Out of the Darkness Community Walk

This past Saturday I walked.  I walked all around the Riverfront in Wilmington, Delaware.  I walked with over 500 other people.  Together, we raised over $59,000 and 84 cents of every single one of those dollars will go to suicide prevention. 

 

The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention Out of the Darkness Community Walk was an amazing (yet cold and windy) experience.  From vendors to speakers, walkers had the opportunity to share with one another their stories and the stories of their loved ones. 

 

We walked for each other and we walked for those people who took their own lives.  While other people, out of love for a good cause, walked simply to support research and education opportunities in suicide prevention. 

 

At the event, there were buckets of beads in different colors.  The walkers were able to pick up and wear the beads that best represented why they were present at the event.  Personally, I took the purple, blue and green beads and wore them the entire day of the walk.  The three different colors represented the following:

 

Purple:  I have lost a relative or friend to suicide

Blue: I support suicide prevention

Green:  I struggle/struggled personally

 

For me, it was a powerful event, it was a day of healing and it created the opportunity to reflect.  As I look back on my own life, I see the four people who I know that I have lost to suicide.  On Saturday, I walked for them.  I also walked for myself and for mental health awareness. 

 

When I signed up for this walk, I knew it wouldn’t be an easy event to participate in.  I know my personal struggles with Bipolar have taken me through hell and back again.  And I also know that I am grateful to be currently stable and while yes, medicated, I am healthy. 

 

Today, I put on my high heels and I went to work just like I do every Monday through Friday.  And today, like every other day, I feel blessed.  I am grateful for where I am in my life’s journey and I am certainly glad I had the opportunity to participate in this special walk. 

 

Finally, I want to say a special Thank You to those who supported me financially, physically and emotionally on this journey.  From my monetary sponsors to friends who walked beside me (and my mom who watched my daughter while I walked), Thank You from the bottom of my heart. 

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.

 

 

There’s Hope in the Darkness of Bipolar Disorder

In loving honor of World Mental Health Day (October 10th), today I did a guest blog post for a very good friend of mine.  She graciously posted my words on her blog and I would like to share what I wrote with my readers here as well.  Her blog, where this was originally published, is https://www.parrotcontent.com.

"It was 6 a.m. and we had been in the emergency department for my husband since 10 p.m. the night before. Having been completely deprived of sleep and running strictly on adrenaline, my mental health went out of control. I had a manic episode and it was the worst one to date.

When I came out of it, off cloud two hundred, and back to reality, I counted seven holes that I had put in my ears with various safety pins. My husband, who was sleeping at the time, woke up to find me this way and he almost passed out looking at my ears. He asked me what I was thinking and I said, “I am not sure.  I just wanted to pierce my ears and make them pretty.” After this, he helped me to put earrings through the holes I had created and we removed the safety pins one by one. He laid me down and I took a very long nap.

You see my friends, I suffer from bipolar disorder. I was diagnosed with it in the spring of 2012 after trying to buy a brand new car off a credit card with a limit of $2000. My husband had to take my credit card from me and drive me home from the dealership. This is the manic side of my bipolar disorder. The opposing side to this is the depression and I suffer from both.

When the depression gets out of control, I generally end up in an emergency room and hospitalized for at least a week. This has happened three times so far in my short thirty-three years of life. The last time I was hospitalized because I emailed my husband a suicide letter. The pills were ready to be taken and out on the counter. The only thing between the pills and me was the bed I was sleeping on at the time.

I tell you this information not to scare you but to explain to you the good, the bad and the ugly of bipolar disorder as it pertains to me. And to say that I am proud of myself for where I have come is an understatement. I have lived through hell and back and I still put on my high heels every day and go to work. Yes, I have been on disability before and I have gone through months of living at home in order to make ends meet. But today, I am stable and I work a full-time job.

