Why is this happening to me??????

Hello Friends.....

So I made a video..... its a little scatter brained.... probably wont make a lot of sense.... but I couldn't type it out, I tried... for a while and it wasn't working.... so I made a video.....

Here is the link! I'm a little I.T. Challenged, and I couldn't make it post on here.... so I had to upload it to youtube!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Az9NaD9tcD0&feature=youtu.be

The Flower Man

So its been over a month since I have been able to post! Part of me didn't want to write a new one because of how AWESOME my last post was..... lol. Its hard to follow up with a good post after a GREAT post. (this is not me being "big headed", this is me just repeating what YOU all said to me about it) Anyways... a little recap on what I have been doing this last month......

I have been so blessed and humbled by the teachers at Up With Kids! After that first camp, I was asked to help with another, then another, then another... 5 Summer Camps in all!!!! O M Goodness! It was so much fun! I'm so very grateful for the opportunity to have been able to work with those teachers and to have fun with the kids during camp. So many HUGE things have happened in the last few months.... I reached my 8th month of sobriety, we had 2 HUGE family parties at my house, my brother and his family came back to visit from West Virginia, I started an Instagram account (lol, I really like Instagram hence why I just mentioned it as a HUGE thing) Got Ethan and Izzi registered for school, I got a calling in my ward (I pretty much plan parties/socials (best calling ever) ) I also became a visiting teacher (I think I scared some of the relief society with how excited I was to become a visiting teacher) lol.....  So now I have a few weeks off before Up With Kids! starts in September. (if you haven't registered your kiddos yet, go to www.upwithkids.com and sign them up)

So what's been in my head lately? I shall tell you ..... right ..... now.....

Russ and I have started a new thing at bed time now that Ethan and Izzi are back with us. We read a story every night with them. Some times its made up..... (when I say made up, I really mean we tell them stories of movies we know they haven't ever seen lol) and some times its from a book. Last night  I told them the story of The Flower Man..... a little history on this before I go on to the story....

In 2007 I worked at a book fair thingy.... it was super cool because they had book signings by the authors so I got to see and meet a lot of authors. At the end of the week, the company said that all the employees were allowed to pick one book for free. There were so many books I wanted.... I had a hard time deciding, until I came across this book called The Flower Man, a wordless picture book by Mark Ludy. Now I know what your thinking..... "Really Mallory, you pick a WORDLESS BOOK" ..... before you get a judgmental..... Let me explain this book.....

So this is the cover..... totally caught my eye because, I mean, look how ADORABLE the little old man is! And you notice that he is the only thing in color.....

Here is the next page..... I LOVE how it says that everyone has a story... cuz its true. We all have an amazing life story. You may think you don't, you may think "well nothings every really happened to me that make me special" THAT IS A LIE! You never know, maybe your BORING life that you think could never be anything but BORING, could actually be someone's answer to their life problem.. So share your story... (rant over)

So then you see him walking to this sad looking, grey town. I'm going to skip a few pages.... but it shows him walking through the town, and as you look closer, all the people in the buildings are either, sad, angry, annoyed, crying... etc... NO ONE IS HAPPY

Then he gets to this sad looking, run down house that is for sale. And as a reminder.... everyone in this town is grey and unhappy.....

So he starts to fix it up.... and it turns to color.... also to note... this man ALWAYS has a smile on his face.... also to note again... the people in this town never smile. But if you look closer, there is a little girl leaning on his fence, watching him eagerly.

Remember that eagerly looking little girl..... He gave her a flower... and she turned to color, and is smiling.

See what's happening here? Just one small act of kindness, has a ripple affect. So the next few pages are of all the people in the town turning to color. 

So now the whole book has color. You would think it would be the end of the book right?

WRONG! Look close at the house that the flower man fixed up.... It has a For Sale sign. The next few pages so him walking back out of that town, which is all in color now, into a new grey town....

He finds a new house For Sale......

...and it starts all over again

So that is the story...... What did you get from it? Here is what I told my kids....

No matter what bad, horrible, unlucky things that happen to you, there is usually someone else who has it worse. So instead of being grey all the time and sitting in this sad depressed state, be the color that can brighten someone else's day. By doing this it will not only make them colorful, it will in turn, brighten your color! And that will help you stay colorful! This book has been with me for 10 years now. When I first got it, I honestly just thought the illistrations were cute, and it would be a good picture book for Ethan to look at. I never sat and thought about the meaning of it until now. Mark Ludy said it perfectly when he signed my book....

"Sweet Mallory, pleasure meting you! Continue to color your world!"

I hope you all can color your world. Think of how much better and prettier this word could be if we all could help each other color our lives. Find this book so you can look at it more carefully. In each window of each building there is a person, as the book goes on each person starts to get color. So you can look at this book over and over again you can find a new story every time! 

My challenge to you:

Share your story, and color your world!

