Category: bullying

Addiction, bullying, Law of Attraction, Love, Mental Health, Prayer

Nihilism is killing people

Katrina Russell

I want to start by saying that I wasn’t raised religious. This is important for me to point out because a lot of people feel that only people who were brainwashed from childhood could possibly be religious, and that’s just not true. Religion is for those who are looking for meaning in life. There are as many religions in this world as there are people because everyone interprets their religion in a personalized way.

Human’s need something to believe in. They need to feel like life is worth something. Not every religion is a good or positive religion, but they all at least give people hope for a future. People need hope. They need something to hold on to. People work all week for the weekends. They struggle all year for their vacation. They Scrimp and save for a house or car or something bigger and better that makes their life feel more complete.

People also need to feel like when they lose someone that they are not gone forever. That a part of that person lives on in some way. I was not raised religious, but after my father passed away, I couldn’t imagine an existence without him. He HAS to be watching over us. My son’s father used to think I was crazy. He’d try to explain all the ways in which it wasn’t possible. I told him none of that mattered. That no one could possibly KNOW what happens after we die so we can believe whatever we want. Whatever makes us feel better.

He couldn’t handle that explanation. He was a nihilist in its truest form. He couldn’t fathom a reason for any of it. He was scared out of his mind about dying. He would go into full-fledged panic attacks over the thought of it. He knew it would happen at some point, but he just couldn’t wrap his mind around not existing. He couldn’t see any other option, but he couldn’t handle the thought of just being gone. He didn’t understand why we bothered to live. Why we bothered to suffer. Why we bothered to work hard or fall in love or have a family if it just meant that we died in the end, and it was over.

This wasn’t anything new in his life. He had these feelings and concerns since he was a teenager. He couldn’t believe in anything that he didn’t have proof of. He felt empty all the time and turned to drugs. He ended up institutionalized multiple times before he turned 18. By the time I met him he had been diagnosed with bipolar, borderline personality, and generalized anxiety. He was in recovery for his addiction, but still heavily medicated for his other disorders.

He was a great guy, and we did fall in love. We did create a family. He loved our son more than he thought possible, but that caused him even more pain. He couldn’t understand what the point of all of it was. He couldn’t see why we should all put our energy into accomplishing things in life just to die. His goal was to actually become a robot. I used to laugh at that. I used to tease him saying, “like a cyberman from Doctor Who? You know those are the bad guys, right?”.

He didn’t see any other way. He couldn’t handle emotions. He couldn’t handle the fear, the unknown, emptiness that he saw in his future. The irony of his disease, his nihilism, his despair for the future is that it made him suicidal. He had tried twice before I met him, and I couldn’t understand when he told me how anyone so afraid of dying could want to die. He told me that it was the constant fear of the unknown. The constant exhaustion he felt over the anxiety of not feeling anything. The drugs didn’t work, the therapy didn’t work, nothing worked because he had nothing to believe in.

Every generation seems to be becoming more and more like this. They seem to not understand what life is about. They don’t want to work for things. They don’t want to get married. They don’t want to have a family. They just want to live a life of nothingness, of physical and momentary pleasures. Life is about the “Now” there was a whole book series about this, but I don’t think that any of them actually read or understood the concept of that book. The new generation has decided that religion, and family, and responsibility are somehow bad and that primal pleasures are the only things worth living for.

Yet every generation becomes more and more depressed. More and more dependent on drugs and alcohol. More and more suicidal. All anyone ever does anymore is complain about how miserable they are. How lonely they are. How broken they are. But when you suggest that maybe that is because they have nothing to believe in or goals to accomplish, or real relationships to depend on they just respond with something about the patriarchy and “ok Boomer”.

My generation was the first generation with a major war or a draft. My generation was the first to have vaccinations for the really harmful diseases. My generation went through life arguing about whether or not Die Hard was a Christmas Movie. We were the first generation that were just expected to go to college, and we did it without much help from computers and no one had cell phones or social media as kids. We were the last generation to be raised to think about the future.

The Millennials came up right behind me and suddenly everything they ever did was out on the internet for the world to see. Suddenly everyone was comparing their lives to everyone else’s, and no one was happy. No one saw value in anything. They just saw envy and greed and became a generation that focused on what they could get for as little work as possible.

I was the tail end of the Gen Xers and the beginning of the online dating scene. It used to be you had to meet someone in person. You had to talk to them. Get to know them. Get them to like you before you saw them naked. It took work and made the end result worth it. Now you just swipe, and you have a line up for the week. No work involved and no feelings of accomplishment either. Relationships are work. Saving is work. Work is work. No one wants to do that anymore. Because no one thinks that anything that happens actually matters.

I know that they’ll say, “oh I have to work 3 jobs just to afford rent”. Sure, and when people point out that you buy a new $1000 phone or a new $1500 game system every year you just scoff that you deserve it. Yes, things are more expensive. Things are always more expensive every year. But if you got married and had a joint income that would give you more collective money… but no one wants to do that.

