Tina's Pet Peeves.

Today I have a great rant guest post from Tina of TinaGray{dot}me fame. She has a list of the things that drive her up the wall.  Make her welcome and also go check out her site for more great posts! 

A peeve or few

I remembered why it has been such a long time since my last guest post. It's a lot of pressure! Not only do I need to impress my own readers who will (hopefully) come over to read my post, but I also have the readers of Tegan's blog to impress.

If you've read just a couple posts on TGDM, you'll know that I don't tend to write ~ahem~ deep, thoughtful posts. I like to think of my blog posts as fluffy. The type that you read and click away smiling, thinking “awww” or “SO glad it's her and not me”.

So I spent valuable shower time -because it's the only place I can lock people out and have some alone time AND it's usually the place my best ideas come to me – thinking about what I was going to share with you.

And after doing some research (read: trawling through Tegan's archives) I noticed that Tegan doesn't mind a bit of a rant, so I figured I'd just word vomit a bit for your pleasure. Even though it still might seem fluffy to some. Heh.

There are a few things that have been pissing me off lately....

One... am I the only one who can't see the Coles sign on the roof of my house?... We've had neighbours (or their kids) come knocking on our door asking for toilet paper, sugar, cups of milk, money(!), and fly spray. Now don't get me wrong. I don't think there's anything wrong with borrowing a cup of sugar from the neighbour occasionally but when it's almost every week, and the same neighbours, it gets a bit tiresome. I shop for MY family, not for the neighborhood.

Two...  empty beer bottles on the chest freezer... the recycle bin Is. Right. Next. To. The. Fucking. Freezer. Literally. Move your arm like 5cm to the left, lift the lid of the bin and place your empties in there.

Three... trying to disguise sponsored posts as guest posts – don't email me and ask if you can “guest post” on my blog and be sneaky by inserting links into the post for the company you are working for. Your post is not a guest post. It is a sponsored post. If YOU get paid for every post you manage to get posted, then YOU can pay  for putting it on my blog.

Four... teenage attitude.... Good God, I could write an entire post on this right now. One of my children is about to hit thirteen and the attitude is starting to show. And the death stares. And the chatting back. I usually ignore it with a passing comment that I have three children older than her and I have already been there, done that. Oh and I was a teenager once too. I know all the tricks.

Five... back stabbing “friends”... The problem with having “online friends” is that you don't REALLY know them. Unless of course your relationship has gone beyond the interwebz and you hang out with those friends often. I try to be nice to everyone and if anyone asks for help, I will. If I can. But to be taken advantage of is really sucky. And there really are no secrets on the interwebz. Excuse me if I am not so generous with my time and knowledge any more.

Six... my Sharpies going missing... yes, it is enough for me to go psycho on you. Sure, you can borrow my things but if I need to go looking for my own things, you will be in trouble.

So there you have it. A bit of a snapshot of what goes on in my head.

Now excuse me while I tend to the kid at my door asking for a hole punch.

Bio: When she's not blogging at Tina Gray {dot} Me, she's being mum and wife, trying to create a bit of organisation in Chez Gray, playing tourist in her own town, taking lots of photos, eating sushi and playing music loud enough for her teenagers to tell her to turn it down.

Since When

Today's post is a guest post. It's bought to you by one of my friends Sarah. She wants to have a bit of a dabble in Blogging so be kind :)

Sarah is currently on leave from my wonderful job to raise my daughter from a teeny tiny bub who decided that Christmas was too fun to miss out on last year and surprised us by arriving 2 months early.

Welcome to my first post. Thank you to Musings of the Misguided for hosting it for me.

I had been thinking about putting fingers to keyboard for some time, and have decided to bite the bullet.

So many things lately have made me ask “since when?”. None more so than the treatment of a lady who tried to create a space for women, by women without the fakeness of those popular women’s mags.

So here we go...

Since when did we start becoming a bunch of bullies who think it’s fun to bucket crap on someone just because they made a typo? Oh wait, that’s thanks to social media like Twitter and Facebook. Yes, Facebook has it’s merits, but I’m yet to understand Twitter. Limited characters, misconstrued meanings...

Since when did we start thinking we are entitled to Freedom of Speech? It’s Australia people. It’s not in our constitution. FoS is an American constitutional right, not an Aussie one. If you think someone has taken away you’re free speech, toughen up, princess and blog about it.

Since when did it become okay to teach our children that it’s acceptable to be rude, bigoted, ignorant people? IT’S NOT OKAY! I swear it seems worse than it did back in the 50’s and 60’s. And it’s just getting worse every day. I don’t know what the solution is, but I’m trying to teach my LO acceptance and tolerance. Manners have just gone out the window. There is a distinct lack of discipline that only started in the last 10 to 20 years. Please and thank you, please people!! And a simple “excuse me” wouldn’t go astray either.

Since when was it acceptable to threaten someone in any way, shape or form? It’s not cool people. Get over it. Grow up.

And one more, just to lighten the mood a bit...

Since when did Christmas card stamps start coming in packs of 20?? Normal stamps come in packs of 10, so why not Christmas card stamps too? Argh, it did my head in yesterday, because I only needed 10 and because they weren’t a pack, they weren’t self adhesive and I may have had to lick them, if not for the wet, squishy thingo they have at the post office.

Thank you to all who stuck with it and read it until the end. Thanks again to Tegan and Musings for hosting this for me.

Maybe I’ll start shedding a bit more light on what goes on in this overactive, yet mummy-addled brain of mine.

