Archive for October, 2008
Another Update
Hello bloggy buddies! I haven’t been blogging yet again, but I do have an excuse! I’m addicted to Facebook where I’ve not only reconnected with some long lost friends, I’ve become quite a successful fake farmer.
It takes a considerable amount of time to fake farm and earn my fake Facebook money. Hey, you gotta do what you gotta do. It’s keeping me sane.
Speaking of “gotta do”, three days after my last post, my daughter ended up hospitalized again. Not that she needed to be hospitalized, in my opinion, but her therapist (who I’ve been wanting to fire for months, but was afraid to) went overboard, crossed not only professional, but personal lines and put my daughter back in the hospital.
When a therapist does something this, you have no choice but to comply.
She is coming home later today. We’ve found a new therapist for her and this one seems to have a treatment plan that’s positive, unlike the other one who felt the situation was “hopeless”.
Ridiculous! Which… is also another reason that I haven’t been blogging. I’ve spent a considerable amount of time in my catboots kicking ass and attempting to eliminate too many cooks in the “treatment team”.
The irony of the “treatment team” is that there seems to be a serious lack of communication between the members. Considering that all of these people are therapists of one sort or another, it just floors me.
One says one thing and then someone does something else or forgets to do something or is too lazy to do something and my kid gets stuck in the middle.
I will be fixing that. One way or another.
Back to blogging soon, bloggy friends! Thank you all so much for your words, prayers, gifts and friendship!
Update
I haven’t been blogging because I’ve been superbusy Catbooting people, but I just wanted to leave an update. My daughter came home from the hospital yesterday and so far, so good!
Thank you all for your notes, thoughts, prayers and good wishes. They are appreciated. I’ll be back to blogging real soon!
Chaos and Disorder (Thursday Thirteen #40)
Since it has stormed into my front door, I’ve been on a mission to raise mental health awareness. October 5-11, 2008 is National Mental Health Awareness Week and today, specifically is Bipolar Disorder Awareness Day.
Bipolar Disorder, along with the following disorders, can cause chaos and disorder not only in the lives of those that have them, but as well as in those that love them. Formerly called Manic Depression, Bipolar Disorder affects more than two million Americans, and both adults and children can be affected. People who have this illness experience extreme mood swings varying between mania and depression. It is a very serious illness and can cause risky behavior and even suicidal tendencies.
My friend Damien Riley, author of Postcards From The Funny Farm, has written a top notch series of articles about Bipolar Disorder. You can read them here.
I invite you to join me in walking across blogs all across America in order to raise awareness for mental illnesses. Please just take this button and link back it back to my Walk This Way post. The more people that know what these things are about, the less stigmas there will be and more people will seek help.
Today is Thursday Thirteen….and here’s mine!
| Thirteen CATEGORIES OF MENTAL HEALTH DISORDERS
1. Psychotic Disorders. The major symptom is psychosis or delusions and hallucinations. 2. Mood Disorders. The primary symptom is a disturbance in mood and having inappropriate, exaggerated and an extreme level to your feelings. 3. Anxiety Disorders feature abnormal or inappropriate levels of anxiety. 4. Somatoform Disorders include those where symptoms suggest a medical condition, but no medical condition can be found by doctors. 5. Dissociative Disorders involve a disruption in consciousness, memory, identity or perception. 6. Sexual Disorders, Paraphilias have distressing and repetitive sexual fantasies, urges and behaviors. 7.Sexual Disorders, Sexual Dysfunctions cause an impairment in normal sexual functioning and include Dyspareunia, Female Orgasmic Disorder, Female Sexual Arousal Disorder, Gender Identity Disorder, Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder, Male Erectile Disorder, Male Orgasmic Disorder, Premature Ejaculation, Sexual Aversion Disorder, Vaginismus. 8. Eating Disorders are characterized by disturbances in eating behavior. The disorders in this category and Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia Nervosa. 9. Sleep Disorders, Dyssomnias relate to the amount quality and timing of sleep and include Primary Insomnia, Primary Hypersomnia and Narcolepsy. 10. Sleep Disorders, Parasomnias are classified by abnormal behavior or physiological evens that occur during the sleep process. Such disorders include Nightmare Disorder, Sleep Terror Disorder and Sleepwalking Disorder. 11. Adjustment Disorders are when someone has a difficult adjustment to a life situation than normally would be expected considering the circumstances. There are many types of Adjustment Disorders combined with Anxiety, Depressed Mood or a combination of the two. 12. Impulse Control Disorders are characterized by the failure or extreme difficulty in controlling impulses despite negative consequences. 13. Personality Disorders involve thoughts, emotions, interpersonal functioning and impulse control. Some examples are Antisocial Personality Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder and Narcissistic Personality Disorder. |
Whatever the disorder, putting an end to its’ chaos isn’t all that likely without the proper treatment and/or medications. If you or someone you love is struggling with any of these disorders, there is help, and hope, out there. We’re learning that firsthand in my house.
