Myself, a Mystery

Do I know myself? 

I know what I like. I like dancing to upbeat music. I like trying new hobbies and foods. I like packages arriving on my doorstep. I like change in weather and pace. 

I know what sets me off. I hate when people offer help they know they will never give. I hate when people listen half heartedly. I hate doing the same housework over and over again. 

 I get bored easily. I'm honest. I'm impatient in a patient way. 

Despite all these things I know about myself, I'm still a mystery. I don't really know the extremes of who I am. I don't know what would make me happiest. I don't know what would force me off a ledge. We are all so very complex and we may never truly know the whole soul inside our bones. 

10 Steps to Being a Best Friend to Yourself

1. Stay in contact

For your friendship to work you need to get to know yourself. Take time frequently to notice what you have being doing lately. What you'd like to be doing. How you've been feeling. Write it down so you can remember where you've been and plan where your going. 

2. Make joy happen

The best friends listen and watch you to discover what will make you feel joy and then they act on it. They are the friends who drop by with a Coke. They are the ones who ask you to go on a walk. They are the ones who send you an encouraging message. Notice what you need and give it to yourself. 

3. Make your birthday a big deal

You made it another year. Likely that year had some rough patches. Celebrate your resilience and endurance. You are the most special and important person in your world. Don't let your birthday go by without cake, presents, and dancing!

4. Compliment yourself

You know how you stand in front of the mirror and frown at your belly fat? How you scold yourself for not doing more fun things with your kids? Stop that! Friends don't nit pick. When you stand in front of the mirror, find something nice to say. If you can't, then don't say anything to yourself. Or say "I completely love and accept myself even though _______. 

5. Write yourself notes

There is not anything that is a better pick me up than someone cheering you on or saying something nice to you. Be that person. Write one of your compliments from step four and put it somewhere your likely to feel stressed. 

6. Feed yourself

I know your busy but it's important to find a moment to give yourself the nutrition you need. You wouldn't let a friend starve themself. If you knew a friend didn't ever get lunch you would take her lunch. Do the same for yourself. 

7. Know your goals and help yourself achieve them.

Let's say your goal is to lose weight. Would it be the right thing to do to bake 3 dozen cookies? No. You cannot lose weight by eating cookies. You can help yourself lose weight by determining how many calories you need to consume per day to do so and then sticking to the plan. Make your environment conducive to success. Don't sabotage yourself. 

8. Make yourself laugh

Watch silly Youtube videos. Surround yourself by comedic people. Watch funny movies. For your mental health's sake, don't let things get too serious. 

9. Take yourself on dates

When you get some time off work or away from your kids, take yourself somewhere you'd enjoy. A restaurant, a book store, Target, the makeup department, a concert. It's important to reward yourself with a good time or you'll get burned out. 

10. Smile

When you see yourself, smile! When your driving your car, smile! When you you want to cry, cry... but then smile! You are the only one who can make your life happy. And happiness starts with a smile. 

Sharing Time

Each of us has our own little world thoughts and happenings that we would not normally bring up to someone when they ask us "What's up?" We stick to the safe topics. "Oh nothing much. Husband just finished a big presentation. We are glad that's over. We have a couple birthdays coming up in the family. Trying to decide how we'd like to celebrate them. What's up with you?" There is so much that reply does not include. I think what's not included in the reply deserves an audience. Those bits that aren't included are the really interesting things. Its the stuff that makes up our mood and our overall satisfaction with life at present. That's why blogs are so important. They give us a place to share our real responses and get real responses in return. So lets be real with each other. I'll share my real response to "What's up?" and you share yours.
You: What's up Melanie?
Me: Last Christmas my mother-in-law gave my daughter The World's Biggest Candy Bar. There was pounds and pounds of chocolate. That thing could have sat around for years, but I recently started to grate it and bake just in the name of getting rid of that thing. I add the chocolate to cookies and breads.  Unfortunately, every time I bake, I lose control and binge pretty bad. I'm worried that I have no self control and am going to really pay for it someday. I don't want to get unhealthy and I feel like I won't continue to be lucky forever. I feel like I'm either binging or not eating much every day. I have no moderation. I feel like a bad dog who's hopped on the table and ate the roast.
I am also losing the hold on my spending control the past month or two or three. Zulily is the worst site ever. I keep deleting it, but then I tell myself I will just browse and add the app again. I humiliate myself. Sometimes I make it a while because I don't find anything that I particularly care for, but when I find something I can't say no to myself. I say that we really need these kids clothes that I'm buying, but truthfully how can a 4 year old need that many frilly tanks? And besides I know that the quality of some of their stuff really isn't that great and I still keep wasting money. I worry that there is something wrong with me sometimes.
I grew my first white hair. It made me look at my current standing and realize I'm not doing anything I'm really proud of. I know I'm raising little kids, but I'm not doing that so gracefully. I'm so bored that I cannot focus on doing a good job with them many times and I have nothing going on right now beyond that. If you take away the kids I wouldn't be much.
Despite all this, I'm holding up really well. I'm not mopey. I've been getting more things done lately thanks to Abilify. I'm happier but also restless. I think I'm going to be okay as long as I can get control of myself and use my inability to sit for something positive.

