Here it is...

My heart is still so sad. I tend to be a very sensitive person. I take things that happen very much to heart even if they don't happen to me directly. I hurt when other people hurt and cry when other people cry. The latest events in our somewhat tragic-ridden recent history in the US has left me bewildered.

I work with kids. I work with teachers and I am a school psychologist. To actually be able to put myself in the shoes of the people who were murdered this past Friday has been very disturbing to me. I try not to think about the possibilities, the risks I suppose, of working in a helping position. There have been school shootings in the past and those events have always made me have that dark little worry in the back of my mind. But since Friday it's been at the forefront. I find myself constantly looking around me, jumping at loud noises, keeping a watchful eye on those I am not familiar with, hugging kids a little tighter, and making sure I tell them just how wonderful and special they are. I do love them. I go home and worry about them, I cry if they are sad, and I try to make them smile. I love my students, each and every one of them even if I don't know them well. They are each an individual wonderful human being and I just adore their existence.

 I can't even comprehend what darkness a person must find themselves in to create such a devastation in so many lives like the young man who murdered those innocent people on Dec. 14th. But in a way I am also very sad for him. He must have been so troubled and in such a dark place to have found himself in a mindset to commit such an atrocity. He maybe could have been helped...this could have possibly been prevented. Mental health illnesses are very serious and despite what many people might think, a person cannot just get over it. It consumes you. It becomes you.

The whole thing is just overwhelmingly sad. Sad is not even an appropriate term...but as I find myself once again wrapped in the emotion of it all I am without words.

Today was better than yesterday and still better than the day before...in time we will all get on and I hope with all my heart that something will change in this country for the better. It's just a terrible thing that change had to happen this way.

It Gets Better, Be the Warrior

There was a time in my life where I was in a very dark place. I don't remember exactly how old I was, around 14 to 16. I don't remember even what specific event exactly brought me to this moment. It was a culmination of many events...bringing me to this edge. So much pain...for far too long...helplessness overwhelming. I didn't feel loved by my step-dad or my bio-dad. My step-dad tore me down all the time. Nothing I did was ever right. I had to be perfect and even when I thought I was being perfect he was still able to point out flaws. He told me I was fat, laughed at me for it, made fun of ...well he made fun of me for just about everything. There were few moments where he made me feel like he was proud of me. Even fewer moments where he expressed love or said the words. I cherish those. I remember them like they just happened.

I had a pretty hard childhood. Parts of it were good, but the hard part left scars. I go back and read the first page of my first diary and it reads:
 "Dear Diary,
I have said my dad hates me a lot. I am giving him two xmas gifts. I wish he would say, I love you." (December 23, 1991, age 9)

I haven't really thought about this moment of my life until recently. And there are very few people that know about it. It's not something I even told my parents about. I'm not even sure I have told anyone except my husband. But I've been thinking because someone who has happened to cross my path recently has forced me to look back. They have forced me to remember that edge, that darkness, and the yearning to feel any kind of pain other than the pain I felt or just to feel absolutely nothing at all. This person has reminded me of the scars I bear inside and even some on the surface. The ones I have worked endlessly to heal. But it's okay. Because I am in a better place now. I can look back and feel that little tingle of sadness and at the same time be thankful that I'm not there anymore. But I don't want to forget either. It's important that I remember how dark things can become....why? Well in the beautiful words of Carl Jung,

"Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of 

other people." 

Perhaps he did not mean it the way I interpret it, but I like to believe that there is a reason for things. There is a reason I chose not to do what I was seriously thinking of doing. And a reason why I have met this person and am able to understand what they are going through....to an extent anyhow.

Here is a piece of my story____________________________________________________________________________

There I sit. In my loft bedroom. The ceiling only a foot or so above my head. It was late. Everyone in bed already. Silence surrounded me. It had been a bad night at home. I was desperately depressed. Crying....crying....trying my best not to cry too loud. I have no door on my bedroom. Dad can hear me if I cry too loud. When he hears me crying he yells at me. Tells me I'm a baby...cry baby...whiney little brat. What a fuckin baby.

So I hold it in...cry as softly as I can when I'm sobbing...my body shaking with tremors. So many tears...my face is soaked and chapped. My eyes puffy and my nose stuffy and runny at the same time. Defeated....I just can't stop the pain. I can't stop crying...when will it stop hurting?

