2024: New Year: New Goals: New Me

Hi it’s Tiana your resident book raven back again! I hope that you all have a wonderful year in 2024!

Even though the end of 2023 really knocked the wind out of me and I am still under the weather I am so excited to talk about the plans I have for 2024.

A new job:

I am going to be applying everywhere I can for remote work in the new year. I really need a full time work from home position that pays better then the current job I have. Working from home I’ll have more flexibility and I’ll be able to not be far from my dad in his final stages of dementia.

Raise money for a game writing course:

I want to do a game writing course this year that is taught by a man who worked on the game God of War in 2018. It’s a $3,000 course that is not currently in my budget, but hopefully a higher paid job/possibly selling extra candles/art work/selling a short story collection or novel could work out well for me.

Write and a whole lot:

I want to actually finish writing projects this year. I want to write and put myself out there and feel accomplished that I actually did what I set out to do for once. That next to daily blogging (yes for real this time) will make me feel like I’m finally making something of the career of my choice that I am passionate about.

Exercise and eating right:

In 2024 I really need to consume less sugar. I love sweet snacks way too much. I need to slow down on that and eat healthier foods at better proportions and that will be a huge help to a healthier mind and body. As soon as I get over this sickness exercise will become a priority. Even if it’s something small everyday. If I do manage to get a remote job and work from home I will be home more often and have time to do a proper exercise regimen. All of that is really important for the betterment of myself and my mental and physical health.

Reading Goals:

I want to read at least for 30 minutes everyday. I want to make that my downtime to relax and give myself a sense of peace at the end of the day. Grab a book and drink a nice tea and feel good. Since it is a new year I think I am going to be optimistic and say I want to read 100 books this year. I only read 12 books last year due to just having a rough year in so many ways and I think I can manage to up that a lot by daily reading and getting myself back into the bookish world again.

Gaming Goals:

Besides enjoying Honkai Star Rail and Fortnite with my friends I ultimately want to finish the metro series in the new year. It is my boyfriend’s favorite games and after I’d love to pick up the novels the games were based on and be able to nerd out about them with my boyfriend. Other than that I’m open to whatever gaming experiences await me in the new year.

Ultimate Goal:

I want to be happier in 2024. I want to do my best so that I can live my life the way that feels best to me. To have adventures. To have financial security. To pursue what I love most. I want to make 2024 a year I prove to myself I have healed enough from the hardships of previous years to be the best version of myself. To feel so much joy.

I wish you all the best in the new year. I hope whatever your goals are that you may meet them and that the challenges aren’t too overly massive and that you can meet them all head on. Here’s to 2024. Let’s make it a good year!

THANK YOU ALL FOR READING!

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Good Morning to All!

Good morning everyone! It may or may not be morning when your reading this, but as I’m writing this it’s 7:23 am, and so, it’s a good morning from me.

I have decided that today, March 11th, 2020, is the day that I get back to an old routine of productivity that works for me. I wake up everyday at 5:30. Do my yoga and take a shower. Get ready to tackle the day. Then I write.

This schedule allows me to be incredibly productive. I can write a lot. I can read more. It allows me the ability to be fully present later in the day not worrying about getting anything else done, because I tackled it first thing in the morning. It’s one of the most successful routines I’ve ever had.

In the recent weeks and since the beginning of this year really, I’ve felt the most free I’ve been in my entire life. I’ve found my joy. Something I’ve been basking in and feeling wonderful about for a long while. Now, I’m adding in productivity. Taking care of myself in a better way has been accomplished. It’s now time to be passionate. To get up everyday and to do the things I love to do. To become more the woman I know that I can be. Someone strong, goal-oriented, who steadily does the things she loves, and who allows herself to evolve a bit every single day.

So to everyone I say good morning! Each and everyday is a new one. The ability to create a new way for yourself is available each and everyday. All you have to do is decide and then start.

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I Feel At Peace

I am a person who often has a lot of ideas and a lot of dreams and will often wish those things were in my reality now, but I’m feeling that is something that’s changing in me. Yes, I have my dreams. I have them and I know they will come true in the time they are meant to.

