You Are Not Alone

Hello my beautiful Stars! As I'm trying to expand the repertoire of this blog to makeup, planners, and lifestyle I figured I would get personal for a post, let my guard down, and talk about some of my mental health demons.

    Most of the time, people believe I am a happy go lucky person but trust me, it's taken me a long time to get that way and it takes a lot of work to stay that way.  About two and a half years ago, after fighting it pretty much on my own for years, I was diagnosed as bi-polar II, severely depressed, and severe anxiety.  Nobody believed me when I tried to explain what was going on and what I had been told because I seemed so 'happy' all the time.  What they never saw was how hard it was to be happy, and how much energy it took (or how many spoons it took- The Spoon Theory) to do my daily activities and hide everything that was going on.  I finally got myself into therapy once in college and got put on the correct medicines and started meditating and doing things that truly made me happy.  That's why I started this blog, it made me happy- truly happy- to talk about makeup and now to film about it, too.  Theatre makes me truly happy, and so does planning and playing with arts and crafts.  Sure there were times that I would be stressed but I would try to keep it under control and not purposefully put myself in a situation where I would be so stressed my anxiety would be out of control.  Then, me being me, I started pushing the limits and stressing myself out more and more.  My anxiety got out of control my senior year of college and I landed myself in the hospital- not a fun time, especially because I was directing my first ever show.  Luckily, the friends who knew the whole back story- and even those who didn't- were there for me every step of they way and are still there for me.  How do I deal with all of this, you may wonder, and how can this post be help to you? Well, I shall tell you!
    First and foremost I want to point out that this is what works for me and what works for me may not work for somebody else.  If you are struggling, I urge you to talk to your doctor and/or start seeing a therapist who may also recommend that you see a psychiatrist, someone who can prescribe medication that will help you.  I have found that the medication route has been the best bet for me and has truly helped me the most.  While I'm on quite a few, if one is taken away, things start to go all wibbly again and get bad.  It's not just the medicine that helps me though, it's also the support I get from my friends and from my family, and one of the biggest things that helps me is being creative.  I write, I draw, I sing, I act, I paper craft, I plan, I take walks with my dog (when the weather agrees with my body), I do coloring meditation and sometimes typical meditation. Also, with this being the start of a  new year I find that to be refreshing.  I try to leave what happened before behind, treat myself gently, and give myself a new start.

   I hope you enjoyed this post, and maybe found some solace that you're not alone and that we're all in this together.  Look up the semicolon project if you don't know what it is and that will give you hope just seeing how many people are going through similar things.  If you didn't know, I have a semicolon tattooed on my wrist.  I got it my senior year of college with my best friend by my side. I'm going to leave you with one last piece of advice:

I love you and don't forget: Be Bold, Be Beautiful, Be You! XOXO

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