The courage to be is the courage to accept oneself, in spite of being unacceptable. ~Paul Tillich

be-lieve (verb) to hold an opinion : THINK  

Amazing how words can mess with you. How you hear something once and you believe it for the rest of your life.  For years I believed I was less than I am. Why? Because someone once told me I'd never be as smart as one of my sisters. I believed I was doomed to be alone all my life because I was told many times that I was a good friend but not girlfriend material. ( Still wonder what that means) One guy even told me he'd date me if I had the girl down the street's face on my body. I even had a teacher once tell me that I wrote like a boy!

I was told I was too:                                        

loud

opinionated

obnoxious

stupid

short

sarcastic

mouthy

plain

fat

independant
ugly

impatient

italian

boisterous

cautious

messy (no I am sure Sr Regina used the word umkempt)

So I made many descisions based on these words I believed I was- like they were all bad or something. Not once in all those years did I ever say I was an artist. I would say someday I will be an artist but never that I was right in the moment.

If you hear a voice within you say "you cannot paint," then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced. ~Vincent Van Gogh

So I have silenced the sound track that used to play in my head by being just me. I paint, I draw, I act, I sing and I create. I make messes and voice my opinion, I laugh too loud and I cry sometimes just because.

 

 

It's not who you are that holds you back, it's who you think you're not. ~Author Unknown

theory of creativity:x = (prozac) + (mental illness) Y?

i was sent a link to an article from wired. it's about some professors and scientists who have studied the correlation between being sad and creativity. i have never understood the long suffering artist type. you know- the ones who dress all in black and sit around looking angst and dramatic. that has never been my style. in fact in college i showed up to my life drawing class one morning and was greeted by 12 other art majors dressed in shades of black with unkempt hair and wrinkled clothes and promptly asked "who died?" i like bright colors and i rarely wear black- i think it makes me look washed out and fat. the best part about this article was the link to this article WOW...now this article had me riveted to my screen.

i am a firm believer that KNOWLEDGE IS POWER!  up until this moment i thought my depression was due to a chemical imbalance in my brain. research is proving it to be something entirely different "Instead of seeing the disease as the result of a chemical imbalance, these researchers argue that the brain's cells are shrinking and dying....."The best way to think about depression is as a mild neurodegenerative disorder," says Ronald Duman, a professor of psychiatry and pharmacology at Yale. "Your brain cells atrophy, just like in other diseases [such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's]. The only difference with depression is that it's reversible. The brain can recover."  this research came about because of Prozac.

i take Prozac. everyday. i used to be ashamed of it. people would laugh at anyone who took "happy pills" (if these are supposed to be happy pills then WHY am I still depressed???) prozac is a healing drug- that makes me happy!

if you took away my depression would i still be the creative person that i am?
because i live with depression i am always looking for an explanation for why this happened. not why me as much as why does it happen at all.

"...mental illness occurs when the stress mechanisms in the brain spiral out of control...once that happens, the brain begins to shut itself down, suppressing all but the most essential upkeep*. Not only do neurons stop growing, but the brain seems to stop creating new cells..."

so, if i am reading this right- depression is really atrophied brain cells instead of an altered emotional state. the building blocks of the brain -the neurons-start to crumble and over time this can cause certain brain structures to shrink. now i am not a neurologist but i am fairly certain that every millimeter of the brain is important and needs to be healthy in order for a person to function properly.

"... many scientists are now paying increased attention to the frequently neglected symptoms of people suffering from depression, which include problems with learning and memory and sensory deficits for smell and taste... the ways depression interferes with basic bodily processes, such as sleeping, sex drive, and weight control. Like the paralyzing sadness, which remains the most obvious manifestation of the mental illness, these symptoms are also byproducts of a brain that's literally withering away.
Depression is caused by problems with the most fundamental thing the brain does, which is process information," says Eero Castren, a neuroscientist at the University of Helsinki. "It's much more than just an inability to experience pleasure."


*  i describe this happening to me in my book "Outside the Lines" i had no idea there was scientific research and data to support what i was feeling.

i'm NOT crazy and i'm not sad- i'm depressed- that makes me smile.

what mask shall we wear?

we all wear them. there's your public mask- this one is really thick with no chance of anyone seeing at all the person behind it. there's the mask you were around your friends- this one is a little more translucent- still can't see right through it but if you look hard enough you might catch a glimpse of the person behind it. there is even a mask for the people who are closest to you. this one has tiny cracks in it. this one is so delicate you have to be very careful not to break it. sometimes you wish it would break so everything you are hiding would just come spilling out. but then you have to deal with all that stuff and it's easier to not deal with it. so, you wear the mask.

number blind

math is one of those areas of life that i have a very hard time with. it makes no sense to me. in math you are either right or wrong unless of course you are working with negative numbers an unknown variables and all that other hocus pocus math jumble in which case you are wrong until you can prove you are right but if don't prove it EXACTLY the way your teacher wants it you will be wrong AND you must show your work....it didn't help that I had this math teacher in 6th grade who thought humiliating me in front of the entire class was good teaching - i equate math with stress and degredation

                              i grew up with math being explained to me like in the video. confusing huh?

i have a friend who is color blind
i can't imagine it-
once in awhile we'll be out somewhere and i'll say -
tell me what you see!?!
describe the colors to me
it's difficult
i wish i had a pair of glasses that i could put on
so i could see colors the way he sees colors
i guess it's sorta like the way i see numbers
when i look at numbers i SEE them
i KNOW they are numbers
i just can't seem to get them to make any sense
so maybe i can imagine it
he is color blind
and I guess that makes me - number blind