A Wild Blogger Recognition Award Appears!

Jeanette at My Life with PTSD & Bipolar: Mental Health Matters kindly nominated me for
Write a brief story about how your blog began. I’ve been running The Dissociated Press for five years now (holy cats, time flies!) and have been documenting my journey to mental health–or at least, relative stability and improved daily functioning. When I started this blog in 2013, my life was a total mess. I was in an unhappy marriage and missing a lot of work because I was freshly diagnosed with bipolar 1 and adjusting to my new medications. I ended up losing that job, which was a major low point.

There have been a lot of low points throughout my blog-writing history, but things have dramatically improved in the last couple of years. I escaped from that unhappy, unsupportive marriage, enrolled in graduate school for clinical mental health counseling at a great school, and got engaged to a lovely, wonderful man.

I still hit depressive episodes from time to time, but unlike my pre-medication, bad relationship days, I take comfort in the knowledge that my life is so much better than I ever could have imagined. I have a wonderfully supportive partner, and his family is incredibly encouraging of me sharing my journey. My classmates have expressed appreciation for my candor, and I’ve been able to help a lot of people through my disclosures.

Advice for new bloggers is something I haven’t really thought about, but my main piece of advice is to write for yourself first and foremost. TDP has evolved over time–at first, it was a place for me to get my thoughts and experiences out into the ether in hopes of finding others who were also struggling.

Also, I like to focus on and directly address my readers as a group in my posts and always try to end a post with a positive thought or insight. It prevents the blog from feeling dreary and helps promote the overall message: recovery is possible, and recovery never looks the same for everyone. Your journey matters. Your message matters. Your experiences matter.

As I’ve gotten healthier and stopped focusing so much on my illnesses (which are still a main focal point of the blog, albeit in a different way), I realized that my relatively small following was a great audience for information about the stigma surrounding mental illness.

I realized that everyone, but especially others living with my specific conditions (PTSD with depersonalization/derealization and rapid-cycling type 1 bipolar disorder) could benefit from learning about the latest news and treatment options. I’m building up quite the library of scholarly articles and studies, and if there’s enough interest, I plan to post a few quick-and-dirty rundowns of them.

Again, I can’t thank Jeanette for this nomination–it came out of nowhere and I feel very honored about the whole thing and appreciate being recognized for my work. Validation and recognition for what I’m doing always feels nice! Also, the badge image is really cute.

My Picks for Nomination:

The Global PTSD Survivor Blog

Bloomin’ Uterus (a blog about endometriosis, which I also have)

Ruth at PTSD – Accepting, Coping, Thriving

 

 

Keepsakes

Grief is a funny thing.

My mother and aunt have been gradually cleaning out Grandma’s house, which means that once a week or so, I’ve been receiving boxes of my childhood books and toys. They’ve also chosen to throw in our Christmas gifts for this year, and I’ve been instructed to open them whenever I feel like it.

I was going through one of the boxes a few weeks ago and found a pair of small presents. Intrigued, I started to open one, and then I saw the label. “To Jess; Love, Grandma.”

I basically lost it. I haven’t really cried much since she passed, but it hit me that I’ll never get another gift or card addressed from her. It makes me feel silly because she hasn’t personally addressed anything in years–she had Parkinson’s, so someone else always did the writing for her. But it made me realize that she’s actually gone; that she won’t be there when we go home for Thanksgiving, or around when I get married and graduate. Again, I know she wouldn’t be able to come to Baltimore for either of those things, but the knowledge that she won’t be around to hear about these events, that I won’t be able to call and tell her about them, really gets to me.

I’m beginning to come to terms with the fact that opening those presents won’t make her any less dead. They won’t take away the fact that my other maternal figure is gone.

I think I’ll open them today. My mother told me that they’re a pair of salt-and-pepper shakers Grandma bought when she was on her honeymoon (all the way back in 1947!) and it might be comforting to see them on display in our apartment.

 

Grief is a funny thing.

News Day Tuesday: CTL Update!

Hi, readers! Today, I’d like to discuss some personal news, as I’ve spent a good portion of the day working as a crisis counselor for my first-ever shift with Crisis Text Line.

At first, I was petrified–there are some pretty intense conversations happening on the platform at all times, and the topics range from suicide to self-harm to gender and sexuality issues and everything in-between. My supervisor was awesome about giving me feedback and helping me brainstorm how to respond when a texter had me stumped.

Though it’s a little frustrating to not be able to give direct advice (crisis counselors are there to listen and help the texter problem-solve for themselves, which is not dissimilar to Carl Rogers’ person-centered therapy), it is hugely satisfying to watch someone go through the steps of opening up about their feelings, acknowledging their own strengths, and using those strengths to come up with a plan to help with future crises. I’ve found that I really love entering the darkness with others and that I have a knack for coming up with the right things to say to gently guide a texter toward a solution without spoon-feeding it to them.

Granted, it’s only my first day, but I decided to pick up an additional two-hour shift this evening to get more experience. It’s fantastic to feel this excited and passionate about something, and I’m taking it as further encouragement that counseling is what I’m meant to do with my life.

Have you considered volunteering at a crisis center/crisis line, readers? Which one? What have your experiences been like (from either side)?

---

Like what you see on Dissociated Press? Check out and “like” the Dissociated Press Facebook page for even more posts, links, and news articles!

Reflection: Grad school so far.

I’m entering my third week of grad school (online-only this semester because of the move) and man, it’s been a wild ride. I’m only taking two courses–Lifespan Development and Theories of Counseling and Psychotherapy, both of which I’ve had before in undergrad, so I’m familiar with the content. It’s a good thing I’m not struggling with that because the workload is something I was unprepared for, having been out of school for five years now.

Every day, I set aside two or three hours for work. Mondays are reading days, primarily. Both of my classes are heavy on Blackboard discussion posts, so I usually knock out a few of those on Mondays as well. My Theories class requires participation on four separate days, so I try to space out the rest of my posts throughout the week along with my papers.

Lifespan’s discussions are pretty research-heavy (as in, find an article based on these criteria and summarize it), which is something I’ve always hated. Thankfully, the summaries only have to be a paragraph or two, but I always overshoot in terms of length on all my written work because I have no idea how to thoroughly break down a twenty-page study into a paragraph.

All told, I probably spend about thirty hours or so per week on school stuff, so I’m thankful that my fella is willing and able to support my lack of a job right now–there’s no way I’d be able to maintain my mental health/overall sanity along with a full-time job plus the school stuff. My only concern is that I won’t be able to find another school in Baltimore that will take me sans the psychology undergrad (despite grad school credits in the field).

My plan once we move is to take a semester off to scout out schools and perhaps get back into the tutoring game to earn a little cash on the side. Aside from that, I’m just trying to chill out and get ready for the big move in a few weeks!

How are your summers going so far, readers? Are you taking time out for self-care? I hope this post finds you lovely and healthy as always.