Thank you to my internet sister that shared this reminder to rejoice in my progress however small I feel it may be.
Friday, December 30, 2016
How far have I come?
"Instead of focusing on how far you still have to go, take some time
today to remind yourself of how far you’ve already come. Yes, you’re
still struggling. And yes, you still have some distance to cover, but
those things don’t discount the progress you’ve already made. Healing
takes time. It’s not a process that can be rushed. Beating yourself up
for not being further along doesn’t improve your situation. It makes you
feel awful and it keeps you stuck. Your journey may be slow, but it’s
not without promise. Despite how difficult this process has been,
despite how hopeless you’ve felt, despite all of the people who have
told you that you would never make it, you’ve never once given up.
You’ve never stopped fighting and pushing forward. So give yourself some
credit for that. It wasn’t easy. But you did it, and you deserve to be
proud of yourself. Let go of this idea that you should be further ahead,
and trust that it’s okay to be where you are. Trust that you won’t be
here forever. Trust that you will get to where you need to be. You’re
doing the best you can each day to fight the darkness you feel, and
that’s all you can ask of yourself. It’s enough." ~Daniell Koepke
Thank you to my internet sister that shared this reminder to rejoice in my progress however small I feel it may be.
Thank you to my internet sister that shared this reminder to rejoice in my progress however small I feel it may be.
Thursday, December 29, 2016
Please Go Now....
The time has come, the time is now, Marvin K. Mooney, will you please Go NOW.
http://www.seussville.com/books/book_detail.php?isbn=9780394824901I memorized part of this book reading it over and over to my children. This is how I feel about this year. I am done. I am more than done. This year was tough on so many levels. I laughed when I saw the Facebook Meme, "I want to stay up to midnight New Years Eve so I can watch 2016 die." Yup, I am feeling quite ready for this year to be over. Done, done, done!!!!!!!!
Tuesday, December 27, 2016
Unctuous
I found it. This is the word to describe how my mother thanks me for things.
This is from www.merriam-webster.com
Definition 3 is the winner. I always felt ungrateful that I rejected my mother's gratitude. I was working on a word builder game and this was one of the new words. The irritating thing for me she has this over the top gushing thank you in front of people but privately she throws away whatever I gave her. She'll thank me profusely for something small I did or offer to pay me, then tell my Dad she wishes I wouldn't come around. For years, I tuned out her thank yous, now I have a word to fit why it is a good idea to tune her out.
Definition of unctuous
Definition 3 is the winner. I always felt ungrateful that I rejected my mother's gratitude. I was working on a word builder game and this was one of the new words. The irritating thing for me she has this over the top gushing thank you in front of people but privately she throws away whatever I gave her. She'll thank me profusely for something small I did or offer to pay me, then tell my Dad she wishes I wouldn't come around. For years, I tuned out her thank yous, now I have a word to fit why it is a good idea to tune her out.
Saturday, December 24, 2016
Tracking Santa
Merry Christmas Eve....I hope each of you are enjoying your day. I like to find Christmas stories to share. This year I found an article posted on Facebook about how it came to be the the US military tracked Christmas.....tissue warning for those that cry over Christmas stories.
NORAD's Santa Tracker Began With A Typo And A Good Sport
http://www.npr.org/2014/12/19/371647099/norads-santa-tracker-began-with-a-typo-and-a-good-sport
Heard on Morning Edition
This Christmas Eve people all over the world will log on to the official Santa Tracker
to follow his progress through U.S. military radar. This all started in
1955, with a misprint in a Colorado Springs newspaper and a call to
Col. Harry Shoup's secret hotline at the Continental Air Defense
Command, now known as NORAD.
Shoup's children, Terri Van Keuren, 65, Rick Shoup, 59, and Pam Farrell, 70, recently visited StoryCorps to talk about how the tradition began.
Courtesy of NORAD
Terri remembers her dad had two phones on his desk, including a
red one. "Only a four-star general at the Pentagon and my dad had the
number," she says.
"This was the '50s, this was the Cold War, and he would have been the first one to know if there was an attack on the United States," Rick says.
The red phone rang one day in December 1955, and Shoup answered it, Pam says. "And then there was a small voice that just asked, 'Is this Santa Claus?' "
His children remember Shoup as straight-laced and disciplined, and he was annoyed and upset by the call and thought it was a joke — but then, Terri says, the little voice started crying.
