Speak Up 4 Mental Health Now!

Long weekends away should be exciting, fun, and relaxing. For me it is exciting, stressful, anxiety filled, and exhausting. Don't get me wrong, I love traveling, but recently my OCD has taken over and controls my life more than I would like. So traveling isn't as relaxing as I would like, it is far from that.  Our lovely friends are getting married this weekend up in the mountains of CO. We are so happy and excited for them. Plus, this is a new area to explore that we haven't seen in CO and are very excited. Hot springs, mountain vistas, and nature all around us!! Sounds perfect right, yes!!  However, for me, I am thinking: shared beds, dirty carpets, germ covered door knobs, gross and unclean remotes, and god only knows what was last thing touching everything in the bathroom. Just thinking about that is causing anxiety for me and making me exhausted. Yes I know they clean the rooms, and this is a very nice place we are staying at for the wedding, but it is the unkno...

I have volunteered many times; everything from Big Brother & Big Sisters, Toys for Tots, Adopt a Family, and even for flood relief here in CO. Today was my first time volunteering to be a softball coach for elementary school girls.  What a blast! This is going to be so rewarding for me for so many reasons, and I hope for the girls as well. I want these girls not only to have fun playing softball, but I want them to learn sportsmanship, and gain confidence in themselves too.  In today's world there is way to much bullying and not enough self-confidence in kiddos. Especially girls, they seem to feel this harder at this age. God forbid you are a little softer and not supper skinny. It starts early and and they need to learn to be confident in themselves and not listen to others that are being mean. We are all beautiful people!  However for me, this is actually a fairly huge challenge. Not being supportive of these amazing group of young ladies, this will be easy. I...

How can one wake up with anxiety? I mean aren't we supposed to wake up feeling refreshed and ready for the day.  Most days I do wake up in a great mood ready for the day and feeling refreshed. Nope, not this morning. I woke up with the worst anxiety, and had an anxiety attack before even getting out of bed. It wasn't like I have anything stressful going on today to be anxious about. Or even anything super exciting that would make be anxious for it.   Because of this I was slow all day long, distracted, scatterbrained, and anxious. This made me get behind with everything, and I like routine, and my routine was off. In turn this made me angry. I didn't get everything done today that I needed to, but the laundry can wait till tomorrow. However, I feel bad that I didn't get a chance to take my pups for a daily walk. Now I feel like I have have failed them for the day. (Believe me, these pups are my life and they are spoiled rotten so don't feel too bad for ...

Ahhh! Accomplishment!! Doesn't it feel amazing? Yes, I love when I can say, "Well yes, I did that." or "Yup, I finished it.", but today wasn't that day.  Hours of painting at the top of a ladder, all for not. Yup, the color doesn't match. Second mis-tint in a row, fail home improvement store, FAIL ! Now mind you, I have a paralyzing fear of falling. (Icing on the multi-layered cake my friends of my mental issues. LOL) I could be 2 inches off the ground or 15 feet, like I was part of today.  However, I was still able to prevail. Even though I have to paint the areas all over again, and have to deal with that height again; I still won. Yup, that's right people, I still said I won.  Every time I face my fear of falling it gets a microscopic bit better. I mean barely even a noticeable amount easier for me. I am not looking forward to climbing that ladder again. To be completely honestly with you, I want to tell the store they need to come and red...

There are several things that bring me peace and inner tranquility, hiking, kayaking, and riding on the back of my hubby's motorcycle. These are a few that come time mind right now. Today was one of those days where I had nothing but peace. We went for a ride up the Poudre Canyon and during those hours, I had nothing but peace. No OCD symptoms, no anxiety and my ADHD was not even in view. Only thing in view was nature, natural beauty, or God's glory, whatever you want to call it. I had truly found my inner tranquility. It was perfect, other than the few bugs that decided to cover my helmet shield.  If you don't know what this feels like, go find it! Everyone needs to have these places or things that give them this feeling. It could be anything from taking a long bath, reading your favorite poem, or book, or even just sitting in your favorite spot. Take it in, breathe, listen to your surroundings, and enjoy them. Don't let those thoughts, f...

I don't know about you, but every day is a different struggle with my mental health. Some days I can't stop thinking about the same thought that is repeating itself over and over in my head. Other days I struggle going out into public places.  I am in Accounting Management for a very large and global company. I am lucky to work from home. Because with my mental health issues, I don't honestly think I could handle being in an office environment; for several reasons.  I don't like to sit on public seats and then come back into my home and sit on any surface in my house without changing my pants. Weird right? Yes, for some people it is and they can't understand my thought process or reasoning for this. However, if I don't do this or my husband doesn't, I will mentally and physically become uncomfortable. Thoughts will start looping in my head and I can't stop thinking about them. I will start breathing hard, my heart rate rises, and at times I shake. Wh...

Hello! My name is Terri and I wanted to start this blog to help others like me. I have ADHD with OCD and Generalized Anxiety (with occasional seasonal depression) and I am not afraid to talk about it and tell people. I am proud of who I am. Why not? Why is it still so taboo to talk about our mental health and mental illnesses? If more people are willing to speak up, others will feel more confident to stand up and speak up as well.  This is my goal; I want others to be able to stand up and talk about their mental illness and help others. Even it that help is getting them to feel comfortable and take that first step, which is to accept and get help. I also want everyone to get the help that they need, and live a happy life. Not everyone needs medicine, some just need someone to talk to. Others need both and yet others, medicine seems to help them enough where they can live a productive and happy life. You never know, taking that few minutes to listen to someone or opening up to...