True Happiness is the BEST High!

When I went to Valley (my IOP treatment facility) on Tuesday, I got asked this question by some of the girls there...."Mal, did you relapse?"
.....*really questioned look on my face*.....
"Um NO! Why do you ask that?"
"Because your smiling a whole lot, talking a whole lot, and are WAY to happy and energetic today"
.....*REALLY questioned look on my face again*......
"I'm just REALLY happy today! The happiest I have been in a long time actually"
*totally not believing expressions on all their faces*

I came home and thought about it..... Was I really acting like I was High on something? I mean, I had just left my mom and Meg and they didn't say anything to be about my behavior..... and they totally would have called me out if they had because they saw me on drugs, they knew how I acted when I was on something, and they didn't say one word to me about my behavior being weird....
It didn't dawn on me until the next day why they asked me that question....

Anyone who didn't know me before I used drugs, doesn't know my REAL personality. The REAL Mal is a fast talking, outgoing, bubbly, energetic and slightly obnoxious/annoying girl. Then it hit me like a ton of bricks....

I'M BACK TO MY OLD SELF! *screams with excitement*

That's why my mom and Meg didn't say anything to me before I left to treatment! They just saw what they have always seen..... it may have been hidden for a few years but they saw their daughter/sister acting the way she always used to. So that smiley, talkative, energetic, slightly obnoxious/annoying girl was normal to them!

After this eye opening and mind blowing revelation I was super excited! I felt happy, energetic, and I did it would out ANY use of a substance! It was pure and true happiness. I hope you all know how big of a deal this is for me! Remember in my post "why cant you just stop?" I talked about how addicts dopamine levels were so high that even the most enjoyable activities that would make anyone happy, or excited, had little to no effect for an addict. That's how its been for me lately. I had everything going great in my life, things were coming back to normal, I was being the mom I used to be, my family started to trust me again, everyone has been so supportive and understanding, but I still was not finding anything to make me "happy".

My sister gave me this AMAZING book called Be Happy written by Hank Smith. I've only just started it, but I have learned SOOOOOO much from it already. One thing I wanted to share with you that he talks about is the statistics of happiness..... This will blow your mind.

50% of your happiness comes from Genetic Tendencies..... so your DNA
40% of your happiness comes from Intentional Activities.... that's your behavior
and 10%..... only 10% comes from Circumstances

SHOCKING RIGHT!!!!!!

If you would have asked me 7 months ago, what made me happy..... I would have told you Meth and Heroin. That's the only way I could be happy. And that''s only if I had enough to last me all day. Hank Smith explains circumstantial happiness perfectly. (and he does it by explaining it with pizza or ice cream!)
The first bite is THE BEST! Oh man is that bite life changing. The second bite is still pretty great, but not quite as good as the first bite. The third bite is okay, but now its going dowhill a little. By the ninth or tenth bite you want something else. In other words, you need a different "high". This is a phenomenon called Hedonic Adaptation. It means conditions that once made you exhilaratingly happy just don't do it for you after a while. So CIRCUMSTANCES DON'T DEFINE HAPPINESS!
So the next time you think that you need the new car, new phone, new wardrobe etc.... to make you happy. You are wrong. It will just cause some pleasure, which is totally different then happiness. But that wont last.

40% of your happiness comes from the things you do to manage you happiness- your behavior. Lets call it Passion; the happiest people are those who have found their specific gifts and who use those gifts in a cause greater then themselves.
I'm not saying that I'm the GREATEST BLOGGER to ever have hit the internet, but I feel like I have a gift for sharing and teaching people how NOT to live their lives..... lol. Seriously..... I have shared part of my story, a very scary and vulnerable part of my life in hopes that I can help people can learn from my mistakes, or help them understand why an addict does what they do. And I have had people share with me that they appreciate what I write about, and have a better understanding of addiction now. So I like to think that this is my "special gift". It makes me truly happy when I hear a mom, or dad of an addict thank me for explaining addiction in a way they could understand, and be able to help and support their addicted child. (this really happened..... I was floored when I got this response) This brings me True Happiness......

50% of happiness comes from DUUH NAA (its pronounced D.N.A) <--- if you dont get that joke, you need to watch Zootopia. ha ha ha ha.
So where does happiness originate? In your brain. Not in your heart like the media would have you believe. Valentines day should be filled with pictures of little brains and candy shaped brains with cards that read "I love you with all my brain!". I mean if we want to be accurate. Makes sense. But probably wouldn't be as romantic as a heart......
The brain matters to happiness.... and not just a little. 50%, half of your happiness comes from your DNA. So if your generally a very happy person, you can thank your parents. If, on the other hand, your generally pretty miserable, you can settle into the therapist's chouch and blame your parents. LOL. But here is the thing about being pretty miserable genetically..... you can change that. The brain is constantly changing. It will take some time, but you can retrain your brain to be positive. :) SO NO EXCUSES!!!!

