Tag Archives: Mental Health

Everyday Inspiration; Day 4: A Story in a Single Image

Posted on by Gertie

This image doesn’t inspire me to “write a story” but it does inspire me keep doing what I am doing when it comes to keeping myself both mentally and physically healthy. When I first saw this image I am inspired to go out and enjoy nature especially since I live in the beautiful Pacific Northwest. For me this image inspires me to make plans to do what I enjoy especially since it is summer and easy to do the things I enjoy in nature.

In fact this image reminded me of the plans I already have planned to do with friends. Plans to go do a day hike every week with friends who like to do day trips but no time do go on multi-day trips to go camping. I also have plan to go on two camping trips with friends and we plan on going hiking then.  Going camping and/or hiking helps me a great deal. It helps me get into nature so I can connect to nature.

I live in the city. In fact the city I live in is Seattle. Yes, it is easy to connect with nature in Seattle due to all the awesome parks we have but going out to the middle of the forest connects you to nature that city parks can not do. So, for me going hiking and/or camping helps me connect with nature. Being in nature helps me reconnect to what is important to me and my recovery with mental health challenges. Its like a type of therapy for me.

Even though I already have plans to go camping twice this summer and weekly hiking trips, I am wanting to make plans with fellow peer counselors. Plans to at least go for a day hike. I think after this post I will reach out to fellow peer counselors to see if at least a handful of us would be able to schedule at least a day hike. So this image inspired me to get people together to at least do a day hike.

I don’t have much more to say in this post. I do want to thank you for reading my blog. It is greatly appreciated from my end of things. Peace Out, World!!!

A Random Sunday Evening Post

Posted on by Gertie

Good Evening, World!!! It is yet another Sunday evening in my corner of the world. I have not really done much today. I am not sure why I have not done much but am grateful that it has been a lazy day for me as it seemed like it was something I needed.

I may have not done much today but I have been productive in little ways today. I did go with a friend who happens to be a neighbor to a local Catholic church to have a free meal. There is Catholic church in my neighborhood that puts on a free meal for homeless and low income people every Sunday afternoon. The cool thing about this meal is that it is not a requirement to go a church service to be able to eat the meal like it is at some other churches around the area. The other cool thing is that this particular Catholic church has been doing this free church for over forty years and there a couple of volunteers that have been volunteering since the church started doing the free meals. In fact many of the volunteers have been volunteering more that twenty years. I think it is extremely cool that people are willing to help low income and homeless individuals. I am grateful to be able to attend this free meal every Sunday with friends who live in my apartment building. This one free meal a week helps me a great deal to save money. Money that I need for other things.

Speaking of money and before I go on to the other semi productive things I have done today, I want to remind you my reader of something. As you might be aware of is that I have advertisements on my blog. Yes, I am well aware of how annoying they are but every time one is clicked on that fully loads I make a cent or two from you just clicking on it. The only way I get paid is when it accumulates to a hundred dollars. I am now on my second round of trying to accumulating one hundred dollars as I finally hit one hundred dollars last month (June). So, it will be highly appreciative if you could click on advertisements so I can make money. I hope to get to another one hundred dollars by the end of November so I can buy holiday presents for family and friends.

Okay, enough with my begging for you to click on to the annoying advertisements for me to earn money and on to what else I have done today. After getting home from the free lunch at the Catholic church I spent the rest of the day doing art and listening to a podcast about philosophy. The type of art I did was coloring a poster for my therapist and painting something for a friend. I listened to a podcast about philosophy because I am really getting into the subject and love learning about it. I am grateful that I am into philosophy and learning about it as do my art work. Being able to learn as I do something creative is always a good thing for me even if some don’t consider it as being productive.

I do not have much more to say without repeating myself so I am going to end this blog post. I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for reading my blog. It is greatly appreciative from my end of things. Again, I want to thank you for reading my blog. I hope everyone enjoys the rest of their Sunday evening. Peace Out, World!!!

Everyday Inspiration; Day 3: One-Word Inspiration; Hope

Posted on by Gertie

HOPE:

NOUN:

1) A feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen.

2) A feeling of trust.

VERB:

1) Want something to happen or be the case.

“Hope” is the word I chose to give me some inspiration to write about for my “assignment” for Finding Everyday Inspiration. I have chosen hope mainly because if it wasn’t for hope I wouldn’t have chosen to be in active recovery. If I didn’t choose to be in recovery, I wouldn’t have gone into an intensive outpatient Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) program and become the person I am today. Granted, I am not in the best of places at the moment regarding my mental health however I am in a better place than I was in when I started being in active recovery. Then again I have a better grasp on reality and have more hope and holding on to that hope. If it wasn’t for hope I don’t think I would be alive and am grateful that I have hope.

Hope is something I hold on to like it’s going out of style. I want to thank you for reading my blog. It is greatly appreciated from my end of things. Peace Out, World!!!

