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#no psych ward visits since 2018!
rustybutterknife · 4 years
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How did you know you were bi? If it's not too. Personal Lately I've been wanting to like suck d**k and stuff And low key in attracted to you You don't have to answer If this is weird Im a trans dude (newly 21) and since I started T idk I'm just more attracted to other dudes
Funny story, it was actually during my 2nd psych ward visit.
It was about January or February of 2018, and there was this dude named Philip.
Now, I knew that I’d been attracted to both guys and girls since about 8 years old, but I dealt with a lot of internalized biphobia. I knew that bisexuality was a thing, and that it was alright to be attracted to both guys and girls. But that couldn’t be me.
I had a crush both a boy and a girl in 5th grade. But me being attracted to boys was “compulsive heteronormativity” as a young pre-realization trans baby. I was only romantically, maybe even platonically attracted to men. Right?
I found myself wanting to be around Philip all the time, and every time I went into the day room and saw him, I would get that little butterflies in my stomach feeling and just feel all giddy. His smile made me melt, and I felt the want to make any sort of physical contact with him. Bumping hands accidentally was almost intoxicating to me. I wanted things out of this man that would probably get me flagged on this shitty blue site.
Then I realized.
Oh.
Oh.
It then clicked. It wasn’t just “me being able to tell a dude is hot” and that I didn’t just “find John Laurens from Hamilton ‘just conventially attractive.’” (I actually had the chance to go see Hamilton, but I was stuck in the hospital the day I was able to go. And had they not put me on new medication, I would’ve been able to go see it.)
I was bisexual.
Ah shit.
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schizophelia · 6 years
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August 7th, 2018: Social Work Appointment: Journal/Update
Today I met with my social worker at psych services for the last time. Since I am going to school in the city, I won't be able to keep appointments at psych services. Not only that, the social worker is going to be working at the hospital psych ward full time in September and the psychiatric nurse that was on maternity leave is coming back to resume her original place.
So my social worker and I talked about how I've been doing over the past couple of weeks since I saw her last. Surprisingly enough, I've been doing fairly well over the last few days. The voices are gone but I still see things on occasion. But it's not as bad. Also, my anxiety has gone down a lot. So I'm thankful.
My social worker and I also talked about school and if that plan was still standing. I said it was. I do still plan to attend university in September. She asked me how I felt about it (I said I was anxious). She said anxiety is common. I was asked if I had everything for school and I told her I had most of it from the previous years I had planned to go to school and never did. I explained my living arrangements and such to her and she said it might be a good idea to contact my townhouse mates. My social worker said my doctor sent a referral for me to see a psychiatrist at the university a while ago but I haven't heard anything back so I have to call or email the university soon so I can see if they received it or not. My social worker said she was proud of me for pushing through the challenges I have faced over the past few months. She said she was worried for me a few months ago because I was really unwell then. She said I was going through a lot of medication issues and such and she's glad I am doing better (for) now. She said I would make a good contribution to the psychology field because of my lived experiences. She wished me the best and said if I ever need to talk to her I could call her extension at the hospital. She said she was closing my file at psych services but I could make a referral again if I needed to. Although she said there's a waiting list into the new year for services. That's okay because I will be in the city anyway.
I'm still having problems with energy, motivation, completing tasks, lethargy, etc. Also my concentration and focus is so poor. No joke. I can't pay attention to anything. I hope school goes okay with these problems.
I've been really bad at keeping in touch with my friends. I hardly talk to my best friends. I was invited to Char's 23rd Birthday party this past Saturday but I didn't go. I went to see my Tante Hulda 3 hours away. She is my 93 year old great aunt. She is one of my favourite people ever. My parents and I visited her because she is old and we don't know how long she'll live. She's so prone to fractures and falls even though she's healthy otherwise. During our visit there we also got to see Art. Art is related to my Tante Hulda somehow but I forgot how. Anyway, the 5 of us went out to lunch. It was nice. I haven't seen Art in years. My Onkel Hans died a few years ago and my Tante Hulda was taking about him and the war. It was sad because it looked like she was going to cry several times. Talking about him is really hard for her. Even talking about my Opa is hard too. She loved them both so much. Unfortunately cancer claimed both their lives. I remember attending mass in half German and half English. It was interesting. I learned that my Tante Hulda can speak at least 3 languages: Russian, German, and English. I thought that was cool.
I'm a little worried about tomorrow because my dad goes to see the doctor tomorrow regarding the MRI results he had for the lump on his back shoulder. Tomorrow we find out if it's cancer or if it's a fat lump like my family doctor thinks. The specialist doctor he saw ordered an MRI to see what they were dealing with. The reason why they're doing this is because my dad had cancer before. He was cancer free over a year ago and October 5th of this year is his next appointment at the cancer clinic. They make appointments every year for a few years to make sure it hasn't come back. But when my dad saw the specialist doctor about the lump, the doctor said the lump had grown since my dad's ultrasound on it a couple months ago. He's having a lot of pain on his neck and stuff so we think the lump is pushing on things. But I'm not a doctor so I can't say for sure. If it is cancer, they will have to do radiation again likely and then surgery. I hope it isn't cancer.
It's been so damn hot lately. I feel like my face is sweating off whenever I get outside. I'm significantly darker than I was a few months ago. It's really muggy and gross outside. Even the dogs can't handle it. We only let them outside for about 10-20 minutes at a time. Abby doesn't have it as bad as Lika because Lika is a black lab and absorbs the sun. Abby is a yellow lab so it doesn't bother her as much.
I've been sleeping really well lately. My sleep used to be 3-6 hours and now with the Seroquel XR it's 7-11 hours. And I actually feel rested when I wake up. It's great. My doctor didn't increase my dose of it so I am still on 200mg. I also still take the 120mg of Fetzima for my mood. So far it's still working. I've been feeling pretty good lately.
Also, this is kind of random but my Spotify Discover Weekly playlist is spot-on this week. I've favourited almost all the songs they suggested. It's so nice to hear New music that is half decent.
I didn't post this but I got sorted into residence for university. I didn't get the one I wanted but it's okay because I get my own room and share a furnished townhouse unit with two other girls. It has a kitchen so I don't need a meal plan. I just need to buy groceries. My tuition is completely paid for this semester due to my scholarship and bursary. So all I have to pay for is residence and the mandatory fees for undergraduates. The university splits the bursary and scholarship in half so I receive an equal amount per semester because all payments are on a semester basis. I pay half of my residence this semester (fall) and the other half in the winter semester. I really should email my townhouse mates to introduce myself. Meh. Another day.
I see my psychiatrist for the last time on August 24th and then I see the periodontist August 29th. And then I move into university residence on September 1st, classes start on the 6th. I hope it goes okay.
Holy shit. This is a long post but I've had so much to say. Anyway, I think that's all I had to say.
Meds:
Fetzima 120mg
Seroquel XR 200mg
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rantingsurvivor · 3 years
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tw: details of abuse, description of past suicide attempts.
My name is Sean Evans, I am an autistic transmasc (ey/em or he/him) who lives in Abbotsford, BC, and from 2018 until June 2020, I was emotionally and sexually abused by Monica Phillips (aka "joyousmonica" or "supruler" on various sites, and an official "Pokemon Professor" who runs Pokemon TCG League events at House of Cards Abbotsford when they aren't cancelled cuz of the 'rona).
I started dating Monica in 2011, and she moved in to my house in early 2012.
In 2018, she cheated on me; when I confronted her, she told me that if I cared about her happiness, I would accept her relationship with the person she cheated with, Beru Bell (aka "spectacularbear"). At this point, Beru (also autistic & non-binary; uses they/them) began sleeping over numerous times a week, using my workspace as a bedroom. At this time, I was trying to prepare for vending at local Pride events, & was using the common area of our suite as my workspace overnight, particularly on nights when Monica was sleeping with the metamour she HAD told me about before starting a relationship (Liz; I'll talk about her eventually). My warning that Beru was going to sleep over for the night was that they changed into their pyjamas & started setting up for bed in my workspace.
I was accused of being "unwelcoming" for asking Beru to let me know when they were sleeping over before setting up for the night. Actually, I wasn't allowed to
Beru and I have another thing in common: we both have gut issues. In their case, onions were a trigger. When I eventually asked Monica to let me know when Beru was coming home from work with her so I could make sure there were some options they could eat without taking over our only bathroom for hours, Beru interrupted our conversation from across the room to shut down my boundaries. I later got in trouble for a tweet expressing my frustration at the incident, because it made Beru upset. I was accused of not accommodating their autism... because I asked for the ability to schedule my evening & the ability to access our single bathroom that was now being shared by FOUR people, and said that I needed to be able to set boundaries.
Beru Bell did not respect a single boundary I set until the point I insisted on going completely non-contact with them.
It's worth mentioning, throughout this whole thing, Beru had an apartment where they lived alone. Until *I* suggested it (after several months of attempting to be polite), the two of them did not spend any significant amount of time there. Beru DID spend a large amount of time at Monica's work & was just as "bad with boundaries" there as they were elsewhere, to the point where multiple people expressed concern that Monica would be fired from her job at House of Cards in downtown Abbotsford over it.
For a while after I went non-contact with Beru, I thought that Monica might have actually understood why I couldn't be around a person who constantly violated my boundaries, including one memorable occasion where I was lying in my bed half naked with the door shut & talking to Monica, & Beru walked in without knocking or so much as a single word with me & climbed into the bed to cuddle Monica.
During this period, Monica made a new friend, Claire. Monica was very concerned about Claire liking her... and Beru. She was not so concerned with Claire liking me, however. Claire has since accused me of lying about Monica, because Monica told Claire (as well as a bunch of other people, including people that I've never met) that I had no reason to actually dislike Beru & was... idk, jealous?
Monica's story became "Sean consented to me dating Beru & then changed his mind," which is also what she tried to tell the couples counselor we visited.
Not long after this whole mess began, Monica & I both started HRT. Yes, she'll probably accuse me of outing her, no, I don't give a shit- it's relevant to how she abused me. You see, Monica didn't like condoms, and since HRT had prooobably made us both at least temporarily infertile, she didn't see why she should wear one for PIV with me. I was not comfortable with this, but after she started arguing with my objections, I gave up fighting; I was afraid of "picking a fight" by explaining just how uncomfortable I was, not just from the pregnancy-risk induced dysphoria, but because she wanted to have unprotected sex after cheating on me. This happened twice before I basically started ignoring her requests for PIV & exclusively going down on her instead.
