Once upon a time, I probably lived without anxiety, without fear, without constant worries, but I don't remember that time. These things have been a part of my world for so long that they've become a part of me. I've lived with certain levels of anxiety for so long that to not have it starts a new wave of fear and anxiety.

Those are the thoughts that led to me writing this post today. No, those are some of the thoughts. There are times that my mind moves so quickly that i can't keep up with it. Last night wasn't one of those nights and that's truly what led to me sitting here now writing as if I'm sharing secrets with my closest friends....

Yesterday was a busy day. I had my first eye exam in about ten years. I wasn't nervous until they called me back and put me in a chair. Suddenly I was having to take deep breaths and to remind myself that it was only an eye exam...to fail it meant nothing more than getting a pair of glasses. I felt ridiculous for being anxious over something so small.

From there, I picked up my oldest and took him to his annual check up with his orthopedist. The appointment seemed to go too quickly and she has essentially released him from her care unless something happens. That led to another round of anxiety, especially when his stepmom questioned the entire thing. I had to remind myself that her office is only a phone call away and if I feel as if I need to go talk to her, I can go and talk to her.

After that it was picking up the youngest and waiting for him to get changed into his tux, taking him back to the school, helping a little bit with the concert set up and enjoying the annual Band-o-Rama concert. It was during this that I saw an instagram post that showed that I wasn't doing editing work on a comic that I had been 150% sure that I was. I was waiting on the file to arrive. It turns out that I misunderstood and there had never been an intent for me to work on the book.

My reaction scared me. There was the usual bit of hurt and such, but then something shifted. I took a look around the gym, at the kids rushing about to make sure everything was perfect and I just stopped caring about a comic.  For the next two hours, I didn't care. Instead of being wrapped up in my fears, insecurities, and anxiety, I was wrapped up in the music and what was happening in front of me.

It was after the concert, after I had dropped the kiddo off at his dad's and during the 30
 minute drive home that it all came back. I cycled between insecurity, being completely calm, and perhaps somewhere between the two. I had entire conversations with myself:

"He didn't use anyone. He probably doesn't feel as if he needs a proofreader/editor for comics, just for prose type things."

"Yes, but he said he was sending it to me."

"Yes, that's probably how you took his yes when you asked about seeing it that week, but that's probably not what he meant."

"What if he doesn't think I'm capable of doing it? After all, that one book review said I sucked as an editor and that a professional needs to look at it and fix it. What if he agrees with her?"

"And what if you acknowledge that you aren't perfect and that you rushed the second review of the book and didn't do a third like you usually do because you were more worried about disappointing him by missing the deadline than you were with your usual level of perfectionism?"

Yep, sometimes I'm pretty darn harsh with myself. Still, that last self was right. I didn't give it the third review that I do with all of my projects. I missed things. It's the accepting that it's okay that's the hardest. Anything less than perfection in this kind of thing isn't okay and I will be going over it again and sending it back in so that hopefully it can be updated.

Why am I telling you all of this? I don't honestly know. I think, more than anything, I felt the need to write, to share some of  this with someone.

There's more to this, but this post is long and perhaps it's better left to another post...




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Five years ago today I got the call that would lead to the end of something that had started 10 months previously. Looking back, I think I can say that it was the day that I finally lost myself after the previous 5 years of fighting to find myself again. I suppose that I ought to give some background so that this makes sense to someone other than me...

In 2005, Peter and I agreed that it was time for a divorce. In June 2006, the divorce was finalized. Memorial Day weekend 2017, I left the house that we had bought together and everything I knew to move to New York. To say that I was lost is perhaps the understatement of the century. I left behind everything I knew and in some ways, my very identity. For the 10 years or so before that, I had been known as Peter's wife. Since 2000, I had been someone's mom. There was no me outside of those two roles. I didn't have any local friends. The only people I socialized with were online.

For the next five or six years, I fought to figure out who I was without being someone's wife or mother. (Of course, I was still the boy's mom but I had made the heartbreaking decision to leave the boys with their dad because he had the job, the money, the insurance, and the location where all of Ben's team were located.) I missed almost an entire semester of school due to a depression so bad that it crippled me and gave me panic attacks whenever I tried to get into the car to go anywhere. I ended up in therapy that was mostly useless because the therapist decided that my entire issue was that I was lonely. I wasn't lonely, I was lost.

I did finish that semester of school by some tiny miracle, dropping most of my classes, and having some incredibly understanding instructors. I finished the following year as well and while it improved, I never really shook that depression. Later, I would be diagnosed as Bipolar II. I graduated with honors with a degree in Psychology and was once again faced with the idea of having nowhere to go. The people I had been renting from wanted me out and I wanted out. The atmosphere was unhealthy on almost every level. In the end, I decided to "come home". I needed to be back with my boys. I found a house to rent in Sunfield, about 25 miles from them. It wasn't perfect but it was at least within driving distance. I threw myself back into being their mother. I drove (and still do) every day to town to do homework with one or both of them. I went (and still go) to all of their events. This was a me that I knew.

Slowly, piece by piece, I recovered from losing the world that I knew and I started to build up a new one. I was finding me again. I started writing again. I started crafting again. I slowly purged the things that I had accumulated and that I really had no need for. I felt as if I had close friends, even if they again lived nowhere near me. I started working out and eating better. In fact, I think I lost close to 75 pounds and for the first time in a long time, didn't hate myself when I looked in the mirror.

My Grandparents

Then, my world started to crumble again. The only person who I had ever felt loved me unconditionally got sick and suddenly everyone was leaning on me for strength and acted as if I could somehow magically fix it. I should have been stronger. I should have said no, but I didn't. They knew what cards to play. They reminded me how she'd taken me in when my own parents didn't want me. Before I knew it, I was spending almost every weekend at her house cleaning, organizing, purging, sorting and with my poor boys in tow. It wasn't fair to me and it wasn't fair to them, but the guilt laid on me was too much for me to say no to.

I stopped working out. I stopped cooking because I was tired and stressed and I was starting to crack around the edges. I was trying to keep everything normal but nothing was normal and the guilt of the fact that I was dragging my children into it added to everything. Five years ago today, my grandmother died after being sick for 10 months. I'm not going to lie. I was glad. I was glad that she was no longer suffering and I was glad that it was over. Except, for me, it wasn't over.

For the next six weeks, my family would guilt me into going through ever box that had been packed and sorting it into things they could sell and things they could toss. I was exposed to their greed, their hypocrisy, and their selfishness. They were allowed to mourn but I was expected to work. During that six weeks, I was pushed to my breaking point and at the end, when I finally had the strength or perhaps the desperation to say no more, it was too late. I had lost myself again. I had lost myself and I had lost the few close "local" friends that I had thought I'd had. I went home and buried myself..literally.

