I must admit, I wasn’t sure this day would happen. There have been times I was close to 1,000 and then followers dropped. I never sought out why. I just assumed bots played a role so I wished them farewell. July marks five years for R.O.E. and I would be lying if I didn’t disclose inept feelings of failure as far as growing a following are concerned. However, the gratitude I have for the intimate, engaged community that follows my journey far outweighs the insidious low self-esteem that occasionally creeps in.
If you are a blogger in the mental health realm, then you know Ashley from Mental Health @ Home. Ashley is a pillar in the blogosphere known for her daily support of other bloggers. She is informative, engaged, and as authentic as they come. She shares her experience as a mental health care nurse from the perspective of the patient as she suffers from treatment resistant Major Depressive Disorder.
Ashley is currently hospitalized and her treatment has been traumatic to say the least. She has access to a computer and has updated us on her circumstances. Please send healing and positive vibes her way and let’s flood the reader and the internet in support of her! How? You may ask. Well, to participate save the graphic below and post it to all of your media! A simple gesture in support of someone who has supported us all.
Writing a summary of a life story escaping death while white-knuckling life is a challenge. Lucky you! You made it in time for the third version. I believe everything is better in threes. And I guarantee this snapshot is the best yet!!
Hi. I am Candace Lynne.
And this is my story. The Rewrite.
I am 42 years young, a Sagittarius, and a horse in Chinese birth year. I am an INTJ/INFJ personality on the Briggs and Meyer, and an empath. I don’t know what my love language is but y’all will be the first to know once I wrestle that unicorn. I am from Louisiana, I cuss to emphasize passion, and I am on an arduous journey called life.
A long list of diagnoses assists healthcare professionals in guessing what is wrong with me. No solution yet but hey, I’ve got one hell of a story!
It is because of mental illness and the stigma attached that I share my personal perspective of life lived from the “ill side”. For that reason (and entertainment purposes), I will list my rap sheet.
Bipolar 1 (rapid cycling)
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)
Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
Major Depressive Disorder (MDD)
Alcoholic (in recovery)
And last but not least, I have my Ph.D. in sarcastic charisma with a Master’s in glitter sprinkling.
Now the True Story
I am the middle child of an Irish immigrant and a U.S. military brat. I am the sparkly one in the family but boy do we all shine 😉
My parents are baby-boomers and I am of the (lost) Gen X generation.
So there ya have it, folks!!
How’s that for a life summary?
Enough said, right?
☆Hi! It’s me☆
Wrong!
There’s more.
Pssst. Things aren’t going to get suuuppper personal with like details and shit but here goes surface level personal.
Oh, a quick disclaimer: I am not blaming or judging my parents for the decisions they made. Raising children does not come with a manual,
I was raised in an upper-middle-class home. I never went without food. We were involved in extracurricular activities. My parents busted their asses to see to it that we got what we wanted (within reason) and my mother made a miserable home happy-ish.
With all of the above taken into account, there is an additional layer of invalidity. Having older and younger siblings not as emotionally scared as myself adds yet another.
The snapshot
My parents divorced shortly after the youngest graduated. Everyone went their separate ways to process the madness. Or were we celebrating? I guess it depends on who you ask.
Months prior to the divorce, I had the joy of telling my parents I tripped a fell on a penis. Not typically the worst news coming from an independent 22-year-old college student unless the penis is of another race. Ah. The life of a white southern girl who could care less.
I survived the life-threatening remarks from my father and went on to give birth to a healthy, bi-racial bundle of innocence. It was somewhere in between being disowned by my father, the divorce, infidelity, and birthing a child that I hit the make-it mode button. I lived my life entertaining and providing for a child all the while disassociated.
Basically.
I’d say that is about right.
Ten years later
I vaguely remember the day when I came to. I said to myself,
“Hey, do you remember riding that cool walkway in the airport on the way to Vegas when you made the decision to not think?”.
A piece of me woke up in that moment. I hadn’t questioned, doubted, or processed a single thought or idea, pertaining to me, in ten years. My make-it mode was overrun by my instinctual mom mode without ever dropping the ball. The transition was smooth.
At the age of 33 I made a decision to not drink an alcoholic beverage.
That day in August of 2012, I was admitted into the psychiatric ward.
For the first time since I was 13, I went four days without a cigarette. This would be my first of eight medical detox(s) from a fourteen-year “functional” run of alcohol consumption. Unbeknownst to me I developed a chemical dependence to alcohol. Not only was I unaware of the risks involving alcohol detoxification, I was not convinced I had no control.
