Favorite TweetStuff (week ending 05/28/10)

On approach to a three day (Memorial Day) weekend here in the U.S., a time to consider the sacrifices made both by our armed services and by their families. Somber topics, but leave some room for lightness and wonder, too.

Here are a few things captured from my TweetStream that helped me move forward this week, or maybe just made me more contemplative than usual. (Contemplation Is Good.) Enjoy!

@dragonheartsong “Yeah, what you said – gotta love @SarahEOlson2009/” ;) RT @Splinteredones “sarah Sarah she’s our tweet. She is smart and really sweet!!!! Gooooooooo Sarah!”
[SEO: The rest of the story: I’d said people who RT are like my personal cheerleaders. @Splinteredones helpfully demonstrated how true this is! :) You see why I love Twitter? ]

@sarahndipitous “Note to self: Being stagnant makes you an easy mark; being a moving target is so much more fun.” (via @rcinstitute)
[SEO: And I love that name! @sarahndipitous ]

@TrendyDC Beautiful Photography of China (via @JackiesBuzz)

@GabrielaKortsch “It may be that the satisfaction I need depends on my going away, so that when I’ve gone and come back, I’ll find it at home.” ~ Rumi

@dragonheartsong “A fave video Awakening into Infinite Love and Light ~ Well worth the 10 minutes.”

@Maura_Aura “Never dull your shine for somebody else.” ~ Tyra Banks

@ssanquist “This is beautiful!” Sweet Reunion Between a Man and the Gorilla He Raised as a Baby ~ Paw Nation
[SEO: Love this! He raised the gorilla in captivity as a baby, and released it back to the African wild at age five. He returned years later to find the gorilla remembered him, was affectionate, and wanted him to stay! The others in the gorilla’s immediate family seemed okay with that idea, too!]

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Permanent link to this article: http://thirdofalifetime.com/2010/05/28/favorite-tweetstuff-week-ending-052810/

Four New Blogs Added to Dissociation Blog Showcase! (DBS)

Special Request: If you find value in this blog showcase, please add the Dissociation Blog Showcase link to your blogroll so others can find it. Thanks!

We have amazing writers amongst us who give insight and hope to anyone struggling with dissociation, or to their loved ones. It’s a brain trust, and I treasure it. When I find new blogs, I update the Dissociation Blog Showcase (DBS) on Sunday evenings. Tonight I’ve added the following four new blogs:

Dissociation, MPD, and Sexual Abuse

MISSING IN SIGHT

RANTINGS OF A BIPOLAR MIND AND A SEXUAL ABUSE SURVIVOR

SUNSHINE AND SHADOWS LIFE WITH DID

Please use the DBS link above to access these blogs, and check out the entire directory of (currently) 146 dissociation-related blogs!

As always, be careful and safe. Many of these blogs do not provide trigger warnings, nor are they obligated to do so.

I need your help! If you, or someone you know, experiences dissociation and blog about it, write to me with the URL at

sarah.e.olsonATgmailDOTcom

I review each blog before adding it to the Showcase. Thanks so much for the feedback and well-wishes for this project!

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Permanent link to this article: http://thirdofalifetime.com/2010/05/23/four-new-blogs-added-to-dissociation-blog-showcase-dbs/

Best Tweets for Trauma Survivors (week ending 05/21/10)

Best Tweets for Trauma Survivors is a weekly Friday feature. My selections are entirely subjective, and I know it will never be possible to include every great resource tweeted. But I can try! I’ve personally read all tweeted links, and believe them to be of great value.

Disclaimer: I am in no way responsible for content found on any other website. Stay safe, and don’t follow links if you believe you might be triggered by them. Also, I will not be re-checking links from older Best Tweets posts, and if the site’s archived URL is different from the one I’ve provided here, you may need to do a search on their site.

Please add your candidates for Best Tweets For Trauma Survivors in the comments.

Standalone Tweets

@LZeefe “If you want to make your dreams come true, the first thing you have to do is wake up. ~ J. M. Power

@michelemeiche “Everything is either a cry for love or an expression of love. There is only Love in varying degrees.”