Okay so back to me! Because I'm an attention seeking person, I want everything to be about me. I mean, my blog is titled "it;s all in MY head" lol.......

So lets journey back to how the heck I got my first Happiness High! As I mentioned before, this is a huge deal. I have been so down, and depressed despite having AMAZING progress in my recovery, and in my family life..... I literally was at the lowest point in my recovery just a few days ago. No matter what I did, I felt like it was never going to be enough. The funny thing about low points is that just when you are about to give up, just when you think that no matter what you do, you are always going to have this little black cloud following you around..... if you can hold on for just a second longer..... literally that's all it takes, a second..... that's when you will FINALLY get lifted back up and feel that joy, and elation of being alive. That's what happened to me.

Here I am at the lowest, and I mean LOWEST (all caps make it more dramatic) point in my recovery. In my head all I'm thinking is "I might as well use, because that's what made me happy" "I will never get this "happy high" that normal people get" "I'm doing everything right but, nothing is making me happy"....... thoughts like this may not seem like a  huge deal to you, but to an addict, these kind of thoughts are very dangerous. I was explaining this to my family, and they, being the AMAZING supportive and loving people that they are said "just keep doing what your doing, it will all turn out" and "Pray about it Mal". TOTALLY NOT what I wanted to hear, but I kept on keeping on, and I prayed about it....... then I got a text message......

 "Hey Mal, I could really use your help next week with my summer camp" (it said a little more but that is the jist of it)
I stopped everything I was doing.... Ran to my mom and told her I got this message. I told her I literally prayed about this, and I got an answer. Her response was like "I told you so".
Why is this so monumental? (here is a little history) Well this company is called Up With Kids!. I grew up in this musical theature company. The ladies who run this AMAZING company are like 2nd moms to me. Their daughters are like sisters to me, and it pretty much has been my whole life. I got the chance to work for them after I had Izzi, and it was the GREATEST time of my life. I got to teach and direct plays and sing, dance and act every day. Total dream job! Unfortunately my pill addiction got the best of me and I had to leave the company. After that, I hit rock bottom.... That's when I started abusing drugs..... 

Flash forward a few years.......
(during these years.... all I could honestly think about is how I blew it with this career, it really killed me everyday. You can ask my family.... that's all I would talk about)

When I got sober, I contacted them asking them if there was anything I could do to return to this career. They have a strict Drug Policy that stated that I would have to have compleated treatment and have sobriety for 6 plus months. DONE! So when I got this message..... I literally got this "happiness high". Right then and there..... I couldn't contain myself. I wanted to tell everyone at treatment.... Hence the question I got at the top of this post..... lol.

True Happiness is the BEST high. Why? Its a positive force that will stick with you. Substances will give you pleasure.... but pleasure doesn't last. Happiness.... TRUE HAPPINESS lasts. I finally found my happiness. I hope you all can find yours.
Just remember if you are having those tough days, days that seem like there is no hope for tomorrow, and they just keep knocking you lower and lower and your stuck wondering why your feeling this way, why your being plagued with this depression or anxiety.....  write this quote down somewhere you can read it daily.....
"It was meant to be that life would be a challenge. To suffer some anxiety, some depression, some disappointment, even some failure is normal. If you have a good miserable day once in a while, or several in a row, stand steady and face them. Things WILL straighten out. There's great purpose in our struggle in life." - President Boyd K. Packer

Happiness does not mean being free from problems and trials, but finding purpose in problems and trials can result in abundant happiness. Find your purpose in your trials, find your special gifts and don't be scared to share them. I will end with one of my FAVORITE quotes of all time......

"Happiness can be found in even the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light" -Albus Dumbledore

NEVER forget to turn on YOUR light. :)

Addiction and Self-Esteem

So I have achieved 157 days of sobriety. I have been attending recovery classes everyday for the same amount of time, and am starting to finally get my life back together. I have done so much hard work to get this far, you would think I should be feeling great right? Unfortunately like most people in addiction recovery, I am struggling with very low self-esteem which has kept me from feeling happy, worthy, and satisfied and has made my sobriety a challenge.

What is self- esteem? Self-esteem is our perception of our worth as a person - including our feelings of confidence and satisfaction with our life. People who struggle with low self-esteem act and think in ways associated with not feeling like they are good and worthy person. Add someone who struggles with an addiction, and its 10x worse.

