Which country has the world’s highest rate of alcohol consumption?1 (I was surprised it wasn’t South Korea.) Social media use?2 How about “almost winning the World Cup”?3
Find the answers, and much more, in this revealing map by Doghouse Diaries. Yay, Koreans for being workaholics, and Americans for leading the world in Nobel Laureates and getting killed by lawn mowers!
For a full list of the author’s sources, look here.
1Moldavia
2Philippines
3Germany
In all my years of receiving therapy, there is one psychologist who stands out in my mind…and not in a good way.
She was an empathic woman who immediately helped me feel at ease. She certainly had a way of helping me feel warm and comforted and understood, and I almost always felt better after our sessions.
But after a few months, I came to a startling realization.
She never made anything my fault.
Now, I know that depression is a disease — an illness with symptoms and consequences that are not always under my control. And I am fully aware that not everything bad in my life is my fault.
But I do know that some of it is.
And I know that I must own up to those flaws and mistakes. Otherwise, how would I ever grow and learn and get better?
It made me even sadder to realize that she almost always seemed to place the blame on my parents. How they put so much responsibility on me, even at a young age. Our emigration to a new country at such a formative period in my life. Their first-generation immigrant mentality of “you can achieve and obtain anything with hard work and discipline.” So on and so forth.
my family, circa 1985
I switched therapists not long after. But coming to this conclusion did plant some seeds in my mind: mainly, DID my parents screw me up?
Because it’s an undeniable fact that your parents have a huge influence on your life, right? And in raising me the way that they did, did they make me this way? Did they contribute to my struggles with depression and anxiety? If so, how much, and to what extent?
Pondering these questions led to my contemplating my current position, as a parent myself. I know that every parent gets scared that they will screw up their kids in some way, but I became even more paranoid. I began to wonder if even a passing comment to which I hardly give a thought can leave deep psychological scars in my children. And yes, I became convinced that Claire and Aerin were doomed to unhappy and unfulfilled lives as a result of their mother’s pitfalls and shortcomings.
Oh geez, why did I ever choose to become a parent???
That’s when a wise friend stepped in. “Oh yes, you will screw up your kids,” he said.
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I was just about to tell him to go screw himself, when he went on to clarify.
“You will screw them up. All parents screw up their kids. My parents did it to me, and your parents did it to you. It’s how you teach your kids to deal with the screwups and unfairness and all the other big bads of the world that makes all the difference.”
My mouth dropped open.
What my friend told me that day still stands as one of the best pieces of parenting advice I’ve ever received.
And I still turn to it, especially in these dark days when there seems to be no light in sight and I feel as if I am dragging my entire family into my black hole of gloom.
I hope others will find it helpful too. 🙂
This post is a link dump of sorts — three items I found especially interesting/funny and compelling enough for me to want to share them with you. 🙂
First up is a spoof trailer for Hell No, a horror movie starring characters who make…wait for it…good decisions. What a concept, huh? Take a look if you can spare 3 minutes, because it’s freakin’ hilarious!
(via Neatorma)
Second at bat is a handy chart of vampire bloodlines, commissioned by the Dublin Film Festival and created by illustrator Matthew Griffin. Despite my fondness for many of the characters depicted here, my favorite vampire still remains Dracula from the classic novel. How about you?
(via io9)
Last, but not least…
The Physics of Friendship is an upcoming art exhibit which plays tribute to one of my favorite television shows, The Big Bang Theory. Check out these teasers — don’t you just love ’em?
“In The Beginning There Was Nothing, Which Exploded” by Richard J. Oliver
“The Big Bang Geometry” by Ale Giorgini
“Cog-nition” by Steve Simpson
If you too are a fan of the show and live near Alhambra, California, be sure to check out the exhibit, which will open at the Gallery Nucleus on Saturday, October 19, 2013 and run through Sunday, November 10, 2013.
I’m especially sad I’ll be missing the show, because I just booked tickets for a trip to LA in early December! This mama is in dire need of a vacation and a friend generously offered to let me stay at her place. (Thanks, C!) It’s funny, because right now I’m really looking forward to hitting up some good Korean restaurants. Does anyone have any recommendations for good, authentic Korean food in LA?
I fully realize that this may not be the best time to make this announcement — ahem, see two posts down — but I wanted you to know that I am currently looking for work.