My good friend once asked me to explain to her how I control my mental health. And I realized in that moment that I use many different means of healing. I use medication, a counselor, mindfulness thinking, support of family, love of friends, prayer, music, a proper diet, exercise and the list goes on. When times get rough, I pull out whatever healthy means I have at the time to best handle the situation.

On a regular basis, there are five rules that I follow: I eat proper nutrition, I drink lots of water, I exercise, I take my medication and I see my counselor. These simple steps keep me stable as I walk through life one step at a time, one high heel in front of the other.

Yours Truly,

Moody Mom"

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.

Pet Therapy

My cat’s name is Ninja and she is seven years old.  My dog’s name is Valerie and she is two years old.  Valerie is the baby in the family and Ninja is the eldest.  Our daughter falls in between the two fur babies at three and a half years old.  I will write plenty more blogs about her but this one is about our furry friends. 

I was browsing the internet… facebook to be exact… looking for… actually I have no idea what I was looking for.  But what I can tell you is that I saw her.  I saw that little black and white cat and the ad on facebook begging for someone to adopt her.  And I read the ad and I re-read the ad and I read it for a third time.  And by the time I got to the third time of reading it, I called my husband and told him that we were adopting a cat that weekend.

Ninja was a year old and considered “not adoptable” because people only want to adopt kittens not cats.  They were going to put her to sleep if they did not find someone to adopt her quickly.  The organization who housed her was called Dumpster Cats.  They said she was outside a corporate building scared and cold at about seven weeks old when she was rescued and brought to them. 

Ninja was shy, timid and anxious.  The owner’s husband, used to watch Ninja do back flips off the couch at night when the other kittens were fast asleep.  She would sleep during the day while the baby kittens all played.  She was a warrior in life, an eight pound furry warrior.  And I knew I wanted her in my life.  

I remember when we went to pick her up.  The lady who owned Dumpster Cats said, “Ma’am, this is a long-term commitment.  She will live at least twenty years.”  And six years later, Ninja still snuggles with me.  She still welcomes me every morning when I get out of bed with a “Meow”.  And when I get home from work, she meets me at the bottom of the steps, flips around onto her back and says in her little cat voice, “pet my belly Mommy, I am so glad you are home”. 

Valerie, on the other hand, is a whole different story.  For my husband’s thirty-third birthday, I told him we could look into adopting a dog for our family.  Well the words, “look into” meant nothing to him and that weekend we were all over the state of Delaware at animal shelters petting and playing with dogs of every shape, size and breed.  After seeing her three times, taking his co-worker to meet her and talking to the shelter about next steps, Valerie came home with us that following weekend. 

Valerie was a protective animal by nature and needed to know exactly where her humans were at all times.  We potty trained her and crate trained her.  I recall my co-worker saying, “You crate trained her?  That is inhumane to the animal!”  and I gently reminded her of the shelter Valerie came from when she was only allowed outside two times per week, she lived on a cement floor and shared a cage with another dog…And my co-worker gently took back what she said. 

To this day, Valerie greets her humans with jumping up on her hind legs and putting her front paws on our thighs (Except for our daughter.  She runs in circles around her and smothers her with kisses.  It is actually quite interesting how she knows to not jump on her sister because she would tackle her if she did).  Valerie smiles from ear to ear just laying on her back getting pet on her belly in the lap of one her humans. 

And when I am having a bad day and am sick, my animals are right by my side.  They either snuggle right there next to me or are on the floor by my bed.  Valerie and Ninja both know that if Mommy or Daddy allows either of them to jump up on the bed that Mommy is sick and having a bad day.  And they love it.  Speaking for them, I can honestly say that they love to snuggle, feel my warm (or cold) body, and help me transform from having a bad day into feeling better and having a good one.  They certainly are not a prescription drug but they are a form of healing that is unexplainable, unconditionally loving and genuinely caring. 

So to all my fellow humans out there reading this blog, take care of your furry friends because I know they will take care of you too.  And to all my furry friends, keep showering your love on your humans. Thanks for reading and have a bright and sunny day!

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.