Low self-esteem and drug addiction often go hand in hand. People with low self-esteem are more likely to turn to drugs and alcohol to TEMPORARILY feel better about themselves, which leads to a viscous cycle of using substances and experiencing lower and lower self-esteem. The key word here is TEMPORARILY....So all your low self-esteem issues are numbed for a period of time while your using. From my own experience, I used meth because it made me loose weight drastically in a very short amount of time. At the time, I thought I looked great. For some odd reason, when I looked in the mirror, I saw this skinny, fit, beautifully sculpted women, when in reality I looked very pale, sickly, ragged, and unclean. I didn't realized how bad I looked until I got sober and started to see other addicts on the train and bus. Now not to say all addicts look pale, sickly, and ragged. I mean, when I was using, dealers would tell me all the time, "you don't look like an addict at all". (I seriously thought I was so cool because I didn't "look like an addict") I thought I was getting away with my addiction because of what other addicts and dealers would say to me. I seriously got commented on it all the time. So in my head, I'm thinking that I look AMAZING! So that's what I saw in the mirror, a non-addict looking person. This only fed my desire to keep using because I wanted to keep this "beautiful" new look.

While in recovery I am glad to learn I am not alone in thinking this way. Other people struggling with the same addiction felt that they looked amazing because of all the weight they lost, and energy they had. And now that we are sober, our levels of self-esteem have plummeted, while feelings of shame and guilt sky-rocketed. In our addiction, we took part in behaviors that make it really hard to like ourselves, after getting sober the damage addiction has caused becomes clear and this weighs on our already low self-esteem. Fortunately, self-esteem is not a permanent characteristic. That means you can build it up if it is low. Here are 10 tips help build your self confidence and increase self-esteem.

1. Use Positive Affirmations
When it comes to positive affirmations, the key is to fake it til you make it. At first you will not believe your own words, but the more you say to your self "I am a good person who deserves respect and happiness" the more those words will ring true. I like to write on my mirrors.... MAL IS AWESOME! :) Ive seen it and read it to my self so much that I now know I am awesome!

2.Surround Yourself with Positive People
While self-esteem ultimately must come from within, we also need the support of others to succeed in staying sober. I have been so lucky to have such a supportive family. They keep me positive and if you can consciously attune yourself to the good in other people, you will most likely see the good in yourself.

3.Stop Comparing
I hear this all the time in treatment, you can not compare your recovery with another people. You can relate, but not compare. But my issue is comparing myself to other women. I see the fit, beautiful, do it all moms on facebook and I always compare myself to them. We all need to remember that we are all special and unique in our own way. When we start to compare ourselves with others, STOP, and remember that you are special and have talents that maybe the person who your comparing yourself with doesn't.

4.Recognize and Challenge Negative Thoughts
Easier said then done, I know, but the more you do this, the easier it is to challenge those thoughts. If you find your self saying "I cant.." try re-framing it to "I can try" or "I know its hard, but I am strong".

5.Keep a Journal
How does this help your self-esteem? Well not only can you remember days when you felt good, you can keep a gratitude journal. It will  help you be more attuned to what is good in your life and be more optimistic. People who are optimistic tend to be more confident and have a higher self-esteem

6.Get to Know and Accept Yourself
A key to staying sober and feeling good is to continuously work on getting to know the you without the drugs. This is so hard because you were living your life with the drugs everyday, so everything you did, you did high. When you get sober you forget how to function like a normal person. So you are re-learning everything and finding out who you are as a person.

7.Focus on Success
Addicts in recovery are so hard on themselves. We can easily point out our failures each day, but never focus on the success we had that day. If we stay focused on every little success, like, being able to get up and go to treatment, staying sober, making dinner, cleaning the house, we have succeeded successfully for that day and we need to acknowledge it to ourselves.

8.Set Small Achievable Goals
SMALL is the key word here. I set way to high of goals when I first started treatment, this had a horrible in pact because instead of achieving the goals, they were so far out of my reach that it made me feel even worse about myself. Set small achievable goals, and when you complete them, you will notice your confidence increase.

9.Practice Loving Kindness Meditation
Loving kindness meditation can help free us from self-absorption and in turn fill us with feelings of acceptance. This meditation is simple and can be done by anyone. It consists of sending positive thoughts to those we love, but also to those we do not know well, to our enemies, and to all living beings.

10. Take Responsibility
Take responsibility for your own happiness and self-esteem. You and only you can create change in your life. Make a conscious decision to work towards becoming a more confident and self-loving person.

REMEMBER CHANGE TAKES TIME

Why can't you just STOP!

So I posted in my first post a little bit about addiction being a disease and that I would go more in depth on another post..... This is that post!

"Why cant you just stop Mal"

I got asked this question a lot. Mostly by myself... lol. I would beat myself up everyday asking myself this question. Why cant I just stop. It wasn't until I started treatment that I discovered the answer to this very frustrating question. My hopes while you read this post is to get you to understand an addicts mind. It differs, greatly, from your mind. Our priorities and survival methoods become warped. Our mind is "rewired" to think that the only way to survive is to keep doing drugs.

