My Lotus Flower Tattoo

Due to the milestones of my bipolar mental illness, my 30th birthday celebration was very emotional for me.  To be able to see 30 years old when I had so many days that I could not even see the next day or minute or second in front of me was a feat beyond my most precious dreams. 


My brain is not equipped properly to handle life as healthy people do and therefore the prospect of self harm and/or directly relating to suicide is very real for me.  With the mentality of "Stacy You Matter", my medications, my doctors, my counselors, my husband, my precious family, and a few select dear friends, unsafe segments of my life have become futures of celebration. 

For my 30th birthday, I got my second tattoo.  With the help of amazing drawings and assistance in my vision from my husband, my incredible tattoo artist and I co-created a simple yet beautiful masterpiece.  My tattoo is on my right ankle and I wanted to share the meaning with all of you. 

My tattoo represents 3 main topics:

1.  Perseverance 

The focal point of the tattoo- the center of the flower- is a semicolon..."A semicolon is used when an author could've chosen to end their sentence, but chose not to.  The author is you and the sentence is your life."- Project Semicolon

2.  Love

Two of the flower petals come together at the very center top of the flower to look like a heart.

The two bottom peddles on the left and two bottom peddles on the right together look like a butterfly.  To me a butterfly represents change in consciousness and therefore a new beginning. 

3.  Grace

The lotus flower.  The beautiful tattoo as a whole is a tribal style lotus flower.  This represents the grace I have chosen to bestow upon myself over the times of turmoil which in turn has helped me take baby steps towards my prolonged future.  And secondly, since the day we found out we were pregnant, I have and will continue to offer my daughter grace- even in trying times when I have no other way of sharing my love for her. 

Finally, it was recently brought to my attention by my lovely counselor that the stem of my flower presents the image of an anchor.  Immediately I responded with, "through it all, the Lord is the anchor in my life". 

Love Note:  With all my heart, I genuinely request that due to the content written, please seek the guidance of professional help should you feel you need it.

Fight or Flight Mechanism

This past Tuesday, I had a huge meeting.  A consultant was presenting my data to five top executives at my company.  And when I say the meeting was a disaster, it was truly a catastrophe.  The consultant misinterpreted the data and misrepresented many of the statistics.  The executives were not only correcting the data during the presentation but I was also questioned afterwards.  Two of the group leaders wanted to know where they got their data and why it was wrong.  And they wanted answers from me. 


I take pride in my work and I work very hard.  I also am a very intelligent woman.  Not to toot my own horn or anything but I did get a 4.0 grade point average in graduate school.  So when I tell you that I clammed up and did not have answers to give them, I fell completely quiet and crawled into a shell.  The leaders wanted answers and I could not find anything in my head to tell them.  I felt about an inch tall and I wanted to run and hide in a corner and cry.  So I simply stated that I agreed with them that the presentation needed work and that I would do what I could to work with the consultant to rectify the data. 


After the meeting, I wanted to run away.  I wanted to quit my job and never go back again.  I wanted to pack up my office and say goodbye to my coworkers.  I wished the meeting never happened and I wanted nothing to do with cleaning up what I saw as a big data mess.


Have you ever heard the term “fight or flight”?  To me, it simply means to stay in the situation and fight your way through it or to leave the situation completely.  This mechanism inside my brain over-dramatizes the situation and offers an “out” for my mental health.  In this instance, my mind wanted to candidly run away from the situation and not stay and fight my way through how to remedy it.  Let me be very clear that I recognize this is an extreme way of seeing the world and of handling negative situations.  And it is truly painful to work through.


In this instance of flight, I handled it as every good hard worker would:  I vented to my friend who works in another department.  She knows me very well and knows that I suffer from a mental illness.  And I trust her.  I explained that my brain was being extreme and unhealthy and that I needed her help.  So she sent me a song to listen to and I went for a walk. 


When I got back from my walk, I talked to our executive assistant and she put me in a half hour time slot to speak with my boss.  My boss was one of the executives who were present at the meeting so he was fully aware of the situation that took place.  He listened and helped me to trouble-shoot a way to handle the consultant going forward.  And we discussed how to be proactive with the consultant rather than retroactive with the data analysis.  


To say that I feel better would not honestly depict the situation.  But to say that I feel worse would not do it any justice.  So I will simply say that I am working through the process and taking it one step at a time…in my high heels of course. 


Love Note:  With all my heart, I genuinely request that due to the content written, please seek the guidance of professional help should you feel you need it.

The Past, Present and Future of Birthdays

Just under a week ago, I celebrated my 33rd birthday.  I was born into a family of five people including my mom, dad and three siblings.  I joined a large extended family with four grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.  

Birthdays in my family are a ton of fun!  We celebrate with family and friends... and loads of food.  We sing the "Happy Birthday" song and we blow out candles.  We make a really big deal out of our special day.  

When I was seven years old, my father was diagnosed with prostate cancer.  He was given six months to live.  My father lived not only beyond six months but he fought for 15 years.  My mom always says, "dad never got to see his 60th birthday" because he passed in October prior to his big day.  

I recall my 30th birthday.  This was a tough year for me because my health was going downhill fast.  A few weeks prior to that birthday I was hospitalized.  I spent a week in the psychiatric ward of a local hospital.  During that time of severe depression, I saw only each moment as it came.  And as I began to heal in the weeks following that awful time in the hospital, I became stronger and lived to surpass my 30th birthday.  

In my family, we celebrate birthdays for three simple reasons.  First, we celebrate our birth.  We rejoice over the day we were born into this world.  Secondly, we celebrate another year that we had on earth.  We reflect on another year we got to spend together.  And finally, we celebrate the year to come.  We look forward to the year ahead of us.  

Love Note:  With all my heart, I genuinely request that due to the content written, please seek the guidance of professional help should you feel you need it.