Boxes and boxes of her things had made their way to my house either because I'd brought them there or because they'd been dumped there. On top of that, I had started to surround myself with stuff in a desperate effort to feel some sort of security. In the years that followed, it would only get worse. There are very few who know the true conditions that I was living in and in some ways, still live in. I wish I could explain how this was "okay" to me but I can't because it wasn't. The worse the house got, the worse I felt. The guilt, the anxiety, all of it overwhelmed me until I was crippled and frozen by it.

Five years ago, I lost myself again and I'm just starting to find myself. Some of you have seen the tag Reclaiming Me either here or on Facebook. That's a very real thing for me.  Just over a year ago, I started purging my house again. I've backslid at times and made huge strides at others. Eight months ago, Nick convinced me to work with him on a book series. When he brought it up in exchange for doing something for me, we both knew that it wasn't a fair deal but neither of us cared. I think he knew I needed to push myself, that I needed a challenge and as for me, I felt ready to take that challenge. Oh, I've had major bouts of anxiety and self doubt since that agreement, but I finished book one and it's had good feedback.

Five years is a long time and I'm not back to the place I was before it happened. I wish that I could say that I was, but I'm not. Every day is a challenge on some level. Today, I woke up and my power was still out because of a wind storm yesterday. I was cold, tired from waking up repeatedly because i was cold, emotional because of today's anniversary and while what I really wanted was to have a message saying I love you, I had one that felt harsh...harsher than it really was but a tired me is a vulnerable me. I'm not going to lie. I laid on the couch for an hour and just cried. The world felt like it was just too much for me. Just thinking about it has me in tears again. This morning I relived the loss of everything that mattered to me and it's still in my head... but I got up, changed into jeans, and drove to someplace warm that had outlets so I could recharge things in case there's still no power when I get home tonight.

Five years is a long time, but it isn't forever and today I'm a little bit stronger than I was then. Today, I got up off the couch. Today, I walked out my front door. Today, I wrote this. Tomorrow, I will write more. Two years from now, I will make a final decision on where I'm moving to and hopefully, I will have the courage to do it. I know where I want to be at that point. It's not just up to me though, but today, under the fear and the emotions, there is hope.



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For the past few days, I've had this post in my head and yet, as I go to write it, that same mind is completely blank. This happens when the fog of depression begins to lift. The things that I had thought about while it covered me seem to dissipate with it. Still, I want to put down what I can and I hope that by sharing it, it will help those who care about me and those who may be having similar struggles or know someone who is. So...let's see what my brain wants to share...

Last week was absolutely horrible for me. You see, I was supposed to be spending the week near someone that means the world to me and a few weeks ago, that trip had to be cancelled. I'm not sure that I realized just how much I had been counting on that trip as a chance to recharge. At least I didn't until Monday.

You see, for as long as I can remember, I've set targets...points to get to...when I drive, I mentally break the trip down into little chunks so that it doesn't seem so long. When I have a period of time where I'm insanely busy, I find some point to get to. I tell myself that if I can just get to that point, it will be okay. It helps me keep going when I'm tired, rundown, and just want to give up. This trip was that point for me. If I could just get to the hotel, everything would be okay. I wouldn't have any responsibilities or anywhere I had to be.

Then, that was snatched away from me and I fell apart. That's the only way to put it. I woke up Monday morning and all day, my brain kept track of where I should be on the last stretch of the drive, of what I'd be doing in the hotel room, how long until I saw my friend...I mentally tortured myself and no matter what I tried, I couldn't stop it. Bipolar brain was fully in control and the more I fought it, the harder it got. I spent so much time in tears just wanting things to be different but knowing that there wasn't anything I could do.

Then, it got worse. When I wasn't thinking about what I "should" be doing, I started thinking about death. No, almost obsessing about it. I wasn't at any risk of killing myself then. I kept thinking about what would happen to various things if I were to die...my websites, my belongings...I became obsessed with the idea of creating a Death file on my laptop. I wanted to fill it with files laying out what I wanted to have happen...how I'd want Nick's original drawings returned to him because I truly feel that I'm only a temporary caretaker of them...how I'd want Geek-o-Rama offered to Brian and then if he didn't want it, I'd want a post placed on the site and left there for 6 months before shutting the site down. Every 30 minute drive in and out of town for 3 days, I obsessed over this.

Something changed on Wednesday evening...around the time that my friend would have been leaving me to go home...the fog started to lift. You see, in my head, the week had been planned out and when it reached a point where I would have been alone again, somehow it started to get easier. In some ways, it was as if I was living one week out loud and another in my head. At that moment, I came to some realizations and they've been floating in and out of my head since then.

Two paragraphs I said that I was at no risk of killing myself then, but that's not really true. I wasn't going to slit my wrists or take all of my medication at once, but I was killing myself...just slowly and in a way that nobody would realize what I was doing. I was going between starving myself and eating so horribly that it would eventually kill me. I stopped taking care of me and was so lost in the fog that I didn't notice. I was wandering blindly, desperately hoping that someone would reach out and give me something to hold onto.

It didn't happen though. Even though I pretty much disappeared from social media, didn't do the site's work for the week, or talk to anyone, nobody noticed or if they did, they didn't reach out. I was lost and there was nobody looking for me. Please don't misunderstand...I realize that other people are busy or just may not have been aware. I don't blame anyone. I'm not upset with anyone. It just hit home that the only people who said to me, "You matter" were on a Facebook post. It brought home just how isolating the fog is.

So here we are...a week out from the fog...and I'm not quite okay, but perhaps I'm no longer lost. I found my way through and I did it by myself. It was harder than if I'd had someone there to hold my hand but it shows that it can be done. I know that more dark times will come but I also hope that I can remember that I'm stronger than I seem and that I can be brave.




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The other day I wrote a post about turning 40 next week and my attitude towards it. I meant every single word in that post and somewhere, under the depression, there is still that spark of excitement over a new year with new possibilities and opportunities.

But right now, it's under the depression. Every year, about a week or so before my birthday, I feel it coming on. I try to fight it. I try to keep busy, to ignore it, but I pretty much fail every time. Very few people understand and that just makes it worse.

I make joking posts on Facebook about how it's 10 days before my birthday and I haven't received a single card yet and how people should celebrate the 10 days of me or something equally silly but under all the frivolity is a grain of truth. I watch other people post about all of the love and gifts and time with people that they got for their birthdays and while I'm so happy for them, a bit of it slices at me. The voice in my head reminds me that when my birthday comes along, I'll be alone, that I'm not important enough or special enough for anyone to be with me. I'll try to tell it to shut up and to remind it that I don't live near anyone, but it reminds me of how I've dropped everything to drive hours and hours or to fly to spend someone else's with them.

