Category Archives: depression

bipolar, childhood, depression, Humor, memories, Mental Illness, Star Trek

Vulcans, Emotion, and Childhood – Why Star Trek Matters

September 9, 2019 Sue St. Blaine 2 Comments

As I write this, September 8, 2019, it is the 53rd anniversary of Star Trek’s premier. (The Original Series, pedants. Don’t even start.)

I always get a little misty about this, because Star Trek means the world to me. I wrote about how much Close Encounters touched my heart, so I’m going to wax poetic about Star Trek too, and the real lessons to be learned. And Spock. Just a lot of Spock.

I don’t remember the first time I saw the ocean or knew about the redwoods, and I don’t remember a time I didn’t know Kirk and Spock and all my friends. I have no memory of seeing Star Trek the first time, it was just ever present. (In fairness, I don’t remember the first time I saw the visual acid trip that was Sid and Marty Croft either, but I digress.)

What was it about this sci-fi show that was canceled when I was 1-year old that moved me so much?

I loved that Starfleet Command and Academy were here in San Francisco and Marin. Did you know that the Golden Gate Bridge is the only one still standing because of course bridges are no longer required, but they left it because it is simply too beautiful to not exist? Remember in “The Voyage Home,” how proud Sulu was when they saw it? “San Francisco. I was born there.” <swoon!>

Quick fun fact –Starfleet was located here because it’s where the U.N. Charter was signed. Ok, I’ll stop.

My irrational adoration of this City aside, Star Trek hit a lot of buttons for me. The Salt Vampire was genuinely terrifying, nothing else on the show scared me that bad, and actually it still creeps me out.

star trek 10 — **I know it’s a sympathetic character but, sheesh!**

The episode “Mirror Mirror” filled me with undefinable joy that perhaps I will expand on at another time. Suffice to say, Bearded Spock. Bearded Spock, my first boyfriend.

Bearded or not, I loved him so very much. He was handsome, brilliant, and without emotion. I wanted to be a Vulcan since I was very little. Actually, I wanted to be T’Pring, but without the stupid decision, but anyway.

star trek 9 — **Even Kirk is shocked, and he’s about to fake-die.**

I would stay in the bathroom and hold my eyebrows up at the corners to see if they would stick that way. I used the words “fascinating” and “logical” all the time. I tried to be smart like him, well-read like him, I played guitar because I didn’t know where to get a Vulcan harp. To this day I want that glowing red animal thing he had in his quarters. Luckily Chris is also a nerd, so if we could find one it would go directly next to the dining table. For the life of me, I can’t find a picture of it.

To my child mind, being a Vulcan meant no pain, no sorrow, no regret, no fear. If I had no emotion, I was free, really. I couldn’t get in trouble for expressing increasingly volatile emotions, because I wouldn’t have any. I’d just raise an eyebrow and flash an amused little smile.

star trek 4 — **Ok, he was high here, but still.**

Being emotionless would be impossible, of course. A human can’t be devoid of emotion. Vulcans aren’t either if I’m honest. Sarek for example, Mr. “You should have gone to the Vulcan Science Academy, not Starfleet Academy I won’t talk to you until you give me your blood.”

Anyway, to kid-me the whole Star Trek world seemed ideal. Food on command, twinkly lights and poof! you’re anywhere, pretty sweet. That brings up something that has always bugged me, though. In “The Enemy Within” why didn’t they just send down the shuttlecraft? Maybe it was too cold for that too. But damn, that bugs me.

So, being emotionless is impossible, what is the alternative? If we follow Trek canon, I suppose I could be a Vulcan from their distant past. For those who haven’t spent their lives in front of the T.V. box, Vulcans used to be emotional and warlike, until they got all enlightened and went too far the other way.

The thing to do is find that middle way, that balance between modern Vulcan and ancient Vulcan. Between the Vulcans who tore each other apart and the ones who could never tell their mothers they love them. (From “The Naked Time,” which is also the episode with the best off-hand line ever, when Sulu calls Uhura “fair maiden” and she says “Sorry, neither.” Perfection.)

Star Trek taught me other lessons about honor, friendship, communal good. Trying to emulate Spock actually helped too, I think, because he was inconsistent, he broke his own rules. He was a scientist, but he also loved music. He was logic and dignity personified, but he went to jam with space hippies. He had no emotion and no capability for love or friendship, but his reactions really didn’t bear that out.

In our lives, I think we need both and a middle ground. Sometimes we do put up a hard shell to get by. That’s fine, that can be important. But we also need to be able to be passionate, to let ourselves be blissfully happy and climb a tree, to be so in love that we forget who we are for a bit, and sometimes we need anger. Sometimes anger is appropriate. Sometimes it’s warranted. Sometimes it is absolutely necessary. Sometimes, we fight. But if we must it should be as defense. Starship Enterprise (NCC-1701 – don’t even start!) had a mission of exploration – a five-year mission, if you will – but she also fights if necessary, frequently with Klingons, aka Star Trek’s Daleks. I like Romulans better, honestly.

star trek 12 — **In my Top 5 Episodes, and that’s totally not Sarek.**

It’s the human condition I think, to try to figure out when to use emotion, and when to curb it a bit. Do I need my passion right now? Is this worth getting angry about? Is this, as a friend put it, the hill I want to die on? If you decide it’s time to be heard, be heard. But be safe.

One of the constant messages in Star Trek was equality among all races, genders, species. Gene Roddenberry wasn’t exactly subtle with this subtext, to the point now and then of being a bit heavy-handed.

But it was a different time, the late ‘60s. Some people, including women, lost their minds because Nurse Chapel was so strong. There was a Russian on the bridge, and a Japanese man, and a, well, some people actually said Spock was a devil, because pointed ears. Sometimes I weep for humanity.

But these characters, these stories, they reached more than a messed up little kid in the suburbs. They made a real difference. Here’s a link to an interview with Nichelle Nichols, Uhura. Yes, Roddenberry saying “a black” hits our ears wrong now, but take it for the time it was said, and hear the story she tells.

Star Trek was just a show, a sci-fi T.V. show that could be written off as fluff. But it wasn’t. Looking at it now, the cheap costumes, the plywood sets, the saltshakers McCoy used as medical instruments (no, seriously) sure, they look cheesy. But look deeper. Try to imagine it’s 1966, and you’re an impressionable kid. There is likely something or someone you relate to.

Many scientists cite the show for sparking their interest in astronomy or what have you. Sometimes it gave a person a glimpse of self-worth, of dignity, of pride.

