a few weeks. She’s brought her husband with her this time. And her beading. And her humming. There are few things better than hearing her quietly hum or sing in the next room. Maybe her soup.

alison_beads1
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Get Out Of Debt Free Expensive Card

Joe and I have deemed this next 18 months or so our Get Out Of Debt season. We try not to be too hard on ourselves on how we’ve managed to get this way. We’ve both known that this moment would come, we’ve been anticipating it, but there wasn’t a lot we could do about accruing our debt, with the exception of not living where we live. Living near my ex so the kids have the ease of going to one home or the other has been the goal for 5 years. And we’ve done it. But we’ve paid a price to be sure. The trade off was slowly going into more debt a little at a time with occasional spurts of doing it fast when we ran into any issue outside of our very tight budget. Like a new tire for the car or a delayed paycheck.

There was a time a few years ago, when we even had to go to one of those short-loan places to pay the rent. You know the kind – where they charge you about 2745% interest for a week? We had to keep that going for a few months before we were able to break free, and man, that was a rough and expensive patch of time.

Because we’ve been careful to not get credit cards and max them out trying to stay afloat, it’s mostly family, friends and cars that we owe. Without family this past 2 years especially, we never would have made it. I don’t know what people do if they don’t have family. I suppose get into high credit card debt and then become homeless? So, things could be much worse and we’re thankful that they aren’t. But, they are bad enough for us both to be highly motivated to put every cent we can towards paying everything back and off as soon as possible.

I went over the numbers this past weekend and got very brave and actually figured out how much we’ve paid in overdraft fees to the bank in the past year. Add that amount to the money we paid the thieves that run the short-loans and you’ve got a number so high that it makes me want to throw up. It’s over 2k.

It’s expensive to not have enough money. If you have to make that payment so the electricity won’t get turned off and the bank allows it to go through, Thank God, but then charges you a fee for going under your actual balance, you just start accepting that it’s a part of the deal. You add an additional $30 dollars to anything going through that you figure the bank will cover, even though you know your don’t have that much. We got pretty good at identifying what the bank would accept and what they would turn away. Of course, you always run the risk of them turning everything away, which is within their right, and then you feel like an idiot and worse, have to pay additional fees if there was another bank involved and worst, let people down and tempt fraud charges if it happens too often.

WELL, we got tired of this game. And we’re on our way to being debt free. It feels great. It feels great to have a plan and know how to get there. But it’s only possible because we have enough income now. Six months ago, we didn’t and no matter how much we didn’t want to be in such bad shape, there was nothing to be done about it except move to Alabama or somewhere else where the cost of living was low. Which wasn’t something we were willing to do.

I swear it costs a lot to be broke. You miss out on cash-only incentives and lower prices and interest rates on loans. You are forced to take what you can get because you feel so desperate and just want to be able to eat next week. We held many a garage sale on a desperate Saturday.

We’re very thankful. Things are looking up. And it would be even more awesome if I started bringing in more regular money. Hello? Universe?

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Unfinished

I’ve started and never finished a ton of posts. They sit here in my drafts, lonely. Some of them look so familiar, I swear I’ve completed them already. I used to see them every time I started a new one, but at some point, not sure when, I stopped seeing them. They don’t exist to my every-day-eye. They are destined to live a sad, lonely and unwritten life. And there are some good ones, too!

I’ll list a few of them, including the contents of the unwritten post, which I suppose are hints as to what I was going to say about the subject. Although, some are just too cryptic for me to figure out.

Mad Lib
remove the words

top 10 my space
oh, sorry. i thought you were just doing myspace
i dont even have a myspace.
well, if you didm youd be in my top 10!

Mother’s Day
Last Mother’s Day (notice that date is 2005. 2 years ago, people.)

Drivers License
https://leahblooms.com/blog/images/drl.jpg

Post # 742
bees out around the car.
we had a pool.

And my favorite:

??
sticks

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Phew

Quite a week, duckies. Quite a week. Not a lot to say about it, as it’s too fresh and raw but perhaps soon.

Last weekend in Santa Barbara, my sister and I had a couple of great conversations about God. If you recall, I was worried about telling her how much my idea of a higher power differed from hers. Religion being what it is in my family, my fears weren’t unfounded. However, we had no problem understanding each other and really, at the base, our beliefs are quite similar. It’s just when you get to the organized religion part that we really start to differ. I have a huge issue with the Joseph Smith story and depending on others for the power of the priesthood. I have huge issues with Jesus Christ dying for my sins when I had no say in the matter and being indebted to him for eternity because it makes so much more sense to me if we are all accountable for our own sins and not laying them at the feet of someone else. I don’t believe it’s possible.