Plans for a Simple Saturday

Posted on by Gertie

Good Afternoon, World!!! I didn’t sleep last night and ended up falling asleep at around dawn and then woke up around twelve noon in my corner of the world. I really wish I didn’t have insomnia as it doesn’t help me living a productive life and a life worth living.

My plans for today are simple as I know myself all too well. With me knowing myself all too well means that having simple plans for today will help me with dealing whatever may come my way. I am pretty much planning on staying home and being a hermit. Being a hermit can be a good every now and then for me.

Part of me being hermit today means, I get to spend time with my cat, Lil Gertie. It is always a good thing being able to spend time with my cat. I enjoy being able to cuddle with her. In fact the I enjoy that she sits on my chest or lap because it puts me into a good state of mind. Being in a good state of mind helps me with making wise mind decisions.

Another thing I plan on doing while being a hermit today is some art work. The type of art work I plan on doing is both coloring and painting. I plan on doing both types of genres is because there will be points in time while I need to have the paint dry before adding to the art work so this is where the coloring comes in. I am thinking I might even add some collaging to my paintings but it is dependent on how the paintings come out.

As I do some art work, I will be listening to podcast. I will be listening to two different podcast. One on philosophy and the other on mythology. I find both subjects are fascinating to me and tend to have some very cool similarities.  Similarities I will share in another post sometime soon after I educate myself more on both subjects. One of the cool things I do after listening to any episode of a podcast, I look up the information that was discussed and I feel like this helps me educate myself on the subject. Ultimately educating myself helps me with communication skills.

How does educating myself help with my communication skills, you ask. It helps with my communication skills because I now have new things to discuss with other people. Being able to discuss new things with people helps build relationships. Relationships that could be a good thing for someone like me who struggles with isolation.

I do not have much more to say in this blog post. I need to go eat something so I am going to end this blog post. Before I end this blog post I want to thank you for reading my blog. It is greatly appreciated from my end of things. Again, thank you for reading my blog. I hope everyone enjoys their weekend. Peace Out, World!!!

Everyday Inspiration; Day 2: Write a List; Things I’ve Learned

Posted on by Gertie

Things I’ve Learned and Why I Learned Them

  • To play the flute; I learned to play the flute in elementary school. I started out playing the trombone but my arm was too short even with an extension so my best friend talked me into playing the flute.
  • DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy) Skills; I needed to learn DBT skills for the reason that I didn’t learn good coping skills growing up and DBT skills helped me learn better ways to cope with everyday situations as well as how to deal with the symptoms of my mental health diagnosis. In fact learning DBT skills is what helped start my recovery with mental health challenges.
  • Painting: I love art and one of my neighbors is teaching me to paint. He started teaching me to paint when he found out that I enjoy coloring as well as collaging.
  • Philosophy: I have found a new love passion about philosophy and have learned a great deal over the last few months. I started learning about philosophy while listening to a podcast when the podcast was suggested to me. After each episode I then do my own research on what was discussed in the episode. In fact I am still learning about philosophy.

Everyday Inspiration; Day 1: I Write Because…

Posted on by Gertie

I write for several reasons. Reasons that are personal to me in which I will share with you. I started my blog for several reasons. Reasons that I have mentioned many times before and will share with you again in this post and most likely again in future post.

I originally started blogging for two reasons. The first reason was and continues to educate those who do not live with a mental health challenge in hopes to help end the stigma for those who have a mental health diagnosis as well as to show those who do not have one that we who do have one can live productive lives. The second reason why is to give people who do live with a mental health challenge that there is hope and that recovery is possible. Hope is one of the things that is needed for those who live with a challenge and it my hope that I can be a beacon of hope to those who are struggling.

Little did I know when I started blogging that it would be helpful to me. Helpful in ways I never imagined and am beyond grateful for. Blogging has helped realize how to find a voice that I didn’t realize I had. It helped me find life long friends. Blogging has been a type of therapy for me. It also helped me an advocate for others as well as myself.

So as you can see blogging about mental health is why I write. I continue to write on my blog because of you my reader, my audience. If it wasn’t for you I don’t think I would continue to to blog.

I don’t have much more to write about on this post as I feel like I got straight to the point. I want to thank you may audience for reading my blog. If it weren’t for you I wouldn’t be writing. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Peace Out, World!!!

Happy Independence Day

Posted on by Gertie

Happy Fourth of July, America (and World)!!! Today is Independence Day here in the United States of America. Since it is Independence Day here in the United States which is fondly called the Fourth of July, many people are spending it by celebrating.

For me, celebrating the fourth isn’t what it use to be. Mainly because I worked retail for ten years and I feel like it is too commercialized. Don’t get me wrong I still celebrate it but not like the way I use to especially as a child. Today, I went to a barbecue a friend put on around lunch time. I enjoyed being surrounded by friends and eating food with them for lunch. I was invited to stay but I declined as I had made other plans with some of my neighbors. Neighbors that have become friends. In fact a couple of these neighbors are barbecuing dinner as I write this blog post. I donated meat for this barbecue. After eating we are going to play some board games and then go to the roof of our building to watch the fireworks.

