Hope Is Real!

But not all discord is bad, and discord is always preferable to becoming numb to the world. Discord and conflict are necessary factors in the process of change. Discord can produce hope just as easily as it can produce horror or pain. (67, Making a Way Out of No Way , Monica A. Coleman) I'm feeling a little sad.  It's mostly because I am really tired, but it's also partly because I just read a report from my insurance company about my two previous hospitalizations.  It's always hard to see my name and the word, "psychosis" or "suicidal" near it.  Those words bring back some pretty bad memories.  And yet, as Coleman so eloquently states, the discord that was once in my life-the discord that once produced "horror" and "pain"-also produced hope and a change for the better.  The relapses into depression , anxiety , and psychosis prodded me to take my therapy more seriously and to enter into a DBT class.  They got me a new docto

A few days ago, I got contacted to review the documentary on schizophrenia called, There is a Fault in Reality .  (Click on the title to watch the movie.)  It   is described as being "about people trying to live with their mental illness of schizophrenia and the journeys that they have gone through to get to where they are today."  Here is a longer synopsis of the documentary from the Snag Films website: Roughly 1% of the population suffer from something called 'schizophrenia' yet there is little agreement about what this represents, what causes it, or how best to treat it. Despite thousands of research studies, if you've been diagnosed with this 'disease of reality', it is unlikely that anyone will have asked you about your experiences - these are not considered scientifically meaningful. All of these contradictions pose an important question: if schizophrenia represents a fault in reality, with whom does this fault lie? In THERE IS A FAULT IN REAL

In my last post , I talked about a great realization that I had. Now I am going to talk about another realization that I had a few weeks ago. I had the realization on a Thursday two weeks ago. I know that, because I have my Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) class every Wednesday night and I believe it was the DBT class that prompted my realization the next day. You see, we had been talking about the concept of radical acceptance. I guess you could say that I was having a lot of trouble "accepting" the idea. Basically, radical acceptance is accepting a painful reality for what it is. It can be enormously helpful, but it is also very hard to do at times. The day after the second week of talking about radical acceptance, I was finally able to apply it to my chronic pain.  I had been doing pretty well in not engaging in suicidal thinking for a while, except when I would have a fibro flare-up.  Then, in an unconscious effort to not feel the pain, I would start obse

Spring is my favorite time of year, as it brings light breezes, fragrant flowers, my birthday, and Mother's Day. It is represented by green, the color of luck and growth, so it seemed fitting that my mother requested lime cupcakes for Mother's Day. I had never had lime cupcakes before, but I found an easy recipe on BettyCrocker.com . I wanted to make key lime cupcakes, as the recipe does, but unfortunately I could not find any key lime juice at the grocery store! That made me sad, because my family absolutely key lime juice. Fortunately, one cannot be sad for long when making cupcakes! The only other change I made with the recipe is that I didn't make two frostings, but only made the lime glaze. A lime and powdered sugar glaze with cream cheese frosting on top seemed like overkill to me. I know a lot of people just love cream cheese frosting, but I usually find it a little too rich. If rich cream cheese frosting is more your style though, then click on the Betty

I belong to Speakeasy, an organization that releases new spiritual books before they hit the mainstream market to bloggers to review.  I just joined and I think it's a fun way to get some free reads in a genre that I already enjoy.  My first Speakeasy review is for the book, Hometown Prophet by Jeff Fulmer.  Here is a trailer for the book: I had never heard of a book having its own trailer before, but there you go. The book is a story about Peter Quill, a man in his early thirties who moves back home to live with his mother.  He feels very discouraged and ashamed of himself until he starts having prophetic dreams.  Peter never knows exactly what his dreams mean, but he knows that he needs to share his visions with others.  Through the telling of his dreams, some people come to worship him and some people come to hate him, but Peter comes to have more confidence in himself by telling others what they do not want to hear.  Although Peter comes from a charismatic, fundamentalist c

   Vampire Kisses 4: Dance with a Vampire by Ellen Schreiber  - The effects of reading a book should linger with you long after reading it, but just a month after reading this book I had to read a synopsis to help me remember what the book is about.  That is just pitiful and time wasted.  From what I remember, this book confused me.  Jagger's little brother, Valentine, is in town and Raven once again overreacts to the situation by suspecting that he is up to no good.  I thought Valentine was a mildly cool character, especially with his extra supernatural powers.  I wish Raven and Alexander had paid more attention to what he tells them about their thoughts-he obviously was a smarter character than they are.  I was frustrated by Raven's judgmental attitude towards Valentine-she condemns him for the way he dresses when he dresses in the same goth style that she does.  I had some trouble understanding the plot, but I didn't care enough about the story to take the time to re