It's A Dog's Life...

Lounging...

This is my derpy dog, Nobu...

He's an 11 year old Shiba Inu (soon to be 12 in February). Sadly, Nobu is starting to feel the effects of his age, now. I swear to god, my dog has dementia or something... 

About a year or two ago, he began exhibiting some odd behavior. It wasn't destructive, just annoying. He began running laps around my coffee table like he was in a NASCAR race... like as many laps as they make in an actual NASCAR race (which is, what, 100-200 laps?) once or twice a day. But, as time went on, it was becoming more of a constant. It got to the point where I had to barricade off both ends between the coffee table and sofa because I just couldn't stand watching this crazy nervous behavior. It was actually making me feel crazy nervous to watch him! Then it began getting worse... He started running up and down the stairs or running back and forth across the house. Sometimes he would come over to me while I was relaxing, watching TV, and just stare at me like he was trying to figure out who the fuck I was. At first, I thought it might be because he had the beginnings of cataracts, but then I realized he was still staring at me in the same way, even when I spoke to him. 

I took him to the vet, explained his behaviors, that I thought he may have dementia and that his nervous behavior was driving me crazy. Apparently, this happens in older dogs sometimes. She prescribed Xanax to help with his feelings of anxiousness. It helps, a little... though I'm still puzzled as to how my dog gets more Xanax than I do. What's up with that?! I think my doctor is short changing me... 

Sadly, Nobu's behavior is getting worse. One day, he chewed into a bag of potatoes and half ate three of them and chewed the lid off a bottle of natural supplements to calm dogs down (I still don't know if he ate any, but I had to make a few calls to the vet as well as the company that made the treats) and another time he literally destroyed an empty milk jug (I still can't find the cap, I think he ate it). 

I'm beginning to think I should open a nursing home for dogs... Look how many people drop their relatives off in homes when they start loosing their marbles simply because they can't deal with them! There may be a new business venture in creating nursing homes for demented dogs...

Not very far... Not... very... far...

Needless to say, life has been a bit chaotic... I've been having to watch my dog like a hawk to keep him out of trouble, make sure he doesn't attack my other dog and two cats... and to make sure he doesn't have accidents. Yeah, that's been a thing, too. Most times he whines when he needs to go, but not always. I feel like I'm caring for a toddler and I have to be on my toes all the time. 

Let me tell you... the ecard on the right...? I have an answer to that question. Not nearly far the fuck enough... I wish that was an understatement, but it's not. I've had a lot of stresses weighing me down lately. When it rains, it certainly does pour... I feel like I've been blindsided. Everything hit me all at once, and in the middle of all that, my dog decided it was a good time to completely lose his fucking marbles. Thanks, Nobu, I appreciate that... Really...

Some days there just isn't enough Calgon, Xanax or Margaritas in the world to take you even remotely far enough away...

Hahahaa...

Well, at least I can say that I seem to be overcoming my identity crisis. Sort of... Honestly, I think it's because I'm just so stressed out and focused on more important things that I just can't be bothered with figuring out who I am right now. But that's okay... Maybe getting through all this crazy shit will help me figure out who I am and what I'm about. 

I have learned one thing... I was definitely broken by some of these events. But, in the end, I picked up the pieces and super glued them back together. They're a bit askew, but they're together. Close enough...

Speaking of broken... I think I broke myself in a different fashion the other morning...

I haven't been sleeping well (what a shocker) and spend most of the night dreaming and waking up a lot. Now, I have no idea if I was having a violent dream, if I was just really restless or just too close to the edge, but I ended up getting rudely awoken at about 4:30AM because I rolled off the edge and landed on the floor. Hard... The worst part of this was that my left knee took the brunt of the hit. It would have been bad no matter which knee did, actually, because I need them both replaced. I did wake up enough to realize what was happening and put my hands out to brace myself, so my whole body took one hell of a jolt. I spent my entire day after that just laying around and aching everywhere. My knee still hurts, but thankfully the rest of me feels better. I'm beginning to think I need some safety rails or something...

Truer words, man...

But onto more interesting things...

I have a friend I made online who is a professional artist in her country (I won't say which). We met years ago and have becoming great friends in that time. She has been a huge inspiration for me when it comes to my art. She's inspired me to push boundaries and not be confined. 