Of course, she had to ruin that, too. One day in either late September or early October 2019 (I am Extremely Bad At Dates, but I can narrow it down to like a 10-day window based on the light from outside & other details I remember a lot better than specific dates) Monica came home from Beru's earlier than usual & begged me to go down on her. I can't remember if she actually said the words "right now" when she asked, but she hadn't even finished taking off her shoes when she yelled "Seaaan, I really want you to go down on me" across the house. I remember thinking a couple of things in particular:
"I guess this must be an effect of progesterone that took a few months to kick in?" and
"Liz isn't just at work, she's on a trip, so there's no chance we'll be interrupted by her getting home early."
When I actually started, though, I was kinda confused at first. She tasted strange, and the texture of the fluids was off. Again, I thought it must be the changes to her body chemistry... until I'd consumed enough of the vaginal fluid coating her dick to actually taste HER and realize that what I was tasting before probably came from Beru.
The worst part is, I felt like I was obligated to get her off before I confronted her to confirm what I tasted. So I did. And then I confronted her about whether she'd had bareback PIV with Beru before getting me to go down on her, & she confirmed it. And I felt bad about upsetting her by confronting her, & blamed myself.
& this continued. Every 3rd night, she spent the night at Beru's. It became impossible to schedule around her on those days- when she was leaving, when she'd be back. I'd spend hours on the days she was coming home caught in a limbo because of my inability to actually set a schedule. Monica became even crueler & more distant.
It finally came to a head when I tried to kill myself twice in 4 days in June, at which point she was switching meds and cycling through (equally cruel) manic and depressive states. Both of my suicide attempts this year were motivated entirely by my desire to avoid or cease inconveniencing Monica and Beru. The first attempt was opportunistic & unplanned- around 3 am I realized I was bleeding internally, thought it was a potentially fatal rupture... and decided to try to go to sleep instead of contacting Monica for help. I finally gave in and sent her a message saying I needed to go to the hospital around 6pm the next day.
The second time, I wrote a pseudo-will, calculated dosages, & decided to gamble on whether Liz would brave the awkwardness of actually saying something to me when she got home or just hide in her room & ignore the world. Fortunately for me, she acknowledged me when she got home, so I asked her to hide the painkillers.
That's the night I dumped Monica. Since I broke up with her, she played games for like 2 months about getting her stuff from my garage, continued accused me of sending her to the psych ward (she was on her way there well before my attempts- burning thru half an oz of weed a week & dabbling in shit like GHB while underplaying the fact that her new meds didn't play well with weed was her call, & she made it pretty clear that my concerns weren't really worth paying attention to), and sent the cops to my home on a false "wellness check" in retaliation for rescinding a 5 star review of her workplace & pointing out that using the place where you work *with kids* to meet up with the person you're cheating with isn't cool.
Now, I end up seeing her every time I let my guard down traveling thru downtown Abbotsford, which is a problem, because guess what part of town my house is in? 🙃
TL;DR: Monica Phillips of Abbotsford BC is a rapist who emotionally and sexually abused an autistic trans person over the course of two years. Her partner Beru Bell initiated & participated in parts of the abuse, and repeatedly used their autism dx as an excuse to violate other people's boundaries.
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vampyrechick · 4 years
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My Mental Health Story
*****WARNING: This post contains self harm and suicide attempts and ideation*****
When I finally accepted my diagnosis of bipolar II, it sounds cheesy, but my whole life made sense. Me as a little girl isolating, being paranoid, getting fixated on things, moods changing quick, the self harm. The self harm... first it was digging my long fingernails into the back of my hands till it bled, banging my head against the wall, pulling out my hair. Later as i grew up, the self harm turned into punching large bruises into my legs, raking my nails down my forehead, and eventually cutting my wrists. It was punishment. Punishment for being me.
I was picked on all through school- too fat, too skinny, fake boobs, etc. None of which was true. I was right in my BMI and there was nothing in my bras but my boobs. I got made fun of for having freckles and moles and I even got picked on for needing a rolling backpack when I broke my clavicle and was unable to lift heavy things.
I started college and started dating my now husband. I’d had a few huge panic attacks here and there, but never really knew what they were. He knew something was wrong with me, but didn’t quite know what. He had a suspicion on bipolar and after working with a bipolar person, so did my dad.
I’d been working at a well known lingerie store for 7 years when my boyfriend and I got married, had a kid, and bought a house with my brother. Having a baby was hard especially not knowing she was lactose intolerant so my moods were everywhere. We fixed up the house for a year and finally moved in in late 2013. I’d been getting mentally abused at that store the whole time- getting passed up for promotions, blamed for things getting stolen, yelled at, etc. It was time for a new job and more money. My brother was out a job for a while, so we needed to pay for the house somehow. I got a job at a well known insurance company. I didn’t know it, but I’d been having panic attacks all through 6 months of training. It felt like I was being crushed and I couldn’t breathe and I’d been throwing up every morning while getting ready. At the age of 4, my daughter even came in to comfort me while I was nauseous and said I’d be ok and just needed food and brought me a bucket to throw up in. Being on the phones was the worst for me. I did get my promotion and moved out of training though. I was there almost a whole year and almost to my next promotion and I had the biggest panic attack I’d ever had. It was the start of my shift and I couldn’t get on the phone. All those mornings of throwing up in the shower getting ready for this job blew up into this huge 2 hour long panic attack. My friend had to talk to managers over the phone after trying to calm me down, I had to talk to the nurse, my brother and husband had to come pick up me and my car. That was the last day in the office for me. HR was horrible. The lady I got didn’t care about mental heath and constantly needed dr notes. I eventually had to quit. A lot of people quit that job because of the stress.
I had been going to the dr while at the insurance job trying to find out why I was throwing up every morning and why I couldn’t breathe. I got checked for gall stone, ulcers, crohns, everything. Ultra sounds, endoscopy, colonoscopy, etc. My dr finally told me it was mental. I refused to believe it, but I went up a floor to psych anyway. I was diagnosed with anxiety and depression. I was put on so many different combinations and saw so many different doctors and none were working. After I quit, I of course lost health insurance and had to go through the state. Again many different pills, but less often as the dr wanted to slowly try combos. My husband somewhere in there lost his job, my brother got one, and then my husband found one making road signs. I got insurance again.
My friends mom got me a job filing paperwork at a well known car dealership. I did well filing, but I started having to greet customers in service and move cars into the smallest of parking spots. I started fixating on things, arguing with my boss, and getting lonely in the back room. I even tried to open a vein in my wrist in the bathroom at work with a wire hanger. I got really depressed in the back and the anxiety while moving cars was great. I crashed 1,2,3 cars and I was out. I was put on a 3 day suspension (which afterward turned into being fired). That day I went home and took over a full bottle of prescribed medication. I wanted to sleep. I didn’t want to exist. Just sleep forever. I was tired. Tired of my brain and stress and not knowing how to fix what i was going through. Just so tired. I text my husband to pick up our daughter from school and said goodbye. He called 911 and they came in and walked me downstairs, strapped me to the bed in the ambulance and took me to the nearest hospital in late September 2017.
They didn’t have to pump my stomach, but I did end up having a seizure. My husband, mom, and dad all came to see me and my aunt and uncle watched my daughter after school. I got put on a 5150 which is a 3 day hold in the psych ward of the hospital. I begged to be let out for the first two days. I was diagnosed bipolar II and placed on a handful of medication to take while there. I eventually gave in and participated so I could go home. The meds they gave me made me hungrier. I got out in 3 days time and still had to take those meds. and 3 months later on those meds I was 60 lbs heavier. I looked and looked for someone to help me lose the weight. Eventually I found a psych at the health insurance place that changed my medication, but after a little, they weren’t cutting it. I’ve changed meds and doses a bit. I kept asking my psych and my regular dr and my therapist for a way to help me lose weight. Nothing. I got into a bipolar group after taking IOP. A handful of them had to get surgery to lose the weight they gained on bipolar meds.
May 2019 I had an episode and landed back in the hospital under 5150 this time just for ideation. I begged again the first 2 days to be let out. My husband came every night to visit and my parents at least once since my dad works out of town. I participated when I could and got out in 3 days. I went into IOP again for 12 weeks. Then last 2 weeks of October come and I’m back in the ideation stage. I need the hospital, but the insurance policy changed and I don’t know if it’s covered. I go like that until mid November. I get put on new medications and have to cold turkey off one drug and slowly go on one and whatnot. In the beginning I can’t tell what’s real and what is a dream. For a week I live like that. Then I have a day or two of being ok, and switch to being angry. Cold turkeying that drug made me lose touch with reality for a whole week then adding that new drug made me angry. I had to stop one of the new drugs (the one that made me angry).
I’ve had trouble sleeping off and on my whole life probably due to episodes. It got worse when my grandma on my dads side passed away and lately seem to have trouble often even on meds to help.
My resting heart rate is always above 100. Often around 120 and has gotten as high as 153 (resting).
On the combo I’m on now I’ve thought about giving myself a labottomy when I used to want to drill open my head and try to fix whatever is wrong with me.
April 2020 and I haven’t had a job since about July of 2018. Before COVID-19, I was getting panic attacks every day having to take my daughter to school. In fact she missed the day school closed (March 16,2020). The panic was bad and I couldn’t get myself to drive. I’ve been fighting to get on social security disability and I have a lawyer. I had a hearing in January 2020, but needed a court ordered psych appt. The appt was scheduled for late March and was canceled because of COVID-19. Since we are a 1 income family in San Diego, it’s hard to afford our house.
I’ve had meds make me talk slow, think slow, fall fast asleep at work, hungry 24/7, thirsty 24/7, have to tinkle every 45 mins, make me tense all my muscles 24/7 for weeks. I’ve had them effect my memory. Even my memory of what everyday words are.
May 2020 I’m so stressed about everything that I’m getting massive heartburn again. I don’t know what medication to help aleviate it because lithium reacts with everything.
July 2020 stress got to me. The stress of possibly not being able to stay in my house, the stress of my backyard being so full of weeds that my husky had to get fully shaved and get over 300 foxtails pulled from his skin (and of course the bill that came with it), the stress of my husband having a kidney stone in each kidney, the stress of my husbands car not having ac and his drive to and from work is 1 hour each way (and of course not being able to afford to fix it), the stress of my car leaking oil (and again not being able to afford fixing it), and I’m sure there is more. I went out with my parents and they asked me to be friends with someone who stopped being my friend because of my disorder in order to make my brother happy. That hurt. I texted them and wanted them to know how that made me feel especially while I’m dealing with all this other stuff and got some crappy replies. I then realized that I was being stigmatized by family and they weren’t the only ones and I lost it. I got put on another 5150 July 1st. I felt like I had lost a huge part of my support team. I wanted to stab myself in the throat and make a special note to my dad as to why he, my mom, and my brother made me kill myself. While in the hospital I realized that my husband and his father (when he is able to visit) are sympathetic to what I am going through and my husband does everything he can to make things easier on me. I am very lucky to have him. Later in July I had another instance where I couldn’t tell what was real and what was not. I hope that isn’t a regular thing again.
