Healing With Bunnie

Just a young person navigating mental illness. I am in no way an expert…simply just another person going through it and doing their best to heal.

[healing-with-bunnie]

Staying consistent.

I’ve been working with my therapist lately. It seems like a lot of my struggles are thanks to some undiagnosed ADHD!

Unfortunately the biggest bane of my existence is executive dysfunction. (That and complete lack of energy). So staying consistent with things, even the most basic of self care stuff can be pretty hard for me. Even if it’s something I really want to do.

Dedicating this year to being better. Like I do every year. Something I’ve always wanted to do was bullet journal, so I’ve been doing my best to keep up with it.

I’m kind of an all or nothing kind of person, so if I fail to meet my own expectations I tend to get disappointed and give up entirely.

But since I’ve been trying to use my journal regularly I feel like I’m doing a better job with my memory. Because most of the time when a day is over I just let it be over and gone and it’s done forever. Now every couple of days I sit and try to recall things from the days I missed.

Instead of giving up entirely.

It’s not much. But it’s a win in my book at least.

[healing-with-bunnie]

It was recently my sisters birthday.

We don’t talk anymore because she’s incredibly close with our mother. Who put me through awful horrible things, and honestly did the same to my sister.

The difference between us though is she has no one else, and I often feel so guilty I’m not there for her. But I tried so hard growing up and she was only ever mean to me.

Today was my sisters birthday.

But I no longer have a sister at all.

[healing-with-bunnie]

Posting this here to hold myself accountable.

I am personally someone who does really well with workbooks, and worksheets and such for mental health improvement.

I am someone who does really well with journaling.

I am someone who does well with self help books.

I have no therapy for a couple weeks and my therapist wants me to keep up with these things.

[healing-with-bunnie]

Honestly if you told me 4 years ago I’d be where I am now I’d probably happy cry. I wouldn’t believe how far I’ve come in life, and that in the end everything really did turn out for the best.

If you’re reading this I hope healing finds you too stranger. I really didn’t believe it was possible, now I look back and go I can’t believe I made it through.

Xoxo Bunnie

[healing-with-bunnie]

Family and the Holidays

It's officially November. A pretty dreaded time for those of us who have some kind family wounds. It doesn't matter if your family wounds are bone deep or skin deep, this is the worst time of year.

Personally, I have made the decision to be an orphan by choice. It was not an easy or fully wanted decision but one I have dreamed of since I was a child.

I have completely cut off my mother and my mother's side of the family. Something I always said I'd do when my Great aunt died. This year marks the second year since her passing.

My father's side of the family is also split into two, my grandfather's side who I don't know all that well and haven't seen since I was a younger teen. Then there's my grandmother's 'side' which is really not all that much extended family.

Due to issues with both of my parents I lost contact with them for a few years as well and mostly just had my grandmother.

This year my grandmother is finally going on the road trip she has always dreamed of across the country.

This would leave me without any of my own family to spend holidays with for the third year in a row. Sure my boyfriend's family is wonderful, and family is what you make of it but that doesn't always heal the wounds that come from being without those that you grew up being told were your family.

However I actually reconnected with my dad's cousin who I spent quite a bit of time with as a kid as he was close with my dad until the 'incident' two years ago that got my father cut off from the rest of the family.

My dad's cousin who has taken on kind of more or less an uncle role in my life has a son who is only a month younger than my own. and since neither of them have any other young child family members we have been getting them together every other week on my off weekends.

This year will be the first year I've done holidays with my own family since 2019. Due to covid, my mother's shenanigans, and my father's 'incident'. There are so many mixed feelings that come along with this.

But mostly, I'm exited to be with family. Family that doesn't make me feel horrible about myself, family that I actually enjoy being around. Family.

Of course I won't be forgetting those who have made themselves family during my lifetime. My best friend of ten years and her mother come to mind as well when I think of family that I've built along the way. I wouldn't be where I am now if it weren't her letting me stay at her home until I got back on my feet. She's really more of a sister than a friend.