Over the years, she and I occasionally send each other packages through the mail. I often send her certain art supplies, like washiest tape, that I know she can't get from the suppliers she buys from. Many times, I'm in a store, picking up my own supplies, and thinking she's love a certain roll of tape or some little oddity that I find, and I'll buy them for her and stock up. When I have enough to make it a worthwhile cost, I mail everything out to her with some little note. In return, she does the same for me. 

I recently sent her one of my care packages and received one back not long after. I was very inspired by all this, for some reason, so I began working again. And not just working, but doing traditional drawings! Lately, I've been so into using a drawing program on my computer that I've done little traditional drawing. I've also been doing more art journal entries. In fact, I made one dedicated to her after I received her last care package. She loved it so much, she asked if she could share it on her social media pages! I was so flattered! 

That's an impossibility...

So, in closing, my dear readers (of which I'm thinking I don't have any, but oh well..) I'll leave you with the message on the left...

Just remember, silencing the mind isn't always the easiest thing in the world to do. Especially if you're someone like me... 

I swear my mind gets bored when I sleep... The majority of my dreams are like movies and TV shows. Weird movies and TV shows... 

I really wish my brain had a "sleep" mode like my television does... 

a.k.a.... Person Or Persons Unknown...

We all face it sometimes...

Identity... It's more than just your driver's license with vaguely pertinent information like your height, weight, hair and eye color... and the worst picture that anyone has ever taken of you. It's more than the name you give yourself on the internet for blogs, social networking or personal websites... It's more than the pictures we choose to use to represent ourselves online, whether it's a random picture, a real photo or, as in my case, a self portrait you drew or painted. It's so much more than all that...
But the question remains... What, exactly, is identity? It seems to mean different things to different people.
And how well do we really know ourselves...?
At some point, I think we all ask ourselves the questions in the image on the left. If you haven't... wait... Most everyone goes through it at some point, questions themselves, wonders who they are... who they really are... what their purpose in life is. I know there's someone reading this right now, saying to themselves, "I've never done that. I've always known who I am and always will." Either you're full of shit or you're a person who is changeless. I'm not sure that being changeless is a good thing... How else can we grow as people if we don't change...?

Why hello there...

Lately I've been having a major identity crisis... Well, not lately... It's been developing for months, to be honest. It's just currently at its peak, that's all.
The image on the right is my latest self portrait drawn in Corel Painter 2018. But that's not really me... That's just how I perceive myself, how I represent myself as the cyber shadow known, most of the time, as "kitsu" or "kitsuyuutsu"... I've gone by other monickers as well. Kiki, kizza, Reverse Girl... They're all that same cyber shadow. I'm sure people have wondered over the years if I really look like my self portraits. The answer is, "In a way..." I mean, obviously I don't look like a manga character. No one does, except for those weird people that have surgery done to look like a manga or anime character. And those people look creepy! In any case... I do have brown hair and green eyes, that is a real depiction of the tattoo I sport on my left shoulder that I got last April... In general, this is how I look, just not as manga-esque. Obviously I'm an artist and... yes, I'm really that old. There, you got me... I gave myself away...

Llama Llove...

The point is, how I portray myself in my self portraits isn't my identity...
So, back to the original subject because I started to ramble and my train of thought jumped the track and derailed. Like that's anything new or unusual for me...
As I said, I've been in the depths of a lengthy identity crisis. Not that I haven't had them before... I have... They're annoying, maybe a bit frightening, frustrating and confusing. They always seemed to involve changes within myself, such as maturing. Sometimes it's due to outside changes that cause changes in my maturity level or how I perceive life.
I don't like change... I'll be the first one to admit that I have a massive problem with even slight changes, let alone major ones. I'm a control freak... I'm not proud of that, per se... It's just the way I've always been, so I see it as nothing more than a personality trait, one that can make my life a living hell... I make it sound as if nothing ever changes and I lead a very boring life. Don't get the wrong idea. I do change things... like the color of the walls in my house, the way furniture is arranged, the decor... I change my hair style, color, the style of clothes I wear... Change is fine if they're changes I want to make, changes that I have control over. But changes I don't like, don't want or have no control over...? That's a totally different story...

Truer words were never written...

