Archive for March, 2009
“Home Sweet Home” or the “Where in the hell have I been?” post
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I have somehow lost like an entire week. Between celebrating my birthday, freaking out over the idea that 40 is only 2 years away, getting in touch with old friends from high school and hanging out with an old boyfriend, and seeing my therapist again for the first time in several months just to discuss what we need to do before closing out my file, I’m having one of those identity crisis things I think. Not a big one, just enough to make me wonder how much of the old me is still around.
When I say “the old me” I’m talking about two particular phases in my life: Teenage Me and The Breakdown Years.
Teenage Me was nothing but trouble. I skipped class, I smoked pot, I dated bad boys who had longer hair than I did, I went to rock concerts, I slept with a cheerleader’s boyfriend, I ran away from rehab. My jeans were ripped, my stereo was always blasting, my hair was big and blonde (except for that one time I used some temporary stuff to color it red and apparently I got mad at The Boyfriend for saying he liked it better blonde but I don’t remember that.)
I worshipped guys like Nikki Sixx, Sebastian Bach, Rudy Sarzo, Steven Tyler, Rick Savage….I even wrote a letter to the dude that managed Poison at the time to ask him what it would take to become an entertainment manager. Music was my life. If I couldn’t BE a Rock Star, I was going to work with them. (This will explain why so many of my projects have the term Rock Star in the name. Like Rock Star Blog Design and the Rock Star Biz Network. And why some of my jobs and my friendships have been centered around music and bands.)
But some of that passion has fizzled over the past few years, some of which has to do with The Breakdown Years.
During The Breakdown Years, I was still involved in some of it…bands, concerts, drinking, bad boys. None of it was doing me any good. In fact, it damn near killed me. Between having my heartbroken and trying to save someone from the same addictions I had long ago freed myself from, it broke me. I lost sight of who I was and what was important to me. I let people treat me like shit because I felt like that was what I deserved which made no sense because I was always the type of person that swore I’d never take any crap from anyone.
That’s all over now. It all finally came to a head in the Summer of 2006 and I almost died. Twice. That was my rock bottom. And I’ve busted my ass to pull myself back up from there. I stopped partying, I stopped dating, I stopped going to concerts other than a few local bands and to kinda chaperone a few for my daughter and her friends.
I got my own place, I found a job working from home, I started my own business, and I stayed out of trouble.
So what does this past week have to do with all of this stuff? Well now that I’m in a better place in my life and got some control back, I’ve got room to let some of the old me back in without worrying about throwing away this New Me I’ve worked so hard on building.
I can have my loud music back. I can have a few drinks. I can hang out with the bad boys as long as they’re the kind that just seem bad on the surface but underneath they’ve got a heart of gold and would never intentionally hurt me or anyone else, the ones that have Been There Done That (like me) and learned their lessons (like me).
Over the past week, I’ve been thinking about that little space in my life where my professional life and my personal life are connected. Most of my life is lived online right now and I don’t want to have to worry about keeping them separate. I want to be myself in my business, I want to be authentic, I don’t want to feel like I need to apologize or explain myself to anyone in either of those circles. My friends will know that I can’t stay up drinking all night because I have a client project to finish, and my clients will know that I am not working over the weekend because I’m going to a concert.
In other words, I am who I am. Yes, I have a past but I also have a future. And all of the mistakes I’ve made have made me who I am today. Love it or leave it.
Facebook doesn’t suck so much anymore
What’s with all of the polls and blog posts and status updates about how bad the new Facebook sucks? Look, when you create a website that turns into a worldwide phenomenon with millions of users and you’re laughing your 24 yr old ass off all the way to the bank and stopping to chat with Oprah along the way, you can do whatever you want with your site. Until then, just put on your big girl panties and accept the fact that Facebook looks different. Your 947 acres of li’l green plants and your SuperMegaGinormous Wall are still there, just invest a few minutes figuring out where they went or ask somebody who has already figured it out.
Personally, I like the new Facebook. But then again, I liked New Coke too so what would I know. Seriously, I think its much more simple and a lot less cluttered. I’ve spent more time on Facebook this weekend than I have in the past year.
Of course, some of that may have something to do with the fact that I’ve found about 15 different people I remember from high school, one of which is an ex-boyfriend of mine that I was just absolutely crazy over. Its so bizarre! Like in a good way though.
Facebook is so bringing back my Big Hair days, the days when:
I lived on Mountain Dew and cheese popcorn
My friend drove a yellow Pinto
My boyfriend had longer (and bigger) hair than I did
Some football player cheated on his cheerleader girlfriend with some stoner chick that shall remain nameless
The most popular after school activity was hanging out and playing Excite Bike or Mike Tyson’s Punch Out
The new Guns n Roses album totally rocked
I had a huge crush on Jon Bon Jovi – ok, that one hasn’t really changed.
Oh, and the old high school boyfriend that had longer hair than me, the one that drove the old white Cadillac with an 8 track player, the one I couldn’t get enough of, the one that always made it onto my “I wonder whatever happened to….” list…. we’re going out this week.
