Our Guest Blogger Writes About Positive Affirmation

Hard to admit, but when we got to the last paragraph of this guest entry written by our friend Kerry; regular guest blogger, author, cancer survivor, mental health professional, mother, wife...and so much more; there was a tear in my eye, that a gift of appreciation and love from us has become a positive affirmation to a beautiful friend who many of us find to be one of the most amazing, strong and charismatic woman ever...<3 it meant a lot.

It's so hard to stay positive in the eye of humanity, in one's personal life, in one's daily goings. We won't bore you with how difficult it can be living with someone inside you who just cannot grasp the positive without struggle, but it helps the rest of us understand the struggles of negativity.

Thank you on again, Kerry, for your insight.

Think it, feel it, surround yourself with...

Positive Affirmations 

I have had a wobble recently, a rather large one which is quite out of character for me but there you go, we all have them. People look at me and see a thirty-something lady who has it all under control and has got her shit together. Anyone who knows me more than superficially knows that this is utter bollocks and that I am just a hypo manic woman with a very mercurial mind. So how do I stay so positive when life gives me a swift kick (because I am not immune, I am just like everyone else).

Let me tell you a story….are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin.

For many years I was told that I was only averagely bright and my brother was very bright and I was metaphorically patted on the head in a condescending way. Spool forwards to about 10 years ago, smudging over a somewhat train wreck of a life, I got my first A grade at university. I had never got an A before and was delighted with it. My ever brilliant mother-in-law, who is into embroidery and craft things, made me a cross stitch card with an A on the front with other little A’s flying around it and she wrote a lovely message inside. Now I fully thought that this A grade was a one off and was delighted when I got another…and then another. Like most obsessive students I had diagrams of the brain and the latest theories stuck to the wall so that I could refer to them easily but then I got struck by a bout of clinical depression.

After picking my ass up off the floor, I decided what I needed to see around me was things that make me feel good not the latest mental health research. So down came all my student stuff and up went that card, then I got another card from someone else, then there was a note that someone left me…up on the wall it all went. Before I knew it, I had a pretty full wall and thought that this was a cool idea.

Being the laid back chilled out dude that I am (no please don’t laugh) I went through the whole house and binned all the crap and kept stuff from people that was either a nice gift or card or comment. So out went the bank statements and the outdated letters from the taxman that I was keeping ‘just in case’ and the old love letters and the scribbles my son made on paper took pride of place all round the house. Ok the love letters are in the draw but you get the picture.

This method of surrounding myself with positive things came into its own when I got cancer. Someone suggested that I have a mantra ‘I will be alright, I will get healthy’ that kind of thing. Except my kind of mantra would contain a lot more swearing! I tried the none swearing version because when you have cancer you will try anything and unsurprisingly I found that it did not work. What did work were they physical signs of people who love and care for me.

OK I hear you say, this isn’t brain surgery, why are you telling me this? Take a look around your home. There may be paintings done by the kids but what else is there? My son was playing being a pirate one day and asked if I had any treasure. Of course I have, I told him but he was very surprised that it did not contain any jewellery rather my Weight Watchers card which showed how much weight I had lost, his milk teeth, an old playing card that I got on an excellent night out. None of these treasures has any intrinsic value, but they are priceless too.

As I write this I notice that I have tattoos, rings and the necklace Frankie bought me, all on me with at least 5 other things I can see without getting up off the seat that are positive affirmations . Go on and try it; you may find it life changing or you may find that it brings just a little bit more happiness into your life. Let’s face it, who couldn’t use some more happiness.

With love,
Kerry x

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And Happy Mother's Day to Kerry. We have had the fortune of spending time with the amazing boy that is the product of her parenting. He is indeed an intelligent, kind, happy and lucky young man. XO

Our Guest Blogger, Kerry Stott (@kerrystott), Writes About...

