Welcome to My Bumpy Ride.......

Before you all read on, I guess it is best to introduce myself to you and let you know a bit about myself. I am Susan, and first and foremost, I am a mother to a wonderful young man. Though he is grown, he will always be that three year old little boy, that asked all those questions and expected answers to them all. Though I will tell you much about myself in this blog there is no one or nothing that is as important to me as him, even if I don't discuss him much, because he kina likes to remain private.

For years I was actively trying to find myself, but that was a big waste of time, since by doing so I was not living. All my life I have always known that I was "different", but was unable to know why that was. I first thought that perhaps it was because I was adopted, but that was not the case. Turns out, I am bipolar and pretty much have been all my life. This was explained to me about nine years ago when I had a major melt down. I tend to be more on the depressive side, but have on occasion been quite manic. My last episode was early thru mid 2008, with full blown depression. For five months, I bearly left my house, let alone my bed. Why am I telling you this? I just want it out in the open and let you understand that I discuss my illness from time to time.

Present day, I am currently a full time student, studying social work. At the end of 2011 I was approached by a mentor of mine, who mentioned a new program that was going to launch here in Rhode Island. This new program called the Peer Wellness Coaching, was something that I had always wished would become a reality and to add even more excitement was the fact that this mentor was inviting me to train for a position as one of the Peer Wellness Coaches.

So currently (spring 2012) I am part of the three phases of training and should be employed by the fall of 2012. What is even more excellent about this program is that they are aware of my education goals and are willing to work with me on maintaining those goals.

Also you might hear me mention NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness), because I am actively involved with them. I am a facilitator and state trainer for the NAMI Connection groups (peer run support group) here in Rhode Island, and I also help teach high school and college students about mental illness through NAMI RI's Inside Mental Illness program.

So with all that being said...I hope you read on to my daily activities and thoughts and such.




Thursday, December 29, 2011

Taking a Semester Off Maybe?


I have been doing a lot of thinking these last couple of months.  So what am I thinking?  Well I think it might be in my best interest at this moment to take a semester off at school.  This last semester I finished fairly well actually.  Didn’t do as well as I would have liked, but that was all on me.  My grades were as follows: Physics – B, Intro to Social Work – B+, and Biology A.  Now these are pretty fine grades actually, but honestly, I didn’t give my school work the all I usually do.  My mind was busy with other things.  At this point I know that I will not be able to do my best and feel that I should take the break until September.

So what is on my mind at this time, you might ask.  Well I have both my parents sick and that weighs heavy on my mind.  I also know that when I head out to Florida to visit with mom for the final time, I will not be in the greatest shape.  That visit is going to be quite difficult, because I know that I will not be able to share with her exactly how I feel.  I will help her to have closure and be able to relax enough to let her die.  I know I am sounding cold and well at this moment if I can restrain myself, it might just well be for the best all around.

I know she is going to ask me if I feel she was a good mother, and well I will tell her yes, but at the same time I will be lying out of my ass.  Some people would wonder why I would lie to her that way.  The best answer I have is basically this; she will have no outlet to speak what she feels like I can.  I know her well enough to know that she needs to have some sort of peace with herself before she dies, and it is because of my compassionate side that I will do my best to give her the peace she needs. 

I do wonder though, if I can forgive myself for not taking one last chance in finding out what it was about me that she disliked.  Why was it so important for her to pretend at times to like me, but yet find every single fault in me and even faults that I didn’t have, but yet in her mind I did?  I wonder also, why if she didn’t like me, why she tried so hard to adopt me and not let me go to a family that might actually care about me.  These are the things that I have wanted to ask her, and honestly I thought about doing just that.  When I spent three weeks with her a few years ago, I thought about it, but as always she was drunk for most of the time.  So I am guessing that I have lost my opportunities to actually get some sort of answers.  My guess on the whole fighting to adopt me was basically my mother’s drive to win anything she sets her mind to winning.  At least that makes sense to me.
 Now I have my dad also, who is sick as well?  Most would figure that when one parent dislikes a child, at least the other makes up for it.  I guess in my dad’s own way he might have tried, but that is just a guess.  He tells me now that he is proud of me, and I actually think he might be.  Who knows, right now his thoughts are not of the normal range and I could take it as being what he has always felt, but never took the time to say it.  I guess it would actually feel really super if he didn’t have to mention how proud he was of my brother at the same time like he always does.  I know that sounded a bit bratty or selfish, but you know what, I have never really had that chance to be like that around my family.

In my family, my brother was the favorite with both of my parents, and then there was my sister.  I guess maybe it was the whole boy thing or first born thing but when we added more like in foster kids and step kids and I found myself at the bottom of the list in each family dynamic, it kind of brought me way down.  Funny thing is though, I was the one who did all I could for them.  If they needed something, I did it.  I was actually the good kid, at home anyways.  I never questioned or fought and I was eager to please.  Now I am not saying my sister was difficult, but she sure gave my mom a run when she became a teenager.  My brother was always the problem child everywhere he went.  I did have problems at school, but I know that it was more of me trying to see if I could get any of the attention that my brother did, and when I realized no one cared I gave up and really caused problems at school, because I figured if no one cared, why should I.

My mom did tell me one thing, and I guess I should consider it some sort of apology of sorts.  She told me that every time that she saw my brother beating up on me, and yes it was often, she would punish me because it was easier.  Hummm.  Now that is interesting.  She knew that I did nothing to provoke him, like she claimed back then, but yet she found it easier for HER to make me think I did and make me feel sad and bad, then to actually teach him that it was not ok to beat up on me enough to where I had broken bones.  Ok.  So I am suppose to take that as an apology and feel better.  Hummm.  My thought on this is ok, I understand that is how it went, but are you telling me because it will make her feel better.  Ah who knows?

Yeah I know, this kina shit is in the past and I should let it go.  Isn’t that what everyone says?  Well each time I think I got it straight, it slams me head on and makes it so I am up at 1am writing about it.  My sister once told me that she could not remember anything from when she was younger than 17, which by the way is when she moved out of my mother’s house.  Interesting, huh? Sometimes I envy that.  It would be so kewl if my brain was super stupid and forgot so much stuff.  Sadly, I have a different kind of brain.  Last I scored on a IQ test online I got a 145.  That can be a good thing, but it is not.  IQ is about learning and how well you learn, which mean that you can retain information and use it to learn more.  So how does this suck.  Well it sucks because my brain learns from the crap that I am stuck remembering. 

So as you can see even just this that I have talked about, is why I am considering taking a semester off of school.  I am not even upset with my grades, because honestly, I didn’t even deserve the ones I got.  I didn’t even try.  That is so not like me.  Not to care enough about the grades that I only did the bare minimum.  I focused on what had to be done and didn’t try to do my best.  I wrote a ten page paper in a couple of hours and actually got a B on it.  Wow, and most of that time was spent making sure I cited my references correctly, and only because I knew the professor used an online detective program for plagiarism.

Well I guess that is enough of this for now.  Sorry to have whined and moaned all the way through this, but hey this blog is for me to sort shit out sometimes.  The picture above is when my brother broke my arm and mom made me tell everyone, including the doctor, that I fell off my bike.  I said it so many times, that even today most of the time I will say that is how I did it.  Same went for my leg and all the black eyes and various other marks that were visible to anyone paying attention.  The reason I picked this picture is because it is the only picture of me that represents how I really felt back in that time.  Well I am done with the winefest and no I don’t want cheese with it.


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