Depression | One Year On

Howdy!

It’s crazy to think that it’s been a WHOLE year already, for not only the presence of my nephew but asking for help to deal with my depression! I almost had forgotten about it, but something on Pinterest one afternoon, made me realize that it could be a good idea if I talked about my mental health and give you an update on all of that.

Do not let the shadows of your past darken the doorstep of your future. Forgive and let go.

Overall, I think I’ve been doing really good. I am always going to have my ups and downs in my life but for the most part I am feeling great! However, I feel like I would be lying to you if I didn’t mention that I am afraid of going into July and August. Since I have so many negative memories of getting through both of those months that I automatically feel panic at the thought of them coming soon. I am trying to really keep positive though, but sometimes I just can’t help it, those visions are on a loop at the end of summer. 

This year has a lot of different meanings, between my blog’s 8th birthday, Nolan’s first birthday,  and celebrating 10 years as a blogger in October. I have had a lot of plans this year and the fact that I’ve had quite a few months with little as two posts in roughly 31 days has been somewhat frightening. I have been trying to let it go and so far that’s been working out great because I’m not putting too much pressure on myself to get things finished. I’ve been feeling somewhat zen ever since I accepted it. I’ve also been enjoying telling myself that you don’t have to set things up if you don’t want to right now. 

That’s one thing that I think my antidepressants have been helping me out with the most, keeping everything straight without branching off into a million different directions. I’ve always wanted to adopt a healthier state of mind, because my brain goes a hundred miles away with different things and it gets to the point where I get really angry with myself over being lazy but I think it is a good thing to slow down, watch a little TV and just chill out for a while.

My anxiety has taken a hint, and calmed down a lot in some unexpected ways, like for example, we weren’t expecting it to help out was my fear over the nail clippers. I have always been afraid of these damn things since I was little, but I haven’t been sweating like crazy or attempting to pull my fingers away of my mother’s grip as much so that has been probably the biggest surprise of all! I have surprised myself with how much I trust myself and others when it comes to certain things, like feeling I am going to fall because again I have had a serious fear of heights all of my life, but now I am so chill. It’s nuts!

I am better than I was yesterday, but not as good as I will be tomorrow.

Despite the fact that things are going really good lately, unfortunately, these pills are not a cure-all. I wish they were, because I have a couple more issues that I wish would go away in less than a year. I’ve been trying to find some ways to distract myself along the way so that I don’t give in so easily and sometimes that works, but then again it doesn’t. Thankfully I am a patient person and I love to learn to work things out better for me, so hopefully I’ll be able to get through some of these other things on my own. 

So, yeah this is my life one year on after accepting the help that I needed for my mental health and maybe come back to blogging full time again, because honestly I really miss it a lot! 

Have you ever decided to take anything for your mental heath, whether it be anxiety, depression, OCD, etc? How long  did it take for you to see some results? 

BASKETBALL IS BACK!

Howdy!

Basketball is back is finally back! Technically, it’s been back for two months now, but I don’t usually like to count it until college basketball begins. Once I’ve watched my first Butler game, I can officially celebrate it fully!

I made this blog so I could have a safe place to basically unleash anything I thought was important to me, and I’ve had to really figure out if I wanted to do this post. Basketball being at the heart of it, but you will read some bittersweet things too. I just wanted to let it all go and this was the result.

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Shameful Beginnings

I like to think how I got into college basketball has a happy storytelling; I feel like I was influenced spiritually by my papaw. I like to tell people who I think he was bored up in heaven and needed somebody to let him watch basketball, so he turned to me because I was the only one that could be open enough to actually watch it. After he died, my family hardly watch a IU or Butler, so when I started, I did like it but I certainly miss the fact that he’s not there watching it on his TV in the kitchen of their house.

I’d really like to say that I felt the most of guilt because of the fact that I never wanted to listen whenever my papaw attempted to teach me the positions and whatnot years ago, but unfortunately it’s not that at all. Although I still feel bad for not allowing him that opportunity, but I think he’d be proud on what I’ve been able to learn on my own and some things that my mom, knows more about basketball then she previously thought, so I think that would make him a happy camper! Basketball has even improve my math too, which kind of still freaks me out, but I’m okay with it.