Everyone wants to take a pill, hook up, and sit in front of a screen and pretend their life away. I saw a video of Keanu Reeves talking about his conversation with a kid who didn’t understand what was wrong with living in the Matrix. Who cares if it’s not real? He thought this was great! He literally missed the whole point of the 4 movies he was in. It’s not great.

I saw a commercial for the new Facebook Meta world VR system. There were two guys who played together all the time. They were great friends in the VR world. They were ignoring their families and annoying those around them. including each other. As it turns out they were neighbors and didn’t even know it. They just yelled at each other to “keep it down” when they heard each other enjoy each other in real life.

Is that the kind of life people really want? Ignoring and annoying their family and neighbors to live online? This world is becoming obsessed with not living. Like my son’s father who couldn’t handle real feelings and fears and wanted to become a Cyberman. And like my son’s father this whole world is killing itself with drugs and apathy.

August 14, 2019 Neil Thompson died of a drug overdose. He had just worked out a custody agreement with me. He had just finished his Associates Degree and was moving on to his BS. He had started a new relationship with a new girl who he lied to about all of his issues. He was found in his bed in his sober house because he couldn’t handle living while feeling. How long is it going to take the rest of the world to kill themselves in the name of nihilism, and not having anything real to believe in?

close up photo of woman with her hands tied with rope
Addiction, bullying, grief, Law of Attraction, Love, Mental Health

Trauma… the badge of honor

Katrina Russell

When did trauma become the cool thing? Now don’t get me wrong, I understand that people have trauma, but trauma is a horrible thing. Trauma is not something that you want wish upon your worst enemy. Most people have had some sort of trauma in their life and it’s all relative. I was in a pretty bad custody battle as a child. I lived in a car with my mom. My parents had a tug-o-war over me in the streets. I was kidnapped by my mom and brought to live in a church commune…. you know… a cult. These things can be pretty traumatic, but they all ended. Eventually these things stopped, and my dad got total custody and only allowed my mom to visit when he was around.

I had an older brother… on occasion he liked to kick the crap out of me. On occasion we played fanciful games together and had a great time. When we got to our teen years he fought with everyone a lot and ended up moving out at 17. I was 14. I remember having the guidance counselor at school try to talk to me about it. How was it affecting me? What could she do to help? That was easy, I was sad. I missed him, but there was nothing to be done until he came back. It was a little over a year before we heard from him again. I remember answering the phone when he called and being overwhelmed with emotions.

I dated jerk guys and nice guys. I had friendships fall apart and new one’s spring out of nowhere. I was unemployed, underemployed and worked too many jobs to count. My best friend became an alcoholic and I had to help her ex take care of their kids I lost my Grams and got married and divorced… and this was all in my 20s. (well, divorced in my early 30s)

By my mid-30s I felt like I was getting my s**t together. I was dating a great guy. We were talking about starting a family. I had a great job in an industry that I loved…. what could go wrong? Well, everything. By the end of my 30s I had found out that my mom, who I hadn’t heard from in years, was dead. I had my baby boy, whom I love more than anything in the multiverse, but his father had relapsed into a spiraling drug induced state… and when I was 39, I woke up one morning to find my father had died in his sleep. Eight months later his longtime girlfriend died as well… on my birthday, and a little over a month later, 2 days before Christmas, on my nephew’s birthday… I watched my dog get hit by a car. Since then, I went through a long custody battle of my own with my son’s father that culminated in him losing his battle with that said addiction… thankfully it was a few years later.

Why am I telling you all of this? Well, I got my son a therapist. Losing his Papa and then the on again off again of his Da who finally died he was having some behavioral issues in school and a good healthy case of separation anxiety whenever he left my side. I call it healthy, because that’s what it was. It was his way of working out the things that he needed to work through.

I remember talking to his therapist about everything and her saying something along the lines of, “You’ve been through a lot, but unlike other people they aren’t things that you do that cause the problems. It’s things that just happen to you”. And she was right. The school councilor back in the day wanted to know how to help me. But there was nothing that could be done. My pain hadn’t come from anything that I did. It came from something that happened to me. My parents dying. My son’s father dying. Problems with exes, these were all the results of other people’s actions. Some people would find that disheartening. Some people would look at their trauma and their “victim status” as a reflection if not an identity of themselves. They would feel as if the world was against them and hold onto that trauma like an award that was given to them to prove how special they were.

I don’t see trauma in that way. I certainly don’t see bad things that happen to me as a reflection of me at all. I didn’t cause my parents to divorce, or my brother to leave, or my son’s father to do drugs, or my parents to die. These are things that other people have done that affect me but does in no way embody me. I am who I am despite all of these things happening around me and to me. I am who I am because of all of the things that happen around me and to me. It doesn’t do anyone any good to create a persona of trauma and hold onto it so tightly that it drowns you.

