Category: Life

General ramblings about my life.

Don’t give up

the Tall Girl #

As someone who knows about depression, I feel so much sadness over Robin Williams’s death. Depression is an illness, and it’s ugly, and it kills. The fact that it could destroy someone so talented, accomplished, and loved really demonstrates how powerful this condition is.

Depression can be a horrible, ongoing struggle, but don’t let it win. You’re important. You matter. And you can beat the monster.

If you need a lifeline, please talk to somebody. Here are some groups just waiting to help:

IMAlive, An Online Crisis Network
https://www.imalive.org/

Other crisis networks (list courtesy of Calming Brits & Irishmen)

USA and Canada
http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/

Canada for those under twenty years of age.
http://org.kidshelpphone.ca/en

UK and Ireland
http://www.samaritans.org/

Australia
https://www.lifeline.org.au/

And many more….
http://www.suicide.org/international-suicide-hotlines.html

Up and down

the Tall Girl # #

So, I’ve been feeling a bit off the past couple of weeks. I’ve been trying to do way too much and it caught up with me earlier this week. I feel like I’m starting to snap back, but it’s been a wake-up call, a reminder of what I went through last year — and what I need to do to avoid feeling this way.

Why is it so easy to take care of everyone else but so hard to take care of me?

Not my division

the Tall Girl #

I have a very bad habit of holding myself responsible for far too much; it’s not unusual for me to blame myself for not doing enough when the blame really ought to go elsewhere. I’m trying to reframe this way of thinking with some subtle reminders that I can’t help everyone and do everything, and DI Lestrade’s “Not my division” has been a great mantra for me — it reminds me not to take on other people’s jobs and it makes me smile or laugh at the same time. (I also like the phrase “Not my circus, not my monkeys” — or my Dad’s version, “Not my circus, not my fleas.”) If you have the same problem, I hope you can remember one of these phrases and use it to ease your mind in situations you can’t control.

(Thanks to the Calming Brits for reminding me of this great saying and giving me a Lestrade image to match the phrase.)

The frogurt is also cursed

the Tall Girl # #

The past few weeks, my life has felt a lot like my favorite scene from The Simpsons:

I’d make progress, then something bad would happen. I’d get a good surprise, then a bad one. It’s exhausting.

Last week’s surprise was a very, very bad one. It’s entirely possible that the situation will resolve itself with no lasting damage, but there’s work to be done to fix the issue, and then it will be a few weeks before we know the outcome. And in the meantime, it’s weighing on my mind and leaving me somewhat frazzled and depressed.

If you have a good thought to spare, send it my way. Because where can you turn when even the frogurt is cursed?