I started watching college basketball in the 2016-17 season. I literally only had one team but then as the season went on, I did begin to watch some of the other teams in the Big East conference.

A year later, about a month before college basketball was to start I got some unexpected news. Well, it really wasn’t just me, it was the entire family that got the news. On October 22nd, was both a good and also a bittersweet day for me. I found out that I was going to be an aunt for the first time. Now you’re thinking, what could be bad about that? Well, my sister and brother-in-law had been married for about four months and they had basically told us that they were going to wait about 10 years before trying to have children. Selfishly, I was kind of happy about that decision. Here’s why.

As somebody who has a serve physical disability, you are left out on a lot of lifetime experiences. When we were asked in school what we wanted to be when we grew up, everybody had some realistic and sometimes outlandish careers picked out, but I’ve always wanted to be a wife and mother. I think this is because I was around my mom and my nana so much growing up that it’s also been a big interest to me. Honestly, I’ve never really told anybody this, because I didn’t want to pity, but I really want somebody to love me truly and I want to be pregnant, go through labor and delivery, change diapers, give baths, and just love on a small creature that I helped make of my own. So, the fact that this was happening to my sister was pretty devastating to me.

What’s weird about it is that I didn’t necessarily get this feelings when my cousin was pregnant back in 2016 (or when she got married a year later!), mostly because I think she lived somewhat far away and I didn’t really communicate a lot with her. So, her pregnancies have never made me feel sad, it was just my sister and in a way I understood the reasons behind it. So, after she announced to the world that she was pregnant, I remember feeling my heart sink a little, but once I realized that it had done that, I started to layer on the guilt of feeling like that.

Later that night, I thought if college basketball can help me get through my papaw’s death, I was hoping that maybe professional basketball could help me sort out my thoughts of the fact that I will eventually become an auntie, and not a mother myself.

The Definition Of Devotion

I’ll be honest, those nine months were a bitch. My sister had a somewhat complicated pregnancy, mostly with her pain and getting Gestational diabetes towards the end of it. She actually didn’t like being pregnant and she had some problems feeling confident in her own body as well about the prospect of becoming a mother to this small child. She was a mess, and I wasn’t much better.

For a whole month, I had decided to watch about four teams (Boston Celtics, Cleveland Cavaliers, San Antonio Spurs, and Gold State Warriors) but I really didn’t enjoy them, I just watched them to get me out of my head. Every quiet moment had been awful. So many thoughts would come shooting at me from every angle, all of my bad memories would basically come at me hard and those four teams were part of my escape plan at night.

However, the week before the first Butler game was to come on TV, I had watched my first ever Houston Rockets game. They went up against Detroit Pistons and it is the only clear memory I have at that point of time. What I get from that means I probably didn’t watch the others as well as I did this game, because I was so mesmerized on the fact that on each side the players were hitting threes and I was dumbfounded. I’m still mad at myself for never finishing that game, but I was instantly hooked! And then about five  days later, I watched my first Los Angeles Lakers game and again, I was just instantly stuck on these guys.

By the time college basketball was in full swing for the 2017-18 season, I had a total of 10 teams I was watching constantly, hell I would add both Oklahoma City Thunder and Philadelphia 76ers to the list, but not until after Christmas was over. I had a lot of basketball to not only keep me happy but also keep those negative thoughts at bay. It wouldn’t always work, but on the days I really needed it, the sport was there.

Out Of The Ashes

After the championship games were over, I was really worried about what I would do now. I had essentially four months to kill before my nephew would finally be here and I was left to my own devices again and I think that scared me more than anything. By the time, my mom had been told about everything going on with me, she tried her best to comfort me with a whole lot of hugs and wash rags for my nose because it really didn’t matter if it was daylight or not I would just break down.

I’ve never been on antidepressants before this, I feel like I probably should have been on something after I had graduated from high school, and again in 2011, but I was very hesitant about it because I didn’t want to rely on a small pill to help make me feel better, but honestly I had no other options left and I was finally put on my first dose a week after Baby Nolan was born. A part of me was a little mad that we had waited all this time and I started them while he just got here, because I think it would have helped me out a bunch to stop feeling so jealous.