Trauma happens to everyone. I have been through my share, but it is nothing compared to what others have been though and its way more than some can imagine. Letting it dictate my life only lets the trauma and those perpetrating that trauma on you win. I’m not saying it’s easy to let it go. I’m saying its necessary if you want to move forward with your life. Somewhere along the line in our society it because desirable to be damaged. To prove that you have it worse than others. It gives you an excuse to not try, not do, not be…. everything that you can be because someone else broke you.

Bad things happened to you. I’m sorry. I truly am. But unless you want to live the rest of your life miserable and giving your power over to those that hurt you then you need to stand up and take your power back. You need to forgive those who caused you pain… and let go of what’s been drowning you.

Addiction, bullying, Mental Health, Politics

Just because you can laugh doesn’t mean you should

Katrina Russell

Social media is one of my favorite things. I’ve not going to lie about that. I have been on Facebook since MySpace got crazy. I have Twitter, Insta, LinkedIn, GETTR…. and so on. I love connecting with my friends. I love following my favorite PodCasters and news outlets. I even love following news outlets that I can’t stand anymore, just so I know what is being said.

I am very actively involved in my feed. Especially on Facebook. I’m in my mid 40s and that’s pretty much the demographic for that site. The moms of the world buying/selling on marketplace, setting up play groups, getting family event ideas and sharing all of our picture of our kids… fur or otherwise.

I like, comment and share my way through the day. I love the new “care” feature that has been added. It’s really good for people my age who have to comment on all the posts from friends whose kids are sick, who are losing their parents, who got laid off from a job, or are getting divorced. You don’t really want to like or love those posts, but you want to react to it in some way to show that you care…. viola! The share button is invented.

The one thing that I don’t understand is how people use the laugh button. I mean it’s really very sick. Especially with all the Covid information going about. I’ve read posts about people who have been locked down losing their homes, or their kids committing suicide, or businesses burned down during the BLM riots last year…. and the response is someone laughing. Laughing at kids committing suicide because they believe that none of that matters as long as we prevent Covid from spreading.

There is always a constant stream of people being diagnosed with Covid. Some of those people have chosen not to take the vaccine, because they know that no one knows the long-term side effects and they would rather take the chance with a virus. Then they get infected with Covid, and people hit the laugh button and comment that they hope that the person dies. People are hoping that other people die because they choose a different course of action in medical treatments.

A good proportion of this country in particular, but the world as a whole has become a cult in which if a person isn’t with them, they are against them. People are hoping for the death of their friends, family, coworkers, or fellow human beings because they make a different choice than themselves. They laugh at other people’s pain and heartache because they disagree with their perspective.

All over social media there are posts about Narcissists. Everyone claims to have dated one or be raised by one or to have worked for one, and I used to think that people were just being dramatic, but now I see that it’s true. Of course, the same people who are making the claims are they, themselves Narcissists. They are angry and lashing out on their Narcissistic mate because the other Narcissist didn’t cave to their own Narcissistic demands.

No one wants to get married anymore. No one wants to have kids. No one wants to take care of their parents. No one wants to work for their own welfare. Everyone just wants to take what they feel and laugh at other’s who disagree or get in the way. No wonder drug use and suicide rates are so high. Without empathy no one can have a truly meaningful life.

bullying, Mental Health, Politics

SJWs and Privilege

Katrina Russell

There is a lot of talk about privilege lately, and there is something that I’m beginning to notice. A lot of the SJWs who speak about white guilt and privilege are actually privileged and I seem to actually feel guilty about it.

I’m pretty sure that’s where the disconnect lies. A girl that I have known her whole life posted a… I want to say meme, but I don’t think that’s what it’s actually called, on Facebook. She is a very sweet, very smart girl, but also very privileged. I’m not saying this as an insult as the post stated. It is not an insult. It is just a fact of being. She was raised in a two parent family. Her mother is a teacher and was there for her everyday after school. She always had a nice house. She always had big family parties, plenty of food, after school activities. She was given her first car. Her parents helped her with high end college.. she was quite privileged and I am very happy that she was because I love this little girl (she’s 24, but I’ve known her since the day she was born so bare with me).

The problem is that she assumes that because she had it so well that everyone else like her also had it as good. She doesn’t understand that there are people out there like her, and by like her I mean white, that did not have a two parent family. That did not have a mother at home waiting for her with an after school snack to help her with her home work. Some of us lived with single parents who worked all day and were too tired when they got home to cook. Who looked through the couch in hopes of finding some change so they could walk to the store and buy a candy bar or bag of Jax so they could eat that day.. some of us lived in Volkswagen Pintos as a toddler and again in a car as a teenager when they were kicked out of the house.. some of us had drunken step father’s who would hug and kiss us smelling of beer, and telling us how if we were just a little older they’d have married us (when we were 9).. some of us were kidnapped as a child and brought to live in a cult till we were rescued. Some of us spent years hiding from our mother so that didn’t happen again.. some of us didn’t have birthday parties, and had to walk to work everyday for months to save up and buy our first car. Some of us had to actually work full-time while in college to pay for it.. and some of us, even going through all that understand that we are still more privileged than others.