The area of the brain that encourages a human to perform or repeat and action that promotes survival is called the survival/reinforcement circuit. Its normal function is to reinforce an action that promotes survival (eating, drinking) Unfortunately is also the part of the brain that is most effected by psychoactive drugs. When a psychoactive drug activates this pathway, the result is a feeling of satisfaction, a high, or a physical/emotional pain relief witch prompts the urge to do it again.
Now that we have stared using the drug, we have an altered brain chemistry. It makes our "stop" switch dysfunctional. Think of the SRC as a "go" switch. And the control circuit as our "stop" switch. So when this "stop" switch becomes dysfunctional and does not shut off the craving, the person continues to use because there are no instructions to stop. The SRC ("go" switch) and the control circuit ("stop" switch) have been hijacked, so the individual continues to use because its tricked into sensing that survival depends on it.
The "do it again" message becomes impossible to ignore, resulting in the drug seeking/using behavior regardless of the amount of pleasure the user experiences or the destruction the use ultimately causes.

Remember my cold glass of water story in my first post. Knowing what the water would do to you, of coarse you wouldn't drink it. That's because your brain recognizes the danger and figures out an alternative way to survive, and that's when your "stop" switch kicks in. For an addict, our "stop" switch is totally disabled, all our brain says to us "do it again" "cant survive with out it" so we still take that glass of water.

Why couldn't I just stop? Because my brain literally didn't have a stop circuit.

Our brains are wired to ensure that we will repeat life-sustaining activities by associating those activities with pleasure or reward. Whenever this reward circuit is activated the brain notes that something important is happening that needs to be remembered, and teaches us to do it again and again without thinking about it. Because drugs stimulate the same circuit, we learn to abuse drugs in the same way. And they are so much more addictive then natural rewards (like sex, eating, exercising) because they release 2 to 10 times the amount of dopamine that natural rewards. The effects of such a powerful reward strongly motivates people to take drugs again and again.

When you take away the drugs, addicts dopamine levels become abnormally low, and their ability to experience any pleasure is reduced. This is why an addict feels flat, lifeless, and depressed when they are not using. So they keep taking the drugs again and again just to try and bring their dopamine levels back to normal. Which only makes things worse, its just this vicious cycle addicts go through everyday.

I hope that can help you understand why addicts feel like they have no other choice but to use. From personal experience, I just wanted to feel normal. I honestly wanted to quit, but at the time, I couldn't see a future where I could be happy again unless I was using. So I kept using. It wasn't until December 2016 that I finally made an effort to get sober. It was extremely hard at first, honestly, the hardest thing I have ever had to do. I have had to retrain my brain. Will it ever go back to normal? No. It wont. Because of my use, I have now given myself a disease. Can I live a functioning life? Yes. Just like any other disease, it can be treated.

So I hope this helps anyone who doesn't understand addiction, and why it is considered a disease. The next time you think in your head "why cant they just stop", remember that they are only trying to survive. They don't know any other way.

Can I forgive myself?

Hello friends
I should have taken my own advice about watching a Disney movie after reading my last post. lol.
I had therapy this morning,(I got A LOT of issues lol)  and I told my therapist that I just feel like "blah" today. She asked me what I wrote about last, I told her my suicide attempts, and she said "well have you forgiven yourself yet for that?".........
*blank stare*
"I think your unhappy and feeling like "blah" today because you still haven't forgiven yourself for attempting suicide, and reliving it in your blog brought back all your thoughts and guilt"

So I was going to do this post on Mental Illness (I will do this one later), but my therapist gave me an idea, so I'm doing this post on Self Forgiveness.

How do you forgive yourself?  I had to think about this for a while. It wasn't until later today that I realized that everything I'm learning in recovery, has already taught me to forgive myself. I just haven't been applying it in my life. So here are my Steps to Self Forgiveness:

1.Take Responsibility (you did it, own it)
I believe this one is the first step because if you cant take responsibility for your own actions, that means your pushing all the blame on someone who does not deserve it. I spent the longest time blaming my voices for everything. I blamed them for my suicide attempts, I blamed them when my children were taken, I blamed them for every bad thing that happened to me. In treatment I learned that we are only responsible for 3 things. Our thoughts, our feelings, and our actions. It doesn't matter what someone else says to us, or does to us, its how we react to the situation that we are accountable for. Now this is a lot easier said then done, I know this. But if we all would just stop and think about how we respond to situations, and to control our emotions, we would have less conflict, tragedy, and heartache in our lives.

2.Talk it out (do not suppress your feelings)
I didn't realize this was so crucial until I started reliving my attempts. I never talked about these attempts to anyone. The only people who knew about these were people in my family. And the only reason they even knew was because I sent that "I'm sorry" message to them. But even so, I never went into detail about it. Its amazing what talking things out can do for a person. I talked it out today in therapy, and I feel 100xs better. Just the act of saying it out loud feels like a weight has been lifted off my chest. So try it, talk it out.