Be sure to check out my related posts this week: Rainy Days and Mondays, While Shivering In My Shoes and Walk This Way.
When Irish Eyes Are Smiling
Sure, ’tis like the morn in Spring.
In the lilt of Irish laughter
You can hear the angels sing.
You, too, can hear some angels sing! Shelly over at This Eclectic Life is having a contest and wow, it just tickles my blarney stone!
She is giving away FOUR pairs of tickets to see Celtic Thunder at a concert of your choice between October 23rd through December 2008. They will be performing all over the country so there’s a good chance there’s a show near you! I was planning on going to see them anyway, but pass up a chance to win tickets? No way! I’m in!
In case you don’t know who they are:
Celtic Thunder is a new group and concert special featuring five Celtic male vocalists: Paul Byrom (age 28, Dublin, Ireland), George Donaldson (age 39, Glasgow, Scotland), Keith Harkin (age 20, Derry, Northern Ireland), Ryan Kelly (age 28, Moy in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland) and Damian McGinty (age 14, Derry, Northern Ireland). From rousing ensemble numbers to solos showcasing each members’ vocal style and personality, Celtic Thunder performs powerful ballads, popular hits, and heartwarming songs of love and loss from across the Celtic music spectrum—Irish, Scottish, traditional and contemporary.
I’ve chosen to share this a cappella version of “Danny Boy” they performed at New York City’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade. I’m crazy about a cappella singing and one of my favorite songs ever is “Danny Boy”. Put them together and, for me, it’s hard combo to beat. These guys have my Irish eyes a-smilin’!
Don’t wait! Head over to Shelly’s contest right now for your chance to win a set of tickets to see Celtic Thunder when they come to your area and get you’re Irish eyes smiling, too!
While Shivering In My Shoes
Today I’m going to continue my series of articles spreading the word about National Mental Illness Awareness Week. Yesterday, I talked about depression and invited you to join my “Walk This Way” campaign. There is nothing funny at all about depression, but you might get a chuckle or two out of this article.
Now we’re going to talk about anxiety. Shivering in your shoes anxiety. One that no pose around in existence is going to convince anyone that you’re not afraid.
Anxiety disorders affect approximately 40 million adults in this country and are highly treatable, yet something like only 33% of people seek treatment for them. Many people mistake the physical symptoms of anxiety for something else and of course, there’s the worry about what people will think. (Who are these thinking people anyway? Pffffffft.)
It can be embarrassing to admit to someone that the sight of a cotton ball will send you swooning, weak in the knees nauseous and willing to risk life and/or limb to escape the sight of it. But, there you go, I just did it, so now you have no excuse. I know it seems amusing, but once, while going to Parent Teacher conferences at my kids’ school, I walked into a hallway where the kids’ latest art projects were being displayed. They had drawn eskimos and had outlined the hoods of the parkas in…cotton balls. Shiver me timbers, there was no striking a careless pose that time. I fled, screaming and when I told the teacher why I had to miss the conference, she laughed uncontrollably.
