Category Archives: Discussions

Teach Your Children. . . Well

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I am getting so damned sick of having to bandage shaving wounds I inflict upon myself with gauze and medical tape to stop the bleeding, then having to go back to clean up scenes reminiscent of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho in my shower.  This is what I get for having epiphanies while holding a razor so near to my ankle.

But this time, it’s worth it.  I haven’t had words for a very long time, they had literally gone, but thanks to a friend of mine (whom shall be henceforth known simply as The Muse, she has inspired so much that matters in what I write) and a conversation we had, I have something important to say, and I know how to say it.

So sit down and listen, because when Mama Ruby talks like this, those who fail to pay attention do so at their own peril.

Now I am going to say one word, and I’ll only say it once, so you will not turn away because you are over-saturated-sick-to-death of reading and hearing about it:  Steubenville.

SIT.  BACK.  DOWN.

That’s not what I’m going to talk about, not directly.  A lot of people have already done a much better job than I ever could, and I’ll provide some links at the bottom for those who are interested.

But, as it would turn out, I have something to say related to this that hasn’t yet shown up on my radar as having been discussed.  And if it has, it bears repeating.  Mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, grandparents, anyone who is raising children, this matters.

I’m going to tell you how to talk your children about sex, and how not to.  I don’t mean I’m going to give you my value system, so you in the back there, getting up?  Yes, I see you.  Sit.

I had a conversation some time ago with a child of mine.*  I’m going to withhold all details of which one out of respect to her.  She’s old enough to be talking about sex (I think nowadays kids start doing that at preschool, right?), but what popped out of her mouth that day floored me.  It was a remark that came from some of her friends about rape, and if it hadn’t gotten me so livid, the subject matter probably would have taken me a bit by surprise.

The comment was how “such-and-such” behavior meant boys were going to rape her, if she didn’t do it differently.  Again, not mine to share, also not the point.  I got so whipped into a frenzy by this, I gave her the “doesn’t matter what you wear, do, if you’re drunk, etc.” and moved on and on, performing my denouement somewhere around, “I don’t care if you are lying naked on a bed, with a man you have had sex with hundreds of times before, I don’t care if he’s your husband, if you say no, he has no right.“

She got a little quiet by the end of my soliloquy — and I mean in demeanor, she never breaks in on me when I “get like that”, which isn’t very often.  In fact, she smiled a little inside.  Being able to read her, I can tell you it is exactly why she mentioned it, consciously or not.  She knew, but she needed the kind of fiery hot rage of reassurance that only Mama Ruby can provide.

She has good parents.  Wonderful parents.  And I guarantee that they have talked to her about sex.  Rape?

Here’s the thing, my loves.  I don’t believe in an abstinence only approach.  I also don’t believe that every child should be given condoms at a certain age.  I believe that if you are raising a child, you should absolutely do your best to instill your values into them (unless your values are really messed up, in which case you shouldn’t be raising a child and God help them).

But.

Your children are going to grow up, and they’re probably going to do some things you don’t agree with.  And even if they don’t, the odds are extremely high that they’ll have something done to them.  Every parent has that worst nightmare, and so do I, and every parent says, “not my child”.  That second thing I hope and I pray with everything in me, but I don’t say it blindly.  In the United States, one out of every six women has been the victim of an attempted or completed rape in her lifetime.**

Here is where the conversation parents have with their children needs undergo a seismic shift.  Because we live in a rape culture, that is a fact.  It’s an ugly one, and one that needs to change, but I’m not dealing in what “should be” right now, I’m dealing in the ugly reality of what is.

Parents, when you talk with your daughters (and sons) about sex, if you tell them to wait for marriage, if that is fundamental to your beliefs, I support you wholeheartedly.  With two caveats.  And to clarify, the second caveat applies to whatever stance you take when you talk with your kids, so those of you who have no problem with pre-marital sex, back in your seats.

The first is that you do not ever use the words “wrong”, “bad”, “immoral” or even “sin” when you do it.  That isn’t going to change the mind of a child/young adult/teenager/adult when they have decided to explore sex outside of the bonds of marriage.  I know, I’m sorry, it hurts to hear that, but it just isn’t.  What it is going to do is plant a deep seed of shame within them.  Such that if they are ever molested, raped, or sexually assaulted in any way, they’re going to be that much more hesitant to come forward and talk to you.  After all, if sex outside of marriage is so bad and wrong and sinful, then they must be bad and sinful, too.  Think what that does to someone who has just been horribly traumatized.

