Ah, such a darling little phrase that seems to be uttered during tumultuous times whether they be turned outward (world events) or inward (personal struggles). Life sure has a funny way of dealing you a crappy hand sometimes. Some people get dealt several and yet most of those type of people I meet are the ones with the most upbeat and positive attitude. Why is that? Surely they are hiding some type of mystical secret that enables them to get through the bad times. Or it could just simply be that being miserable about your circumstances does nothing to improve the situation. I've met a few people also who firmly believe that by having a positive attitude you send forth a positive energy which in turn attract positives energies back to yourself. But I think that even the most upbeat people have their moments of weaknesses. I mean after all they are only human also. It does take effort to keep up that happy perspective on life especially during difficult times. I mean if it was easy then we would all be skipping around with big cheesy grins on our faces. Turning lemons into lemonade is a reminder to ourselves and others that we just need to tweek our perspective a bit. I actually adore this metaphor and try to keep it in my mind during tricky circumstances. It's my way of reminding myself that good things can come out of not so good situations. I'm not perfect here; there have been times I threw this tidbit of inspiration out the window, into the street, and laughed as I watched it get run over by a truck. We know it's always easier said than done; it's the actions and follow through that turns this cute motivational phrase sour.
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Many of us rang in the New Year with family and friends while others enjoyed the festivities in the comfort of their own homes. But one common thread binds us all no matter how we celebrated and that's the feeling of hope and change that the beginning of a New Year brings. We try to leave the hardships of the previous year behind us and move forward with resolutions and optimism. We set goals for ourselves that we believe will improve our health, finances, or relationships. It can almost be compared to hitting the reset button but do these aspirations set us up for failure? Don't get me wrong, having goals is healthy - it motivates us. Some goals, however, are set too high which in turn can have a negative effect. A goal needs to be seen as a ladder with many rungs; it's time consuming and tedious but a sure fire way for achieving success. Think of it this way - a war isn't won by one massive battle but a series of smaller ones. Of course, it's easier said than done. Perseverance seems to be the #1 culprit in sabotaging our desires. I wish I had the magic answer for keeping on track but I believe that when we constantly try to keep the focus on our goals eventually we change our habits and mindset. Dealing with a chronic illness or any other type of an extremely stressful situation does leave behind emotional scars. Some of this scars just do go into hibernation. They continually cause mental suffering on a daily basis. This is true for me. Lately, my emotional scars have decided to play a riveting game of "let's screw with her feeling daily." On a daily basis I experience at least one anxiety/panic attach. And for any of those people out there reading this has had them then they know this just is not a fun game at all. It's fucking horrible. I have to laugh a bit about it though because the whole time I was going through a tornado of doctors, medications, tests, and awful flare-ups I handled it very well emotionally. Now that the waves have stopped crashing and soothed down, that is when my mind decides to go into panic mode. I always thought I have a knack for doing things ass backwards but this one takes the cake.
So many, many people everywhere deal with emotional issues such as depression, maniac behavior, bi-polar, anxiety, and so on. It is an every day battle dealing with those thoughts that just screw up our way of thinking and acting. You even tell yourself to snap out of it but that never works. A lot of people see mental disorders as not a real type of illness because it's all in our heads. Well, guess what? My Devic's Syndrome can't be seen on the outside so is that all in my head too? Mental disorders are far too real and far too dangerous to be left untreated. Now I am not saying medication for mental disorders is a cure all and should be given away like Tic-Tacs. It takes a combination of maybe some medicine, therapy, and daily exercises to re-train your way of thinking. I always said it takes a lot more work to change a frame of mind than the frame of your body. So many of us suffer silently out of shame. But being in complete solitude with our mental illness just makes it worse. We need to start supporting people more with mental disorders. We need to try to understand them better. It's easier to do this if you have gone or are going through it yourself but it is very hard for someone who never had a mental disorder to try to grasp the reality of it. If you know anyone in your own life who shows some signs of something like this please be there for them and try to help them find the help they need. Just one act of kindness could change someone's whole world. You may not be the person who changes the world but you will always be the person who changed that one person's whole world. And that is something glorious! Out of some random curiosity I decided I would do some numbers research on Devic's Syndrome. What I found out nearly made my jaw hit the floor. Only 1-2 per 100,000 people world wide has Devic's Syndrome. Now if my math is correct, which it might not be because I suck in math, that means there are only about 10,000 people in the world that has this disease and I am one of them. 10,000 people out of a world wide population of 7.046 billion. What the hell?! I knew this disease was rare but I never imagined this rare. I can't even try to put that into a percentage because my math skills are very limited. Now let's compare Devic's to its sister disease which is Multiple Sclerosis. Currently there are about 250,000-350,000 people world wide with MS. Plus, studies suggests that 200 new cases are diagnosed each week. Wow! I don't know whether to feel frightened or special. I always liked to stand out from the crowd but I think in this particular situation I would be O.K. with fitting in. I went on this site, myelitis.org, that seems to have a lot of information on Devic's. I happened to stumble across a paragraph of listing symptoms of its flare-ups. I think I made the news and didn't even know it. The site said, in rare cases, persistent hiccupping and vomiting can result from a flare-up. When I had this no medical profession, including my world renowned neurologist, ever heard of this flare-up. Well, let me give my neurologist his credit, he did figure it out way quicker than any other doctor. So I believe somehow I made headlines. Not only do I have a rare disease I also had an even more flare-up from this rare disease. I guess I really do like to make a statement. I am still surprised, even after all this time, whenever I tell a person including medical professionals what I have I always get the confused look. This follows with the normal question of, "What is that?" I start to explain but then find it way easier to just say it kind of like MS then they usually get it. This reaction does not upset or anger me in the least. I find it a golden opportunity to make more people aware of it. If I can bring more attention to it then maybe it will get more research and fundraising efforts for treatments and maybe even a cure. I throw that notion around my head quite a bit of how I can bring more attention to this illness. A fundraiser? A benefit? Hell, a freakin billboard maybe. Well, if you have any ideas please feel free to comment. I could use them. Pass along my website and maybe that will be a start. Word of mouth. Here's a YouTube video I found explaining the science behind the disease. Well, I think a generally agreed statement would be that what is going on with the government shutdown and idiotic and embarrassing. I wouldn't be surprised if the other countries are laughing at us. We are suppose to be this super power. Instead we look like two kids fighting over crayons.
I see some posts on my facebook and how they side with the Republicans and say it's all the Democrats fault. Then I see posts that side with the Democrats and say its all the Republicans fault. I think this embarrassing tug of war is a reflection of ourselves. Politicians are human after all, and I use the word "human" loosely. I think we need someone like Bill Gates or Donald Trump to handle the country's budget. At least they know what the hell they are doing. I don't know if I fit into either two sides. I think I the one that fits in the middle and is just pissed off. You know, if we normal people had a credit card, skipping payments, and still asking them to raise the limit, well you know what would happen. They would stop the credit card and have collection agencies stalking us. So please let's just keep borrowing from China or whoever and be completely in debt to them. Hey maybe they can use our middle class trick of opening another line of credit to another country to pay off the first one. Or they can get the thumbs out of their asses and actually come up with a solution to lower debts and rise income, and I do not mean new taxes. Hey we are taxed so much that I can actually feel a suction of a vacuum come out of my check before it's even in my hand. All this money we spend on salaries of stupid congressman when we could be paying experts on this matter. Real experts. Opinions anyone????? |
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