Yeah, so I got this weird rash on my left arm, and it’s showing up a little now on my right arm, and we (my family and I) aren’t really sure what it is or what it’s come from. Just thought I’d let you know that info 😉
I got it on Sunday, and the only place I was then was patting doggies, so maybe they had some interaction with some poison something (poison ivy or something similar) but I didn’t start getting the rash until Monday morning. Any who, enough about the mysterious rash!
So, how are you peeps? It’s been a while, which I know is strange for me.
I went on a 5 day writing spree last week! I was writing articles for MAH JOB and for lots and lots of wonderful Loki centered fanfiction 😀 I’m totes on the level of being a paid Staff writer for the Mass Media this semester, which is snazzy! And so I kicked it off with 3 articles! I’ll shake them – nooooo, share them – with you all when the time comes 🙂 I’ll schedule it in, that is.
Of course though, I didn’t work on my current WIP fanfic, but I made other ones! HAHAHAHAHA. They’re snazzy on their own though!
Since Friday I’ve also been trying to write my story about suicidality for the Art is Survival page that I shared with you guys a while back. That’s taken so far 6 renditions and I’m still not happy with it. lmao I’m going to work on it again tomorrow and hopefully get some good results from it.
I’ve also just gotten my first ever suicide prevention awareness T-shirt in the mail today, so FUCK YEAH! Guess who has half an attire for the first day of school?! Fucking, me!
School will start in a week beginning tomorrow, too! LEGASP. I’m ready for it bitches (not to insult any of you, by the way) and I’m ready now. Well, not now, but soon. 🙂
My birthday is coming up too, though you guys don’t know when exactly. But soon.
It’s gonna be September soon, yay!!!
I have IOOV presentations next month at UMB and at my local library! WOOT WOOT! And there’s a possible event I’ll be doing at another library in October, and a bunch of Active Minds stuff in September too.
AND!
September is suicide prevention awareness month. BITCHES YOU KNOW IMMA DO SHIT FOR THAT.
I’m sorry I keep offending you, I’m in the bitches mood right now (it must be from having finished reading another book! WOOT!)
I want to do something special for it, so I expect to see more suicide prevention related posts throughout next month. ALSO I want to do a belated reFraming Friday this week, since it’s still on my mind for missing last week.
Annnnnd yeah. Other than that I’ve been pretty bored and surprisingly triggered from a book – that book – I finished today. Oh god my arm is so itchy now.
It would be such a VICE if I itched it though! OHOHOHOHOHOH. See what I did there?
Okay, that’s enough updating for now. I’ll try to think up some amazing words tomorrow, folks!
I’ve also been watching a lot of Daz games on Youtube lately, so, stay dazzling! ❤ ❤ ❤
So, this is a book I first read about ten years ago. I always remembered it as it frequently used that prayer “If I should die before I wake, I pray the lord my soul to take.” It was a common central theme to the supernatural forces awake in this book, so it was mentioned quite a lot.
As per reading it again, I found it surprising that the main characters were English, I hadn’t remembered that or noticed it, I don’t think, before.
I think for the short length of the book it paces itself well, however I feel more could have been done to explore and explain the murder suicide involved. The idea that the man just became “crazy” and killed his family and that’s meant as the only definition for what happened is weak at best and stigmatizing at worst. I mean, really, do we have to continue to frame the mentally ill in every supernatural or criminal act?
Because of that, I’ve rated it with the score below. I would have been happier with more exploration between the deaths of the characters from long ago, and not just the petty reasoning we were handed (as you’ll see later on). Alas, it’s something I still remembered, so that’s a plus.
Recommendation Score:
4/5 child apparitions.