It is kinda funny, I guess. I know it’s silly, but I can’t help it. It’s a true, honest to goodness, phobia. And in case you were wondering, no I don’t like cotton candy or insulation, either.
Anxiety disorders are categorized as follows:
Generalized Anxiety Disorder which is characterized by excessive and unrealistic worry that lasts for a considerable length of time. Or, in my case, like 40 years 
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder which causes persistent, obsessive thoughts that often lead to its sufferers performing rituals or routines over and over.
Panic Disorder characterized by severe, well, attacks of panic. These need no explanation for anyone plagued by them. If you haven’t ever had one, be glad.
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder usually follows an extremely traumatic event, like a sexual assault, witnessing a murder, natural disaster or war. It doesn’t have to be these things, though, it just has to be traumatic to you. Being kissed on the lips by a Santa Claus with a beard made of cotton balls for me, was a traumatic event, but that one’s not included on any of the lists I’ve read. To each his own.
Social Anxiety Disorder is also known as social phobia and is characterized by an extreme fear of being judged by others or doing something that would cause you embarrassment.
Specific Phobias are an intense fear to a specific object or situation. Some, like heights, do seem to be more logical than perhaps my fear of cotton balls. There was a waitress on Maury Povich once who was afraid of lettuce. The sufferers of phobias realize that their fear is completely irrational, but have no control over the way their mind reacts to the object. This fear kept me out of pharmacy school. Seriously. How would I open the medicine bottles?
These disorders can cause a whole slew of physical symptoms that are sometimes mistaken for other illnesses. Anxiety disorders are highly treatable through different types of therapy like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, for example and the use of medications.
Anxiety and depression, more often than not, go hand in hand. Most people who have symptoms of one, will also have symptoms of the other. Anxiety disorders also seem to coexist with bipolar disorder, sleep disorders, eating disorders and alcohol and drug abuse.
So what’s a person to do if you have one of more of these anxiety disorders? See a therapist. Whether or not you require medication depending on the severity of your symptoms and the effect on your quality of life because of these disorders, the therapists can teach you some incredible relaxation and breathing techniques that can stop some of these things in their tracks with a little practice.
While you’re waiting for your appointment, just be glad you’re not that waitress
Related posts: Walk This Way, Rainy Days and Mondays
Walk This Way
In celebration of Mental Illness Awareness Week, I’ve decided to do a little “Hands Across America” thing here. (do you all remember that? It was awesome!) Best of all, I won’t even charge you $10.00 to participate like they did.
We will be spreading the following message:
As much as the evil depression monster would like to convince people that they are alone, they aren’t.
The Rock Chick is inviting you (yes, you!) to join hands with me and walk this way! Let’s walk our way onto blogs across America to get the message out to that people who are suffering, that they are not alone. Hopefully, the message will help people get the help they need and finally put an end to the unfortunate stigmas involved with any mental illness.
I have already grabbed Shelly’s hand, so I need someone to grab onto her other hand. I would do it, but I need to carry the big stick I’ve sharpened to poke the monster in the eye. When it’s blinded, we can collectively Catboot the beast.
What? Don’t have your own Catboots? No worries, you can borrow a pair of mine. No blog? That’s ok, too, but you should really get one! Just leave a comment with your name or your nickname.
So, come on now! Add your name/nickname to the comments section to grab hands and then take the little graphic and post it on your blog sending people back here to grab someone else’s hand. Let’s see how far we can walk together in spreading the message on blogs across America (or the world!!)
Jessica The Rock Chick has grabbed Shelly’s hand. Who else next? Keep checking back here to see how far we’ve walked!
Deborah s-a grabbed Shelly’s hand! And now Kentucky Gal grabbed Deborah’s! And now Dustin has grabbed Kentucky Gal’s Hand! Woo Hoo! Jen grabbed Dustin’s hand! Crystal jumped in to grab Dustin’s hand!
