Spotlight on Stigma... Welcomed but Not Accepted

 It's been just over 2 weeks since he died, but was much longer because I wasn't able to talk to him the last couple of months he was alive.  Jack, my sponsor, mentor, officiant of my wedding, and best friend isn't here any more. I've missed him incredibly and today that feeling was increased a thousand-fold. Jack was my biggest encourager of my work. He's the first one (other than family) who really believed in me and both my photography and writing skills. He gave me advice when I asked but didn't continually critique my work. He told me stories of his own professional experience and others he knew in similar fields. But mostly, Jack listened to me. He was the one I could always call when I was having a bad day or something was really going wrong.  I can't remember when we first shared the phrase "the sh*t-truck just dumped another load in my driveway," but it became an ongoing joke as well as a phrase I would use if my call was an SOS. The first...

Today is December 1, 2024.  Thanksgiving was this past week. After an almost-full-blown panic attack, I made it to my family gathering and did okay. Otherwise, this week hasn't been that eventful. Work is slim this time of year so at least I didn't have a lot of commitments I had to fulfill. I'm thankful because I also wasn't feeling well. Part of the reason I wasn't feeling well was that this past Sunday morning my sponsor, mentor, and one of my best friends, Jack, passed away. I knew he was in the hospital but he didn't want any visitors so he wouldn't tell me where he was. He quickly became too weak to talk or text though I was pretty sure he wouldn't make it, when I got a voicemail from his brother-in-law, it was still a shock. I've been crying off and on all week. I miss him terribly. That loss, combined with the upcoming holidays (with very, very limited resources and energy for gifts, decorating, and Christmas activities), my back getting wors...

(Before I start, I want you to know that I do realize there's a better way to refer to the homeless now, but, for the life of me, I can't remember what it is. I'll update this if I ever think of it.) There is a lot of controversy over what to do about the homeless population. Some say to not give them money because it just fuels their addictions. Others say that it's the Christian thing to do - to help those in need. I have been torn between the two - at times doing one and sometimes the other. But there's nothing like having a situation like this get personal for it to change your perspective... One of my nephews has a few mental health issues - the kind that make living a typical life almost impossible. He's incredibly smart and had an incredible future ahead of him before all this happened.  He had an episode before he was diagnosed where he was violent. This kid (I still think that though he's almost 30) is one of the most tranquil, laid-back individuals...

If you have read this blog for any length of time, you know that I'm all over the place. Topics for posts vary from true stigmas to random thoughts I have about life. So, you shouldn't be surprised that seemingly out of the blue I'm writing a post about a well-known, but only partially loved, book in the Old Testament. You also shouldn't be surprised that I'm extremely honest about how I feel concerning a topic - even when it's against what many believe. Let me 'splain... First, some background. I have a friend who was an acquaintance but with whom recently I've gotten to know better. She has a podcast called "Meet Me in Isaiah." According to its Facebook page, this podcast's main message is to "share the Good News of Jesus Christ by creatively promoting Isaiah 53. Written about 700 years before Jesus' birth, Isaiah 53 is a precise and concise description of Who He is and what He did for us."   Here's part 1 of the honesty...

This week I was reminded about a principle integral to Christianity, addiction recovery, and almost any type of counseling currently offered. That principle is gratefulness. Today has been a rough day. A lot has gone wrong - but a lot has also gone right. When things were going wrong this morning my husband joked and called me a pessimist.  He was right. So I set out to prove him wrong and proceeded to turn all of the things that went wrong for the rest of the day into something I could be grateful for.  But what do you do when you have a fight with that same man and then it suddenly feels like there's absolutely nothing to be grateful for no matter how hard you try and no matter how you felt just an hour or two earlier? It took me a while, but then it just hit me like a ton of bricks (ouch!)... ...I need to be grateful anyway. I'm still mad at him. I'm still hurt by what started it. I still don't know how to get through the rest of the evening processing these feelin...

Judgement. Something that I completely hate that others do. In fact, the premise of this blog is to counteract the judgement that so many feel towards those with invisible illnesses - and the judgement that is felt by those individuals. However, judgement is an aspect of my life that I hate, but have a hard time overcoming. (See my 9.16.19 post about this: https://www.spotlightonstigma.com/2019/09/judging.html.)  I judge so much - I judge the food I eat; I judge the work I've done; I judge how I act (and how much I fail). After all, I'm not only the most important peson in the world, I'm always right. (God, forgive me!) In case this is your first post, something you need to know is that I deal with bipolar type 2 as well as having other mental health issues. One of the effects of all this is latching onto a topic and not letting go until I've completely exhausted learning about it. YouTube is my best friend in this pursuit (or my worst enemy, depending on your perspecti...

