Per the NIH, prior to the pandemic, 26% of the population of the United States had a diagnosed mental illness. During the pandemic, the estimate was 50% of the population had a mental illness.
Suddenly, people have this idea that they know about mental illness simply because they experienced depression and anxiety. They wear their depression and anxiety as if it were a merit badge.
I have this to say to them: You don’t know anything about mental illness.
Has your health insurer limited the amount of mental health care you can receive? Has your health insurer made the cost of an emergency room visit for a mental health crisis double the cost of an emergency room visit for a physical health crisis. Has your health insurer told you that you need prior authorization in order to go to the emergency room when you have a mental health crisis? Have you panicked after learning Medicare won’t pay anything until you spend $1500.00 out of pocket. And after the out-of-pocket limit has been reached, Medicare has strict limits on what Medicare pays for mental health treatment.
Have you spent days when you couldn’t stop crying and your meds weren’t working? Have you experienced an all-consuming, heavy, black depression? Have you had to go to work every day while you spent three months adjusting to your new meds which are working a whole lot better than your old meds? Have you planned out how, when and where you will kill yourself? Have you had a doctor say you show no sign of depression after you disclosed you want to kill yourself and you brought someone with you to the appointment because you might need someone to stop you from buying a box of bullets on the way home? Have you ever had to ask someone to hide your guns so you couldn’t shoot yourself in the heart?
Has your supervisor, insisted you go back into the closet and never again mention you have a mental illness? Has your supervisor told you that you’re crazy? Has your supervisor dared to tell you that he doesn’t like the medication you are on? Has your supervisor demanded you see a psychiatrist as a condition of your employment? Have you discovered upper management is having private meetings about how your mental health is effecting your employment without ever talking to you? And you accurately determined upper management was looking for a reason to fire you?
Has a psychiatrist ignored your concerns about the side effects of a medication and told you that you’re on a good medication? Has a psychiatrist told you, after you say that the dose of an antidepressant is working well, ignored you and doubled the dose of your medication? Have you tried to tell a psychiatrist that you haven’t slept in two months and the psychiatrist refused to listen to you?
Has anyone literally backed away from you after you disclose you have a mental illness?
Have you had to listen to well-educated professionals say that mentally ill people don’t come to court because they don’t know better? Or say that all the normal people should be let out of jail? Or say that the withdrawal hell that happens after coming off an antidepressant that isn’t working is just the depression coming back? Have you been laughed at by a room full of well-educated professionals after saying that lying on the floor while trying to make the walls stop moving and then dragging yourself to the restroom because you had to throw up isn’t depression?
Have you been told to just snap out of it? Or that your problems are all in your head?
Have you had two psychiatrists and four psychologists fail to diagnose bipolar disorder forcing you to live in mental health hell for 40 years? Have you had three school psychologists decide you were more trouble than you were worth and refuse to treat you?
Have you ever felt the need to tell someone you aren’t violent? Or that you aren’t broken? Or that while your brain works differently from theirs you are still normal?
All of that happened to me.
Until it happens to you, you don’t know anything about mental illness.
I’m having a rough day. There’s no particular reason for it; it’s just part of being bipolar. I have limited energy, but I seem to be manic. Bipolar disorder doesn’t have to make sense, but I have to live with bipolar disorder. Meds help dull the extremes, but they don’t cure bipolar disorder. Bipolar disorder is always with me. Sometimes just under the surface. Sometimes exploding through the surface.
Brady, the Australian labradoodle puppy I have, did something remarkable today. She could smell my distress and instinctively leaned up against me – something psychiatric service dogs are trained to do. Of course a couple hours later, she decorated the kitchen floor with poop and pee. It’s not easy being a puppy. Not easy being the puppy’s human, either.
Good thing Brady didn’t like the doggy wading pool Jim found in the garbage. The pool grew legs the other day. Now, there’s a security camera covering the back of the house.
The sciatica is still hanging around. I’m able to walk farther, but farther is a relative term. It means I can walk out the back door with Brady, so 10 feet to her potty spot, and then come back in the house. I need to exercise. Brady gets separation anxiety whenever I leave the kitchen. She’s not ready yet to have the run of the house so I have to keep her in the kitchen. I’m sure the healing process has stretched out because of how inactive I’ve been.
We seem to be surrounded by randy quail. So far, I’ve counted four batches of day-old baby quail. When I shoot quail, I have to do it through the sliding glass door. As long as the quail aren’t aware of me, they don’t run off. While I would have liked to have my 150-600mm lens on the camera, what was on the camera was my 18-400mm lens. Taking the time to change lenses would have meant missing the shots. I played around with cropping the shot when I was editing. The John Prine fuzz on the baby quail’s head cracks me up.
The original shot. While this is the quail version of Where’s Waldo, it’s easy to see how tiny day-old quail are.
The first crop. Quail are easier to find, but they look bigger than they are in real life.
The second crop. Almost there. There’s more detail, but the edit didn’t seem right.
The third crop.