Don’t tell me it doesn’t work like that, either.  You expect them to listen when you say don’t have sex before marriage, but not remember all the other things you said when someone forces sex upon them against their will, their want, the very beliefs you have instilled?  Uh-uh.  No way.  You can’t have both.

Which brings us to caveat number two.  When you talk to your daughters and sons about sex, talk to them about sexual assault and rape, too.  I know.  Really big and really scary and my guts are churning just thinking of how to broach it.  But bite the damned bullet and do it.  Make sure that whether or not you think sex should only occur in marriage, when you teach your child about sex, you also teach them that if they are raped, if they are attacked in any way, it is never their fault.  That even if they have broken every rule you have ever made for them, if they have had sex before, if they were out drunk partying, I don’t care, doesn’t matter, they can come back and tell you what happened and you will support them with all of your heart.  And follow through on that.

If, God forbid, your daughter should come stumbling in at three a.m., clothes a mess, sobbing, and tell you she was assaulted, don’t ask what she was doing out, don’t ask her where she got that dress that’s so short.  Sit down with her and tell her that you love her and will do anything she needs you to.  I can’t tell you what that may be.  Maybe the foundation you laid will be enough to help her want to call 911 and report it.  Maybe she won’t be able to do that, and it won’t be anyone’s fault but the scum who put her in such a state.  But at least she’ll know that you have her back 110%, that you don’t think she’s “bad” or “sinful”, and that you want to do whatever you can to help her.

And, sadly, even that won’t make her magically feel better, like when you used to be able to kiss a bump and make it go away.  But it may make it easier for her to see herself as a worthwhile, valuable, beautiful human being once again.

*For those who don’t know, I have no children of my own.  I do have several “daughters of my heart” that I used to care for and still consider “mine”.

**Source:  RAINN | Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network

Relevant Reads:
I’m angry | Meizac
The Wrong Message | The Bad Luck Detective (trigger warning)

And if you read nothing else, please read this piece:
Steubenville’s Jane Doe asked people to do something…

© Ruby Tuesday and I Was Just Thinking. . . 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Ruby Tuesday and I Was Just Thinking. . . with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. This work is protected under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

The Finish Line

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Last week my life as I had blissfully known it, for the past year at least, came to an end.

I have been struggling very hard to write something to update everyone, and failing, and failing, and failing.

I wanted to explain more of the situation, but that’s not going to happen, so here are the bare bones.

I can no longer take Carbatrol, which has been my mainstay in mood stabilization.  Not ever again.

It's the Great Big Book of Everything, with everything inside. . ."

It’s the Great Big Book of Everything, with everything inside. . .

I have been through every drug and then some; when I stopped counting in 2010, there had been more than 70.  So I am at a point of patching together what I call the “least worst” solutions for my future.  I have a three-inch thick binder filled with my notes, my doctors’ notes, medication inserts, pharmacy info, articles from different websites, and I’m basically using that, along with a grip of reference books, to decide which drugs were the most effective and the least intolerable.

It’s only been five days, but things have really gone incredibly badly to start.  I don’t want to talk about it.

I’m actually very well-equipped for this, in one way, in an important way.  I have been through this fire, for five-and-a-half years I went through it, and I came out the other side alive.  I know what to expect, and I know that I can get through again.

The thing that is knocking at my infrastructure is that I honestly and truly believed that this was it for me, I had found my cocktail and that was what I would be taking until I drew my last breath.

Also, there is the added element that I’m giving serious thought to looking for a new psychiatrist.  I am undecided here, as I need to sit down and discuss some things with mine first.  Additionally, I went through this process a little more than a year ago, for the first time since I’d sought help in 2006.  I got my first psychiatrist on the second try, and I didn’t know how lucky I was.

When I went through my search last time, I had very few doctors recommended to me, because my then-psychiatrist and my primary just didn’t believe there were many equipped to handle my case.  And, in fact, of those few, all but two said that they didn’t think they could help, because they honestly didn’t know what could be done that hadn’t already been tried.  I appreciated that frankness.

Essentially, what that means is if I do need to find a new doctor (still a big if), there is more than likely only one whom I can go to locally.  And that’s if he is still around, and still taking new patients. I do have information I saved on several national options, but there are enormous practical and financial considerations there. So, we shall see.

My parents are being very supportive, in their way.  After Thursday’s appointment, I told them I am no longer going to discuss with them what medications I am taking, because the last thing I need to be thinking when trying to figure out how to make the best out of a bad thing is, ‘Mom and Dad are going to freak out about this one.’  That really should not be in my mind at all.  Mom took it surprisingly well, she understood completely; Dad, well he will learn to deal with it.  He just loves his baby daughter and worries about me so much.  They both do, after these past years of seeing me hysterical and blanked out and taking me thrice weekly for ECT and rushing me to the ED many times and sitting up nights watching me because they were worried I would stop breathing.  Those are memories a parent can never erase.

