YOU Published

So some of you may remember that I wrote a blog post called 'You' a few months back. Well that blog post caught the eye of a good friends of mine who works for a Magazine called Tusaayaksat which is a news and culture magazine in Arctic Canada. She decided to publish it. This hits stands today, so I am finally allowed to share this.

Published in Tusaayaksat which is published by the Inuvialuit Communications Society, Inuvik NWT, Canada

M is gonna send me some print copies tomorrow, I'm so incredibly proud of myself right now, and I want to thank all the amazing people who helped make it happen.  So thank you guys, from the bottom of my heart, you have helped show me that I am more talented then even I thought.  Thank you for believing in me.

Also, I still think this is a really important message, so please share far and wide! 

A Week In The Life - # 1

So it's Sunday evening, we are at the dawn of a new week, and I wanted to take some time to reflect about what I have learned this week.


It’s okay to have a bad day.

Seriously, it’s not the end of the world. It doesn’t mean that you’re back sliding back to where you were. It’s just a bad day, and sometimes they happen, and you just have to let it. Bad days are stressful, and there’s no point in stressing yourself out more about it. Just let it happen, go home, and have a nice tea latte made with Mother’s Valium Little Helper.


You can have a lot of respect for somebody, but not really like them all that much. 

This was not an easy lesson to learn. There is someone in my life that I just can't put my finger on what it is that I don't like about them. You see I respect this person a lot, I feel I have a lot to learn from them, I appreciate and welcome their feedback and criticisms, I also enjoy talking to this person from time to time. But they tell me some things sometimes that just really irk me, I see and hear about their behaviour and it makes me want to give them a lecture on ethics and manners. But not rey my place to do so.

So it's okay to respect someone, and not like them all the time. I'm not saying that I hate this person, but I believe I just need to limit the amount of time I'm around them. I'm fairly certain they feel the same way. So just let it be what it is, you're never going to like everyone, and not everyone is going to like you, but it doesn't mean that everyone has to be jerks to one another.   You can still be friendly and respectful and kind even.

Treatment can work, if you let it. 

I've been on treatment for a little over a month now, and I'm telling you, things are starting to work. I've had more energy this week that I have ever had in my life. I am starting to really feel like a real person. This is amazing. To finally feel like I can accomplish something, that I can actually live up to the potential that so many people tell me I have, that I myself feel that I have. I can get out there and do good work.

Loose Leaf Tea is a Goddess Send. 

If you've never been to DAVIDsTEA then you need to get yourself to one ASAP. This wasn't really a lesson that I learned this week, but rather one that I was reminded of. Also, yes I said Goddess, because seriously, if there is a deity that gave us tea, she is a woman, and she's probably queer.

That work is work, and you shouldn’t have to take it home with you.

Seriously, it's okay to leave it at work, and not worry about it when you get home. IT'S OKAY!

You have amazing and beautiful friends.

Seriously, I do, these people in my life are amazing.  I was asked this week to have one of my posts published in a aboriginal cultural and news magazine called, Tusaayaksat that is based out of Inuvik, NT.  This is something that couldn't have been accomplished with out my dear friend Maia L.

Upon hearing this news, my friends gave me a tonne of support.   A lot of them posted it all over facebook, Kristin C. took it a level higher and started tweeting the hell out of my blog, and I had Kate Bornstein comment on it, which was an incredible honour.

And you'd think that would be enough, but another friend who was being interview on CBC radio asked me my permission to read my piece on air.  This didn't happen, but to have all these beautiful and wonderful people show pride in me?  Well it was a little over whelming.

But wait, there's one more thing, and I know that at this point I might be bragging, but some people in the blogosphere might be aware of the incredibly fun and talented Sare3 she has an incredibly blog that is beautiful and inspiring in the simplicity of it's lay out, and the honest way that she write and shares what she does.  Her blog often makes me smile everytime I check it out.