Then of course there's my boyfriend's family. I've known them for a little over half a decade. They watched me grow from my early teen years, into a young mother, into a young woman. While my relationship with my boyfriend hasn't always been perfect we're doing better than ever and I am beyond grateful for him.

There is also my son. Who is always giving me chances to break generational trauma and curses. Being a mom so young has been incredibly challenging, one of the hardest battles I've ever had to face. But I am beyond thankful for that as well.

Even with everything that is going well for me, there are still so many other things I will be mourning this holiday season. The death of my auntie, who was the one person in my family I had felt closest to, she was my safe place. Losing her has been beyond hard to deal with. Somedays the grief hits me like a train, but I manage most days.

Of course there are my parents as well, I will be mourning them as I always do. But for the most part this season will probably be spent processing with my therapist all of the reasons why I stopped having relationships with them in the first place.

I don’t doubt there will be lots of hard feelings and crying involved with this holiday season. As there always are.

Xoxo Bunnie

Be kind to yourselves this season and always friends. Hoping you find some light during this dark period. I love you. I’m proud of you. Keep going.

[healing-with-bunnie]

To keep going

On our hardest days sometimes there's only one thing that can get/keep us going. Most days it's hard to know what it is specifically that keeps us going.

Could be goals, or reasons for living, or small moments or anything really. I find when I'm doing my best I have endless reasons to keep going, endless things that bring me joy, goals I just want to meet.

Other days it's hard even finding a reason to open my eyes and get out of bed.

Today was one of the latter days, fortunately though before my rough patch started this time around I was doing really good and have some scheduled and routine plans.

Every part of me wanted to call and cancel, to just go back to bed and stay there. I still somehow managed to drag myself out and have a pretty good time.

Most days I can find some kind of reason. Be that obligations, like work and family, or routine plans with friends or family. Or honestly some days I even start my hard days with baby steps.

Instead of tackling everything that requires my attention. I take care of me. I shower, take a long shower where I don't leave anything out. Full hair care routine, full skincare routine all of it.

Sometimes when you feel like you've come to a full stop you need a tiny bit of motion to get yourself rolling. Change your clothes, or at the very least your underwear. Put on deodorant and perfume/cologne. Brush your teeth, brush your hair. It's the little things that help.

After all, to get up a hill you need to be at running speed. The safest and best way to get running is to stretch, then walk, then you can run. Think of the tiny tasks as the stretch before the run right?

If you're having a hard time getting changed I've found that bringing clothes to the bathroom with me helps. If I've got to go pee or something changing out of my old clothes while I've already got my pants off is usually a good start.

Thanks for coming to another nonsensical ramble from me, hopefully it can help you. If not the advice just the fact that you're not alone. I love you, I believe in you. We'll get there

xoxo Bunnie

[healing-with-bunnie]

Backslides VS Progress

As I’m sure we’ve all heard somewhere at some time before, progress isn’t exactly linear. Though Honestly it can be kind of hard when sometimes regression and mistakes are part of healing and moving forward to begin with.

I really cant attest for everyone, over the last two months I’ve been struggling with something I’d really thought I’d moved past. Call it an old habit, or really honestly just one of my oldest vices. I’d gone about 18 months before slipping up again, which has been incredibly disheartening. Nothing can be more upsetting than reacting to things in a way you would’ve before you began your whole journey.

I can’t say that I’ve officially kicked this habit for good, quite honestly it seems as though it’s rearing it’s ugly head for me yet again. At the very least it seems that way though, I know that there’s hope and I’m really not a lost cause. Because since I’ve started struggling with this I’ve found so many different coping mechanisms as well as reprogramming my mind through therapy.

But I’m not going to say it’s easy either. I am tired, and overwhelmed. For me specifically reaching out to others can be hard, I’d prefer to not let loved ones in on what I’m dealing with. I’d very much so like to keep everything I’m dealing with to myself. That doesn’t help either.

But as we go into this holiday season I really just want to remind everyone, be kind to yourself. Be kind to others. Hug the people you love, tell them you love them. You never know if they really need to hear it.

And just because you slip up, just because you make a little mistake that doesn’t mean it’s over. I believe in you, I love you. I’m sorry this one was just a little more venty than helpful. It’s a hard time of year for me. I’m struggling a bit.

[healing-with-bunnie]

Goals and dreams and such things

I think regardless of how hopeless you feel, or checked out of life or whatever it is. There are still things you dream of.

For me even in my darkest of days, when I felt as though I had nothing to look forward to. Nothing to dream about. I clung onto my writing.

I often tell people I have always dreamed of being an author, but the truth of the matter is I have always coped by creating stories and worlds in my head.

The first world I remember creating was some bright colorful miss match of animals heavily inspired by Lisa frank, and those fairy chapter books.

It’s not really the writing that I dreamed about when I was a kid but it was the worlds I would write. I read lots of books, and lots of them inspired one story or another in my head.

Then I found the world of roleplay and fan fictions, as a genuinely innocent hobby in middle school. I loved nothing more than the friend groups I made and the role plays I joined. It brought me so much light in an otherwise dark life.

But then the spaces I used were closed and I would lose touch with all of them. The communities I’d built and put my whole heart and soul into were just gone one day.

I used these online communities to cope with a lack of community in real life. As a child who moved from school to school and had a strained at best relationship with my family. Losing these communities was rough for me.

But I haven’t forgotten them really, as I don’t really talk to anyone anymore. Or participate in the things that brought so much light into my life, but I’m still writing to this day.

I’m taking those roleplays and fan fictions and adapting them into real books on their own. I may not have the same feeling from the connection I used to have through these stories. But they still live on within me.

I tell people my stories are my life’s work because I don’t know how else to explain it. As a child I surrounded myself with these worlds to escape the one I lived in, as a teen I joined communities where I could escape into the same worlds as others, but now in adulthood I’ve retreated fully into my notebooks again.

I have been writing for a very long time. It’s hard to tell if I genuinely want to be an author or if I just find comfort in the characters and worlds I can create with my writing.

But regardless this month I’ve been making immense progress on my first official novel. Progress on something I’ve been doing forever, feels kind of counterintuitive if you think about it really. But hey one day I’ll have physical novels and tangible evidence of my life spent pencil to paper. And I hope that maybe someday these worlds I create will help someone else, bring comfort to a stranger who also needs a magical world to get lost in.

I’m not sure what the point of tonight’s post was. I’m not sure what the point of this blog is. But hey, my dream is to be an author. I am writing. No matter how bad things have gotten for me I have never genuinely given up writing. It’s nice to have that.

[healing-with-bunnie]

Another horrible, yet wonderful year

It's December again, and I find myself reflecting on where I was at in January. it has been another incredibly complicated year with ups and downs just like the rest.

Exactly a year ago at the beginning of last December, I got out of the hospital again, It's seemingly routine for me for most holiday seasons to need a trip to the mental hospital. A few days after getting out of the hospital it was clear that moving in with my best friend and her partner was the best option for me. Living alone had been incredibly detrimental to my mental health.

Living with my best friend and being in a loving home environment for the first time in my life was quite literally life-changing to me. And I quit my job in fast food management as that was incredibly demanding in ways that were just simply too draining for me. in between that job and my next, I attended an IOP program (intensive outpatient program) essentially equating to 24 hours a week of therapy. which was very hard but in my time there I had made a new friend, and stabilized myself quite a bit. graduating IOP is one of my biggest accomplishments this year.

This year really challenged family dynamics, as due to quite a few different things I was forced to see both of my parents in a horrible new light, which has been incredibly depressing and freeing at the same time. As all i really ever wanted was to feel loved by a family.