I recommend this 4 out of 5 child apparitions as it’s a book I still recalled ten years later, so it made enough of an impression on me as a young reader to remember it and re-read it. That’s gotta count for something! 🙂
Quotes:
“There. That was a good, strong, logical explanation. So why didn’t he believe a word of it?” – p. 82
The main character, Joel, is trying to bring logical reasoning to the disturbances of the ghostly apparitions in their new home, and tries to rationalize what’s happening, except he doesn’t believe a word of it. Kinda reminds me of reasoning with emotions or mental health issues, it just doesn’t often work. 😛
2. “Except, what if they didn’t do this? What was the alternative? Carry on living in a house where every shadow could hold a hidden menace, where he almost didn’t dare go to sleep because of the horrific images that were sure to invade his dreams?” – p. 146
As you’ll soon see, this book features a lot of quotes that I picked out because they struck me to the core and also could relate to PTSD and other related mental health conditions. It’s interesting that while having little to do with the subject matter, it can speak a lot to it.
3. “Nothing moved. In fact, it was so still, Joel began to feel like all the air must have been sucked out of the room, and they were just sitting there, trapped in timeless nothingness” – p. 153
I like this type of description, it’s often what you see me using to describe my own experiences with mental health issues. And also in creative writing, so that’s nice to find another author doing it, too. 🙂
4. “He felt as if the ghost was overlapping him, somehow, trying to force itself into the same space he occupied, trying to make him see what it had seen and know what it had known” – p. 157
5. “As if the silence in this room was a pool of dark liquid, spreading out to soak into everything around it and choke off every trace of sound” -p. 166
I also enjoy this description. 🙂
6. “A body. A woman. Someone’s mother. His mind didn’t want to see it, tried to reverse that terrible comprehension and force it back into the random blur of shapes and color it had been before, but once understanding kicked in, it couldn’t be put back” – p. 167
See what I mean?
7. “Except not fresh at all–years old, decades old, and printed not on the cracked and peeling paintwork, but somewhere deeper down. Etched into the history of this house, the stain of something so terrible it lingered long beyond the scrubbing away of physical marks” – p. 168
8. “The one thing blocked out above all others, a dark truth too horrible to reveal..Someone who lived there, someone who belonged there–someone who should have been keeping them safe” – p. 190 😦
9. “Patrick Sanderson had built his dream house, and destroyed himself in building it. But his wife and stepsons hadn’t left him–perhaps they’d been planning to, but they’d ever had the chance. He killed them all and then sealed them all in this forgotten crypt before he killed himself. And here they’d stayed, forever afterwards. Unremembered. Trapped” – p. 192
See what I mean about just unexplored? I think with greater depth and understanding on the part of the murderer, a deeper perspective taken on with his character, that it would make this book much stronger. But it feels like it was just slapped together very quickly, as if him just “being crazy” would explain everything. *angry sigh* I think the highlighted concept could have been explored further too.
10. “The others trailed up after them: wet, tired and battered, but together. The house might have come apart around them, but they were all still standing” – p. 196
Another thing that bothered me about this was that once the story with the apparitions had unfolded, that’s where the novel just ended. I mean, I suppose it carried out what the author was intending, but what on earth happened afterward? Their home was shredded to bits (which annoyingly happened only when the parents were away and they were clueless to anything that was happening with their newly blended family) and they just, what, continued living there? Or did they leave? Gwah.
I did like that this reminded me of the “Life As We Knew It” series though, as one of the books (you can check out my previous book reviews about them via searching my blog) from the series used this concept of the home being broken while the characters themselves survived.
Any who, that’s the review!! Next up: “The shade of the moon” by Susan Beth Pfeffer.
*tears in eyes and runs hands down the side of face*
They’re just sooooooo adorable!!! Come on, you gotta admit it, look how cute they are! With their little bitty sweaters! ❤ ❤ ❤
All images taken from Google, by the way. Freakin’ adorable photographs.
Any who, today’s daily prompt ~ miniature hath pulled me from my blogger silence (that was inadvertent may I add) into the realm of sharing with you some adorable pony photos in get up clothing.
Truly, the best kind of posting. *nods*
Anywho, I’d like to say that HOORAY I am done with my Statistics course, woot woot, woot woot! I finished up the exam on Monday and went to the Mass Media meeting thereafter which I am now a paid writer for, hooray! Hence why I’m actually on campus at this very moment, clocking in my hours for this week’s writing even though right now I’m writing this 😀
Mainly because the writing juices stopped flowing so now I am writing this to get my groove back into writing up another 2 articles. I did successfully manage to edit down one of my previous blog posts into an article though, how snazzy, getting it from 2,000 words to under 1,500! Woot!