However, I do believe in spiritual power and I feel it all the time. I felt it in the Mormon church and I’ve felt it at the Catholic church and outside in nature and at home. I also believe in the principle of supporting the needy with our own resources. I have no doubt that parts of every religion have some good and I firmly believe that not any of them hold the one and only sure way to heaven.

I believe you can be a good person, a great person and not believe in any specific higher power. I’ve met many. The argument that you must be a Christan or God-Fearing person to be a good person makes no sense to me. Living a life of fear and doing things because you are afraid or storing up blessings in the afterlife does not make you a good person. I believe you really have to do things because you love. Love for yourself. Love for others. Being kind and loving is not the same thing as being a Christian, although they can both reside in the same person and do often.

I believe it doesn’t matter which religion you belong to or if you belong to one at all. Every single one thinks they are right, clear down to their bones and with equal passion. If you are a Catholic and join another church, your family will be praying for your eternal salvation until you come back into the fold. They will mourn your apostasy and pray to their version of God to save you and bring you back. The same for the Mormons. The same for them all.

When I see an organized religion that says, with all honesty, they don’t care if you join them or not and they think it doesn’t matter which one you belong to and they are there mostly for community reasons of support and not because of some special keys or promises or other thing that only they have, then I might think about joining them. But only because it’s nice to be around people sometimes and I could use the friends. I won’t be there because I think they hold all the answers.

I have no idea if there is an afterlife and I don’t care. I tend to think there is something but I have no issue with not understanding it right now. Why would I want to? I’ve got all I can handle in the present. It’s enough to feel the loving energy surrounding me and the knowledge that I’m not alone. I’m held up with light anytime I need it or ask for it. I know I’m loved just like every other being on the planet is loved.

I know my life is being guided just like everyone else’s is. I know things happen and my job is to adjust to those things, embrace them, accept them and learn from them. And all that can sometimes be hard but it’s always worth it and it helps if you can keep your sense of humor. I believe that sometimes hard or terrible things happen and it has nothing to do with what I did or didn’t do. The Universe unfolds as it is supposed to and all my hemming, hawing, praying, wailing, praising and praying won’t change it a darn bit. And that’s alright, too. But the more I accept things as they really are and accept reality instead of trying to make reality be what I want it to be, the happier and more peaceful I am. And also? It’s fine if you believe something different and maybe even awesome if you do, because that will give us a chance to talk about how we both feel and explore new ideas and learn new things and love the differences in each other.

Though this exploration, I’ve found that I can spot in an instant when other people start telling me what I believe based on their understanding of their own truth. When they start in with the intent to change my mind, I know that they aren’t really listening and everything they are saying is all about them. A reflection of how closely they must cling to their truths. It’s how THEY are inside. It’s their own fears about someone believing differently.

But when someone is truly trying to understand and they are listening with their hearts more than telling me, with their knowledge, why I’m wrong, we get on quite well. Next up – world peace.

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RealMental.org

For a very long time, I’ve wanted a place on the internet where I could talk about mental health issues with other people in an open and loving manner. I kept looking even though I couldn’t find it. My blog has served somewhat for this, but I talk about so many other things in here, that it’s just not quite the same thing.

At Blogher, Jess and I started talking about a ‘project’ together. Something online. Somewhere we could talk about parenting issues and mental health issues and somewhere around the third time she said, ‘Leah? So, are you ready to do this?‘, I realized, Holy Cow. This is the place I’ve been looking for, only I’m going to be creating it instead of finding it.

RealMental.org is a home of sorts. It’s a place where everyone is welcome who wishes to explore what it means to have a mental disorder, be in a relationship with someone who has a mental disorder and all the other things that go along with that including medication, depression and self-help techniques. My greatest hope is to break down barriers and remove the stigma attached to the words Mental Illness, because they are just words. And it’s real people living those things and trying to cope with those things and it’s hard and they (and I) just want others to understand and not judge.

If you are someone who has something to share and no place to put it, please consider our RealMental home your home as well. Email me and we’ll talk.

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Shoes

I seem to frequently wear the wrong shoes. I’ve done it time and time again. You’d think I’d learn, but out of the 40 pairs I own, and of the four I can find, only 2 are comfortable enough to wear for any length of time without blistering and one of those is a pair of tennis shoes. So, why do I keep grabbing the wrong pair? Why??