July still and I found out my brother had invited my bipolar best friend over for a bbq and made advances and was shut down. He text her dirty texts and she told me she still shut him down and I was upset because never once did anyone in my family reach out to see if I was ok after getting out of the hospital, but my brother would text my friend he’s hung out with less than 5 times? So I message him and he gets defensive and I decide to cut him from my life. I’m upset the couple days after and my husband tells me my daughter is showing more signs of bipolar (she’s 10 and there’s a 10% chance of passing it down). I get more upset and miscommunication leads to my husband calling my parents who I am still mad at for stigmatizing me. The first thing my dad does when he gets here? Tries to fix the door handle to the bathroom because my mom couldn’t open the door when there was another one she could have used instead of check on me like my husband had asked. Things get heated and I tell them they were the reason I was hospitalized on July 1st and they then said they were calling the police. More things were said about how upset and how they don’t even try to learn or read a book to learn and they said “no book can teach me about bipolar.” And I said the whole family stigmatizes me by not saying anything when I say I can babysit and my dad said “well no wonder they think they are a danger to their kids look at you!” I told them to get out and my mom had to be forced out due to refusing to leave without my child. She then called my daughters phone and tried to talk her into walking outside to them so they could take her from me. A therapist called and deemed me ok to not go to the hospital and wait until my regular appointment (in a few minutes from then). My regular therapist then called and talked to me and came to the same conclusion as the therapist before her. My husband came home to my parents on the porch. My father then told him that I was in rage and that it was just a seizure. I was not. I am hurt and sad and upset and misunderstood. I don’t understand why people don’t get that mental illness is a real thing. Why can’t you learn about bipolar from a book? How do doctors learn? You learn how it works and what the symptoms are and then you learn the specifics of the person you love. How is that a difficult concept?
I have been having seizures at night now though. Multiple a night. Just small few second ones. Haven’t been able to sleep for a few nights unless I get so tired I pass out.
As a kid I’ve never felt like I fit in with my family and it transferred into adulthood even before I found out I was bipolar. I didn’t feel happy when I felt I should have been. I felt left out from the girls group because I didn’t like the same things they did, but I didn’t fit into the boys group either. Then adulthood. I was the first out of all the cousins to have a child and get married and buy a house, but I’m not the oldest. I just never fit. I see how the oldest and second youngest (of the girl group) go out to bingo together and of course the oldest and youngest are sisters so they are close, but me? I had 2 brothers. Where did I fit? They hung with the boy cousins. I didn’t have anything in common with either group. Again adulthood I still don’t fit because I don’t have a job and my kid is over 5 years older than the age of the babies everyone else just had. Now we add bipolar to the group and no one else has a mental disorder. None diagnosed at least.
More about my childhood, but first I’ve been having trouble sleeping. Insomnia due to stress, seizures which I’ve never had before (due to stress), and things I should have grown out of (thanks genetics... due to stress). I’ve never been happy with myself because of it and I’ve always had trouble sleeping. Most of my sleeping issues came after my grandma died. All I could think about was death. Burning alive in a house fire, drowning, being creamated alive, being buried alive, etc. I got more depressed.
Growing up at family functions I would ask to “play in the car” which meant sit and wait to go home. Now looking back I know I was sad and overwhelmed with the loud noises and not fitting in. I’d throw up every Easter. I was told it was because I ate to much candy. Now I see it was anxiety. Anxiety to find all my eggs because my family is competitive. Anxiety because my family is loud. Anxiety because I didn’t fit in.
I didn’t fit in at school either. I said earlier I was always made fun of. I forgot about how the kids would always dare different boys to ask me out and then laugh about it. My husband has learned not to tell me I’m pretty or beautiful because it makes me cry. I don’t believe him. I don’t believe any compliments ever and never have. They upset me. I’ve taken lipstick or eyeliner and written “fat, ugly, useless” ect on my mirror. I gave up on wearing make up because to me, it’s not to make you look pretty, it’s to enhance your beauty and i don’t feel I have any. First it was my cystic acne and now it’s my weight. I’ll never be how I want to look again because doctors don’t care. I was literally told “would you rather be alive and fat or dead?” I want to be happy. What’s the point of a life if you aren’t happy?
Growing up I didn’t feel like I got much attention. I tried to come up with ways to break a bone at school 1-5 grade. Lotion on my hands then go on the monkey bars, play the tougher games like red rover where people did try to break your arms while running over, ect. Nothing worked.
It’s been a hell of a ride. Paranoia, obsession, fixation, anger, hypomania, depression. It’s hard. It’s really hard to live this way. I finally got someone to help me with my weight loss early April 2020 after getting to be 110lbs over what I was. I still struggle with mood swings because obviously there is no cure and I can’t remember things and often forget what everyday things are called. Some times I feel like I am putting on a face for others. Like a “happy face”, so they don’t have to ask “what’s wrong”. I do know (when I’m in my wise mind) that I have help and a small amount of people who love me who will be there for me when I need it.
It’s August now and my parents are lying to my husband about what happened just like they lied about why they asked me to be friends with someone for my brothers sake. First it was because the wedding. I pointed out they asked it was after they broke up. They stated it was just to be in the same room. I stated no that’s what was said after I told them why she didn’t want to be my friend anymore. Why am I wrong? Why lie? Why not admit it?! You fucked up! Just because my brain doesn’t produce chemicals to make me happy doesn’t mean it makes me stupid. “We called our granddaughter to come outside to the porch.” Ok. Then what? You were under the impression someone was going to take me away which in turn means you thought you would get my daughter. That’s stealing. I didn’t want her outside and you knew that.
Still beginning of August. I guess July was too rough with me not sleeping that since August came along and I fall asleep all the time and I can’t wake up. You’d think sleep would be a good thing, but the sleep I get is nothing but nightmares that I can’t wake up from. I went to the doctor the other day and found out that a small lump I’ve had on my shoulder since 4th grade is a cyst brought on by stress. I also have psoriasis... brought on by stress. I have been shaking a lot lately due to anxiety and money problems keep getting worse. My stomach won’t stop hurting.
Wow it’s the first Saturday in August. How much has happened. That girl my parents asked if I would be friend with for my brother btw is married. I had asked my friend of like 25 years when the incident happened if she would take her off things like Instagram and Facebook and stuff and she had a fit, but half took her off Instagram. You know where you unfollow them but they still follow you? So yea I was still mad but she claimed she didn’t know how to not have her on Instagram. You know that “block” button. Yea I guess that doesn’t exist. So recently after my parents thing I see she adds the new Facebook page (I blocked one so this is a new one) and I lose me shit). She text me asking me how I am doing and I not word for word say “don’t ask how I am if you don’t give a shit. I see you added that bitch recently and I don’t know if you’ve done reading or not on mental health, but triggers are things that set back forward progress. I don’t get why I fight for you to be in my life when you don’t fight for me to be in yours. Don’t text me again” and I blocked her. She then had her daughter (who’s always grounded from her phone) bombard my daughters phone with “can my brother and I sleep over? Auntie has to answer my moms texts though” like what the fuck?! She’s always been a “user.” And when I say “user” I mean “drive me here and I’ll ignore you the whole concert” “give me money and I’ll say I’ll pay you back and never actually will” “ watch my kids every weekend for like 2 months and I’ll never return the favor.” Shit like that. I’m out. Done. To quote my favorite movie in a time of pain this Katelynn “chick must have beer flavored nipples.”
August is the month that just keeps giving. I am non stop nauseous. I threw up the other day and it caused me to have a nose bleed. Mental health drug withdrawals are no joke. Hopefully I’m on a good mix again for another year or whatever. Once the withdrawals stop, I need to stop the stress and anxiety. My husband says my dad is trying to make an effort to learn now, but I don’t know if it’s too late. He and my mom have already triggered me many times by asking me to be friends with that girl who didn’t want to be my friend because my illness to make my brother happy. My dad also told me I’m a danger to children when I’ve only ever hurt myself whereas his oldest has gotten expelled from high school for fighting and has a track record for punching holes in walls and hitting cabinet doors off hinges, but because I have a label, I’m dangerous. There’s just some things you just can’t take back.
I don’t know if I’ve already stated, but I forget what things are called and the stress to get my thoughts and what I’m trying to say out is huge because I don’t want to hear “what?” “I missed that” “I didn’t hear what you said.” It’s cause I didn’t get to finish! I stopped to figure out what the word was now I forgot the whole sentence! Colored pencils are colored sticks. Elote is elbow. Ice is grass. Posture is prosper. I HATE this! I come up with ANY word that will come out to avoid a pause so I can avoid “what?” I truely cannot remember the word either until someone tells me.
It’s the end of August and my parents and I are slowly starting to talk. First about small things like video games, but yesterday I called my mom and told her I was sorry for how I expressed my feeling. I said I never should have acted out in anger and should have come to them calmly (though now thinking about it, I did and it didn’t work, but what’s done is done). My dad is reading the book and really taking it in. The book being from a bipolar persons perspective is nice for him. My mom is also doing internet research. My brother has been asking how I have been doing which is nice though I still don’t know how I feel about him and how he treated my friend. My oldest brother has been silent. We’ve never been close. It hurts, but he’s got two little girls to deal with I guess. I would have been asking about him, but oh well I’ll take what I get. I’ve did the distance thing I realized because I was afraid of losing them again. Afraid the anger and fighting would come back and it would just be a never ending cycle. I hope this book opens eyes. On other notes, I’ve upgraded to nocturnal panic disorder. I’ve been waking up in a panic from sleep. Still having nightmares, but the times I don’t, PANIC!
My parents and I are doing better since my dad is reading the book. I appologized for how I said things in anger to both of them because it wasn’t fair to them for my to have done that even if I did try calmly. I should have kept trying. My dad said the book is really eye opening and he didn’t need the apology, but appreciated it. He said reading it made him realize I couldn’t help it. I can’t explain right now what he meant, but it’s just like loss of control (I posted the book in another post). I text my brother to tell him I love him because I do and I understand why he would ask my friend out, but I’m still upset because I know I was a rebound and he didn’t have good thoughts. I know he knows it was a mistake and in time we will be ok. On another note, I found out why I was having nocturnal panic attacks. I stopped my sleeping pills that is also for anxiety. I started a medication that I haven’t been on for a little and I took my on the spot anxiety med the other day and i had a few psychotic breaks again (a few in one day). So now I won’t take my on the spots anymore.