The house so quiet.

I went to the bathroom. Peed. Stood there in the dim nightlight looking at my reflection in the mirror. Witnessing the devastation and pain on my face. I began to cry again. Ugh I hate you! Look at you! You're pathetic. Why is he so mean? Why doesn't he love me? Why can't I have a father that loves me? Why does he want to hurt me all the time? Why is my life so out of my control? How can I just not hurt anymore? I can't stand this...

I reached for the medicine cabinet. Found a bottle full of Tylenol PM and went back to my bedroom. 

I sat again in the middle of my bed. Staring at that little white bottle with a blue label. Crying....crying.... how does one person have so many tears? Sobbing...I twist and twist the top of the bottle. It opens. I pour a handful of pills into my hand. 

I sat there holding them...crying...thinking. Thinking about what I was thinking about doing just then. Thinking about ending it all. I would just go to sleep. No one would even notice I was gone until it was too late. No one would even care. I would show them...I would show them how much they hurt me! But I might die....that scares me. And if I die...what happens to my mom? What happens to my brothers? They will have no one here to protect them from him. That drunk. That asshole. They will be left behind....I can't bear the thought.

So I didn't do it...obviously. I didn't even swallow a single pill. I put them back in the bottle, then I cried myself to sleep.


________________________________________________________________________________

At the time and for a long time after that I considered myself a coward. I was on the edge and didn't have the courage to jump. I hated myself for that. But later I realized that I wasn't a coward at all. It was the cowards way out to just kill myself. It is the coward who runs away instead of standing and fighting. It is the coward who does not stand up, brush themselves off, wipe the blood from their face, and walk on tall, continuing to fight. 

I'll be honest...there were many times after that where I thought about ending it all. But over and over I could not bear the thought of leaving the people I love behind. And I refused to let him win. Perhaps being stubborn, for once, worked in my favor. I refused to let him have that much control. It drove me to be something...to be someone. When people told me I couldn't do something I simply thought, oh yeah you wanna bet!? I'll show you. You tell me I'm worthless, but I won't let you defeat me. I won't.

It took a long time to overcome the pain of those many years of my life. I have scars that I continue to try to heal. But in the end...at least now...I am sort of thankful for all the suffering. Sure it was fucked up and super hard. It hurt like hell almost every day. I hated myself for a long time. But now....now I don't. Now I am thankful because those scars are proof that I survived. That life was hell once and I made it through....like a warrior I fought and fought for my right to be someone...to be loved...to be worthy. 

So why am I blogging about this you might ask? Well, for a long while I was ashamed of this experience I had. This experience on the brink...in the deepest darkness one can experience. Thinking of ending my own life. Being in so much pain that the only thing I could think of to make it stop hurting was to just end it. I would feel no more pain. I would feel nothing. But there were reasons for me to stay. To continue on in battle and suffer the life that I had been given. I chose to believe that each stab of pain would pass...that from it all I would become stronger. And because of this...maybe....just maybe...I could help someone else standing at that same edge...feeling that same pain and darkness surrounding them like being submerged in a black sea. Something in my heart pleaded with me...and gave me the willingness to go on.

I am so thankful to have listened. If I were to have ended it then I would not have been able to take part in the joys my life has today. I would not have been able to hold my first nephew in my arms, touch his soft head, kiss his soft cheeks, and smell his new smell. I would not have met my husband who has stuck beside me through much of the leftover darkness I had to get through to be where I am right now in my heart. I would not have been able to see my wonderful brothers grow up to be amazing young men. I would not have been able to become what I am. 

I am also very thankful...because, hopefully, my story will help someone else going through a shit storm like that too. Maybe it will help them see that life doesn't stay hard forever. It does change. It's not fast, no, but it does. You just have to keep on fighting. It gets better. Be the warrior. 

My Mind is Pandemonium

My mind is constantly swimming with thoughts.

Work is working me to the bone. Kicking my ass every day. I feel as exhausted as a mother of 8! Okay well I don't really know what that feels like but I imagine it's pretty tiring. I have no free minutes in the day and even take work home at night just to keep up. I even thought I should work this weekend but my husband thinks I will lose my mind if I don't take some time for myself. He's right...