Related Mental Illness Awareness Week posts: Rainy Days and Mondays
Rainy Days and Mondays
What I’ve got they used to call the blues
Nothin’ is really wrong
Feelin’ like I don’t belong
Walkin’ around
Some kind of lonely clown
Karen Carpenter sang how Rainy Days and Mondays always got her down. As we are all sadly aware, Karen’s “blues” were far more serious than simply bemoaning a day of crappy weather or that Monday morning chaotic feeling we sometimes experience at the start of a work week.
Something was really wrong with Karen Carpenter, even if she articulated it as “nothin’”.
Karen Carpenter is singing about depression. Karen passed away on February 4, 1983 from complications due to her struggle with anorexia nervosa, a relatively little understood illness at the time of which depression is a strong underlying component.
It is now 2008. It’s twenty-five years later and tremendous progress has been made in the understanding and treatment of many mental illnesses, depression included, and yet so many myths about depression are still in existence. The problem with these myths is that they imply that somehow depressed people are just whiny or worse, weak and that prevents people from seeking treatment.
Depression is not a weakness. It is a serious medical illness that can happen to anybody and it can be treated.
Talkin’ to myself and feelin’ old
Sometimes I’d like to quit
Nothing ever seems to fit
Hangin’ around
Nothing to do but frown
It’s hard to imagine the depths of sadness, hopelessness and despair that accompanies depression if you have been fortunate enough not to have experienced it. It rips you of your personality, it strips you of enjoying anything and it fills your mind with desperate, terrible and horrifying thoughts.
It’s feeling stuck in a deep hole with no way out and not having enough energy to get out even if someone tossed a ladder down to you. It’s a feeling of hopelessness that just voids you of everything that you were, are or had ever hoped to be.
As if being stuck in a hole alone isn’t bad enough, just to torture you further, there’s a window in this hole. A window where you can watch everyone going about their lives seemingly unaware and uncaring of the pain you are experiencing. Seeing people laughing and smiling and going about their day with other people will make you weep, triggering a sense of loneliness and isolation that is indescribable. Everything, even good things, somehow manage to trigger and tangle themselves around the worst of memories. The monster has taken over.
It is ugly, it is painful and it can totally be treated.
Common depression symptoms include:
• Persistent sad, anxious or “empty” feelings
• Feelings of hopelessness and/or pessimism
• Feelings of guilt, worthlessness and/or helplessness
• Irritability, restlessness
• Loss of interest in activities or hobbies once pleasurable, including sex
• Fatigue and decreased energy
• Difficulty concentrating, remembering details and making decisions
• Insomnia, early–morning wakefulness, or excessive sleeping
• Overeating, or appetite loss
• Thoughts of suicide, suicide attempts
• Persistent aches or pains, headaches, cramps or digestive problems that do not ease even with treatment
If you or someone you love is dealing with the above symptoms, get help. Call the doctor and get an appointment to discuss options including therapy and/or medication if necessary.
If you (or someone) is feeling suicidal, get help immediately. Get to the emergency room, call 911 or call 1-800-SUICIDE, where live counselors are available 24/7 to help those in immediate distress.
There is hope and there are people who care. Don’t surrender to the depression monster. Gather up every bit of strength you have left and start kicking it in the ass. You can win. I did it, I’ve known a lot of people who’ve done it and you can, too.
October 5-11 is National Mental Illness Awareness Week. I am hoping that by getting personal stories and information out there, people will see that mental illness is not something to feel shameful, hopeless, embarrassed about and to seek the help that they need. I am welcoming guest bloggers ,so if you’d like to contribute a post or have me link to a post you’ve already written, please just let me know.
Things That Make You Go
HMMMMMMMM. I don’t normally write random posts, but for some reason, I’m feeling compelled.