My primary care doctor has put me on a medication to help with weight loss in addition to the others I am on. Its also supposed to help with full body pain and swelling which I have. In just three days I have already noticed reduced swelling and pain. Dieting is still hard, but less hard. I am couting calories safely to lose 1 pound a week and eating at least 80 grams of protein. Thats it. Thats my diet I am following. Nothing special or fancy or hard to do. Simple.
Took almost 2 years on the dot, but I finally got on SSDI as of early Sept. and early Oct. I got my award letter. I didnt fully win my case (only 16 months out of 2 years, but I will take it). Also, I don’t get paid for the first 5 months of that 16 months which I don’t fully understand, plus I have to pay the lawyers, but still, I won. We also got a notice saying that since I have a child, I can apply to get money to pay for her as well. That was easy to apply for and only takes a month to hear back for, so I should hear back early Nov.
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{ NEW COOKING VIDEO! }
Since the 4th of July is TOMORROW, I thought it would be the perfect time to give you a dip that you can feel good about devouring in 3 minutes. Dips are my FAVORITE thing to eat at a backyard BBQ and this is an elevated version that is completely dairy-free! I love it so damn much!
But enough about dip, we gotta talk about what’s important here – The Bachelorette. I just love it. Becca says dumb stuff constantly that her producers have fed her. And the guys say dumb stuff constantly that they just conjured up in their own minds. It’s just pure gold. The episode starts off with Becca saying that Richmond, Virginia is for lovers than is closes in on a shot of her playing with the geese. Does she knows that those birds are geese? It doesn’t seem like it. Have you ever tried to play with a goose? Things can go horribly wrong with that plan. Believe me.
The episode starts off with Jason getting his first one-on-one. Chris, the guy who looks like Chandler’s roommate Eddie from the show Friends, starts to sh*t the bed with his insecurities. Insecure guys are some of my favorite people to interact with. And I dealt with a lot of them when I use to coach CrossFit. They just work their hardest to look like they have their sh*t together, but as soon as you give them a barbell, everything hits the fan. That’s the same thing for Chris. But his barbell is 8 other attractive buff dudes. And as we find out later in the episode, Chris use to be 300 pounds. It’s all becoming clearer. Especially when he says Lincoln is body shaming him. I’ve never heard a guy say body shaming and I’d prefer to never hear it again.
So Jason’s date is suuuupes weird. They start it off in a cemetery where they visit Edgar Allen Poe’s mothers grave. Haven’t you just ALWAYS wanted to go there?? Then after being around dead bodies for a good chunk of time, they head to a donut shop. Nothing gets me famished like a gravesite. Then they visit the Poe museum where the scene starts up with Becca in an upright coffin. They love death this episode. THEN they have to go to some unhappy hour where goths talk about death and dying. It’s all so romantic, I can barely stand it. Luckily the date ends in a cute way with Becca surprising Jason with 3 of his best friends at a bar…and Jason gets all choked up. I can forgive a man for his slicked back hair choices when he gets emotional about his bromances. That was cute.
Now for the group date. All the dudes have to debate each other in front of the capitol. Chris Harrison has to work his 4 hours of the week and all he does the entire time is say, “Do you have a rebut?” Is rebut a real word? I’ve heard rebuttal but I’m not sure that the shortened word is appropriate. Kind of like saying Hell instead of Hello. It just doesn’t make sense. But what do I know? A woman in South Carolina asked if Colorado was a blue state and I almost said it was a green state. Get it? Come on. I mostly just got super annoyed with her for wanting to chat politics while I’m trying to kayak. GO AWAY RANDOM WOMAN! The episode is mostly Chris falling apart, telling the debate audience at the capitol that Lincoln called him a fat f*ck and audience sh*tting their pants about the word f*ck. They would not like my blog or podcast. Chris continues to unravel into the evening and reminds all the women out there watching the show to not hit up his DMs when he finally gets kicked off. He’s a little manipulator with an anger issue. Not a great combination. BUT he does dress really well and I’m proud of his weight loss journey. You go Glenn CoCo!
Last date is Leo, the stuntman who also has a soft porn video out there. What an interesting life he’s had. The date is my nightmare. Becca is upset because Chris is the worst so she’s pouting most of the time. Which is totes understandable. Dating one psychopath was always challenging while I was in the dating world, but dating 9 of them at the same time – that’s psych ward status. They have to go shuck oysters in the freezing cold and she looks miserable the entire time. If you want to force me into cold water during cold weather, I will make a scene. The show has proved that Virginia is not for lovers – it’s for miserable days and lots of death.
After Leo gets back from his date, Chris immediately gets up and storms off to Becca’s hotel where Becca is somehow still in her fancy dress from the night. What woman in their right mind keeps on her dress the second she gets home? My dress and shoes are already in our front door entrance by the time I step foot in the house. Chris is getting super pumped up about Lincoln saying that he eats 12 eggs a day and that his cholesterol must be through the roof. Sweet burn Chris, sweet burn. He tells Becca that he can see himself marrying her after just last week when he said he wants to go home. It takes a special woman to want to deal with a messy dude like that. And Becca just isn’t that special woman. She lets him go and he looks like he’s talking himself down from punching a hole through the wall, Andy from The Office style. Speaking of, I’m going to put that show on right now.
The episode ends with no cocktail hour and Becca kicking off Connor, the dude who never had a real date but always impressed the nation with his full head of hair. And Lincoln, the Nigerian Prince who was mentioned to have sh*t on the floor, but none of us ever witnessed that. I hate when the editors show you something at the beginning and it never comes to fruition throughout the show. EDIT BETTER, YOU F*CKS. Sorry, Chris’s anger rubbed off on me. The most upsetting thing about this entire episode is that Lincoln has no exit interview. Where did it go? What did it say? Did his steroid-filled biceps finally explode so he had no time to talk? I need answers. And I need to hear his very feminine voice once more. Maybe he was whisked to Bachelor in Paradise. If that’s the case, I’m cool. If not, I need to know if he’s in a hospital somewhere we deflated biceps. Someone do some research for me!
Caramelized Onion Bacon Cream Cheese Dip
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Ingredients
1 8oz container of almond milk cream cheese*
1 5oz container of almond milk greek yogurt*
1/2 pound bacon
4 tablespoon bacon fat, divided
1 yellow onion, diced
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 tablespoons chopped chives
2 tablespoons chopped dill
salt and pepper, to taste
Serve with
plantain chips
sweet potato chips
bell peppers slices
cucumber slices
Instructions
Place cream cheese on the counter to soften and come to room temperature.
Add bacon to a pan and cook until crispy. Set aside and pour bacon fat in a jar, leaving behind 2 tablespoons in the pan.
Add onions to the pan with the bacon fat and cook for 6-8 minutes, until soft and brown. Then add garlic cloves and cook for another 2 minutes.
Add cream cheese, greek yogurt, 2 tablespoons bacon fat, diced bacon, onion, and all the rest of the ingredients and mix until combined.
Cover and set in fridge for 30 minutes or longer.
Serve with chips and chopped veggies!
by juli
Recipe Notes
*I used Kite Hill brand to make this recipe completely dairy and soy free!
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You May Also Like:
Greek Avocado Dip
Dill Pickle Dip (+ cooking video!)
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thegallinisystem · 5 years
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Hey friends.
If you know me irl, you have permission to contact me. It's really hard for me to open up or ask for help one on one right now.
This last year and a half has been probably the hardest time of my life. I've gone through what I consider to be the darkest time of my life.
This is a long post, but please, if you can, read through it and send me some support:
tl:;dr I've had a lot of major shit go down recently and right now I'm seriously scared of losing my home because of finances. I don't know what kindof support I can even ask for, because I know so many people are going through hardship right now and many people I know just don't have the ability to help.
I've been embarrassed to say anything. I feel shame in asking for help, and I feel shame in having so many bad things happen at the same time. I feel like there is something wrong with me that things have gotten as bad as they are right now.
In going to therapy, I realize that keeping this all to myself isn't helping anymore. I'm in way over my head. I don't know what to do. I don't know how to get out of this mess. I feel like I'm in so deep that I have no hope of ever getting out.
I suppose it all started two years ago, actually. My partner's grandmother died, and I don't know how, but her being alive seemed to have been what kept this family together. Pretty much the week before that, we'd found out that a whole lot of messed up stuff had happened with my sister in law and her husband. This was really hard for me, because I actually grew up with him. For the longest time, he was the only person who had supported me and not shamed me or guilted me for who I was. He just liked spending time with me. And then I find out that he'd hurt my sister in law and that their marriage basically disintegrated because the two of them had a breach in trust and then grew apart very quickly.
As soon as the funeral was over, his Dad disappeared with basically no warning to Costa Rica for nine months. We heard from him maybe once or twice a month, always at weird times. His brother was on a mission at the time. Even though his mom and his sister were a five minute drive, we heard from them about the same amount as we heard from his Dad. They may as well have been in a different country with how little we heard from them.
We tried to support them, but instead got met with huge, insurmountable walls. Instead of coming together and grieving like a family, we all just kind of separated. It seems like we're trying to fix that, but there's still distance between us. At least, between Jacob and I and the rest of them. His mom and sister seem to tell each other everything, and as soon as his brother came home, they all started talking a bunch. I feel like I've done something to make it so that Jacob doesn't hear from them much. I don't know what. It might just be my paranoia.
Later that year, my mom left my dad once and for all. Earlier that year, I had completley cut off contact from my parents, saying that they'd hurt me and never been there for me. I came out as non-binary very soon after, because that's when it was safe to do so.
When my mom left my dad, I made some efforts to reconnect with her again. We have a rocky relationship at the moment, but she is trying to put in an effort.
2017 was a sad year. I felt like I had finally started to open up to Jacob's family as being a replacement for my own, and then they fell apart. I suppose that's what I get for getting attached, I guess. Some part of me still believes it's my fault this happened to them, that when I get involved, things fall apart. I remember Thanksgiving or Christmas or something? It was just the four of us and there was a lot of quiet.
2018 I thought would be a good year. But then, literally the day before my birthday, my sister started singing praises of my dad. We got into an argument of how my mom caused all the problems in the family (lies my father spread so that he would never take the blame) and how everything my father ever did was for our benefit. This was after I told her that he literally tortured me for not doinng what he wanted. This was after he put her in isolation for months when she didn't do what he wanted. It was a huge betrayal.
I tried to hide it for a couple months, tried to pretend everything was fine. But then I just couldn't handle it anymore. I couldn't open up about what had happened, but I couldn't keep living with that pain. So I tried to take my own life.
