Who Cares?

Have you ever felt that way? Sometimes I feel frustrated with life and feel alone and wonder “Who Cares?” There are days I wonder if anyone does. Then I remind myself a few do. But I mean, like on Facebook I have over 200 “friends” and honestly when I post anything only about 10 or so ever actually respond. So who cares?

It makes me question things. It makes me wonder. It makes me analyze. I know a few reasons for some things. Then other times there is just no reason. I am not one to really unfriend people without a strong reason. But then again maybe who cares? Maybe some of these people just don’t. I don’t know. And I know I am not perfect. But if some people just interacted once in a while, we could work on what I am doing wrong, too. Sometimes I just don’t know. I admit I am sometimes clueless.

I sent a message to a “friend” who I have known since I was 6 years old a month or so ago. It had something in it that meant something to me. I never got a response. I know she read it. So what? Who cares? I really don’t know what is in her head. Should I care? A part of me thinks, “But she has been a part of your life so long.” Another part asked, “Really? Who cares?” If she cared so little as to disregard what I wrote and not even bother to respond, she must not care too much. She could have emailed. I know I work odd hours, but email can come at any hour.

Then there’s the people who only reach out to say something negative about what I post. Know what? Who cares?! I don’t. If you don’t have something positive to say to me EVER, then I don’t care about your negativity. If you only troll my stuff to find the one political or religious post so you can jump all over that shit, then who cares? Did you ever think that I have a birthday? Did you ever think to just say hi? Then who cares? I just don’t care about negativity from someone who obviously really doesn’t care to know the real me.

I know some people are busy with their lives. I get it. But it makes me wonder at times if they care. I have limited time off. VERY LIMITED. I know a lot of people don’t understand my job, but I have told them repeatedly my schedule. I have to work a lot in order to survive. It is just me in the world and if I don’t work my ass off, then I live in a ditch.It’s that simple. I can’t just quit. But it would be nice once in a while for someone to think maybe I might like to do something once in a blue moon. Maybe meet for a drink or out to eat. It would be nice to be asked. I feel like I have asked a lot when I am off for a quick meet or something and have been rejected. But who cares? That’s part of the reason I isolate. It’s easier.

And I know some people might read this and say, “I’ve invited her over on holidays!” I usually work on holidays and I have to be there at my usual time normally and so I have to go to bed as normal. My sleep is usually so hard to come by, that I have to try to stay as scheduled as possible. I don’t get off for holidays like most people. My company is 24/7 and we work our normal schedules year-round. We aren’t allowed to ask off for holidays. If the holiday falls on my normal day off then I have the day off; otherwise, I am working. Also, I don’t do holidays too well anyway except Memorial Day, 4th of July, Labor Day, Flag Day, Veterans Day, and Thanksgiving. The other holidays usually hurt my heart so much that seeing other happy families makes me hurt more and miss mine even more. I’m sorry, but it is the truth. It’s not meant to be mean but my heart aches so much on those days that I want to hide from the world usually.

I know other people’s lives are busy, but sometimes I would like to feel included. I get told, “You are part of the family.” I don’t feel like it. But then again, I have honestly felt like that most of my life in some way. I tried to feel like part of the family because that was the most important thing in the world to me. Who cares? I do.

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)

I Need Help

Our local food bank is called Manna Foodbank in Asheville, NC. We have an anonymous donor who has offered $1 for every like that Manna gets from now through December 24th, 2012. That $1 makes 3 meals. We need likes! Can you go and like Manna? Will you spread the word? We need them to get a lot of money! It is an amazing organization that helps a lot of families and organizations throughout Western North Carolina. You can visit their website if you want to find out more at http://mannafoodbank.org/ but the like needs to be on their Facebook wall. Their name is MANNA FoodBank. Please help them out!

Giving Thanks

There were times in my life when I wasn’t sure I really had much to be thankful for. I felt so empty and alone that I just didn’t see how I could be grateful for that. Over the past couple of years I have learned that while I may feel alone that I am not. I may no longer really be part of any one particular family anymore, I am still Amy.

I am grateful that my mother raised me to be outspoken and free-thinking and willful. Some people think she didn’t do that, but she told me one day in a very long and poignant conversation that she did that because she wanted me to speak out and be heard when I wanted or needed to be. She didn’t want me to feel stifled like she had in her life. So I am very grateful for a Mama who loved me enough to raise a wild-ass daughter, even when it backfired at times. (I know it seems like I am leaving my father out, but I am thankful for him and I do love and miss him. He just didn’t appreciate this particular aspect of me like Mama did.)

I have a few people who are in my life that are in that inner realm and I am grateful for them. I thank them for being a  part of my life. They didn’t duck and run when times weren’t easy. They stood fast and strong and waited for the storms of life to end so that the healing of time could begin. I am thankful. I have a love for these people that is beyond measure. It is rare to find these kinds of people to stand with you like this. Many people will run as soon as there is a moment of discomfort. I found that out the hard way with family and friends. Not all of them, but some. Some I never imagined and some I knew would do so. It hurt. That is why my love for the ones left is so much more powerful.

I am also very thankful for my country. I love the United States. It may not be perfect, but it is home and it is wonderful! I am free to say and think my dreams. Not everyone in this world has that privilege and that is so sad.

I am thankful for my dear cats who love me unconditionally. They make me smile and laugh at times when I don’t want to or don’t think it is possible. Soleil with her sweet, gentle heart. Chloe with her catch-me-if-you-can attitude. Such a difference in personalities and yet we are all a happy little family together. They both just love.

I am thankful for a job. Yes, it drives me crazy often, but it also provides enough money to live meagerly. I have days when I want to scream and tear out other people’s hair, but I think about how many people would like a job and it stops me. I have a job that I rock at. I have made some good friends over those phone lines. I am grateful for that paycheck.

I am even grateful for past relationships. They have shown me what I shouldn’t do and what I should look for. They have opened my eyes to my own flaws and have helped me overcome some of them and have helped me realize that I am stronger than I ever believed possible.

I am thankful for God for believing in me when I didn’t believe in myself. Having lost my family young, I lost that cheering section that most people have. Most of us have a crowd of people telling us we can do things and to just go for it. When you feel lost and alone, it is hard to do that. But thankfully God has more faith in me than I have in myself and He cheers me on and tells me I can do things. I may not have a massive cheering section, but I have a great one!

I am thankful for anyone reading this. It means a lot that anyone has taken the time to read my heart, mind, and sometimes soul. Thank you.

Related articles

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• I Am Thankful For… (gnozzoknows.com)
• Yes! It’s a Thankful at Thanksgiving Time Post! (ginalondon.wordpress.com)
• Thankful or Blessed? (3tips4god.wordpress.com)
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• Thankful Thoughts (bodychange.net)
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