Putting things in Perspective: How Social Networking Can Make You Feel Unloved

     Sometimes the things we struggle with are not that huge, they are actually rather small but, they are still struggles to us and they may not make life difficult but they do make for difficult moments in life. One said struggle for me is feeling unloved and alone. Yes I know that I am loved, truly I do but sometimes I feel like I am not. But the only time I really feel that way is when I am on Facebook.

     So you wonder why I would say this well, there are many times I log on to Facebook, to my own wall, hoping to see a lot of likes and comments on the things I post. I am disappointed however to find that there are very few likes or comments on the things I post. When I see this I instantly feel like no one notices me and like no one cares. Is this silly, is it untrue? Well of course it is, but is it a real feeling? The answer is "yes"

     I go to other people's walls and notice a lot of comments and likes to what they post on Facebook which makes me feel even more unloved. I wonder why my friends have friends who care so much about them and what they have to say while mine don't give a whip about what I have to say and well, about me.

     To put it all in perspective though, and it is important to do because if you don't it can consume you and make you feel depression. I wonder if that is why so many young people, and older ones as well, are depressed and committing suicide. I wonder sometimes if people put too much emphasis on social networking and it's meaning and worth. I know if I let myself, and did not put it all in perspective, I might be the same way. I might get depressed and let that depression consume me.

     Back to putting it in perspective, something I did this morning as I looked at Facebook feeling invisible and alone... I thought hard about it and realize that many people most likely are just busy living life in their real world. Many of them might be too busy to like what I post on Facebook or to keep in touch with me online. I know that I have been busy lately and not been much of a social networking friend.

     Another thought is that many of my posts might not show up on each of my friends walls. Facebook is strange and things move around fast. If everyone else is like me, they don't go to each friends wall to see what is happening, they just don't have time.

     So putting it all into perspective I realize that it is important to know that Facebook is online networking, it cannot take the place of actual friendships and that I am loved and I do have people in my life who love and care for me. I am not going to let a silent computer screen if you will, dictate my mood. Yes I have been guilty of doing that in the past. It is time to cherish the real relationships in life and to focus on them. I notice a difference in how I feel when my time on social networking is limited. I feel happier  and more satisfied with life.

     I hope those in this world who are depressed and sad will really stop to think and ask themselves if they are depressed about their real world or the social networking world. It is a difficult one, more difficult than the real one in my opinion. It can make you feel unwanted and unloved when there are many who love you in the real world. Keeping it all in perspective will prevent social networking from determining your worth and making you feel unloved. 

How I Manage My OCD So it No Longer Effects My Daily Life

I wrote earlier about my OCD regarding turning things off and such. I still have that battle but have learned how to calm it down so that it does not effect my daily life. It was a long process but, it worked.

One day while I was watching a talk show, back when I watched those many years ago, there was an episode on OCD and self help on how to calm it down. I watched with a little trepidation but took it all in none-the less.  I tried it and well, it worked!

The first thing you do is talk loudly to yourself as you are completing tasks that OCD requires you complete over and over again. Since I checked my coffee pot, doors, curlers etc every time I went to complete the task I said to myself " I am now turning off the stove" or "I am now locking the door." this told my brain that I had done those tasks. I did this for everything and felt like quite a fool doing it. After several weeks though I noticed that I was able to only do those things one time and then move on with my day. I no longer felt the strong need to check things over and over again.

The next step of the process was to whisper the commands to myself and then say them silently in my head. In time I actually would not feel the need to check anything more than once. What a relief.

I did discover though that I was not cured, I revert back to those tendencies still but only when I am very stressed in life. I have learned throughout the years what my stress triggers are and when I feel extra stressed I talk myself through things as I do them which helps prevent those tasks from becoming life altering.

I still have episodes of OCD but am thankful I know how to manage them. I know my stress triggers which are triggers that were present the last years of my marriage. One of those triggers is my ex husband so I try to avoid contact with him as much as possible. At the present time that is not possible so I have to talk to myself a lot.

I don't think people are ever cured of OCD but there are ways to manage the symptoms.