I really love being an auntie to my nephew, which adds to the guilt that I’ve held so deep inside. I’ve never told Blondie or Brandon about all of this before. I could never find the words and I was always afraid they wouldn’t understand or would be angry with me for never saying anything about it (especially my sister), so if they do decide to read this post, I just want to say, I did not plan on this. nobody really does but now that Nolan’s here, I love him dearly and I would do anything for him because I know he’s going to look up to me. He is already learning things that I’ve done in front of him like getting a drink out of my cup. He’s been recorded reaching for his mommy’s frappe once so I’ve already been teaching this little man without really trying and I get so much joy out of being around him. His toothless smiles are intoxicating and I really can’t get enough of it!

Who Am I Watching This Season?

Over the summer, I did something that I never thought I’d ever do. I watched the NBA Draft, NBA Awards and Summer League. Yeah, even my dad was shocked! I mainly watched the Draft because I knew that Villanova was losing four of their best players on the team and I just wanted to know where they were going, so with that being said I now watch the Milwaukee Bucks because that’s where Donte DiVincenzo is playing now. Just for an extra bonus, one of the reasons why I even liked watching the Lakers, Brook Lopez was traded there. I wasn’t originally happy about that piece of news, but I like seeing both of them on the same team now.

When professional basketball started in early October, I had made the decision to cut down on the amount of teams for this season. Since I am increasingly learning more about it in general, I wanted to shrink the list or switch out teams as much as possible. The only one I watch from the original “back up” lineup is the Boston Celtics. I mainly wanted to keep them because I have a “few” favorite players: Jayson Tatum, Aron Hayes, Al Halford (who I tend to get confused with Eric Gordon!), and Gordon Hayward. My dad thinks I like them because their coach Brad Stevens, who is a former head coach of Butler Bulldogs – it’s not true!

When the previous season was dwindling down and LA Lakers weren’t in the playoffs, I had temporary traded them with the 76ers. I really like Joel Embiid and JJ Redick a lot. Ben Simmons isn’t that bad, but he did not deserve that “Rookie Of The Year” award. I can’t wait to see how many other “rookie” players will try to say that in the future. The 76ers is a team that I frequently watch now, but since I’ve only seen probably 8 games total, I don’t have that many thoughts about them yet. Key word: yet.

And finally, I am still watching both the Houston Rockets and Los Angeles Lakers. This summer was pretty interesting, I literally watched the NBA Awards in hopes that James Harden would win MVP. I decided to watch that live, but taped it because I’m not an idiot, I fell asleep in the middle of it, so that morning my mom knew who had won but I made her promise not to tell me because I wanted to watch it. I was so happy, but unfortunately I wasn’t allowed to get too excited because my dad was asleep in the next room and I didn’t feel like scaring the crap out of him! I also had started following Bleacher Report on Twitter to find out of the different players who were being traded to other teams, and when I saw that Trevor Arzia had signed to Phoenix Suns, I was a bit sad but nothing compared to the nervousness I had at the possibility that Clint Capella could be leaving. Oh my gosh! The day it was announced to resigning with the Rockets was the best! When I saw that, everybody was awake so I was allowed to scream, I was so happy!

Another trade I was upset about, was when Julius Randle left. He was the second person to get me into the Lakers, so the fact that I was now down two out of three was nerve-wrecking. And then on top of that the whole world found out that LeBron James was becoming a Laker. For most people, especially everybody in LA alone, was ecstatic! I was not. It’s shocking that parents, coaches, hell even teachers tell kids everyday that there’s no “I” in team and yet whenever LeBron goes on a team, he’s #1 and everybody else is just a shadow behind him. The reason why I wasn’t thrilled about this, is because I liked the fact that it was the team of youngsters. You have Brandon Ingram, Lonzo Ball, Kyle Kuzma and Josh Hart that are all under the age of 25 and they all have real potential to lead a team, and yet now the spotlight doesn’t really shine on them as much anymore.

