honesty trumps stigma

I WANT ALL OF THESE
pic clicks out to way more pink mug stuff
I especially like 'live what you love', 'prove them crazy wrong', and 'make it happen'

I'm actually back up to my 2 extra large cups of coffee every morning. I was doing really well cutting back for about a week and I guess just hit a big ol' rebound over the last few days while I was juggling a few eggs and chainsaws. One of those sucker punch weekends on all fronts, and today feels like the 3rd Monday in a row kind of thing.

So I really went there yesterday, not a clue for hours that it was #WorldMentalHealthDay, lol.

I grew up in a world of stigma and have seen all the nasty things it can do to relationships and self worth. Inserting stigma into any convo is the fastest way in the world to sabotage, using stigma in social structure is the surest way to mass control.

Fuck stigma. I don't care who thinks or says what about me any more, and I'm going to keep saying honesty and transparency are the path to healing, from micro to macro. Everyone benefits from this point of view.

If you want to stay trapped in stigma (and bless your hearts, I know it is so hard), then realize that you make the conscious choice to allow others to victimize, harass, and emotionally (sometimes physically) rip you. Yes, I know that simply deciding to flip to the other side of the coin doesn't solve all the problems, but like I've been saying in public blogs since 2008- MAKE A PLAN.

Who are you?
Who do you want to be?
How do you get what you want?
What small steps will it take in between the bigger stepping stones to reach your destination?

Social mapping is foreign to me. I suck at understanding human interaction. That doesn't mean I can't learn to navigate the choppy waters, lurking undercurrents, and deadly rocks jutting up from below. I don't have to be shipwrecked because of a rock I didn't see coming. I don't have to stay beached in a place I never wanted to be. I don't have to be sucked into a downdraft and drown because someone else is oblivious or mean.

And I don't have to be mean about it myself. All I gotta do is walk away from it, float over the top of it, steer around it, and keep sailing to where I want to go with my life.

For some people this will mean literally leaving families. For others this means simply adjusting schedules. Any change is always disruptive, and sometimes our comfort zones are deep ruts carved into dysfunctional relationships for reasons. Could be money, could be physical or mental handicaps, could be anything. But tiny incremental small changes over time add up to big changes you never dreamed you could make happen.

I've spent the last 5 years blogging my way through small stepping away from hopeless helpless despair because I wanted to. I had an idea I believed (desperately hoped) could work, and yes, it's working even way better than I ever imagined. I put together my own care team, I put together a plan with clearly defined goals, and I asked for my care team to help me. This care team includes

• primary care physician
• chiropractor
• psychologist
• endocrinologist
• gynocologist
• neurologist
• psychiatrist
• physical therapy team
• massage therapy person

I sought out all those people (and my family) and told them they are part of my team, and that they would all know all the things all the rest do. They all have input, and therefore I've been able to successfully stay off meds that exacerbate problems. My favorite is the neurologist wanting me back on amitriptyline for nerve pain and my psychiatrist letting me know that would make anything mood related much worse. In the past I floundered through so much confusion with only one doctor trying to handle all my stuff, and wound up so miserable and sick all the time that I literally crumbled into immobility and loss of function. Her abruptly abandoning her practice for hospital work and leaving me dangling for 4 months set me on a path that ultimately saved my life.

I crawled my way back out of that, I'm honest with all my people about all my things, I ask for very specific help with reasons why and what I hope to get out of it, and they are more than happy to help me. No more confused wandering through a health care system for me, thanx.

I am #aspienado. I know who I am, what I want, and where I'm going, and I hope to be good for other people so that my life won't feel wasted at the end of it. The legal diagnoses I listed in my last post don't mean I can't make decisions about my own health care (including mental health). Yes, I deal with a mountain of stuff, but that doesn't mean I am incapable of seeking out advice and making educated decisions about how to go forward into making my life better, and I trust my team to guide me through what I don't yet understand.

The most important thing I ever did in my life was learn to ask others for help. I don't instinctively trust anyone, and I'm super fail at reading people, so that was hard. In order to get good help, I put together lists of questions I needed answers to, and I learned to keep it simple and focused so that I wouldn't overwhelm anyone, because I really am an overwhelming person when I get going, and often other people don't realize quite where they triggered a mass of confusion in me that tips my world over. It's called the KISS method and I learned it in high school. Keep It Simple, Stupid.

I have to run out the door, laterz.