So that’s the gist of it.  That’s how my life changed completely over one Thursday in January.  I was one month and four days shy of a perfect year.  But I’m glad I didn’t know that time had an expiration date stamped on it, because if I had, I wouldn’t have loved it as carelessly and blissfully as I did.  I wouldn’t have assumed and made plans and, yes, taken things for granted.  Taking things for granted is not always the monster it’s made out to be, my loves.  And if I have to spend another six-and-a-half years, or the rest of my life, striving for eleven months more like these just past, I will say that it’s worth the trade.  The reward is worth the fight.  More than worth it.

 

The rest of the crew.

More of the crew.

I’ll get through and find something, but it’s probably going to be an endless road of different drugs and dosage adjustments and changing this for that.  I won’t say I’m delighted, but neither will I sit here and wonder and wail that I can’t deal with that prospect.  To me it has never been a question of “how long” or “an end” or “too much”, it just is and I keep going, because this is the life I am living, and that is the only choice I have.  To keep going, to plunge ahead, to try something else.

I will always keep myself afloat, even if it means clinging to the fin of a shark.

© Ruby Tuesday and I Was Just Thinking. . . 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Ruby Tuesday and I Was Just Thinking. . . with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. This work is protected under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Blog For Mental Health 2013 Is Here!

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Once upon a time, there was a lovely young lady named Lulu. She was bright and vivid and bigger than life (she still is, don’t worry, I just talked with her the other day), and it was an especial desire of hers to advocate for understanding, strength, support, and education about mental health.  She had suffered a long time with her own mental illness, and she never wanted anyone to feel alone, as she had.

If you’ve been reading this blog for very long, my loves, you might know her as the woman with whom I co-founded the community mental health site, A Canvas Of The Minds.

(Side note:  Please, if you haven’t, go check Canvas out.  It isn’t just a site about being mentally ill, it’s about dealing with so many aspects of life, and chances are if you can’t relate to any of our authors’ pieces personally, we still touch upon topics and situations that you may have to deal with through a friend or a loved one.  If nothing else, it will give you a glimpse into life with mental illness, and hopefully foster dialogue and understanding.) 

So.  Last year, Lulu did something awesome, something so much more, which caught on like wildfire.  She started Blog for Mental Health 2012.  It was a simple idea that united a community.  If you have ever seen this badge on a site (and chances, are, you have):

well, that all started with her (and yes, I know it wasn’t here, but let’s not psychoanalyze me right now).

Now, to be absolutely clear, this isn’t an award.  I want to make that very plain, because I know that many bloggers feel that the blogging awards passed along, however well-intentioned, sometimes have a bit of a “chain mail” feel to them.  I would love to see even “award-free” bloggers taking up this gauntlet, because it is something else entirely.  It’s a simple, yet very powerful way for a community of mental health bloggers to show that they are proud of their lives, that they are writing for themselves as well as for those who have not yet found their voices, that they are ensuring no one ever has to feel alone when dealing with mental illness.

This year’s badge is especially cool, because Lulu put together a number of different choices.  She posted them on her blog, Sunny With a Chance Of Armageddon, as well as on A Canvas Of The Minds.  The community then got to vote on which image they wanted for 2013.  After a mostly scientific tally (read: I made tally marks in a notebook scientifically), I can reveal to you the Blog For Mental Health 2013 official badge:

Designed by Lulu, selected by the community!

Designed by Lulu, selected by the community!

Here is how this thing works:

1.) Take the pledge by copying and pasting the following into a post featuring “Blog for Mental Health 2013″.

I pledge my commitment to the Blog For Mental Health 2013 Project.  I will blog about mental health topics not only for myself, but for others.  By displaying this badge, I show my pride, dedication, and acceptance for mental health.  I use this to promote mental health education in the struggle to erase stigma.

2.) Link back to the person who pledged you.

Blog For Mental Health 2013 « A Canvas Of The Minds

3.) Write a short biography of your mental health, and what this means to you.

So, I carry diagnoses of Bipolar Disorder I, and also nearly every anxiety disorder in the book (the book being the DSM, the one used for making these diagnoses) — Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Panic Disorder, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.  Possibly also Impulse Control Disorder.

I kept a lid on things until I was about 25, when a whole series of events led to a complete and total nervous breakdown.  The short version is something along the lines of six years of medications (soooo many medications, like upwards of 70), talk and structured therapies, eventually electroconvulsive therapy — which was the most horrible experience of my life, and left scars I will carry forever.

A lot of you who are reading this probably don’t know all about that.  That’s because something happened at the beginning of March last year, I can’t really explain it, but I became well again.  I became the girl I was at 21, when I could do it all beautifully and flawlessly and joyfully.  I have spent this time healing, and I know that I won’t ever be exactly that same girl; I’m a whole lot wiser, and sometimes much sadder.  I have to take my medications regularly, or things can get pretty rough for me.

But I am happy, oh so happy.  And were you to ask me if I would go through all of that again, six years of Hell (capital H) to get where I am now — 32 years old, living on disability, in my parents’ home — my answer would be a resounding, ”Yes!”, without qualification.  I am more blessed than I ever imagined I could be.  I love and I am loved, and I discovered the wonderful, loving, supportive community of all of you because of my journey.

4.) Pledge five others, and be sure to let them know!

I am pledging five of my fellow bloggers who have stood with me, and have proven their mettle in my eyes as mental health bloggers.

I’m going to put a little twist on this one.

First, as the entirety of Team Canvas was pledged in the original post, I’ll start out with five other bloggers whom I know and respect and who have made lasting contributions to the online mental health community:

Cate, of  Infinite Sadness… or hope?

Mel, of Toby and I together and/or scienerf (I wasn’t sure which to pledge)

Halfway Between The Gutter And The Stars

Kevin, of Voices of Glass

Pride in Madness

But I also would like to include five more bloggers, just a sampling of the newer voices I am reading, who may not yet know about this.  So I pledge:

My Mind Matters

2bbritt

How To Fly Over The Cuckoos Nest

Bipolar 2 Dad

AnxiousElephant

If you happen upon this without being pledged, I still pledge you.  Feel free to take the pledge!  Promote awareness!

5.) And, as something novel for 2013, Lulu and I ask one more thing of you.

As you may have noticed, Canvas does not keep an official blogroll, outside of links to our authors’ personal blogs.  For something new and special to introduce Blog For Mental Health 2013, and really build a sense of community — and show everyone how many of us there are, and how strong we are, coming together — we are launching a Blog For Mental Health 2013 Official Blogroll!  So, in addition to linking back to the person who pledged you, please include the link to the original post in your piece.  As this gets passed along, link back or click here and leave a comment containing the link to your pledge, and we will put you on our Blog For Mental Health 2013 Official Blogroll page!  Show the world our strength, show them our solidarity, show them what we are made of.  Take the Blog for Mental Health pledge and proudly display the badge on your blog!

(And yes, I do know that I stuck about 752 links in here.  I figure the more this gets passed around, the more some will get lost, and I want people to be able to find their way back to the original post and page!)

© Ruby Tuesday and I Was Just Thinking. . . 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Ruby Tuesday and I Was Just Thinking. . . with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. This work is protected under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Dust Off Your Highest Hopes

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Raise your hand if you’ve ever made a New Year’s resolution.  Now raise your hand if you have ever completely failed on one — or most.

Yeah, me too.  Actually, I think I got wise to the whole resolution game before I was nine.  That was how old I was the last time I made a New Year’s resolution.  And no, I don’t remember what it was.

The thing is, failing at a New Year’s resolution isn’t really a very painful experience, like failing at a goal you set for yourself some other time of the year.  Why not?  Because you know that countless other people are failing at theirs as well.  You aren’t alone.  It’s a time of year when we can actually all have a bit of a laugh and understanding for our failures.  It’s almost expected.  We do it together.

Well, I have a better idea for something we can all do together to begin this year.  I say we hope for ourselves.

In 2012, I got the thing in my life that mattered most, the thing I thought I had given up hoping for on any real, fundamental level.  After half my life dealing with raging mental illness, and the last six years (give or take) causing such acute suffering that I didn’t even know who I was anymore, I had given up ever seeing myself again.  I never gave up believing that something would help glue together the pieces into a semblance of myself, but that wonderful, beautiful, bright, happy, intelligent, crazy, head-in-the-clouds-and-hands-in-the-stars me. . . she wasn’t coming back.

Only she did.  She’s here.

Last March, one Sunday I woke up and I was the girl I’d been ten years ago.  And I knew that she would never go again.  I have to keep taking medication, yes, and I’ve had some hiccups, true enough.  But I knew that Sunday I had somehow fought through all of those years to get me back.  I believed it that first day, and I believe it all these months later.

So let’s do something else this New Year’s Eve, and let’s do it together.  Let’s hope.

