Eyewear Savings

As we get older, things start falling apart. Fact of life. Not a nice one, but still we need to face it. I recently went to the eye doctor and my vision has changed slightly yet again. Guess what that means! Time for a change in eyewear! So my insurance says I can get contacts or glasses. I want both. But I really can’t afford full price. But I am a smart shopper! There are ways to afford it, people! I know a lot of people just slap down the full price or do without. Ridiculous! I don’t get that concept at all. With the internet, there is no reason to do that ever! And I do mean EVER!

If you know about the kind of glasses you like and can measure, go to http://www.coastal.com and you can get FREE glasses. Yes, I said FREE. You do have to pay the shipping and handling fee, but it is like $10. So what could cost $300 compared to $10? Ummm…what do you think? I’m thinking $10 ain’t so bad. And I have used this place before. They are reputable. They are good. I’m wearing the glasses right now and LOVE them! You have to use the coupon code: freefirstpair.

So, my insurance is going to buy my contacts. I wear CooperVision Frequency 55 contacts. No, they’re not the typical contacts. But I love them. They fit well and don’t roll up. But they’re not priced too differently than any other contacts out there. So I am getting these through insurance at the doctor’s office because that is what I have to do. But as I was doing my research, I found some interesting information. I checked http://www.1800contacts.com and they wanted $33.99 a box for my brand of contacts. That is crazy. So I did some more looking. I found http://www.contactlensking.com and guess what! The same contacts cost $12.95 a box. Yep! A savings of $20 a box and free shipping! 

People, don’t just pay retail for expensive items! Do some comparisons first. Maybe you have money to smack down on stuff like this. I don’t. And frankly, even if I did, I don’t like being screwed over. Why on earth would I want to pay an extra $40 ($20 x 2) plus shipping to 1800contacts?! It’s easy to look online to compare prices. I went to Google and just typed in “compare contact lens prices” and that is how easy it was.

In Defense of Mental Illness

Mental illness…two words that scare the hell out of some people. It scares those who have never dealt with it. It scares those who remain ignorant to it. Do  you know what mental illness is? It is an illness that affects the mind. It can range in severity. It can be something so simple as a chemical imbalance, which only means that your body isn’t producing enough of a certain chemical to make your brain fire “normally”. Or it can be so severe that you are a danger to others. The range is VAST!

I bring this up because frankly I consider diabetes to be something of a chemical imbalance as well. Your body is  not making the amount of insulin necessary. That’s a chemical imbalance isn’t it? People who suffer diabetes generally aren’t told how terrible they are for having diabetes. No. They are told to go to the doctor and to get treatment. And a lot of times treatment is affordable and their medications and appointments are covered by insurance. This is not always the case for people with mental illness.

People with mental illness can’t always afford their illness. It isn’t always covered by insurance. It is sometimes covered under a special umbrella. There are limitations. There are limits on visits. There are limits on who they can see. There are limits on medications. There are limits on lifetime benefits.

Most people with a true mental illness aren’t instantly cured with a few sessions. It is ongoing. It is painful. It is their life. Just like type 1 Diabetes affects patients for a lifetime, mental illness can affect patients for a lifetime. Sometimes there are situations, such as dealing with a situation, where a person will only need temporary help. The limitations on insurance might be effective for those types of situations, but for people with chronic, on-going issues, it is not helpful.

It pisses me off and pains me when I hear people speak so negatively about people with mental health issues. I feel like people just don’t get it and just don’t care to get it. They feel holier than thou and prefer to stay safe in their bubble-wrapped glass houses. They feel they are untouchable by something that has touched so many. I feel sorry for their ignorance and yet disdainful for their judgments. They are so ignorant to think that the perfect storm couldn’t cause the same situations to affect their lives and so judgmental to assume they could or would handle things differently had they walked in another’s shoes. You can’t look at one aspect of a person’s life and think about how you would handle something (i.e., suicide); no, you have to look at all the pain, losses, grief, etc. they have endured throughout their whole life and see that they went through that while dealing with mental illness. Sometimes they are only in dealing with something that is situational. Other times they are dealing with something that has affected them from the time they were conceived.

Why do I have such a strong opinion on this? I have dealt with mental illness from the moment I was born. I was surrounded by it. I was around people who had it. I have it. My loved ones have. My loved ones had it. It has hurt me in ways I can’t describe. I have had it shape my life. I have worked in it. I understand it. I don’t understand it.

I suppose those answers are confusing. I have dealt with depression for just about as long as I remember. I am not going to discuss all of it. It is personal and it is mine. The severity of my depression has ranges. When my personal life was a wreck and everything was falling apart, I will admit I wanted to die. I didn’t want to just die for a moment. No. I wanted to die. I really wanted to die. But I wanted to live more. I prayed and begged God to help me and He did. I was and am grateful God loved me enough to get through to me. He kept pointing out to me the Bible verse Jeremiah 29:11: “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” This did give me hope at times when I had none. This gave me strength to reach out and get help. I was blessed and lucky. I was able to get help.