My problem with white privilege and the message that it sends is that it’s actually racist. It assumes that white people are better than people of color. It assumes that just by the fact that someone is black that they automatically had a worse life than someone who is white. Now I’m not saying that I wasn’t more privileged than some.. I was.. everyone is. But that does not make my life, in general better than anyone else who happens to be darker than me… which as a pasty girl of Irish decent is pretty much everyone.

I would never categorize someone as being less “privileged” than me.. as if I were special for some reason, just because of my skin color. As if someone who is black or brown couldn’t possibly have had a better life than mine because of it. That is racist. I’ve known black people my whole life.. they are everywhere if you haven’t noticed. They are not all inner-city poor people. They do not all need us whites to help them out of their situation.. they are not all less than privileged because of their race.

From what I have seen of the SJWs they conflate black with poor. They conflate inner-city with criminal. They conflate white with better. They conflate white with master.. whites can either save or destroy at their will. We are either “helping” the poor black people or we’re “oppressing” them. That’s racist.

People talk about how blacks are portrayed in the media and on TV, and maybe they are right. When I grew up the Huxtables were on my TV every night. He was a doctor (the character, I’m not going to get into the actor), she was a lawyer. The kids went to college. They were strong, smart, independent people who happened to be black. This was how I was raised. This is my understanding of people, but a lot of TV shows, movies, and music is written with blacks being either poor or thugs. This is the same Hollywood culture that cries to defund the police and that Black Lives Matter. The way I see it black lives only matter to the SJW white elite to the point where they can be tokens for their political ideology.

If someone points out that the biggest problem for the POOR blacks is single motherhood, high school drop out rates, and gang violence, then the person is a racist. If someone points out that, though blacks have the 2nd highest percentage of people living below the poverty line (Native Americans being the highest), they are only 20%.. meaning 80% are not. 80% of Black American’s are just like everyone else and getting by just fine.. that is racist. Anything said that DOESN’T describe blacks as a victim is some how racist… that’s racist. White, upper class, privileged Americans should not get to dictate how people think about anyone else.. that’s racist.

bullying, Love, Politics

What happened to conversations?

Katrina Russell

Open communication is the most important thing in any relationship. Anyone married couple or councilor will tell you that. Our ability to communicate so completely is a lot of what separates us from the apes. We can talk. We can read body language. Hell when we know someone well enough we can almost read their minds.

So when did communication and conversations become so toxic? When did it become, “Think like me or you’re evil!”? This is true in personal relationships, public affairs, and just about any way that people interact at all.

Social Media is obviously the worst. People sit behind their keyboards and talk so much crap it’s ridiculous. Names are called, threats are spewed, and nothing is accomplished. I was raised in the Boston area, so I was always pretty liberal. I also went to public college and studied in the soft subjects of History and Poli-sci, so I’ve made a lot of liberal friends. I’ve also made some conservative friends. I always loved debating them. I’m one of those people that likes confrontation to a point… especially when I think I’m right… but I also LOVE to learn new things when it turns out that I’m wrong.

My first History class in college I had the best professor. He was this little Joe Pesci looking guy who came in on the first day, climbed up on his desk, and said, “I’m from the toughest borough in the toughest city and I’m not taking any crap from any of you.”. It scared or confused some of the kids in the class but I thought it hilarious. He made history fun. He told stories about the past like he was talking about a book or a movie character. He added details and opinions and made me want to learn more.

One day he was talking about politics and said that one needed to pick a side. You couldn’t be “undeclared” as we call it in Massachusetts. You had to pick, Republican or Democrat, that was the only way to get anything done. I thought he was wrong. That seemed like the dumbest thing I’d ever heard. I sat in my classroom, listening to this teacher that I had adored and admired and thought was so smart and I completely disagreed with everything that he was saying, and for some that may have made them question their own beliefs, but for me if just made them stronger. I loved my professor. I agreed with him on so much.. but not everything. I didn’t have to. I was allowed to disagree with him, and I was allowed to respect him. That was the best lesson I could have ever learned from college.

I post crap all over social media. For a long time, especially after Trump was elected I posted a lot of Liberal media. My friends on the right would comment or critique and I would chat back with them inquiring on why they disagreed and what they thought may be a better idea. My left friends would jump on with insults and disparaging remarks and I would shut them down and tell them that I would not allow them to insult my friends. Even the ones that I disagreed with. I earned some respect from the right for that.

Now, I am a centrist. I completely agree with a lot of what the Liberals say, and I completely disagree with a lot of what they say. I completely agree with a lot of what conservatives say, and I completely disagree with a lot of what conservatives say. I still continue to post articles and videos to my page. I still continue to ask questions and debate my friends, and I still continue to shut down anyone who throws insults at those who disagree.

I am not a Liberal. I am not a Conservative. I am a person who loves to talk about what I feel with others and listen to them in return. I am constantly changing. I am constantly growing. I am constantly learning new things. I don’t believe that anyone who has other’s best interests at heart should be labeled as evil or a fascist or anything else. I don’t believe anyone should be canceled for anything that they say… even the evil and the fascists. Without open conversations and debate no one will be able to learn. No one will be able to grow.