Yesterday I had a relaxing day just reading fanfiction, reading fanfiction and writing fanfiction. It was a very nice, very nice day indeed.
Tomorrow I have my psychiatrist to go see and my Mom is going to be with me as my appointment is around noon and my Mom’s already going to be out. So I’ll probably get to hang around the mall. 😀
I still need to work on some book reviews….:S
But I should probably get back to work. 😛
I did start a new drawing, hooray! And the book I’m currently reading had some cutting in it that I hadn’t expected AT ALL. So, that’s something.
Your lives are busy. You’re not always on the computer, you’re in different time zones, and so, you won’t always be there when I may need you, or vice versa.
Venting doesn’t help me. It just makes me feel worse. 😦 At least, venting in the sense of writing dark poetry, dark art, dark posts about how dark I feel.
It’s my own responsibility to take care of myself. Help and support is always welcome but, well, see number 1.
I don’t think posting when I’m feeling off or bad or stressed out is conducive to what this blog is about. It just doesn’t feel like it belongs, and I really want to take them down whenever I do manage to publish them (which is just once thus far).
I can only reasonably rely on myself. That, and hotlines and close family/friends. Sometimes though, I’ll just be in that slump where there’s no one really around or not that I can connect with and so it’s up to me to be there for me.
The stress will pass. It’s just a process of me being patient to wait for it to pass, while also taking responsibility that I can DO things about it to help it pass quicker, too.
Not doing positive coping strategies no longer makes sense to me. Which is not to say I don’t have the urges to do negative coping strategies, it’s just that I know doing them won’t help me and therefore, makes no sense to engage in, even if my brain is making no sense, too.
Putting away the stuff that stressed me out (i.e. packing up Stats stuff and setting it closed and aside)
Finding some Youtube videos that have nothing to do with anything I’m doing.
No longer listening to music.
Comfort eating! Yum, creme puffs!
And yeah, this post too. I guess if the post or lack of post can spin me off to positively cope, that’s all that really matters. Against my better judgment, I’ll keep that previous post up on here and the link is still open until 9:oop EST! 😀 That’s a good hour. 🙂
I don’t even know if this post will become just that, a post. If you’re in this link right now, hello. It’s Raquel here, blogger of Recovery to Wellness. This is the stuff you don’t see. The behind the scenes. Maybe this will get posted, maybe it won’t.
I just know that I really want help right now and I’m stressed for my final and I know I shouldn’t even have to be, but it sucks and it’s hard and …. I’d just want to cry or curl up in a ball and sob or vent even though venting doesn’t help me and I don’t know what to do and everything just sucks and gah, I hate this.
I don’t want to cope positively right now. I want to curl up in the fetal position and hug my teddy bear/dog thing, and just sob. Sob because I can’t seem to get the right answers on my practice final and cry because it feels like the world is crushing in on me and the stupid join.me site is having some god damn technical difficulties.
I don’t want to self-harm. I don’t want to self-harm. I don’t want to self-harm.
If I repeat it enough times, maybe it’ll become true.
Now there’s no one left in the Join.Me link.
Why am I even bothering with writing this? I specifically do NOT write when I’m stressed or the OCD is knocking tin cans against the jail bars, because it does not HELP ME.
Fell asleep to this meditation last night. I might play it again tonight. 🙂 I’m doing this post much later than usual, so sorry for that, and the fact that I’m tired so I just want to get it done quickly. 😛
Music of the Week:
I listened to this song again on Wed morning and it’s been a song I’ve listened to since the time I went into college. 🙂 I particularly LOVE the third verse.
I know I’ve shared this song before, but it really helped me out today. I got wicked stressed out at 4p today from trying to get the SPSS Statistics software to work on my laptop all day long, and so by 4p anxiety, slight panic and agitation were just sinking in and my perspective was narrowing and I was feeling helpless and just curling into a ball and needing some music to calm down to. This wound up being a song that really, really helped.