Remember what MLK told Nichelle Nichols? About how she was a symbol now, a non-stereotyped black character?

star trek 14 — “Well, when I was nine years old, Star Trek came on, I looked at it and I went screaming through the house. ‘Come here, mum, everybody, come quick, come quick, there’s a black lady on television and she ain’t no maid!’

So no, it’s not just a show. It made a major difference in many lives, in myriad ways. And it is relevant still. Despite J.J. Abram’s best efforts, it will live forever.

Live long and prosper.

Anger, bipolar, current events, Death, depression, Facebook, Mental Illness, Self Care

Self-Care in Painful Times

August 4, 2019 Sue St. Blaine Leave a comment

This page is not partisan, I’ve made that very clear.

I address issues that are not left/right, issues that are simply about human decency and morality.

Ripping children from their parents is not a partisan issue.
Putting children and little babies into cages, physically and emotionally abusing them, scarring them forever, is not a partisan issue.
Gunning down African Americans on our streets is not a partisan.
Looking for answers to stop gun violence and spree killings is not partisan.

I woke up this morning to find that there has been another mass shooting, 13 hours after the last. Nine irreplaceable humans are dead. There have now been more mass shootings in the United States than days in the year.

On the Nightmare and Laughter Facebook page, I offered soft words for Gilroy and encouraged self-care.
Six days later I did the same for El Paso.
And now, 13 hours after El Paso, we have Dayton.

My page is becoming a testament to barbarity, to hopelessness, to death and crippling pain. I don’t want people looking at it and, instead of finding comfort or laughter or interest, finding themselves scrolling through tragedy after tragedy.

All of this affects everyone, and I am no exception. I want to be a comfort and a refuge for my readers, that is the mission of this page. But I have to take care of myself before I can do that. And posting what will later be reminders of atrocity after atrocity is already compounding the nightmare for me.

Put simply, I’m getting depressed.

I don’t want anyone coming to my page and finding themselves in the same position. I want you to come to my page and not find only condolences. I want you to come to my page and find hope and comfort. Of course in the heat of it, everyone will know what I’m referring to, but my page will read like an affirmation, rather than an obituary. That is what Nightmares and Laugher is, that is what I set out to do. It will keep the page a safe place for you and honestly, for me as well.

So please know that should you be affected by a future event, (I wish I could say if there is a future event) that the affirmation is with you in my mind and my heart. Should you be adjacent to this tragedy, the affirmation is with you in my mind and my heart. And if you are a human in the United States or anywhere and this hurts you, the affirmation is with you in my mind and my heart.

Life many of us, my heart breaks and I cry with every bullet spent, every irreplaceable life forever gone. I am now crying as I type these words. It is simply overwhelming.

This is not a partisan issue. This is a national emergency that affects all of us. I will not hear any anti-regulation arguments, I will not hear any defense of what is happening, which is what an anti-regulation argument is. We need solutions, we need think tanks.

I do not have the answers. It is not my job to come up with the answers. We need the people we elected to do their damn job.

It’s easy to feel helpless but there are things we can do. Here is a list of five things that any of us can do to help, to be proactive.

My beautiful, talented, irreplaceable niece hid from the shooter in Gilroy, while shrapnel flew beside her. I watched my dear friends receive a text from her, with no idea if it would be her last. My friend, her father, who is comfortable with guns, and knows how to use them safely, texted her back to remind her what to do in that situation. This is not acceptable. This is not normal. And this is not something I want anyone else to go through.

But it’s likely they will. So I want to remind you, and myself, to exercise self-care and watch your mental state, especially if you suffer from a mental illness. You can’t take care of others if you are broken. It is not selfish, quite the opposite. The consequences of ignoring and not treating your pain can be dire, and your family would suffer horribly.

I’m including resources that can help. It is not selfish to accept that you can’t do it alone. You are important, you are irreplaceable, and you are in my heart, even if I don’t know you.

National Helpline

SAMHSA’s National Helpline is a free, confidential, 24/7, 365-day-a-year treatment referral and information service (in English and Spanish) for individuals and families facing mental and/or substance use disorders.

https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/national-helpline

National Suicide Prevention Hotline

We can all help prevent suicide. The Lifeline provides 24/7, free and confidential support for people in distress, prevention and crisis resources for you or your loved ones, and best practices for professionals.

1-800-273-8255

https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/

Aging, alcoholism, bipolar, brain, depression, Dreams, Goals, Mental Illness, poetry, writing

Creative Spark and Age – Keep your Brain Alive!

August 3, 2019 Sue St. Blaine Leave a comment

So I’m back from my writing escape to Boise, Idaho. While I did return with a lot of work done on outlines, three new ideas, inspiration from a few of the really cool spooky places they have, I did learn something interesting about myself.

Getting older 2 — Seriously Boise, well done.

I’m older than 30. I’m significantly older than 30.

I’ve never been coy about my age. Every year and especially every decade that turns for me is an achievement that I didn’t expect to see. I never thought I’d see 30. Then, 40 was unlikely. Now I’m 51, and that’s just shocking really. Wonderful, but perplexing. How did I make it to this age?

I made it here by working hard to address my demons and to come to peace with and even start to embrace my illness. This is wonderful, and it makes me happy when I realize that I am, in fact, 51. That’s just weird.

So here’s what drove it home over the last week. My plan was to hide away in a hotel, no commitments, no interruptions, I asked the lady when I checked in to please tell housekeeping I don’t need them, just blackout curtains, a fridge with enough to keep me alive, and my laptop. I have 15 stories I’m juggling, and I’m anxious to see them bloom. Or bleed. These are spooky stories. I wanted to do what I used to do when I wrote – look at the clock and wonder, is that 4 a.m. or 4 p.m.? I loved that, getting so lost in my art that I had no concept of time at all. Suddenly I’d look up and say, “What is that feeling? Why am I dizzy? Oh, right, food. I need food.” That is what I was hoping to recapture.

Getting older 1 — My personal idea of bliss.

Now, getting lost in my work, that’s no problem. I do that even when I write on the couch, as I’m doing right now. Becoming completely absorbed just comes with the creative process. Getting lost in time, though, that’s a different thing. When I was in my 30s, as I painted I could wonder if it was a.m. or p.m. Well, not anymore. My body shuts down around 10. I find myself fading, my brain not up to trying to figure out why my protagonist is near the creepy sidewalk in the first place, (spoiler!) so I just go to bed.

Getting older 5 — But for the fire-from-the-sky heat, this would be a fine goth retreat!

