The Company You Keep...

I've been told what I should or shouldn't do my entire life.

I think this is ok when you're a child, since it is a parents' responsibility to tell you what to so that you know what to do. Otherwise you would have just gone and thrown your hand on that hot stove in the kitchen.

My issue was that it never stopped. Well into my teen years and my early adulthood I have been told how to live my life. Even sadder, I always did what I was told regardless of my gut feelings or intuition.

My reason for going out and just doing what I was told was because I did not have faith in my self. I did not trust myself enough to make the right decisions for me. I thought that I was an unintelligent person not capable of making the right decisions for me.

I have been beaten down my entire life, not physically, more of a mental and emotional beating. Beatings that told me that I wasn't good enough, smart enough, and that I was worthless. That my ideas and my feelings didn't matter and that whatever ideas that I had for myself were awful simply because they came from me.

Obviously, this caused to me close up and basically shut my mouth. I lost all trust in everyone and myself. Whatever I had to say, whatever I felt, was bogus because I was a worthless idiot.

This self discovery came to me last July when I attended a Seminar (I have mentioned it in other Blogs) and it really opened my eyes as to why I am where I am in my life. Realizing that I had a choice to not always do what others tell me to do, and doing what I felt was right for myself, for the first time in my life has been a liberating discovery. Realizing that I am an intelligent, capable woman has given me control over my life.

Since then I have had much more faith and belief in my own ideas and my own choices. My confidence has sky-rocketed and I realized that people who do not value what I have to say are simply not worth my time. I have had enough of that in my life and I know that I am beyond that now. I know that being surrounded with those kinds of people does not serve me now, and never will.

I come across people on a regular basis who tell me that my feelings don't matter. I've had people tell me that my feelings are "B.S." when I have been brave enough to open up about them. I have had people complain that I am too negative, or a "downer" when I do express my feelings. I continue to have people tell me what is best for me and that I am not good enough to make my own decisions.

I think there are A LOT of people who have these types of people in their lives, and let me tell you, it does not have to be so. You can make a decision to surround yourself with people who believe in you and your capabilities. You can surround yourself with people who embrace your crazy ideas even though those ideas may fail. You can surround yourself with people who know that the sky is the limit for you and who you know will never hold you back from what you truly want.

I have had a huge support system in my life... a lot of people who have supported me 110% in mediocrity. People who have supported my being a waitress for 8 years (and continue to support me in it) rather than do what I am capable of.

Choosing to have those people out of my life will be best for me in the long run, because I have had those people in my life my entire life, and listening to them has gotten me to where I am today, which is not where I ever pictured myself being.

Why continue to take the beating when you do not have to?

Why surround yourself with people who think they know what is best for you?

You are capable of handling your own life!! Does this mean that you will do everything perfectly?! NO! Will you fail sometimes?! YES! Will you learn from your failures?! I certainly hope so! Does this mean shutting out everyone's ideas?! NO! Take them into consideration, just do what you know is best for you regardless of what they say or don't say! Does this mean you have to do it on your own?! NO! Just make sure you surround yourself with the right people!

I suppose this Blog has nothing to do with Mental Illness or Susan or anything like that, however, I think everyone can learn from it, regardless of your upbringing. I ask that you think about what I have said here. It may save your life. It may save your self esteem! It may save your belief in what you are capable of! Because... YOU ARE CAPABLE OF ANYTHING!!!

Cheesy?! HELL NO! Its the truth! Now get out there and live your life! Have faith in yourself! Take risks! And don't let anyone tell you that what you feel and think is worthless!

Hopefully this Blog reached someone. I suppose its kind of a rant. I am in ranting mode right now so please forgive me!

Here's to a life full of your awesome feelings, opinions, ideas, and crazy, unreasonable schemes! Don't be afraid to put them out there! The people who do not support you in these things are not worth your time, because you are worth so much more.

Trust

I'm pretty confident that everyone has some kind of trust issue. We've all been hurt at some point in our lives, we've all been lied to, we've all had someone back out on us. Question is...

How are your trust issues effecting you?

I have MAJOR trust issues....

I carry many "side effects" of being solely raised by a Schizophrenic. Since Susan always thought that everyone, everywhere was after her and had it out for her, I was raised in that mind set. I was raised not to trust ANYONE, especially men. According to Susan 99% of the male population is either a rapist or pedophile... just for your information... That's a whole other story though.

Susan really believed that the ENTIRE WORLD wanted to hurt her. I really mean that... She really believed that every single person on the face of this planet wanted to hurt her. If someone cut her off in traffic it was because they wanted to cut HER off. It wasn't just a coincidence that some bad driver just happened to cut her off without knowing who she was, it was always a direct attack on her specifically.