3.The past is in the PAST for a reason. (leave it there)
Living in guilt is something a lot of addicts struggle with. Once we get sober, we start to look at all the harm we did to other people, or ourselves, and are just floored. We think about it over and over again. That's when the guilt and shame comes rushing in. We think to ourselves "how could I do that?" "That was never something I could have ever seen myself doing" "How can they forgive me for that?". I look at all the harm I did to my family, my husband and my kids. It makes me sick to my stomach. Luckily all the people I hurt have forgiven me, but I am still stuck in this guilt..... Its hard to just leave the past in the past and not to dwell on it, especially when that past has been detrimental to the people you love. But the easiest way to get over that guilt is to do the 2 steps above and to do the last step below.

4.Challenge yourself to do good (you deserve it)
To help get past the guilt, you just need to make sure that you make each day better then the last. Its hard at first. You may think that you don't deserve any good in your life. That because of how you have hurt others, you deserve to stay hurt. By thinking this way, you will be stuck in this revolving door, and this door doesn't have an exit. So step to the side, let yourself out so you can continue on. Everyone deserves good, or to do good. And by doing good, it doesn't just effect you, it effects the lives around you, your family, your kids, or the one you love.

If there is anything I would want you to take away from this post its this......
Forgive yourself, nothing good comes from wishing we could change our past. When you start to feel any guilt or shame, go do something for someone else. You will be so surprised how doing some kind of service, or act of kindness can change your whole day.(plus it will distract your mind, and you wont be focused on feeling so down) Not to mention the day of someone else as well. Be kinder to yourself. We all have flaws, and have done things we are not proud of. Instead of dwelling on it, LEARN FROM IT! 

....... That's all I have to say about that.......
(yes, I'm taking my own advice from now on)

Next Post: Why can't you just STOP!

Master of Death x3

Well I hope I didn't lose to many people because of my experience with the Book of Mormon. For those of you still reading, I thank you for the support!

Fair warning.... this post is really long!

Okay so The Master of Death.....
What is the Master of Death? Well I got it from Harry Potter. It is what's tattooed on my arm. Its when you have the invisibility cloak, the elder wand, and the resurrection stone with you all at once, and you become The Master of Death.... So why do I love it so much? Well obviously reason #1, its Harry Potter related. #2 I have had my own personal experience with death. Now this came about because of my experience in 2012. Most of you already know the story.... Quick recap of it for those of you who don't know.
I had surgery in 2012, and during this time, I was full blown into my pain pill addiction. So much so that I lied to my surgeon about not getting enough pain pills from my doctor, so I would need extra for the month because of this surgery. That was a lie, in fact my back doctor prescribed me extra because he knew I was having the surgery. So I come home from my surgery and my mother was there to help me with Izzi and Ethan. Now instead of taking my pills like normal, I found that if you sniffed them.... It would hit you harder and faster. So that's what I was doing. 3 days after my surgery, I was sitting down stairs and felt SOOOOO Sleepy (did a little to many pills). So I tell my mom I'm going up stairs to sleep.
So now this is where I was told what happened to me. I don't have any recollection of this personally. My mom felt like something was wrong, so she went up stairs to check on me. Thank goodness she did because I was unconscious. I had not only overdosed, but in the process, thrown up in my mouth, and choked on my own throw up.
A few things happened to me that I feel are super personal (spiritually) that I don't want to share right now, but needless to say, I had an out of body experience.
Then I woke up in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, not knowing what the crap had just happened. ANYWAY.... that was a long way to describe that I felt like the Deathly Hallows symbol aka The Master of Death was a good fit for me.

NOW, how does this tie in to my addiction?
I told you I would talk about what the voices said to me and what they drove me to do. If you haven't guessed it already.... I tried to end my life last year. Not once, not twice, but three times.

Before I tell you how or why, just know that it will probably be descriptive. Its important for me to do so because I want you to know what was going through my mind and how I was feeling. It will be uncomfortable to read as much as it is uncomfortable for me to type.

July 2016-
I have been hearing voices and seeing hallucinations now for over 6 months. They were voices of people I knew and trusted. So again, try to imagine someone you love and trust telling you certain things about yourself, or what you should do. It was as clear as if I was standing behind you talking to you in your ear. I'm laying down with my husband, when I hear a voice say "You know he's cheating on you right? He never loved you, he only married you because you were pregnant"..... I sit up, look at Russ, and he's sound asleep. So I brush it off, okay that wasn't real Mal, go back to sleep.
I hear it again....."Mallory, who are you going to believe? Him, this man who has been lying to you for 10 years or me?" (again this was a voice of someone I hold very dear)
Now to help you understand why I would believe a voice, when I don't physically see anyone.... Remember I have been hearing and seeing delusions for over 6 months at this point. And they have said all these horrible things about my husband. My poor amazing husband took this verbal abuse from me for over a year, every day! I would start yelling at him.... out of know where.... all the things the voices were telling me. He NEVER did any of the things they said, but at the time my own mind turned me against my husband. So much so that I wouldn't believe anything he would say to me.

