Spotlight on Stigma... Welcomed but Not Accepted

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