While my own family was quite the sore subject, I got closer with my best friend, and her mother who have both been there for me for so long now, it's really been a transition from blood family to found family this year.

then by the beginning of spring, all hell broke loose, as if the ice and snow melting seemingly released some kind of pandora's box on me. Most of spring and summer was kind of a blur at this point.

As I had what I consider to be, the absolute worst month of my life, April 7th my great aunt died, a woman who had been a safe place for me for as long as I can remember. The only family member by whom I felt loved unconditionally, her home had been my safe place. somewhere nothing bad could ever happen. When life was too overwhelming I would escape to her house. Where she would let me eat whatever I wanted, and we would watch whatever I wanted and just talk. I was closer to her than I ever was to either of my parents. Losing her was equal parts devastating and also a relief.

She had been sick most of her life, and the last 3 years of her life were horrible. As awful as it sounds I wished she had died sooner, she was single-handedly the greatest woman I had ever met. She had been a nurse for most of her life, with a very strong attitude and sense of humor. Her birthday was November 11th, and after 2000 she would always use her birthday to remember those who had died in the tragedy. She was truly a selfless woman, being the safe haven for the children in my family who had less-than-stellar parents.

Her funeral was about a week or two later, the second funeral I had ever attended. It was so beautiful and perfect and she would have loved every single detail of it. We spent just as much time laughing as we did crying as she would have wanted. I got the honor of being the last person to speak at her funeral, with a letter I had written to her the day after she died. and I also got plenty of time alone with her urn as people were downstairs.

I got dumped by my boyfriend of 7 or 8 months a day or two later, and it's pretty safe to say I felt as though my life was a complete wreck. And I had just started my new job, and was constantly emotional, crying at the drop of a hat over everything. an overnight shift I had to cover at a hotel for about a month.

A little over a week into that job, my son almost died, and I felt as though I could never catch a break. but I continually used my overnight shift with all of that time alone to myself to journal, and just sit with myself and all the stuff I had just faced.

I'm no stranger to adversity or hardship though, and I just kept trucking through. It seems that the turning point of this year would be my 20th birthday, my son's father and I always made a point to see each other once a year. And I would text him pretty regularly, especially when my relationships would begin to fail and I would find myself single.

Admittedly, I am oblivious, and although my love for him never truly went away even though it had been 4 years since we had ended our relationship I never picked up on the fact that the feeling was entirely mutual.

So when a nasty storm had ruined my plans for my birthday, he drove two hours in torrential downpours to pick me up. two hours back to his mother's in which I would not stop talking the whole time. I wont go into detail of what happened when we got to his home, but I will say this when he kissed me every feeling I thought I had been able to get over finally came flooding back to me.

That kiss felt like it was the most right kiss in my entire life, like every other time anyone else had ever kissed me it always felt wrong and uncomfortable. and at one point he looked into my eyes and said that they were still so beautiful. I was still fighting my real feelings so I punched him in the chest and called him bro.

That afternoon changed the course of my life, as I was only supposed to be living with my best friend until October. though it was only I was struggling to find a place for myself one that I could bring my son to. (I would like to note that I am leaving out some other important details of what happened this year as that is a story for another day)

The next day my son's father started his apprenticeship, as he was finally home from all of his navy training. we would continue to see each other in secret, and talk non-stop. I finally broke down and explained some things to him about my life that I had been keeping secret from everyone. and He promised he would help me.

we officially started dating almost two weeks later at the beginning of August, and by the end of the month he had found an apartment for us then by October he and I began to set in motion something to fix those background details. Which again is a story for another day when I am actually able to tell it.

But as it stands now, here in December, looking back on the crazy rollercoaster that was my 2023, I am thankful, I started this year feeling completely defeated and alone but through the love and patience of my best friend and her partner, I was able to pull myself out of that dark spot enough to finally begin working on myself and growing. I was able to heal and grow enough to impress my son's father, show him how much I had truly changed since we broke up in 2019, and rekindle our relationship. Currently, our relationship is better than it has ever been.