I may not be the most interactive blogger when I write, but this post is designed differently (and take advantage of that, as it may be the only one!).  I’m going to share with all of you, my loves, the things I am hoping for in the year to come.  Things for me, in my life.  Yes, I hope for a kinder, more peaceful world, and I hope that my girls will continue to find the happiness in growing up and be spared as much as possible from the pain.  Of course I hope for those things.  Everyone hopes for things such as those.

I hope to do more things like this, with this lady (who has not signed a photo release) if possible

I hope to do more things like this, with this lady (who has not signed a photo release) if possible

 
 
In this post, though, the hopes I will share with you will be my hopes, for my life.  Things upon which I have some direct effect, and things upon which I may have none.  And I would love so very much for you to share yours with me in the comments.  As many as you would like.  You may find this a little scary, when you really get down to it.  I certainly do.  Because hope touches the most intimate and secret places in our hearts, and it is often something we don’t share with anyone.

 
 
But here I go:

  • I hope to be good and properly swept off my feet this year.  I’ve been in love, and I have even let my heart and senses get ahead of my brain (but not since I was 16).  I don’t care if it’s love, and I don’t care if it lasts for a year or a week.  I just want to lose all sense of “should I?” and go for it.
  • I hope to be able to get out and live on my own.  My parents are lovely to have taken me this far, but I need my own space in which I can properly enjoy being me again.  I don’t care if it’s a one-room studio, or if it’s drafty, or if I have to walk a million stairs.  As long as it has a proper kitchen, washer and dryer hookups, and a bathtub!
  • I hope I can have regular dates with my Babygirl once again (lunch on Sundays, perhaps).  She is at a place where I feel like she needs me more, and I have always needed her.  The difference is that now I can be there for her in a tangible way.
  • I hope to get back to kickboxing (I had a nice start pre-mono) and rebuild my strength, my endurance, my confidence, and my body, too.  Kickboxing does wonders for me as a mood stabilizer as well, so there really is no downside.
  • I hope to do a lot more traveling, both domestically and (kicking in some major hopes) internationally.  Rome, Venice, get ready for Ruby!
  • I hope all the necessaries can align for me to get that tattoo I’ve been planning for some time.  Artist, money, me. . .  It matters.
  • I hope to learn film development.  And yes, I mean color as well.  Every time someone tells me how incredibly difficult color is, it makes me want it more and more.  Again, there are many things that must align in this equation.
  • I hope I can spend more and more time reading.  I’ve said previously that I was grateful to just be able to read again at all, and so I was, and so I’ll always be.  But that doesn’t have to be the end of it, and I believe that if I work on it, and never say enough, I may be able to get back to reading the way that I used to.  To devouring.
  • I hope to get back to writing more.  Blogging, yes, but more writing for myself.  Journaling, writing fiction, sending letters and emails, even.  I intend to feed my imagination so much that it has no choice but to bleed through my fingers onto the page.
  • I hope to actually do something with my recently discovered love of oil pastels.  It may turn out beautifully, it may turn out like the scribblings of a two-year-old, it will most likely turn out somewhere in the middle, but I want it to turn out.  I want to lose The Fear.
  • I hope, in addition to the general travel wish, to spend a great deal of time at the beach.  Or, more precisely, in the ocean!

There you are.  From my heart to yours.  Now share with me what you have in your heart.  What do you hope for in the year to come?

I hope you all have a wonderful year, full of hope, and I send you my love.

Addendum: Hopes have no expiration dates, and this post is not just a New Year’s Eve thing. Keep sharing the things you want for this year (nothing as ugly as “must dos”, but the beautiful “I hopes” — see below for the things others have contributed, if you’re confused), because if you accomplish nothing else, in doing so you spread a little more joy into the world. Also, if you decide to share your hopes on your own blog, let me know with a link!

Oooh, Meizac wrote a post, Meizac wrote a post! Go forth and read: My hopes for the year to come

© Ruby Tuesday and I Was Just Thinking. . . 2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Ruby Tuesday and I Was Just Thinking. . . with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. This work is protected under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Laura’s Story

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Many of you who read this know (or know of) Laura.  She is a fellow Canvas author, she writes the blog Bipolar For Life, she is a doctor, she is a musician, and she is a woman I am very blessed to be able to call my friend.

Laura has embarked on something new.  It’s hard for me to find the words to describe what she’s doing.  No, that isn’t quite right.  What she’s doing is something brave and very important.  What I have a difficult time finding the words for is where she’s been.  That’s what her new blog, dinaleah: story of a teenage runaway, talks about.  It’s a story she has alluded to, or mentioned in some posts before now.  But Laura is finally telling the whole story.  To quote her:

If you want to know my true story, here it is, in serialized form.  It’s painful, and full of triggers; but I hope you’ll read it anyway, and engage with me in your comments, as I would like to use it as a jumping-off point for discussion of issues that many of us hold in common.