My brain can be a total asshole at times. It's worse when I try to talk to others about it because they always have the same response. Stop depending on other people for your happiness on that day. Go and do what you want to do. That's great because I can't do that. You see, all these people have one thing in common...they're in happy, committed relationships or they're surrounded by friends. They aren't alone. They can't understand or don't try to understand that the one thing I want to do that day is not be alone. I don't care if I curl up with someone on the couch and have a movie marathon or what have you. It doesn't have to be big or flashy. I just don't want to be alone.

I want my birthday to be special and in my head that means being with people or at least a person who loves me. I spend every day alone. Being alone isn't special. I can go to the movies or out to eat alone any time I want to. I've spent my entire life not feeling special or wanted.

When I was a child, my sister was the golden child in our household. She could do no wrong and I could do no right. At my mother's house, it was my brother. I had birthday parties canceled because of something they did. By the time I was in high school, I felt as if I were either invisible or expected to be an adult. I just wanted to be a teenager but I had been trained to take everyone else and so I fell into line and did just that.

Then, I got married to the first guy who paid me any kind of real attention and who I thought meant it when he said he loved me. I wrote in other post what birthdays were like for me. I always made a big deal out of his and out of things like father's day but it never worked the other direction. I still felt invisible and as if I were only there to serve a purpose.

After the divorce, I guess I thought things would be different. Instead, I was raped for my 30th birthday by someone I thought I knew and trusted after I'd spent over 12 hours traveling to get to where he was. The fact that I had any spirit left was something to be beaten out of me or taken another way. I was a nobody in his eyes, just something to use, abuse, and then throw away.

I don't remember the next few years...I moved to New York, spent birthdays alone or in class. I moved back to Michigan and I think once since 2007, I spent the day with someone I loved and it was lovely. For my 35th birthday, someone decided to throw me a birthday party...except nobody came which just solidified my feeling of not mattering. Now, here we are, five years later and it's 9 days before my birthday.

I'm depressed, in tears, and just want to put my head down until it's over. Little things feel huge and though I know they're not, I can't seem to push past them. I'm trying. Oh, how I try. I give myself little speeches about how it's not personal if someone sees your messages and doesn't bother to respond to them even though you used to talk every day all the time. It's not personal if someone you've worked with on multiple projects goes ahead with a project without you or without even telling you. It isn't personal if people don't like or comment on your posts or on things you comment on theirs. I tell myself that I'm not invisible. I tell myself that I am loved.

I tell myself all of those things and deep down, I know them all to be true but for the next 9 days it will be a constant battle of depression vs reality. I'm exhausted already from it and I know that there will be a million more tears, a million more times checking my email, a million more times stopping myself from doing things like checking my amazon wishlist to see if anyone has bought anything for me...it will be all of these things and I will win but for now, I fight.

So please...if you interact with me over these next 9 days, try to understand that I'm fragile, that I'm hyper sensitive and that my brain is ready in an instant with some lie or way to misinterpret things. Most of all, just try to love me. Know that I am not this way by choice and that it's something I'm constantly working on and trying to get past. It's hard but not impossible.

I love you all...really and truly, I do and if nothing else, writing this helped me. It cleared things out of my head and somehow, when it's in my own words, in black and white, it's easier to deal with. It gives me those moments of peace where I can take a deep breath and say yep, brain, you suck and you're full of nonsense but I'm going to keep going because I know I'm loved and I'm stronger than this. The depression will strike back but it's those moments..the moments of truth...that keep me going. This post helped me and maybe it might help someone else too.




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For the past few days, I've had multiple posts running around in my head, but I wasn't in a mental or emotional place where I could sit and write without it sounding like I was having some sort of breakdown. I want to start out by assuring everyone that I'm okay. I'm just having a really rough week, but I'm still here and I'm still fighting and that's the part that really matters. Now...on with the post....

Yesterday something happened that put me into a near panic attack like state for almost the entire day. It got so bad that I ended up with a migraine, which oddly enough may be the best thing that could have happened, but we'll get to that. So, what happened?

A friend of mine took the day off from work to celebrate his wife's birthday. He made her breakfast in bed, gave her amazing presents, and perhaps the best gift of all, he gave himself to her for the day. The day really was all about her. I'm sure you're shaking your head wondering what this could have possibly triggered. Fear. It triggered the biggest bout of panic and fear that I've had in a long time.

You see, I have a long history..39 years worth at this point of being tossed aside by nearly every single man who I have ever let get close to me and seeing what he was doing for his wife made me
afraid. I was afraid..and still am, though I'm working on it..that I will never have anything like that. I will never have anyone love me that much.

One thought..seemingly innocent.."I would so badly love for someone to love me like that." turned into a day of hell. My mind spiraled to the point where I was sure that it was impossible. If people saw me the way I see me...well, surely there isn't a single soul out there who could possibly love someone as messed up as me. I cried. I tried to fight my way out of it, but the harder I fought, the deeper I sank. I sank until I could no longer function and I gave up. I had a migraine, no rational way to explain the panic I was feeling, and nobody who I would completely subject them to the entirety that is the insanity that is my brain. So, I gave up. I shut down the laptop and I laid down on the couch. I tried to watch a movie, but I couldn't focus. My mind wouldn't stop. It kept right on going with its lies and nonsense... "You have an upcoming anniversary with someone and I bet they don't even know the date and they're not going to do anything special for you. You'll never be loved like that."

I don't know what suddenly changed. The movie was about over (Life of Brian, for anyone curious. I hadn't seen it yet and thought funny might help) and in the final scene, they start singing this ridiculous song, one I've heard over and over again and suddenly something clicked. All day long, I'd been thinking that I was jealous or envious, but the reality is that I was afraid. None of those three emotional states are rational, but somehow fear is easier to deal with. I know fear to be a way that depression keeps its hold. Depression lies and uses fear to help.

Fear is the reason that I don't lose weight. Fat is a buffer against rejection. When my ex-husband cheated on me and it led to our divorce, my grandmother asked me if I thought it had anything to do with my weight gain throughout our marriage. It hadn't, but the question was out there and as I laid there last night, silence in the house, I realized the fear is keeping me from a lot of things. I don't lose the weight because what if I did and nothing changed, nobody wanted to be with me. I don't go out (partially due to finances) because what if I met someone (male/female/whatever) and I liked them and then I never heard from them again?