My daughters went to Homecoming on Saturday and they looked absolutely gorgeous. Stunning! I would happily show you just how gorgeous they looked, except that the pictures I took didn’t seem to write to the card in my camera. You know, it’s bad enough that my external hard drive failed and I lost all my previous pictures, but now I can’t seem to take new ones either. Grrrrrrrr…..
I’m probably the last person on the planet to join Facebook and at first, I truly thought it was just plain dumb, but the more I play with it and find people I know or used to know, I find I’m really enjoying it. I’m still not getting the “poke” or throw gummy bear feature, but I’m confident I will figure it out.
I took a quiz (several, actually) on Facebook and one said in a former life. I was Pablo Picasso. In this life you continue to be revolutionary, stubborn, an active lover, enjoy breaking the rules, and you react poorly to heartbreak, apparantly, just like Pablo. I’m not really a rule breaker, but the rest is acceptable!
I had to go the laundromat today because my wash machine broke. Sigh. It’s flashing some secret code that’s informing us it can’t drain. I’m sure the expensive repairman will be able to straighten it all out for me when he comes on Tuesday. Whatever! I hate doing laundry at home, but I discovered that I really like going to the laundromat. Weird, right?
I replaced my son’s cell phone today. His old one is in his school soaking in asbestos tainted water along with our acoustic guitar and his backpack containing all of his school books! We had some bad storms here during Hurricane Ike causing massive amounts of flooding. I don’t know where the asbestos came from, but he’s been going to school in a trailer at an elementary school in our district and it will take months to re-open his school. Lovely.
I went to physical therapy for my jaw hoping that it would get better. With all the exercises, my jaw is moving better. What I didn’t expect, though, would be that my neck and back would go into spasms. Yeah, not what I wanted. It’s much easier to function with a sore jaw than a back spasm.
My daughter made a family tree for her German class. She was supposed to use real names of her family members, but instead of pictures of the actual people, they were to use pictures of celebrities. (no idea why). She picked Denise Richards to represent me.
Denise Richards? She reproduced with Charlie Sheen (I’m sorry, I have to question the judgement of anyone even willing to sleep with Charlie Sheen, let alone reproduce with him), and then she dated Richie Sambora, her best friend Heather Locklear’s HUSBAND. Skank ho. (my opinion, of course)
“I don’t want to be Denise Richards”, I said, “Why would you pick her to be me?”
“’Cause she’s cute.” Answered my darling daughter.
Compliment accepted 
I decided to quit while I was ahead.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
We The People
In my previous post, I was (rather sappily) reminiscing about high school. I loved the free-spirited, albeit self-centered, teenage years and I wouldn’t change my experiences for anything. Well, ok, I do wish I had had a better car than a rust bucket 1974 Ford LTD that refused to start when it rained, but it’s always good to want for the better. It keeps things moving forward.
During that time period, I also had the privilege to sit in the classroom of someone who I consider to be one of the greatest teacher’s ever. I’ve never encountered another like him. His name was Dr. Paul Carlson and he taught US History and Government. He recently passed away after teaching for 50 years at the same school from which he himself graduated. He was brilliant, dedicated and unlike anyone I’ve met before and he kicked Hillary Rodham (future Clinton) out of class once. True story. Why? I don’t know, but the man had the patience of a saint, so she musta done somethin’. Just my opinion, of course.
Dr. Carlson adored baseball, treasured every single one of his students (to the point that at our 20th reunion, he not only remembered mine and everyone else’s name, he told me where I sat in his classroom), and he revered United States History and Government.
To say his teaching style was a gift would be to understate it. He had one that broke right through the self-centered/day to day/ who cares/ this is boring mentality of the typical adolescent. He got through and what he taught has stuck with me (and I’m sure the thousands of other students fortunate enough to have learned from him) for life.
Why do I bring this up now? Well, I was feeling a little sentimental yesterday at Homecoming and I had just commented on my friend Damien’s blog about the importance of good teachers. Also the other day, I was snooping around the neighborhood in search of two double compound leaves for my daughter (that’s another story) while wearing my Barack Obama button, and one of the Desperate Housewives spotted me and my button and told me that she doesn’t vote.