Suicide:Letting Go of Why and Asking How to Move on

I wrote this article the day after my first cousins son took his own life. This weighed heavy on my mind, I am a writer so, I wrote.

     Recently, as I looked around the room where family and friends had come to say good bye to a sweet, promising twenty two year old young man I wondered what had taken him to a place where he felt so lost and tortured that he would end his own life. As I looked around at the hundreds of people mourning the loss, the heartbreak and broken souls that he left behind I wondered if he knew how much he was truly loved. The answer to the first question will never be answered; the answer to the second is yes. I know that he felt the love of his family. I am sure he knew how much his parents loved him, I am sure he knew how much his siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and friends loved him. I know this because I know them.

     So that leaves me with the question of what made him feel so tortured, why was he so desperate to leave those who loved him so dearly? Was it something that had gone on for a while or something that happened recently? Would it have helped if he'd had someone to talk to or was his mind made up to where no one could have talked him out of ending his own life? My biggest question is why, why didn't he reach out to those who love him? I know that he felt their love and knew they loved him. What happened in those last few hours of his life to make him so desperate?

     These are questions that well, will never be answered. Suicide is surrounded by a lot of "why did you do this?" and "What could I have done? " The sad thing is that there is nothing that a person can do for another if he or she doesn't reach out. Another point is that we can't live our lives worrying whether or not those we love will end their own lives because then none of us are truly living. So that said, we are back to that one question, why? I think that in reality those who have lost a loved one to suicide must eventually let go of the question of why and instead say "how, how do I move on?' Is that easy? Oh no, it is the hardest thing a person can do, we want to know why. But, the person who left us just did not leave a reason sometimes. Even if there is a visible reason, there's still the question...why?

     When I was only twenty-two myself I lost my brother in law to suicide. A year before I had lost my father-in-law to suicide but his was more "justifiable" if you will because he had been very ill for ten years, was not going to get better and we understood why he wanted out of the severe pain he was in. My brother in law was another story. With him though there was an answer to why, in a small way but yet not an answer to why.

     My brother in law was only twenty-five but at that young age he was an alcoholic. He was married with a five year old son and one month old daughter. He did have anger issues and troubled marriage. But none of that led us to believe or fathom the thought that he might end his own life. I don't think anyone I've known who lost a loved one to suicide had a clue that would happen.

     The night my brother in law ended his own life will always be clear in my mind. He had been fighting with his wife, he was drunk and his wife being a young person called my husband and other family members because he was also violent. They went over to his house and long story short, he was mad, went into the bedroom while his five year old son and one month old daughter slept in their beds next to his room, while his mom, brother, grandmother and wife sat in the living room, and shot himself. I always thought maybe if he hadn't had the access to the gun and could have slept off his anger maybe he would not have done what he did. But it is hard to say. In the end he might have taken his own life. I don't always think it is depression that causes someone to commit suicide. I honestly believe in my brother in laws instance it was anger, he was mad at his family and was going to "show them". He was drunk and not thinking clearly and did not realize that the decision he was making was forever and he could not take it back.

     I had been very close to my brother in law. We were good friends and I asked why many times over the years. Why he hadn't thought more about what he was going to do, why he decided to leave those who loved him and yes I asked many times why he did something to selfish. I was angry for many years and why, why, why made me even more angry. I watched his mom's heart break and watched the torture she went through for a long time over the loss of her son. Not just the loss that a mother feels from losing a child but the guilt that is left behind when the son ends his own life. The why, what could I have done guilt that can take years to come to terms with. She finally did but only after she let go of the whys and the guilt because there was nothing that she could have done.

     I must say I don't think of the why with my brother in law as much as I used to. Sometimes the why comes up but time has helped me cope with the loss. My loss was not that of a child which I have been told is the worst loss of all. I believe leaving why and guilt behind is harder when it is the loss of a child.