In 2019, I have sat for a very long time in my anxiety. In a way where I learned more and more where it came from and why I felt that way. For me, it stemmed from never having anything truly solid to hold on to for over 18 years. I didn’t know where I was going to be at any given moment. I didn’t feel safe having friends. I didn’t feel like anything I had would remain.

You take that feeling and you enter a new stage of life where it’s now about working and making your own way and being responsible in a way that has consequences that affect so many others and also dealing with seeing someone you love rapidly aging from illness in front of you causes a very real chaos in your emotions. Yet I’m proud of how far I’ve come. My dad has cancer and that’s not going away.

I’ve already experienced falling apart over everything. Back in November I experienced one of the lowest points in my life if not, the lowest point in my life and the emotions made me physically sick. I had an aftermath of months of feeling heavily depressed and very anxious and I did what I needed to to heal that in myself.

I am no longer holding on to all of that. I’m trusting that my future is going to be ok. That I’m going to be ok, because if I can get myself together after feeling that much pain I can get through anything. In my life right now I’m going after what makes me feel good. I’m making myself a priority. I’m caring for my body and eating healthier foods. I’m continuously letting go of the past and thanking it for the lessons it’s taught me. I’m moving into a time in my life where I’m accepting only the best for myself.

I haven’t felt this peaceful with where I am in life in probably my entire life. I’m becoming a better version of myself in every part of my life. I think that even though I haven’t been productive in terms of career and writing I’ve found something even more important in really focusing on myself which has been my self-worth and peace of mind.

I’ve stopped blaming myself for things in general. I’ve stopped beating myself up and instead have been more focused on being my own best friend. I’ve found that I’ve actually been pretty positive about everything this whole time, because I always felt like my sadness was temporary and it was. Anytime I feel sad now is temporary and there is always happiness to be had up ahead. I feel good. Not just a temporary I feel good a lasting I feel good. That’s something special. I guess it’s like Endgame.. no matter how crappy you feel you have to keep moving forward and living your life and never giving up on the fight. Because even if there’s the smallest spark of something living to fight for the fight is worth it.

To everyone reading, I send you all the peace and love in my heart. I truly wish you all well in life. I wish all of you success and happiness. Even to people who aren’t reading this, people who have touched my life in any way at all. I wish all of you peace. I wish you all the deepest happiness you can find within yourselves. I wish you all experience great joy.

I am not nor will I ever be jaded by life. It’s hard enough fighting everyone else when the biggest fight you’ll ever have is at times the one with yourself. I’m tired of resisting my own life’s path. What’s meant for my life will come.

Thanks to all of you for reading! This was a bit of journalistic sort of thought process post for me. I hope you all enjoyed it!

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Till next time!

Just a Life Update

It’s currently 1:00 a.m., I’m writing this from the E.R. mostly to keep awake, but also because I have some stuff to share and maybe in some way this could help someone else who has experienced or will experience a situation like my own. Just so no one freaks out.. currently everything is fine. I’m not here for the same reasons I have been in the past.. where my dad was not able to see and was hallucinating due to a mini stroke and with me having no clue at the time what was going on. This visit was mostly planned. However, I expected it to happen in the morning not at midnight.

I even have stuff prepared so I don’t use up too much of my phone battery. I got my Write The Story Book with me and a book to read. I’ve been here for over an hour already.

When you visit the E.R. enough times you learn a lot of compassion for other people. Because it is the great equalizer, you never know when your going to get sick or injured and need help like everyone else does every once in a while. The first couple of times I’ve been here with my dad it caused me quite the bit of grief and anxiety. It’s hard to see a parent wither away so quickly. It’s even harder when it’s expected of you to remain calm and collected about the whole thing when your mind is anything but.

This time though I don’t expect to hear anything I don’t already know. I’m just hoping my dad doesn’t get admitted again… especially when I know it’s not going to last because they are just going to say there isn’t much of anything they can do.

This blog and work has been my saving grace these past couple of weeks. On those levels things have been going well for me. Mentally I’m so much stronger then I was before and putting a concerted effort into something I have a passion for has done wonders for my mental health. When you have a loved one that has major health issues it’s important to remember to take care of yourself. To work at things that make you happy, because I know from experience that running over and over in your head all the pain and sadness only causes more of it.