I can personally attest to the fact that it’s a very difficult read.  This beautiful, amazing woman is a “survivor of homelessness, multiple rapes, survivor sex/barter sex, [and] PTSD.”  But I am writing this post, word by excruciating word, because I really think it needs to be read and discussed.  Not in spite of the fact that it’s such a difficult and painful read, but precisely because of that fact.  Laura is putting in the spotlight the most intimate and traumatic things in her life.  I often am lost for words with what I read; it is absolutely gut-wrenching and heartbreaking.  But I am also at a loss when I think about how she overcame these things, and all that she did, all that she still does.  Survivor is a word that is not nearly strong enough, it is not half as strong as Laura is.

There are a lot of very ugly things in this world.  Things we don’t want to read about, things we don’t want to talk about.  But the first step to eliminating them is to bring them out into the open for everyone to see.  Laura has taken that step.  The next step is for the world to look and to listen and to understand.  And that step is completely on us.  I hope that you will read and engage and spread Laura’s words to others.  I include the link a second time:

dinaleah: story of a teenage runaway | Survivor of homelessness, multiple rapes, survivor sex/barter sex, PTSD

Note:  As Laura said, this new blog is full of triggers.  While I encourage you to visit and to read, please don’t ever do it at the expense of your own mental health.

© Ruby Tuesday and I Was Just Thinking. . . 2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Ruby Tuesday and I Was Just Thinking. . . with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. This work is protected under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

An Interruption To My Irregularly Scheduled Silence. . .

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Regular readers, new readers, lovelies in general, please, please do take note that the following is NOT in any way directed towards you.  I actually read all comments flagged as spam, and I have a very precise, as yet infallible system for distinguishing the real people comments from the idiot-generated comments.  Your comments I treasure, lovelies.  That’s a lot of the reason I am posting this. . .  Trust me!  

Forty-six spam comments in one day on this blog?  Game on, assholes.  I’ve been through this one already, and will not quietly ignore this.

You’ve been warned.

Kisses,
Ruby

© Ruby Tuesday and I Was Just Thinking. . . 2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Ruby Tuesday and I Was Just Thinking. . . with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. This work is protected under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Unconditional Positive Regard

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Think about that one.  It’s a powerful phrase.  I heard it from my very dear friend and soul sister, Em.  And she used it to describe, of all things, me.

She told me that she always felt she could tell me everything, she never had to hide the things in her life, because no matter what she disclosed, she knew that I would hold her in unconditional positive regard.

I would like to say that it stopped me in my tracks then and there and really made me think.  I’d like to say that, but it wouldn’t be true.  It was more one of those things that simmered in the back of my mind and then one day I really started thinking about it consciously.

I love it because it is pretty much the best thing anyone has ever said about me, and I love it because, you know what, it’s true.  That second thing was also something it took me some time to wrap my head around.

I’m going to tell you a secret.  While I am a fairly secure, confident, positive human being, and I generally feel like I always try to do right by everyone and be the most kind and loving presence I can be, there is a big old bitch that lives in my head that is always niggling me.  She tells me I didn’t do enough, I should have tried harder, I could be so much more. . .

Back to the whole unconditional positive regard thing.  That bitch in my head has not for a moment questioned or contradicted or caused me to doubt that one.  I took some time – okay, about 30 seconds – to think about what it meant and if I felt it was accurate, and guess what?  It is!

I don’t judge people.  It is not in me to do it.  It used to be, and I’m not for a minute denying that I do the superficial snap judgments about people and their too short shorts or their inconsiderate behavior.  I’m not proud that I do it, but I’m working on doing it less.

But when it comes to someone’s actions and behaviors and choices, I honestly do not make judgments.  Neither do I assume I know about things.  Instead, I try really hard to think about the person, the circumstances, human nature, societal pressure, all the factors that might lead a person to do something.

I realize that I am being annoyingly vague.  I’m going to try to fix that.

But here’s my deal.  I have done a lot of things in my life, good, bad, and somewhere in between on the spectrum.  A great many of them fall into the category of things others just can’t understand the reasons for.  I have been criticized, I have been judged, I have hurt people and been hurt by people, and I have lost more than one very close relationship due to a basic factor of misunderstanding.