I woke up about 48 hours later in a psych ward, with absolutely no memory of how I had gotten there. I was scared and really disoriented. I remember overdosing, but I don't remember anything after that.
At first, being taken out of my environment seemed helpful. But the psych ward was traumatic in it's own way. The therapist literally fell asleep on me while we were talking about our issues, and she just spouted the same thing for me as she did for everyone else. Almost no one got my pronouns or name right, and there was even a visit from the department of health saying they'd gotten some serious complaints about patient treatment there.
I went about a month and a half before I tried to take my life again. I felt like none of those things had helped, and better yet, I had more new trauma on top of it. I went to a different psych ward this time, and it was much better. I even made a friend who introduced me to other people that are now a super vital part of my support system.
A couple weeks after I got out, things with my second partner got really bad. She kept telling me that she didn't trust me, she constantly broke down. I was walking on eggshells all the time around her, and just trying to make it so that she wouldn't go into a disorder meltdown. It was toxic and seriously messed with my ability to feel like I could trust anyone ever again. It's why I haven't opened up for a while.
I've cut ties with her.I love her dearly, but it was causing me so much pain. I just couldn't keep putting myself in that position anymore.
This happened the week after I'd gotten to surgery. The doctor had told me to reduce stress, and here this was happening. To make things worse, two days after Christmas, Jacob's work told him that they were suspending the work from home program, for no reason. They made a lot of sudden policy changes that made the work environment a living nightmare. He'd already been really stressed, and this is right when they were going into their busy season.
A couple months in, I had to actively talk him down from suicide. He went into short term medical elave for three months, and just today when they wouldn't extend it any farther, he quit. What's funny is, not even hours after he'd sent in his resignation, they suspended his access to a lot of programs. But when he was asking for help and human resources contacts, they took weeks to get back to him.
I've tried to get a traditional job. I genuinely have. When we tell people about our financial situation, they ask me why I'm not working. I feel so ashamed that I can't hold down a job. My mental and physical conditions make it basically impossible. I do what I can through freelance work because that's the only work I can manage like this. But I feel like there's something wrong with me because I can't work. It's been hard with both of us unable to work. Jacob is currently trying to get work and will probably take whatever he can get for now. I think his situation isn't that he can't work, just that he can't handle being treated like that.
If I ever post this on Facebook or a place where more people know my in-laws, I'll have to delete this next part.
In the time when we were taking a break from her, my partner's parents told us they were getting divorced. His Dad told us that he'd done a lot of things to hurt his mom, that he'd made a lot of bad financial decisions and that he'd had several affairs. It didn't make sense, but honestly, I wasn't in a place to process any of it. To be honest, it felt like he didn't have any care about what we were going through, and just dumped it on us when we didn't have the emotional capacity to deal with it so we wouldn't get mad at him or really even put up a fight about it. I remember during the conversation I just basically dissociated the whole time because I literally could not handle even one more small problem, let alone another major crisis like this.
His Dad took off a week or two later. We heard from him a couple times since then, he texted Jacob maybe once or twice, and then we heard from his sister that Dad was in town. The day that he showed up. I guess Jacob had advance warning, but this was the first we'd heard about it.
But I wanted, or needed, some kind of parental figure. I tried to open up to him again and say that I had seen him as a father figure, and he texted me back and said that he always saw me as his daughter. Which just shut the door in my face. Here we were, two years after I'd come out, and he was still misgendering me. I kind of expected it from strangers, but he was supposed to be my family. He was supposed to know that being talked about that way hurts me. I've corrected him many times, but I guess he was too absent to really care about it.
Then I started to o look at his behavior the last little while. One thing that really bothered me was that when I reached out asking for help the day I had to talk Jacob down from suicide, he did't even respond until over an hour after his mom had come over to check on him. Almost like he didn't care about the welfare of his own child. And he came for like five minutes after mom had been here for hours and just said "hang in there buddy" and left.
There's other stuff, but this post is already long enough.
I feel like I've been sucked into this vat of tar. For the past side months or so, I've had a snorkel and a hand holding the ledge. Now that snorkels filling up and my hand has been forcibly removed from the ledge. I don't even know what I'm running on anymore. I just know I have to work and find ways to bring in some kind of income, because I'm the only one making income right now. I was already stressed about finding clients when Jacob had a job, but now it's vital. I needed clients yesterday, so I have to work hard to bring more in.
I just feel like I have all this pressure on my and I don't know how to deal with this. I don't know how to get through this. I feel alone. I feel trapped. I am in way over my head. Please, send help.
Just to let you all know, it's late here and I'm going to bed. I promise I'm safe, I just need to sleep. I'll answer any messages in the morning.
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Don’t Laugh At Delonte West
He was in a Jack in the Box parking lot, donning a hospital garment and no shoes, when a devotee approached him. His attentions continued close off two word-paintings, after having “wander[ ed] the street of Houston” for some time. He was asked whether he was the Delonte West, the eight-year, well-known NBA alum. To that question, he greeted yes, and no. It was indeed West, who’s NBA career purposed about four years ago, when he and the Dallas Mavericks parted lanes. You possibly remember West as the Cleveland Cavalier who may or may not have had an occasion with teammate LeBron James’ mother during James’ first stint in Ohio. You may recollect West as the person who was arrested after veering his motorcycle in front of a polouse automobile, then, upon investigation, located loaded with a variety of weapons. And maybe you even recollect him as the person LeBron had to talk down during practise one day, after he was going through heavy emotional agitation when divorcing his longtime significant other. Answering the fan’s question the coming week, the ex-NBA participate apparently, tragically, said: “I used to be[ Delonte West ], but I’m not about that life anymore.” That follower went on to write about the incident on social media, joking that “bro had hospital robe on like he escaped from the psych ward or some s ***. I asked wat happened and he said life…….d ***! ” The post has since been deleted. But for the sake of this participate, who has had his most intimate, personal visitations strung out in the glaring public light-colored for all to see and adjudicator, for the sake of this soul who was diagnosed with bipolar disorder eight years ago and, crucially, for the sake of all those other men and women suffering from ills like West’s, this incident provides as a required, timely reminder that there is nothing amusing about mental illness or those who are afflicted by it. West was solid in the NBA for years, especially throughout his tenure with the Cavaliers. He was the backcourt mate to LeBron right as he was peaking — in those pre-Miami seasons when LeBron was the unblemished, irreproachable savior of all things Cleveland. West hit the three-ball with ease and was one of those gritties, never-say-no actors who’d employed their own bodies on the line for a apparently nonsensical loose ball in a game’s opening moments. ASSOCIATED PRESS But, somehow, stuffs descended apart both rapidly and dreadfully gradually for West. To throw it in cliched expressions, his fall from grace was literally and figuratively like a vehicle crash — none of us could turn away from witnessing this gentleman crumple before us, in the motorcycle happen, the hotel room episode or any other of the handful of pseudo-scandals that followed West as he battled his illness. One of the worst characters was that you knew he meant well. You knew he was fighting this. As the Washington Post observed last year, a bit while after leaving the NBA, he had his pregnant lover move into his home — but yielded his too-few paychecks and the too-high cost of practicalities, the family was forced to endure an East Coast winter without a hot water heater. He educated tubs for her by heating water up on the stove. He proposed to her applying a sliced-off patch of jump-start lasso, reportedly saying, “It’s all I can render, baby. I’m separated, hot ain’t toiling, intelligence ain’t wreaking right, but I love you.” The Washington Post via Getty Images Delonte West with his wife Caressa and son Cash constituted for a photo at the Dr. Pepper Arena in Frisco, Texas. This, of course, isn’t the first time a professional jock has surfaced in the rumor article with signalings of mental distress. It isn’t even the first time for West. But in a nature in which oft spiteful red-hot takes rack up retweets and shares on social media, this sad updated information on Delonte West is a reminder that mental illness does not discern — it sneaks its room into the heads and natures of my best friend and our heroes, those we grab lunch with every week and the idols we watch on the hardwood every weekend. So next time you recollect the Delonte West the incidence of 2009, 2010 and 2016 — all those rumors and all that gossip, all his prohibitions and all his admittances — remember that this was a guy who had stimulated it. Who was one of the rare few to actually achieve his dreamings — to check off the top destination on his laundry list and play video games amongst the best good of the basketball world. He had his life and his job before him, before it all came crashing down. His cancer is, inherently, an unbelievably private one — but its own position became it public. And because of that, it’s now all of its own responsibilities to consider him with respect, were informed that such an affliction can punch any of us at any time, even though we think we have it all: even when each of us is touching proverbial 3-pointers in our respective living and occupations. Delonte West is one of us. Delonte West could be any one of us. So where reference is see this man “wandering” through fast food parking lots, “re missing a” duet of shoes and wearing that hospital costume, we need to stop laughing and start be informed about what we can do to help. Read more: www.huffingtonpost.com http://dailybuzznetwork.com/index.php/2018/09/18/dont-laugh-at-delonte-west/
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allaroundmelbourne · 6 years
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Breaking the cycle: Keeping the homeless off the streets, out of hospital
Updated September 17, 2018 08:57:19
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Photo: For Joel Sinclair, it was just "so depressing" to sleep on the steps of a local church. (ABC News: Michael Barnett) Map: Melbourne 3000 Almost every night for more than 10 years, Joel Sinclair would fall asleep on the steps of a local church and pray that his life would one day be better. He had the option to stay in public housing but that meant dealing with drug dealers and violent outbursts from his neighbours. The streets, he decided, were the safer option. "You're just half dead," Mr Sinclair said. "Walking on the footpath every day, knowing you're going to end up at a church door, is so depressing. "It toughened me up. I learned how to survive. The cold weather was almost deadly." While Mr Sinclair survived the cold, harsh nights, his mind was in a fierce battle with itself. He would regularly turn to illegal drugs, particularly marijuana, to numb the memories of an abusive childhood. But the drug addiction would lead to violent outbursts, brought on by drug-induced psychosis. He would regularly find himself in hospital psychiatric units for months at a time before being discharged back onto the streets. "You get used to it," Mr Sinclair said. "You know you're going to end up in hospital again, but you just take that when the day comes." "Psychosis is pretty scary. It's not an experience you really want to go through at any point."