At one point, my eyes shot open about 3:30 in the morning because I had an idea. I leapt out of bed and wrote until about 5. I got some good stuff, I felt happy about it, but by about 2p.m. I was useless. I’ll mark this trip as the moment I realized a new limitation on my former habits. But this is not the first time. One by one through the years I’ve watched my body change.

In my late 20s, I wouldn’t even leave the house until 11p.m. because who gets to a club before 11? I’d be out until around 3, and get home around 4. My alarm for work would go off at 6. Getting two hours of sleep is worse than none at all, so I’d just stay up and work through the day, crash when I got home, and I’d recover fine. (This is not while I was drinking. That’s a whole other thing with no fond memories.) Then, when I was around 33 I think, I did this and the next day – even though I was not drinking – I felt hungover and wrung out. It was awful, and I realized well, I can’t do that anymore. It was a major change in my body, an “over-30” wake up call. I would still go to the clubs, but not if I had to work the next day. Huge bummer.

Then, pushing 40, more changes. I could no longer stay out too late on a weeknight or I’d be useless. For someone who’s playtime didn’t begin until 11, now I couldn’t stay out until 11. Huge bummer.

I hadn’t noticed anything new for a while until this trip. Now I know, while I can lose time, I can’t cheat it. My body starts to fade around 10. And my body is the boss. But you know what? This is not a huge bummer. Not at all. These are the changes in a 51-year-old woman who is healthier and happier than I ever could have expected given what I’ve done to myself all these years. Given the number of times I’ve walked to a bridge with no intention of coming back, held a knife tightly and purposefully in my hand, fallen into a manic/depression cycle so severe I spend two days in the hospital. After all of that, I still have my health, my husband, my dear friends and family, Crazy Legs, and…my mind. My functioning, powerful brain that can’t do math like at all, but still.

My brain is my joy and my treasure. My looks will fade, my body will change and get more limitations, but my mind, I will keep my mind sharp. If I have that, and my fantastically inappropriate sense of humor, I’ll be just fine.

Another thing I had to accept on this trip, writing fiction is really really hard! I knew that, but I did underestimate how difficult, how much I’m going to have to learn to do it. It’s a whole new world to me, entirely different from anything I’ve ever done.

I got discouraged at one point, so I changed gears and wrote the last article. Yes, I wanted to be sure I didn’t have too long a space between them, but quite honestly, I needed to do something I know. The last article came because I was feeling inadequate. I mean, I respect my readers, no doubt, but I also really needed to convince myself I can actually write.

This new thing I’m doing, this new craft I am years from mastering, is making parts of my brain spark that haven’t in a long time. This blog is my happy place, my comfort zone. “Life Songs” and its poetry, my happy place, my comfort zone. There’s nothing wrong with that. But my new work, it’s causing my synapses to sparkle. It’s also giving me headaches and self-doubt, but that’s part of the process I suppose.

48309 — My sparkling synapse which is the moon, apparently.

So I am 51, I can no longer stay out all night and function the next day. I can no longer stay out late and function the next day. And I can no longer keep my body up creating after about 11pm.

I truly don’t care. I am happy where I am, I am happy with what I can do and accomplish. I am awed that I have lived this long and still have a brain. I have some wonderful memories, I lived a colorful youth. I am not young anymore, but I am not done. Not by a long shot. I have plans and things to create. I have my advocacy and help for the mental health community as best I can, and that alone is a reason to live.

One of the best things about getting older is being able to help with compassion from a place of “Oh, I’ve been there.” I can help in a way I couldn’t when I was 30.

So this past week I wrote and fretted and got inspired by the organ in the Egyptian Theater (seriously, how cool is that place?) and I learned a new piece of information about my body. And that is as cool as a pack of ghost dogs at a race track.

Oops. Spoiler.

bipolar, depression, Facebook, GenY, Mental Illness, millennials, Stigma

Millennials, GenZ, and Stigma

July 28, 2019 Sue St. Blaine Leave a comment

I just saw this on Facebook.

Leaving aside for a moment that, like everything else, it jumps from Boomers to Millennials and GenZ, skipping over my entire generation like we were the embarrassing child you pop into a backroom when company comes over, where we sit and sulk and listen to dark music and smoke Cloves and talk about how everyone else are conformists and we don’t need their approval, and…ah, sorry. Got lost in thought.

Anyway, my main point here is the message, not the fact that GenX is just non-existent as if we had no effect on the zeitgeist at all, as if Clerks wasn’t a movie and grunge wasn’t a thing or whatever.

OK, that’s out of my system.

I like the message here, that younger people are more accepting of therapy and mental health issues. That it’s being spoken about more openly, that’s it’s no longer so taboo. I decided to look into it because that would be amazing. And since the Millennials and GenZ now outnumber the Boomers, this is a huge wave.

This is a very hopeful article I found on the National Alliance on Mental Illness – NAMI’s site. Millennials And Mental Health

This paragraph in particular really hit me:

“Mental health conditions run in our family. My mom had depression. My youngest daughter and I have recovered from panic disorder. Mackenzie was aware of our family history, and maybe that made it easier for her to talk about her symptoms. But I think the main reason she was encouraged to get professional help was that she heard her friends and coworkers openly discuss their mental health issues. Mackenzie didn’t feel ashamed or alone.”

I cannot imagine discussing my illness at work. The idea of anyone “finding out” has caused me crippling fear all my life, caused me to use a pseudonym on this blog, almost took away my name so that I could hide. It caused me to fear and hate the thing in me. The idea of coming into work and saying, “Sorry I was out yesterday, I had a serious bipolar episode, and I was in the hospital. Hey, can I have a donut?” is still just inconceivable to me.

But if the younger generations are getting a handle on it, (Millennials run from 1981-1996, please stop calling them kids) that could be a huge turning point for all of us, even GenX who are totally a thing and I’m sitting right here typing. We could all benefit. This is not just a question of openness, of comfort, it’s potentially a matter of life and death. If mental illness is so hidden and stigmatized, if people feel so shameful about it, it may go undiagnosed and untreated. No one should have to live with that burden, and if it’s starting to become more accepted, this is something to be celebrated.

While writing this, though, I found an alarming statistic. I found several articles that all came down to the same general conclusion; Millennials and GenZ are reporting mental health concerns at a higher rate than before, but self-harm/suicide ideation/and suicide is higher as well. I found several articles with possible reasons for this, but I think this one covers them. Gen Z more likely to report mental health concerns

But there’s a paragraph that brings us back to my original point.