Okay so here I am listening to the voice, and then I hear Russ's voice. "She's so stupid, I cant believe she actually thinks I love her" "I have never loved her" .... And so much worse things said about me. It was like Russ and this persons voice were having this conversation right next to me, thinking that I couldn't hear them or something. So I woke up and hit Russ in the stomach.... not hard, because I wasn't trying to hurt him, I just wanted him to stop "pretending" to sleep, or that's what I thought he was doing. He wakes up and I start yelling at him. "Are you freaking serious?" (didn't say freaking) He looks up at me like what the crap Mal, and then I go off..... I start repeating all the crap I heard them talking about... and of coarse non of this actually happened, but I my mind, it did... So I tell him I'm leaving. I literally walk out of my house and start walking up the street, while hearing "Its about time you left, just go kill your self and put us all out of our misery".......

Now this was the first time I heard those words..."go kill yourself". So I keep walking, all the while talking to my dilutions. Every time I would look behind me, I thought I was seeing them following me... so I walked around my neighborhood for 2 hours trying to run from them. So there I was walking alone around 2am just talking to myself, crying and thinking that my life was over because, I thought at the time that my husband wants me to kill myself.
I make it back home, and here was that voice again. "Mallory, you trust me, so trust me when I say this, He wants you dead, everyone wants you dead. Everyone has been so disappointed in you, you have let everyone down and no one will be sad if you end it, JUST END IT"
So Russ is sleeping again, but this is not surprising because we had just been up for 5 or so days, and me yelling at him, running out side of the house is nothing new. Remember I did this pretty much everyday.
I walk past him, go into the bathroom and lock the door. I had made up my mind about it. I was going to kill myself. So I get this lamp that we used in the bathroom, it was a portable lamp with a long cord, I tie it to the shower head, and tie it around my neck. I sent an "I'm sorry" message to my family... Then I put all my weight on the cord.
As I slowly started to feel myself loosing air, my eyes started to hurt really bad, and so did my ears. I can still remember that pain, it hurt really bad, kinda like straining your eyes really hard mixed with someone shoving something sharp in your ear at the same time..... Then my eyes shut.
I woke up in my bathtub an hour or so later. My neck hurt so bad, and so did my ears. I came to the conclusion that I must not have tied the cord right because I noticed the knot I tied had been loosened.

So my failed attempt at suicide left me with red blood shot eyes, horrible ringing in my ears, and a bruised and red neck with a line across it where the cord was.
Remember how I sent a message to my family a simple "I'm sorry". Well my sisters must have known that it wasn't just an I'm sorry for being a drug addict, or I'm sorry for everything I have done to you... They must have known that it was something serious because they showed up at my house that morning. I didn't even realized how I looked when I opened the door.
Imagine seeing your sibling pale, bloodshot eyed, bruised neck with a red line across their neck. I looked dead. Or at least that's what they told me later. I opened the door. But I wouldn't let them come in. I was so embarrassed that I couldn't even kill myself the right way. That's seriously what was going through my head. "I cant even tie a damn knot"....
I don't remember everything we said to each other because my goal was to just get them to leave. I pretty much shut the door on them, and went back into the bathroom to look at myself. This was the first time I actually saw what they saw.
It was so bad that my sister actually had nightmares about it.... that's how bad I looked.

So call it Stupidity, call it luck, or call it a guardian angel. Something happened that night that prevented me from leaving this earth.
My voices didn't like that. They didn't like that at all. After that attempt my voices tormented me worse then ever before. Saying things that were so depressing, so horrible and crude. Imagine all your worst fears, things happening to the people you love, imagine that's what you would hear all day every day. That's what I was hearing. Remember how I said that "just go kill yourself" was never said to me before then. Well now that was mixed in with all the other horrible things.

August 2016-
My second attempt happened because of pretty much the same thing. But this time I started hearing my parents voices as well, telling me that I was disowned from the family, and that they never wanted me....Like I said, just all of my worst fears. It got so bad that while I was taking a shower, the only thing running through my head was suicide. Either because that's what was being said to me, or because I was literally thinking about it.
In my first post I mentioned that while in high school I did a lot of self mutilation. I used to cut my legs and wrists, I got away with this because I always blamed my marks on being clumsy, or I wore lost of bracelets. So I knew that cutting would help me feel something real, or at least take my mind off what was going on in my head. 
So in my head, my parents hate me, Russ hates me, my kids hate me, I have no friends, no one cares.... just all these thoughts again going through my head. So I grab my shaver. Brake it apart and use the blade to try and cut my wrists. So I start pressing it into my skin.... I knew I needed to press harder then I would have normally pressed, but no matter how hard I did, it was just barely cutting into my arm... I didn't understand. Why is this not working.... so I tried my other arm/wrist.... same thing, no matter how hard I pressed, it wasn't working. So I grabbed a different blade, same thing happened. After probably about 10 mins I had a dozen or so "scratches" on my wrists and arms.
Now, Im emotionally drained because again the thoughts start racing through my mind, "Im so stupid, I cant even cut my wrists the right way"..... And then all I hear is laughing. The voices of everyone I love are laughing at me. "You are such a moron Mal, why don't you try hanging your self again.." "Just go ask your husband to shoot you, that way we know it will work"..... Just horrible things like that. I got out of the shower, got dressed and ran upstairs where I honestly, tried to overdose. Well again.... luckily, the dope I had must have been pretty crappy cuz I just woke up a little later.....

