When A Side Effect Is More Than Just A Side Effect

I'm bipolar, we all know this.  It is extremely hard for me to control my mood swings and my temper because of this. So my hubs and I sometimes get into wicked arguments about things that are just pointless to argue about. 

This morning was a huge for instance of this.  A fight over a dish.  Yep, that's right.  A dish that I put in the sink and it clanked against another dish making a loud noise so my hubs assumed I threw it in the sink out of anger.

Yes, I was angry but not so much that I threw said dish. 

Well, one misunderstanding turned into another and I started yelling because he started yelling which woke up my mother and she got pissed and it all got out of hand. 

All, over a dish. 

Do you have any idea how frustrating it is to not be able to control your emotions?

You just swing into a mood and there is almost nothing you can do about it but ride it out and wait for your sanity to come back.  

It makes you hate yourself, makes you think it's always your fault that you're arguing with the one you love with every fiber of your being.  It hurts deep down, deep in your soul. 

And the reason I titled this post the way I did is because one of the side effects of my bipolar medication is irritability and lack of ability to control your anger outbursts.

Effin wonderful, right?  Either I am beyond insane from mood swings or I'm irritable and there's nothing I can do about it.  

So when is a side effect more than just a side effect? 

When it starts to interfere with your personal relationships, is what I say. 

So tomorrow I'm making an appointment with my psychiatrist and we're going to figure this shit out because I can't continue to hurt the ones I love like this.  Not anymore. 

There has to be something he can do, if not, I'm totally screwed. 

Wish me luck.

I Don't Always Like You But I'll Always Love You

This post is brought about by an argument my husband and I had, are having, whatever you want to call it.  I don't know. 

Let's get down to the point. You can love someone and not like them at the same time.

For instance, I will always, always love my husband.  ALWAYS.   Our phrase we use with each other when we're talking all mushy gushy is "forever and always". 

I will forever love this man and always will.  However, I sometimes don't like him. 

For instance, when he's being extra snarky and I just want a decent response from him I don't like him.  Not one bit.  I don't need snarky remarks when I'm trying to get something done and he's all about pushing my buttons and making jokes.  That's just one for instance. 

And it's OKAY to feel this way.  You don't always have to like the person you love.  You don't always have to like what they do or say.  That's the beauty of being in a relationship with someone you love.  It's about compromise. 

Because life isn't perfect.  Love isn't perfect. Nothing in life or on this planet is perfect and you don't always like the same things as everyone else.  That's what makes you, you. 

You have different interests than your best friend of some odd years but you DO share some of the same interests and that's what keeps you together. 

Another for instance, my bestie of 20 years now is a huge D&B, Trance and Techno music fan.  Now I'll admit, I do have a fondness for some of it but I don't usually like it.  What I do like is heavy metal, rock, dubstep, goth rock and a little bit of alternative music.  This doesn't mean I don't still LOVE my bestie.  Hell, we've known each other for 20 years!  Of course we still love each other! 

But I don't always like her.  She makes poor decisions sometimes, hell, who doesn't?  She has a fondness for candy raisins (ewwww).  She sometimes gets into situations that I couldn't imagine how.  And I don't like those things about her but, again, I still love her. 

My daughters, I don't like them when they're screaming because I took away the toy they've thrown across the room for the umpteenth time but I will forever love them. 

I hope I'm getting my point across.  You can love someone and not always like them or the things they do.  And that's okay. 

So don't beat yourself up the next time you see your husband feeding your daughters chocolate cake for breakfast and you realize you don't like him at that moment because at the end of the day, you still snuggle up by his side and kiss him goodnight and tell him the same thing, every night. 

I love you, forever and always. 

The Great Ear Piercing Debate

Alright folks, this has been a topic I've seen rolling through my newsfeeds for weeks now.  To pierce your daughters ears or not to, that is the ultimate question.

Some people think piercing a young girls ears is the same pain equivalent as a circumcision for a boy (we'll get into the great circumcision debate later on in a different post).  And also the same kind of pushing your beliefs onto your child without their knowledge at such a young age because they can't tell you for themselves whether or not they want it done. 