"And Dad realized that it wasn't a joke," her sister says. "So he talked to him, ho-ho-ho'd and asked if he had been a good boy and, 'May I talk to your mother?' And the mother got on and said, 'You haven't seen the paper yet? There's a phone number to call Santa. It's in the Sears ad.' Dad looked it up, and there it was, his red phone number. And they had children calling one after another, so he put a couple of airmen on the phones to act like Santa Claus."
"It got to be a big joke at the command center. You know, 'The old man's really flipped his lid this time. We're answering Santa calls,' " Terri says.
Courtesy of NORAD
"The airmen had this big glass board with the United States on it
and Canada, and when airplanes would come in they would track them," Pam
says.
"And Christmas Eve of 1955, when Dad walked in, there was a drawing of a sleigh with eight reindeer coming over the North Pole," Rick says.
"Dad said, 'What is that?' They say, 'Colonel, we're sorry. We were just making a joke. Do you want us to take that down?' Dad looked at it for a while, and next thing you know, Dad had called the radio station and had said, 'This is the commander at the Combat Alert Center, and we have an unidentified flying object. Why, it looks like a sleigh.' Well, the radio stations would call him like every hour and say, 'Where's Santa now?' " Terri says.
Produced for Morning Edition by Jasmyn Belcher Morris.
StoryCorps is a national nonprofit that gives people the chance to interview friends and loved ones about their lives. These conversations are archived at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, allowing participants to leave a legacy for future generations. Learn more, including how to interview someone in your life, at StoryCorps.org.
Shoup's children, Terri Van Keuren, 65, Rick Shoup, 59, and Pam Farrell, 70, recently visited StoryCorps to talk about how the tradition began.
The Santa Tracker tradition started with this Sears ad,
which instructed children to call Santa on what turned out to be a
secret military hotline. Kids today can call 1-877 HI-NORAD
(1-877-446-6723) to talk to NORAD staff about Santa's exact location.
"This was the '50s, this was the Cold War, and he would have been the first one to know if there was an attack on the United States," Rick says.
The red phone rang one day in December 1955, and Shoup answered it, Pam says. "And then there was a small voice that just asked, 'Is this Santa Claus?' "
His children remember Shoup as straight-laced and disciplined, and he was annoyed and upset by the call and thought it was a joke — but then, Terri says, the little voice started crying.
"And Dad realized that it wasn't a joke," her sister says. "So he talked to him, ho-ho-ho'd and asked if he had been a good boy and, 'May I talk to your mother?' And the mother got on and said, 'You haven't seen the paper yet? There's a phone number to call Santa. It's in the Sears ad.' Dad looked it up, and there it was, his red phone number. And they had children calling one after another, so he put a couple of airmen on the phones to act like Santa Claus."
"It got to be a big joke at the command center. You know, 'The old man's really flipped his lid this time. We're answering Santa calls,' " Terri says.
Col. Harry Shoup came to be known as the "Santa Colonel." He died in 2009.
"And Christmas Eve of 1955, when Dad walked in, there was a drawing of a sleigh with eight reindeer coming over the North Pole," Rick says.
"Dad said, 'What is that?' They say, 'Colonel, we're sorry. We were just making a joke. Do you want us to take that down?' Dad looked at it for a while, and next thing you know, Dad had called the radio station and had said, 'This is the commander at the Combat Alert Center, and we have an unidentified flying object. Why, it looks like a sleigh.' Well, the radio stations would call him like every hour and say, 'Where's Santa now?' " Terri says.
"And later in life he got letters from all over the world, people
saying, 'Thank you, Colonel,' for having, you know, this sense of humor.
And in his 90s, he would carry those letters around with him in a
briefcase that had a lock on it like it was top-secret information," she
says. "You know, he was an important guy, but this is the thing he's
known for."
"Yeah," Rick says, "it's probably the thing he was proudest of, too."
"Yeah," Rick says, "it's probably the thing he was proudest of, too."
Yes, Virginia, NORAD's 'Santa Tracker' Is On
Produced for Morning Edition by Jasmyn Belcher Morris.