Fear and depression pipe up in their twin voices with a single message. It's okay because you don't deserve those things anyway. Nobody could possibly love you or want to be your good friend with your past, with how you are. It's an incredibly hard mental prison to break free from. I've given my heart fully and openly, showed my entire self to just a few people ever and of those, two of them stopped talking to me and have pushed me completely out of their lives. Fear uses that as evidence that it's right.

Knowing that fear is trying to become the motivator in my life is a blessing. Remember I said that the migraine may have been the best thing that could happen to me? This is why. It allowed me to shut out all of the outside noise that bombards so many of us every day. No Facebook, no Twitter, no music, nothing but me and when I can get to the core of me, I can find the problem. Knowing the problem allows for me to find a solution. As you may have heard, knowing is half the battle. The other half is the fight to shut down those voices, but if Fear is the enemy of love, the solution is love. Loving myself and my flaws, acknowledging them but not letting them rule me. It's not going to be easy. I have over 30 years of conditioning to conquer. Still, if I can love myself, take care of myself, and yes, even spoil myself, I'll be doing the best thing that I can do.




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I'm tired and not the normal kind of tired. I call this depression tired..this unnatural need/desire to sleep all of the time. I feel as if I only have the energy to be up for tiny pockets of time and then I want to sleep again. It's hard to function when all you want to do is sleep and even though you battle, there's no real winning the war.

I know what triggered this, but like the battle for energy, there's nothing I can do to change the cause. I went to a convention last weekend and it was good. It was wonderful being back out among people and not just any people, but people who love indie comics as much as I do. I even helped do a panel which was amazing. It felt so good to talk about things that I knew and to have zero doubt that I knew what I was talking about.

I have to admit just remembering that experience has put a smile on my face. You see..I had planned on writing a personal post about my time in Columbus, but this wasn't it. It is now. You never know where things are going to go when you sit down to write, or at least I don't.

So, here's the thing...Columbus was a test for me. For the past year, I've shut myself off more and more. Some have noticed, most haven't. It's easy to hide when you don't live near anyone and everyone is so busy with their lives that they don't notice when you quietly slip away. Very few reach out and say hey, where did you go? I'm lucky that very few doesn't equal zero. Still, I needed some answers.

As I shut myself away, I slowly convinced myself that my other site would be better off without me. I wasn't sure if I still had the passion to do what needed to be doing. After all, the best person to run a site is someone who feels passionate about what the site does. With the struggles I've had over the past year, I wasn't sure if that person was me anymore. So, I decided that I needed to either find out or hand the site over to my second in command.

The test? Take myself off to a convention that is strictly 100% tiny indie comics..no vendors, no larger indie publishers that we already work with, just tiny indie guys. I figured that by the end of the weekend, I would know just how I felt about the industry and my future with Geek-o-Rama. Turns out that I was right. By the time I got back to the hotel room Sunday night and had a chance to reflect, I had my answers. I still love what I do. I love meeting new people and hearing about their passion for an industry that isn't the easiest to break into. I love being able to give bits of advice (though seriously, I may need to start charging consulting fees) and being able to share what I (and my amazing staff) do with them. Don't get me wrong, I still love working with the bigger indie publishers, but my heart will always lie with the underdog.

Honestly, it came as an incredible relief. I was afraid that this was one more thing that had been taken from me. It wasn't though and over the summer, I plan on diving back into the pool and working harder than ever.

To close out this post, how about a Top 5 list of random things from SPACE 2016?

1. Spending $5 to purchase an 11 year old's first comic and an art print from her is something that will never stop bringing a smile to my face. It's important to support our children's passions.
2. Having towels in your hotel room is really a good thing and hotels should be on top of that.
3. There's something great about making random connections on the road with people you'll never see again, but in that moment, you connected.
4. Waffle House post con with two really fun people is an experience that I hope to have again. One of the toughest parts of conventions is the sitting alone in a hotel room with takeout afterwards.
5. I really do love what I do and I need to stop letting anxiety get in the way of getting out there. 

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Once upon a time, I used to write. I wrote stories. I wrote poems. I wrote articles. I was always writing. Then, I stopped. Oh, it wasn't all at once. It was bit by bit. First, the poetry stopped. Then, the stories. My blog posts became fewer and further between. I desperately tried to hold on by keeping my recipes flowing, but even they stopped after a while.

My writing became limited to Facebook posts, occasional tweets, and even more occasional reviews. As my mental health issues grew worse, I found it was easier to give in to the silence. I convinced myself, or maybe the depression convinced me, that I didn't need to write, that I had nothing left to share with the world and if I did, no one was listening. Instead, I took other people's words and I tweaked them. I poured pieces of myself into other people's work. I became an editor. I took pride in my work and when something went to print, it was as if I were still putting a piece of myself out into the world.

That's changing. I find myself frustrated that they're not my words. Recently, a story that I did the editing on went to print and even the author didn't give me public credit for the work that I had done. I knew the publisher wouldn't put my name in the book, but I thought the author would thank me when he thanked others. Except, he didn't. It hurt. I'd never had that happen before. My authors always have made sure that I got credit when it was due.

Now, I find myself wondering if I'm still a writer. Are the words still there inside of me? Can I put them down again and make them sing? Can I find that part of me again that was one that I cherished the most and was the hardest to let go? Or am I destined to just be the tweaker of everyone else's words, silent in my work, an unsung hero in the publishing world? Or worse, will this part of me continue to fade away until it's gone completely?

Or is this the first step?



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When I wrote the other day, I mentioned "people hoarding" in passing towards the end. I'm back here again to write about that because it's been on my mind ever since it came up in conversation with Justin. So, here we go...this isn't going to be pretty, but as always, it's going to be me...

Sometimes in life, you have a light bulb moment and with people who have things like ocd, for them to make progress, that has to happen. Justin and I were talking the other night...okay, he was talking, I was...what's the word..venting? ranting? I was pouring everything out that had been stuck inside my head. One of the things I said was that I don't know why I even keep certain people in my world...and he agreed with me. Neither of us was sure why I kept people around, even those who had been horrible to me. Then, there was the light bulb. I keep people around for the same reason I keep stuff around. It's a security blanket. I'm afraid that if I cut them loose, it means that I've given up on them and I've had people give up on me and know how painful that can be.

It's more than that though. I'm afraid that if I cut them loose, others may leave and soon, I'll be completely alone. Is that rational? Heck no. Is it a pretty typical thought pattern for someone with anxiety and other issues? Heck yes. We worry that we're such a burden that everyone is going to leave..we're just too much work to be friends with, to love.