All of the cool people have guest posters

Today is a guest post from one of my bestest friends.  She also has a mental illness....but don't let that make you think she's crazy...meet her first :D.  I hope you love her as much as I done :)

The Random Ramblings of an Insane-o

Stigma – Shame, Disgrace, Dishonour

The shame or disgrace attached to something regarded as socially unacceptable.

I thought I would start this post with a dictionary meaning of stigma.  As I am creating this post in Microsoft Word, I thought I would just use the in-built dictionary.  Being familiar with Microsoft Word, I thought I would use the shortcut keys CTRL + F7 to bring up the meaning for me, instead of using the Google search page to find out the associated meaning.  For those of you who are familiar with Word, you would know that CTRL + F7 brings up the thesaurus first.  I was shocked to see three words come up recommended as a substitute for stigma. Shame, disgrace, dishonour.  These three words are much harsher than the more commonly used word, stigma, to describe the negative view that tends to follow around the many, many people in today’s world affected by a mental illness.

I guess this just angered me even more.  Statistics have proven that in your lifetime, if you are not affected by a mental illness personally, you will at least have someone in your life, be it a relative or friend, who sadly is.  Yet mental illness is looked upon as shameful, disgraceful, dishonourable and socially unacceptable.  I think the biggest thing is that so many people are afraid of what they do not understand and when you get enough people who do not understand, such a stigma is created.

It is slowly being proven that with education, the stigma can be lifted from mental illness.  Look at depression, for example.  Although it is still not fully understood, although some people still think back in the dark ages with the belief that people should just “snap out of it”, there are now more people seeking help for depression than ever before.  And personally, I see this as quite an achievement from 20 years ago.  Even if this is just the beginning and there is so much more work that needs to be done, even if there are still people with narrow-minded views, even if some people still cling onto the belief that mental illness is for “crazy” people, even then, it is good to see some progress, and I hold onto the hope that one day the stigma will no longer exist.

Because depression is so widely spread, and most of us know someone with depression, I believe that it will probably be the easiest mental illness to lift stigma from.   However, even this is proving to be a mammoth task, with so many people being afraid of what they don’t understand.  Which, then leaves me feeling even more concerned for the stigma ever lifting off other mental illnesses.  Serious mood disorders such as bipolar, personality disorders such as borderline personality disorder, and of course the very stigmatised disorders such as schizophrenia.

One day at work I was reminded of people’s narrow-minded views, when a colleague commented that schizophrenic patients should be put to sleep with a lead injection.  This made me so angry.  Why are mentally ill patients looked upon this way?  How would you feel if your son or daughter had schizophrenia and these narrow-minded people were in control of the world’s decisions and had the right to punish your son or daughter to death for being sick?  Yes, SICK, ILL, UNWELL. The fact of the matter is mental illness is exactly that, an ILLNESS.  What makes me the most angry is that people with cancer are given empathy and kind thoughts, people with heart conditions, people with normal streamline illnesses are treated with upmost respect and empathy, and yet once you add mentally ill to your patient cv, it seems you are not worthy of medical treatment, you are not worthy of kindness and empathy.  If you are depressed you simply need to “suck it up”, if you are schizophrenic you should be “put to your death” before you harm others.  It angers me that people have these views.  It angers me that I am made to feel pathetic and like I am using valuable health resources from people who “deserve it more than I do”.

Educate people, allow them to see what really happens.  Why hide the facts of mental illness?  Why only let them see the negative?  Every time a court case happens and a mentally ill person is “found not guilty by reason of mental defect” the media swarms all over it and alas, more negative publicity is shared with the ever impressionable public.  Yet, one would wonder, if mental illness was more socially accepted, if there was no shame, if there was no “stigma” attached to mental health would the mentally ill offender have sought help for their illness? Would their family have been more understanding and realised that something was wrong and that it was okay to seek help for their ILLNESS?  Could the crime that had been committed by the ILL patient been avoided had they received proper treatment BEFORE the crime was committed?

It is 2011.  We are no longer in the 1940’s.  As the world keeps turning there are more and more studies into mental illnesses.  So many new discoveries, so many new treatments, so many new warning signs revealed, and yet the media is yet to publish these.  The only media attention mental illness gets is the “NEGATIVE PUBLICITY” when a mentally ill patient is found not guilty of a crime, when they were not of sane mind when it was committed.  I really do not see the harm in educating the world about mental illness.  I do not see the harm in making it socially acceptable to be “SICK”.  I can not think of one reason why mentally ill patients should be treated any different to any other patient.  Before you hate on people for being “INSANE” enough to commit a crime, maybe you should work towards making it socially acceptable for them to get help, therefore, avoiding the crime altogether.

I guess as I have been coping with mental illness for as long as I can remember, I have grown up around people, who like me, are suffering.  And I am proof, that with proper help, mental illness can be managed.  And I often sit and wonder, in my random thoughts, about how different the world would be if everyone had the opportunity to get the help I have had.  I often wonder how if there was no stigma, how many people would reach out for help.  I often wonder how many suicides, how many horrible things might have been avoided if only getting help for the mentally ill was socially accepted and encouraged.  I know I am but one person, but if all of us “one person’s” formed an alliance, if everyone cared enough to open their hearts and realise that mental illness is an ILLNESS, maybe then, the world would be a better place.  Maybe then people won’t lose their brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, uncles, aunts to suicide.  Maybe then people who need help for their ILLNESS would get the help that they need and finally, the narrow-mindedness of people in relation to mental illness would cease to exist, and the fool at work who suggested a lead injection for those with schizophrenia would be but one voice, drowned out by so many others, who truly do understand.

IF ONLY…