StoryCorps is a national nonprofit that gives people the chance to interview friends and loved ones about their lives. These conversations are archived at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, allowing participants to leave a legacy for future generations. Learn more, including how to interview someone in your life, at StoryCorps.org.
Anxiety by Brianna West
The Artelier
1. They don’t hide their anxiety, they hide their symptoms. To have concealed anxiety isn’t to deny having it – only to do everything in your power to ensure other people don’t see you struggle.
2. They have the most anxiety about having anxiety. Because they are
not comfortable letting people see them in the throes of an irrational
panic, the most anxiety-inducing idea is… whether or not they’ll have
anxiety at any given moment in time.
3. They come across as a paradoxical mix of outgoing but introverted, very social but rarely out. It is not that they are anti-social, just that they can only take being around others incrementally (which is mostly normal). Yet, on the surface, this may come across as confusing.
4. They make situations worse by trying to suppress their feelings about them. They are extremely uncomfortable with other people seeing them in pain, and they don’t want to feel pitied or as though they are compromising anyone’s time. Yet, they make things worse for themselves by suppressing, as it actually funnels a ton of energy into making the problem larger and more present than it already was.
5. They are often hyper-aware and highly intuitive. Anxiousness is an evolutionary function that essentially keeps us alive by making us aware of our surroundings and other people’s motives. It’s only uncomfortable when we don’t know how to manage it effectively – the positive side is that it makes you hyper-conscious of what’s going on around you.
6. Their deepest triggers are usually social situations. It’s not that they feel anxious in an airplane, it’s that they feel anxious in an airplane and are stuck around 50 other people. It’s not that they will fail a test, but that they will fail a test and everyone in school will find out and think they are incompetent and their parents will be disappointed. It’s not that they will lose love, but that they will lose love and nobody will ever love them again.
7. It is not always just a “panicked feeling” they have to hide. It can also be a tendency to worry, catastrophizing, etc. The battle is often (always?) between competing thoughts in their minds.
8. They are deep thinkers, and great problem-solvers. One of the benefits of anxiety is that it leads you to considering every worst case scenario, and then subsequently, how to handle or respond to each.
9. They are almost always “self-regulating” their thoughts. They’re talking themselves in, out, around, up or down from something or another very often, and increasingly so in public places.
10. They don’t trust easily, but they will convince you that they do. They want to make the people around them feel loved and accepted as it eases their anxiety in a way.
11. They tend to desire control in other areas of their lives. They’re over-workers or are manically particular about how they dress or can’t really seem to let go of relationships if it wasn’t their idea to end them.
12. They have all-or-nothing personalities, which is what creates the anxiety. Despite being so extreme, they are highly indecisive. They try to “figure out” whether or not something is right before they actually try to do it.
13. They assume they are disliked. While this is often stressful, it often keeps them humble and grounded at the same time.
14. They are very driven (they care about the outcome of things). They are in equal proportions as in control of their lives as they feel out of control of their lives – this is because they so frequently try to compensate for fear of the unknown.
15. They are very smart, but doubt it. A high intelligence is linked to increased anxiety (and being doubtful of one’s mental capacity are linked to both).
By Brianna West
PS. If I find something on Facebook, I assume they want it shared with appropriate credit to who wrote it. If I need to take this off my page, please let me know...this is not my writing but I felt it described what many people experience as part of PTSD.
3. They come across as a paradoxical mix of outgoing but introverted, very social but rarely out. It is not that they are anti-social, just that they can only take being around others incrementally (which is mostly normal). Yet, on the surface, this may come across as confusing.
4. They make situations worse by trying to suppress their feelings about them. They are extremely uncomfortable with other people seeing them in pain, and they don’t want to feel pitied or as though they are compromising anyone’s time. Yet, they make things worse for themselves by suppressing, as it actually funnels a ton of energy into making the problem larger and more present than it already was.
5. They are often hyper-aware and highly intuitive. Anxiousness is an evolutionary function that essentially keeps us alive by making us aware of our surroundings and other people’s motives. It’s only uncomfortable when we don’t know how to manage it effectively – the positive side is that it makes you hyper-conscious of what’s going on around you.
6. Their deepest triggers are usually social situations. It’s not that they feel anxious in an airplane, it’s that they feel anxious in an airplane and are stuck around 50 other people. It’s not that they will fail a test, but that they will fail a test and everyone in school will find out and think they are incompetent and their parents will be disappointed. It’s not that they will lose love, but that they will lose love and nobody will ever love them again.