With any light bulb moment comes a decision. Do I stay in this pattern or do I try to break it? Today, I'm going to work on breaking it. It's going to be hard. It's going to hurt. With each person, I'm going to mourn what we had and that they chose to not have that. I'm going to list those people here, not out of some sense of revenge, but as a reminder to me of what these people did. In a way, it will be me saying goodbye to them...and as I finish each person, I'll be removing them from my social media and other accounts...It's time to move on with those who truly love and care about me.

Zac - Cheated on his girlfriend with me (I had no idea he was with someone). A few years later, our paths crossed again and he talked about having a relationship with me. Instead, he lied to mutual friends about me, tried to create drama, and then when something happened within the group, allowed his girlfriend who didn't know me to threaten my life.

Brian - Became an incredibly close friend, asked me out and then started dating his best friend that I didn't care for. The problem was that he just stopped talking to me and I had to find this out through a mutual friend. I was okay with him dating her but the fact that he refuses to talk to me tells me that our friendship wasn't all that important to him.

Dawn - Yes, as in my mother. The list of things she's done is too long to mention. Let's just say that her latest childish behavior has pushed me to go past avoidance to just plain removing.

Mark - Yes, my father. He's had a lot of years to make an attempt at being part of my life and instead is just on the drama train with the rest of them. No thanks.

Jim - Someone I considered one of my closest friends. So close that I gave him my grandfather's pen set the last time we exchanged Christmas gifts. Then, he got a girlfriend, got a new grasp on religion and suddenly I no longer existed in his world. He stopped responding to all messages, didn't return phone calls and when a mutual friend died didn't even call me...even when I left a sobbing message on his voice mail.

Other Family - There are a few other family members on my friends list on Facebook and there's really no reason for them to be. I have no relationship with them and due to circumstances, have no real desire to.

That's it for now...I know others will come to mind over time and I hope I have the strength to say goodbye and to move on. Just like surrounding myself with trash and stuff isn't good for my physical or mental health, neither is having these beacons of negativity around. They're constant reminders of people who made me feel as if I wasn't good enough. Even though it's hard, it's time to tell myself that I deserve only the best people in my life, not those who would hurt me without a second thought.

I'm not going to lie to any of you and say that this is easy. My anxiety levels are high and there's that little voice saying, "What if these were the best people you could get?" and "What if there's some kind of fallout from this?"  I'm not listening though. I'm hearing, but I'm not listening. I know for a fact that I have some amazing people in my world already so the first is nonsense. As for the second, I'm fairly certain that none of the people listed above will even notice.



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Today isnt a good day and I question my own judgement in writing this here, but I swore that I would live my life out loud, where people could see that others go through maybe what they're going through....and so here we are...

About ten minutes ago, I posted this to Facebook...soon it will go onto my other site:

I want to apologize in advance that I may be scarce in the coming weeks/months. I have some mental and physical health problems that I need to take care of and really focus on. This may mean me taking more time for myself so that I can get well enough to tackle life head on again. I've been trying to juggle so much that I'm not giving my best to anything and the guilt and stress of that are adding to everything and are taking their toll. I know that I owe things to people and I will get them done. I just can't say when. All I can do is apologize and hope that you can understand that right now I need some time away from things that aren't directly helping me get better.

 I promise all of you that I will get better and I will come back stronger. I'm not disappearing but taking a step back. Call me, text me, email me, message me...it all helps but please understand that right now my focus is on fixing myself and my world. I love you all very, very much. That will never change. I just want to be okay and that's going to take some work.

I wrote that last night and waited about ten hours before posting it. I had hoped that sleep would change how I felt, but it didn't. I feel as if I'm falling apart and nobody sees me anymore. Oh sure, the rational part of my brain knows that isn't true, but as so often is the case with the things I suffer with, the rational side isn't completely in charge.  Instead, I find myself in this place that I don't understand and I don't like. For 90% of Valentines Day, I was okay. It was just another day and then suddenly a post was made by a friend of mine and I got angry. I got angry that he's with someone and I'm not...and yes, a bit that when he was single, he didn't notice me. Please, don't mistake this for jealousy. It could easily be seen that way and it's not. It's not just certain people being in relationships. It happens when a friend had a story published in an anthology and I saw him give a ton of credit for it to someone else even though I was his cheerleader and his editor. It happens when someone tells me I have no idea what I'm talking about even though I've been doing something for years. It's just that right now, I'm having these knee jerk reactions...I'm reacting and it's taking every last bit of energy that I have not to lash out. I'm living in a constant state of stress...my chest feels as if it's ice cold and burning at the same time all the time. I'm breaking apart and though I know there are others struggling too, all I seem to be able to see is everyone else's joy...new babies, new relationships, happy relationships, etc. More and more I feel like an outsider and it allows my fears to get a stronger grip.

Things that I thought I had gotten past...like my family and their pure jackassedness ...are popping up and instead of walking away and shaking my head, I'm struggling with the desire to just tell them precisely how I feel about how they're behaving now and in the past. My blood pressure is up, my body is one stress reaction after another...
 
How many of us have seen this image on places like Facebook? I'm sure a lot of us. I saw it again last night and it hit me...I'm not getting better. I had been getting better, but something shifted and now I'm getting bitter. When I feel as if nobody sees me or nobody appreciates what I do, I'm getting angry. I'm getting frustrated. I just want to throw my hands up in the air and walk away from everything. I want to say "fuck off" to everyone and just live a life of seclusion where I can be alone...except, I'd be alone with my anger and everything else. It wouldn't help. 

There's so much more to this....how I've become afraid of the outside world, why I hoard people even those who have been nasty to me, how I don't feel as if I'm worth spending $35 on....and I know that I'll write those and maybe a few of you will read them and maybe it will resonate with one or two of you and somehow help. If it helps even one person, it makes the fight a little more worth it. 



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I never wanted to go back and yet here I am. It's been about six weeks since everything seemed to fall apart and in those six weeks, I've slowly been trying to piece my world...myself...back together again and all it took was a couple of pictures and I'm on the floor, curled up, crying all over again.

PTSD can be a bitch like that. All it takes is one little thing and suddenly you're reliving everything all over again. I thought I was getting better. Sure, there were rough moments, but I'd kept going. I'd fought. Even in the worst of it, he told me that I would get back up again and go on kicking ass like I always did.

I'd been trying to condition myself for things that might come...things that might hurt...things that might trigger, but I didn't expect them to come the way they did. I didn't prepare myself. I have this cold spot. It's right in the middle of my chest. If you touch it, the skin is actually colder there. It's as if seeing what I did sent an ice arrow right through me and it's so cold that it burns. It'd been weeks since that had happened. I was stronger. I was ready to move on.