I feel like I’m 16 all over again.
Hey, are you new here?
Just wanted to say hi to any new visitors from the Ultimate Blog Party which started today. I used to blog more often but between being a single mom and running my own business, this poor lil blog kinda gets neglected.
Anyway, here are just a few things I’d like to share with you about myself:
My blog is called That Crazy Mom because, well, I am. I’ve been diagnosed with a mental illness and not only am I completely open about it, I also poke fun at the whole “crazy” label too. I just blogged about it recently on this post.
Like I said, I’m a single mom. I have an 18 yr old daughter, a 16 yr old son, and a 6 yr old daughter. I don’t use their real names and you won’t find any pictures of them here. But if you see me refer to Sissy, Bubba, or Princess…that’s them. And Doodlebug…she’s my grandbaby. She joined our little asylum on January 4th, 2009.
I am a business owner. I started out with a Virtual Assistant biz but now I do blog design and online business management.
I’m the founder of Bad Mommy Blogger. Go check it out. Seriously.
There’s some other stuff but I forgot what I was going to say. I tend to do that in real life a lot too.
So thanks for visiting my little blog. I love comments too. They make me feel good. Leave me one and introduce yourself.
Detox Sucks and I have a survey for you
Sorry to disappoint my exes and their attorneys or whoever else they have spying on me. I am not talking about drug detox. Feel free to have me tested however you want. Even hair follicles. I swear I won’t go all Britney Spears on you. Seriously, I cried when I cut off 10 inches of hair. There’s no way in hell I could shave it.
I’m talking about detoxing from junk food. On Monday, I started on nothing but raw food, eating nothing but fruits and veggies. No Diet Pepsi, no dark chocolate mint Three Musketeers, no Southern Style Chicken Sandwich and sweet tea. I even switched to soy milk and stevia instead of cow’s milk and sugar.
Ohmigawd, just reading that is making me hungry. This is just so not fun. The first two days I had a pounding headache, probably from the lack of caffeine. Oh wait, now that I think about it, I did cave in and have a Diet Pepsi on Monday or Tuesday. By Wednesday, I was dying. Like Asian-bird-flu-spinal-meningitis-ebola-virus dying. My whole body ached, I was tired, my throat was scratchy and I lost my voice at one point.
If I’d had the energy, I would’ve crawled to Taco Bell/KFC – and stopped at Pizza Hut on the way – just to make it stop.
But I’m glad I didn’t. I feel a lot better now – and I lost 6 lbs – although I’m still sick…feels more like a cold than a flu though so that’s good.
Now while I lay on the couch and watch old episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on Hulu, would you mind taking a few minutes to answer a quick survey for me?
Merci, mes amis!
(I probably totally screwed up my French but who cares, right? I highly doubt my 10th grade French teacher is reading this and if she is its not like she’s going to email me to tell me how disappointed she is.
Living with the crazy label
You know why most people keep their mental health diagnosis a secret? Stigma. Any time you admit to someone that you’ve been diagnosed with a mental illness, you risk being judged and labeled by people who are misinformed and uneducated.
And there will always, ALWAYS, be the assholes who will use it to try and insult and hurt you. I can’t even count how many times I’ve been called “psycho bitch” or had comments about voices in my head and multiple personalities directed at me.
But here’s the kicker…you know who most of those comments come from? People who have never even met me.
Yet somehow just having that one little piece of information seems to make them think they know everything about me. They assume it means I’m a bad mother. They assume its the reason why I’m single or why my relationships have ended. They assume that every issue anyone has ever had with me is my fault because I’m the crazy one.
Oddly enough, I have my shit together more than most of them do. Some of the people that have tried to use my diagnosis against me have fallen into at least one, sometimes more, of the following categories:
- Full blown alcoholics
- Active drug addicts
- Adulterers
- High school dropouts
- Unemployed
- In abusive relationships
- Are the abusers
- Borderline illiterate (which is really funny when they try to insult me with a text message or post or email that’s filled spelling and grammar errors)
And these people will say stuff like that thinking they can hurt me with it…but do they seriously think that I’m going to give a shit what they think when I don’t even know or remember their name and couldn’t pick them out of a lineup? Do they really think they can hurt me with something that I make fun of myself all the time? I named my blog after it. I have a sticker on my roller derby helmet that says Crazy Bitch and it used to be the ringtone on my phone. Being called crazy is a joke to me, not an insult. Sticks and stones and all that…
Let’s get a few things straight here, okay? Yes, I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. So were a lot of people – successful people, brilliant people, famous people. And like anyone living with any type of illness, whether its diabetes or epilepsy, my illness is managed with medication on a regular basis. I am functioning at a level equal to (and in some cases, ABOVE) many non-bipolar people.
Oh, and while we’re at it… schizophrenics are the ones that hear voices and its dissociative identity disorder that has more than one personality. I am bipolar. The only voice in my head is my own and I only have one personality, which just happens to be a fabulous one.
Morons.