“At the same time, the high percentage of Gen Z reporting fair or poor mental health could be an indicator that they are more aware of and accepting of mental health issues. Their openness to mental health topics represents an opportunity to start discussions about managing their stress, no matter the cause.”

They are more stressed for a variety of reasons, and they are more likely to report it and talk about it openly. So why are they also hurting themselves more? Pain does not disappear solely because it is talked about, there are still root causes for it. The younger generations are getting a handle on openness and throwing out shame, but are we taking this seriously? Are we giving them the help and support they need? I can identify my broken arm, but what if no one will fix it? I didn’t find anything specific to those questions, so I’ll leave them as questions. Hopefully, someone with more knowledge than I have will chime in.

What I take from all of this is that while there are alarming things, there is also room for celebration. If stigma is truly being chipped away, if every new generation is more open about mental illness and that it is a medical issue like any other, then that is something I didn’t expect to see in my lifetime.

So many of the problems that are so specific to Millennials and GenZ – not enough real interaction, comparing themselves to the happy smiling lives on Facebook or Instagram – are attributed to social media; I think the changes in stigma can be traced to that too. The concept of privacy is changing, even on this blog I’ve posted pictures of myself and my private life that sometimes give me night-terrors, so the people who’ve grown up knowing nothing else, wouldn’t their concept of privacy change? With so many celebrities self-revealing and talking about what it is and is not, wouldn’t that have an effect on the thinking, on the world view? How can that be anything but good?

I have more questions than answers here because I’m not a doctor and I don’t want to try to simplify such complex issues. But really, it does make me hopeful.

It took me 47 years to slowly begin to reveal. I had to work through exhaustion, pain, crippling fear. I hid my legitimate illness because I was afraid of not getting jobs, being fired from jobs, being mocked, feared, treated with eye-rolling dismissal, even now, as I look for work, I can’t help but feel these familiar pangs. So I am hopeful that the younger generations can look back at that, at stigma, at fear, and furrow their brows and say “What was the big deal?”

I would also like to point out the obvious here – all of this sprung from a meme I saw on Facebook. That just amuses me.

I’m including the list of resources for you since this article talked about some painful things. Please do call one if you need to. Remember, it’s a legitimate illness and stigma can fuck right off.

National Helpline

Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network

Free, confidential, 24/7 support.

https://www.rainn.org/

National Suicide Prevention Hotline

1-800-273-8255

https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/

PFLAG Support Hotlines

The hotlines listed below provide services to callers across the country. If you’re looking for a local support network, also contact one of PFLAG’s more than 400 chapters in the United States.

https://pflag.org/hotlines

Anger, bipolar, depression, Harassment, Mental Illness, Women

When “You’re beautiful” is not OK.

July 9, 2019 Sue St. Blaine Leave a comment

I have an article for today that is nearly finished, but something just happened that got under my skin, so I want to talk about it instead. You see me at my best, now here I am pissed off.

Ok. I am not young, I’m 51, so I have a pretty good handle on how to deal with nonsense of all kinds, how to slap it down hard if necessary, and how to, as my dad would say, “consider the source.” My days of worrying about unwanted advances are behind me, I thought.

I’m unemployed so I’m signed up with the usual suspects, Indeed, Glassdoor, and LinkedIn. These are professional job boards. There’s a social aspect to them as well, but people are there to get connections and find work, get better opportunities, that sort of thing. So when I get a connection request on LinkedIn, I always take it, you never know what might lead to a job.

So shortly after I accepted one, I got a message.

“Hi.” Oddly uninformative but ok.

I replied, “Hello, how are you?”

“Are you at work?” Odd.

“I’m not working right now, I’m home writing.” I answered reflexively, even though I was feeling uneasy, because I thought it would be rude not to. Clearly, I have more work to do.

“What do you write?”

Now I did listen to that inner voice. He did not introduce himself, “are you at work” was abrupt, I just had an uneasy feeling. In context his next comment was a logical question, “what do you write,” but it made me give my laptop the side-eye. Put together, this all seemed off.

“Can I ask how I know you?”

“You don’t, I asked to connect. I’m xxxx. I’m just looking to socialize plus you are beautiful.”

Pardon my French but, oh fuck no.

I replied that this is putting up alarms for me, LinkedIn is not a dating site, I am not interested, and removed the connection. That’s all well and good; I was firm, had my boundary and enforced it. But the very next thing I did is turn to Chris and say, “Maybe I should change my profile picture. Is it sending the wrong message? I wanted to look friendly for employers to see that side…”

“There is not a damn thing wrong with that picture. Are you going to change it to something less attractive because of one man?”

I cannot believe it even crossed my mind. I’m so disgusted I was about to give him power over me. Which is what it would have been, power over how I choose to present myself. I love my profile picture, it was taken in the garden of a beautiful Victorian in the Haight. I look happy, my unpredictable hair was cooperating, I think it looks nice.

No means no 3 — I’m upset, so here is a picture of flowers I took at a friend’s house.

But this one man made me second guess it, made me wonder if I brought this on myself for smiling in a picture. Do you know what I would say to a woman who told me that? “Are you kidding me? Don’t give him that power! You have total agency over your body, you don’t owe anyone anything!” But I did not say that to myself. I worried for a few minutes, I considered changing my photo to something stiffer, in a blazer, an uber-professional no-teeth smile. You know, a picture that doesn’t look like me at all.

So many flashbacks. “Hey baby, gimme a smile. Fine then don’t bitch.” “I’m just trying to be nice, you don’t have to be so uptight.” “If you didn’t want the attention why’d you dress like that?”

No means no 1 — Here’s another happy picture in case you’re getting upset too.

I did not expect to still have to deal with this idiocy at my age. I did not expect to have to deal with this idiocy on a professional job board. And I did not expect this idiocy to still knock me for a loop. I’m not as self-possessed as I thought. That’s a bad realization.

Shortly after this, I got another connect request, another man trying to flirt. Now I will not accept any connections without mutual friends and a note from their mother. This is sad, because who knows, that one random person may have found my profile and said, “Say, let’s hire her and give her legal currency.”

Ladies, I want to be clear. I am not talking about all men. Please recall that the one who pointed out that there was nothing wrong with my photo and that I should not take it down was my husband. I have no men like these in my life, not one.

Gentlemen, if you don’t pull this kind of crap, I’m not talking about you. If you respect women and the concept of boundaries, then I am not talking about you.

If you are reading this saying “I don’t get it. What’s the problem?” then I am, most definitely, talking about you.