Being raised in this mindset, along with hurtful past experiences, hasn't helped me to be a very trusting person. I personally am trustworthy, however, I find it nearly impossible to trust anyone else.

Allow me to answer my own question... How are MY trust issues effecting ME?

First of all, I have very few close and deep relationships. Most of my relationships, whether it be friends or family members, are very shallow and kept on the "surface". Being intimate and vulnerable and trusting of someone, to me, means an inevitable attack.

Secondly, In the few "deep" relationships I do have, I am always on the defense, ready for someone to use something they know about me against me. This keeps me from trusting those who have proven time and time again that they are worthy of my trust. This also effects those around me, since they do their best to be trustworthy and I do not even give them the time of day, although that have worked very hard for it and are deserving of it.

Really, my list of how my trust issues effect me could go on and on and on and on and... well, you get the point.

I have realized that my trust issues do not serve me. They only cause harm in my life and the lives of those around me. It would make sense for me to trust others, because I know it would have a positive effect in my life. (This applies to all of you by the way).

So why is it that I choose to hang on to my trust issues? Because it keeps me safe I suppose, and I also get to be right when someone down the road does end up hurting me.

This is an issue that I would LOVE to offer advice on and shed light upon, however, trust is not really something that I understand yet.

Susan really programmed into my mind, since the beginning of my life, that everyone, everywhere is out to hurt me. Its nuts, I know. However, getting out of that mindset is going to be a very long and frustrating journey for me.

In the meantime, I am making little baby steps. I understand that I have trust issues. I understand why I have them, and I understand how they are effecting me and my loved ones in a very negative way.

As I said before, I am pretty positive that everyone has trust issues, so by entertaining my opinion, I ask that you look at your own trust issues. Are you aware of them? Do you know why you have them? Do you know how they are effecting you? What can you do to stop negative events in your past from corrupting your future and present life and relationships?

Just something I thought I would throw out there, something I have been thinking about the past couple of days and something for you to think about a little bit too...

The Voices

Susan heard voices all the time.

Many people who suffer with Schizophrenia, have been diagnosed, or are somewhat aware of their disorder, become aware that they hear voices. Many learn a lot about their voices and learn to identify them, giving them different names and personalities. They have voices that they like and voices that they don't like. The hear both male and female, and voices that change noticeably between the two sexes. Encouraging and kind voices are just as likely as the mean and demeaning ones. Some hear God Himself, while others hear Satan.

Some voices are given names, or they simply made their names or titles known to the person who is hearing them. I remember reading about a lady who had a "friend voice" named Tiffany. While sitting in her room one evening, she heard Tiffany for the first time. Tiffany simply introduced herself and began to ask questions about her, which made her feel loved and important. Feeling that she now had a friend, she embraced Tiffany and looked forward to hearing from her. They would have conversations and girl talk. They would tell jokes and gossip about the other voices that she heard. She talked about Tiffany on several occasions, as if she were a real person.

On the other hand, I remember reading from another lady, whose voices were vicious and threatening. They would threaten to hurt her or her family if she were to fall asleep. She would contemplate if she herself should kill her family off first so that she could make sure that they went in a more humane way than what the voices had planned for them. Fortunately, she never acted on these thoughts. While to her they were real, she knew logically that they were not. That they were something that her Schizophrenia had created.

I could go forever about the different voices I have heard/read about.

My experience with voices was obviously the ones that my mom heard. My mom was in total denial of her illness, so to her the voices were in fact real, 100% real, and no one could ever convince her otherwise. Over the years I noticed the different voices that Susan heard. While she never identified them, I would listen to her conversations with them and from that, I was able to figure out what kinds of voices she was hearing.

She had a voice(s) that she watched T.V. with. I liked that voice the best. She would joke with it/them and laugh with it/them. She would talk about the show and the different characters and actors with the voice(s). The T.V. voice(s) seemed to be the only friendly one(s) that she had. She was happy talking to the T.V. voice(s). It was nice to see Susan happy every once in a while, while talking T.V and actors with her "friend(s)".

Then there was the "neighbor" voices. Voices that she believed to be, well, the neighbors. These seemed to be the most common. They would talk about her, insult her and make fun at her expense. I always found it very interesting that the insults and mean things that the "neighbors" would say were usually very childish and immature. Things like "Witch warts", "Green Face", "Old Lady", "Four", "Dog" and so on were the most common insults it seemed. This has brought me to believe that possibly, these voices were children.