A few weekends ago I went down to San Diego to see friends. I hugged my hellos to Margot and she exclaimed on how cute my shoes were. The cuteness factor is in direct proportion to how much they will hurt later. I guess the only thing to figure out is how long you have before your toes are curling and bloody. Someone should come up with a formula. Anyway, we were walking into the closest furniture store and I had just got done telling Margot about how amazing it was that my shoes didn’t hurt at all and how wonderful it was to wear shoes that didn’t hurt my feet that were ALSO CUTE and she said something about how that was so nice because she had a very similar pair to the ones currently on my feet that she could only wear for an hour or so with limited actual walking before they hurt her very much, and then it happened. It was like someone turned the switch to PAIN and my feet started hurting. Besides embarrassing, because of my most recent platitudes, it was painful and required an extra trip to her house so I could swap the cute shoes for my flip flops.

And this is just one incident of many. Too many to tell. But I’ll tell you one more. Over the weekend I wore my flip flops for an extended amount of time while we walked all downtown Santa Barbara, all the while pinching my big toe and the one next to it in a very particular fashion to keep my shoe on my foot as we walked. I didn’t notice until we were about a half mile away from home how much my ankle hurt. I started paying attention, as I walked, to the particular pinching of the toes thing and how it was hurting my ankle but even as I concentrated, I couldn’t stop. I just forged on and kept walking and wincing. The next morning, my right ankle was swollen and had a lovely shade of blue going on the outer side.

All day Saturday I reaped the fruits of my labor and wore a pair of tennis shoes that look like this. Good thing I didn’t waste time and money on a pedicure that no one would see. I wore them to the beach. No sand between my toes except the sand that made it inside my shoe, inside my sock and exfoliated the tender skin in between my toes as I walked home.

I seriously only wear four pairs of shoes. My tennis shoes, one nice pair of black pumps for skirts, my well-worn flip flops and the cute shoes that hate me. I used to wear an awesome pair of green and black checked Vans but I stepped in gum and couldn’t get it off the side so I don’t wear them anymore. But I haven’t thrown them away, either, even though I know I won’t wear them. I haven’t even been able to find the huge box of shoes that my daughter packed for me when I moved. It’s somewhere in the garage hiding under other items I don’t use. An entire box, 4-feet high, full of shoes I’m not wearing. I don’t even miss them because if I did have them out and in my closet, I’d just do what I used to do – try them on, decide they are cute, walk around the room a few times looking for my wallet and my necklace and then take them off before I even go downstairs because they already hurt, replacing them with my flip flops or my tennis shoes.

Someday, when I finally find that box and give those shoes to Goodwill, I’m going to make a person with size 10 in women’s shoes very happy. But their toes will hurt and they will have blisters.

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And Then What?

Every morning I wake up, look myself straight in the mirror and tell myself in no uncertain terms that today, TODAY, I’m going to just keep going and keep doing and not spend a bunch of time getting lost in my head and crying about things I can’t control.

Every morning I tell myself this and every day for the past week or so it makes no difference. I cry on and off anyway. Turns out I’m not that great at lying to myself on purpose, only inadvertently.

Is it lying? When you don’t look or recognize the truth? When I made the decision to leave my first husband, it was the scariest thing I’d ever done in my life thus far. I knew it meant leaving my children but I thought it was just for awhile. I told myself that going away for a time, getting well and then coming back and being able to be a mom was the right choice. I was wrong about the consequences of that decision when it came to my kids. I severely underestimated the impact it would have on the dynamics of our relationships. Of course, I didn’t know any better. I made a choice that saved my life and made it possible to be their mom at all. And that same choice pretty much ensured that I would never be their mom, in the sense that I longed for and made the choice for in the first place.

It’s like the worst case of ironic turn of play ever and I still haven’t quite come to terms with it. I expect my face will be blotchy and my eyes will be swollen when I wake up for the next few weeks like they have been for the past few weeks. I’m in mourning for this thing, this Mom, this idea of what it would be like that will not ever come to pass. By the time my children are old enough to make decisions about how they want our relationship to be, it will be something new and not what I imagined. It will be fine. It will be perfect and just how it should be. Just not what I was hoping, planning and working for.

I’ve missed out on so much of their young lives and I’m going to miss out on much of their teen lives. Here’s hoping I get to be included in more of their adult lives.