This is really more of a rant I suppose, but it just happened, it’s fresh in my mind, and I think it is worth visiting. We have to put up with this bullshit all of our lives, we have to learn to wear armor and how to respond or not, how to walk down the street and not look like a victim. We have to learn how to respect our bodies, and not respond the way women are trained to. We have to learn that it is not our fault, that we are not responsible for the thoughts and actions of another, and that we have every right to firmly say no, and if that is not accepted, to be more forceful and absolutely clear, no means no.

No means no 4 — Time to laugh. I need to laugh.

It never occurred to me I would have to deal with this on a job board. It simply never entered my mind. I thought that adults would behave like adults, but I was incorrect, and now this is just one more place where I have to keep my guard up.

chicken nike feet — I don’t know about you, but I need a chicken in Nikes right about now.

One last thing, ladies, if a man is making you uncomfortable, if you are in person and he says something that hits you wrong, trust your voice and get away. You do not owe him anything.

Trust your voice, use your voice, get up, get out.

You are worth everything, and you have the right to say…oh fuck no.

Note: I used the cisgender words “Ladies” and “Gentlemen” for the sake of a narrative, I mean no offense to my LGBT or non-binary readers. It’s the next day, my head is clearer, and I realized that could also hit a button. I see you.

alcoholism, bipolar, depression, Goals, Humor, Mental Illness

Afraid but Doing It – You Are a Lion

July 1, 2019 Sue St. Blaine Leave a comment

All my life, I’ve been somewhat crippled by fear. I was afraid of failing, so I wouldn’t start, afraid of being rejected, so I wouldn’t put myself out there, afraid of looking foolish, so I didn’t try new things. I remember as a child being terrified to jump off the backyard fence, it seemed so high. I sat there for a while before someone helped me down. I just couldn’t make that leap.

When I turned 30, I decided I would try to not live in fear anymore, so when my friends decided to go skydiving, I jumped at the idea. (The joke there is just too easy, so I’m not going to take it.) I put on a hot pink jumpsuit and harness, took the mandatory class, and headed out to the runway. At this point I wasn’t scared which was unlike me since I was about to leap willingly from a perfectly good airplane at 15,000 feet with a man I didn’t know strapped to my back and a trust that he knew what he was doing. That 8-foot wooden fence had given me vertigo, but here I was, resplendent in pink and thinking of paratroopers in old movies.

There was one moment when I actually thought I might throw up, just as we were leaping directly into a cloud. In the pictures you can clearly see the what-the-actual-fuck-was-I-thinking look on my face. I’m sharing that moment with you because I’d rather be funny than cool.

Skydiving was scary and exciting and made me question my decision-making skills, but once I did it I felt like a rock star for a while. In the grand scheme of things though, it was a fun diversion and nothing more. I overcame a fear and then went to get pizza. Life changing leaps, the sort of make-it-or-break-it moments, those are far riskier. Ok, the dive was also risky had the chute not opened, but you see what I mean.

When the first tech boom happened in San Francisco in the mid-‘90s, I was working as an Administrative Assistant, which was good steady work, something I could do and make a livable wage, but I wasn’t happy and I wanted to do more. I knew nothing about computers; once a friend told me I could download my work to a floppy, and I had no idea what that meant. But I started to look at the techies sitting in their toy-covered offices and realized they weren’t actually any smarter than me, I just had a gigantic learning curve. So I made a bold decision; I was going to save six months of living expenses, which one could do in those long-gone days, and then quit my job whether I had a new one or not. I figured that would be a great incentive to hustle.

I lived alone with my cat, so it was all on me, sink or swim. I was terrified. I deeply questioned my decision-making skills. But I did it anyway, and I ended up working in I.T. for 20 years. It sounds as I write that like it happened quickly and easily, but it did not. I worked hard to get there, paid my dues, got hand-me-down equipment to tear apart and put together, learned what it meant to download to a floppy. I put in the time, and I succeeded.

Then, after 20 years I decided it was time to move on for a variety of reasons including my health, but that’s a story for another article.

My point here is that skydiving, and taking a giant risk to change careers didn’t make me brave, doing those things while every fiber of my being is screaming “Are you out of your damn mind? Terror! Death! Homeless!” is what made doing them brave. I was scared and unsure, but I did it anyway, I took the chance.

None of this makes me special. Like the techies rolling through their offices on Segways, I am not any smarter than you. I am pretty average and I can’t do math in my head. I can barely do math at all, honestly. I don’t like math is my point, I guess.

Bravery is not going in, metaphorical guns blazing, confident and bad-ass and fearless, bravery is going in when you’re scared and doing it anyway. Bravery is taking a deep breath, squaring your shoulders, and moving forward.

The things I talked about would never have happened if I had not taken the brave steps of saying the words “I am an alcoholic” and confronting the illness I was self-medicating. My book would never have been finished. This blog would not be happening. My art and my budding photography would be gone.

This does not happen overnight, it is not easy, and you may fall. I got sober, and then I relapsed, and then I got sober again. And each time I felt like a failure, and my illness agreed, so I drank more. But I got back up, did the work, and succeeded. Now I’ve been clean for years and work hard to live and thrive with bipolar disorder; I have the correct medicine and support and do the best I can, day by day.

None of this makes me special. But it does make me brave. Facing these demons, getting out of bed even now when I feel depressed, these are the regular, personal victories that should be celebrated and praised.

Whatever you’re facing, big or small, makes you bad-ass and strong, you are a lion or whatever image you like. You are diving out of a plane at 15,000 feet into a cloud, every fiber in your being screaming “This is a really bad idea!” but doing it anyway. Don’t forget that.

Oh by the way, contrary to what cartoons have told us, clouds are in fact not bouncy and soft. They are really really cold and wet. I had an ice-cream headache when we landed.

And it was one of the best things I’ve ever done.

If you are suffering, and afraid to ask for help, remember – you are awesome. You are bad-ass. And getting help if you need it is every bit as brave as taking that leap.

National Helpline
SAMHSA’s National Helpline is a free, confidential, 24/7, 365-day-a-year treatment referral and information service (in English and Spanish) for individuals and families facing mental and/or substance use disorders.
https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/national-helpline

alcoholism, bipolar, depression, Family, Humor, Mental Illness, Photos, poetry, subconscious, writing

Art, Self-Care, and Celebration

June 18, 2019 Sue St. Blaine Leave a comment

My husband was away this weekend, and since I was on my writing break, I got bored. I needed to do something creative but I didn’t know what.

Poking around in Facebook I saw an ad from a corsetry shop a friend owns. The featured corset was made with the lace from an old wedding gown which was in tatters. I thought that was a great idea. Then I remembered that my first wedding gown is under my bed. I had it cleaned and preserved after the wedding, and it has sat in that box unseen for 31 years.