Thus the reason for my current situation... There are a lot of major changes occurring in my life right now that I really don't like and have absolutely no control over. But it's not just that... These are changes that leave me questioning who I am if not the person I've been for all these years before the changes and what my purpose is now. I'm not sure what role I'm supposed to play right now and it's really freaking me out to the point where I feel really... lost...
I've been discussing this with one of the friends I've made online lately... Over the last few years, she's become one of my best friends. We think a lot alike and are always there to try and help each other not lose our marbles when faced with a shit ton of stresses. So when I was telling her about my current situation and how I was feeling about all these huge life changes, she did the best thing anyone could have done... She sent me the image on the right. Isn't it hysterical...?! I laughed so hard when I saw this because it's relevant in so many ways. It's a reminder to me that I can't control everything, so I shouldn't try. And my hair is a reminder of that fact! My hair is naturally curly which, sadly, means massive frizz when it's humid. Even if it's not humid, natural curl has a mind of its own. Trying to style it is like wrestling with an octopus... Granted, my hair has never looked as bad as this poor woman's, not even on its worst day. But it's incredibly comical! I'm going to have it printed and use it as a motivational poster, haha!

Get your chakras in order, people...

In an attempt to deal with stresses, changes and trying to find myself, I've recently taken to trying meditation...
I correspond with my favorite uncle through the mail on a regular basis... That sounds old fashioned... But he lives a great distance from me and besides, it's nice to get mail that isn't just bills or junk mail, isn't it? Everyone should try the lost art of letter writing! Anyway... He's a very intelligent, open-minded man and is very sweet. For some time, now, he's been telling me to try yoga and meditate. He reminds me of my great aunt (his aunt) who tried natural remedies for everything.
But I'm a procrastinator... I kept telling myself I was going to try these things and never seemed to have enough motivation to follow through with either. I loathe exercise, so even something as non-strenuous as yoga sounded like too much effort. And meditation...? That seemed too difficult. When you have a mind like mine, the kind that usually has a dozen thoughts running through it at once at any given time, it's damn near impossible to get it to go blank. It doesn't even slow down when I sleep. I dream most of the night and the more active I am in my dream, the more tired I am when I wake up. Seriously, I wish there was a switch that I could just turn my brain off when I need to...

Just breathe...

One day, while out shopping at one of my favorite stores, I found this book. It was sitting on a display stand near the entrance, almost as if it were waiting there just for me. I took it as a sign... I should buy the book and get my ass in gear and figure out this whole meditation thing. As you can see, I bought the book... I read the whole thing in a few days (I would have finished it sooner, but time didn't allow). It's very well written, simple to understand and very thorough. It even has pictures to show various positions you should use when meditating.
One morning, I decided I understood what this meditation thing was all about, now, and gave it a go. It was an amazing experience! I felt very energized and ready to face my day, something that never happened before...
My uncle, it turns out, was right. Meditation is a big help. And it's not just for people plagued by stress or anxiety... Anyone can find value in meditation. For those wanting to try it, I recommend getting the book pictured on the right, the one I bought. It's highly informative.

My newest love...

I've also found a new obsession...
I'm a sucker for the smell of patchouli... A lot of people I've encountered don't care for it much, but I've always found it very soothing. I have quite a few candles, all that particular scent, because the scent relaxes me.
A few days ago, I was surfing the internet and learned some very interesting things that patchouli is useful for, including easing stress and anxiety. I was actually looking for scent that I could wear and I came across the perfume on the left. Pacifica's Himalayan Patchouli Berry, sold by Ulta Beauty. It sounded like a nice scent, so I ran out to Ulta...
I'd never been in that store before that day... It's overwhelmingly huge! I had a difficult time finding where they hid their fragrances, but I ultimately found them. I used the tester, sniffed my wrist and was greeted by the most heavenly scent! I couldn't stop sniffing myself! I'm sure the other customers thought I'd lost my mind... Whatever, I was happy, what did I care? Needless to say, I bought the perfume and, lucky me, they had one roll-on of this scent left, so I snagged that to keep in my purse. It's made a major difference in my mood and anxiety levels. I can be calm and smell good!

Tty me next year...