I've also been thinking about family. I'm going to get to see my brother, his wife, and my new nephew as well as my bro & sis-in-law this next month. I am super excited for that. It also makes me think about how wonderful it will be to live in Nebraska again. Family has become so important to me. It always has been, but now I feel an ache in my heart when I think about them. Because I love them all so very much and I know that life is short. I want to spend as much of my breathing moments with them...laughing, crying, playing, etc. Because that's life. That's what makes me feel like it's worth being around here on this planet surrounded by morons. My family makes my soul glow.

At the same time...there is a lot I love about Kansas. There are a lot of great people here who have embraced me as if I were family. It's so endearing. Also I have Lawrence and Kansas City, MO which are both super awesome places to go. I love them and will miss them dearly when I leave.

I've also been thinking about my dad. (my actual dad, not bio-dad for those who get confused....okay everyone gets confused) He's moved to colorado and has been absent from my life for a while now. It's sad. In a way I miss him...but the real bummer is that I don't. I mean I seriously don't. Then I feel like I should feel guilty for not missing him, but I can't even muster up fake guilt. There were so many years of sadness. I wanted them to end so badly. And now my mom is in a better place. I can be her daughter again and have a relationship with her. We can have family gatherings without worrying about what atrocities my father will commit and what mess we'll have to clean up. I do love my dad. He has a lot of good qualities. But he drowns them in booze...and that's the part I don't miss. I feel disconnected from him both emotionally and physically. I will always love him and there will forever be a place in my heart for him. But I don't miss the tears, the hurtful words, the messes, the drama, and everything else that comes with having an alcoholic father.

Love I've Only Just Begun to Feel

So a little over two months ago this little man came into my life. I will never forget the day he arrived. I was getting text updates at every step. The moment I got the final text I cried. My heart flooded with love and joy. To this day I am convinced that he decided to come because he knew I was in town. I think about him a lot. He is so special to me. I felt so blessed to have been asked to do his latest photo shoot. And boy did he LOVE the camera. My little nephew has invaded my heart. :)

Dirty Thirty

As of this very moment, 138 Days, 2 hours, 42 minutes until what might be one of the worst birthdays ever. I really want to be good humored about turning 30. I try really hard to laugh at the jokes people make about me getting old and all that. But not far from the surface is my shudder of terror. The "Oh my freaking god I am going to be 30!" feeling. Where I recall all the things I wanted to do in my life before this time and almost none of them have been completed. I have no children, I didn't travel more and see Europe, and really all I've got to show for this 30 years of living is college loan debt and a job that doesn't pay near enough.

Okay that's not entirely true. I do have more to show for it. Just ten years ago I was a very different person. I was 100% insecure about EVERYTHING. I was mean, angry, bitter, and really unhappy. I carried a lot of baggage, most of which I have successfully let go of. I'm still somewhat insecure, especially about my physical appearance, but I am no where near the "crying in front of the mirror every day" girl that I once was. And heck, I can run a mile now and sometimes more! That's something to me.

So why am I so unhappy about this number? Society tells us that 30 is basically the end of your life. After this you are considered old. But I don't feel old, I don't look old (contrary to what some rude people might say to me), and heck 30 isn't even half my life (hopefully). So why am I so upset?

Perhaps it has more to do with feeling like I have failed at some of the things I wished for by now. Mostly the whole baby thing. For years I have watched people around me having babies and creating little families. I have longed for that for years. I feel kind of like Monica from Friends...you know, the one who is already a mom, but without a baby (okay for some of you that might be from another generation). I feel a little emptiness inside me. I feel like I should have this by now. And I have to wonder if it will ever happen for me. People keep telling me to be patient, it'll happen, blah blah. But they don't know. They can't predict the future. All they're doing is saying positive things that, for me, don't really encourage me in the least bit. Because again, they don't know! What if there is something wrong and we can't have kids. There are lots of people in this world who can't have children. What if we are one of those couples? It's not as easy to procreate as everyone has led us to believe. Not to mention it's very expensive. And I planned to have gone to college so I could get a good job and be able to provide for a family in ways that my parents never did. But financially I feel like I am still in college. The more money I make the more expensive everything becomes so I only break even, never coming out on top. It's so frustrating.