Obviously not my number, but a funny and appropriate (at least to my weird
sense of humor) sign for this post. Get it? 😉
For those who are not aware, I used to work in marketing and was a designer (web and print) and web developer. Now that the kids are older, I would love to start freelancing again to slowly transition my life to that of a working mom.
Not to mention, keeping myself busy and focused would help me on my road to recovery. (It has in the past.)
So if you, or someone you know, is in need of a web/blog design, illustration, photo retouching, and/or any other design-related services — no matter how big or small — please let me know!
For more details, please check out my Design Services page.
I wouldn’t necessarily characterize myself as being cute, but now I’m wondering if this is one of the reasons I’m always mistaken as being younger: large head, high forehead, small nose and mouth, a stubby neck, and short arms and legs with small hands and feet.
For more commentary on how and why humans perceive cuteness — including some really interesting historical factoids — check out Why Babies and Other Things Are Cute, Explained at the Stuff You Should Know Blog.
A couple of weeks ago, I saw the following comic strip in a Buzzfeed article titled “21 Comics That Capture the Frustrations of Depression“:
(source)
There were many comics on that list to which I could relate all too well, but this one particularly hit me hard. And before I knew it, tears were flowing down my cheeks.
Look, I’ve been down this road before. Lord knows I’ve devoted a crapload of kilobytes on my computer’s hard drive, as well as valuable internet space, writing about my struggles with depression. I was even afraid to write about it here — on my own freakin’ personal blog — in fear that someone will invariably react with an “AGAIN? I thought we’ve been through this…over and over.”
And I’M SICK OF IT TOO. I wish I could just take a magic pill and feel better. To BE HAPPY, once and for all. I hate myself for not being able to feel joy, for wanting to feel anything aside from sadness and despair and frustration.
I hate myself for not being able to focus on the good things in life — because isn’t that what NORMAL people do? — and only continuing to get sucked into a deep vortex of hopelessness.
Most of all, I hate being a burden to my loved ones. Because depression, by nature, is a selfish disease. Because, in attempting to help myself feel better (or, sometimes, just wallowing in sadness), it causes my focus to turn inward, consuming precious time and energy I could instead be devoting to my family and friends.
Because they don’t deserve this.
(source)
It’s always hardest in the mornings, because the act of getting out of bed is just SO. DAMN. HARD. But I force myself to do so, because I have people who depend on me. And I always feel tremendous guilt for feeling this way, because this shit should just come naturally without any resentment.
And what the hell do I have to be so sad about? I know that I have the right to be unhappy, but once again the guilt sets in when I think about all the other people in the world who have it so much worse than I do. And sometimes, the things that set me off make ME want to slap myself upside the head.
The girls make a huge mess in the living room. ‘NO MATTER HOW HARD I TRY TO MAKE THINGS GOOD AND RIGHT, SOMEONE OR SOMETHING MESSES IT UP AGAIN.’
I forget to buy eggs from the grocery store. ‘DINNER IS RUINED. MY ENTIRE FAMILY WILL HATE ME. I HAVE RUINED MY LIFE, AND THEIR LIVES.’
The government is shut down. ‘EVEN OUR GOVERNMENT IS IN RUINS. THERE IS NO HOPE FOR A BRIGHT FUTURE.’
I hate interacting with others, whether in real life or virtually, through emails, texts, or social networks, because acting normal is so exhausting. I resent others for being able to feel happy, for having the ability to go about their lives without crumbling into a ball of despair.
I want to shout to everyone, “HOW is everyone still smiling and LIVING? Doesn’t anyone else SEE how HORRIBLE everything is?!??”
Other times, I get angry. “You’re feeling sad because your loved one is in the hospital? Well I BURNT MY TOAST THIS MORNING AND I CAN’T STOP CRYING ABOUT IT.” Even just writing that sounds utterly ridiculous and asinine. But that’s how I feel, and I still get sad thinking about that poor, charred, wasted piece of bread.
(source)
And I’m afraid to talk to anyone about it because they will undoubtedly say things like, “Why haven’t you come to me sooner? What can I do to help?” and the thing is, they can’t help. Then I will feel bad that they aren’t able to help, for having burdened them with something over which they have no control.
Besides, like I said above, I am SO sick of talking about it.
I hate myself more and more each time I feel that familiar rush of tears gathering behind my eyes. I don’t want to live anymore. Not that I want to commit suicide per se, but that I want to cease to exist. I wish I had never existed, and I just know that the world would have been a better, brighter place — even if just by a little — if I had never been born.