Well she wrote something that was dedicated to me, and I want to link to it, because I have never been so touched by someone's words.  They were kind, and part of me feels that I don't deserve or live up to them, but I will let you decide that. So please check it out, and check out her blog to! Thursdays Song of Day: Us

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Well I think that's quite a list of lessons to learn in one week, I look forward to a new week of ups and downs, and more lessons to learn.  And maybe I might get lucky and win the lottery!  Heh.

See you tomorrow! 

How To: Dating Someone With Depression

You’ve just had an amazing date.   So much so that you’ve ended up back at their place.  You’re having a great time connecting with them, really chatting and getting to know one another.

The next think you know, things are getting a little heavy.  You’re making out, and you’re pretty much about to go all the way.  But it’s been a long day, and before anything happens you want to freshen up a little, so you politely excuse yourself to the bathroom.

While in the bathroom you’re looking at yourself in the mirror, wash yourself up a bit, and then you go into the cabinet to grab the toothpaste, to do the old, use your finger as a toothbrush trick.   When you do though, you knock over a couple of prescription bottles,  you pick it up and you read what they are.

Take one pill once a day.  

100 mg Bupropion,  

DO NOT TAKE WITH ALCOHOL

Take one or two pills as needed for anxiety.

0.5 mg Lorazepam

DO NOT TAKE WITH ALCOHOL

You take out your phone, you quickly google these medications.  You quickly find out that your date suffers from depression and anxiety. 

What do you do? What should you do?

Well I’m certainly no ‘expert’, meaning I don’t have a bunch of letters beside my name and a piece of paper from a patriarchal bureaucratic institution that supposedly gives people the license to present opinion as fact. 

But here, as someone that’s surviving depression and anxiety, let me give you a few pointers on how it can and could be done. 

1)      Respect.

2)      Compassion

3)      Honesty.

4)      Loyalty.

5)      Patience.

6)      Reassurance.

7)      LOVE.

Honestly, if you’re not really doing all of the above, how are you dating at all?

I am not going to sit here and give you a list of how to be a decent human being to others.  As long as you’re taking the time to be honest and listen to the person you’re dating, no matter how long you’ve been together, whether it’s been a week or a decade,  you’re going to keep going strong. 

I’m not going to deny that dating someone who is surviving and fighting - depression and anxiety isn’t going to have it’s challenge.   I certainly won’t deny that I am not the easiest person to date.   I’m kind of high maintenance and I need constant reassurance.  Right now, if I was to enter into a relationship, I’d be constantly terrified that it was all just temporary, that there’d be nothing I could do to stop the eventual end.

I’ll tell you, that particular insecurity has cut short a few relationships of mine. But in the end, they also weren’t showing the above list, and really I think you need to do all of the above list no matter who you’re dating if anything is going to last and be healthy. 

“I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best.” 
― Marilyn Monroe

  

Accomplished

So I’m trying out this blog thing more, and I’m going to try to write something every day this month. I’m gearing up to submit something for - Canada Writes – for the creative non-fiction portion of the competition, and as a part of that I can’t post what I’m going to submit. So I might not post my writing every day, bit I am going to try and post something.

As a part of overcoming depression, I think it’s important that I start looking back on my life and realize how much I accomplished. Maybe that sounds a bit self serving, but I suppose that’s the point of it. I need to remind myself how far I’ve come, and recognize that what I went through was some pretty hard shit, and celebrate my strengths.

If you’re working through your own depression I urge you to do the same. I think it’s important for all of us. Whether you write some in the comments, make your own blog post, or just write it for yourself. I think it’s important.

So in no particular order, I’m going to list them.

1) I survived my adolescence.
2) I survived the bullies.
3) I survived the abuse from every father figure I’ve ever had.
4) I survived sexual assault.
5) I survived being kicked out of my home.
6) I overcame the broken hearts. Three and counting, but I can’t and won’t let that stop me from connecting again.
7) I dropped out of school when I realized that the environment was toxic, but didn’t allow it to stop me from learning.
8) I survived being homeless.
9) I got to know me, slowly but surely, and I didn’t compromise myself. If I was in a situation I didn’t like, I did whatever I could to get out of it. Granted some of the ways I did this were not always beneficial, but I would allow no one to brow beat into being something I wasn’t.
10) I learn. Everyday I willingly open my mind to knew things, and learned to think rather then just parrot things I’ve heard.
11) I never did crystal, E, cocaine, heroin, Special K, GHB or any other ‘party drug.’
12) I also never thought that never doing any of the party drugs made me better then anyone else.
13) I have made amazing friends, met beautiful people, and let everyone who touched my life teach me something new.
14) I have given people second chances, even when all would say they didn’t deserve them, because I think it’s important to believe that people can change.
15) I am surviving depression.