I do not consider myself any better than anyone else. Some people can’t hear God because they are too deep in a pit of despair and depression. Some people don’t turn to God because they feel He is the reason for their despair. Because of this, they may do a variety of things to try to feel better. It’s a form of self-medication. When  you feel bad, don’t you try to feel better? Most do. They have probably tried various methods and they’ve failed. They probably feel like a failure. If they don’t kill themselves then they start doing something to numb themselves or make life tolerable. They take a pill or drink something. It can lead to more and more. This can lead to addiction. I’m not saying it is a good way to medicate. But it is often cheaper than going to the doctor. You don’t have to make an appointment. You don’t have to fight with your insurance company to do it. You can just medicate. And it is readily available. (Unless you live in the South and have Blue Laws.)

Mental illness isn’t just one type of illness. As I said, there are many types. If you want to learn more, you can visit NAMI, which is the National Alliance on Mental Illness. You can look up information specifically about mental illness and get answers. You can also look for support and/or programs that might be beneficial. It is a little easier to understand than DSM, which is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. This is the book that psychiatrists and psychologists use as their bible daily.

I ask anyone reading this to please consider how you could easily be affected by the disease of mental illness. It is a disease as much as diabetes and other things are. You should treat it as such and treat the people afflicted with it with the same respect you would with any other illness or disease. Don’t condemn them. Would  you want someone slinging hateful words at you for something that is consuming  your life that you didn’t ask for and were born with? Try having mercy. I ask others to please remember that you still could be affected by mental illness. If you have a brain, which I hope you do, then something could affect it at some point in your life. My hope is that it doesn’t. But if it does, I hope you have support. I have lived through times where I felt there was no support. Those are the hardest times of all.

Related articles

• Mental Illness is such a dirty word (poemsforkush.com)
• New CDC Vital Signs: Smoking among those with Mental Illness (prweb.com)
• Executives dismissing staff mental health issues (smh.com.au)
• A Quandary: Mental Illness, Public Safety (acanvasoftheminds.wordpress.com)
• Mental Illness in Kids: The Surprising Warning Signs (everydayhealth.com)
• DSM-V – Mental Illness vs Normal Behavior (theness.com)

Gun Control! Mental Health! Government! Oh My!

I am sure most Americans are probably feeling a little overwhelmed on the subjects of gun control, mental health and government involvement right now. It’s the hot topic. Everywhere  you look or try to listen, this is what you are bombarded with. It has been a very difficult time for me. I have friends and family on both sides of the fence and it is hard. I hear such strong opinions that sometimes it just gets to be a little too much. Sometimes it is downright offensive. Some people make automatic assumptions about my opinions because of how I have felt about other issues. That is one thing that really pisses me off. I am like, “Did you ask me specifically how I feel about this? Or did you ask me why I feel the way I do about this?!”

I am an American. I love my Constitution. I love my Bill of Rights. I believe in the right to bear arms. But I believe in some sort of regulations. I am honestly not sure what those regulations should be. I haven’t thought it through that far. I don’t know what it should be. But I honestly don’t believe our Founding Fathers ever had any idea that our nation would be in the condition it is in right now where some freaking lunatic would take assault weapons into an elementary school and gun down innocent children. I don’t believe that was ever a consideration for them. Because as hard as our Founding Fathers fought for this country, I don’t believe they would approve of weapons being available to someone like that.

Sandy Hook was the most recent eye-opening killing spree on a large-scale. From what I have read, Adam Lanza was a young man who was in obvious need of mental health help. His parents failed him by not getting him mental health help he obviously needed. His mother brought heavy-duty guns into their home and taught him how to use them. I’m sorry, but teaching someone who is obviously mentally unstable how to use dangerous assault weapons is beyond anything I can fathom. I am not saying she deserved what she got, but I honestly do not understand what in the hell she was thinking. Maybe she needed mental health help, too. And if she did, maybe the ex-husband should have sought to get the help needed. I don’t know.  But something wasn’t right.

Sandy Hook brought to light guns, though. Boy did it! It opened my eyes. I hadn’t really thought too much about stringent gun control but that really made me think. I am a Southerner and have always been around guns. There was typically always a gun around my home growing up. I understood their power. I understood to leave them alone. I had a healthy respect and fear of them. I know their power. But this tragedy made me question. Why do people want or need assault weapons? Do you really need something with that much fire-power? Where are you really going to use it? On what? These are just questions that came to mind. I’m not arguing. I’m just thinking. And I sure won’t get in a debate over it. These are just things I have thought about.

Then I thought more and more about how mental health issues have been overlooked for so long in this country. You know you have seen that kid in school that made you wonder if you were going to see him on the news when he got older because he killed someone. You have, haven’t you? I did. I used to work in schools with kids with behavior issues and watched these kids and saw some that I wondered if they were going to become killers. They worried me. It troubled me because you never knew what they were going to do. One minute they were fine and then a kid would look at them the wrong way or say the wrong word and BOOM! It was on! You would see pure hatred in some children and wonder if they were killers. Maybe if they were caught early? If they got help sooner?