My Spoonflower order is now about 40 miles away and I likely won’t get my package until Monday. Sigh. I really want to start making undies although my time in the sewing room is limited to when Jim is home. There are too many places in the sewing room where Brady can get into trouble. I’d go into the sewing room, which is off the kitchen, and close the door, but Brady has severe separation anxiety. I’m trying to help her with that, but I don’t seem to have made much progress.
Brady likes to hide out in the pet carrier in the kitchen. I think it’s because it’s dark inside the carrier and she feels safe in her den. She’s not fond of the crate we have for her. I decided to make the crate more den like. I took a sheet, crudely attached the sheet to the crate, and created a darkened den. I put Brady’s toys in her new den. She refuses to go inside the den.
I’ve been playing around with designs that might make interesting fabric. Here’s the latest:
Living with a puppy makes life interesting. Brady has to be by her humans. The sewing room needs to be deep cleaned, but I can’t do that if I’m the only one home. There are way too many places where Brady can hide and leave deposits. Plus, she has only two speeds: Mach III and asleep. Temperatures are hitting 99-104 this week. Brady doesn’t want to be outside when it’s this hot. I suppose if I wore a fur coat, I wouldn’t want to be outside either. Once she has all her shots, I want to get her groomed. I think she would be more comfortable if she has less hair.
Not being able to clean and use the sewing room means binding won’t be put on three quilts and a fourth won’t be quilted. I get spiritually constipated if I don’t make art. Making art without having enough room to make art requires creativity.
I have a sketch book that contains the drawings from a plant taxonomy class I took, reminders for what to put into the novel, and quilt sketches. I’m a multi-media artists, and my sketchbook reflects that.
These are from my plant taxonomy class. I thought they were something I’d never use again until I looked at them today. There are quilts in these.
These are the germination of quilts. Some have been used after some tweaking. Some might never be used.
Ideas for things to put into the novel I’m writing.
I’m still awaiting the arrival of the fabric I ordered from Spoonflower. I took five of my designs, ordered them in a 4-way stretch lycra, and the fabric will be turned into underwear.
I’m also awaiting an order from Nancy’s Notions. The order was placed May 31, and won’t be here until Friday, June 11. Because of the slow shipping, I probably won’t be ordering from Nancy’s Notions again. Pity – I used to love ordering from them.
I had ordered beads fromJL Dream Works https://www.etsy.com/shop/JLDreamWorks?ref=yr_purchases Great service, and the semi-precious gem beads are all good quality and great prices. It’s nice to have another reliable supplier for beads.
I’ve used up all my spoons, and It’s only 11:30 AM
Spoons are a way of explaining energy or lack of energy. If energy is represented by 12 spoons, after all 12 spoons are used, there’s no energy left. No energy to walk around. No energy to cook. No energy to make art. No energy left for anything other than shuffling into the bedroom and taking a nap.
The sciatic problem is becoming less and less each day. With that comes the ability to walk more and more without my walker. That’s the problem. I feel better, so I walk without my walker longer than I should. That’s how I used up all my spoons this morning. The worst was me walking Brady and discovering I was out of spoons. I wasn’t near a door when the spoons were all used up. I leaned against the car, called to Jim to take Brady, then gingerly made my way into the house.
My feet hurt because they are swollen, they are swollen because I’m not active, I’m not active because I have no spoons left. This sucks.
I was hoping to get outside and photograph the yuccas blooming, but that’s no longer possible today because I have no spoons left. I’d have to push the walker up hill. Through sand. While trying to find a large enough distance between cacti that can accommodate the walker. All while trying to keep my camera from knocking against the walker. I’m missing spring.
I got down on the floor yesterday so I could photograph Brady on her level. I shot in RAW only because I had the camera set on RAW when I saw we had day-old baby quail and I wanted to be ready to photograph them. I set the camera to rapid burst. 92 photos, and some were even decent.
Spoons are a way of explaining energy or lack of energy. If energy is represented by 12 spoons, after all 12 spoons are used, there’s no energy left. No energy to walk around. No energy to cook. No energy to make art. No energy left for anything other than shuffling into the bedroom and taking a nap.
The sciatic problem is becoming less and less each day. With that comes the ability to walk more and more without my walker. That’s the problem. I feel better, so I walk without my walker longer than I should. That’s how I used up all my spoons this morning. The worst was me walking Brady and discovering I was out of spoons. I wasn’t near a door when the spoons were all used up. I leaned against the car, called to Jim to take Brady, then gingerly made my way into the house.
My feet hurt because they are swollen, they are swollen because I’m not active, I’m not active because I have no spoons left. This sucks.
I was hoping to get outside and photograph the yuccas blooming, but that’s no longer possible today because I have no spoons left. I’d have to push the walker up hill. Through sand. While trying to find a large enough distance between cacti that can accommodate the walker. All while trying to keep my camera from knocking against the walker. I’m missing spring.
I got down on the floor yesterday so I could photograph Brady on her level. I shot in RAW only because I had the camera set on RAW when I saw we had day-old baby quail and I wanted to be ready to photograph them. I set the camera to rapid burst. 92 photos, and some were even decent.
Spoons are a way of explaining energy or lack of energy. If energy is represented by 12 spoons, after all 12 spoons are used, there’s no energy left. No energy to walk around. No energy to cook. No energy to make art. No energy left for anything other than shuffling into the bedroom and taking a nap.