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Photo: Joel Sinclair was homeless for more than ten years due to drug addiction and psychosis. (ABC News: Michael Barnett) Joel Sinclair's path away from drugs and into stable accommodation started about seven years ago, when he decided to see a mobile psychiatric service run by St Vincent's Health. Every day he would attend the Clarendon Homeless Outreach Psychiatric Service (CHOPS) in East Melbourne to get free counselling and medication. Over the years he felt healthy enough to cut his visits down to once a week. But despite his best efforts, he could not kick the drug habit. Then, three years ago, he was again admitted to a hospital psychiatric unit for six months. It was the last straw. He left hospital, went to his CHOPS outreach worker, and devised a plan that would change his life forever. He now has a place to call his own in Richmond, in inner Melbourne. "I've had nothing to do with the concept of drugs since," he said. "I've never had an apartment for so long. I haven't faced drug psychosis. "I don't even remember what it's like to be in drug psychosis, to be honest." Key to success long-term counselling
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Photo: Steve Plowman said the key is slowly building up trust and engagement. (ABC News: James Oaten) The St Vincent's CHOPS team is made up of six social workers and mental health specialists, treating homeless clients in inner-city Melbourne. Each day psychiatric nurse Steve Plowman will drive around the streets of Fitzroy, Carlton or Collingwood on the lookout for his clients. "We have a lot of chance encounters with our clients," he said. "There's lot of rooming houses around here, there's a few squats nearby and welfare agencies. "So we can be driving around looking for client A and we'll go, 'oh there's client B,' so we'll pull over." He drove to Fitzroy Town Hall where a client Shane and his dog Woofy are waiting. "It's a safe place to talk," Shane said. "It's a sense of release. You can breathe again. Oxygen starts going through your body." Shane is just days away from getting a place in public housing. It's hoped this will be the end of his life on the streets. "If I didn't engage or trust again I don't think I'd ever make it off the street," Shane said. While the CHOPS team are able to administer drugs such as anti-depressants, it's long-term counselling that is essential to the service's approach. "The thing about our team is slow, gentle engagement and developing some therapeutic alliance, and some trust, rapport," Mr Plowman said. "Once you've got that then you deal with the multiple issues. "It's hard work. We have rough days. But sometimes we move someone forward, or reconnect someone with family." The program has been around for more than a decade. But St Vincent's Health only recently put the program under the microscope, examining 81 clients before and after they accessed the service.
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Photo: Shane and his dog Woofy are just days away from getting a place to live in public housing. (ABC News: James Oaten) It found a 46 per cent decrease in the number of emergency department presentations and the amount of days clients spent in hospital had halved. The data was welcome, but not a surprise for Steve Plowman. "It's those little achievements that keep us going," he said. The revolving door While the CHOPS team are making inroads where they can, the team is facing an ever-increasing demand on their services. Data from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare 802 patients discharged from psychiatric hospital units went to seek homeless services in 2011-12 financial year. That figure steadily increased to 1,403 patients in 2015-16, before slightly dropping to 1,356 last financial year. "It's very severe," said Kate Colvin, a spokesperson from Everybody's Home, a housing advocacy group. "Our understanding is sometimes one in four people in a psych ward will end up exiting into homelessness. "We call it the revolving door. "People coming out of psychiatric hospital, into homelessness, then they end up back in hospital because they're so unwell, back into homelessness." Social workers and mental health experts say long-term supported accommodation is the best way to break the cycle of homelessness and hospital admissions. Melbourne has only one such facility, called Elizabeth Street Common Ground, which one academic journal found to have halved resident admissions to mental health inpatient units. Experts want more facilities. "Some people mental health problems are long term," Ms Colvin said. "They really will need long term support. "A short-term fix will help them for a little while, and then they may fall into homelessness again." Topics:mental-health,health,local-government,government-and-politics,community-and-society,homelessness,melbourne-3000,vic First posted September 16, 2018 13:05:21 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-16/outreach-services-for-mental-health-patients-melbourne/10251382
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laurendzim · 6 years
Text
Book review: Denver comic Adam Cayton-Holland digs deep, finds healing in “Tragedy Plus Time”
Adam Cayton-Holland has often seemed like one of those people who has everything.
The 38-year-old stand-up and former Westword scribe, who returns for Season 3 of his truTV sitcom “Those Who Can’t” this fall, comes from a well-educated, well-off family in Denver’s Park Hill neighborhood.
After years of proving his talent and work ethic in the city’s DIY comedy scene, he broke through to a national audience and managed to remain true to his Mile High City roots, all while cutting a path for other local artists to follow.
That’s the public version, anyway.
As Cayton-Holland reveals in “Tragedy Plus Time” (published Aug. 21 on Touchstone), it all meant nothing after his younger sister Lydia committed suicide in the summer of 2012.
“I’m a 32-year-old stand-up comic from Denver who just sold his first Hollywood script,” Cayton-Holland writes five pages into the memoir, which crackles with his on-stage confidence and aches with his vulnerable worldview. “I’ve never been more devastated.”
“Tragedy Plus Time” (named after the comedy axiom “Comedy is tragedy plus time”) may be a memoir, but its present-tense tone and trembling details give it an in-your-ear immediacy.
Cayton-Holland’s parents instilled a sense of righteousness in their children early. His father, a civil rights attorney, and his mother, a former investigative journalist, taught their trio of offspring — Anna, Adam and Lydia — to expect a lot out of themselves and each other. As Cayton-Holland writes, this encouraged great achievement (Anna, the eldest, was nearly a professional ice skater) but also obsessive-compulsive disorder and hypersensivity to the world’s ills.
Cayton-Holland is prone to airing these memories in bright flashes, cutting between interwoven scenes one can easily envision on the big screen. (He’s working on adapting the book into a movie, according to an interview with Medium.) It often amounts to a showcase of horrors and absurdities, particularly as he threads death and inequity through the earlier chapters — less foreshadowing than a peek into the alternately noble and morbid air he breathed at home.
But the care with which he approaches the subjects never betrays their gravity. This is simply how little Adam — painfully aware of his privilege, but also privy to things most kids will never see — experienced the world: filtered through episodes of “The Simpsons,” private-school culture, world travels, his parents’ hippie ideals, the odd legal jargon. Not exactly typical.
Lydia, whose childhood is also recounted in sharp flashes, was too sensitive for her own comfort. A vegetarian from age 9, she successfully lobbied her parents into changing their landscaping plans because she feared the existing plants would get torn up. She kept a menagerie of animals and talked to them. She lived in South America for a time. She felt deeply.
Related Articles
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Regional Books: “The Removes,” “Zebra Skin Shirt” and more
Meet the Sherlock Holmes of the ‘hood in Joe Ide’s “IQ” detective series
Book review: Florio’s “Silent Hearts” takes us into the heart of Afghanistan
Cayton-Holland analyzes this and other memories to stunning degrees, an armchair psychologist leaning so hard on the furniture that it creaks under the effort. But it’s built into his personality, and one can easily see why his subsequent experiences in school, from discovering his class-clown potential to vandalizing his college campus in alcohol-fueled blackouts, were less spoiled brat than tortured aesthete.
As Cayton-Holland captures his childhood in Spielbergian freeze-frames of ’80s youth, then traces his rise in Denver’s scrappy alt-comedy scene (which he helped create) onto mainstream clubs like Comedy Works, he’s soaked with the sense that something violent and defining will happen at any moment.
Sometimes you find those things by looking for them, but more often they wash ashore.
Lydia, emotionally alluring and often joyous but intimidating in her intellect, became haunted. Shrinks and prescription drugs and living a Bohemian lifestyle — none of it helped. Adam invited her into his newfound comedy career, letting her run the door and the tech rehearsals at Denver art spaces while he ran his stand-up showcases.
(It’s a period I witnessed firsthand, chronicling Cayton-Holland and his Grawlix comedy trio members’ rise locally and nationally. I shared conversations with Lydia outside venues and chatted with her on social media. She was always an acquaintance, but the most harrowing parts of the book — where she’s admitted into the psych ward at Denver Health after overdosing on pills, and where she takes her own life with a gun, only to be found later in her bed by her brother — were mostly unknown to me.)
“It made us laugh, the insanity of it all,” Cayton-Holland writes. “We Cayton-Holland three baffled and tickled at how we were suddenly seeming to exist in the sad works of art on which we were fixated. But those moments gave way to teary panic when we removed the rose-colored, indie-film lenses from our eyes. This was just our little sister. Struggling. In a psych ward.”
These parts of the book, roughly from the second-half on, justify the glowing praise on the jacket. In crisp and measured prose, Cayton-Holland explores the tragedy that in many ways is still defining him. The grief process, including the anger and the self-blame. The speculation about a family that feared mediocrity more than failure. The unimaginable first-person details of Lydia’s decline and death. The drinking, professional help and career triumphs that followed for Cayton-Holland, even as Lydia was always on his mind.
It’s a lot to digest, both for author and reader, but Cayton-Holland never chokes. Perhaps owing to his three seasons of sitcom writing, he bandies around too many clichés at times. It never detracts from the narrative, but one can’t help wishing he had used them more sparingly, given his obvious command of language.
Then again, this is a book one can hear being read out loud (as Cayton-Holland did for the audio version), and readers familiar with his engrossing, conversational stand-up will hear his voice in their heads the entire time.
“Publishing a book has been my dream forever,” he told The Denver Post in March, just before the debut of his first half-hour special on Comedy Central. “I wish it was under different circumstances. That said, I needed to write it. It’s been a part of me every day since, and it’s a good tribute to her.”
Indeed. But “Tragedy Plus Time” isn’t simply a window into grief. It’s also a flag, firmly planted, signaling his family’s resolve. Cayton-Holland is doing well these days (his High Plains Comedy Festival, the region’s biggest stand-up event, returns Aug. 23-25). Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper tweeted a video last week from Cayton-Holland’s book-release party at the Tattered Cover, lauding the “hilarious/heartbreaking” new tome.
That’s a fine endorsement, but Cayton-Holland doesn’t need it. Not only because his work stands alone, but because his existential evolution, which emerges in the last few chapters, has found him at a place of humbleness. He looks for meaning in red-tailed hawks and an “empath” friend, frequently visiting a bench in City Park that his family had dedicated to Lydia.
It all amounts to an affecting portrait of a family struggling to contain its feral grief, and finding themselves the more united for it. A tower of cat hair and trampolines and inside jokes and blood and laughter, leaning crazily to one side. Silly and sad, clever and crude. And above all, true.
If you go
“Tragedy Plus Time.” A discussion with Adam Cayton-Holland by Colorado Public Radio’s Ryan Warner at Gates Concert Hall, Newman Center for the Performing Arts, 2344 E. Iliff Ave. 7-8:30 p.m. on Sept. 13. Tickets: $12 via bit.ly/2BFQgXN
Journalism isn’t free. Show your support of local news coverage by becoming a subscriber. Your first month is only 99 cents.
from News And Updates https://www.denverpost.com/2018/08/24/book-review-denver-comic-adam-cayton-holland-digs-deep-finds-healing-in-tragedy-plus-time/
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jimblanceusa · 6 years
Text
Book review: Denver comic Adam Cayton-Holland digs deep, finds healing in “Tragedy Plus Time”
Adam Cayton-Holland has often seemed like one of those people who has everything.