But it’s much older than that. My dad and my uncle split the price, and my mother wore it in 1954 for their wedding, and my aunt shortly after. When my first husband and I got married, I wanted to wear it too, so a few alterations later, it was ready for the big, extremely ill-advised day in my 20-year-old life.

The pictures of me are so funny; she looks like maybe we are related but not the same person. Well, we aren’t the same person. I mean, few of us are the same as we were at 20, I don’t think. Unless you are 20, then hey, you do you.

But the dress is not sacred, we split up after five years, so why on earth should I leave it in its box like a mummy in a sarcophagus?

To recap, I was alone, bored, and had a 65-year-old gown with two previous owners including my mom, that I wore 31 years ago and haven’t seen since. Nope. Nothing there to set a person into a spin.

I dug it out from under our bed, brought it into my dining room, and started to unbox it like Howard Carter but with fewer “wonderful things” and deadly curses.

I had forgotten how heavy it is, and how fragile the lace was even back then, and the veil is so huge I sat on it when I was wearing it.

It did not fit. I am a tad larger now. But I found that if I unbuttoned the back I could slip my arms into the sleeves and it looked, from the front, like I was wearing it. It is old and cracked and the pearls are dropping off with each step and something had to be done with it. Something…spooky.

I was alone, and the good camera was with Chris so I decided I would just take some random goth-y photos as selfies with my phone. And then I had an idea. I made a little photo-narrative. I used the plastic skeleton that is in my profile picture, (Ermastus, meet everyone, everyone, meet Ermastus) to be the…

You know, I’m torn here. I am fairly dark by nature, I cut my teeth on Poe and Lovecraft, I’ve always leaned to the macabre, and to me, the Paris Catacombs are beautiful and life-affirming. But not everyone shares that and this page is not meant to upset anyone, so I’m not going to explain it.

Here’s one of the photos that is not spooky.

body memory 5 — You can tell it’s art because the background is black and I’m not smiling.

I do have to explain this though. Part of the process was getting a photo of me in crippling pain; pain so deep and so unfathomable, my mind has left the physical world, never to return. In order to do this, I had to make the faces and body language to capture it (while holding a phone and trying to disguise that I’m taking a selfie,) and after an hour or so of this, something odd happened. I started to feel deeply, horribly, crushingly, depressed.

I took off the gown, put my jammies back on (who are the people who dress in street clothes in their homes?) and left the room. I looked at the photos. Seeing my face and body like that, in an old storied gown, remembering my mother, long gone, my aunt, my first marriage, long ended, every single wound and unnamed pain, and every time I considered suicide…I closed the photos and thought about the void.

Here’s a picture of my cat, Crazy Legs.

body memory 8 — He says hello, but Ermastus is being shy.

This is why it is so important to know how to practice self-care. I was alone, and I would be for two more days, so I did familiar things, ate some leftover gnocchi, sat on the sofa with Crazy Legs, and started to marathon “Parks and Recreation” for I think the fourth time. I love that show, it’s comforting and normal and is not even acquainted with depth. I can do it nearly line for line and I love every single person on it.

I do wonder though, how someone looked at sweet, tubby Andy and said, “Hey, let’s make him Starlord!” But I’m glad they did. I could have watched any of the Marvel Movies too.

After a couple of hours, I was fine. But something very intense had happened.
My art is mainly on the page, and sometimes on canvas or three-dimensional. Photography is new to me, and this sort of quasi-acting is unknown to me, so I was not prepared for what it would do, what it would dredge up.

Holding that pose, over and over and over, pretending to scream and wail, I was not prepared for what that would do to me. Chris has acted, so when he got home he told me that’s what actors may go through; it can really fuck with a person’s head. I only did it for an hour. They do it for days or weeks or more. The body/mind connection is powerful. It can hold emotions that can be triggered by anything, touch, smell, vision, or action in this case. The mind brings it forward, affects the body, and so on.

Now, I did get some beautiful shots from this whole thing, so it was worth it. But it was hard, and knowing what to do to shake it off was critical.

Whatever it is that you do, whatever might bring pain to the surface, you need to have a full toolbox, ready to grab what you need to fix it. Sit down, take stock, and think – what makes you happy, what simple thing can you do to make yourself feel safe? A certain food? An animal, a beloved T.V. show or film? What is your simple joy?

Also, celebrate all the victories, big or small, cute or spooky. For me, I’m writing again, I’m making art, so here’s an alcohol-free toast to all of us!

body memory 6 — I’m in my jammies and no make-up so this is it. I’m only going to go so far with honesty.

bipolar, depression, dream, Goals, Humor, Mental Illness, nightmare, writing

Self-Imposed Deadlines and Creative Night Terrors

June 14, 2019 Sue St. Blaine Leave a comment

I am an excitable person. This is not exactly a shocking admission like “I am the Dread Pirate Roberts” or something, but still. Honestly, I’m so excitable and I get so wound up about even the silliest things, it’s sometimes hard to tell a manic period from “that stop light is wearing a traffic cone hat!”

current goals 2 — I was alone when I took this, giggling and saying, “He’s a wearing a hat!” For some reason, no one would meet my eyes.

For the record, if I can sit back and calmly discuss what I’m thinking about, if I can relax and form a thought, I’m just excited, probably not in a manic place. It also helps if I’m not saying things like “This will be the best thing ever and I will make so much money and no one has ever thought of this before and oh my god I need to buy more crepe paper!” all in one breath.

I’m also a bit obsessive. When I find something I’m passionate about, that I feel good about, or is simply fun, it might overtake everything else for a while.

Enter Nightmares and Laughter.

Everything I’m doing right now involves the word “blog.”

“I need to finish an article for the blog.”
“I need to engage my readers on my blog Facebook page.”
“I need to moderate the thread on my blog Facebook page and delete trolls.”

Now, don’t get me wrong, except for the trolls, I am loving this. I get to do a few of my favorite things that do not involve raindrops on roses; I get to write, talk to people, be an advocate or comfort, make people laugh. The only thing that could make this better is if I wrote an article entirely about Hello Kitty.

I’m totally going to write an article entirely about Hello Kitty.

Bad times 3JPG — It’s done. I just wrote it.

My life pretty much revolves around this blog right now.

But there’s more I want to do that I am ignoring.