On a positive thought again, I can say that getting to this age has helped me discover the value of family and friends. It has enabled me to mature to a point where I find having good relationships is one of the most important things in life and that being close to family is vital. If I ever do have those little babies (or baby) I dream of, I want them to know a large family. I want them to know their aunts and uncles, grandparents, and cousins. I want family to be family, not strangers.

Vivid dreams can be haunting

I went to bed last night with much fear and sadness in my heart. I can only blame myself as I was obsessively keeping up on the news about what happened in an Aurora, Colorado movie theater earlier yesterday morning. I find myself both disgusted and fascinated by events like this. Disgusted, well need I explain why really? Fascinated because the psychologist in me wants to understand the thinking behind such actions.

So I thought I was okay, but apparently my subconscious was deeply disturbed. Without having been there (and thankfully so) I am left to my imagination of what transpired. I will tell you that my imagination is a vivid and horrid thing sometimes. My dreams then express those things and I am awaken with a heart full of terror. Last night I was ripped from my slumber. I ripped myself awake. In my dream I knew it had to be a dream because it was just too horrific to be real. I dreamed that I was at the movies. I was me and with me. The other me was pregnant and I had gone to the bathroom before the movie started. I stood in the bathroom looking in the mirror when suddenly I heard this "pop, pop, pop". My heart sank and I ran out of the bathroom to see what was going on. As I exited the bathroom I ran into my pregnant self. My pregnant self was in a panic and holding her belly. She appeared to be in pain but there were no signs of injury. I asked what happened and pregnant me said that someone just started shooting a gun in the theater so she ran out, but then started feeling like she was going into labor. It was far too early in the pregnancy to be going into labor so I hurried her to the car to rush her to the hospital. Upon starting to drive I realized that I didn't know where the hospital was, so I tried using my gps to get us there. It was dark and the air was thick so the windshield kept fogging up. I kept having to spray windshield washer fluid on it to clear it. Then it became extremely windy and rainy. I realized we had just went outside in a terrible storm. So, my gps would not work. It was like a hurricane sort of. The wind was so strong it was just ripping giant trees out of the ground. People were not prepared for the storm so they were driving frantically to get to a safe place, but the trees kept blowing all over, smashing into cars and crashing across the roads. I ended up having to turn around in the middle of the road because I reached an area littered with trees. There were police cars and an ambulance there too so I said to myself "I don't think we should go this way." So I turned around only to come up behind a van that had been hit by a flying tree. Standing in the middle of the road staring at the car was a little boy. His face had no expression. He just stared at the van. Behind him an older woman, likely his mother, was screaming and crying, pleading for him to get out of the road. She kept trying to get him to move, but he was frozen there staring at the van. The van he stared at had been smashed on one side. The passenger door in the front was flung open, flapping in the strong gusts of wind. Embedded in the side of the door, was the head of a little girl. Her body dangled limp in the air, her face clung to the car door. It was a horrific sight. So I woke myself up. I lay there in a panic, my heart pounding, jumping inside at every little bump in the night. I was so tired, but terrified to go back to sleep. I didn't want to go back to that dream. I hate it when I have dreams like that. I can't get the images out of my head.

*sigh...Anyway...I'm sure I will never really understand what moves people to commit such atrocities as what happened in Colorado. (And in hundreds of other places all over the world basically every single day) I can't even kill an animal let alone a human being. And I was already fairly afraid of the world. Now maybe more so. I work in a school and every day I have this thought in the back of my mind about being a victim of a school shooting. And this kind of thing could really happen anywhere. At the same time I don't want to be so afraid that I never live my life. It is short enough as it is.

I suppose that's why it's called a Cliché

I find myself living many cliches in life. This post will illustrate yet another I have discovered.

My elders always seemed to tell me that I should appreciate family. That I should want to be near to them. For much of my life I fought this notion. I wanted to be far away. Perhaps maybe I mostly wanted to be far away from the sadness that was our small little immediate family. But things have changed now. We've all grown up..well most of us. Mom and Dad are now divorced and living in different states. And as much as I love my Dad there is something very obvious in his absence and that is...no drama. My dad is one of those kind of people who sit in a room and you can feel it: the simmer, the sense of some unpredictable force that might, at any moment, break loose, and do something terrible. We don't have to worry about that anymore. I feel a tingle of awful inside me saying this, but I am thankful. We all deserve better. He does too, but he won't do it for himself. 