What ever happened to conversations? And how can we learn without them?

bullying, parenting, Politics

I was told that I’m racist

Katrina Russell

So I was recently informed that I am racist. I found this to be a very perplexing statement given that I was told that I was racist specifically because I don’t care about race. Has the world gone mad?

I was born about a decade after The Civil Rights Act. I was raised in a small town. It was prominently white, but there were definitely people of color mixed in. I never really thought about it. I had friends in my building whose parents were from Africa and they had names that we could never have guessed how to spell, but they were just normal to me. I knew them for as long as I could remember. I had friends from all over. It didn’t really matter to me what color you were I was more interested in playing tag or swimming or riding my bike. If you wanted to as well you were my friend. We had kick ball games in the front yard with everyone in the neighborhood. We didn’t break up the teams in black vs white, or boys vs girls, everyone played with everyone.

When I reached my teen years I moved to a suburb outside of Boston that had what was called the METCO Program. This program gave kids from the inner city a chance to go to school in the suburbs for a better education. It turns out I had lots of friends in the programs. I didn’t know that for a good couple of months when I first started at the school. I had never heard of the program before and even when I did hear about it the thought never occurred to me that just because someone was black they MUST be from that program. A friend of mine had a car and we used to go into Boston and visit the friends we had met from our schools. We weren’t their white friends, and they weren’t our black friends.. we were all just friends.

Through out my life I have been friends and/or dated people of many different races, religions, sexuality.. and what have you. I didn’t think of them as my Asian friends, or my gay friends, or my Jewish friends.. they were just friends. I treated all of my friends the same. I have treated all people that I meet the same. I was raised to not judge people by the color of their skin but by the content of their character and apparently… that makes me a racist.

I’m told now that it is not good to treat everyone the same. It is not good to not pay attention to race or sex or any other immutable trait. That I am to ONLY pay attention to such things and that I am to give special attention to those that are different than myself. Now I’m not talking about getting to know about other cultures. That I’ve always done. I’ve asked my friends who I knew spoke another language to teach me some phrases (not just the dirty ones) or write my name. My dad encouraged me to attend different religious events and festivals for different cultures so that I may learn about things that I may be interested in myself.

I remember once as a teenager I volunteered for a City Year service day. I ended up being assigned to a local inner city Boston school that was being cleaned up, and I was asked to watch the kids that were there while their parents did their work. I was so happy I always loved taking care of kids. This school was in the middle of a section of Boston called Mattapan. It’s pretty much all black people. I was playing with the kids.. I still remember some of their names, and I still use it as an example of one of my proudest moments… not because they were black, but because I used my time there to teach one little boy in first grade who didn’t know how to read how to do a word search. He was so proud of himself that when his friend came over to give him the answers he told him that he didn’t need them and that he had learned to do it by himself. I hope that he took that with him. That he learned that everything that he wants to do it within his power and that he can do it all himself.

I remember at lunch all the tween girls were braiding each other’s hair and one of them came over and asked if she could touch mine. I have VERY straight.. Very blonde.. Very silky hair. She had never seen anything like it before. Her friends all chimed in saying that she couldn’t ask that. They said how rude she was. I smiled and told her “of course you can.. you’ll never learn about anything new if you can’t experience it.”. The rest of the girls were so excited and they all wanted to take turns brushing and braiding my hair. I didn’t think it weird that they were interested in learning something new. I found it weird that they had never known a white girl who’s hair they could touch. I’d known plenty of people of color in my life in a small town and we all played with each other’s hair.

In fact this wouldn’t be my last conversation about hair with a black girl. About a decade later I was sitting at work and someone had come in with a perm. A friend of mine, thinking out loud said, “how do you get the curl to stay? how come it doesn’t just wash out?” Again.. confusing to me how you can live in this country.. watch all the same TV commercials and not know about general products. I explained to her that we use chemicals similarly to how she used relaxers for her hair to straighten it. Her mouth dropped open. “HOW DO YOU KNOW ABOUT RELAXERS?!?!”, as if it were some top secret information “for black eyes only”. I had no idea how I know about it. I just did. It was part of American culture, therefore part oh MY culture. I didn’t think of it as a black thing or a white thing.. it was just a thing.

I have had many conversations like this over the years. I love to read and learn and grow as a person and part of growing is learning about things that don’t revolve around yourself. Things that are important to other people. People just like you who may experience different things. That’s how I was raised. I was raised to not think about race, religion, sexuality, or anything else that may make us different because in the end we’re not. In the end we’re all the same. And, that, I’m told.. is what makes me racist… at least according to my white friends.

Addiction, bullying, Love, parenting, Politics, school shootings

The world is on fire… and what do I tell my son?