My theory is this:  If you want to pierce your child's ears for whatever reason, go ahead and do it but don't be surprised if you get some backlash because not everyone shares your beliefs.  Some think it's more torture than anything else and that you're doing it for cosmetic reasons that aren't morally "right". 

In some religions, however, ear piercing is just as common as circumcision, if not more so, such as the Hindu culture.  They pierce young girls ears and noses for the sake of their religious beliefs.  Just like in the Jewish culture circumcision is done because of religious beliefs. 

IF you're going to get your young daughter's ears pierced please do me a favor and don't, I repeat, DO NOT take her to the mall and have some young, inexperienced teenage girl do it with a piercing gun. 

Piercing guns hurt, they are painful, they pinch and stab and it isn't always quick.  Also, it's not always clean.  You don't know if they actually cleaned the gun apparatus after the last piercing they did.  You don't know how sterile the rest of the equipment they're using is.   And from personal experience, they are NOT as gentle as an actual body piercer is. 

An article I read earlier today brought about this post.  I'll link it up for you right here: http://healthland.time.com/2012/02/07/why-i-took-my-7-year-old-to-a-tattoo-parlor/

I would much prefer that if you are absolutely dead set on getting your young child's ears pierced, get them done by an actual piercing PROFESSIONAL.  Someone who does this on a regular everyday basis.  Someone who has pierced more skin than the kiosk people in the mall could ever imagine. 

Tattoo parlors and piercing parlors are far more clean than you would think.  They have very strict health code standards to abide by in order to continue to do business.  So if you're seriously going to do this to your child's body then do your research and find a place that has been around for a long time. 

Go in on your own at first, talk with the people there, get to know what the process is going to be.  Ask questions!  Get answers!  Just do your homework. 

My personal belief, I'll let my girls tell me if and when they want their ears pierced and when or if they do, I'll be taking them to the same piercing parlor I go to for my own piercings.  It's just good parenting on my part, in MY opinion, to do things that way rather than put my child through the awful torture I went through at 13 when I finally got MY ears pierced by a madwoman wielding a piercing gun at a mall kiosk. 

If nothing else, at least take it into consideration and go through the pros and cons before you jump the gun. 

The Reasons I Wake Up Every Morning

Let me tell you a story.  A long, long time ago, in a land far away, a woman was living her life filled with depression, doubt, loneliness and sorrow.  A fair maiden she was but the knight in shining armor she longed for so desperately seemed endlessly lost. 

She would bide her time with books, music, friends, movies, internet research, writing, painting and so much more.  Yet there was an emptiness inside her, a whole in her heart that none of those things was filling. 

Try as she might she could not lift herself out of her depression and so it worsened and worsened to the point she barely left her humble abode to see the outside world.  Everything she could ever need or want was at her fingertips, a click of a key and a package would arrive at her door to bring her what she desired.

But the void remained.  Long, lonely nights kept her awake, she developed an aching in her heart.  Years went by and her knight was yet to be found.  She began to give up hope. 

Her hurting went deep, deeper than the knife she used to express her pain through slicing her flesh.  A "cutter" they called her.  "Depression with manic episodes" they labeled her.  "Insomnia" was her demon. 

They stuffed pills into her mouth and forced them down her throat until she could no longer feel anything.  A walking zombie, no emotion, no affect, no feelings at all. 

No laughter erupted from her mouth, no smiles crossed her face, her eyes began to lose their shine. 

Then something magical happened.  A friend realized her needs.  Realized her desires.  Her necessity to care for others, others to call her own.  Her friend realized that the nights out dancing and drinking, going to movies, babysitting others' children weren't enough for the fair maiden any longer. 

She needed her own life, not to live vicariously through the lives of others.  No longer could the friend stand to see the dear fair maiden suffer through such internal turmoil. 

The friend pushed the fair maiden, pushed and pushed, until finally the fair maiden gave in to her friend's demands. 

The friend's demands were simple.  The fair maiden was to start actively searching for her Knight instead of waiting for him to find her. 

The road was rough, as she knew it would be, she needed guidance, which her friend gladly gave, she needed persuasion, her friend obliged willingly so the fair maiden would see that she was not completely alone. 

Then it happened.  One cool spring night many moons ago the fair maiden met her Knight.  She was timid at first, as was he, but the conversations were long and endless.  Infatuation began, slowly it dissolved into lust and after the lust began to fade, love grew in its place.