I went on to challenge this notion facility after facility. One year in and out of institutions taught me about my disease. April 20, 2015 I put the bottle down.
I surrendered.
I have not had a drop of alcohol since.
During my inpatient stays I was introduced to medical models of alcoholism. These included opinions from psychiatric professionals. In between my medical detoxes I found myself admitted in the ward. I am fortunate to have found a local facility that allowed smoking. They specialize in behavioral health care. With each admittance I revealed layer after layer of disassociated wonder.
I am a survivor of physical, mental, and emotional trauma.
Pin me
Leading us to 2021
Each day I meet myself where I stand. Some days I triumph, most days, I exist. I would be lying if I said I am not bitter. Daily I mindfully counter that bitterness with gratitude. Some days I am successful and others I am an overripe grapefruit. Ewe.
The best advice from my experience is this:
find your kindness.
Most importantly find it for yourself. Who cares how you get there but without it you are sure to sink.
I searched everywhere looking for someone to tell me where to start. I needed a starting point. It wasn’t until I found compassion for myself that I was truly able to begin my journey of healing.
No matter who you are or where you are, if you are seeking peace, Start there.
Before you go, subscribe to theGarden to receive my monthly newsletter!
Before I begin, can someone please tell me how to center the text on the mobile app with the new editor? I suppose I am just realizing how much I use my phone for blogging and not being able to center the text has nerved me to no end!! And has stopped me from posting on more than a few occasions.
Brief
Maybe you have noticed, maybe not…but things have been the quietest they have ever been around here. There isn’t any particular reason but life has decided there are more things to confront, heal, and process than I had originally speculated. Will I allow it to break me? I’d prefer to let it shape me but that doesn’t go to say it’s easy. If there are two things I have learned about all of this self-improvement shit, it’s that hard realities must be faced with honesty and patience is required throughout all of it.
Patience
When 2019 arrived I made it my mission to forgive those who I felt have wronged me in a way that continues to impact my life. I don’t hold resentments over petty things so my list of those to forgive is short. So short in fact, I had moved through half of that list in the first month by forgiving one person!! Well, technically there is no half to three…there is but I should say there is no half of a person. Lol. However you want to look at it, my list consists of three people. One of those being myself.
Unbeknownst to me, the order I had planned to do the forgiving in, least impactful to most, didn’t go as planned. This is where patience plays a vital role. I’ve realized life unfolds on its own terms and if I encounter resistance its because that isn’t the time for things to unfold. At the beginning of all of this, I found myself trying to force one thing only for another to prevail. Instead of pushing back on my plan, I let go of the reigns and decided it would go much more smoothly if I invested myself in the things that were showing up, in no particular order. I’m not a fan of surprises but let’s just say it has been interesting.
Hard realities and honesty
Being that I have a history with substance abuse, it is a given I will be reminded of things I did that hurt others. Of course, this was never my intention but so the story goes. Alcohol became the filter remover I thought I needed to heal and accept myself but the reality is I spewed some ugly, hurtful words to those who truly matter.
Many of you can attest that I have been at a standstill in my growth/recovery for quite some time. This was the most aggravating phase but it was because I had a vision of how I imagined things to go. I didn’t realize in order for the big things to surface, I had a million little things that lead up to them.
I kept searching and yet there it was, right under my fuck’n nose. I asked and would receive but the truth is…I wasn’t listening. But believe me, I hear it all clearly now. This has been the push I needed. Forcing me to connect with myself on a deeper level (is that even possible?). I’m here to say and as a witness we can always improve but instead of beating ourselves up over it, if we allow it, it comes and goes. The weight that is lifted is much greater than the pain.
The growth that has happened here was made apparent in the way the universe presented it. There’s no way I could’ve missed it. And if you wanna know the truth, it humbled me, shattered my heart, and taught me a huge message about judgment. I am still smoldering and so, I am still a bit sensitive. I am learning to do things different and I may fail but that’s ok. I will never know success until I’ve tasted failure.
Baby steps.
I’m taking baby steps.
And while I tiptoe my way through the last few months of the year, I am going to continue seeking what I desire from within. I’ve accepted this is life and with every step forward, there is the possibility of a step backward…but I think I’ll work on my perspective, and maybe, just maybe, I will find peace just from taking the next right step.
Read all about it!! I’m chat’n kindness and kids! Doesn’t get much better than that.
Title Pun
There is an unspoken excitement when you await the arrival of something you have ordered online. It is almost like receiving a gift or a welcome in your mailbox. Multiply that times 100 when receiving mail by surprise!!! The days of receivinganythingother than a bill in the mail have dramatically decreased with adulthood.