Being in the hospital so often also solidified for me something I already knew, that life is short and we all need to enjoy what we can in this life we can, because what’s the point really if all we did was wallow in suffering? I’ve seen so many elderly people lying in hospital rooms just waiting to die alone (not all quite a few have families, but quite a few also, do not) and that’s not how I want to end. That’s not what I want my life to be period. Yes, we have to feel the sadness. I spent a lot of time doing just that, but when it starts to become you, that’s when things need to change.

The strokes affected my dad’s mind. He’s become so angry and bitter at everything. It’s been one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to see. He forgets things.. he has an unhealthy attachment to the news and whatever Trump is doing. He’s not the man I grew up looking up to. I’ve had to mourn that man even while he is still alive.

Sometimes living in an environment where the reality is that someone you love is truly losing their mind bit by bit can become toxic. I’ve learned to deal with it by realizing that my dad isn’t really my dad anymore and to not take anything he says or does personally, because it stems from hurt and sickness and him facing the reality that he is dying. I do my best not to let the truth of the situation make me bitter.. or to not let it make it so I loose my mind with the sadness as well.

So I watch films and post about them, I get back to writing about books I want to read, I hang out with friends when they ask. I choose to continue living. It’s so easy to shut down in a situation like this. To let it consume you. But another truth is that there is so much to live for. So I’m there for my family as much as I can be. I’m there for my dad. I hold myself together sitting in the very lightly cushioned hospital chairs. I try to think about good things. To smile at pictures of cats and puppies and watch stupid videos to distract myself.

It sucks sure, it sucks to have someone you love suffer. It’s even harder when it changes them and sometimes in a not so good way. But, I understand it. I really do. I’ve cried over it, I’ll probably cry over it more in the future, but It’s a balance between compassion for your loved one and compassion for yourself. It’s a fine line and there’s no rulebook for any of this.

I look at my mom and I see how tired she’s gotten. How angry because she’s the one that deals with all of dad’s pain and anger directly. So when she’s mad at me for something small I let it go even if it’s to tell me to do something I’ve already taken care of. Or something so small it doesn’t even matter. I let everything go. Because I’m not going to let this situation cause all of us to start yelling at each other all the time. Because arguments happen and they happen more often then I’d like them to. I’m trying to be someone that doesn’t add to escalating an already difficult situation. I’ve learned more patience and calmness from this situation then any other of my life. I’ve learned not to take things personally from this more then any other. But, I’m not perfect. Not even close. Sometimes I loose my cool and argue back. Sometimes, I sit and the emotions wash over me and I just let myself feel. Sometimes anger comes over me and I have to remove myself from a situation so I don’t say something I would regret. Sometimes I fail to remove myself. But, that’s all part of being human. We have emotions. We hurt. We deal with difficulty. We persevere.

This isn’t at all a pessimistic post. It’s just an honest look at something I’ve been dealing with for a long time now. It’s an honest telling of what I’ve learned from it. I don’t like hiding things. I don’t like pretending like things are better or worse then they are. For me going through this has been hard, but it is manageable and this is not at all a post for the sake of being pitied. Stuff like this happens all the time, but if I can help someone through my experience to deal with their own then I do want to candidly discuss it which is why i choose to write this in the first place.

There is always hope in every situation. There is always something to be learned. I love my family. I love my dad. I wish that none of this would have ever happened, but it’s something that can be handled in a healthy way. It is now 2:00am and I think I’m kinda losing the message I was trying to convey so I’m going to stop here.

To all those who are going through a difficult situation right now, you’ve got this! You are going to make it through. I’ll be praying and rooting for all of you. You deserve the best.

Thanks you all for reading! I send my love out to all of you.

-Till next time!

Why I Took an Unplanned Hiatus

Hello everyone!

I’m finally ready to come back to the blogging community. It’s been a while. A lot longer then I would have liked, but a lot has happened recently and I’m now ready to talk about it.