“Why don’t you vote”? I asked. Are you a convicted felon and forbidden to do so? It’s always raining too hard on election day? You hate standing in line to wait your turn? Too busy mini-vanning the kids around? Can’t figure out how to completely punch a chad?
Why wouldn’t an American citizen who has the privilege of voting, not do so and on purpose, nonetheless?
She said she would vote for Obama, but since her husband is going to vote for John McCain, it would just cancel her vote out anyway, so why bother?
I was floored. Why bother participating in something that is a cornerstone of freedom, liberty and democracy? Hmmm…..Geeee……yeah, that’s a stumper, indeedy doo!
First of all, no one’s vote “cancels out” your vote. Your vote counts toward obtaining a majority. It’s teamwork, but there’s no way to truly know what the majority of the team believes and wants if the individual players don’t speak.
Secondly, if that’s what you are worried about, inaction is certainly not the answer. If you, like my neighbor, believe in one candidate and you (and everyone else who thinks this way) don’t vote for him, how is he going to get a majority of the votes? The inaction of not voting has just given her husband’s vote, (a vote she doesn’t agree with and may indeed be the minority opinion), more strength because now that candidate is one step closer to majority.
The United States is republic. We elect people to speak for the individuals. But, if individuals don’t vote, how are the people elected going to be representing the majority of the people?
I found this statement in someone’s comment section, written before the 2004 election:
Last time around, everything came down to Florida, where Bush’s official margin was 537 votes. If any one of Florida’s 6 million voters had stayed home, Bush’s margin would have been 536 or 538 votes, and he’d still have won. Even if you voted in the most hotly disputed state in the mostly hotly disputed election in American history, your vote did not change the outcome.The writer then compares the chances of your vote “counting” similar to winning the lottery or being murdered by your mother. Well, good or bad, we all know those things happen, right?
The Rock Chick votes on this opinion: ridiculous and shallow. Yes, if one voter stayed home, it would have been 536. But what if those 537 people, or the millions of other individuals who did vote and let themselves be heard, all decided to stay home because they believed their vote didn’t count?
In case you’ve never seen Schoolhouse Rock, The Preamble to the Constitution of the United States of America goes like this:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
I know it’s a lot of words, ideas and goals in one little paragraph, but there are three words that are more important than any of the others.
We The People.
Three little words that mean that the people were creating this Constitution, this government, this set of ideals and beliefs. The United States of America. It is not handed down by God, kings or tyrants. It is ours. It belongs to each and every one of us. The people.
I know at the time of the writing there’s a lot of people that weren’t considered “people” in the minds of our founding fathers and I’m not even going there. You know it and I know it and one day, I truly hope that there is a time in this country where the words of Martin Luther King, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character” will not only ring with absolute truth, but our posterity, our future will even wonder how mankind could have so been so shallow to require anyone to make a statement as powerful as that in the first place.
The point I want to make about the words is that the beauty of the words in The Preamble to The Constitution is that they go and grow with us, through incredible shallowness and stupidity but also in moments of great triumph and inspiration.
How can we strive toward a consistently more perfect union if we the people do not participate in voting?
At VoteForChange.com, you can register to vote, request to vote absentee and/or check your voting status and locate your polling location. The site is paid for by Barack Obama, and while I’m not denying that I think he is the best candidate, I’m not telling you to vote for him, if that’s not what you believe. I’m just telling you to vote.
Your opinion doesn’t have to be the same as mine. You are entitled to your opinion and, through voting, you are given a way to express that opinion and that, my people, is truly awesome.
Thank you, Dr. Carlson for sharing your wisdom with me. This Senator is indeed not only proud to be an American, but also grateful to understand what it is to be one, thanks to you. And yes, I’m still singing along. Always.