Call it stupidity, call it luck, or call it my guardian angel... again, something prevented me from leaving this earth.

September 2016-
Now this attempt I only have a little recollection of what happened.... What I want to make clear is that, I tried this attempt not because of what the voices were saying, I was totally used to the cruel horrific things they would say to me, but because I just couldn't take it anymore. What I remember is going out on an amazing day date with Russ. I wrote about it in my journal......
Dear Journal,
Today was perfect in everyway. Russ was my husband again. He made me fall back in love with him again (not that I fell out of love... but you get the expression) I don't know what happened from yesterday to today but WOW. Lets just say that I haven't stopped smiling all day. YEAH, Im actually smiling at my house! I haven't seen him act like this since when we first started dating! He was holding my hand in public, touching  my leg on the bus, and has been waiting on me hand and foot! What did I do to deserve this? I don't know but I'm going to soak it all up while it lasts. He really is amazing, I totally trust him again.
*side note*
when I said Im actually smiling at my house- that's because most of the time I was tormented the worst when I was at home. So I was never happy there.
When I said I totally trust him again- that's because I always believed the voices over him, every time. I would never trust anything he said to me.

So here I was happier then I have ever been in a long time. So what do I do? Celebrate by getting high. I left Russ in the living room while  he played on the computer, and I went into the next room to shoot up. I remember thinking, "what a perfect day, nothing can ruin this for me"..... Then a wave of darkness hit me. Everything was dark, except a single square straight ahead of me. It was almost like I saw a video playing in my mind of how happy everyone was. Everyone was so happy, so I see my self walking towards them wondering why everyone is celebrating, and I see my self. Laying there.... dead. After seeing that, the only thing I remember doing is walking into the kitchen, grabbing my bottle of Flexoril (muscle relaxer medication) going back into the room and swallowed a bunch.

I woke up in the hospital 3 days later.  There were 10 pills left in my Flexoril bottle, I was prescribed 90. I had swallowed 80 pills.

Now medically, I have no idea if 80 Flexoril pills should have killed me. Add a pretty big shot of heroin and meth on top of that..... maybe. You would think so anyway. But it didn't. I think about this now and wonder why I don't have like severe brain damage or something.... (my family would say I already had brain damage.... lol).

AGAIN... Call it stupidity, call it luck, or call it guardian angel... Something prevented me from leaving this earth.

I joked with my family that the only reason I didn't die was because I have a deathly hallows tattoo, but they think it was something a little more powerful at work. Not to get all spiritual on you all again, but I have escaped death 4 times... 3 times just last year. Maybe I do have some support on the other side that untied the knot, held my strength back from pressing too hard, and kept me alive from what should have been a very deep sleep death. I don't know... I always blamed it on shear stupidity personally.... lol. A lot of  people that attend the same treatment center I do have said that they think I have some "purpose" here on earth. And that's why I'm still here.
Yeah... my purpose was to waste all your time reading this post! HA!

On the serious side, suicide is no joke. I have friends who's family members have committed suicide, my uncle also did. I didn't understand it back then. I never understood why anyone would want to leave their families. But after struggling with depression..... I now understand why.
I never saw myself as suicidal. I don't want to completely blame the drugs either though. Yeah, they played a big part in this, but there was already a deep routed issue that it grew off of.

Depression. Its more then just being sad. For those of you who have never had issue with depression, I hope you never do. It can over take you in ways you could never imagine. Make you think that your world is going to end. It turns your own thoughts against you. You can try your hardest to be happy, and maybe that will work for a little bit, but if it goes untreated, and you never find a way to talk about it with anyone, you could end up where you think there is no other way out except by taking your life.(that may sound a little drastic to some of you, but I'm basing it off my own experience)
Having depression doesn't mean you cant live a full life, and it doesn't mean you can never be happy. It makes me sad because a lot of people think this way.

If you know someone who has tried to talk to you about feeling hopeless, or lost... please take it seriously. Don't ever just brush it aside, telling them to "buck-up", or to just get over it. Depression is hard to explain to someone who has never felt its effects.

This post is way to long already to go more into it, that's why my next post is going to be on Mental Illness.

I hope this post didn't make anyone to sad, or upset anyone. Like I have said, these are just my own opinions, and my own experiences.