There were the voices that she heard out in public, they were comparable to the neighbor voices. They were insulting in an immature manner. The grocery store was a mega center for these voices. Trips to the grocery store, when I was a young child, often times led to Security and Police Officers arriving at the scene.

There were the voices that she argued with. When I say argue, I mean, full on screaming-at-the-top-of-her-lungs. I think these voices insulted her the most, and from what I could tell, they were very hateful and especially nasty. She would scream incoherent things at them, and while I understood the individual words she said to them, the sentences made no sense. This made it hard to determine what kinds of things they may have been saying to her.

It is hard to say what REAL people she heard voices from, however, I know that those existed as well. She use to hear my, at the time, 2 year old daughter say very disturbing things of a sexual nature. This led her to believe that my daughter was being molested. Most of the time, she was very offish towards me and always seemed to have an eye on me. I am not sure if it because of what the voices had said about me, or if it was stuff she heard "me" saying. Much of that is unclear.

Convincing Susan that there were no voices was literally an impossible task. Think about it... if you were having a conversation with someone and I did everything that I could to convince you that they weren't really there, would you believe me? I think not. How does one convince another that voices that they really are hearing aren't real? It is a very strange concept to grasp, and many, unless they have personal experience with it, never will.

Hearing voices is the most common type of hallucinations among Schizophrenics. While seeing, smelling, feeling, and tasting things do occur, they are not reported as often.

Schizophrenia is described as a "thought disorder". This has made me wonder... Could people who suffer with Schizophrenia be "hearing" their own thoughts? Think about it. We all have that little voice in our head. Voices that help us relive events and memories. That voice of your Grandfather talking to you when you were a child, for example. The voice of the singer who sings our favorite songs. We all hear them, however, we do not physically hear them as if they were an outside voice.

Is it possible that because of a thought disorder, the inflicted brain may mix up signals and manifest a thought as an outside voice? Strange to think about, however, this is my perception of the voices.

What do you believe could cause this strange phenomenon? When you hear your voices, do they come from inside of your head , or outside as if a person was talking to you? I am happy to report that all my voices of my memories and such are all inside my head and I have complete control over them. I think it is safe to assume that you are the same. If not, you may want to start looking into what it is you are hearing!

Are we all insane?!

They say that one of the definitions of insanity is to do the same thing over and over while expecting different results. So my question is...

Who DOESN'T do that?!

Are we all insane on some subtle level?! I mean, think about it. The married couple who does nothing besides arguing and fighting thinks that one day their marriage will just magically turn around without them putting any action into it. The man who has been working for a promotion for the past 10 years at his job and has not yet put any extra effort forth in order to earn that promotion... ITS EVERYWHERE!!!

I've noticed this a lot in my life. While my little "insane" moments are not something that can be defined as a happening or an event, they are more behaviors and attitudes.

As I had shared in an earlier Blog, going into "victim mode" is one of my little insanities. I have spent the majority of my life as a victim. While living on a daily basis in "victim mode" I always wondered why bad things always happened to me or why things always had to be so hard and wouldn't change. I now know why I spent so many years in distress. It is because I did not change my attitude!

Had I changed my attitude towards life, I have no doubt that then, and only then, things would have started to turn around for me. Living life as a victim was insane. I did the same thing day in and day out and still expected a magic Lamp with a Genie to appear and suddenly give me the life I wanted.

The truth is (And this goes for everyone) that no one's life can change until they do something different. This may mean going to a Marriage Counselor or working harder than any other person in order to earn that promotion. This may mean changing your attitude and outlook on life. This may mean doing things that you have never done before and that make you feel incredibly uncomfortable.

If where you are in your life at this very moment is not where you want to be, I have some good news for you...

YOU CAN CHANGE IT!

It is amazing to know that many countless people live their lives in insanity! Why do people insist on being insane?!

When talking about actual Mental Illnesses, this issue is majorly intensified. In another recent Blog I talked about Anosognosia, or the inability for a Mentally Ill person to recognize their illness. While many Mentally Ill suffer with this harmful problem, I find that many "sane" people do as well.

While it is a nice thought to know that you can change your life by doing things differently, it is not going to be done until one realizes what it is about them that needs to be changed. Unless you know what is limiting you, you will never be able to change it. Much like a Schizophrenic who does not recognize their illness therefore they do not take needed medications. It is difficult to recognize these flaws within yourself and often takes years for one to recognize what it is that keeps them trapped in the vicious cycle of insanity.

I challenge you all to do a little soul searching. Are you living your life in insanity? Are you stuck on the metaphoric Hampster Wheel that seems to get you no where near what you want in your life? Great, you've got that answer down, now keep rolling with it, see where else it leads you.

Here's to a life of Sanity! :)