Your turn!!!!!

What's up with you? I've made myself vulnerable here. Please don't read and ditch. Share with me.

NaBloPoMo: Have you ever been part of a group blog?

While my husband was in his studying years of medical school, I started a blog for me and all the medical wives that lived in our townhome complex. It was really fun. People used it to let each other know about happenings, to give away or sell things, or just talk about the disgusting bugs that lived around us. It was a good experience.

NaBloPoMo: Do you share too much on your blog? Too you hold back too much?

What is too much?
Do I share things that are too personal? Only I can decide what's too personal. I know a lot of people don't like to share their feelings publicly, so for them what I write might be too personal. But for me its not. Before I hit publish I imagine people reading my post and notice whether or not that makes me uncomfortable. If it does, I don't publish.

Do I hold back too much?
I use this blog like a therapist. When your in therapy you don't hold back. You say your whole truth. But even I know that there are times when you should hold back even when it would feel so good not to. The thing that I am most tempted to blog about, that I know would be great therapy for me, is my relationship with my husband.  He is in a medical residency and is exhausted all the time. I get really frustrated and am tempted to vent. But I know relationships are delicate. You can say something to your spouse that you regret and they may forgive you. But when you say something about that relationship to the world on the internet, whether or not the subject reads it, it sticks. It injects poison. There is no going back from that. So no, I don't hold back too much. Holding back is right.

NaBloPoMo: Do you think you'll be blogging in 10 years?

No. I think blogging as we know it will be extinct and something better will take its place. Do I think I'll still be writing? Absolutely. Hopefully I will have written something I'm really proud of by then too. 

Lame response today. Just not feeling this question and I'm having a conversation with a three year old at the same time I'm trying to write. Baby Lizzie has a fever and it might not be a free time kind of night later. 

NaBloPoMo: How has blogging changed my life?

I first blogged on January 17, 2008. At that time my husband was in his first year of medical school which meant he studied a lot of the time that he wasn't at school. I was lonely and bored and feeling lost. I was a thousand or so miles away from any family. I was living in a townhome community full of fellow medical student families that I was having trouble relating too. A lot of the ladies around me had blogs too.  They updated their families with pictures and were really very adorable with their posts about what they'd been up to. I intended on finding happiness on my blog that same way.
My first post I basically stated that I was starting the blog. My second post was a romantic recollection of my husband and I reuniting after he spent 6 weeks at military officers boot camp. It was so fun to write. The posts that followed were about Iowa sunsets, the state fair, and Twilight. I really enjoyed sharing them as well. I was appearing to others to be happy and enjoying life.
Then came Antidepressant Withdrawal Hell . My blog went from sharing just a piece of me to sharing my soul. I became a more authentic me. It was my own personal coming out of the closet. People responded to that post where they hadn't as well with the others.  I felt seen and heard. I have been able continue sharing that authentic me through my blogs. No matter that I've moved around, some of the same people are still "seeing" me. I can share a deeper me, whenever I need to, whether or not there is anyone around to acknowledge me. Blogging saves my life.... and probably my husband's. Blogging has given me a pseudo-friend who is always available and that has changed everything.