So, at first I took this hiatus because I had an issue at work with a coworker and the whole thing stressed me out because even though what happened was totally uncalled for there was the fear that I might loose my job. However, it’s all straightened out now and me and that coworker no longer work on the same shifts.

After that I got really sick. At one point I went to the emergency room because I was having panic attacks because when I coughed I felt like I couldn’t breath. I woke up at 5:00 am that day and could not sleep because of how bad my sinuses were. I’m still a little under the weather, but I’m much better now.

So in the time I haven’t been blogging I decided to do something I enjoyed while I was awake. Which was to finally watch all the movies in the marvel cinematic universe. I had been wanted to do this for a while, but never knew what order to go in and had only watched iron man, the hulk, and the guardians of the galaxy movies before setting myself on this quest. Today I finally finished all of them and so I’m going to do a blog series about my thoughts.

There is one more thing I want to talk about. During this time sitting just with myself I went through a lot of emotional purging and understandings. One thing is for certain. My mental health gravely impacted my sickness. Mental health issues aren’t to be messed with. They are real and they are strong and they can mess with you. They can be overcome. However, I had given into my own for a while. I let anxiety and depression run the wheel of my life for too long thinking those thoughts were there to protect me when they were lies.

Currently, I’m working on getting back to a better schedule and creating opportunities to talk about things that make me happy, rather then focusing on my losses. It’s been more difficult for me then I thought it would be, but giving myself projects to work on and getting back into reading and writing should all be helpful.

Depression and anxiety are a part of my reality, much like others deal with bipolar disorder, various phobias, and any other mental health issue. But, it does not define me. It makes my life harder. It makes the relationships I have more difficult then they should be, but in working to heal it I become stronger. I’m going to live my life moment by moment. I’m going to keep hope and faith in my life. I’m going to live everyday of my life as if it were my last. I think the more I do so the smaller the hold anxiety and depression will have on me.

There was a time that I thought my mental health journey wouldn’t affect my life that much. Where I made it smaller then it was. I allowed it to sneak up on me and take control. From now on I take the reigns. I’m determined to make each day something I can look back and smile about from now on. I spent way too much time while I was sick stuck in waves of negative emotion and then flipping back into more positive emotion. I’m going to stick to the positive as much as possible from now on.

Thanks for reading! It’s good to be back finally. Let me know your thoughts down in the comments below.

-Till next time!

Using Crisis Chat for the First Time

Yesterday, my mental health plummeted. I wasn’t and have never been suicidal so at least I’m still ok in that way, but I was in so much emotional pain that I felt like throwing up and I could barely eat. The only reason I didn’t throw up was because I hate that more then anything and I will avoid it at all costs. Hence the very minimal eating.

My dad is doing very poorly. Currently, my family and I are on our way to emergency and yesterday once I got off work (I don’t know how I managed to work in the mental state I was in) we went to urgent care and then got his chest X-rayed. However, on top of the already mounting health issues my dad now can barely see. Plus, the way he is talking.. it’s been really hard for me to cope.

Last night, and these past few days I’ve just desperately needed to talk to someone about how I was feeling about the craziness that has become my life. To be open about how lost I feel. How broken I feel I’ve become. How that doesn’t feel allowed for me due to my responsibilities. To talk about how I’m pretty sure I’ve already lost my relationship with someone who made me feel happier everyday.

Everything piled up all at once and I don’t quite know how to handle it. Yesterday I watched YouTube video after YouTube video trying desperately to find any happiness I could. To laugh so I would forget where I was and so I wouldn’t cry. I don’t know what’s going to happen in the future. All I know is that I need some healing mentally, but I know things seem to only be getting worse and I know that true healing is far away.

Right now, I wanted to talk a little about my conversation. Somehow, I was lucky enough to talk to a counselor who was also a writer! I didn’t find that out till the end, but it was still really cool to talk to someone who also wrote novels, but did something like volunteer to talk to people like me who are under a lot of stress and emotional turmoil.