The fair maiden had found her Knight.  Her Knight had found his maiden and together they lived happily for quite some time. 

Something amazing happened then, the Knight asked the maiden to marry him, to be his for all eternity and beyond, forever and always.  The maiden accepted with giddy excitement. 

She had found love, a forever kind of love.  The two were blissfully happy for many months.  Then the maiden started to feel ill.

The things she used to like and love, no longer satisfied her.  She worried she was going back into that dark hole she had worked so hard to crawl out of but the fates had something far more magical and wondrous in store for her. 

The maiden became pregnant.  The Knight was ecstatic.  His chest puffed up with pride.  They would have a child together. 

Nine long months later, their princess was born.  Beautiful as the sunrise, fair haired and skinned with bright blue eyes and curly locks of gold, the princess was their most treasured possession. 

Their family was complete. 

But once again, the fates had more in store for the Knight and the fair maiden, whom he now referred to as his Queen. 

A second child, another blessing from the gods. 

The Knight was ecstatic, yet again, and the Queen was elated. 

Her heart, she felt it, whole inside her chest. Overflowing with warmth and love and light and reasons to wake up every morning. 

The Knight and his Queen had their two little princesses and they've lived happily ever after ever since.  Their story is not complete, in fact it has just begun, but now that they have each other, all is right with their world.

THE END

P.S.  This is my story.  These three people whom I hold so dear are the reason my heart is whole to this day. 

They are my reasons to wake up every morning.  

Time Is Relevant

Has anyone ever pondered what the title of this post means?  What does it mean to you?  Time is relevant. 

We all are slaves to this 24 hour cycle our world revolves around.  24 hours in a day, 60 minutes in an hour, 60 seconds in a minute, etc. etc.

You can't change it.  It's a constant.  It never ends, never stops, never goes backwards, always moving forward.  Constant. 

Your day revolves around it, everyone's day revolves around it.  Every single person on this planet has a day that begins and ends with the sunrise and sunset and even if you don't pay attention to the sunrise or sunset your universal clock does and if you regard time by any kind of time keeping piece then you are a slave to the sunrise and sunset just like the rest of us. 

Regardless of whether or not you notice the actual physical universal timing, your day begins when you wake up and ends when you go to sleep. 

And that cycle continues.  It's all about time even if you don't have a watch or other time telling device to refer to.  Even then, the sun tells time.  If you know how to read it, you'll always know what time it is.  And when the sun is down, the moon takes its place and you can tell time that way, too. 

If it's a new moon and the moon isn't visible you're SOL I guess.

My point in all this is, we all have a schedule of some sort that relates to time.  You wake up to an alarm, you're a victim to time.  You have to get to work by a set TIME.  You have to have lunch at work at a set TIME. 

You have to have meals at a set time if you have certain medical disorders so you need to know what time it is. 

Here's the relevant part. 

Time is relevant to each individual.  Let me explain what relevant means by consulting our fine internet dictionary at dictionary.com:

Relevant

adjective

bearing upon or connected with the matter in hand; pertinent: a relevant remark.

 

Let's say you have an appointment at 3 pm.  It's a terribly important doctor's visit that you can't miss. You're in a hurry and the person in front of you is driving the exact speed limit, you're running a little late because of whatever reason, this person irritates you, your blood pressure begins to rise, you are frustrated and want nothing more than to get away from this person but it's as though they are going exactly where you are because they remain in front of you.  

 

And your frustration grows.  You get to your appointment on time.  Things are fine.  

 

But let's get back to the person who was driving the exact speed limit in front of you and irritating you, who ended up not going where you were headed but in the same general direction.  They don't care that you have a very important doctor's appointment at 3 pm.  They don't even know you have an appointment.  To them, you're just another vehicle on the road. Just another person behind them while they drive to their destination.  Which could be anywhere!  

 

They could have been coming home from a funeral.  They could have been on their way to a friend's house for a visit.   Wherever they were going, they got in your way and frustrated you because you were on a time constraint and they weren't.  It's relevant.  The matter in YOUR hand was not the matter in THEIR hand and therefore it didn't matter to them.   It isn't pertinent to them that you get to your appointment on time.  It's pertinent to them that they get where they are going.  