@WritersQuotes “If you’ve experienced zero, every tiny gain is a triumph.” ~ Barbara Florio Graham

@mindpowersecret “Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears.” ~ Les Brown (via @sparklekaz)

@Fighting_Soul “We stop ourselves from being too loud, too different, or too much. Yet we crave our individuality, our wild, special selves.” (via @SusanAkaSARK)

@karenkmmonroy “Worry is a hamster wheel to the mortal mind. It’s just a form of avoidance to keep you from noticing that you have power.”

@zakaraya “The reason why everyone wants love so much is because it’s the closest thing to magic.” ~ Aquamarine

@LillyAnn “You cannot belong to anyone else, until you belong to yourself.” ~ P. Bailey

@TrendyDC “Accept no one’s definition of your life; define yourself.” ~ H. Fierstein (via LisaKiftTherapy @Maria_bg)

@Tamavista “Courage is a kind of salvation.” ~ Plato

@MichelePTSD “You live longer once you realize that any time spent being unhappy is wasted.” ~ Ruth E. Renkl

@traceymarksmd “Spring clean your psyche: toss out old grudges, living for others, putting yourself down, list of ways you’ve screwed up, negative thinking.”

@WritersQuotes “We immediately become more effective when we decide to change ourselves rather than asking things to change for us.” ~ Stephen Covey

@LillyAnn “We don’t change, we just become more like ourselves.”

@PsychDigest “Use your imagination not to scare yourself to death, but to inspire yourself to life.” ~ Adele Brookman (via @_amandajo)

@SarahEOlson2009 “You know, an abundance of happy just freaks me out, too. :) It’s a learned tolerance thing. You may even find you like it.”

Linked Tweets

@drcmblake 70 Reminders to Help You Break Any Barrier

@drcmblake Embrace Uncertainty

@HealMyPTSD Do I have PTSD?
[SEO: Excellent place to start educating oneself about PTSD, whether for yourself or a loved one.]

@kris_burns 10 Negative Thinking Patterns to Avoid (via Balance In Me)
[SEO: How to identify and control cognitive distortions.]

@MHAS_LA “What A Difference A Friend Makes” (PDF) — guide to supporting a loved one with mental illness.
[SEO: A professionally produced .PDF that can be printed as a brochure. Great resource!]

@Mindful_Living 4 Steps to Breaking Free from Limiting Beliefs by Don Miguel Ruiz

@goodthingZ Distracted? 9 Ways to Maintain Focus

@HealMyPTSD Survivors Speak – How Anxiety Feeds PTSD

@KarenLPhillips Establishing Healthy Boundaries (by @rcinstitute’s Marcia Sirota, MD)

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Permanent link to this article: http://thirdofalifetime.com/2010/05/21/best-tweets-for-trauma-survivors-week-ending-052110/

Favorite TweetStuff (week ending 05/21/10)

It’s been a quirky week, which is reflected both by what people chose to post on Twitter, as well as by the fact that it fascinated me! My Favorite TweetStuff is rescued from my TweetStream each week, and presented for your amusement and amazement. Enjoy!

@WritersQuotes “Writing is a struggle against silence.” ~ Carlos Fuentes

@DesignerDepot Craziest animated GIF ever (via @AmazingPics)

@TipsFromTheTop “Deja Fu: The feeling that somehow, somewhere, you’ve been kicked in the head like this before.” ~ Bruce Sherrod

@Splinteredones “Oh my god this may be the funniest thing i have EVAH seen” (via @Aliquant) You are so owned. Meow! (YouTube)
[SEO: Cat lovers will adore this. Linked phrase was mine. :) ]

@mrchriswagner “While not strictly mental health related, this has got to be the best story for ages, you know the one, the ninja story.”

@DeborahSerani 5 Foods That Lift Your Mood. Yay, Chocolate is One Of Them!
[SEO: Did I not say previously that the article claiming that chocolate depresses you was incredibly funny? I am so validated!]

@petapixel First of the last Space Shuttle launches – Atlantis (via The Big Picture – Boston Globe)
[SEO: Detailed photography of the process to get Atlantis in top shape following its previous shuttle mission for the one which began this last week — the last scheduled mission of Atlantis.]