Katrina Russell

The world is on fire, or at least that’s how it feels right now I was born in the mid-seventies. The Vietnam War ended a few months prior. By the time I was in grade school Reagan was president, the cold war was coming to an end and my reference to the whole thing was Rocky IV. I had some understanding of the Berlin Wall that was based on an episode of “Benson” and an episode of “Head of the Class”. By my 14th birthday the wall had fallen. All I knew about the Middle East are have vague memories of planes being hijacked by Iran. if I recall correctly, but for the most part things were fine.

My aunt would tell me about the bomb drills they used to do in 50s, as if hiding under their desks was going to protect them from an atomic bomb. I saw movies, TV shows, and eventually learned about Jim Crow laws, separate water fountains, and bussing. We lived in Massachusetts so it was a part of our past good or bad.Growing up I couldn’t imagine that people of color were ever treated that way, never mind in my father’s lifetime. It was all so bizarre. I was friends with everyone. I had classes with everyone. I had cousins of mixed races. I watched the Cosby show on TV (who knew where that would go). Everyone wanted to be Michael Jackson. I don’t remember a lot of race trouble at all.

Being from the mid-late 70s I was also raised on the record/movie “Free to be You and Me” by Marlo Thomas. speaking of Michael Jackson. He had a clip in the movie himself. pre Thriller. This was all about not judging anyone by their sex and letting people just be whatever they wanted to be. Again I knew that women used to not be able to vote. I knew that the 70s had bra burnings and feminism and all these crazy thing, but when I was a kid no one cared if you were a boy or a girl, you better be studying your math homework. When asked what we wanted to be when we grow up no one ever said that we couldn’t. I came from a time of empowerment for everyone. Well gays still had a way to go, but by the time I graduated from high school in the early 90s no one cared about that anymore either. at least not in Boston.

Then right before the turn of the century. Right before “The Year 2000”, when everything was supposed to be wonderful and futuristic, Columbine happened. I remember sitting in my car and hearing about it on the radio. I remember buying a newspaper. yes, they did exist. and reading about the horrifying events and how they unfolded. This was the beginning of the end of my innocence. Two and a half years later September 11th happened and our country was no longer safe.

This is when race started to become a factor again. I don’t mean just the occasional asshole in the after school special, but real racism. People of a certain look were starting to be hated. They were starting to be attacked just walking down the street. It wasn’t even a certain religion at that point. Anyone who looked like they could be from that middle region at all were the enemy. I remember “Harold and Kumar” made a movie about it. Kumar, who is Indian, is automatically assumed to be an Arab and a terrorist. It was done in a comedic way, but it was still a powerful statement.

From there things have just continued to get worse and worse. I’m pretty sure a big reason for this is the internet. Suddenly everything that happened everywhere was on everyone’s screen. Instead of it being a local story about one bad thing happening to one person it was look at how this happens all the time to everyone. Instead of kids being bullied on the bus, they were now having bullies push their way into their homes through electronics. Instead of the local news only talking about big stories that really mattered, suddenly news was 24 hours a day and needed to be more and more sensational to get the attention of the millions of viewers.When a child shot up a school their picture and name were posted everywhere. This created a perfect avenue for those mentally unstable individuals to claim their 15 mins of fame. When a man raped a woman, it wasn’t just that the man was a dirtbag. it was that ALL men are dirtbags. One story would link to other stories with similar scenarios. Now instead of a half a dozen losers in the whole country, it was, “look at all these guys everywhere. All men are rapists. Instead of a couple of racists assholes who caused problems. and to be honest I don’t care which race, religion, or creed it is there is an example of all of them. And because they all link together it’s suddenly happening everwhere

.I first noticed this when I became a mom and everyone was bashing other moms for feeding their kids grapes, leaving them in the car seat to nap, running into the gas station to pay for the pump while leaving a sleeping kid in a comfortable car. suddenly there were stories being forwarded to all the moms with horrible outcomes. Moms were no longer allowed to pee, or shower, or sleep. If they did they mine as well just give their children to kidnappers who want to either sell them to the sex slave industry or murder them. They mine as well suffocate them themselves, because children die all the time by being left in their pack n play while the mom pees by herself. Here are 10 links to similar stories to prove I’m right and you should have DCF called on you.

We had a black president elected into office twice. A lot of the people who voted for him were white. They did not vote for him despite he was black. They didn’t vote for him because he was black. They voted for him because he was a person whose policies they agreed with. After he was elected the country was suddenly racist. I’m not really sure how it happened. except that the people on the right didn’t like him. So therefore they were racist. Anytime he was criticized it wasn’t because they were being stupid or petty. It wasn’t because they didn’t like his policy. It was because they were racist.

The right tried to impeach Clinton. They dragged him and his sex life through the mud. They attacked his daughter, they trotted out victim after victim of his sexual advances. They made fun of him. They made his life Hell. not because they were racist. He was white. But because they were assholes. Once Obama was in office no one was allowed to just be an asshole anymore. They HAD to be racist. It was the only explanation.