Anyway...as I have grown older I have found a love for family that I never thought I would have. An unconditional love. In the past I used to want this picture perfect family, but knew deep down it would never be real. It's still not...but that's okay. My family is beautiful the way it is. My brother's are wonderful people who I adore with every sliver of my soul. I love them more than words can say or gestures can express. And then I got married and with that came more love. More people to learn to love. haha But in the end here I am almost 30 and thinking to myself...I can't get enough of them. I want to be with them as much as possible. Being 5 hours away from them is far too far. I don't like it one little bit. I used to want to me a million miles away. Now I want to be right there. 


I could give quite a bit of credit to the birth of my first nephew. Ever since I heard about his existence I have been in love with him. Perhaps a lot of that has to do with the fact that I have a strong desire to have babies of my own but haven't yet been lucky enough to have happy accident or anything of that nature. So I live vicariously through my brother and his wife, a little bit. But mostly I just love like that. I feel like my heart is always bursting with more and more love to give. I can never give enough. There's always more behind it. 


Overall, I have learned that my need to be close to family is extremely strong. So if I were the sort to pray I would pray that I get a job soon somewhere close to my family. I am tired of being so far away from people who light up my life. I hope with all my soul that things work out. My heart aches every day. I want it to stop. 

With technology increasing the ease to connect with others, we tend to disconnect even more

I've been thinking about this kind of as a self-reflection. This year in my personal life and at work I've really become aware of my intense fear of face-to-face communication with others. It intrigues me to notice this in myself and I have to wonder where it came from.

When I recall my younger years...back when there were no cell phones or internet connections to speak of...I talked on the phone with my friends and family whenever I got the chance. I would get so excited when the phone rang, thinking "Who could it be?!" "Is it for me?!". I would talk for hours and hours with my BFF about really nothing at all, probably boys mostly. But that DID happen.

And now, I have email, instant messaging, and a personal cell phone. All of which were designed to enable closer, more frequent, and more availability in communication with others, yet I find myself more disconnected than ever before. I feel an instant shudder of fear when my phone rings now. I wonder, "Who is it?" "Why would someone be calling me?" Sometimes I see who it is and I AM excited to talk to them. I think, "Oh wow they thought of me enough to call!". Some people simply get declined on a regular basis because I cannot overcome the fear of talking to them, hearing their voice, or have much to say really. And it's worse with the older generation who still have not embraced the beauty of email or texting...worse for me anyway.

Perhaps it is because I have become accustomed to the ability to think before responding. With that I can come across as being more witty, wise, or intelligent. I am not burdened by my inability to think on my feet or say something I shouldn't out of anger or irritation. With text or email I can really put thought into what I say. It keeps me safe and in control.

Or maybe that's it right there! CONTROL! I can't even remember a time in my life where I wasn't trying to gain control over something that seemed uncontrollable. In childhood it was my temper, it was my parents, my siblings, my friends, my life, my looks, my weight...and not much has changed. At least now my control is used in an attempt to make peace among others and encourage those around me to love one another and be happy. So I suppose that's good....but I digress.

Back to the subject here. I really started thinking about this more lately when a relative was telling me about her 10-year-old daughter being bullied through text message on her cell phone. My first thought really was...Why the heck does a 10-year-old have their own cell phone and that much communicative freedom? Talking to my husband about this I realize I am perhaps already out of touch. I think kids should be getting permission to call their friends, to communicate with them, because that's how it was when I was a kid. But back then we had one family phone, which we all shared. We asked permission to use it and we asked permission to visit a friend. I think kids still ask for permission to physically visit a friend, but nowadays with kids having their own personal phones their communication is open. I'm not saying that bullying wouldn't happen if these kids didn't have cell phones. I don't think that at all. Bullying has always existed and probably always will, it's just that the new technology allowing us to communicate more freely has also given way to alternative methods of negative interaction as well. It's an inevitable result in any advance in technology I suppose. Where good can be done, so can evil.