William S. Burroughs was once quoted as saying, “You don’t need a reason to become an addict.  You need a reason not to become an addict.”  I think about this when I hear people criticizing drug users and others who are classed as scourges of our society.  Because I get it.  I get it all too well.  The only explanation I have for never falling into the classic, textbook behaviors of self-medicating with alcohol, illicit or prescription drugs, or anything that I could get my hands on is that I have too many reasons not to.

But that doesn’t mean I don’t know what it’s like.  That doesn’t mean I haven’t been to That Place, the one where you will do or take or try anything just to escape the torture inside for five goddamned minutes, where you aren’t thinking about the long-term consequences of your behavior or what the risk is or the damage it will do to those you love. You are incapable of thinking about all that.  All you are thinking about is how you can make it through the next hour.

Which brings me back to the whole unconditional positive regard thing.  I know and love people who have pretty much done it all.  Drugs, alcohol, eating disorders, suicide attempts, and a host of other things I will not even put in to words, because they could really destroy some lives.  And I can look at these people and I can love them and I can be there waiting, with my unconditional positive regard, when they need help or someone to confide in.

The people in my life, the ones whom I love more than life can do no wrong, as far as I am concerned.  That doesn’t mean I put on my rose-colored glasses and condone destructive behavior.  But I can always separate the action from the person.  That was something that was so critical to me when I had my girls, to make sure that when they misbehaved I made it very clear that it was the behavior that was bad, not them.

(My proudest parenting moment ever – which I probably wrote about already – was when my eldest little girl recounted to me how her father had told her she was bad, not at all maliciously, mind you, and she had told him back, “NO!  My Ruby says I’m NOT bad!!!”  I’m sure it didn’t create the best father/daughter dynamic in the moment, but when I heard about it I knew she had a good sense of herself and was going to be alright in life.  I think she was all of about three at the time.)

Anyway, I try to be a true friend and talk through the situation, or just listen if that’s what’s needed.  I know that my Em and all of the many others in my life are extraordinary people.  And it feels so amazing to know that Em is right, that she or anyone else I love can confide in me without hesitation, because I do and always will hold them in unconditional positive regard.

Moral of the story:  There, but for the grace of God, go I.

© Ruby Tuesday and I Was Just Thinking. . . 2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Ruby Tuesday and I Was Just Thinking. . . with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. This work is protected under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Inspiration To Take On Yet Another Project (Of A Sort)

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Or, ‘I Know, I Do It To Myself’

Some interesting things happened while I wasn’t paying attention.  I got older and so did my babies.  I’m not really that old, I’m roughly around the third decade of life.  And my babies – well, they’re eight and eleven, which to me is hard to wrap my head around as I met them when they were days old.

In case you missed it, my babies are neither biologically nor legally my own.  I was a nanny, but they are the only kids I will ever have, and I love them every bit as much as I would had I birthed them.  Trust me on that one.  Also, because it’s relevant, they’re both girls.

Thing is, even though I don’t have them in my care full-time anymore, I still want to do everything I can to help them navigate the challenges life throws at them.  And I also think I have a very unique and special opportunity to play an important role in their lives, because we have a bond that is similar to parent/child in some ways, but now that they’re older it’s turned a lot more into a friendship.

Do you have any idea how immensely beneficial that could be?  For them to have an adult in their life who has known them forever, whom they trust and are comfortable talking to, who won’t judge or punish, who will keep their secrets, who will talk with them openly and honestly, and whom they might feel more comfortable discussing certain things with than they would their parents?

I am not trying to take over the role of parent or make Mom or Dad obsolete.  I hope that they both feel they can always turn to their parents, first and foremost.  But let’s face it, different adolescent and teenage girls have different comfort levels talking about certain things, there are different dynamics involved when you talk to a parent than someone you think of as a friend (albeit a much older one), and I am not so old as to have forgotten there were definitely things I was never comfortable mentioning to my parents.  That’s just how it goes.

The other part is that a general paradigm shift occurred as my girls and I got older.  I went from being the typical, bugged by teens as a group and their perceived lack of awareness of the world around them adult to a curious observer who was intrigued, and wanted to know what they thought and what they faced in their lives and what interested them and distressed them and made them happy.  I want to know about pressure and insecurity and role models and how they feel about the lives they live.  What is their relationship with their parents like?  How young do they really start to think seriously about sex, and when and why do they have it for the first time?  What about fashion and media and trends and everything?

But how do I go about finding this kind of stuff out?  I don’t want to get a degree in psychology and become a counselor, I just want to talk to teenagers, especially the female ones, in groups and one-on-one and figure out their world.  But you can’t just go up to a group of teen girls and introduce yourself and say, “Hey, tell me all about your most secret dreams and fears and hopes and desires.”  Creepy much?