This weekend, I saw a bit of the person I was before... It was really nice to see her again, even if it was for only a day. It gave me hope that, maybe, I can reconnect with her, the person I was. It's such a corny line, saying that you're going to "find" yourself... But that's what I have to do. Identity is so much more than how we portray ourselves to others, whether in real life or on the internet.
So... I need to do some soul searching, find that person I lost along the way. Who knows... Maybe she'll turn up here in this blog from time to time, the person behind the monickers and false names...
But there's something to be said for staying in the shadows when you're out in cyberspace. Am I right...?

But It's All In Your Head...

Best motivational poster ever...

For those who haven't figured it out already... Seriously, why haven't you figured it out?! I mean, I think it's pretty obvious from the bizarre nature of my posts and the things I say in them... It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see what the hell the deal is with me...
Anyway...
I suffer from bipolar disorder, what they used to refer to as manic-depressive, and a rather crippling case of anxiety. Sadly, there is a lot of stigma surrounding mental disorders. And even I'm not immune to their misinformation, though sometimes it was warranted...
I once worked with a woman who had paranoid schizophrenia. She seemed normal enough until she had a psychotic episode while talking to me. The exact content of her delusion, I'll never forget, was, "They (the government) came to my house and drugged me, then they broke my grandson's legs right in front of me because THEY DON'T WANT ME PRAYING!!!" Whoa! What the actual fuck?!? I had no idea what was going on. But it only took me a few seconds to figure it out. It's hard to know what to do in such situations... So I did the only thing I could think of. I looked at her, shocked and sad, shook my head and (thankfully convincingly) said, "Oh my God, that's terrible!" There were times when she would chant to herself... And we worked around large, sharp kitchen knives! I used to have some of the other employees casually pass by because I was fearful she was going to sneak up behind me and jam a knife into the back of my fucking head... The thing is, even I thought she was fucking nuts, and if someone with a mental illness says that, you know she was nuts...

She had beautiful rainbow hair...

However, not all mental illnesses are this way... That's only one example of a severe case of a very serious mental illness in a woman who wasn't taking her medication at the time. Not every case is so severe or uncontrollable. Not everyone has delusions or even the same types. In the case of paranoid schizophrenics, their delusions, more often than not, involve government conspiracies and/or religion. But that also doesn't mean that all people who believe in government conspiracies is mentally ill. I mean really, every person associated with the government intentionally makes people paranoid by dodging questions or giving vague, cryptic answers to questions. So no, Fox Mulder from The X-Files wasn't schizophrenic... He just had normal paranoia where the government was concerned...

The best depiction of bipolar disorder...

But back to my misfortune...
I feel I need to clear up things for those who fall prey to the stigmas of mental illnesses. The image to the left is, by far, the best depiction of what it's like to suffer from bipolar disorder. It's a real crapshoot...
There are various forms of the disorder, one more severe than the other. Thankfully, I have the milder of the two. So let me explain what it's like to live this way every day...
One thing every bipolar person suffers from is mood swings. It's a real pain in the ass... You could wake up feeling cheerful and five minutes later, you're either so down you just can't function or you're ready to rip off someone's head and shit down their neck... literally... Nothing needs to set you off, either, like your lazy coworker or a fight with your significant other. Your brain just shifts gears much like you do in a standard shift car. So even if you wake up and say to yourself, "I feel great today! It's going to be an awesome day!", you can't count on that because your mood changes day to day, hour to hour, minute to minute. Yes, sometimes it can yo-yo back and forth that fast. Continuously roll a pair of dice... What are the odds that you'll roll the same combination every time? Not good... That's what it's like to be bipolar. See...? It's a real crap shoot...

Oh what fun...