Now, it's as if everything just happened. I want to hide. I cry. I sob. I pant trying to stop myself from hyperventilating. My skin feels like there's something crawling and I have to fight not to scratch. Every single awful thing keeps running through my head like a movie reel. I stare at my screen...at pictures of friends...and I whisper help me, someone please help me. Take me from this hell...but they can't hear me. I'm alone in this awful place.

Why do I write this? I write this to save myself. Maybe if I share this with the world then maybe there's a chance I can survive this. Maybe I can tap more into the anger that's deep inside of me...anger at myself for giving anyone this kind of control in my life and anger with him for letting his cowardice lead to cruelty. The fact that it's in there means there's hope. I'm not totally lost to this. Maybe if I share this, someone else will realize that they're not alone when it happens to them.

So what's next for me? I don't rightly know. More and more I'm starting to think that therapy is something I should seek. There's also the voice of someone I love in my head telling me to fight, not to hide...I don't know what I'm going to do. Hiding keeps me safe from the world and the scary things in it. Nobody can hurt me if I don't open myself up to them.  I feel as if I don't really have anyone that I can talk to about this. The platitudes don't help a lot though the thought behind them is appreciated. Those who try to intellectualize this just make it worse. My support network has gone eerily quiet, even when I've tried to reach out. I don't judge. I know life gets busy and that there's not always the time for things like this.

For today, I'll make some lunch...and wish that I weren't always the one reaching out to those I love...and maybe let the cat have her way in her desires to sit on me.



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Over the past few weeks, it's been pointed out to me that I've changed...the girl who used to be so open has hidden herself away, she's more careful with what she says and she doesn't really talk to anyone anymore. Sure, she posts on social media, but it's shallow. It's not what's inside her. It's just enough so that people will leave her alone.

Those people are right. Losing Reece changed me. It woke up every feeling of insecurity and worthlessness that I've ever felt. It took me to a place that I never thought I would see again. A few weeks ago, I planned on killing myself. While I'm glad that I didn't, living with these feelings has been incredibly hard. I've shut myself off to most people. People scare me. There. I said it. People scare me.

There are very few people that I trust right now and it's to those people that I turn. They're doing their best to remind me how amazing and awesome I am and while I don't argue with them, it's hard for me to believe them. What happened to the girl who was starting to believe that she could do anything? It's as if she got knocked down and then trampled on until there was nothing of her left but a battered and bruised shell.

The thing about bruises is that they heal. Some take longer than others, but broken bones, broken hearts, and bruises all heal. It's a process and for someone who constantly has a voice in their head that tears them apart, it can be a long process. Yes, I've hidden myself away but I needed to. I needed to focus on myself and deciding if I were worth the effort. I'm not ready to come out yet. I need this time with me so I can try to be okay again. I have doubts that I'll ever find happy again, but right now, okay seems like a pretty good place to be.

Yes, people scare me, but I know that over time I'll slowly start to stick my head out again. I'll find my place and maybe even love again, but right now, I'm going to be quiet. I'm going to protect my heart because it's fragile. The wrong thing said by someone I care about starts the tears flowing. Letting even a few in has been incredibly hard when all I want to do is hide. We're all built with the instinctual fight or flight response. Mine has always been flight. By letting even one person in, I'm trying to fight. I'm trying to silence the awful feelings of worthlessness, of being forgettable, of being a nobody unworthy of anything good.

I'm here...and I'm fighting...but for me, right now, it's a silent fight...



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By now, you've probably seen hundreds of posts about Robin Williams committing suicide. Personally, I've walked away from social media because every time I see one, I find myself sinking lower and lower. Why? Because it's too close to home.

I've been there. I've stood on the edge of that abyss and even though that I know that there's no coming back from it, I've stared into the abyss and listened to the demons that whispered that the world would be better off without me, that my children would be well cared for and loved by their father and others, that those who love me most would be better off not having to deal with the ways my mood would swing. It is only by the grace of the gods that I've never taken that final step.

What I have done though is hide. I have hidden my passions, my desires and so much more because I have a disease. I've written about it here in my braver moments. There are times when I tell myself that my story could help others and just because I have this it doesn't mean I'm any less of a person than anyone else on this planet. Then, without fail, I hear someone make a comment like, "You just need a positive outlook." or something along the lines of suck it up, you can choose to be happy. That's when I go back into hiding. Sure, those things might be true for a person who is sad or unhappy but not for someone like me. I can't just suck it up. I have Bipolar 2.

For a long time, I didn't know what was wrong with me. I just knew that sometimes I was miserable and sometimes it was like I felt nothing..I was in a void. I would put a smile on my face and fake my way around people because I didn't want anyone to know that I wasn't like them. I always knew that I wasn't like everyone else. I just didn't know why.

It wasn't until someone who I loved accused me of not having any passions, of taking on those around me, that I realized that somewhere along the road, something had stolen my life from me. I was living more in survival mode than I was living in the world. It took losing someone I loved to realize just how far I was gone. Granted, he wasn't right about most of what he said..I had passions, I just wasn't living them, but it was my wake up call. It was then that I looked for help.

I don't know if Robin Williams was truly diagnosed with Bipolar, but it wouldn't surprise me if he had been. You'd be amazed at how many brilliant people suffer from this disorder. Perhaps it's the universes way of "making it up" to us. You can be absolutely brilliant, hysterically funny, but you have to suffer for it. Perhaps it's just an unlucky draw of the brain chemistry. I don't know, but I know that he was brilliant but that he struggled. His addiction issues have been spoken and written about. If you looked in his eyes, there was a sad, haunted look about them. He was a man that I feel knew great joy and great sorrow. He was a man that so many looked up to, but in the end, his demons won and the world has lost a great man.

It is because he is a great man that I hope people don't stop talking about this for a long time. I want attention to be drawn to mental health.  I want people to become aware of the fact that depression and things that have depression as a symptom are diseases and not just a case of the blues. I want people to understand that just because we may have these things, it doesn't make us less human or that our feelings don't work. The problem is that they work overtime. Something that might make a "normal" person sad, might knock me down...and sometimes, when I'm knocked down, it's very hard to get back up again. It takes a lot of energy to live with depression, bipolar or any number of other mental illnesses. We are some of the strongest people you will ever meet because of this. The other side of that coin? Sometimes we will be some of the most fragile.