     So that brings me back to the present time. In the last few years I have known many people who have ended their own lives. Three of them were not young. They were fathers who shocked the community when they ended their lives. Two of the others have been young kids. All of the losses have brought with them the question of why. As I think of my cousin today, my heart aches for my cousins, aunts, uncles, his parents and his many friends. I have wondered why, as I looked around at the funeral I wondered why, today I feel like crying and feel weary because it is so hard to understand and I know my family is heartbroken and trying to figure out why. It will be a while before they leave why behind and ask how to move on.

     Somehow in one instant that person you love decides to end his or her own life, to leave those they love. Their mind is so tortured at that point in time that they just don't see any other way out. There is no way however that others can help them if they do not ask for help, if they don't reach out. So that is where the why has to stop because there is nothing that a loved one could have done for the person who is tortured, if there were signs that were missed, well there's nothing that can be done after the fact so learning how to move on is the only thing that a person can do. It is the only way to cope. Is it easy? Not by any means. It is the most difficult thing in the world.

     My hope as I looked around that room during the funeral of my young cousin watching all of the sorrow and heartbreak, is that those who were there stop and look at all of the people whose hearts are breaking over the loss of this young man. I hope they stop and think of all who love them, all who would hurt if they were to end their own life? I hope that anyone who feels so much despair and so tortured will stop to pause and remember the sorrow that their loss will cause, look at the sorrow this young man's loss has caused. If even one person loves you, it will break their heart if you are gone and I beg anyone who is that sad to reach out and find a way to move past the despair because the family will never be able to move past their loss. They will move on in time and will learn to live again but the light you shined in their life will be gone and my hope is that maybe thinking of that in the moment of sorrow will stop one person from ending his or her own life.

My Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

  When many people think Obsessive Compulsive Disorders (OCD) the character Adrian Monk in the show Monk comes to mind. They think of the person who is completely disabled by his or her compulsiveness. However there are many people, such as myself, who battle disorders that are at times disabling but yet not so much that the rest of the world recognizes them as such.

     No one knew of my compulsiveness. It was something that I did well at hiding and really did not thin of it as a disorder until it began effecting my ability to rest or get to work on time. I am not sure why I have the disorder but will analyze the possible reasons later on.

     To know me one would never know I had the issues that I have but I used to be very compulsive about checking to make sure things were taken care of in my home such as making sure the doors were locked, the stove was off and things like that. Of course everyone is cautions and makes sure that things are off before going to bed but I went beyond that, I was obsessed without realizing that I was.

     It started out simple. I would make my rounds evey night before bed.I checked the doors to make sure they were locked, checked the stove to make sure it was off and in the morning when I left for work I double checked the coffee pot and my curlers to make sure they were both off. I also checked my door to make sure it was locked before I left the house.

     Normal things right, yes they were but as time progressed and now also related to the stress in my life, I began over checking. I would check the stove at night, the doors and such. Then I would go to bed and have to get up and check them again. I did the same in the morning, I checked the coffee pot, curlers and door twice.

     As time progressed I checked all of these things more than twice. Sometimes I would have checked every ting a couple of times and after laying in bed for a while get up to check them again. I even checked the stove when I had not used it at all that day. I would go to bed and get up to check things again. It got so bad that I would get very little sleep because I was checking thins so often.

     This did not end with night time rituals. I started double and more than double checking the doors and coffee pot etc before heading to work. At first I would get to the car and have to go back to double check the door. Sometimes I had to unlock the door to go inside and check the coffee pot again. It was not like I was just worried, I could not leave the house unless I went back inside.

     My morning routine got so bad finally that I would be late for work or have to start my routine 15 minutes before time to leave. I would check things, check them again and then as I was a few miles down the road I had to turn back to check everything all over again.

     I had no clue what was wrong with me but I knew that it was stressful and I think related to the stress in my life. I had never even heard much about OCD at the time, I just knew that I felt like I could not function if I did not check things over and over and over again.

     Luckily one day while I was watching TV a show came on about OCD and I decided to watch. What little I knew about it was that people washed their hands over and over and things like that. But, someone on there had behaviors similar to mine and what I learned helped me out tremendously.

     I will write about my OCD "cure" in the next post.