The image on the right gives you a vague idea of what the moods are like. I, personally, spend most of my time in the latter two, hypomanic and depressive. I wish I experienced manic episodes more often. I tend to be incredibly productive during those times. And I mean productive to the point where people look at me strangely, as if I took speed... I'm overly hyper in my speech and I go above and beyond in normal activities. For example, one day I decided to bake cookies. The idea came out of the blue and I was overly psyched about the idea. I ended up baking non-stop, from the time I got up until I went to bed, for four days! On the fourth day, I was starting to come down and decided I no longer felt like baking. I finished the last batch and had way too many Christmas cookies to show for it. Other times, it's crazy house cleaning, like getting on my hands and knees to scrub the floor or pulling off oven knobs, soaking them and then scrubbing them just because "they needed it". I end up cleaning every little thing and my house is more sterile than sterilization chambers. Sadly, I don't get that mania often. I wish I did... I get so much done! But there are down sides to mania. Sometimes it takes a bad direction and you're a lot like Dr. David Banner, "Don't make me angry... You wouldn't like me when I'm angry...", then you turn into the raging green dude called The Hulk... Or it takes yet another route, "I'm Wonder Woman! I'm invincible!" That's probably the most frightening because you can do dangerous things because you feel nothing can stop you.

What a life...

The majority of the time, my natural state is beyond couch potato... It's as if my "get up and go" just "got up and went" and left no forwarding address. It's not a fun existence... There is so much I need to do yet I have no energy to do it. It's not fun to look around you and see a good layer of dust on your furniture, dishes and laundry piling up, yet you just can't get your lazy ass up to do anything about it. You hate looking at the disaster that is your house to the point that you're miserable, but you just can't seem to get up and clean anything up. You and the couch have become one and that's about it. It had you in its warm embrace, you're nice and comfortable... Fuck it... You'll get to those things later. But you never do... Short of setting a bomb off under your ass, you're not going anywhere...

What a mindset...

Then there's soul-sucking depression...
I don't just mean feeling blue because it's been raining too long or you're sad because you had to put your pet down... Oh no... I mean real depression, the kind that makes you hate yourself, question your existence and, at times, makes you want to end it all because it's the only way you think you'll ever stop the emotional pain you're feeling. Sure, we've all had things that made us feel at least similar to this. For example, when a loved one passes away, someone you love betrays you, a relationship ends... But it's different in bipolar people. They experience that degree of depression (or higher) for no apparent reason. You hate/loathe/despise yourself for totally unreasonable things and you assume that, if you feel that way about yourself, others feel that way about you, too. So you isolate yourself... You don't go out, you don't talk to anyone. But isolation only makes you feel worse about yourself. How fucked up is this...?!
And five minutes later, you can feel like you can do anything and are ready to go out and take on the whole world in a solo mission... Who needs to hide under that blanket all day, safe and warm, protected from anything outside of said blanket? Unfortunately, that doesn't happen often. Most of the time, depression sets in, sets up permanent camp and there isn't thing one you feel you can do about it...

It's always after you...

Then there's anxiety...
It's difficult to describe the feeling. It's more than just fear... Everyone is afraid at some point. You get that sudden jolt, the "fight or flight" response kicking in. Your heart starts pounding, you break out in a sweat and your brain is screaming at you to get the hell out of dodge. Everyone has had that feeling at some point. And if you haven't... you better go see a doctor because you may be a psychopath...
But anxiety isn't like that... All of a sudden, out of nowhere, you're terrified and you have no idea what you're terrified of. Even if you do know, it's usually an irrational fear anyway, which makes you feel even worse... The biggest problem is that whatever is causing the fear isn't coming from an outside source. It's all in your head... And that's a difficult place to escape from...

Yes... they do...

However, the most annoying and crippling part of anxiety is the fact that having anxiety gives you more anxiety...
For example, most people engage in odd behavior when they have anxiety issues. Your brain creates the behavior as a way to squelch the anxious feelings. Your brain has good intentions and, for a short while, the behaviors seems to help. But, over time, you realize that these behaviors are odd, you're not like other people. Because of that, you feel more anxious, so the behaviors get worse, which leads to more anxiety, more odd behavior... It just keeps going around and around, like a vicious circle. It's like being on a merry-go-round you can never seem to get off of no matter how hard you try...

We all wear one...

And so you go one, every day, hiding behind a mask so no one knows how you really feel...
There are a lot of things out there that tell you to dump negative people from your life because you don't need negativity. That's really cruel... Negative people are usually troubled people who need help, could use kind words or gesture, to know someone cares. So these people are telling you to turn your back on people who are crying out for help. Mighty white of them... Jackasses...

I hope someone found this informative and now has a better understanding of the trials and tribulations that mentally ill people face every day.
And the next time you run across a negative person, remember that some kindness may make a world of difference for someone...