@sdesic Sculptures made with oranges (via @Maria_bg)

@WritersQuotes “Cats are so unpredictable: you just never know how they’ll ignore you next.” ~ Saba Design

@petapixel Gigantic stop-motion Olympus PEN commercial (video)

@Conduru “What is now proved was once only imagined.” ~ William Blake (via @DrWayneWDyer)

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Permanent link to this article: http://thirdofalifetime.com/2010/05/21/favorite-tweetstuff-week-ending-052110/

Mental Health Month Blog Party: Fight for Your Wellness

This post is offered as part of the Mental Health Month Blog Party today, May 18, 2010. There are links to basic mental health resources and more information about the goals of this Blog Party at that link.

When I was five, sometimes our whole family would go to the drive-in movies (remember those?) in Norwalk, California. Adjacent to the drive-in was the Norwalk State Mental Hospital. You could see people pressed up against the windows, watching the movie. I asked my mother how could they hear without the little box that clipped onto the car window. She replied, “They don’t need to hear it.” I was, for some reason, horrified.

In my alternate reality, she and her “special friend” were routinely abusing me and my sister. My mother threatened that if I kept telling my “stories” about what was happening to me, she would send me to the soundless mental hospital forever. She had pretty complete control of me, physically, at that age, and I believed she was quite capable of sending me away.

The irony, of course, is that I probably would have been much better off in the mental hospital, considering what my mother and friend were doing to my mind over a three year period, without remorse or respite. So I grew up with a wild fear of “the mental hospital”, that it was where crazy people go who can’t hear the movie. My greatest fear until age 38 when I began much-needed therapy was that I was, in fact, crazy. As a dissociative person, crazy unexplainable things were always happening to me, and I could not tell anyone because it would confirm my fear. And worse, my mother would be right.

Gee thanks, mom.

Because of that fear I refused to try therapy until my situation was dire. I figured a good therapist would know “crazy” when he saw it. (And was later shocked to learn that a good therapist also knows “not crazy” when he sees it.) I went to great lengths to pretend to lead a normal life, but doing so made me internalize that I was a fraud. And nobody took me seriously when I said bizarre things like, “I’m really a very bad person. You don’t really know me.”

The truth is: some people in your life are never going “to get” what your life has been. Even knowing the whole story, as recently as a few years ago, a sympathetic — but not abused — family member said, “Why do you have to run to your therapist all the time? Why can’t you figure this stuff out by yourself by now?”

Deep breath. Count to 10. Or 200. But don’t be swayed.

You must fight for your wellness and your truth. I fought for it as a child by burying it deep inside till a safer day when I could reclaim it. Each of us still impacted by what happened in childhood, even after years of therapy, are doing the best we can. It’s kept us alive, which is no small thing. A remnant of hope still drives us. It will take as long as it takes.

Sometimes the process feels so very fragile that one more “why can’t you?” threatens to derail your progress. Don’t let it. Fight for your wellness, on your timetable.

And never give up fighting for your truth.

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Permanent link to this article: http://thirdofalifetime.com/2010/05/18/mental-health-month-blog-party-fight-for-your-wellness/

New Blog Added to Dissociation Blog Showcase (DBS)

We have amazing writers amongst us who give insight and hope to anyone struggling with dissociation, or to their loved ones. It’s a brain trust, and I treasure it. When I find new blogs, I update the Dissociation Blog Showcase (DBS) on Sunday evenings. Tonight I’ve added the following new blog:

ROSE ROARS

Please use the DBS link above to access this blog, and check out the entire directory of (currently) 142 dissociation-related blogs!

As always, be careful and safe. Many of these blogs do not provide trigger warnings, nor are they obligated to do so.

I need your help! If you, or someone you know, experiences dissociation and blog about it, write to me with the URL at

sarah.e.olsonATgmailDOTcom

I review each blog before adding it to the Showcase. Thanks so much for the feedback and well-wishes for this project!

Share My Stuff! ~
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Permanent link to this article: http://thirdofalifetime.com/2010/05/16/new-blog-added-to-dissociation-blog-showcase-dbs-3/