So, the next time you notice that I'm a little more down than usual, please don't tell me to pull myself out of it. Stop and give me a hug. I don't need your advice. I know that my brain is overreacting. If I choose to vent things out to you, realize that it means that I trust you because I still hide this side of myself. I've had my diagnosis for over a year now and I've still not told my children or my ex-husband. I've put it on Facebook and I've put it on here, but I don't tend to mention it otherwise because there is still such a huge stigma attached to it. I'm hoping that by slowly coming out of my own shell and writing about it, people will come to realize that I'm still the same me..I'm just showing you more of who I am.




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I've spent the past 30 hours wanting to write here, even needing to write here but not knowing what to say. I always find that to be such a sad irony; the girl who has a writer's soul not knowing what to write. I guess let's start with what the doctor said...

I broke it down for some friends like this:

1. It turns out that I'm brilliant. IQ testing, for what it's worth, put me at smarter than 90% of the people on the planet.
2. I have PTSD that mostly likely began when I was about 3 and has continued untreated well into adulthood. The other "traumas" that I have gone through have only made it worse and in part most likely led to...
3. What is most likely Bipolar II disorder. The testing that I did wasn't geared towards that but it did come up as a possibility and after discussing my symptoms that the testing didn't go over, he's pretty convinced.

So...now what? Now, I wait to hear back from my primary care doctor to see if they'll write me a prescription for a lithium based medication. I also have to call and set up a therapy schedule with a therapist who specializes in trauma therapy for women and children.

On paper, that's where I am right now. Inside my head, I'm so far from there. The stress and anxiety of yesterday has led to exhaustion and depression today. Add into that what one friend calls the "female chemical factory" that's going on inside of my body and I'm left wondering what the point of it all is.

I'd love to be able to say don't worry, I'll be fine, but the reality is..or at least the reality inside of my own head...I don't know. I don't know if I will ever be "fine" again. I look around and I see people smiling and laughing and so much of the time, it feels as if I don't even recognize those emotions. I put on a brilliant show, but deep down, I'm not sure what happy even is.

There are times..maybe too many times..that I sit and think about how I wish nobody really cared about me because then I could just vanish. Somehow, I could just cease to exist on this planet and the world would be such a better place. The oddest part? When I have those thoughts, I'm disconnected from them. There's no deep emotional well that they're coming from. If I were to say it out loud, it would be said in that same bored tone like, "Yeah, I should take the garbage out."

So I would love to say don't worry...because I'll be okay, but instead it's don't worry, you'll be okay. Who knows, maybe I will be too. After all, this is only 2/3 of my world...the rest of it is nothing like this...

For now though, I'm going to leave you with two posts..written by someone who has said and illustrated it so much better than I can right now. She's been there, so she understands...please go and read these and leave her your support.

Adventures in Depression Part I and Adventures in Depression Part II



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I haven't been posting here regularly for a while now. Usually I come back and I make some lame excuse or laugh off my absence. Today..Today, I'm going to tell you the truth of where I've been.

I've been right here. I've been sitting here, staring at this screen and wishing desperately for the knowledge of how to tell any of you who still read here that I'm not okay. I'm not fine. If I say those words, odds are that they're lies because while I so desperately want to be, I'm not fine and I'm not okay. I haven't been for a long time.

Oh sure, there are good days. Everyone has good days, even me. There have been days where I feel like I'm on top of the world and nothing can bring me back down. Those days are almost too good. They give me hope and for a brief shining moment, there's clarity.

Then, there are the bad days. Oh God, the bad days nearly kill me sometimes. Those are the days where I sit and cry because my life just feels impossible. Those are the days where I look down at my wrists and I think about how good it would actually feel to slice open that fragile skin. I don't want to die. It's not about death. It's about feeling something other than whatever is holding me down.

I met a boy not so long ago and he was wonderful. For the first time, perhaps ever, I opened myself up to him. I showed him the good days and I showed him pieces of the bad days. It was hard because I was so afraid that the "truths" of the bad days really were the truth. The voices that tell me that I'm useless, that I'm ugly, that I'm stupid, that I don't deserve happiness..I was so afraid that he would look at the real me and just confirm those things. He didn't, but he still broke my heart. You see, I showed him the real me and he said the real me doesn't exist.

Do I exist? That's such an awful question if you think about it. We all want to exist. We all want to be important in someone's world, don't we? To have someone say that you don't exist and then prove it by completely shutting you out of their world is just awful. It's been a couple of weeks and it still fills me with a horrible amount of sadness.

You see, I do exist but I exist within a world that not many people understand or even get to see. I live in a world where I may be on top of the world for a few days and then below the bottom of the ocean for a number after that. I ride a chemical and emotional roller coaster that makes no sense to many who haven't lived it themselves.

There are days when I don't want to get out of bed, where all I want to do is pull the covers up over me and pretend that I don't exist. It would be so much easier than trying to push through it. How do you explain to the people around you, the people who tell you how smart you are, that there are days where trying to think or put together coherent thought is like being in a smoke filled box where you can't see the walls and so you keep slamming into them as they move in closer and closer to you? That the very attempt at trying gives you awful headaches but you keep trying because you don't want anyone to see just how much you struggle with something that other times comes so easily? How do you explain that sometimes it's like there are two of you living inside your own head? There's the completely logical, rational, totally you girl..your true personality and spirit..but then there's this emotionally rabid creature that just reacts without reason. How do you explain that it's that second girl who desperately seeks out love and affection, even when it's not healthy? It's that girl who will crumple into a weeping pile over something said without any intent of harm or malice?

Those are the bad days, the days where I spend all day fighting myself until I'm an exhausted mess by the end of the day. Those are the days when I try to avoid people and yet everything within me screams to be with certain people. You see, I have what I call my safe zone..those people who have known me for ages and yet still accept me, even on the bad days when I know they don't understand what's happening with me. They're my 5 safe places. The irony is that I can't easily access any of them but they're the 5 that deep down I know that if things got bad enough, they'd be there.

It's not all bad days though. There are the way too good days too. The days where I wake up and I'm on top of the world, nothing can stop me and it's going to be amazing. Those are the days where I'm like a machine. I can accomplish amazing amounts of things and I'm happy, cheerful, bubbly and everyone loves me.

The problem with those? It's not normal or healthy either. A person cannot maintain that level of omgtheworldisawesomeandyesitalklikethisonthosedays. My brain moves at hyper sonic speeds and it's not unusual for me to have half a dozen things going on at once in it. I could be hearing a song, arguing with myself, thinking over some problem, sorting out a schedule and all this going on while I'm actively doing something else. Other times, my body is still as still can be because my brain is moving so fast that I don't need to move. For me, they can last no more than a few days and then the crash comes and I go through a series of bad days. Then, if I'm lucky, it balances out and I have
"normal" days for a little while before the whole cycle starts again.