The sciatic problem is becoming less and less each day. With that comes the ability to walk more and more without my walker. That’s the problem. I feel better, so I walk without my walker longer than I should. That’s how I used up all my spoons this morning. The worst was me walking Brady and discovering I was out of spoons. I wasn’t near a door when the spoons were all used up. I leaned against the car, called to Jim to take Brady, then gingerly made my way into the house.
My feet hurt because they are swollen, they are swollen because I’m not active, I’m not active because I have no spoons left. This sucks.
I was hoping to get outside and photograph the yuccas blooming, but that’s no longer possible today because I have no spoons left. I’d have to push the walker up hill. Through sand. While trying to find a large enough distance between cacti that can accommodate the walker. All while trying to keep my camera from knocking against the walker. I’m missing spring.
I got down on the floor yesterday so I could photograph Brady on her level. I shot in RAW only because I had the camera set on RAW when I saw we had day-old baby quail and I wanted to be ready to photograph them. I set the camera to rapid burst. 92 photos, and some were even decent.
Spoons are a way of explaining energy or lack of energy. If energy is represented by 12 spoons, after all 12 spoons are used, there’s no energy left. No energy to walk around. No energy to cook. No energy to make art. No energy left for anything other than shuffling into the bedroom and taking a nap.
The sciatic problem is becoming less and less each day. With that comes the ability to walk more and more without my walker. That’s the problem. I feel better, so I walk without my walker longer than I should. That’s how I used up all my spoons this morning. The worst was me walking Brady and discovering I was out of spoons. I wasn’t near a door when the spoons were all used up. I leaned against the car, called to Jim to take Brady, then gingerly made my way into the house.
My feet hurt because they are swollen, they are swollen because I’m not active, I’m not active because I have no spoons left. This sucks.
I was hoping to get outside and photograph the yuccas blooming, but that’s no longer possible today because I have no spoons left. I’d have to push the walker up hill. Through sand. While trying to find a large enough distance between cacti that can accommodate the walker. All while trying to keep my camera from knocking against the walker. I’m missing spring.
I got down on the floor yesterday so I could photograph Brady on her level. I shot in RAW only because I had the camera set on RAW when I saw we had day-old baby quail and I wanted to be ready to photograph them. I set the camera to rapid burst. 92 photos, and some were even decent.
Spoons are a way of explaining energy or lack of energy. If energy is represented by 12 spoons, after all 12 spoons are used, there’s no energy left. No energy to walk around. No energy to cook. No energy to make art. No energy left for anything other than shuffling into the bedroom and taking a nap.
The sciatic problem is becoming less and less each day. With that comes the ability to walk more and more without my walker. That’s the problem. I feel better, so I walk without my walker longer than I should. That’s how I used up all my spoons this morning. The worst was me walking Brady and discovering I was out of spoons. I wasn’t near a door when the spoons were all used up. I leaned against the car, called to Jim to take Brady, then gingerly made my way into the house.
My feet hurt because they are swollen, they are swollen because I’m not active, I’m not active because I have no spoons left. This sucks.
I was hoping to get outside and photograph the yuccas blooming, but that’s no longer possible today because I have no spoons left. I’d have to push the walker up hill. Through sand. While trying to find a large enough distance between cacti that can accommodate the walker. All while trying to keep my camera from knocking against the walker. I’m missing spring.
I got down on the floor yesterday so I could photograph Brady on her level. I shot in RAW only because I had the camera set on RAW when I saw we had day-old baby quail and I wanted to be ready to photograph them. I set the camera to rapid burst. 92 photos, and some were even decent.
Spoons are a way of explaining energy or lack of energy. If energy is represented by 12 spoons, after all 12 spoons are used, there’s no energy left. No energy to walk around. No energy to cook. No energy to make art. No energy left for anything other than shuffling into the bedroom and taking a nap.
The sciatic problem is becoming less and less each day. With that comes the ability to walk more and more without my walker. That’s the problem. I feel better, so I walk without my walker longer than I should. That’s how I used up all my spoons this morning. The worst was me walking Brady and discovering I was out of spoons. I wasn’t near a door when the spoons were all used up. I leaned against the car, called to Jim to take Brady, then gingerly made my way into the house.
My feet hurt because they are swollen, they are swollen because I’m not active, I’m not active because I have no spoons left. This sucks.
I was hoping to get outside and photograph the yuccas blooming, but that’s no longer possible today because I have no spoons left. I’d have to push the walker up hill. Through sand. While trying to find a large enough distance between cacti that can accommodate the walker. All while trying to keep my camera from knocking against the walker. I’m missing spring.
I got down on the floor yesterday so I could photograph Brady on her level. I shot in RAW only because I had the camera set on RAW when I saw we had day-old baby quail and I wanted to be ready to photograph them. I set the camera to rapid burst. 92 photos, and some were even decent.
Jim is making dog treats from a recipe I found. Oat flour (or ground up oatmeal – which is what oat flour is), banana and peanut butter. They’re baking at the moment. Brady adores peanut butter.
Deb's Art 