Maybe to some people these things seem unimportant, maybe not much of an accomplishment. After all, I didn’t list getting a degree, or making accomplishments in a career. But I can’t measure my accomplishments and successes with other people’s standards.

What I have done and what I have gone through in my life, was not easy. I need to stop telling people that it was nothing, that it wasn’t easy or hard, because I have nothing to compare it too. Because it was hard. It was really fucking hard.

So yes, I have accomplished a lot in my 28 years on this Earth, and with everything I’ve gone through I know I can and will do so much more. And I plan to.

“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”
- Albert Einstein

You

Yes, you.

You, who cuts yourself. You, who cries yourself to sleep every night. You, who is so tired of being strong and brave. You, who attempted to kill yourself. You, who had to drop out of school because of the bullies. You, who had to leave home because of the abuse. You, who is surviving from sexual assault. You, yeah you, all of you.

Except you, I have something else to say to you. . And you? Of course I didn’t forget you, hold on, because I have something really important to say to you.

I want you to know how amazing you are. I want you to know that I see you. I see what other’s don’t, I know how brave and strong you are. You think no one really understands, and you’re right. No one really does, because what you’re dealing with is unique to you. .

Seriously, you’re amazing. Each and every day is torture, I get it. The sheer will power it takes to get out of bed. To not want to reach for the scissors and slit your wrists, or down that bottle of anti-depressants in hopes that it will end the suffering.

I could sit here and tell you it gets better, but I’d be lying. Because I don’t know if it does. I’m still trying to figure out when ‘it’ is supposedly going to get better. But I can tell you one thing, it gets a bit easier. But that doesn’t matter to you, or to me really, because what matters right now, is today, because you, and me? We both need to figure out how to get through this alive.

I’d offer to be your bridge over troubled water. But truth be told? The best I can offer is a rickety old raft. But if I tie my raft to yours. And then we tie our raft to yours. And you? You have that kayak, we’ll tie to that too. Sure, we can tie on to that paddleboat...

Pretty soon, together we’ve built that bridge, and we can only do it together. It might look a bit weird, but it’ll get us to the other side. We need to stop thinking so much about it getting better tomorrow, and we need to make it better for ourselves today. There is love out there for all of us, from our families, the one’s we’re born into or our chosen ones and most of all from each other.

Now you. You who kicked us when we were down. You, who called us names and told us how worthless we were. You, who told us we’d never amount to anything?

From the bottom of my heart, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, that things are so bad for you that you need to take it out on us. It breaks my heart to think what you might be going through, that makes you think it’s okay to do what you’re doing.

I offer you an olive branch. I want to tell you that you can make it better today as well. I want you to know that you are loved, there are many people that love you want to help you get through what you’re dealing with as well. Really, all you need to do is ask. What you’re dealing with is scary, and you need to put on this act because of how terrified you are, but it’s not you. I know, I can see you.

Finally to you. You, who is with us no longer.

To you I say, with all of my heart that you are loved. I want you to know that you will not be forgotten. You need to know that you have touched many lives, and left behind a hole in my heart, and to the others that loved you. But most of all, I hope, with all of my heart and soul, that you are finally at peace from the torment you went through. You were brave and strong until the end, but I understand how tired you were. Rest my love, you deserve it.

“I find my greatest strength in wanting to be strong. I find my greatest bravery in deciding to be brave. I don't know if I've ever realized it before,[...] I think we both realize it now. If there's no feeling of fear, then there's no need for courage.”
― David Levithan, Boy Meets Boy