At the most minimal, I wanted to cry, and the most maximum the OCD was shouting in my head to kill myself and showing me images of self-harm and scratching myself.
I didn’t act on anything, which is awesome, but it was rough. Glad I had this song to get me through it. ❤ ❤ (I feel though that the part about the father in the second verse should be ‘dying’ rather than ‘flying’ but maybe that’s just me)
This song is great and it’s pretty new from this Youtuber, so definitely go check it out!!!! 🙂 😀
Positive Images from Google:
I just love this idea and concept above. It’s a subtle way of mentioning the semicolon project and reminding us that we get to write and rewrite our stories each word at a time. ❤
❤ ❤ ❤
Remember this photo, I want to do a larger post about this idea in the future! 🙂
The healthyplace.com has some great quotes, pictures and the like! I’ve seen quite a few from them here in this blogging world. 🙂
As I mentioned yesterday, I’ve been pretty much up the wazoo studying and trying to get programs to work. So, I don’t have any new artwork from this week, but I cannot WAIT until the class is over (just gotta get through Monday!!!) and I can just veg out for a while before the fall semester begins 🙂
I think I’m going to make this reFraming Friday a little shorter than most, and end it here. Maybe I will write up a quick follow up post. Or maybe I’ll hit the sack and get some sleep.
So, for one, I’m feeling a little bad that I’ve been neglecting Nova and cleaning his cage (it’s been like a week and a half, and I should be cleaning it once every week) so tomorrow HAS TO BE the DAY that I clean it for him, ’cause it is pretty smelly in there and he deserves THE BESTEST not the least amount.
I’m thinking the next couple of weeks plus into the fall semester I’ll give myself a day in the week set aside to cleaning his cage each day. :3 Maybe on a Tuesday.
I have pictures of my notes to share with you peeps–a way of saying, heyyyy, been busy and this is what I’ve been up to! XD
The first two pages are all my formulas I may need for my Stats final exam (which is on Monday August 22nd–so you can imagine what I’ll be up to the next few days :P), with the second page having a little guide of what page numbers go to what documents (a way to keep myself organized) and then the last page is what we’re expecting to have on the final, my own self reminders and my anticipated schedule for studying. I’ll include that page larger here:
Tomorrow I’m going to be working on the practice final, doing a study group with fellow classmates likely in the early evening, some SPSS on the computer and writing out examples of the problems on each of my extra pages. 🙂
I also want to get up the written notes of my 2 book reviews since the books are due on Saturday. If I can get those two reviews up by next Wed that’d be great, too. I have another book I’m already starting on now too 🙂 And I have quite a few more I want to go through before the fall semester starts (which is on Sept 7th).
Ooo! There was an estate sale my Mom and I went to today and I got this cute cat puzzle and some books and a fancy painting! 🙂 I’ll take some pictures later and show you guys when I get the chance too.
I also want to do a couple of the daily prompts if I can later this weekend.
Plus share artwork. And do tomorrow’s alliteration day. 🙂 And maybe some bonus stationary.
Annnnd that’s about all, I think! I can’t think of anything else… so, I’ll probably come by tomorrow, and until then, wish me luck with the rest of the next 4 days for studying!! XD
I’m currently listening to this beautifully inspiring, hopeful and uplifting song:
And when I took a moment to pause before I came to write this post, a thought struck me that was familiar. It’s about the subject of loss, and I found where it was from and why it was so familiar to me–it’s from the book review “He’s Gone” by Deb Caletti:
13. “So much of your life is loss–contemplating loss, avoiding loss, dealing with loss. Objects go, cereal goes, time, places, people” – p. 203
It’s amusing and interesting that these words have come back to slug me in the head. One of the fascinating things I’m discovering about making my book reviews is that sometimes this happens–I remember the ideas or the concepts or the words from quotes I wrote down, or how I experienced the stories, how I fell in love with the characters, and now they get to hang around in my mind, too. It’s wonderful and remarkable. I may not remember the book’s title itself, but I think often of that thriller one I read that I related so much to the OCD and my recovery journey. Let’s see if I can take a moment to find it:
Gwah, I DO remember that novel. Fucking loved it!! 😀
Back to this post, though.