And I am more hopeful than ever, that finally after 20 years I will be able to get free of the blood that has poisoned me for all of my life and build bonds that will free me.

While I know life won't be easy, finally for the first time in my life I know I will never face anything as hard as I have in the past. I will face more unexpected challenges, but now I have the strength to pull myself up and support that will catch me if I fall.

[healing-with-bunnie]

Life, Love, and Disabilities

Ever since I was younger I have felt like this world wasn't made for me. I recently had to quit my job, it was tearing me apart from the inside and now I'm thinking about applying for disability because I feel the same way about work that I've always felt about school.

It's not that I don't want to work, I want more than anything in this world to work and be a normal functioning human being. Unfortunately, if I do go on disability it'll mean that my lifelong dream of getting married and having a nice happy little family might have to be something I put behind me.

After all, you can't keep disability if you're married, or even if you're in a long-term committed relationship. So now I sit here, my heart heavy with trying to decide if I should give up my dreams of having a family - or if I should keep pushing myself to my breaking point...

Hopefully another blog post soon with some research on how to make money if you're unable to go on disability for any reason, work-from-home type jobs. But for now, I'm sitting here in my fog, trying so hard to keep myself together.

[healing-with-bunnie]

Work and Mental Illness

Being mentally ill and working is a really hard combination. Especially if you work in a place that is not accommodating (let's be honest that's probably every job you've ever had).

I think the worst part is that I have shown I am capable, and it's fully possible for me to do my job, it just takes a massive number on my psyche.

I work for Mcdonald's, which is like the #1 worst place to work when you struggle with so many different things. I've made my way up to management, had to step down, been institutionalized twice, and had to call out so many times because some days the thought of working makes me cry for an entire day.

And of course, all of it comes in cycles, that's usually how it is with things like BPD (though that's not the only thing that makes working hard for me), where for a few months I'll be doing great, I love my job and have no issues, then I start struggling a little bit which eventually turns into another hospital or crisis unit stay.

Autism is another big unhelpful thing when it comes to work, especially in places like McDonald's. Between all the god-awful beeping, the millions of missed social cues in the day, and sometimes I just straight up don't understand what's being said to me unless people say it the "way they're supposed to"

That's all I've got to say on it for now.

[healing-with-bunnie]

Mental illness and future building

I never dreamed of living past 18.

Here I am gonna be 20 in about 6 months, planning a future with a boyfriend I never dreamed I'd be able to get. Planning to raise the child I already have and more (I know I know having kids when you're mentally ill isn't a good idea but we'll talk about that another time), as well as talking about all the pets I'll get because my dreams of fostering children died with getting diagnosed.

Don't get me wrong, yes I had dreams as a child but they usually got discarded very quickly. Dreams of owning a no-kill shelter for cats? I can't handle blood or sick animals. Same for my dreams of being a vet. Dreams of being an artist? Crushed by family members insisting that I choose more realistic dreams. The same goes for my dreams of being an author (Although I still try to fight for that one).

Most dreams have died in one way or another due to being mentally ill. I really just never dreamed of making it past 18, and now I'm 2 years past that with no idea how to be an adult or what to do with my life. The only reassuring advice I've gotten from parental figures in my life has always been, "I'm X age and I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up." or "You don't have to just be one thing your whole life."

I guess because I always thought I wasn't going to be very old when I left this world I thought I'd only get one chance to do one thing.

So how do I decide to move forward?

The same exact way that I made it through my yearly days, with lots and lots of hope.

[healing-with-bunnie]

An introduction

Hi I'm bunnie, I'm 19 years old. Genderfluid, and pansexual.

I've been diagnosed with, PTSD, anxiety, depression, autism, an "unspecified mood disorder", and of course the big kicker of borderline personality disorder.

Despite everything I'm still hopeful though, that I can heal, and one day be able to live a relatively normal life and pursue my dreams. Illnesses be damned.

So welcome to my blog,