So, I find it very interesting how advancements in technology meant to bring us closer together have actually set forth some invisible boundaries that we tend to cling to. Perhaps we need the safety of distance to communicate with others, the sense of security when speaking ones mind to another, the anonymity that text can provide in some situations, and a sense of control over our communication experiences. Are these a bad thing? I suppose it could be see in many ways. In some ways I do think it's bad simply because it has created distance among people and physical interaction with communication. We are somewhat perpetually lonely individuals isolating ourselves physically and communicating only through technology. But at the same time it doesn't HAVE to be that way. We can all choose to use the myriad of technology around us to be MORE connected. Heck you can Skype for free and actually SEE the person you are speaking with. This would be awesome for me personally if my family would get on board. Then I could call up and see them via the computer and it wouldn't feel like we're so far apart!

In the end, I'm still not entirely certain where this fear came from, but I have some ideas. For me, personally I think it's my overwhelming expectation to strive for being perfect and in control. I don't like to look the fool so I enjoy planning my conversational responses to others. I don't think well on my feet, especially when extremely anxious, and I have a strong desire to have control over any and everything possible. I guess that probably comes from my childhood where I felt like I had zero control so now as an adult I still long for that. While my mom was very encouraging, my father was not so much. He always had a way of taking you down a couple notches if you found yourself filled with even an ounce of confidence. Even if you were really good at something, there was always something to be found that was imperfect. Having that pointed out to one on a regular basis tends to make a person focus on the negative aspects of everything! I've worked hard to get away from that kind of thinking, but it still creeps in a lot of the time.

Anyway...so something to think about. Something for all of us to think about. How do we connect with the people we love and care for? Do we connect at all or enough? And when/if I become a mom someday, will I let my own child have their own cell phone before they are 13 or older?! I honestly don't know!

Serenity

Boredom is the feeling that anything unentertaining is a waste of time, an irritation for lack of stimulation. But if we stop for a minute or two to breathe and recognize the beauty that surrounds us in our everyday lives perhaps we can all find a bit of peace. Even if just for a moment.

Much of my time I find myself seeking silence. Hushing the talking heads surrounding me that inundate my mind with rubbish and angst. I'd rather wallow in the beautiful sounds of silence...the birds chirping elatedly about their day, the wind breezing through my hair...the rustling of the leaves in the trees...breathe deeply and exhale.

I hear the rush of cars passing by...

children laughing as they play blocks away from me...

a dog barking in the distance...

When I allow myself to simply sit in this santuary we call Earth, my heart swells with peacefulness. All the stress of daily life is pushed out.

You ought to try it sometime.  

My mom always told me that saying I hated someone meant that I wanted them to die.
I never thought I would be a person capable of hate...by that definition at least.
But I find myself very close to that edge if not over it...
What does that mean?

I haven't always been this nice...

I haven't always been this nice to myself. It has taken me years to build a rapport with my inner voice and be able to believe in myself. I could say in the fall that I really had confidence in myself, what I do as a profession, and as a person in general. I began to get comfortable with who I am and what I believe in despite the fact that other people constantly try to change me to fit their mold.  I came across this wonderful quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson,

“Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.”

When I think about it, I have been misunderstood my whole life, and for most of my life I've tried really hard to deny that part of myself and be the same as everyone else, or at least what everyone else wanted me to be. With different people I was a different me. That became very tiring. Eventually I just had to break away from that, discover who I was and accept it. 27 years later I think I started getting to that place. At 28 I got there. I can truly say that I became comfortable with who I am...all aspects of who I am. Even though some of those aspects may greatly challenge the beliefs and attitudes of others. I don't fling it around in their faces, but I know in my heart that it's okay to be who I am. I found great comfort in that and a huge weight was lifted from my soul.

Now at 29 that wonderful confidence is being inundated with negativity. Without revealing too much, I will just say that there are some people in the world who are too power hungry to have a heart. They are too involved with their own selfish deeds to give a care about any person genuinely. Me being the kind of woman that I am, a fighter for the rights of myself and others, an advocate for those who cannot or will not advocate for themselves...have found myself at odds with a power hungry and evil person. What makes it more difficult is that this person is in a position of power and they are using it to try to beat me down. They try to rip my confidence to shreds, cause me to doubt myself, and are trying to make me want to just give up on this dream that I have worked towards my whole life. I hate to admit that there have been times that I felt that this person might be winning.