When I was a wee lad (Irish immigrant family), my “mommygee” mailed, us kids, each week, a Bible verse and if we could recite it at the end of the week, she would put money aside. I won’t claim to have a secret money account hidden but I distinctively recall how it felt to have something addressed to me. I felt so special. I can see her handwriting🙂
Combine nostalgia and my love of all things stationery and the result is a childlike squeal. Imagine my pitch when I received not one but TWO total surprise gifts from two kind hearted, generous, and thoughtful women. And they just so happen to be bloggers in the Word Press community🙂!!!
Candice from This Made Me Smile and Meg Kimball, her official author site, Advice Avengers. *see title* 🙂 I was taken back at the thought of them thinking of me. Meg won Day Two of Two Days of Giveaway last month and she added to my collection of blogger books. She has written a series of books and when she gave me the option to choose one, I left it up to her to decide. Seeing as I shipped the goodies on August 15, I didn’t expect to receive her book before then but…I did!!
Candice’s snail mail was a complete and total surprise. Awhile back I sent out postcards to a few inspirational bloggers with whom I’ve chatted with the outside of the blogosphere. I believe in total six bloggers received collaged goodness. One of the recipients was Candice.
Long ago, she had written a post about little libraries and how special they are to communities, in which I agree, and immediately I thought of how awesome it would be to receive a book from a Canadian free library. And so I said so in a comment to her. A book arrived sometime later and as a thank you, she was included in my list of postcard snail mail. Well, she upped the ante and shocked me with the cutest little origami journal!! Out of the blue and what a smile, it brought to my face.
I don’t know about you but when I get some new stationery, I thumb through the pages, feel the texture of the paper, look for defects, and try to decide which aspect of life I will use it for. Well, while doing so to the new addition, I found a handwritten piece of encouragement that said,
Those who wish to sing always find a song.
It is so special to me to have a quote handwritten by someone I’ve not had the opportunity to meet in person but admire from across the country. This adds the most special, personal touch; making it that much more cherishable.
The note Candice included with her sweet snail mail has already made its way into my journal.
Full Circle
You may have seen that Cyranny’s Cove is hosting a kindness challenge, all of which was prompted by her receiving a set of my art postcards (she too was one of the six). I had no idea my snail mail would have such an impact but because Cyranny enjoyed the uplifting message found on one of the postcards, she was inspired to spread the message of kindness through challenging her followers to participate once a month in mailing messages of kindness to others. You can find more detail at The Cove. Please do join us on the first of every month to see what the challenge for the month is.
This month was to find the address of an old friend we have not spoken to in some time and mail them a hello. Well, those in my past are there for a reason and without trying to ruminate on who would be the most surprised, I decided to add a twist to the challenge (of course I did).
My idea began with my niece and nephew and quickly multiplied to a total of seven lucky children. The oldest is my daughter’s stepsister who is nine and the youngest is 20 months old (actually Kid is the oldest and she will receive a letter at her dad’s so that she can participate with her stepsister and half brother).
In the photos I covered the cutest little mascot because I haven’t yet introduced her to y’all…she will be the face of my handmade journal shop…and she is the one hosting this particular idea of spreading kindness to kids. It will remain a secret that it is me.
I typed a cute message that explained what the kindness challenge is and on a second page, I included a list of objects for them to include in their artwork that will be returned to “her” each month. The idea came to me to add a prompt list to help give the kids and the parents helping, somewhat of a guide. In the challenge description, I mentioned spreading kindness by sending multiple mailed messages. I am also including a postcard with an image for coloring in hopes that will be sent to someone of their choice.
Coming Soon
Earlier in the week I sent out theGarden, my monthly newsletter that hasn’t been sent out in months. You may have noticed or maybe not but I haven’t been as active. The reason for this is because I am processing a lot of damage done to me as well as damage I’ve caused. Perhaps this is why I have been stuck for a few years because doing this shit is necessary.
In the newsletter, I mentioned an upcoming format change for R.O.E. It is my plan to start writing more posts that target my curiosities about mental health and life in general. These posts will require research and take more time than my average posts. The other aspect I would like to incorporate is an inspirational, creative aspect. Kinda of a gallery of sorts of my creative endeavors with hopes of video tutorials in the future.
I have not lost interest in blogging but as far as sharing my personal daily bits, you can subscribe to receive the newsletter if that what interests you. I am going to move away from sharing specific details although my informative posts will share personal snippets of my story.
Revenge of Eve 