If you’re wondering about who the final player that got me interested in this team was Ingram, so imagine my face when he shoved James Harden on their first game of the new season. Yeah, I was actually enjoying it until that happened and all hell broke loose afterwards. My heart hurt as it was happening and I was glad that I had recorded the game instead of watching it live or I would have probably been in tears. If you’re reading this part, and assuming that the only reason why I could have done that because I have a crush on Ingram, Harden or any other of the players, you obviously didn’t read the post all the way through.

As far as college basketball goes, I am still and probably always going to watch Butler. Although, I am going to have to get a new shirt as I’ve officially outgrown it. Nolan has finally worn his Butler onesie already, but whether or not he can fit into is debatable, so it might be time for the both of us to get new outfits! And I will watch both Xavier and Villanova every once in a while; I actually don’t care to watch Nova during the Big East conferences, because they are really my team’s enemy. I admire them and practically know everybody’s names and numbers now, but I know better to root for anybody that could make them lose a game!

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I feel the need to apologize for the long post, but there was a lot to get out and I thought it would be better to get everything out in one go, so the fact that I’m over 2,000+ words was definitely not planned by any means! I would like to say that if you have read the whole thing, kudos to you for getting through it. Now that everything is out in the open, maybe I can just enjoy being an auntie and watching basketball in all forms! 🙂

Top 11 Life Mottos To Live By

Howdy!

I’ve been thinking about writing this post for a while. It wasn’t until I saw fellow blogger, Lisa put up a post about her favorite life mottos that made me get my butt in gear to publish this!

Back in 2014, I really wanted to learn how to deal with life. I didn’t want to get started on anti-depressants, and still don’t honestly! I knew what I was doing, wasn’t the best. I had two big depression spells first was in 2010 and the other was late 2011 into early 2012 and at this point at my life, I was fine, but I always felt on edge. I remember being on the website Your Zen Life created by actress Teresa Palmer a lot. I read some of their self-love articles and they really helped me deal with some of my inner demons. I started to learn more about daily affirmations and somehow I managed how to control my patience, which still freaks out a number of my family members!

Blondie and I have adopted a similar way of using life quotes to our advantage. After she got out of a very abusive relationship, one of the things she did to help her find some comfort, was she wrote out different quotes in this small notebook she got after attending a college campus tour. We’ve decorated the back of our doors with quotes and song lyrics that really mean a lot to us in the past, and with doing this, it helped a lot because I was able to see the phrases in front of me on a daily basis and I constantly had them on my mind.

If you follow my blog’s Facebook page and been seeing the quotes I’ve posted on there for the past couple of weeks, this is the reason. Here are eleven different quotes and the stories of why I like to use them on a daily basis. Maybe some of them will inspire you to adopt them into your life.

Train your mind to see the good in every situation.

A few years ago, I found this thing on Pinterest that I was thinking about doing, and I mentioned it to my nana and somehow by the end of our visit, we ended making a promise we’d do it together. So instead of looking at your whole day and knit-picking at the negative stuff first, you’re suppose to select three good things that happened within your day and if you can find three things then you have an excuse to say it was a “good day” compared to what you usually say.

This is how I ended up finding this quote, because it was similar to the activity. After a while, you do start seeing the good in your day that maybe you didn’t before. I mean, you’re going to have bad days, but you don’t want to feel stuck in that pattern for days on end, so this is a good way to start anew.

Sometimes the best reaction, is no reaction at all.

It’s funny, this was the quote that inspired this post because as much as I like to use it on a daily basis, the one thing that it doesn’t work on is apparently basketball. Maybe it’s the papaw in me or something, but I have trained myself to not react to everything, except that!

I think the one thing that I still need to work on, is how to deal with my dad. Whenever my mom goes to work, I spend close to six hours with him and we know how to get on each other’s nerves pretty easily. And whenever he says something that I feel like I don’t need to reply back to, he will ask it anyways. So I’ve learned to select my battles and I try my best to not give him any kind of reaction at all.

Everything happens for a reason.

To a lot of a people, this will seem like a cliche quote to use, but I think it’s one of the most popular quotes ever.