We now have to have laws to make people serve some potential clients no matter their religion, while letting other vendors refuse based on their principals. We have religions we’re never supposed to talk bad about, while other’s we’re supposed to blame. We have races that are always the victims and another that is always the villain. And don’t even get me started on the battle of the sexes. and if they even exist.

I grew up in a time when we were taught to not think about what makes us different, and I’m raising my son in a time when he is being taught that because he’s a while, Christian male he’s basically the devil responsible for the oppression of millions even though he still can’t cut his own PB&J sandwich. I thought it crazy my dad had to hide under his desk and my son is being taught ALICE (active shooter) training.

My son is only in 1st grade and he missed half a year of school because of a global pandemic, and now the world is literally on fire. What is he going to learn from all of this? What do I tell him when he asks why he’s so bad because of the body he was born into, because he was so privileged to be raised by a single mom after he lost his father to the opioid epidemic? What do I tell my little boy when the world tells him how wrong he is? I tell him the only thing that I can. The same thing that I told him when his father died. It’s not his fault. Everyone makes their own choices in their own life and I’m going to teach him to make the right ones. To not judge. To not blame. To love everyone equally.

Addiction, bullying, Healthcare, Homeless, Love, Mental Health, parenting

Why is mental health so taboo?

Katrina Russell

My mother was schizophrenic. I have been dealing with mental health illnesses my entire life. I can remember people asking me why my mother wasn’t around when I was little and I always told them. “Oh, she’s schizophrenic, she couldn’t take care of us so our father did. But she did the best she could for as long as she could.”. I would get all kinds of responses. I would get the shock and awkward, “oh… I’m sorry… I didn’t know” or the “oh wow, that must have been so hard for you” or just the blank stare of not knowing how to respond.

I always found this to be strange. I mean, they knew that my mother wasn’t around. They knew there must have been a reason for this. It’s like they would have been ok if I had said, “oh she died of cancer” or “she was in a car accident” or something along that line. My mother was mentally ill. This wasn’t her fault. This wasn’t something that could have been controlled any more than had she had cancer, but for some reason people treat it like it’s something to be ashamed or afraid of.

My son’s father was an addict. He was clean when we got together and we had many good years together before his demons caught up with him and he relapsed. His problem was also that he was mentally ill. He was almost 30 when he was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder and Generalized Anxiety. He had some serious issues. He could never get out of his own head. No matter how much people tried to help he couldn’t overcome his horrific thoughts.

I have spent most of my life studying and learning about how the brain works and how to help create a better life in your own mind by strengthening certain neuropathways. He had many therapists who tried to encourage the same behaviors, the problem was that by the time he was diagnosed his neuropaths were pretty damaged. He had been self medicating for so long he didn’t have a healthy arrangement left.

I am a believer in medication when needed, but I also believe that it’s a band-aid to help take the edge off so that you can do the real work with thoughts and actions. We are our brains. Our emotions come from chemicals released in our brains.. our thoughts activate those chemicals being released. He had an overwhelming amount of “stress” (cortisol) hormones and low amounts of “happy” (dopamine) chemicals in his brain. He would try to fix that with drugs, and for the short term they would help, but he had no one to help him through the rest of the process when he was younger and still forming.

Three weeks ago he took a drug to help him feel better. He never woke up from that. I had to explain to our 6 year old that Da “took a drug to make him feel better, but it was the wrong thing to do” and now he’s gone. I have since had to tell others, family, friends, co-workers, teachers at school…. and I’m always honest. My son’s father overdosed. Most people are very supportive. Some are shocked. They had no idea that he was struggling with addiction. He didn’t “seem the type”.

That’s the problem with mental illness. It’s so taboo that people assume that it’s only the homeless people living on the streets, eating out of trash cans, and yelling at the sky who are mentally ill. No one can accept that it’s the mothers, the fathers, the teachers, the comedians… and whomever else.. the everyday people that fight the good fight everyday to appear “normal”. No one wants to be labeled “crazy”. No one wants to admit their short comings.

My father had diabetes… his body was unable to produce a specific chemical needed to keep him alive. He went to a doctor. He got help. He could talk to people about it and there were therapies and a whole industry of products to help. My son’s father’s body didn’t produce the correct chemicals needed to keep his brain in balance and it was a shameful “problem”. We need to stop treating mental and physical illnesses as different things. We need to stop shaming the “crazy” and the “junkies”. My father had insurance and went to the diabetic clinic constantly for treatment. My son’s father had insurance that no one would take for his “rehab treatments”. Believe me.. I looked.

Maybe if people looked at my son’s father as a person instead of his disease he could have received the help that he deserved. Instead my son sat quietly at the service as everyone around him talked about what a “great guy” his Da was and what a “shame” it was that he died… but still.. no one wants to help the addict. They just want to SHAME.

 

 

bullying, Politics

The Little Mermaid is Black

Katrina Russell

That’s it.. it’s a fact. Halle Baily (Not Halle Berry as some angry online opponents have thought) has been cast in the new “The Little Mermaid” movie. Apparently this is sacrilege. I had no idea that the fate of the world was to be determined by the color of a fictional mermaid’s skin.