• Our New Guest Blogger (2011)
• Depression   (2011)
• "Us & Them" Mentality   (2011)
• Suicide   (2011)
• Endopsychic Energy  (2011)
• S.A.D.  (2011)
• Anxiety  (2011)
• Fear (National Breast Cancer Awareness Month)  (2011)
• Insomnia  (2011)
• Personal Problem Solving  (2011)
• Our Guest Blogger Writes About...Meeting Us!  (2012)
• How Risk Feels  (2012)
• Therapeutic Alliance  (2012)
• Personality Disorder  (2012)
• Psychiatrists, Are They Devil Incarnate  (2012)
• Stress (2012)

A Couple Of Days Off

It's been hard to write...anything. With some "writers block" and the nearly insurmountable disappointment with things we have been seeing and hearing in the United States news...we're taking a couple of days off (that's the plan anyway).

Tomorrow we will post a guest post written by our regular guest blogger, published author, mental health professional and friend, Kerry Stott. (We're still looking for more guest writers for Mental Health Month - it's nearly half over!)

Today we are watching The Mother, via the wonders of steaming video and television broadcasting, get her Masters degree from a local University.
Tomorrow is (American) Mother's Day. (in other parts of the world it is celebrated in different months)
We'll be spending it with her for the first time in seven years.

While we have a sordid history with her, we also understand that she has tried to make up for it (at least half us understand, anyway). We know, given our knowledge of her as a person, that the nice things she does is out of guilt, but we are fortunate at this time in our life, as times in the past, that she is here for us as "adults" when we need her, despite the fact she wasn't, in so many ways, for so many years, as children. We try not to take advantage of it. We buy our own food, clean up after ourselves, and do as much as we can, while taking refuge in her basement - including attempting to stay out of her way when she wants, and be company for her when she wants someone to talk to; which works fine, because while we live in her house, as well as when we don't, she is not one to inquire as to our well being, or take much interest in our life, unless it affects her. It's the way she is. It's the way she has always been. We each love her, in our own varying ways. She is mom. She is the only one we get to have.

It's always mixed emotions, feelings, thoughts, and beliefs when it comes to being in her house - it's been a struggle to get back into the swing of us, since getting back late Monday night. We feel even less like ourselves as usual, but knowing it is once again temporary helps. We will be returning to Europe the first week in August (more to come soon on that).

But as we've learned in life, over and over, it's not always easy, there are things you have to do that are sometimes the only option for survival.

Until the next time we write...

Happy Mother's Day, all you Mothers. Be as good of ones as you can.
And for those of you have an "over attentive" Mother, one that concerns herself with your lives, maybe nags a bit about your love life, your job, your living situation...listens to you, calls you a couple of times a month...cares about your future, your general and mental health...
Hold her.
Give her a hug for us.
And stop being fucking ungrateful; be thankful for the mom you have, because not everyone has the same kind you do, or one at all.

A Review and a Word on Minding Your Own Business

Our blog post today will be here: http://ourfrankadventures.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/green-room-colchester-england.html - it's a review of a restaurant we ate at in Colchester called The Green Room...full with pictures (food porn!) and all.

We were thinking of doing a blog post about recent immigration issues we're going to have to deal with, so that James can eventually be here with us permanently (so we don't have to keep going back and forth between countries). It wasn't the greatest of news we got today, we'll have to write about it tomorrow.

We're exhausted what with the meeting with the immigration lawyer, and James is having some pain issues from the vasectomy he had before we left England and that's concerning me, and then we landed on a blog (one we have actually visited a few times, that tries to disprove Dissociative Identity Disorder) because we were doing a search for a recent Dr. Phil episode about DID that a friend from Twitter was asking about - she's busy and we wanted to try to search for the YouTube links for her, if there were any - we don't actually plan on watching much of it, we live with it and don't feel the need to concern ourselves with the woman and what people are saying. Anyway, most people will have an opinion on it, of course, like it affects them personally or something, and it's likely unless they live with it, or know someone who does/has, they will have nothing but negative things to say about it. We don't need negativity. We've got someone who creates our own for the system to deal with (not to mention the fantastic world of Twitter).

Like with anything, if mental health issues don't impact you personally, for instance if you deal with it, or a loved one does, then why worry about and judge how other people's lives and brains. Do you live in their head, experience their day-to-day struggles or triumphs, have you had the past that they have had?

Probably not. Definitely not. So why try to make their life more difficult.