Honestly I use it for probably the most random things ever! This actually comes in handy whenever I watch Jeopardy.  I’ve had a lot of things that I’ve watched on TV, mostly about art, books, food, history become categories on the show within a week later. I always find it both cool and weird whenever it happens.

Prove them wrong.

This one is just embed into my brain. I started using this one when I was very young, before it was a just a simple phrase I heard other people say out loud to me and somehow I ended up becoming that phrase. I like to prove people wrong with everything I do, it’s part of my disability vocabulary, and I still use on a daily basis.

Strive for progress than perfection.

I wish I knew about this one in school, especially when I was in elementary. As the “prove them wrong” was meant as a positive quote to say around, it also had a drawback to it. When I would take art classes, I would become this “amazement” to my teachers and the rest of the class. I was never teased for it, but I feel like I was my biggest bully to myself because as I got older, I started to really hate wanting to be perfect in whatever I did. It took many, many years to get myself out of that mindset, especially when it came to art.

You’ll do it when you’re ready.

This is a like a timeline on what’s going on throughout my life without even trying!

I think this can be taken in many ways. Right now I have a lot of ideas relating to my writer side. I want to branch out and share some of my knowledge and pieces to other websites, but I have a lot of self-doubt that comes with it. I can talk myself up to it only so far before my confidence fades. So a part of me has been writing, writing, writing as I’m trying to follow the advice of Lucy and have a different array of articles in my drafts, so when I do decide I’m truly ready, I can just pick and chose which ones to give out!

Be open to whatever happens next.

I found this quote, prior to the death of my papaw. I don’t know if this was my sign that something was coming, but I have been increasingly embracing this lesson. I think it’s a good idea, because I know you can’t prepare yourself for everything, even though I’ve become pretty good at attempting this. I usually try to say it in the mornings, and it’s been very helpful!

Perspective is everything.

Perspective really is everything to me, it keeps me grounded I think. I’m not as quick to judge things and people, thanks to this quote. I also like to use it when it comes to art too! I like trying to figure out what the artist was thinking about as they were doing the design in the first place. That’s why I usually like big canvases and abstract art!

You can’t change what’s going on around you, until you start changing what’s going on within you.

Oh, this was a new addition to my life and to this post. I found it back in mid-April, as I was scrolling through my dashboard on Pinterest! I thought it worked well with how I was dealing with life in general.

I am the one that everybody comes to for advice, or they did, and I’ve been used as distractions in the past. I’m fairly good at doing both, but it’s when people don’t want to be bothered with either situation, is when it can get a bit difficult. Now when it comes to help for myself, I’m scared to ask for it. I like my independence and hate the fact that I need extra guidance to get through life, so a part of me knows that if I want to get better, I’m going to have to accept this obstacle and basically hitch a ride and hope to God, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.

Everything is a choice.

I think this is somewhat similar to “when you’re ready” and “perspective” quotes. They all go together with the same outlook, I mostly use them for my articles. I need to remind myself that everything I do is a choice, I don’t have to conform to what other people expect me to do, and if they don’t like it, I can take that piece and send it to another person or site and hopefully they’ll be more open to allow it.

Even the nicest people have their limits.

At first, I wasn’t going to add this quote, because I didn’t think it was like the others, but the more I thought about it and I realized why I wanted to write up this post in the first place, I figured out this was one of the most perfect quote/lesson to keep in mind.

I’m a fairly nice person, I don’t have any drama with people, I get along with most of the population. I’m not racist, homophobic, or anything of that nature. I’ll never really talk about these any subjects but I do have an issue with keeping other things, like serious topics locked up and they can swirl around in my head for many, many years without being discussed and I’m very been worried that one day, I’m just going to explode because somebody’s said the wrong thing to me and I’m going say something that’ll sound insulting and that’ll just break my heart.

So, in the future you might see some very brave posts that I feel need to be talked about on here, and hopefully I won’t sound too much like an asshole. I’m just tired of keeping my opinions to myself. This is your warning I guess to what could come on this blog in the next seven and a half months!

Are there any quotes that you love and keep nearby to remind you to keep going in life? What is your favorite quote ever?