You see, this isn't just depression. I've done depression and this is something more.  If I had my guess, it's Bipolar II disorder. My guess isn't good enough though, so I'm seeing a clinical psychologist next week. I need to know what's wrong with me and if it's even possible for me to live a normal life. I need to know if I can be just me without all of this holding me down and holding me back. I know that I will never get the boy back or help him to understand that I loved him enough to
show him the good and the bad, but maybe I can help other people understand what it's like to live with this by writing about it. It's a scary, scary place where so often I feel incredibly alone, so alone that I panic and will reach out to people who have no idea just how badly I need them to hold my hand and to tell me that it's going to be okay.

I'm just a girl, lost in her own world, who needs to know that even when she's "crazy", she's still loved.




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It's not often that I write about the darker sides of being me. That's not because I'm trying to hide them but because usually they're manageable. Usually I can find the good in nearly every situation. Usually, I'm me. Today, I'm not.

I know how weird that sounds, but on some levels it's true. I'm a hard worker. I'm focused. I'm generally a clear thinker. Today, I'm none of those things. Today, the depression is muddling my brain and it frustrates me. It makes me angry.  The only problem with that? I don't feel those emotions properly. I know they're there, but my brain can't process them.

Why? It's too busy going oooh there are the bad brain chemicals floating around in here. That leaves the rest of me to go ok, so now what? Well, what my body wants to do is nothing. It wants to sit here and not focus on anything but how those chemicals make it feel. What do I want to do? I want to finish Christmas presents. I want to do laundry. I want to clean house. I want to finish writing the review that I promised a certain comic book creator. I want to turn on Christmas music and be able to have it in the background.

What am I doing? A combination of both. I've started the review but every time I get going, something distracts me and my brain just cannot multitask today. Even writing this post is hard because my brain is trying to focus elsewhere. In fact, I'm starting to get a headache from forcing it to finish this post.

This isn't fun. Really and truly, it's having days like this that make me tell those who come to me claiming to have depression to be glad that they really don't. It can be so entirely disabling and the only thing I can do is not to give into it. I cannot give into the desires to go back to bed and curl up and sleep. Sleep is how my brain handles the crazy chemicals whirling around inside. Instead, I will force myself to focus, even if it's just on one thing at a time and I will get through today and tomorrow and as many days as it takes to get back to being me again.




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Tonight, I had someone dm me on Twitter to ask me why I was part of a group if I felt so negatively about it. Who it was doesn't matter. It's the message that they carried to me that shocked me. Not just that, but the way they approached me. I guess I should be thankful that they came to me at all.

The truth is...I'm not thankful. I'm hurt as hell. So, consider this post all about me. It's all about me defending myself and saying you know what, try to understand where I'm at right now.

Let's start with my life...

1. My family - My parents are being insane. That's the only way to put it. And for the record, yes, my family reads this. No, I don't care. For those that are behind the times, here's the scenario:  We're taking Thanksgiving dinner to my grandmother who is dying of stage iv colo- rectal cancer. This means I've spent god knows how much money getting food and god knows how much time figuring out how to move 1/2 my kitchen 90 minutes away. My parents, in a fit of total disrespect, are coming, not coming, coming, god knows...add to that my brother and his nasty attitude.

2. My grandmother is dying. I think one sentence sums that up.

3. The holidays. - Let's see..there was the stress involved in working out a "new" who has who with the kids. There's the knowledge that yet again, I won't be spending the holidays with Justin. There's the stressors to do with money.

4. My kitchen sink. - For over the past week now, I've spent 20+ minutes a day plunging it. The plumber now says it sounds like basement pipes need to be replaced. This means I can't catch up on dishes. My plan for fixing up our kitchen is crawling at a snail's pace. Did I mention I have company arriving in less than 4 hours?

So, to sum it up. I'm stressed...I am stressed to the point where I want to say fuck it all. Yes, I said a bad word. Deal with it. I'm stressed and when I get to this level of stressed, my brain chemicals go nuts and depression comes knocking at my door. I am doing everything I can to hold it together. It's not a huge shock to me and it shouldn't be to anyone else that I might be a bit negative right now.

Do I love Mamavation? Yes. I cannot begin to fathom why anyone would think I don't. Do I see flaws in it? Of course, I do. Nothing is perfect. I have ideas on how to improve certain areas. Have I been publicly negative about the group? Hell no. I don't know who the hell is going around saying I have but they can stop right now.  I work hard every week to support the women in that group. That group is one of the primary reasons that I've lost the weight that I have. The support in that group can be an amazing thing. The women in that group are wonderful people. I wouldn't and don't hesitate to recommend it to people who want to lose weight.

As for this nonsense regarding Anytime Fitness, I wish it would just stop. This kind of drama doesn't help anyone. I've publicly stated that watching the two groups throw their crap back and forth is depressing. It is. You have two groups that ought to be working in partnership. Instead, they're mud slinging. Grow the hell up. Yep, the title of the chapter was outrageous. Yes, I think Leah over-reacted. Now, before anyone jumps down my throat, read the rest. I think the authors over-reacted too. I think the title was a bit of sensationalism and it worked. Do I approve? Not especially but it worked.

Do I think Leah is evil incarnate or any other horrible thing? God, no. I think Leah is great. I think what she's done is great. I think what she's doing for other women is great. Got that, I said Great. I didn't say evil. I didn't say bitch. I didn't say reactionary or any other bad word. Contrary to some beliefs, I have not and will not Leah bash. I know some have taken my comment on a blog post as just that, but it's not.

Do I think Anytime Fitness is a horrible monster? No, I don't. I think they're a company that has the potential to and maybe already does provide a great service. I don't know the CEO or the company well enough to made a judgment.

Got all that? I hope so because is the one and only time I will blog about this. I'm over it. Everyone should be by now. If you want to change the fitness world, don't just talk about it, get off your ass and do something. If you're not doing something, don't bitch and whine to me.

So to all of you out there who feel I'm too negative these days, step outside your own little world and take a peek into mine right now. It's not the most pleasant place to be living. The honest to God's truth is I know it could be worse. It could be so much worse and that's what I try to focus on right now. I focus on the good as much as I can. I focus on my two amazing boys. I focus on the man that loves me. I focus on the few really great friends I have. I try hard to take things one day and sometimes one step at a time.

I guess that just leaves me with one favor to ask of all of you...if you have some sort of negativity that you feel you need to add to my life, please don't. I don't have the strength right now to fight off your attacks. I don't have the energy. I'm down to my last grip as I fight my way through. Yes, life is a battle right now but it's a battle that I'm not giving up on. If you can't help me with this battle, please do me a favor and just go away...



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