Maranda Russell's Blog, page 67

New Vintage Puzzles! Sesame Street, Garfield, My Little Pony

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New Cute Sticker Collage ACEO Art Trading Cards

I’ve been in the mood to do some sticker collage ACEO artist trading cards. These are just fun little artworks that are enjoyable to make and that others seem to like, even though they are an extremely simple concept. In fact, one of the two I just made has already sold on my Ebay store!

The one that already sold has a retro Lisa Frank inspired theme:

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I also did a princess themed one, using some stickers I got in a kids scrapbook kit and a few other little embellishments:

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Wishing for a Family

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I’ve been severely depressed the past couple days. Two nights in a row I’ve been teary and weepy and feeling very much alone. Late last night I lay curled up on the bathroom floor crying, a position I often find myself in when depression gets severe.

I do have the support of a wonderful husband and he spent probably a good hour yesterday listening to me cry and talk about how I’m feeling. Sadly, he struggles with much of the same issues I do, so I always feel bad unloading on him because it brings out the same feelings in him that I’m suffering with.

I think what is getting to me the most is just the desire for a loving, supportive family, which I simply don’t have. Most of my immediate family is dead, only one member is still living and they seem to not be talking to me right now for some unknown reason. In some ways it might be best if we don’t talk since the constant ups and downs of the relationship really affect my moods, but it is still not easy to know that your only living close relative doesn’t seem to want anything to do with you or seem to care about you.

I wish I could replace those family relationships I have lost, but where do you find family if you don’t have one? You can’t exactly go shopping for one or even expect friends to step into those positions (if I even had friends). Sure, I could make friends if I tried harder maybe, but it still wouldn’t be FAMILY. It wouldn’t fill the huge hole in my heart left by those who have left me.

A Theory About Personality Disorders

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While I was writing yesterday’s post about personality disorders, I kind of came up with a theory of my own. That theory is that all of us likely fall somewhere on the spectrum of personality disorders – ALL of us. Granted, it is definitely to greater or lesser extents depending on your experiences, personality type, and genetic makeup, but all of us fall somewhere on the spectrum of narcissism. We all fall somewhere on the spectrum of avoidance and anxiety. We all fall somewhere on the spectrum of neediness and emotional dysregulation. We all fall somewhere on the spectrum of eccentricity.

This theory is very similar to theories I have heard that claim we are all somewhere on the autistic spectrum. Some of us clearly fall heavily on the side of autistic traits, some of us fall in the middle somewhere, and some of us fall heavily on the other side of the spectrum, but we are all on there somewhere.

For personality disorders though, I feel that most of us probably do more closely fit one (or perhaps even two) of the clusters overall. In case you were unaware, there are 3 clusters of personality disorders:

Cluster A (the “odd” or “eccentric” cluster), with Paranoid, Schizoid, and Schizotypal personality disorders.

Cluster B (the “dramatic”, “emotional”, or “erratic” cluster), with Borderline, Narcissistic, Histrionic, and Antisocial personality disorders.

Cluster C (the “anxious”, “fearful” cluster), with Avoidant, Dependent, and Obsessive-Compulsive personality disorders.

I don’t know about you, but almost everyone I know fits quite nicely at least into one of those groups when I consider their overall personality traits. Either I know a lot of messed up people…or maybe having some personality problems is just part of being human? Of course, some take it to the extreme. I myself am so highly anxious and fearful that I would consider it abnormally so. I believe most of that has to do with early attachment issues in childhood and a history of trauma and abuse.

I guess what I am trying to say is that people with personality disorders are not monsters or rare weirdos like many tend to think of them. They are just normal, somewhat dysfunctional people like the rest of us, but perhaps they have a harder time coping due to negative experiences and traumas they have endured. Sure, some of them are assholes, but so is a significant portion of the human race in general…

Nighttime Dread and “Quiet Borderlines” Thoughts

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I slept in until after 2pm this afternoon. I hate when that happens. I feel like most of the day is already gone by the time I get out of bed. I must have slept at least around 12 hours last night, even though I had a bit of an emotional fest when I actually went to bed. For some reason, all the loneliness of the world seems to settle down on me when I try to go to sleep and all the horrible things that have and could happen come around to haunt me. It is often at these times that I feel absolutely alone and helpless in this world, even though logically I know I’m not…at least not right now. But I could be. I could be all alone very easily and that thought sends me into a kind of despair I can’t explain.

Recently I have been reading a book entitled “Beyond Borderline: True Stories of Recovery from Borderline Personality Disorder”. Reading the book has been insightful and interesting, and made me realize I am definitely NOT a traditional borderline. I simply don’t have the acting out behaviors. I guess I could be what some people call “quiet borderlines”, although sometimes I wonder if they are really borderlines or not?

Perhaps some “quiet borderlines” are actually more along the lines of Avoidant Personality Disorder or another anxiety-related personality disorder? Who knows. I’m not a doctor so I can’t say, but I do find so many commonalities running through various personality disorders, that even if you have one, pinpointing which one might be difficult and many people have traits of more than one. For me personally, I think I definitely fit more into the cluster C “anxious and fearful clusters” than the cluster B “dramatic and overly emotional clusters”. In fact, the only time I am visibly overly emotional is when I am so anxious I pretty much panic. Unfortunately this almost always seems to happen in public, because social interaction in itself can easily set off the panic in me.

 

New Original Art – Abstract ACEO Artist Trading Cards

It’s been a while since I posted any new art, so here are a couple ACEO artist trading cards made with alcohol markers that I just listed for sale on my Ebay store:

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The last couple days I’ve been making some sticker collage ACEO cards just for fun and will have to share those soon! Hope you all are having a great day and that it isn’t as wet there as it is here!

Digestive Issues and Owl Sightings

What I thought was an IBS attack might actually be a bug or food poisoning or something else. This is the third day straight now I’ve been feeling sick to my stomach and having bowel issues, so it seems much longer than my typical IBS attacks in length. Due to that, I’ve had a rather lazy and boring weekend. I was intending to go to a mental health support group today but didn’t feel up to it and ended up actually sleeping through at least half of it since I didn’t get up until almost 2pm.

Sometimes when I talk about stuff like this it is almost embarrassing lol. I can’t help but imagine old men and women who talk about their daily bowel habits. I promise I’ll try to not make it a daily conversation, but it is part of living with chronic illness and it sucks if you have never experienced chronic digestive issues. Even if I do get an actual stomach bug or something like that, it seems that it takes much longer to get over it now that I have digestive issues anyhow.

One thing that sucked was that my husband went for a walk in the park without me because I was sick and he saw an owl! One of my favorite animals, and a rare one to sight in the daylight

MIA Therapist and Feeling Sick

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Today I was supposed to have therapy at 11am, but my therapist got confused and thought we had scheduled for 1pm, so I ended up waiting for a few minutes at the therapy office and then just going home. Usually something like that happening would really upset me, but today I actually took it pretty well. Maybe because I wasn’t feeling good physically anyhow, so the desire to go home and go back to bed was strong. I did get back to sleep, but my therapist calling me at 1pm to ask where I was woke me up again

Dollar Tree Puzzles: Minnie Mouse, Shimmer & Shine, Jojo Siwa

I don’t have a whole lot to say today, so thought I’d share a few more cute puzzles I’ve done recently

I’m Back on YouTube!

I took three months off YouTube to focus on my written blog here and just because I was feeling a bit burned out making videos. Now I’m going to focus on my toy and children’s book channel (Maranda’s Toys & Books) as far as video-making goes, so if you guys are into that kind of stuff and want to subscribe to my channel there, please do so!

Here is my “comeback” video: