Emotional

One day at a time Ralph.

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Wreck It Ralph. A wonderful Disney movie (which I love) that is about a video game character (another thing I love) that is depressed with his life (something I do not love but I live with). The main character, Ralph, is told to take it one day at a time. One day at a time is a wonderful view to take.

And something I have been trying to do this new year of 2016.

https://mystuffedlittletherapy.com/2016/01/16/staying-upbeat/

I made a vow at the beginning of the year to make 2016 a great year (I posted the link above). I am determined to do what I can to be positive. As I have a tendency to look at the bleak side of life, my wife often reminds me that you find what you expect to find. If you look for the bleak side of life, then that is what kind of life you will get.

I have had a very rough week this last week. I have felt more than beaten down than I have in a while. I shut down and didn’t talk almost at all on Easter Sunday. I normally would take time in this post to reveal what happened to me, how I handled it, and tell everyone to hug a pony for me.

Hold on to your hats, because I am not going to do that.

I am instead going to focus on the positives that have happened.

  1. I have moved to better place due to an amazing friend who opened his home to me and my family. He is one of the nicest, Godliest person I have known.
  2. I have been in better health than I have been in a long time. My medications have been working great so I have had some extra help to combat my deepening bouts.
  3. My girls are doing great at being homeschooled. I have been told that I have been a great teacher to them and they seem to be enjoying having me at home.
  4. I have been able to support my wife, to the envy of many other wives, with keeping the house clean, doing laundry, and keeping up with the home.
  5. I had a great birthday with amazing friends and family. They threw an amazing My Little Pony themed birthday and they jumped in with me in celebrating.
  6. I have made my blog a .com. I have been getting more mail about “starting” a business.
  7. I have had more interest in my blog from many different sources. I am waiting for more of these to come to fruition, but the uptick in interest has kept mine.

So there you have it, I am still fighting the fight even at the bottom of the valley. I hope this encouraging blog post helps people. Please sound off when you read this, on my blog, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, parcel post. Let encourage me as I hope I have encouraged you.

#hugapony

On the mark.

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I come across stories and pieces that hit close to home or near the mark when it comes to depression and anxiety. The past few days I have been taking my meds with clockwork timing as my mind has not had a moments rest tormenting me.

The little man in my head has been clawing at the walls.

I came across a story on Facebook (something I believe is a boon and a curse) and wow it hit the mark.

Hard.

I almost felt I was reading a story about my self. The words and feelings used were on point.

And they were sharp enough to cut me.

The article which is commented here, http://themighty.com/2016/03/when-youre-suicidal-but-you-dont-want-to-die/ , tells about living with those suicical thoughts and what you face day in and out. I applaud the bravery it took to write this. Telling people your thoughts like this makes people worry about you to the point of locking you up. But even if we don’t say what we are thinking, does that make it go away, or does it make those around us feel better about themselves?

Is it better to ignore the thoughts so they don’t mess up someone else’s day?

I feel that being open and honest about these things does several great things. First, you are being honest with yourself, a great way to admit there are issues to deal with. Second, it lets other people know what is going on. Now that has a side effect of being either an attention grabber or someone to stress and worry about. However, I feel that if I am publicly talking about it, its me admitting my flaws and faults. I am saying, “Yes there is a problem and I am recognizing it”. Third, it brings out support and help from others. Building that support group is critical in saving yourself from anything that someone might do to themselves. Again, this isn’t the “Lock them in a rubber room.” but a “I understand and this helped me” type of support. Last, it brings out your humanity. The one thing that is lacking in most depression/anxiety people is just that, they do not look at themselves as people. They see themselves as burdens, and too broken to fix. By saying or writing (better because it is a solid evidence that can be brought up later) that you are feeling this way is a way to humanize yourself to the point to save yourself. It is a gateway to seeing that you are a real person and not just a shadow.

http://themighty.com/2016/03/when-youre-suicidal-but-you-dont-want-to-die/

Well written, well said.

#hugaplushie

Birthday Post with video!

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I have my next episode of my vblog and just in time for my birthday!!! Yes, I am 31 now. So as a birthday gift to everyone else here is the video! All I ask is that you like, comment, and subscribe the video on YouTube and like, follow, comment, on here as a birthday gift to me! I am a cheap birthday present!

 

 

 

#Hugapony!

Finding yourself.

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I have done quite a few activities and tests to explore who I am over the past 7 years. I have fought hard and struggled with some of the results. I came to a point that I was not willing to accept any more criticism from what the results where telling me. Then my wife came across one that changed what I thought about everything.

My dearest wife was given the 16 Personalities test online to find out more about herself for her direct sales job. This test comes from the Myers & Briggs psychological types that have been identified. She answered the one hundred or so questions and got the lettered results. If you have never seen them, here is a brief overview of the types:

MyersBriggsTypes.png

After getting her results she looked through and tried to figure out mine. She made a guess and asked me to take the test.

I was hesitant.

I have issues with these sorts of test because it seem all subjective to whoever made the test, what mood the person is in taking it, and I almost never relate to the answer. After some pleading from the person dearest to my heart (i.e. she looked me deep in my eyes and told me to do it),  I accepted her request.

I was surprised with the result.

I found out I was an INFJ. As you can see from the list above it means I have Introversion, Intuition, Feeling, and Judging. I went on through the results as the www.16personalities.com gives you more insight into yourself and I was fascinated.

This really did show me more about myself.

I am one of the smallest populated personality type (less than 2% of the population) which might explain more of why people would have issues understanding more about me. It told me I have have great instincts and judgement calls. One of my flaws was that I could get overwhelmed sometimes and would need to take time and decompress. Something like writing a blog even. There were famous people with this personality type also.

Mother Teresa

Nelson Mandela

Plato

Mahatma Gandhi

Thomas Jefferson

Leo Tolstoy

I was floored. There was no way I could be put in the same sentence as these names. But here was a test (that I took multiple times from several sites with the same result) telling me that I was special. This was a hard thing for me to accept. I talked about it with my wife and a few of my closest friends and they all agreed that it hit my personality on the head.

It is hard being faced with who you are, even if it is too good.

This had shown me more about myself than anything before. I was fascinated and I still am. I will be doing a few more posts on this subject but I wanted to encourage anyone to go to www.16personalities.com and find out more about themselves.

Hug a pony my friends.

The big D & A

/ Codefreak / 2 Comments

Living with depression and anxiety is hard. I hear a lot of people who tell me, and others, just get over it. If it were that simple, I would have been cured a long time ago. I know that some people think they are helping by trying to motivate or drive those suffering but I want to take a moment to describe some ways a person acts the way they do and what they are thinking while suffering.

Randomly during the day you have the crushing weight of ALL your failures hit you all at once. It’s like having a personal highlight reel of worst moments set up in a compilation video playing through your brain over and over. Most depressed people are very intelligent and have a good memory. Because of this, your flaws and failures are branded and seared into your brain for you to remember. I still remember the time when I was 7 and I burnt my thumb on a hot iron right after my mother told me not to touch it. I was so excited to be going to a friends house down the street right after that happened and I was so scared that I would be in trouble I hid my pain and went to my friends house. Soon upon arrival my friends mother noticed my tears of pain and looked at my thumb. She was surprised that my mother would send me down there without doing something about my thumb. She called my mother asking about and surprised my mother with something my mother didn’t know anything about. It was no surprised that I was promptly sent home to both be healed and to be in trouble.

I tell this story because I am still embarrassed about trying to hid it. I still have it in the back of mind of what I did wrong. I still remember the pain of my thumb on fire. It pops in my head about every other week to remind me of how I have failed. I live with that memory and every other mistake and failure I have done in my life. I wish I could stop those memories from drowning me and some days I do great.

Other days not so much.

And its not just your mistakes.

When something goes wrong with someone else, you react two ways. You question if you messed something up, EVEN IF YOU HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. You cannot stop yourself from wondering if you could have done something to have helped them or if you could have changed something. The second way you react is you overreact by being overly sorry for what happened, again even if you had nothing to with what happened. You try to comfort and help that person in such a way that you end up looking like a “freak”.

It makes for a hard time trying to deal with other people’s failures while having your own failures play constantly playing in your mind.

It also makes you paranoid. You question everyone’s jokes and teasing. You are observing all the things going on around you and analyzing it. You wonder how much is true and what is a joke. You live in constant fear of what you say and how it could be taken wrong.

And this makes you tired.

You carry the weight of that around with you. The reason it is hard to get out of bed for a depressed person is two-fold. First, you are tired from carrying yours and everyone else’s burdens (even if they didn’t ask for it). Second, you know the only relief is sleep. Sleep because it is when you finally get a break.

It is hard to be depressed. It is hard living with anxiety.

I saw a post on social media that inspired this post and I want to share it now.

FB_IMG_1455223119196

Fear. You live in constant fear.

“What if?”

The next time you see a depressed person or know someone who is depressed, take two seconds and think on these things. I could save a life.

#hugapony my friends.

A hard Dad’s life, for us.

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It was, as we say in parentville, a long full day. It is 11:15 pm at the time of this writing and I am exhausted. This was a day for a Dad.

And I hope I was a good one.

I woke up to kids being awoken by the baby I watch during the day arriving. I made my coffee and Got the kids kids settled in for the morning. My dearest wife was up and out early with working (still an odd switch for me being home) and I prepared to start to the day. I was trying to get the coffee flowing in my veins but I could not get get motivated. I was sluggish and let the kids play and watching cooking shows as I struggled to get my rear in gear.

We have since moved into a new friends house. A lot of stress and pressure from were we were staying at was relieved. This brought with it a whole new stress. A stress that has made empires rise and fall. It has ended more than one marriage in my personal knowledge and is the one thing I have come to hate.

Money.

A dear friend who saved us from a difficult living situation has let us stay with him at no cost, and it has helped in more ways than I can count. The unfortunate side effect is that half our weekly income was also taken away in this move and we had to step up other bills. Medicine and medical bills have been due and past due. The shovel of paper is endless in the never ceasing tide in search of the green monster that I am to hold.

But it is not there for me to give.

I have been blessed by more people than I can name here who have come forward to help, and please don’t let me say that this is the most desperate I have been. I have lived in a time and place were I was trying not to steal a roll of toilet paper from work because I knew I had none at home. I have counted the pennies to go get a dollar burger from McDonald’s for lunch during a 12 hour work day and knew I had to make it last as my only meal. Hard times were every time.  I am truly blessed with dear friends and wonderful family who have helped me in every turn.

Help was also due today in the form of “tax return”. Tax time is a wonderful time for me as I have dear friends who I go to for my taxes and I get money to pay those horrid bills that stack against me. It seems odd to look forward to doing your taxes, but in my case I rejoice.

My dearest wife and I set out to do taxes and other errands. We had just managed to put money in the bank to pull us out of the overdraft scare that comes when automatic billing comes at the wrong time when we realized that it was late in the day and my wife had a work event going on soon. I also had been invited with my girls to go see Kung Fu Panda 3 and this was to be a time of joy with my daughters.

We went to the theater with friends and we settled in for a good time. I got us a Sprite to drink as it was going to run late and I did not want caffeine for the girls. My eldest daughter, however, did not appreciate the drink choice I bought. She sat there and refused my offers of drink to the point of tears. I asked in hush whispers what was the matter and she let me know she hated Sprite and all she wanted was water. I told her I would go and get her some when she burst into more tears and told no in full body horror. I sat shocked at the way she said it and asked why not and I was met with a “I don’t want to tell you.” I told her again to let me just go and get her some water and the look of horror filled her eyes and she begged for me not too.

I sat in my chair confused to what was going on when my daughter leaned in and said I didn’t need to spend the money on her. It clicked. I told her not to worry about it and I would go and get her some water so she could have a drink. She was crying so hard at this point, I wasn’t sure I could stop her. She said I didn’t need to spend money on her like this and she would be fine. I told her that she didn’t need to worry about that and I would go buy her a drink. She finally broke and let me go buy it for her but was still extremely upset that I did it. I told her we would talk more about it when we got home.

We left the theater in much better spirits as the movie was excellent (I will talk more about it in my vblog this week). We came home to my dearest wife returned and we all sat in our room for a nice chat. Both my daughters explained (in great detail for the ages of 6 and 8) that they knew how tight money had been and how their mom and I were so stressed about money that they were scared to ask for anything because they didn’t want to cause us stress.

My heart aches just writing about it.

Tears came to my eyes as I explained that I wouldn’t spend money I didn’t have on them. I told them I would never be upset at them for asking for things. I said the only time I would be upset is when I told them “no” to something and they kept asking or crying about wanting it. I explained there was a time and place to spend money and I would keep track of that. I explained that it was my job to worry about it, not them.

Oh dear hearts of children.

I realize that my stress had bled over to them and it angered me. It had disgusted me to my core. Oh little pitchers with big ears, what do you hear? I felt a failure as a parent. And then they did something magical.

I stood there beating myself up inside when they said they understood and that they would do their best to better. They said they loved me and mom and they would do what they could to help.

Out of the mouth of babies came redemption.

I still feel pride as well at how they reacted and handled it. I feel I have much work to do to be better, but they were with me with a second chance. Who hasn’t made a mistake?

I have.

And I will do better next time.

Hug a pony my friends.

Vblog volume 2!

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Here is my second episode of my video blog!!

I just wanted to say my first blog post has reached over 1000 views and I am extremely humbled and in awe. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Please comment, share with everyone, and subscribe! Subscriptions are key for me to reach more people.

And so without further ado, the video!

Girly girls.

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I attended the most wondrous dance performance at a charming location in my living room. I sat down with my freshly brewed coffee from the local theaters café, some place called Keurig, and was told the show began in about 5 minutes.

The show featured 2 up and coming stars on the ballet scene. The choreography was stellar and intricate. Each dance move thought out with precision and tact. Seeing these young dancers dance must bring so much joy to their father, as I heard they were both sisters. There came an explosion of pixie dust at the end (made from non toxic biodegradable shaved crayons I am assured) that ended the performance. The audience broke out into applause for a full minute as the young dancers took 3 bows before retiring from the stage. All in all.

I got a chance to meet said young dancers backstage after the performance. I got hugs from both and was asked my thoughts on the entire production. I told them it was simply splendid and I could not wait for the next one. They thanked me and hugged me and asked then to play on Minecraft.

I love my daughters.

Hug a spouse, child, sibling, parent, friend, or pony today my friends.

#Hugapony