I was feeling the pangs of loss this morning when I discovered that my favorite cinnamon bun, pop tart, creme brulee is taking a hiatus from the blogging world. Understandably, it’s for self-care and that’s the best we can ever ask and expect of ourselves, and even though I’ll still be in contact with her, it still feels like a loss.
I won’t see her popping up in my notification feed and …. that really sucks. So, I’d like to just talk about loss and carrying loss today.
I haven’t lost many people in my life so far, not to death at least.
But I’ve lost people I once knew–old friendships, new friendships. I’ve lost good management in Photography Club, people who were interested and could step up to the plate. I’ve lost Steve, and moving on from that has not been easy, by any means.
And then there’s all the loss I’ll eventually lose in the future–new friendships, old friendships, partners, family, therapists, blogger friends, DA friends…. There are a few people I can mention specifically, too, and others that get grouped together.
I haven’t heard from Jeanine in a while, or Shouting from the Mountain Top, or other blogger friends, or friends I haven’t spoken to in months….
When you start thinking about all the loss you’ve gathered, the pot starts to look fuller with water (of loss) than you remember having put in it. 😦
Yet, it’s true that loss and feeling loss is an integral part of life. And while losing someone sucks a lot, I’ve learned in the past few years that having known someone at all is a true gift (unless they’re an asshole, then fuck them).
So while loss is difficult because it brings up pain and an absence of something that once existed…to feel loss about that existence at all, to have known another human being you loved dearly existed and either still exists physically or in some other way…matters.
It’s one thing to live life alone and trying not to form connections with anyone around yourself, but what a lonely and potentially miserable time that sounds like it would be.
If I have to deal with loss, I’d rather deal with it than never having expanded my mind or learning about another friend, or meeting someone who affected my life in one way or the other (but it’s better when it’s positive).
To feel loss and to carry that feeling is to carry the capacity for which we have the ability to impact each others lives.
I’ll still be able to contact my pop tart, and that’s better than I can say about most of the others I’ve lost to the winds of time. And also, I’ll be able to continue to meet new people and make new jokes and friendships and … build the garden back up.
No, it’s never quite the same. People are irreplaceable, just like pets are. I may only have one friend that’s a pop tart, and she’ll always be my pop tart. And I can also have others as sugar plums or llamas with hats (hehe) or whatever else my brain (or someone else’s for that last reference) comes up with.
I could continue on saying the same thing again and again, but my mind’s been expanded and I feel better now having worked through this. I also need to work on some other topics too… *blush* I’m a woman of quite a few tasks to do!
Remember though: At least stationary is a constant in life. ❤ ❤ ❤
Some song lyrics from ‘Comes and goes in waves’ piano version by Greg Laswell. Listening to it now in order to fit the theme of this post.
Some of these drawings, like the one above, are from my first sketchbook, lasting from about February 2015 to November 2015.
Lyrics credited to at the bottom of the page. From one of my coloring books. 🙂
I really like this coloring page. 🙂 It’s hung up on my wall.
An individual who climbed to the top of their mountain and SURVIVED. We’re all survivors, here. ❤
A mindfulness exercise. One of my most memorable pieces when I think about mindfulness.
The choices that exist in Recovery: Do we proceed forwards or spend time moving backwards. We already know that moving backwards or standing still pretty much sucks, so the only thing we have yet to experience is the moving forwards to find the light. Inside the chest there is the potential to get better. You have it within you, too. ❤
Another one of my coloring pages. Fucking love gazebos ❤
Birds and a colorful tree. ❤ Freedom, at its finest.
Speaking of freedom…. More about inner potential and light, especially in the darkness and the chaotic waves.
Living life with a chronic illness is definitely not easy. But I do my best to push through all the barriers this illness puts in front of me! In my heart and mind, I believe maintaining a positive outlook on all situations in life will carry us through to much better times! I hope you find the information that I provide both helpful and inspirational!
RecoverytoWellness 