{My Crazy}

Who am I? And What is this Blog about??

This is a blog about my struggle and even my joys of having mental illness.... it is not a craft blog, or a "lifestyle" blog....it's me!

I am Shannon!  I am 41, a mom, employed in retail merchandising, a wife, a daughter, a sister, an aunt, a cousin, etc... The things most of us are.  I am a long time sufferer of depression, anxiety and ocd.  I am bi-polar 2. I am many things as you can tell.  I am happy, I am sad and in between depending on the date and the situation.  I feel great feelings of joy and great feelings of despair.  I am definitely not a simple personality.    I believe in mental illness as a "real" illness.  I believe that everyone and anyone who is suffering should be afforded the medical help they need to feel better.

I love things that are country, as in decorating, I love my car, a VW beetle convertible, I love my pets, I have 2 dogs, 3 cats and 2 birds. I love making people feel better by offering a kind word or a listening ear.  I love Buddhism, I love what it has taught me about tolerance and living in peace with myself and others.

I hate the stigma attached with mental illness. I hate that people think that because they have never felt the ways I have that it is not "real" that I can just "get over it" and that people should just buck up.  It's annoying. It's angering.  It's ignorant.

I was molested in a church pre-school and then subjected to a rigorous religious experience for my formative years. You can read about it here.  I was a Marine...yes, I was. Funny and strange, never would have thought I was capable of it, but I was!

I have been shy all my life. I started feeling depressed and "not right" around puberty...and not the normal teenage not right.  I would stand in front of the mirror for hours...yes HOURS a day and cry and feel deformed and ugly.  I would lash out in anger at my parents, and people noticed...but they had nothing to suggest except and attitude change.  They put me on birth control pills when I was 15, as a mood stabilizer...uh, yeah....made it WAY WORSE.  I was just a shy child with self esteem issues...  Man, wish the doctors of today had have been around back then.  Maybe I would look back with some amount of enjoyment at my childhood!

I have been on almost every drug you can think of.  And thank God!  Thank God they were there. Whether they helped at the time or not, they led me to the ones that do!!  And believe me, EVERYONE who knows me knows I need them to be any resemblance of what most people consider normal.  Without them I am truly lost. I cannot control the things I feel or how I react to them, I cannot feel normal, I cannot get out of the house, I can't talk to people, I can't control my obsessive compulsive thoughts or actions. I drive people to their own brink of insanity.
...And it took me a LONG time to be able to recognize it and feel ok about it! And be able to talk about it and figure out that this is me, this is MY struggle and I can own it and be in touch with it and manage it and live life!

I am so happy you are here. I hope that my words or those I feature of others inspire you, or make you feel like you aren't alone.  Because....YOU ARE NOT ALONE. I am here, and I am with you in this fight!♥