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Beautiful Train Wrecks & Link Up On the Edge #97
As the fashion world is grieving the recent loss of the beautiful Kate Spade, I wanted to take a moment to pay tribute to her and send my condolences to all of her friends and family. I also wanted to take this opportunity to once again open the discussion on the topic of mental illness, specifically Bipolar Disorder and Depression. It is a serious issue and one that is very close to my heart. It shows no mercy and it does not discriminate based on race, religion, gender, or status. And it takes lives. Every day. Wonderful, amazing, exquisite, rich lives. Lives that for some reason feel dark and tortured…
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Shelbee Says…”The only choice you have is to survive…or don’t.”
The last few weeks have been somewhat of a roller coaster of emotions for me due to some recent unravellings in my personal life. And while I am slowly adjusting to a new normal, it got me to thinking about all the shit that I have been through in my life and how I have made it this far completely in tact and stronger than ever. Since I don’t have a reader question to answer, I am using this opportunity to share my own words of advice that I have to remind myself of when times get really rough. I have talked in the past about the choices that we…
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Shelbee Says…”Losing a pet is like losing a family member.”
“Dear Shelbee, Our dog has recently become very ill and we have to put him down soon as he is suffering a lot. I cannot write much as I am suffering a lot as well. I consider him to be a son to me. I understand he is not human but I have had him since he was a baby. He is now a little more than 2 years old and I love him more than everything. I am trying to make his last days as happy as possible. What else can I do?…I have lost grandfathers and also a friend to cancer, but this loss is unbearable. Some people…
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When You Realize Your Strength is a Weakness
When you possess a quality inherent in your personality that has been viewed by many as a strength for your entire life and you wake up one day and realize that is was an extraordinary weakness that has broken your entire sense of reality, it can rattle you right to your core. This is what I have been dealing with this past week and the reason I have been quite absent from my blog and social media. It takes a lot of internal processing to figure out what exactly to do with it all. I had to bring into question my entire sense of self and a large part of…
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Shelbee Says…Recognizing the Dangers of Spring Mania
Recognizing the Dangers of Spring Mania *Originally printed in the Spring Issue of Resilientista Magazine. Did you know that approximately 51 million people worldwide suffer from Bipolar Disorder? With a population that large, surely almost everyone knows someone with a Bipolar diagnosis. If you do not suffer personally, it could be a co-worker, a relative, a friend, or even your spouse. Living with Bipolar Disorder, whether you suffer from it yourself or someone close to you does, presents a unique set of challenges with the changing of the seasons. Many people, even those not afflicted with an official diagnosis of mental illness, are familiar with seasonal affective disorder, a change…
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Shelbee Says…”Do the Work”
“Dear Shelbee, I had been talking to a counselor about various issues in my life but I had to stop going because I was tired of the constant questioning of everything I do and feel. Everything wrong in my life is not all my fault. I get that I am responsible for my own behaviors, but there are other people to blame as well. What is the purpose of counseling if all it does it place blame on me? Nothing gets fixed that way. -Not to Blame” Dear Not to Blame, Life issues are not really a matter of blame at all. Life issues are just that…issues that we all…
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Feel the Love & #SpreadTheKindness Link Up #67
I am without outfit photos and without a photographer this week so I had to resort to the old tripod and remote method which never, ever results in the same quality photos for some reason. Plus I can never get quite as comfortable as I do when I have someone on the other side of the camera making me smile and laugh. My, how things have changed from the beginning of my blog when I was only comfortable taking selfies. But I am choosing to ignore the poor quality of my photos and focus on the fact that I am channeling and feeling the love these days. All the love.…
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Shelbee Says… “Communication is the responsibility of both parties.”
“Dear Shelbee, my spouse and I seem to communicate better through text messaging than through face to face conversations. It seems that face to face conversations always end up in an argument, but when texting we can reveal our true thoughts and feelings more easily and express our frustrations without getting snippy with each other. How can we transition to smoother face to face conversations without arguing?” -I’d Rather Be Texting Dear Rather Be Texting, Communication is a rather tricky concept when you really think about it. The way we communicate with one another as humans is distinctly unique from the way communication happens among any other animal species on…
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Knowledge is Power: The Benefits of Bibliotherapy
Knowledge is power. Being informed of the things around us gives a certain amount of control. Education is the basis of progress. Observation makes us more aware. Awareness gives us an edge. Insight can make incredible things happen. And wisdom brings healing. None of us can do it alone. People need people. And sometimes people need a therapist. *This is a sponsored post. However, all thoughts, opinions, and experiences are entirely my own. I want to share part of my mental health story here…the beginning of it actually. When I was 26 years old, I left a marriage that was not working for me. This event quite literally turned me…
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Introducing Shelbee Says…
My brain has been running on overdrive lately trying to decide which direction I want to go with my blog. When I started blogging nearly 3 years ago, it provided a platform where I could combine two seemingly unrelated topics…fashion and mental health. As I wrote more and more posts, I began realizing that these two topics are not all that unrelated after all, with fashion, style, and self-care being a huge part of my recovery from a decade long battle with Bipolar Disorder. Then recently, I partnered with an amazing company that offers affordable online counseling services. This partnership, along with some recent conversations with friends and family, really…