It's all relevant.  

Just like for a toddler their day starts when they wake up, regardless of what time it is, like say 5 am.  

And why?  Because they can't tell time yet, they don't care that Mommy and Daddy didn't get to bed until 2 am.  They're ready to get up and play and begin their day.  Even though Mommy is exhausted, Daddy is still sleeping and so is the babe.  

But none of that matters to you, either, does it? 

And why?   

Because it's not relevant to you.  So there you have it.  An explanation to the age old adage about time.  

Now please excuse me while I go lay my child back down and try to explain all this to her.  I know she won't care but I have to try.

What Counts As ":Poison"?

I read a blog today about Subway and how it's ingredient listings are deceitful as to how "healthy" they may actually be.  I read the blog in its entirety and honestly, I can't give it full credit on it's content and claims. 

Here's the blog for you to base your own opinion upon from what you read and then we'll go from there:  http://www.hangthebankers.com/the-subway-deception/

Read it?  Good. No?  Whatever, we'll move on despite your lack of wanting to read such an unnecessarily long blog without proper credit, claims, fact finding or resource statements.  I really don't blame you if you don't want to.

Now, with all of that being said, which was basically someone telling you they went on their own fact finding mission with not much study work to back it all up and found out that Subway really is just as terrible for you as the other big name fast food chains.  I find it mind boggling that this person was so shocked about the way Subway cuts, preps and packages their ingredients before sending them off to their individual stores for use on a daily basis. 

It's supposed to be "fresh", they said.  Well, how fresh can you expect something to be when it comes from a fast food chain? 

We all know fast food doesn't mean healthy food.  We all realize this and have either come to terms with the fact that our great nation is okay with our food suppliers using preservatives up the whazoo along with growth hormones and more things that we can't even pronounce and therefore should have no business being in our bodies in the first place or we just deny the fact and continue on with our lives as though these things don't exist.

We keep eating the crap that is served to us so readily and easily at McDonald's, Burger King, Hardee's, Arby's, KFC, Taco Bell, Quizno's, Subway, Cousin's Subs, Wendy's, Qdoba, Noodles and Company and even *gasp* Starbucks!  The treachery!

Look people, the list of mass food suppliers that sell us preservative laden foods is beyond long compared to the list of mass food suppliers that pride themselves on being whole and organic.

And why?  Because it's cheap!

That's what it fucking comes down to, ladies and gents.  It's cheaper to go and harvest a crop that has been covered in pesticides and treated with chemicals to keep them healthier and heartier than it is to go and do things the old fashioned way having to battle bugs and molds and diseases on your plants which inevitably drives costs up making your whole and organic foods more expensive in the long run. 

And what do people say to back up their claims that only right minded people who care about their and their family's overall health have to say about it all when you confront them with the statistics of price comparison in organic versus non-organic foods?  

I'll tell you what one lady said to me in the store when I told my husband that we couldn't afford to buy the organic strawberries because they were $5.99 a pound versus 2/$4.00 on the regular store brand ones: "If you cared about yours or your children's health at all you'd buy organic regardless of price." 

WTF?!  When did I ask for your opinion on my food choices?  And since when does being on a tight foodstamp balanced budget that doesn't give room for organic choices make me a person who doesn't care about my child's health?  Or my health? 

And who the fuck are you to come up to me in a grocery store and tell me how to live my life?! I don't even KNOW YOU! 

It really irritates me when people give unsolicited, unwanted and unnecessary advice.  Trust me, if I could afford all organic foods and meats I would buy them in an instant.  But I can't.  So I don't.  It's that simple.  

When you're on government assistance you're lucky to be able to afford enough food for the month, let alone have to worry about buying all organic products. 

The moral of this story is simple folks:  If you can't pronounce it you shouldn't eat it but not everyone can afford to eat just the foods they can pronounce.  And if it bothers you that much that you have been "lied to" about the freshness of your food then stop going to that place of business.  Just stop perpetuating the circle and move on with your life. 

That's all I got today folks.  I'm tapped out after these cortisone injections.  Maybe I can post another blog today or tomorrow. 

P.S.  I'm making homemade beef taco soup for dinner.  And I can pronounce all the ingredients.  ;)