The 38-year-old stand-up and former Westword scribe, who returns for Season 3 of his truTV sitcom “Those Who Can’t” this fall, comes from a well-educated, well-off family in Denver’s Park Hill neighborhood.
After years of proving his talent and work ethic in the city’s DIY comedy scene, he broke through to a national audience and managed to remain true to his Mile High City roots, all while cutting a path for other local artists to follow.
That’s the public version, anyway.
As Cayton-Holland reveals in “Tragedy Plus Time” (published Aug. 21 on Touchstone), it all meant nothing after his younger sister Lydia committed suicide in the summer of 2012.
“I’m a 32-year-old stand-up comic from Denver who just sold his first Hollywood script,” Cayton-Holland writes five pages into the memoir, which crackles with his on-stage confidence and aches with his vulnerable worldview. “I’ve never been more devastated.”
“Tragedy Plus Time” (named after the comedy axiom “Comedy is tragedy plus time”) may be a memoir, but its present-tense tone and trembling details give it an in-your-ear immediacy.
Cayton-Holland’s parents instilled a sense of righteousness in their children early. His father, a civil rights attorney, and his mother, a former investigative journalist, taught their trio of offspring — Anna, Adam and Lydia — to expect a lot out of themselves and each other. As Cayton-Holland writes, this encouraged great achievement (Anna, the eldest, was nearly a professional ice skater) but also obsessive-compulsive disorder and hypersensivity to the world’s ills.
Cayton-Holland is prone to airing these memories in bright flashes, cutting between interwoven scenes one can easily envision on the big screen. (He’s working on adapting the book into a movie, according to an interview with Medium.) It often amounts to a showcase of horrors and absurdities, particularly as he threads death and inequity through the earlier chapters — less foreshadowing than a peek into the alternately noble and morbid air he breathed at home.
But the care with which he approaches the subjects never betrays their gravity. This is simply how little Adam — painfully aware of his privilege, but also privy to things most kids will never see — experienced the world: filtered through episodes of “The Simpsons,” private-school culture, world travels, his parents’ hippie ideals, the odd legal jargon. Not exactly typical.
Lydia, whose childhood is also recounted in sharp flashes, was too sensitive for her own comfort. A vegetarian from age 9, she successfully lobbied her parents into changing their landscaping plans because she feared the existing plants would get torn up. She kept a menagerie of animals and talked to them. She lived in South America for a time. She felt deeply.
Related Articles
BOOK REVIEW: “The Cadaver King” unveils ugliness of justice system in the South
Regional Books: “The Removes,” “Zebra Skin Shirt” and more
Meet the Sherlock Holmes of the ‘hood in Joe Ide’s “IQ” detective series
Book review: Florio’s “Silent Hearts” takes us into the heart of Afghanistan
Cayton-Holland analyzes this and other memories to stunning degrees, an armchair psychologist leaning so hard on the furniture that it creaks under the effort. But it’s built into his personality, and one can easily see why his subsequent experiences in school, from discovering his class-clown potential to vandalizing his college campus in alcohol-fueled blackouts, were less spoiled brat than tortured aesthete.
As Cayton-Holland captures his childhood in Spielbergian freeze-frames of ’80s youth, then traces his rise in Denver’s scrappy alt-comedy scene (which he helped create) onto mainstream clubs like Comedy Works, he’s soaked with the sense that something violent and defining will happen at any moment.
Sometimes you find those things by looking for them, but more often they wash ashore.
Lydia, emotionally alluring and often joyous but intimidating in her intellect, became haunted. Shrinks and prescription drugs and living a Bohemian lifestyle — none of it helped. Adam invited her into his newfound comedy career, letting her run the door and the tech rehearsals at Denver art spaces while he ran his stand-up showcases.
(It’s a period I witnessed firsthand, chronicling Cayton-Holland and his Grawlix comedy trio members’ rise locally and nationally. I shared conversations with Lydia outside venues and chatted with her on social media. She was always an acquaintance, but the most harrowing parts of the book — where she’s admitted into the psych ward at Denver Health after overdosing on pills, and where she takes her own life with a gun, only to be found later in her bed by her brother — were mostly unknown to me.)
“It made us laugh, the insanity of it all,” Cayton-Holland writes. “We Cayton-Holland three baffled and tickled at how we were suddenly seeming to exist in the sad works of art on which we were fixated. But those moments gave way to teary panic when we removed the rose-colored, indie-film lenses from our eyes. This was just our little sister. Struggling. In a psych ward.”
These parts of the book, roughly from the second-half on, justify the glowing praise on the jacket. In crisp and measured prose, Cayton-Holland explores the tragedy that in many ways is still defining him. The grief process, including the anger and the self-blame. The speculation about a family that feared mediocrity more than failure. The unimaginable first-person details of Lydia’s decline and death. The drinking, professional help and career triumphs that followed for Cayton-Holland, even as Lydia was always on his mind.
It’s a lot to digest, both for author and reader, but Cayton-Holland never chokes. Perhaps owing to his three seasons of sitcom writing, he bandies around too many clichés at times. It never detracts from the narrative, but one can’t help wishing he had used them more sparingly, given his obvious command of language.
Then again, this is a book one can hear being read out loud (as Cayton-Holland did for the audio version), and readers familiar with his engrossing, conversational stand-up will hear his voice in their heads the entire time.
“Publishing a book has been my dream forever,” he told The Denver Post in March, just before the debut of his first half-hour special on Comedy Central. “I wish it was under different circumstances. That said, I needed to write it. It’s been a part of me every day since, and it’s a good tribute to her.”
Indeed. But “Tragedy Plus Time” isn’t simply a window into grief. It’s also a flag, firmly planted, signaling his family’s resolve. Cayton-Holland is doing well these days (his High Plains Comedy Festival, the region’s biggest stand-up event, returns Aug. 23-25). Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper tweeted a video last week from Cayton-Holland’s book-release party at the Tattered Cover, lauding the “hilarious/heartbreaking” new tome.
That’s a fine endorsement, but Cayton-Holland doesn’t need it. Not only because his work stands alone, but because his existential evolution, which emerges in the last few chapters, has found him at a place of humbleness. He looks for meaning in red-tailed hawks and an “empath” friend, frequently visiting a bench in City Park that his family had dedicated to Lydia.
It all amounts to an affecting portrait of a family struggling to contain its feral grief, and finding themselves the more united for it. A tower of cat hair and trampolines and inside jokes and blood and laughter, leaning crazily to one side. Silly and sad, clever and crude. And above all, true.
If you go
“Tragedy Plus Time.” A discussion with Adam Cayton-Holland by Colorado Public Radio’s Ryan Warner at Gates Concert Hall, Newman Center for the Performing Arts, 2344 E. Iliff Ave. 7-8:30 p.m. on Sept. 13. Tickets: $12 via bit.ly/2BFQgXN
Journalism isn’t free. Show your support of local news coverage by becoming a subscriber. Your first month is only 99 cents.
from Latest Information https://www.denverpost.com/2018/08/24/book-review-denver-comic-adam-cayton-holland-digs-deep-finds-healing-in-tragedy-plus-time/
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janetoconnerfl · 6 years
Text
Book review: Denver comic Adam Cayton-Holland digs deep, finds healing in “Tragedy Plus Time”
Adam Cayton-Holland has often seemed like one of those people who has everything.
The 38-year-old stand-up and former Westword scribe, who returns for Season 3 of his truTV sitcom “Those Who Can’t” this fall, comes from a well-educated, well-off family in Denver’s Park Hill neighborhood.
After years of proving his talent and work ethic in the city’s DIY comedy scene, he broke through to a national audience and managed to remain true to his Mile High City roots, all while cutting a path for other local artists to follow.
That’s the public version, anyway.
As Cayton-Holland reveals in “Tragedy Plus Time” (published Aug. 21 on Touchstone), it all meant nothing after his younger sister Lydia committed suicide in the summer of 2012.
“I’m a 32-year-old stand-up comic from Denver who just sold his first Hollywood script,” Cayton-Holland writes five pages into the memoir, which crackles with his on-stage confidence and aches with his vulnerable worldview. “I’ve never been more devastated.”
“Tragedy Plus Time” (named after the comedy axiom “Comedy is tragedy plus time”) may be a memoir, but its present-tense tone and trembling details give it an in-your-ear immediacy.
Cayton-Holland’s parents instilled a sense of righteousness in their children early. His father, a civil rights attorney, and his mother, a former investigative journalist, taught their trio of offspring — Anna, Adam and Lydia — to expect a lot out of themselves and each other. As Cayton-Holland writes, this encouraged great achievement (Anna, the eldest, was nearly a professional ice skater) but also obsessive-compulsive disorder and hypersensivity to the world’s ills.
Cayton-Holland is prone to airing these memories in bright flashes, cutting between interwoven scenes one can easily envision on the big screen. (He’s working on adapting the book into a movie, according to an interview with Medium.) It often amounts to a showcase of horrors and absurdities, particularly as he threads death and inequity through the earlier chapters — less foreshadowing than a peek into the alternately noble and morbid air he breathed at home.
But the care with which he approaches the subjects never betrays their gravity. This is simply how little Adam — painfully aware of his privilege, but also privy to things most kids will never see — experienced the world: filtered through episodes of “The Simpsons,” private-school culture, world travels, his parents’ hippie ideals, the odd legal jargon. Not exactly typical.
Lydia, whose childhood is also recounted in sharp flashes, was too sensitive for her own comfort. A vegetarian from age 9, she successfully lobbied her parents into changing their landscaping plans because she feared the existing plants would get torn up. She kept a menagerie of animals and talked to them. She lived in South America for a time. She felt deeply.
Related Articles
BOOK REVIEW: “The Cadaver King” unveils ugliness of justice system in the South
Regional Books: “The Removes,” “Zebra Skin Shirt” and more
Meet the Sherlock Holmes of the ‘hood in Joe Ide’s “IQ” detective series
Book review: Florio’s “Silent Hearts” takes us into the heart of Afghanistan
Cayton-Holland analyzes this and other memories to stunning degrees, an armchair psychologist leaning so hard on the furniture that it creaks under the effort. But it’s built into his personality, and one can easily see why his subsequent experiences in school, from discovering his class-clown potential to vandalizing his college campus in alcohol-fueled blackouts, were less spoiled brat than tortured aesthete.