My deepest, darkest wish for the past couple of months has been to go to sleep and never wake up. That I will just disappear into thin air and the world will magically readjust itself into the one where I had never existed. Painless, quick, and no burden at all to my loved ones.
But I’m still here. Or at least, I’m trying to hang on to what little hope I have left. As Allie of Hyperbole and a Half said:
Nobody can guarantee that it’s going to be okay, but — and I don’t know if this will be comforting to anyone else — the possibility exists that there’s a piece of corn on a floor somewhere that will make you just as confused about why you are laughing as you have ever been about why you are depressed. And even if everything still seems like hopeless bullshit, maybe it’s just pointless bullshit or weird bullshit or possibly not even bullshit.
I don’t know.
But when you’re concerned that the miserable, boring wasteland in front of you might stretch all the way into forever, not knowing feels strangely hope-like.
I know I need help.
And I hope you’ll bear with me as I embark on this journey…again. As I await my own piece of corn.
Exactly 3 years ago today (on September 30, 2010 at 9:25pm ET), our Claire Emmanuelle entered the world.
Face scrunched and red, fists tightly clenched, and already lifting her head just a few minutes after birth, I knew right then and there that she would be a special one.
Now, at 3(!) years old, Claire is a bright, silly, and sassy little lady. She is so smart and so talented and so funny. (And I’m not just saying these things because she’s my daughter!) She reminds me of myself in so many ways — and many people tell me that she looks exactly like I did at her age — but she is a better version of me. She is loving and affectionate. She is confident but not overly so. She is imaginative and hilariously creative.
In other words, she never ceases to amaze me.
Happy birthday, my love. I am so proud to be your mother, and I thank God for you every day.
This week has been ROUGH. Motherhood’s been kicking my arse up and down and all around. I figured that I should post something, and who doesn’t love a giveaway?
Up for grabs is another makeup set from Sephora. I received this 6-piece, limited edition set by trading in 500 points with the intention of using it as a giveaway item (after seeing how popular Laura Mercier was with my last giveaway) — take a look!
The Laura Mercier Flawless Face Classics Set includes:
To enter this giveaway, simply use the Rafflecopter widget below. Not sure how to use Rafflecopter? Watch this 52 second video for a tutorial on how to enter a giveaway using Rafflecopter. There are 5 methods of entry, with the first method (commenting on this blog post answering the question “Which product are you most excited to try from the Laura Mercier Flawless Face Classics Set?”) being mandatory while the third method (Tweeting about the giveaway) can be used once per day:
This giveaway will end on Saturday, September 28th, 2013, at 12:01am EST, at which point a winner will be randomly chosen and announced here. If the winner has won the drawing via a fraudulent or illegitimate entry (i.e., not commenting on this post, using different accounts to enter multiple times, using a Twitter account that is only used to enter contests on a frequent basis, using the same Tweet URL to enter multiple times) I have the right to choose another winner.
Sorry, this giveaway is open only to residents of the U.S. who are over 13 years old.
Please use a valid email address and/or Twitter handle so that I can contact you if you win! If the winner fails to respond within 48 hours of my contacting them, another winner will be selected.
Good luck, and thank you for entering!
Oh my goodness. This is just…is someone chopping onions?
View the animated GIF for the full affect. If you’re short on time, you can view it in comic strip form below that.
Today marks the end of Claire’s first full week of preschool. (Last week was a 3-day school week.) While she didn’t cry the first day, she shed some tears every morning after that…until yesterday, that is. She had a perfectly pleasant, tear-free day yesterday and J texted me to let me know that she didn’t cry this morning at drop-off either.
She is sooo excited to ride the “school bus” (it’s a regular city bus but she calls it her school bus) every morning with her baba, and he tells me that she sings “The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round” whilst riding the bus. She’s learned a new song (“Mr. Sun”) and her English has already improved tremendously in this short time. For example, I was amazed when she said to me, “Mom, come up here! Let’s go down the slide together!”
In celebration of this small milestone, I wanted to share with you a series of illustrations by Parisian designer Andry “Shango” Rajoelina that depicts superheroes and their families on their way to school. The first part of his series, “Justice Families,” debuted back in May and part two, “Marvel Families,” debuted last month.
Aquaman:
I like books, gadgets, spicy food, and art. I dislike shopping, hot weather, and the laws of entropy. Although I am a self-proclaimed computer nerd, I still have a love for handbags and makeup... and I am always teetering on high heels. To learn more about me, visit the "About" page.
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