Now for those of you who are not aware, The Little Mermaid is based on the Hans Christian Anderson tale in which a young mermaid falls in love with a handsome prince. She, as in the Disney tale, gives up her voice to the sea witch.. as well as her tongue, that’s left out, and given legs that can dance as no one has ever danced before. The catch, as there’s always a catch, is that she will feel piercing stabbing in her legs and her feet will bleed pretty much all the time. Not as adorable as the dinglehopper angle, but there it is.

As in the Disney version the mermaid’s only choice for remaining human and not dying is getting her beloved prince to marry her… ahhh.. happily ever after… only he doesn’t, and she dies. Yup.. that’s the story of the little mermaid.. or it was, until it was remade for film. Actually that particular story has been remade by different studios quite a few times.

In the original story the woman that the prince does end up marrying was being educated at “The Temple”. Given that there is no mention of specific area, there’s a probably chance that the Prince in question and the area involved was Hebrew.. and possibly the Middle East toward the Mediterranean Sea. In later adaptations she was blonde, which makes sense given Anderson was Danish and there is a heavy blonde population there.

Then Disney came out with their feisty red head. That was fun. I was a teenager at the time, but I remember being happy that it wasn’t another blonde, and to be quite honest the red was quite striking against the green and blue back drop of the ocean scenes. I read somewhere that’s why they chose to do it. Either way it worked, and people loved it.

Now there’s a new adaptation. This one is played by a young black girl and happens to be by the same studio who made the animated version that did so well.. and people are OUT OF THEIR MINDS! A lot of people are saying that it’s not a race thing but that the Little Mermaid just has to be a ginger.. because she was last time.. in that one other Disney movie. Funny.. I remember watching “Into the Woods”, another Disney adaptation of a collection of fairy tales and Anna Kendrick was cast as Cinderella… now I don’t know about you, but in my childhood Cinderella was ALWAYS blonde, and Miss Anna is definitely not blonde, nor does she play one on TV. There were no protests and bloggers and online rally cries to Made Cinderella Blonde Again. It was fine.. it was a remake, and the directors were free to cast whomever they chose. Even Disney.

What really surprises me is how many people want to blame children for the outrage. I have seen many people expressing that little ones will be confused by the change. That kids couldn’t possibly understand why they character looks so different this time. Well, I asked my 6 year old what he thought about a “brown” girl playing the part.. his response was, “ok”… that’s it. No clarification needed.. just ok.

Catwoman-KittNo one cared when Laurence Fishburne played Perry White in Man of Steel 2013, or when Eartha Kitt played Catwomen in Batman 1966, or Idris Elba played Heimdel in Thor 2011.. I mean maybe comic book geeks are just not that strict on continuity or cannon.. (sarcasm for those who don’t know any comic book geeks).. or maybe they understand that actors are to be judged not by the color of their skin.. but the content of their character. At any rate… it’s a movie people. Get over it.

bullying

Nike wants to help everyone get healthy

Katrina Russell

For those who may have missed it. Nike is supporting getting people healthy. I know that seems like something that should be applauded. It also seems like the kind of thing that they’ve always done. “Just Do It” was not about binge watching your favorite show. But now they have expanded their advertising and work out wear to include plus sizes.. and apparently this is just going too far for some people.

I’m not going to discuss the negative comments surrounding this launch. There is enough negativity to go around. What I do want to talk about is the importance that people who are not healthy feel that it is also their right to get healthy. As someone who has jumped up and down the scale over my lifetime I know that it is not easy to get out there and “just exercise”. I know that when I don’t feel comfortable in my own skin it makes it very difficult to let others see it giggle at the gym.

I have seen other posts about people (usually women) who do their best to make a change to their bodies only to be mocked and insulted for actually trying. The world is extremely hypocritical in this respect. Everyone is supposed to be strong and healthy and beautiful, but they aren’t supposed to work for it. I spend a lot of time on social media and there is so much shame out there it’s amazing anyone leaves their houses anymore. I am very thankful to have a support system around me that doesn’t ridicule me at my attempts at gaining health, and also doesn’t ridicule me if I fail, but not everyone is so lucky.

What I find most interesting about the negative feedback from the new Nike wear is that it’s actually active wear. It’s actually designed for people who intend to work out. People who are fit prefer to wear such clothes because it’s more comfortable and therefore easier to keep up with an exercise routine if wearing, and yet, there are people out there who are talking about how obesity should be fought… but in the same breath say that obese people shouldn’t be encouraged to exercise. How exactly is the obesity battle supposed to be won? Diet pills?

If there are people out there who are looking to get healthy, but don’t know where to start, or feel like they’ll be shamed, I hope that they see the mannequins of people who look like them and realize that they are not alone. There’s an entire market of people just like you wanting the same thing.

All I have to add is good on you Nike! And if you’re a person who feels like you may be “too big” to exercise or “too fat” to get healthy.. Just Do It!