Thankfully though, I have some really amazing friends, family, and husband. These are the people who have kept my hope afloat through all this. I'm finding that this person has only put a little chink in my armor, but I am still the same person and still standing strong. In the end I will not go down without a fight and my confidence will remain intact. : )

So I read this article...

http://www.madinamerica.com/2012/02/why-anti-authoritarians-are-diagnosed-as-mentally-ill/

There are a couple parts that describe me almost perfectly.

Anti-authoritarians question whether an authority is a legitimate one before taking that authority seriously. Evaluating the legitimacy of authorities includes assessing whether or not authorities actually know what they are talking about, are honest, and care about those people who are respecting their authority. And when anti-authoritarians assess an authority to be illegitimate, they challenge and resist that authority—sometimes aggressively and sometimes passive-aggressively, sometimes wisely and sometimes not.

Many people with severe anxiety and/or depression are also anti-authoritarians. Often a major pain of their lives that fuels their anxiety and/or depression is fear that their contempt for illegitimate authorities will cause them to be financially and socially marginalized; but they fear that compliance with such illegitimate authorities will cause them existential death.

I've been kind of dealing with this issue lately. I think the hardest part about dealing with an authority figure that I don't respect is hearing what some people tell me about how to deal with it. Basically they simply tell me to deal with it and get over it...that I have to comply with these incompetent rulers just because they are in power. But I am innately unable to accept that. Just hearing the words is like someone stabbing me in the heart. Honestly, for me to follow someone or something blindly and without question is like feeling my soul die. My conscience cannot accept it. I want to do good in the world and to help others and when idiotic, power hungry people get in the way of that the advocate side of me wants to trump their authority fighting for those who cannot fight for themselves. At the same time I know it is a potentially great sacrifice for me to go on this kind of mission.

So what to do? Give up the passion or continue to fight? People who give up don't make change in the world. If on my death bed I look back at my life could I really be satisfied if I spent my whole life rolling over in blind obedience? I don't know if I'm capable of that, but I know I can't just think of myself either.

Perhaps what I need to do is learn how to play the game...learn the politics so I can do what needs to be done without always getting myself into trouble.

I don't know if I will ever understand the mind of an evil person.

I don't blog because I think people care what my thoughts are. Honestly, I doubt many care at all. I guess it's kind of my way to make my thoughts immortal...to show evidence somewhere out there that I existed.

Last night I had a dream that my cat, Derby, came back. Then he gave birth to a litter of 4 kittens. What was funny is how surprised I was that Derby turned out to be a girl and this whole time I thought he was a boy. Then I decided to keep one of the kittens, just in case I lost Derby again. It was an all white kitty with a cream colored spot on his chest. Then the freaky thing was that two of the kittens decided to commit suicide so they threw their bodies up against the garage and killed themselves. It was so sad. And in my dream I had kids, 2 of them, and then they asked me why the kittens committed suicide and I didn't know what to tell them.

I'm awfully curious about whether someone ever truly "gets over' the loss of someone they love. My grandpa passed away only a little over 3 years ago and still I cry sometimes when I think of him. I still miss him just as much.

I concur...

Why hate? I just don't get it.

Evil makes me so sad. I will never understand how someone could do horrible things to another person or creature. I just won't. It's a horrible, sad, and painful thing to witness atrocious acts done by an individual to another. As a person just hearing of it I feel helpless and broken hearted. How can we allow these things to happen? And without repercussion for the perpetrators? How can people sleep at night knowing that evil acts are going unpunished? I don't know. I'm very bothered by that.

I found out yesterday that my dad has been in the hospital since Saturday. (The fact that I'm finding out on Monday annoys me, but I guess at least someone told me this time.) He's in the hospital again because of his diabetes. -sigh- He told me that his body was attacking itself. He hadn't been taking his diabetes medicine, hadn't been eating, and had only been drinking booze. So he was extremely dehydrated and malnourished in addition to his blood sugar levels being off the charts.

It breaks my heart to see someone I love in so much distress and I can't do a damn thing about it. I know he's just really broken right now dealing with a divorce (that has been dragging out for years now) after 25 years of marriage, difficulties with employment, and facing the loss of his home. He admitted to me that he just stopped caring. His weight is down to 125lbs! That is unimaginable for me. I called him last night and he sounded pretty weak still. Poor dad. I love him so much. I just don't know if he will take care of himself after this. So that worries me.