• I have two books waiting to be written, one has a working title of “Nightmares and Laughter,” because the content is related to the mission of this page. So, not really a skip through the posies to write. The other is an anthology of scary stories, and since I have never written fiction before, that one will take a while too. But if I don’t start it, I will never finish it. That’s just science.

• I have an idea for a business that could be fulfilling but will take a while to set up and whatnot, and probably won’t pay much. Ain’t that always the way.

• And finally, I want to work on some art related to this blog that I think I could sell without disrespecting my vision.

I’d like to make a living doing this manner of thing if I can. But that won’t happen overnight, and it won’t happen if I don’t freakin’ do it.

I’m going to tell you a secret. I wrote an article that I was going to publish yesterday. I wrote it during our heat wave last week, and it was meant to be about how I didn’t feel well, I planned to write it while I was down and talk about that, and how sometimes it’s just hard, but we get through it. And I did write that article. I got it formatted in WordPress, I had all the pictures and the banner set up.

Do you know I actually had nightmares Wednesday night that I had already published it? I knew it wasn’t good. I reread it and saw that what I wrote was three different articles, including the bones of this one. So I split it up and I’ll finish all of them.

My point though is that I’ve gotten so hopped up on getting articles out that I almost published one I actually had bad dreams about. I never want to publish something below my own standards, I respect all of you too much to do that. Plus I just don’t want my name attached to bad writing.

So I’m neglecting the other projects I want to do.

I love this blog, and I feel good about the mission of it and the hope that I can make a difference in some way. But I’m literally losing sleep to meet an arbitrary deadline.
Another thing that brought me down is that the article was such a Frankenstein’s monster, I immediately thought, “That’s it. My productive spell is over.” My last writing dry spell lasted 25 years, and the idea of having it back only to lose it again was too much.

Then I woke this morning, saw a video about goats that overran a neighborhood, nearly blacked out from laughing, and then immediately found a focus.

This is how I’m going to die.

So my panic has passed for the moment. But while I have some clarity, this is what I’m going to do.

I’m going to take a day “off” from the blog once a week. I’ve even scheduled it because that’s the kind of nerd I am.

I will try to publish on the Monday and Thursday schedule I set, but if I miss a day that’s fine. I have no editor screaming at me to get pictures of Spiderman.

I would rather be delayed a week than put up something substandard.

This is good. This helps me with my tendency toward “I’m perfect or the world is over.” Babies flyin’ out the door with bathwater, just a big noisy mess.

I love this blog, it means more to me than just words on a page, and I am honored to have each of you come along on this ride.

I promise that I won’t waste your time.

Abuse, alcoholism, Anger, bipolar, depression, Facebook, LGBT, Mental Illness, trolls

Trolls and Censorship – or – My Rules, and Please Look Up the 1st Amendment

June 10, 2019 Sue St. Blaine 4 Comments

My first trolls have come a’calling. A friend told me I should be proud because my message is getting out there enough to attract them. So, yaye I guess?

I have posted 15 times on Nightmares and Laughter’s Facebook page, topics including Mental Health Awareness Month, abuse, Close Encounters, regret, writing, etc.

I’m extremely open about my life, to a fault perhaps; I reveal a lot of personal information for the sake of an article. I knew at some point the trolls would shake the gummy worms off their fingers and start to mash their hands against their crumb-encrusted keyboards, and that was a day I was dreading.

So when I put together a quick post for Pride Month and wrote it to reflect the mission of Nightmares and Laughter, I figured it would be the one that would attract trolls.

I got an “Angry” reaction pretty quickly. Then another. It had begun.

troll 1 — **The Angry reactions don’t show on account of all the banning. Why don’t these people worry about their own damn lives?**

This was inevitable, so I had already set up a policy for myself; I will not engage trolls. Period. Any ugly, irrational, or combative comments will be deleted.

Some shook their grimy fists, twisted their faces in righteous indignation, looked up righteous indignation, then accused me of stifling free speech and being filled with hate for other opinions, etc., the usual projection. As badly as I wanted to explain for the billionth time what the 1^st Amendment is and is not, who can stifle free speech and who cannot (please, I beg you, look it up) I kept to my own rules and did not engage.

trolls 2 — **This is a good start for learning and things.** https://xkcd.com/1357/

The spittle-spewing rage though did make me think that it’s fair to explain why I’m doing this.

Here is the page description on FB:
“Nightmares and Laughter is a peek into my life living with bipolar disorder. It’s a place to laugh together at life’s joys and absurdities, an occasionally painful, unflinchingly honest look at the struggle through my lens, and support around issues of addiction, abuse, and mental illness.
I also write about goats because goats are hilarious.”

trolls 5 — **Can we take a moment to enjoy this? Because look at him!**

I thought that was pretty clear. This is a place of support, which is why I include resources at the end of heavier articles. (There are resources on this one.)

It’s a place of laughter because that’s important.

And it’s a place of community, whatever you happen to call yourself.

You are welcome here, regardless of your political views and religion, as long as you keep things civil.

It is not, and it never will be, a place for trolls to poke at my readers or me and take cheap shots.

I will not engage with trolls, I will not allow others to engage with trolls on my page, even if I agree with them, because that is not what Nightmares and Laughter is about.

Am I censoring them? Yes. Yes, I am.

Am I stifling their right to free speech?

No. I am not able to stifle their free speech. Only the government can stifle their free speech.

trolls 4 — **In the name of all that’s holy, look it up!**

Look, the LGBT community suffers hatred and violence to the highest levels of government. Transsexuals are told which bathroom they must use, they are accused of being pedophiles, they are forbidden to serve their country, they are murdered, because of fear and hatred.

Teachers are fired, doctors refuse to treat their children – their children – because there are two loving mommies or daddies. If you condone that, you do not belong here. There are appropriate groups on 4Chan for you to enjoy.

There is no “both sides” one some things, there is no compromise. How do you think we’re going to “discuss” the right to take someone’s freedom and humanity? Where do you think reasonable debate comes in? I will not “discuss” putting children in cages either. Some things are binary.

Given all of that, on a post about Pride Month, a snide and hateful comment can be dangerous. Not everyone lives in an LGBT accepting city like my San Francisco. Their religion may call them abominations, their families may have disowned them. They see a post telling them they are worthy of life and happiness, and then someone with serious pathological issues comes in and says something hateful. Maybe that’s the last straw, maybe someone breaks.

Maybe someone commits suicide.

I realize that the trolls do not care. I’m hoping to reach people in the middle who may think I’m being unreasonable and not allowing discussion.

I absolutely allow discussion. I welcome it. If someone doesn’t understand and comes into the comments on FB or this blog and engages honestly, I will too. That is also part of why I started this blog.