As Cayton-Holland captures his childhood in Spielbergian freeze-frames of ’80s youth, then traces his rise in Denver’s scrappy alt-comedy scene (which he helped create) onto mainstream clubs like Comedy Works, he’s soaked with the sense that something violent and defining will happen at any moment.
Sometimes you find those things by looking for them, but more often they wash ashore.
Lydia, emotionally alluring and often joyous but intimidating in her intellect, became haunted. Shrinks and prescription drugs and living a Bohemian lifestyle — none of it helped. Adam invited her into his newfound comedy career, letting her run the door and the tech rehearsals at Denver art spaces while he ran his stand-up showcases.
(It’s a period I witnessed firsthand, chronicling Cayton-Holland and his Grawlix comedy trio members’ rise locally and nationally. I shared conversations with Lydia outside venues and chatted with her on social media. She was always an acquaintance, but the most harrowing parts of the book — where she’s admitted into the psych ward at Denver Health after overdosing on pills, and where she takes her own life with a gun, only to be found later in her bed by her brother — were mostly unknown to me.)
“It made us laugh, the insanity of it all,” Cayton-Holland writes. “We Cayton-Holland three baffled and tickled at how we were suddenly seeming to exist in the sad works of art on which we were fixated. But those moments gave way to teary panic when we removed the rose-colored, indie-film lenses from our eyes. This was just our little sister. Struggling. In a psych ward.”
These parts of the book, roughly from the second-half on, justify the glowing praise on the jacket. In crisp and measured prose, Cayton-Holland explores the tragedy that in many ways is still defining him. The grief process, including the anger and the self-blame. The speculation about a family that feared mediocrity more than failure. The unimaginable first-person details of Lydia’s decline and death. The drinking, professional help and career triumphs that followed for Cayton-Holland, even as Lydia was always on his mind.
It’s a lot to digest, both for author and reader, but Cayton-Holland never chokes. Perhaps owing to his three seasons of sitcom writing, he bandies around too many clichés at times. It never detracts from the narrative, but one can’t help wishing he had used them more sparingly, given his obvious command of language.
Then again, this is a book one can hear being read out loud (as Cayton-Holland did for the audio version), and readers familiar with his engrossing, conversational stand-up will hear his voice in their heads the entire time.
“Publishing a book has been my dream forever,” he told The Denver Post in March, just before the debut of his first half-hour special on Comedy Central. “I wish it was under different circumstances. That said, I needed to write it. It’s been a part of me every day since, and it’s a good tribute to her.”
Indeed. But “Tragedy Plus Time” isn’t simply a window into grief. It’s also a flag, firmly planted, signaling his family’s resolve. Cayton-Holland is doing well these days (his High Plains Comedy Festival, the region’s biggest stand-up event, returns Aug. 23-25). Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper tweeted a video last week from Cayton-Holland’s book-release party at the Tattered Cover, lauding the “hilarious/heartbreaking” new tome.
That’s a fine endorsement, but Cayton-Holland doesn’t need it. Not only because his work stands alone, but because his existential evolution, which emerges in the last few chapters, has found him at a place of humbleness. He looks for meaning in red-tailed hawks and an “empath” friend, frequently visiting a bench in City Park that his family had dedicated to Lydia.
It all amounts to an affecting portrait of a family struggling to contain its feral grief, and finding themselves the more united for it. A tower of cat hair and trampolines and inside jokes and blood and laughter, leaning crazily to one side. Silly and sad, clever and crude. And above all, true.
If you go
“Tragedy Plus Time.” A discussion with Adam Cayton-Holland by Colorado Public Radio’s Ryan Warner at Gates Concert Hall, Newman Center for the Performing Arts, 2344 E. Iliff Ave. 7-8:30 p.m. on Sept. 13. Tickets: $12 via bit.ly/2BFQgXN
Journalism isn’t free. Show your support of local news coverage by becoming a subscriber. Your first month is only 99 cents.
from Latest Information https://www.denverpost.com/2018/08/24/book-review-denver-comic-adam-cayton-holland-digs-deep-finds-healing-in-tragedy-plus-time/
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loreneweiner · 6 years
Text
Grandparents Rights in Utah for Custody and Visitation
What makes a parent unsuitable?  Well, a court must find by sufficient evidence, that the parent:
Abandoned the child, or
Contractually relinquished custody of the child, or
That the parent has become totally incapable of supporting or caring for the child, or
That an award of custody to the parent would be detrimental to the child.
In addition, if the court makes a finding of unsuitability it must be based upon adverse impact upon the child.  The court’s finding cannot be based on society’s judgment of the parent.  In other words, if the parent is doing something that society does not approve of, but has no impact on the child, then a court cannot use that as a basis for awarding custodial rights a non-parent.
So what is the difference between what is detrimental to the child, and what is simply a matter of societal norms?  Essentially, the difference lies with the child, the perceptions of the child, the witnesses, the guardian ad litem and the Judge or Magistrate.  It is a fine line, but the starting point should be an objective look at the child – what does the child perceive as being detrimental?  The child’s perception alone is not determinative, and but it is significant.  The actions, behavior, preferences and well-being of the child will be closely scrutinized.  The child’s physical and mental health and behavior in both environments will be considered.  A good discussion of the fine line between adverse impact / harmful effect and societal norms can be find in the case In re Z.A.P.
youtube
In cases between a parent and a non-parent filed under Utah Code that says which Court has jurisdiction over children not already the ward of another court, except in Richland and Fairfield Counties – where matters are heard in the domestic relations court), a court may not award custodial rights to a non-parent without first finding that the parent is unsuitable to raise the child.
UNSUITABILITY (UNFIT) AND GUARDIANSHIP IN COURT
For example, the Hockstock court discussed a prior case,  Masitto, in which the natural father of the child, prior to divorcing the mother, had consented to the grandparents receiving guardianship of the child through the probate court.  The natural father and mother later divorced, and made no provision for parental rights in the divorce, but instead incorporated the guardianship order of the probate court.  The Supreme Court noted that in Masitto, the father had contractually agreed to the appointment of the grandparents as legal guardians, and that the Code requires unsuitability as a prerequisite for guardianship.  This means that any parent who gives guardianship of their children to grandparents (or someone else) in probate court has, by their own consent, established their unsuitability and has opened the door for custody to the person who received guardianship.
TEMPORARY VS. LEGAL CUSTODY, AND UNSUITABILE (UNFIT) PARENTS
In the Supreme Court case, In re Hockstock, which arose out of state, the Court noted that there is a distinct difference between a parent granting temporary custody to a grandparent, and a parent granting legal custody to a grandparent.  Specifically, the Hockstock court found that a grant of temporary custody was not a “contractual relinquishment of custody of the child”, and in fact, the parent had contested the award every time the grandparents sought to obtain it. 
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The Hockstock court also noted, that even when a parent has relinquished their custodial rights to a non-parent, the parent has residual legal rights, and the grant is NOT a termination of parental rights.  The Hockstock court noted the statutory definition found in the law specifically provides that there are residual parental rights, even when a parent has given up or lost custodial rights:
“Legal custody” means a legal status that vests in the custodian the right to have physical care and control of the child and to determine where and with whom the child shall live, and the right and duty to protect, train, and discipline the child and to provide the child with food, shelter, education, and medical care, all subject to any residual parental rights, privileges, and responsibilities. An individual granted legal custody shall exercise the rights and responsibilities personally unless otherwise authorized by any section of the Revised Code or by the court.
It is important to note that in the Hockstock case, the parent contested continued custody at every opportunity.  A parent who did not do that may experience a different legal result, and may have to prove a change in circumstances.
Free Consultation with Child Custody Lawyer
If you have a question about child custody question or if you need to enforce grandparents’ rights, please call Ascent Law at (801) 676-5506. We will help you.
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Source: http://www.ascentlawfirm.com/grandparents-rights-in-utah-for-custody-and-visitation/
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schizophelia · 6 years
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June 20th, 2018: Journal: Mother Speaks
My mom came to my room to talk to me today. She said I was acting "weird and bitchy." At first, I wasn't going to tell her. But the pressure started to build and I blurted out that the voices, demons, and spirits were bothering me. Then she proceeded to tell me: "they're not real." I told her they were. And I also said the voices were bad but didn't tell her anything specifically about what they were saying or anything else I saw or heard or thought.
She asked me how I was going to go to school. I said I didn't want to go. And she said then I better start calling the school and going to the women's shelter because I won't be allowed to stay here. The truth is, I WANT to be able to go to school. But I'm not doing okay right now. I'm terrible and if you've been reading my blog long enough you'd know that.
My mom told me my problems would be better if I "just went outside" or if I would "leave" my room. I told her I can't because of I'm vulnerable outside. She said the voices are just "troubled thoughts." But I know they are real. On the topic of going outside, when I went downstairs to take my Temazepam, she asked me to go outside to feed the dogs because my dad had to go to a family friend's house to fix their car. I told her I don't like going outside alone because I'm vulnerable. And then she said "well make sure you tell Dr. R that." I asked her why. She replied, "maybe he'll hospitalize you again." I told her that's not fucking happening. I told her I'm NOT going back to the psych ward because my she (my mom) will just kick me out. She's told me before that if I go again, I'm out of the house; that I can't stay here anymore. She just wants reasons to get rid of me.
I'm honestly so angry at myself for telling her this stuff. I know she was recording it for the Dr. Phil Show. I know that the government found the clips and are after me. Now I'm in danger. I'm not safe and I fucked that up. I mean, I wasn't safe before because the agents were watching still. But now I'm definitely in a situation. My parents don't know that the government agents are here again for me. They don't know the danger I'm in. I told myself I wasn't going to tell my parents and I did. Now I have to face the consequences.
The voices are absolutely horrendous right now. They are so loud. I hate this. I just want to sleep but the Temazepam hasn't kicked in yet. Ugh. I hate this. I hate the position I put myself in. I hope my mom or dad doesn't ask to speak to Dr. R on my visit July 4th. I don't want to go to the hospital. I don't want to go back there. It's a horrible place to be. I hate it there. I've been there too many times. I've seen a lot of things. :(
Anyway, I'm relaxing in my bed. I didn't go and feed the dogs. I hope my dad does when he gets home and isn't mad at me or anything for not doing. But I am literally petrified of going outside. I haven't left the house/been outside since last Friday. It's Wednesday of the next week now.
Anyway, that's all I wanted to say.
I hope I sleep tonight.
Meds:
Rexulti 1mg
Fetzima 120mg
Temazepam 30mg
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