Disney Movies remind us to find HOPE

"Maybe some moments weren't so perfect
Maybe some memories not so sweet
But we have to know some bad times
For our lives are incomplete

Then when the shadows overtake us
Just when we feel all hope is gone
We'll hear our song, and know once more
Our love lives on

How does a moment last forever
How does our happiness endure
Through the darkest of our troubles
Love is beauty, love is pure

Minutes turn to hours
Days to years, then gone
But when all else has been forgotten
Still our song lives on"

It was at the end of Disney's latest version of, "Beauty and the Beast," that tears actually started coming down my eyes.
Cheesy?
Maybe.
But Belle fought for her father. She wanted him to live his life so he took his place in the castle.
In the mean time, she fell in love. In doing so, she saved the lives of all the people in the caste and her fathers, too! She saved her own life, as well.

And it was no easy fight.
There were certainly hard days, for sure. But she made it through. And her father sure had his hard times, but he didn't give up, either, no matter what he had to go through and no matter how many people didn't believe him about there being a "Beast" in the "Castle" in the "snowy land." They wanted to lock him up and throw away the key just when Belle showed up, and then they went to lock them BOTH up to go and kill the "terrible" Beast.

In the end, it's all happy.
Can't life always be that way.
A great... BIG... "Happy" Ending?

Disney movies have a way of doing that.
But they can give you hope.
Hope to keep fighting when no one wants to believe you about your struggles.
Hope to keep fighting when people take advantage of your trust in them.
Hope to keep fighting when it seems like all hope has been lost.
Hope to keep fighting when others do things that in turn seem to destroy you, but you have every ability to put one foot in front of the other and say, "No, today I am strong and capable and I will NOT let this destroy me."

Let your life have a happy ending.
You are capable of making YOUR ending a happy one. Why not start now?

An uphill battle worth climbing...

I've been at the bottom many times and where am I now?
Well, it's hard to say.

I've fallen time and time again but I've continued to get back up.
I've continued to find my way out of the pile of rocks and dust myself off and continue climbing. I'm no where near the top and I may never be, but I'm climbing. It's a rocky climb, for sure, with leaps and hurdles. But I'm striving to overcome them one by one. That's ALL I can do. That is all anyone can do.

The sad thing is that once you think you have your feet on the ground, something else huge comes by and sweeps you off your feet and throws you right back on the bottom. But that's when you pick yourself back up and start climbing some more.
It's hard, because you start losing energy.
Some days you just need to rest.
We all need rest.
But how much rest do you need?
When is enough enough?
When is it too much?
How do you ever know what is "right" amount?
Your body will tell you.
You can do this. You are capable of great things.
You are capable of a healthy, successful life.

Sometimes I wonder if all the treatment I've been through in my life has been helpful. Since the age of 13 I've had services outpatient with Crime Victims Council twice, Valley Youth House, another mobile therapy service I'm forgetting, Milestones, Elwyn, NHS ACT, LV ACT, Salisbury Behavioral Health, Glenn R Koch and Associates, Private Clincians, and the many, MANY inpatient stays at LVH-M, Sacred Heart, St. Lukes, Devereux, Gnaden Huetten, and EAC Long Term Care.
I've had Electric Shock Therapy, Biofeedback, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing.... not to mention all the counseling approaches that have been made, treatment and safety plans, behavioral plans, and god knows what else in actual counseling sessions....

What more is there?

I work hard in life.
But when is it enough?

Sometimes, mental illness is overpowering. Sometimes, it almost doesn't matter how much you put in to it. Sometimes the "dark side" is so dark that the positive efforts you put in are so overpowering that all that "helpful" input was forgotten about.

Have you become another person?
Have you lost complete control?
Are those your thoughts or someone elses?
Do you even remember the last hour of your life?

It can be truly scary.

But it isn't impossible to life a healthy, successful life.


TRAUMA SUCKS.

but life doesn't have to.

I am a survivor.
I am a 29 year old woman diagnosed with Bipolar, PTSD, and have Dissociative disorders in the result of 23 years of on going sexual trauma that has left me scarred. But read that closely, I am scarred but NOT broken.
While I have struggled, I am fully capable of gaining FULL control of my life back.
In December 2015 I entered the hospital for what would be the longest of my admissions to the psychiatric inpatient unit: 9 months. And after that, I continued an array of admissions to the inpatient units: 5 admissions. I had 5 suicide attempts within the year to follow.
Was I broken?
Absolutely NOT!

I was misdiagnosed during a long term hospitalization with depression and put on anti-depressants which in turn "helped" me to become more impulsive, ruin relationships with those around me who once cared, intensify my already changing moods and feelings of anger, and lose touch with reality.
I'm finally off of that medication and it's working its way out of my body. I've since been put on something else and hoping that things will change.
Knowing medication doesn't solve all of illnesses downfalls, I am working my hardest to dread the hard waters.

I've gotten a job Mon-Fri again which is in turn providing me with stability and structure, making me feel like I'm making a difference in the lives of others. I feel good about what I am doing, that I'm doing things I am capable of doing again.
Whether I struggle to take care of myself is one thing, but I've always been stellar at my job. And THAT is something that in turn helps ME. It keeps me on my toes and reminds me to keep going, to do things to take care of myself to in turn keep me motivated to take care of me.
It makes sense, really.

Life is not easy.
It wasn't meant to be. Now, was it supposed to be such a battle? That, I'm not sure about, either. But I'm here now to make a difference. If I could survive this life, so can you. We can get through this life.

I am here to share my story. Every day is another battle. But there is something good in each day. And THAT is what is worth living for.

I will be here tomorrow, will you?
Kristen