Note: If you want to read the background on how I got to this realization, find and read my post titled "Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD), Part 1." So... to pick up where I left off, the thrush and gastroperesis were gone but my taste buds never came back completely. I was able to eat a greater variety of foods but there are still some that still don't taste right 6 months since I stopped the treatment. The worst ones are chocolate, anything tomato based (ketchup, salsa, pasta sauce...), some ways chicken is prepared, and potatoes. Do you know how many foods are made with one of those things? I didn't realize until this happened.  The first time I braved going out to eat, I insisted on going to a Chinese buffet. There were too many foods I didn't like and I didn't want to buy a meal (a splurge right now because we still haven't gotten caught up from the months of Dad's illness, death and my illnesses) that I wouldn't be able to eat. At a buffet I cou...

I've known I have an eating disorder for about 5-6 years now. I've had weight issues my whole life and knew I wasn't "normal." After analyzing it more, I feel I was born with it - or got it very soon after.  It was an essay I found in my baby book that proved that I haven't been a typical eater since I was a toddler. My older brother (nine years older) had a class assignment where he wrote about his "My Red-headed Little Sissy." This was when I was about 2 years old. One of the main points he had was how if someone went to the kitchen, I "burned the soles off my shoes" getting to the kitchen in case someone was eating. That's just not normal. However, I didn't know that someone overweight could have an eating disorder - I had the stereotypical perception of an eating disorder as someone who starved, threw up, and/or excessively exercised until my daughter, also overweight, was diagnosed with one (I can't remember the exact name ...

As someone with depression, anxiety, bipolar, and many physical issues, it's easy to get discouraged. It's easy to feel like nothing is going right, that no matter how hard I work, I'm never going to really be able to make this work. So one day I took an idea a friend had and morphed it into my accomplishment boards. I bought a big magnetic whiteboard, one with a nice black wooden frame. On it I put credentials I had obtained, programs from events I shot and/or covered, tickets that were complimentary because of doing an article on someone, and similar items. At first, it felt like it was futile. There wasn't much to put on there. There was a lot of white showing. Then it started filling up. I had to layer items. I had to put multiple lanyards with credentials on hooks. I had to take some of the less noteworthy items off. I decided to buy another matching whiteboard.  I divided my stacked items and placed them on the second display. Once again there was a lot of white s...

This is my story about eye floaters. It's one of those things that some would chalk up to circumstance... I feel it's God who led to me to a doctor who could fix something that was not only a big annoyance, but interfered with work and life. I'm a photographer and a writer. My eyes are really important to me. Visual acuity is important to me. Not seeing things that aren't there is also important to me. Rewind back to Christmas Eve 2022. I wasn't feeling well (it turns out I had the flu and was in the hotel room all day instead of hanging out with my husband's family) but I just thought I was tired at the time. I started seeing flashes of light in my peripheral vision of my left eye. I sometimes have visual migraines, so I thought it had to do with that, even though this wasn't what typically happens to me with a migraine. I took some ibuprofen and tried to rest - and not worry. After a while, when my anxiety started ramping up about what was going on, I did ...

 Tonight I did something that I haven't done in YEARS - playing a keyboard. Back in the day (when I walked 5 miles in the snow to and from school - uphill both ways) I was pretty good at keyboard. I took piano for about seven years as a child but never really played after my last lesson. But I was good at complimenting the instuments in the worship teams I played with. I played filler strings, low bass, etc. I also played rhythm acoustic guitar or sometimes filler there too. Kind of like the keyboard, I had my niche and I didn't sway from it. I didn't play an electric guitar; I didn't play lead.  I wasn't great at it, but I was pretty darn good at those things. Playing with worship teams was part of my identity. In fact, the email address I concocted with the help of a friend was based on my love of guitar: harpofworship. It was based on the fact that a harp is just a more elaborate stringed instrument than a guitar. Years passed... The churches I went to either die...

As always, I can't ever believe it when I once again get back to this blog, months have passed. I need to get past the need to apologize, but it's a compulsion.  So, I'm sorry it's been so long. And, like I always say, I'll try harder to post more consistently. (But both you know and I know that this won't happen.😏) If you aren't a regular reader of this blog, go back and look up my "No Longer Afraid" posts. There are four parts: part 1, part 2, part 3a and part 3b. You'll need that background to understand what I'm writing here. Okay... so it's been over a year since I wrote those posts, sharing what happened in the hardest time of my life and admitting/confessing what I did to cause it all.  I finished the first post of that series with these words: "I'm finally free." I'm still free, but I'm still human. The anxiety/fear still rears its ugly head on a regular basis. There are a lot of issues where I still have...

See "Tips for Living in a Tiny Space (NOT a Tiny Home), Part 1 - The Backstory" for the backstory.  Now... drum roll please... Here are the actual tips. ******************************************************************************** Organization is one of the keys. I have gotten multiple sizes and shapes of containers through the years. I ramped that up with a lot of  Dollar Tree and Amazon shopping to find specific items needed to make the best use of every available space I have. Having two incomes didn’t mean I wasn’t going to try to save money every way I could so I buy sodas in bulk when they are on sale. However, I needed places to keep them. One day I realized I had a little bit of space (about a foot) to the left of the fridge where I kept TV trays. They were rarely used, so I found a shelf that could hold soda 12-packs. I used paper trays on two shelves to put paper plates and bowls and included a basket on the top for chips. -          It’s ...