Why I Keep Blogging

Lately I’ve been wondering if I should even keep doing my blog. I have over 250 followers, but my posts usually only get a few views, maybe up to fifteen if I’m lucky. Of course I didn’t start this blog thinking I would get millions of followers and thousands of views. I don’t do it with the hopes of becoming famous or anything like that. But it’s still hard to see the point when so few people look at it or seem to care about it.

This got me wondering why I feel the need to blog and why it feels so hard or hurtful to think of ending it. One reason I started this blog was in the hopes that it might make a difference in even one person’s life. Once, a random person commented on one of my posts that what I had written had made a difference. So I guess I did that, and I do feel grateful for it.

Another reason I started it lies in the subtitle of this blog. “Opening a Discussion on Mental Illness.” I really hoped that more people would comment, that this really could be a place to have an open discussion about mental health and mental illness topics and awareness. I also hoped that there would be others who would want to share their stories or perspectives. There have been very few, and often, my husband is the only one who comments. So again, this makes me wonder if I’m really making any kind of difference at all or not.

But I also realized that one reason I keep posting, even though I know I might get let down, is because it is a creative outlet for me. Writing has been a part of who I am since I was ten years old. I shared my writing in English and Creative Writing classes. I had people who actually asked to read my poetry and my stories. Since college I have been in writing groups where I got feedback, interest and encouragement. But it has been years since I have had any of that. Other than a little poetry here and there, this blog is the only creative writing I have done in a very long time. I think about working on my stories again. I think about it all the time, but always talk myself out of it. What’s the point? I’m no good anyway. No one wants to read my writing. Nothing will come of it. So I keep blogging because writing is still a part of me. It is in my blood, something I feel in my soul. I need to keep sharing my writing whether I get a lot of view or not, whether I get any comments or not, whether I’m really opening a discussion or not. It makes a difference in my life. I fear that if I completely stop writing I will lose a huge part of myself and never feel whole again. So I will keep writing and sharing. Because sometimes we need to do things for ourselves.

In a Funk

The last couple of weeks have been tough. For lack of a better description I guess you could say I’ve been in a funk. I’m not sure if it was a recent event that triggered emotions from past trauma, but my anxiety has been nearly paralyzing and my depression, while not as horrible as at some other times, has been a weight on my shoulders. A weight on my heart. I tried to deal with it, told myself I could do it on my own, but finally decided I needed some help and guidance. I felt too lost to keep attempting to navigate the fog on my own, so I tried to get an appointment with my therapist. I felt stupid, though. The whole point of therapy is to get to a point where you don’t need therapy anymore, right? And I thought I’d about gotten to that point. Things have been really good. I’ve been doing good–until a couple of weeks ago.

Unfortunately, my therapist got sick and ended up in the hospital, so no appointment for weeks. I’m trying to use the tools she gave me to get through this. I keep telling myself I need to stop being so pathetically weak. I need to be strong. Others rely on me to be strong. If I’m not, everyone else suffers. But maybe that’s not strength. Is it really strength to ignore our own needs? To ignore our own suffering? Or is it just the same as hitting your head against a brick wall and pretending the throbbing bruises and blood dripping in your eyes isn’t there as we go about business as usual?

At this point, I don’t have any answers. It’s easy to tell someone else it takes strength to admit you need help or that you shouldn’t ignore your needs; you should take care of yourself, even if that means letting it all out in tears or staying in bed all day or taking a long bath while ignoring all the housework. It’s easy to tell someone else that it’s okay to call your therapist when things crash after being good for so long. It’s harder to tell myself those things, especially when I don’t know how long this anxiety and depression will last.

Songbird

Sometimes it’s discouraging and difficult to want to continue with something when it seems like no one cares. But song birds have taught me a lesson I put into a poem.

Songbird
By Tacy Gibbons

House finches land at my feeder,
then fly into a nearby tree and sing.
Rain or shine
they sing.

Sometimes they duck and hide
when swirls of snow hit
or take flight when starlings
and red-winged blackbirds invade,
but they always return.
And they sing

I, too, will sing my song.
I may duck and hide
when storms rage
or take flight when blackness surrounds,
but I will return.
And I will song my song.

Sharing Some More Poetry

Sometimes life is hard. In those hard moments writing, especially poetry, helps me. It has always been therapy for me as well as a creative outlet. Words are my soul. Words make up so much of who I am. Even though the things I may have felt in moments, days or weeks of depression, despair, frustration, hopelessness, etc. fade the words still mean something to me. And maybe they will mean something to someone else as well. That is one of the reasons I love poetry so much. It can touch someone through time and distance in so many different ways. Here are a couple of poems that may not be how I feel now, but are how I felt at some point and may be how someone else has felt or is feeling.

Honeysuckle Poison
by Tacy Gibbons

Scent of honeysuckle.
Nostalgia hits.

I can see the fence where its white flowers grew.
Smells of heaven and childhood.
Picking blossoms and sucking the sweet nectar down.

Memories now poisoned with the knowledge of your lies,
the truth of what you really were
polluting the sweetness like poison.

Reaching through time and memories,
choking on the bitter reality,
the past now tainted by your toxicity.

Yet, I rise up through the fallen petals,
let the poison fade.
The wave of nostalgia washes over and retreats.

And I am left only with the sweet scent
of honeysuckle.

A Day In the Life
by Tacy Gibbons

I am the captured tiger,
beaten into submission,
thrown into a cage.
My master holds the only key.

Head hanging, shoulders hunched,
sad eyes look longingly for the dream I used to live.
Master asks me to lift my head,
swish my tail and purr.
He needs life to feel normal again.

I sit in patience, surrounded by bars,
lift my head, swish my tail and purr,
hoping to please, hoping for companionship.
Master walks by, smiles and pats my head . . . 
then wanders off,
leaving me to my cage and defeat.

I am the captured tiger,
beaten into submission,
thrown into a cage.
My master holds the only key.

And I wonder—
if he ever lets me out, will I want to go?
Or will the caged life be all I remember?
All I want to know?

Or maybe—will I run?
Run to freedom and never look back.