~ Frank et al

A Rose By Any Other Name

Or, Passing Thoughts.
Couldn't figure out what to call the entry.

A rose by any other name, sure, it might smell sweet...but it's not a "rose".

Now that we're back in America with all of the people who have known us since birth, or since they were born, we are reduced to The Other Girl's name. She doesn't exist anymore, we know that...but The Mother, The Father, Brothers...Step-Dad, Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, Grandma...they don't know that. Immediate family knows we are Frankie, but are not able to call us that, because of their own inability...so to us we are someone else to them. To people who never really knew us, or The Other Girl at all anyway.

The nice thing about England was that everyone we met, not just people from Twitter, they know us as us...as Frankie. James' dad, his grandmother and uncle, his cousin and her husband and uncle...Kerry, the beautiful Kerry and her husband and son. They know Frankie. As far as England is concerned we are Frankie. As far as James, The Boyfriend, is concerned we are Frankie. He has to use our birth name, our government name, from time to time. He dislikes it. We feel like a fraud using it, even though we know how the general public is about names.

Back in America, and we are no longer Frankie...a rose by any other name, still wants to be called a rose, still wants to be called what it is. We are not her.

It might not be a big deal to many, but spending so long hidden beneath the name of The Other Girl, and now not having to really hide...it makes being back in the States, where we have to hide form the only people who know any part of us, a little desirable. Did we mention we don't know people in the United States anymore?

From here forward every person we know will know us as Frankie...everyone but the people who can't let go, the permanent people in our life, because it feels weird to them. We'd rather them call us "hey, you"...

Mental Health Month 2012

Back In America

Image Source

We're back in America.

Arriving at about 4:30am GMT we obviously didn't have time to write a blog post, and the last two days in an airport hotel outside of Heathrow, as inspiring to write as it should be, just wasn't.

Let's just say that when we get back on that plane on August 3, we'll be packing differently, at least. And we'll be better prepared for the trip than we were this time. We'll also likely be gone longer, and as of right now all we know is that we can't be in Canada, Mexico or the United States...but we have the rest of the world to choose from.

We do not recommend dating a foreigner if you don't like the idea of being separated from each other for long periods of time, and are not presented with a position where you can freely travel together...even then. It's a giant pain in the ass. More to come on that...

Would we do it again? He's worth it for most of us, even though, like with any relationship...there are always issues to work through. These are just relationship strength building experiences...

Right?

So many things ran through our mind on the plane rides we took to get us back to our homeland, all that time away from the computer and Twitter...mental spark flew, especially the more tired we got. Hopefully once we get settled back into life in The Mother's basement we'll be able to conjure them up again and put them to blog paper.

We watched a couple of movies on the plane. We recommend them. They were pretty cool.

Try out Young Adult, starring Charlize Theron, a story about an author battling depression and disappointment with her life, as well as some other clearly sociopathic issues. The synopsis on Internet Movie Database doesn't give it justice. That's the lovely part about being stuck on a plane for over eight hours with the same things on the TV over and over...you watch things you probably wouldn't have.

Also try out, It's Kind of a Funny Story. This one we've been holding on to, digitally, for months and months. But with minimal options on the plane we decided it was time. It's a really good, honest movie starring Zach Halifianakis, and an amazing cast of characters including a young British actor called Keir Gilchrst, the protagonist of the film. Also the message is one that all people should acknowledge, if even with a roll of the eyes.

If you end up watching either of these movies we'd love for you to come back here and comment on them, particularly the last one.

We'll we've got things to do. Like go get another drivers license. And get groceries (we don't eat much of moms food), and plan our trip to Chicago for the week of the 21st...where we will be starting to look at real estate, and James has never been outside of a three hour radius of the city we've landed him in, The Mother's basement adjacent. And then...everything else.

We're feeling really good today, mentally, despite not feeling that way after we landed last night. Things go up, things go down. We strap ourselves in everyday for the roller coaster that is life.

Throw your hands in the air and scream.

~ Frank et al

OH! And it's Mental Health Month, so check out some of the stuff here on the blog regarding that, and we'll be publishing another story submitted from other people soon. You should join in the Blogging For Mental Health!