7. It is not always just a “panicked feeling” they have to hide. It can also be a tendency to worry, catastrophizing, etc. The battle is often (always?) between competing thoughts in their minds.
8. They are deep thinkers, and great problem-solvers. One of the benefits of anxiety is that it leads you to considering every worst case scenario, and then subsequently, how to handle or respond to each.
9. They are almost always “self-regulating” their thoughts. They’re talking themselves in, out, around, up or down from something or another very often, and increasingly so in public places.
10. They don’t trust easily, but they will convince you that they do. They want to make the people around them feel loved and accepted as it eases their anxiety in a way.
11. They tend to desire control in other areas of their lives. They’re over-workers or are manically particular about how they dress or can’t really seem to let go of relationships if it wasn’t their idea to end them.
12. They have all-or-nothing personalities, which is what creates the anxiety. Despite being so extreme, they are highly indecisive. They try to “figure out” whether or not something is right before they actually try to do it.
13. They assume they are disliked. While this is often stressful, it often keeps them humble and grounded at the same time.
14. They are very driven (they care about the outcome of things). They are in equal proportions as in control of their lives as they feel out of control of their lives – this is because they so frequently try to compensate for fear of the unknown.
15. They are very smart, but doubt it. A high intelligence is linked to increased anxiety (and being doubtful of one’s mental capacity are linked to both).
By Brianna West
PS. If I find something on Facebook, I assume they want it shared with appropriate credit to who wrote it. If I need to take this off my page, please let me know...this is not my writing but I felt it described what many people experience as part of PTSD.
Sunday, December 18, 2016
What I'm not
I believed for a time that one way to define myself was by understanding what I am not. I thought it was a good way to start....much like the negative space in a picture defining what the picture was...
Examples of Negative Space defining the subject.
http://www.creativebloq.com/art/art-negative-space-8133765
Recently, watching my mother I realize it is a terrible idea. My mother has an identical twin sister. Right now her sister had a stoke, lives in a care center, and barely recognizes her own daughter. My mother in a desperate bid to NOT be like her sister checked herself out of a care center where she was healing from breaking her hip, is incredibly rude to everyone trying to help her, and behaves like a tyrannical toddler so she can proudly say, "I am NOT like my sister." Do you know what is so sad about this? In her desperate grab for not being her sister she became the worse version of herself. The thing about defining by negative space is your only definition is in comparative status. Without the other, you become nothing.
How often do I define myself by trying to not be like my mother? How often am I defining myself by comparison to someone, something or anything but being myself? Christmas time is a time for reflection for me. So far this year I have not baked any holiday treats. I have not put up one decoration. I look like a Grinch if I define myself by what I am not. However, what I am is recovering from emergency surgery 2 weeks ago. I am doing really well. I sent all the Christmas presents to families that live in other parts of the country. I am playing Secret Santa with friends. I am humming Christmas Carols and reading about Christ. Hmmm...I like what I am and need to worry a lot less about what I am not.
Examples of Negative Space defining the subject.
http://www.creativebloq.com/art/art-negative-space-8133765
Recently, watching my mother I realize it is a terrible idea. My mother has an identical twin sister. Right now her sister had a stoke, lives in a care center, and barely recognizes her own daughter. My mother in a desperate bid to NOT be like her sister checked herself out of a care center where she was healing from breaking her hip, is incredibly rude to everyone trying to help her, and behaves like a tyrannical toddler so she can proudly say, "I am NOT like my sister." Do you know what is so sad about this? In her desperate grab for not being her sister she became the worse version of herself. The thing about defining by negative space is your only definition is in comparative status. Without the other, you become nothing.
How often do I define myself by trying to not be like my mother? How often am I defining myself by comparison to someone, something or anything but being myself? Christmas time is a time for reflection for me. So far this year I have not baked any holiday treats. I have not put up one decoration. I look like a Grinch if I define myself by what I am not. However, what I am is recovering from emergency surgery 2 weeks ago. I am doing really well. I sent all the Christmas presents to families that live in other parts of the country. I am playing Secret Santa with friends. I am humming Christmas Carols and reading about Christ. Hmmm...I like what I am and need to worry a lot less about what I am not.
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