As far as the fireworks go, I don’t think my cat, Lil Gertie, will react to them as she seemed pretty chill last night when someone was light off fireworks in front of our building. I love my cat so much and if I think she would react I would give her some of her anxiety meds. I am grateful that I have had pets throughout my life that didn’t seem to be affected by fireworks. I do know that many pets have issues with the noise as well as the brightness of fireworks. As far as my pet cat, Lil Gertie, I am preparing a “safe place” for her as a precaution. Her safe place is usually my bedroom and bathroom with treats and her favorite toys.

I don’t have much more to say. I should really go and help my neighbors with the barbecue. I want to thank you all for reading my blog as it is greatly appreciated from my end of things. I hope everyone has great day and for those who live in the United States, please enjoy your Fourth of July and stay safe. Again, thank you for reading my blog. You are all awesome in my eyes. Peace Out, World!!!

A Random Wednesday Post

Posted on by Gertie

Good Afternoon, World!!! I am struggling at the moment with writing my resignation letter for work. I am not sure why I am struggling with writing it as I have written one before. I am think I am struggling with it because I have some pretty awesome colleagues, a supervisor that is extremely supportive and I do enjoy what I do. The main reason I am resigning is because its an on-call position that is a twelve hour over night shift. I think if I had a regular schedule that the twelve hour night shift wouldn’t be so bad. The job schedule is affecting my mental health and that is not a good thing for me.

As much as I am dreading writing my resignation letter for work, I am looking forward to the free blogging courses I will be taking through WordPress. I signed up for three courses and have taken all three of them before. The courses I signed up for are Finding Everyday Inspiration, which is a twenty day course, Developing Your Eye 1 which is a ten day course and Intro to Poetry which is a ten day course. I am not sure if I am going do them consecutively or at the same time. I’m thinking I will do Finding Everyday Inspiration as I do one of the other courses at the same time and when finished with one I’ll do the other since two of them are ten days each. But at this point in time I am not exactly sure how I am going to work the courses.

I do not have much more to say. I do want to thank you for reading my blog as it is greatly appreciated from my end of things. I hope everyone has a great day. Peace Out, World!!!

Improving My Blogging Skills

Posted on by Gertie

Good Morning, World!!! It is five o’clock in the morning in my corner of the world and I still have not been to sleep yet which is extremely frustrating. As frustrating as it is to not be able to sleep due to insomnia, it does have its pros. Granted there are not very many pros to having insomnia or not being able to sleep but there are some. One of those pros to having insomnia is being able to think of ways to be creative and/or do things when you are not able to sleep or even to do during “normal” waking hours. One of those things that I could do and will do is to improve my blogging skills. You may ask how I will do this and the answer is that WordPress offers free courses on blogging. The three that I have chosen, I have done before and really enjoyed participating in them. I am not sure I will being doing the courses concurrently or back to back. Two of the courses are ten days long and on is twenty days long so I could technically do both concurrently and back to back if I do the twenty day course while I do one ten day course and when that one is finished I can do the next ten day course. I guess, I will figure out how I am going in regards to the courses I am going to take.

I guess you are wondering what courses I am going to be taking to improve my blogging skills. I will tell you what courses I will be taking and why I am taking them and what I hope to learn from each course. The twenty day course I am signed up for is “Finding Everyday Inspiration” and for this course I hope to not only be inspired to write daily but to be inspired to write about the things I experience in this world or even things that can inspire others.  The other course I am taking is a photography course called “Developing Your Eye.” In this course I hope to learn a different form of art through photography and being show you how I see the world around me with the picture I take and share with you. The third course I signed up for is “Intro to Poetry”  and I hope to learn different way to write a poem and hope that I can create poetry to share with you my reader and the rest of the world.

It is my hope that signing up for these three course that it will help me build some structure in my life. Structure that will become more of a routine for me. Building structure and routine with blogging will ultimately help me with my blog as well as having set times on when I will blog and not have it feel like a chore. There have been times where blogging felt more like a chore than anything and am wanting to have fun with my blog with creating some form of structure with it and think this is a good way to start building the structure I need for my life personally as well as  for my blog. I hope this paragraph makes some sense. If no, I hope you my reader will let me know.

I really don’t have much more to say about this. I just hope you my reader will continue to read what I have to say. I want to thank you for reading my blog. It is greatly appreciated from my end of things. So thank you for reading my blog. Have a good Tuesday everyone. Peace Out, World!!!

Sleepless In Seattle

Posted on by Gertie

Good Morning, World!!! It appears that I am Sleepless in Seattle. I really hate not being able to sleep. Being able to sleep would be nice and sadly the medicine I am taking is not helping. I don’t think the Ambien is taking effect yet because I don’t think I am acting goofy at the moment. I just want to go to sleep and have a good night of sleep but sometimes all I get is Sleepless in Seattle. Oh well. At least I know I am not the only one Sleepless in Seattle.

I think I am going to get going. I am going to go try to get some sleep. I hope everyone has a good day. Good Night and Peace Out, World!!!