One thing I noticed was how nice it was to be able to talk to someone who I could tell everything that was going on to. Honestly, I didn’t get to say everything I wanted to, but I didn’t really need to. It just felt good to tell someone what was going on and know that they would listen. I’ve increasingly come to the acknowledgement that I need therapy. There is just too much weight on my shoulders and I don’t want to ever be a burden on anyone. Right now, I feel like a burden. That I’m just going through so much that I’m not only emotionally drained, but that I could potential emotionally drain other people.

My situation feels very unfair, but it is what it is and I have to live this life that I’ve been given. I want to be able to make the most of it, but yesterday I was barely functioning. My mom responds to my tendency toward apathy with a cut it out sort of mentality. Which in a way, kind of works-ish. I have too much riding on my existence in terms of my family’s needs from me to have the ability to completely crumble. Yesterday, I didn’t want to go to work at all. I was having a break down and yet I worked anyway, because it’s not my choice, but I don’t have many choices to make. If it was my choice I would have gone to an actual councilor then and there.

The reason I’m writing all this is because mental health is important to me. Sharing the experience of it is important to me. Being able to connect with others who have struggled and continue to struggle everyday is important to me. To be open in saying I’m struggling and hurting to show it’s normal. It’s not something to be ashamed of. Getting help when you need it is nothing to be ashamed of.

So please, if your ever struggling, please use a hotline or crisis chat.

Here is the link to the crisis chat.

If you need immediate help please call a crisis hotline. Here is a link to different numbers if need be.

Thank you for reading! Thank you all for being with me on my life’s journey. For caring. Many of you know my life has been up and down and crazy recently. I hope that this helps someone. I will continue to write posts like this one as time goes on. Helping someone with my story is all I hope for. Leave your thoughts down in the comments below.

-Till next time!

Life Update: Please Send Well-wishes/Prayers

Hi everyone.

My dad has been sick for a while and we finally took him to the hospital yesterday. It was lucky we did because his kidneys were beginning to fail. We arrived at the hospital at 11 and spent over 11 hours as they worked in emergency to save him and transferred him over to be admitted into the hospital.

I just want him to be well.

We are headed over there early today to be there for him for whatever he needs. Just seeing him in the hospital looking so small, so delicate… I would love for him to be home and well as soon as possible.

They haven’t fixed the cause of the almost failure, but the doctors are working on figuring out what went wrong.

I’m not sure how I’ll be able to keep doing all the things I have been doing, but I know that my mom wants me to continue normally as much as possible. As for posting I might be more sporadic then usual… or I might throw myself into things more because it’s a great distraction from getting really depressed.

Anyway, I am emotionally and physically tired and I am just hoping for any prayers I can get. It’s so hard seeing the man I love so much, my dad, looking like a small shell of his former being.

Thanks for reading.

-Till next time.

Why I Have Been AWOL These Past Few Days

This past week has been something of a disaster for me. My Mom, my Dad, and my Sister have all been sick since Christmas and it seemed that no one was going to get any better anytime soon.

I had also been sick on and off and finally starting this last week I began to really come down. So for a while my life has simply been, work then rest, then work and ready again. I haven’t really been able to focus much on reading or blogging.

However, now I’m back and I’m almost making a full recovery and my family seems to be feeling a lot better so hopefully things will settle down completely in the next week. I’m happy to say that the worst is over for now and I’m excited to get back to blogging and reading again!

Thanks for reading! I’m so sorry for the inconsistency in my uploads recently, but hopefully I should be back to posting more regularly once more.

-Till next time!

Life Update: Healing from an Issue not Commonly Discussed

Over the course of my short life of 18 years walking this earth I have struggled with various issues with myself that I normally don’t talk about, but there is one issue that has progressed extremely negatively in recent years and that is my use of nasal sprays. 

I know, I know, your thinking what the heck? How is that even a thing, but I’m here to tell you that it’s gotten to the point that for over a year I could not breath through my nose without spraying it every few hours or so every single day. Another thing you might be thinking is why is this such a big deal? 