I have heard people say that they think that teachers should have guns. I am sorry but I think that is ridiculous. As distracted as teachers get in a classroom, a kid could easily gain access to that gun. Do you want your kid going to a place where there is easy access to a loaded gun?! Why not panic buttons in the classrooms? How about security guards? Metal detectors? Tasers? Something besides a damned gun in the school?! I have sat in classrooms and those teachers are too damned scattered and distracted to have a weapon on them in my opinion.

Mental health has always been underfunded. It is always a budget slashed. It’s like people don’t get that if you don’t take care of your brain that the rest of a person isn’t going to be well either. I realize that a lot of people blame mental health for certain problems that they should take care of on their own. But there are true mental health issues that need treatment and without treatment can lead to all kinds of problems. If people don’t end up hurting others or themselves they can end up destroying their lives with their behaviors. It is not always controllable without some sort of help. And not everyone has access or the ability to get the mental health help they need. Isn’t it worth it to look into funding mental health when it could potentially stop something like Sandy Hook from happening again?

Then there is the role of government in all of this. I realize that of course it’s going to piss people off that the government has said something about all of it. But honestly, if the President didn’t say something then people would be pissed about that, too. (You know I am right.) What else could he do?! This was a tragedy that affected the whole nation! It touched all of our hearts and he has kids! If it didn’t touch your heart, then maybe you don’t have a heart and you need to see a doctor ASAP! I’m not defending all he has said or done. Nope. But I am saying that of course the government is getting involved. It would have under any administration, democrat or republican.

We all need to get over our political party lines and look at this as a national problem. Quit being so stubborn and start looking for answers. When you close your mind to anything but your own ideas and opinions then you are shutting out a lot of opportunities for making things better. Remember that while Sandy Hook happened in an elementary school, tragedy can strike anywhere.

Related articles

• The President and NRA agree on gun control proposals – well, mostly (ricksroute66.net)
• Mental Health Changes in New York’s Gun Laws (wnyc.org)
• Mental health a thorny issue in gun control debate (metrowestdailynews.com)
• Day of Action to Stop Mental Health Profiling (genomega1.wordpress.com)

The Pain of Holding Back

I was always taught that if you didn’t have something nice to say then you don’t say anything at all. I am sure others were taught the same.   I try to do that for the most part because there are days if I said what was really on my mind that people would be shocked and quite dismayed. I went to the doctor the other day with the horrific pain in my jaw and into my neck. I know I have TMJ and it was really acting up. She asked me about stress and I told her what was going on and she said, “You’re clenching your teeth so hard that it is putting pressure on your jaw and sending the pain down your neck. Your lymph nodes in your neck are swollen.” I was shocked to realize my lymph nodes in my neck were swollen due to that. I knew my TMJ was killing me due to the clenching. I told her that I was clenching in order to not get in trouble at work or go to jail because of the fight my words would start. She said that I need to deal with the stress better. I told her that I needed something to take for the stress or I was going to start smoking again or start drinking. She chose a prescription for me.

But I told you all about this because isn’t it amazing how we can truly wind up hurting ourselves in such a way? I mean my stress level has been so high lately that I was clenching my teeth to the point my jaw was physically killing me with pain. And then it caused my neck to hurt, too! So I have been working on telling these people off in subtle ways. I told one off recently in a not so subtle way that had her almost steaming. She barely spoke to me afterwards and all it made me do was giggle afterwards. I’m not going to just speak my mind completely all the time. Lord have mercy! These people couldn’t handle the truth! Some people I know would be blown away by my thoughts. I do wish I could say them, but unfortunately that might cause some negative ramifications for me and I don’t know if I could handle them. So I will work on ways to do it where it gets it out of my system better. I wish I had been taught more how to do the Southern Belle backhanded compliment thing where you sound like you’re giving a compliment but you just dissed the hell out of someone. I can do it a little, but not so well. I’m more of a booyah-in-your-face kind of person.

Guy’s Hair Cuts

Is there even a comparison?

I keep seeing all these boys with their hair combed forward and kind of around. I thought Justin Bieber did that ages ago. So i hoped the trend would stop. I mean, come on people! Even the Biebs got a clue! So why are these boys still doing it? Are they practicing for middle-age when they NEED to do it? I mean, it is just a comb-over with a lot to comb over. Right?Frankly that hairstyle drives me nuts. I hate seeing all that hair combed forward and around. It reminds me a lot of Dorothy Hammill’s haircut in the 70′s. And yeah, I had that one. It wasn’t that attractive either.Guys, what about a good old-fashioned male haircut? I’m sorry, but the Biebs ain’t cool. Not by a long stretch of the imagination. He may have money, but I doubt it is coming from 17-year-old girls. It’s probably coming from the parents of 5-year-old girls buying junk for their little ones. So if you want a cool haircut, guys, look at Channing Tatum. He’s who the 17-dying age women are drooling over. Biebs ain’t quite right. (BTW, this information is not just for teenage boys! Any male reading this should take the information as GOLD and use it!)