Keep The Faith

There’s things I’ve done I can’t erase

Every night we fall from grace

It’s hard, with the world in your face

Try to hold on, try to hold on. . . 

~ Bon Jovi, ‘Keep the Faith’

 

I believe in the Holy Trinity, and I believe in the Blessed Virgin.

I believe in God, and I believe in science.

World Suicide Prevention Day 2016

Click to read Cate’s bio

Trigger Warning:  As indicated by the title, this post discusses suicide.  Not graphically, and not in detail, but if you find the topic triggering you may choose not to read this post.

 

Suicide (and suicide prevention) is not something I choose lightly to think about, or even write about. It is “My Scary Place”. But I’m going here because this is

Too important not to write about.

 

Public Service Announcement

click to read SSG’s bio

I am going out on a limb here and I hope that the powers that be (a.k.a. Ruby) are ok with it.

The thing is, we’re a family, right? So, I figured that I should keep my Canvas family* on the know.

I’ve been Team Canvas for… what, two years now.  And then there is this other Canvas dude, who joined our lovely family just a couple of months ago. He’s been a bit quiet around here but he has his reasons**.

The funny thing is dude and I…

Wait for it….

As Parents Age…

There’s a moment in our lives, for all of us, when we realise that our parents have grown old, and after a lifetime of looking to them, now they are looking to us.  A lifetime of you being their ‘child’, now in some ways, that is reversed.  The only way you avoid this is if you completely cut off all contact with them some time before. Otherwise it’s a stage of our lives that is impossible to ignore. It is a time that can have enormous effect on both our mental health and theirs.  Everything has changed.  Now you realise that you’re finally ‘grown up’.

It was the best of times and it was the worst of times

click to read SSG’s bio

Well, hello there.

I have been very absent from Canvas in the last few months.

For those who don’t follow my blog or never quite made it there in a while, here’s the skinny. I was an inpatient at a mental health unit for three weeks in September/October 2013. From there, I was referred to a four-week Day Hospital program that kept me quite busy.

Christmas With Mental Illness

In my country of New Zealand, I think it’s fair to say that most people celebrate the occasion of Christmas, and that those who choose not to do so, don’t on religious or cultural basis.  There’s been a few years in my past when I have chosen not to celebrate Christmas, and that has been all about mental illness.

Lines and Colours

In my mind, I am normal. This is because I live with me twenty-four seven (OK, not always twenty-four seven because some of those hours I am asleep).

I have BPD. In the past, I never realised that I feel emotions more easily, more deeply, and for longer than others do. I thought the intensity of my emotions was normal. Turns out, it’s not. I read somewhere that in non-BPD people an emotion typically fires for 12 seconds. In BPD’ers it can last up to 20 percent longer. BPD’ers emotions also repeatedly re-fire, or re-live, or recur, however you want to say it, so emotional reactions occur for even longer. I do. I go over and over and over the emotions, pinging from one to another like a steel ball in a pinball machine.

Desperado Dad

My Beautiful Girl,

I hope you know the depth of my love.
The lengths I would go to for you.
The things I would do to protect you.
The things I would do to provide for you.
The way my heart aches at what the world could do.