So, trolls have been banned, comments deleted. (A couple of those comments were hits at my City. Some people really need a hobby.)

My readers are important to me, my mission for Nightmares and Laughter is dear to me, and I will not let it be shit on by damaged people.

Sometimes I write when something horrible has happened, and those articles can be angry, but they are not partisan. Some things are beyond politics, or they should be. This is not a political site. It is not a provocative page meant to start flame wars. This is a place of comfort or laughter or movies or goats, but most of what I post has some underlying connection to mental health and/or addiction; abuse and trolls will not be tolerated.

The bottom line here is, I welcome you with open arms, as long as you’re not an asshole.

Here are some resources in case anyone needs them.

PFLAG Support Hotlines

The hotlines listed below provide services to callers across the country. If you’re looking for a local support network, also contact one of PFLAG’s more than 400 chapters in the United States.

https://pflag.org/hotlines

National Helpline

https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/national-helpline

Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network

Free, confidential, 24/7 support.

https://www.rainn.org/

National Suicide Prevention Hotline

1-800-273-8255

https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/

alcoholism, bipolar, depression, Dreams, Goals, Humor, Mental Illness, Photos, poetry, writing

Dreams and Regret – It is never too late!

June 4, 2019 Sue St. Blaine 4 Comments

The picture on the left of the banner is me, 1993, 25 years old. The grey-haired woman on the right is also me, 2018, 50 years old. Several lifetimes have passed in those 25 years; some very hard lessons learned.

I started to write poetry when I was a child. When I was the young woman with the dark hair, I decided I would compile some of them, and I made a book I called “Life Songs – A Collection of Poems.” I did finish, but I put it away and fell into a pattern of self-destruction and failure that lasted for years. Life Songs died.

life songs 1 — Bound and ready, and forgotten.

But at 50 I began to wonder; what dreams have I let go? What are the seeds of regret?

My dreams of singing professionally were done, too much whiskey and smoke had taken its toll. That one hurts.

My paintings are unlikely to hang anywhere, my photography is hit or miss, and having a business to call my own died a premature death. Don’t go into business with friends, that’s my advice to you.

But there was one thing left, my first love, my greatest love, my sanctuary, my heart, my everything.

Writing. That I could still do.

It had been 25 years since I put Life Songs together, then I drank my muse away. I killed her with my hands around a bottle of Jack.

life songs 7 — My muse scribbled on scrap paper. I don’t remember drawing this.

I also made the grave mistake of majoring in Creative Writing and taking many poetry classes which put an inner critic in my head I had never had before. Everyone is different, but for me, this was a massive mistake.

Anyway, as I neared 50, I realized that I needed to complete Life Songs and get it out. So I read it over, all bright-eyed and optimistic. Then I closed it and stared into space.

Many of the poems were, well, let me put it this way, I separated it into chapters based on content, and I decided that each chapter heading would be a take on “Ten Definitions of Poetry” by Carl Sandburg. Trouble is, I’m not Sandburg now, let alone at 25, and it went…poorly. I will not be sharing any of those with you. Oh my, no. So I was stuck again.

Then on a warm summer night, after a lovely meal with dear friends, we began to talk about our projects. I never had anything to add to these conversations since I had no muse and no art in my soul. But this night I did. This night I talked about it, and as sometimes happens when thinking out loud, I had an epiphany. I am not the same person I was back then. So why not let the grey-haired lady speak to the dark-haired one? Choose poems that are relevant or particularly painful or funny and talk to her? Maybe I could find healing in that. Maybe I could help another reader find healing or hope or at least know they are not alone.

Maybe I really could finish Life Songs.

And then, just like that, my muse came home.

When I sat down to work, everything came back. The traumas and moments of life, sure, but that’s not what I mean. I mean the absolute and overpowering joy of writing, of moving my hands on a keyboard and making the words I want to say appear. I had forgotten what it felt like to write. It’s like forgetting what it is to taste ice cream or smell freshly mowed grass.

Many of my friends are writers. They post on Facebook, share funny memes, talk about their process and craft. I would be happy for them, but I would also burn inside. I was not a writer anymore. One can call it a dry spell for a while, but after two and a half decades, you’re no longer in the club.

But after I wrote a few pages, and after I started this blog, I was a writer again. I could respond to the comments, laugh at the memes, and talk about my process and craft.

I was a writer again. I was in the club.

I worked on Life Songs, I thought about it when I wasn’t, I dreamed about it at night. Then the first draft was finished. I celebrated with some non-alcoholic sparkling apple cider in a flamingo glass. It’s tradition.

Then the final was done. After twenty-five years, I was almost ready to publish.

Now, I don’t know Photoshop or anything like that, and I can’t afford a professional photographer, so I decided to stage and shoot my own photos. I had a good idea what I wanted it to look like and every single prop I used I already had, so I set up a photo “studio” in the dining room, complete with the lights with umbrella things and my husband’s Nikon D90, and got busy.

Two months and about 3,000 photos later, I got seven or so that I loved, and chose two for the front and back cover.

I sent them to the cover artist my mother-in-law, a professional writer, had recommended, and prepared to upload my manuscript to Amazon.

Then I typed up the title page

Life Songs – Discussions with an Angry Child

by – …….

And I froze.

Belle Chapin is a pseudonym. I started this blog under that name because I was afraid to use my real one. (Belle Chapin was my grandmother.) I was afraid of not getting a job, afraid of trolls, afraid of being so vulnerable. So I was going to publish Life Songs under that name as well.

I backspaced my real name out, and I typed

by Belle Chapin

And then I cried. And then I cried more. This girl is me. This is my life, goddammit. This is my life, my heart, my work.

It took some time with my therapist, but I finally came to a decision.

This girl is me. This is my life, my heart, my work.

I sat down at my laptop and I opened the title page.

Life Songs – Discussions with an Angry Child

by Sue St. Blaine

And then I closed my laptop.

The cover artist sent me the final product. I opened the attachment I cried so hard I nearly passed out. It was real.

I finished my life’s work.

life songs 4 — So happy I posed without makeup!

The way I’ve lived my life, the choices I’ve made have left many scars and regrets. I know there are things I didn’t do because I didn’t have the confidence, I was scared, I was drunk.

I was drunk. The seeds of regret are sown.

But it’s been a year since I published Life Songs. It is sitting on the shelf behind me. My heart fills as certainly as my eyes when I think about it. I did it. I finished it.

In a life full of mistakes, this is something I did right.

I wish that for all of you.

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