I don’t know a single teenager.  I need an “in.”  I did some cursory surfing of blogs here on WordPress and didn’t find much.  So tell me, what do I do?  How do I go about this?  Does anyone reading this have any resources for me?  Do any of you have teenage or tween daughters (or nieces, or cousins, or anythings) that you could send this link to?  Are any of you who are reading this serendipitously teenage girls?

Help me out, for me and for my babies.  And if you are a parent or a counselor or anyone who could direct me towards groups for teenagers or even a single individual but want reassurances that I’m not a weird, creepy troll, email me at mywonderfulabnormalmind@gmail.com.  I will forgo certain rules I have on this blog as far as anonymity in private correspondence if you can help me to help be a resource to my girls.  Ask and I will answer.

Moral of the story:  Sometimes the best way to find help is to flat-out ask for it.  I know, novel concept.

© Ruby Tuesday and I Was Just Thinking. . . 2011. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Ruby Tuesday and I Was Just Thinking. . . with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. This work is protected under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Do You Remember When I Used To Blog?

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Okay, it really isn’t that bad.  But I’ve been working hard on this new project, A Canvas Of The Minds, trying to recruit more voices and get out all of the bugs and actually write something for it here and there, and it seems I let my own blog fall a bit by the wayside. It hasn’t been that long, but it’s been too long for me.

I need to hurry up and get someone to pay me for the things that I write, because it has been taking up so much of my time.

But I have had some really good things come from all of this mishigas.  I’m connecting with people in a way I never would have, otherwise.  I’ve been (kind of) learning to write in HTML, which may not seem like much to the casual observer, but considering how little I used to know or really care to know about computers, it’s a pretty big deal.  It’s given me a way to focus my energies and – well I don’t want to say mentor people, because that just sounds sort of big sister/pretentious to me.  I guess maybe recruit and encourage some people who have good talent and important things to say, and just never would have found a voice or venue otherwise.  I’m not sure about that part, we’ll have to see, mostly it’s still in the works (ahem).

It has also been a really positive thing for me, because it has taken my focus and turned it more outward, at least somewhat.  I’m not saying that I still don’t have a great deal of work to do on myself, and that the very concentrated time being hyper-focused inward wasn’t necessary and important, but I think I hit the point where it was really a good thing to start working through everything and doing self-therapy the way I’ve always done it best – by looking at and doing what I can for other people who are struggling.  Not even just people who are struggling, as such, but people who could use some direction, guidance, or even just a nudge or a new idea or encouragement.

I guess that having been so mired down in myself, it’s really a wonderful feeling to once again turn outward and notice the rest of the world and how I might be useful and good for them, even just a very little bit at a time.

Plus, since this whole experience requires making commitments to other people, but they’re people who understand where I’m at personally and are very kind, while there is an obligation to others, it isn’t the kind you have if you’re in a traditional work environment with deadlines, or even if you’re a parent who has to get the baby fed and bathed and dressed.  Although I really, really do miss those days.  I still remember the smell of baby, fresh from the bath. . .

Things have been nice and much less stressful because I’ve had the house to myself, as well (that ends soon).  Also, I have something really exciting and positive to look forward to in the very near future.  Oh.  And of course I’ve been watching loads of iCarly.  ;)

Moral of the story:  (I feel so out of practice at this part) I haven’t gone anywhere, and I’m sure my fingers will be flying across the keys for this blog as frequently as usual soon.  But I’ve found all sorts of new ways to help myself feel better, so be happy for me!

© Ruby Tuesday and I Was Just Thinking. . . 2011. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Ruby Tuesday and I Was Just Thinking. . . with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. This work is protected under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

The Wait Is Over

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Here it is!  I have been working very hard, and collaborating on the development of another blog.  This one is a different approach, a community of people blogging together.  Well, it will be, anyway.  Three authors (including me) are already on board, another has given a yes, and after the diversity is a bit more properly on display, we’re going to get to reaching out and recruiting and advertising.

As far as I am concerned, I’m keeping this blog for my primary, and just contributing to the new project here and there, and only with regard to my mental differences.  Although so far there are two posts up, and they’re both mine.  But I have the most time, currently.

So shall I give you the link?  Would you like to know where to find it?  Are you sure?  Do you really want to know?

Okay, I’ve kept you in suspense long enough.  A Canvas Of The Minds - still very much in development, but I’ll keep you posted!

Ruby

© Ruby Tuesday and I Was Just Thinking. . . 2011. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Ruby Tuesday and I Was Just Thinking. . . with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. This work is protected under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.