Well, for starters needing to use nasal spray in public is an extremely embarrassing thing for me. Sticking a spray up my nose and inhaling like some sort of drug addict always made me feel super self-conscious and all the while while the spray was a temporary solution it was doing major damage to my health (at least for where congestion is concerned). My nose has adapted to the ingredients in the spray so well that when I take it I rarely even get fully decongested any more and I’m constantly blowing my nose and sniffiling and that’s a whole other sort of embarrassment. 

Every time I pick up that spray bottle I see a future with me never being able to live without it and thinking that way is making it so it’s harder and harder for me to be able to live life to the fullest. So, I did a bunch of research on it and the only way for me to cut the dependency fully is to quit cold turkey. (There are a few other methods, but I find that this is what would work best for me). So this morning I took my last dose of spray and I’m finally going to quit using the spray for good. 

From my research this process will take anywhere from about a few days to a few weeks before I can heal fully and breathe normally again and right now I can’t breathe at all. The hardest part is going to be getting through the anxiety of not being able to breathe which was the monster that drove me to my dependency in the first place. If I can push through this and start to feel healthier again it will be one of the biggest reliefs of my life. 

If you do ever have congestion issues please don’t use nasal drops. In the short term they are fantastic, but in the long run it can cause major issues to your health. 

Thank you for reading! I know this is a strange post, but after finding out how dangerous it was to use drops the way I have been using them I had to share. If I could help anyone with my story that may have this issue it would be a blessing. This is going to be a hellish few weeks, but in the end my future health is what is most important. 

-Till next time! 

Hello Me, It’s You: A Review

Hello Me, It’s You edited by Hannah Todd

My Rating: 5 stars!

Published: October 10th, 2016

Recieved: Netgalley provided me with an e-copy in exchange for an honest review

Purchase: Amazon UK

“Keep smiling and being you. Don’t let the world change you”
Hello Me, it’s You is a collection of letters by young adults aged 17-24 about their experiences with mental health issues. The letters are written to their 16-year-old selves, giving beautifully honest advice, insight and encouragement for all that lays ahead of them.
This book was produced by the Hello Me, it’s You charity, set up by the editor, Hannah. Hannah was diagnosed with depression and anxiety whilst at university and found comfort in talking to friends about their experiences, realising she was not alone in her situation. This inspired the idea for the charity and book. Through the creation of materials such as this, the charity aims to provide reassurance for young adults (and their families) who are experiencing mental health issues and give a voice to young adults on such an important topic. The result of that will hopefully be a reduction in the negative stigma surrounding mental health and an increase in awareness of young people’s experiences. All profits go the Hello Me, it’s You charity, for the production of future supportive books.
Trigger warning: Due to it’s nature, the content of this book may be triggering. Contains personal experiences of depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, trichotillomania and other mental health issues, as well as issues such as assault.

Musings: 

This book is beautiful. This book is necessary. This book needs to be read. 

One of the most intimate things you can do is write a letter. There something about it that pushes you to be honest and real no matter how hard it is. That honesty is brought out further when you write a letter to yourself. Reading others intimate moments is a glimpse into their soul. Their struggles scared them. Years past in pain. Yet the brightest message is life is well worth living. 

Mental health is something that so many people deal with every day of their lives. It is not something that is rare. At one point or another, I have to say that almost everyone experiences the pain of it during their lifetimes. This honest and hopeful book of letters is one of the most beautiful ways I have ever seen anyone speak about its hardships. 

Hope, knowledge that you were once hurting more then you thought your soul could take, but then realizing that the next day came and went and you are going to be ok. Friendships, love, family, all relationships are hard. Every single day is a day to learn and grow. All this and so much more is hidden in these sad and happy pages. 

There is always good to look forward to. Good and bad exists for you to find out what kind of person you wish to be. Life is full of all kinds of moments, it is how you choose to react to it that defines who you are. There is always light. 

Thank you all for reading! If you are struggling with emotional pain or know someone who is please read this book and do all you can to find help. This book is hard, but it is a good hard, because it has the ingredients necessary to help you and others to heal. Let me know your thoughts in the comments. If you are ever struggling and need someone to talk to, let me know. If anything, I know pain, but I also know hope and healing too. Know you are not alone. Dear reader, you are loved, you are special, and you are worth it. 

-Till next time!