National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: CALL

1-800-273-8255

1-800-273-TALK

A handful of years ago I was in a critical place.

I was 39 years old, and safe to say things hadn't turned out the way quite the way I'd planned. I hadn't been able to have children. I'd lost my first and only house to foreclosure. My then-husband had been fired the year before for sexual harassment. On top of that, he'd been lying and cheating for at least a year, all piggybacked by a (his) porn addiction that blew up a good desktop. I'd become isolated from old friends and family. I was humiliated.

Mental and physical health problems had conspired until I was a hideous mill churning out weakness. I watched my friends from college buy beautiful houses, gather more degrees, get higher paying, increasingly impressive jobs and have more beautiful children.

I felt worthless.

My life circumstances had eroded my dignity so badly I barely existed anyhow. My career had gone kerplunk. I was in relentless physical and emotional pain.

I was a clown-car of insults, worries, pain, and problems.

The only image I can offer is this:

After so many years of hard work, I held nothing in my hands but a square of antique lace. No matter how I tried to keep it, no matter how I gripped it, it was disappearing thread by thread.

I watched it disintegrate until it disappeared. Everything felt weightless in my hands.


In terms of a moving-on strategy, I had none.  Money, car, credit, a place to live? Nah. Why breach to the surface after a ten year marriage with anything to show for it?

Oh, and there's that self-respect thing.  That was all gone too.


I was just a shred of the lace myself. I had no hope.


It was all so unfair, I thought. I had spent a lifetime kicking through endless problems like a bunch of dried-out leaves; I felt I had clearing paths that just got cluttered again.


Before I knew it, I was in an unfamiliar state, surrounded by unfamiliar people. I was more alone than ever.

I had no one to listen to me.

I was actively suicidal. No one knew how severely fucked up I was. I tried to keep a good face on, but I knew I couldn't.

I called these guys.  They were awesome.

You will not be judged. Your particular story will be valued.



These are people who will hear you, not just listen.

They also referred me to a great counselor in my area.

Please call.

Please.

The world needs you. You are here for a reason. Please just hand on long enough to start finding what that is.


Get help --- YOU CAN FEEL BETTER!


If you need more info, email me at hinsleyspsyched@gmail.com.






24/7 Suicide Prevention Hotline: Make the Call



"No matter what problems you are dealing with, we want to help you find a reason to keep living. By calling 1-800-273-TALK (8255) you’ll be connected to a skilled, trained counselor at a crisis center in your area, anytime 24/7."


Answers to Your Questions About the Lifeline

Just a Bunch of Desperados (or Dumping a Dude in a Pirate Vest)

I think every single one of us relates to Desperado in one way or another. With the recent loss of Glenn Frey, the song is certainly worth a revisit. I like the version posted above.

Gender, age, status are of no consequence in the face of such gentle lyrics. Like all great songs, Desperado's appeal is timeless; it's just as relevant to the public and private heart today -- and perhaps even more so -- than back in 1973, the year of its release.

At each stage of life we're "not getting any younger," but the older we get, the more painful it is to search our personal inventories. Our actions, our mistakes haunt us, and our souls keep us restless. If we try and look away, we grow emotionally frail. We feel increasingly hollow.  We grow bitter.

Over the past few years, I've learned that some pain is never meant to go away. To be human means that we don't recover from a major loss like it's a stomach bug. It's not possible to walk away without wounds. And rather than feel the pain, we often jump into the next relationship, usually with our eyes closed. We add nothing to our toolbox before we meet the next tool.


I've wasted a lot of time over the past 30 years looking for someone to think I'm awesome when awesome would be the last word I'd use to describe myself. I forewent personal growth for the personal ads and wound up causing myself a ridiculous amount of heartbreak. During a particularly fragile period in my mid-20s, instead of going to ...I don't know...a meditation group...swimming....therapy, I met a guy "Randy" who wore pirate vests, and actually dated him for a couple of weeks. It didn't last long due to the vests distance. Also, as far as I could tell, Randy had an anger problem. Recently, I Googled him out of curiosity and found that he had been arrested for setting fire to his fiance's wedding dress. When the cops asked for his ID, he came back out toting a rifle. Upon arresting him, the other cop went into his apartment and found guns and ammo everywhere. Clearly, Randy didn't go swimming either.


It should come as no surprise, then, when our relationships crumble, we can't get out of bed. We're still hungry. We don't care for ourselves any more than we had before. Unless we take a look at ourselves and admit we've got some work to do (and stop focusing on every else's behavior), we will find ourselves with fresh wounds when we hadn't even put Neosporin on the one before.

Same shit, different day and different person. Same box of Ding Dongs, different Circle K.


When we choose denial, we also choose to keep repeating the same crappy experiences. How can we not loose hope? How can we not feel depressed? At this point, we grab a bottle to excess. We cut ourselves. We abuse others due to our frustration. We stay involved in abusive relationships. We shirk our individuality and  attach ourselves to an ideology  or idea, and let it consume our individuality. We desperately want to belong to someone or something. How many rejections can we take?

Anyhow, I'm so tired, but I wanted to share some thoughts. Nothing hurts worse than not liking yourself. Just like the IRS, you will follow you everywhere.



(Interestingly enough, Don Henley regrets his vocal performance on Desperado. He isn't happy with his performance, which shows his own battle with "never enoughness." Perhaps his own vulnerability adds to the song's particular longings.)

Moving When You're a Hot Mess of Disorganization, Asthma & Depression

Everything feels impossible to understand these days -- from how a reality TV star Donald Trump has ascended this far in the GOP polls, to how the term "affluenza" has become part of our vernacular...

What I do understand is that I am moving at the end of the month and I am terrified.

I'm pretty stumped about how I'm going to execute the move. For anyone who has issues with disorganization (something that is characteristic of  people with mood disorders/depression/chronic illness), a move is exceptionally terrifying.

A hot mess of an apartment becomes an even a bigger hot mess while in transit and upon arrival it expands like a sea monkey.


I dread all of it. If you're broke as a joke, the fear quadruples because you feel so vulnerable.

 If you have an animal(s), you dread if for them. I have one 17 pound orange tabby cat named He Who Will Not Be Named. This time, I have had him for 13 years. Altogether, we have spent three lifetimes together, soaring hand and paw through ice-covered sparkly tunnels while eating powdered donuts.

He has never had a urinary or fecal oops -- unless we move. As soon as the poor guy is loaded in the car he pees everywhere. Yes, I bring towels, but it's a pain in the ass because I then have to pull over to clean the the carrier, and of course his paws and belly are all pee-soaked, and he's anxious and wide-eyed and desperate to escape. Of course, he has no idea that escaping the warm jalopy would be a poor choice when it's 8 degrees outside and coyotes like cats.

Once his bladder empties, the horrible howling echos through the car. He sounds like a cat who is in her first heat, and happens to still live right up the road from her perverted father and brother, both who like her, like her. I don't know if the familial bond made the lovemaking worse for this particular female cat (this story is obviously from personal experience), but seeing the coitus certainly screwed with my head for a few days. Slipping on an icy driveway wearing a nightgown and slippers, I attempted a fierce tug of war, but learned that cat penis is a mighty opponent.

So, she was knocked up and on the run. I felt like shit about the whole escapade, so took her home and named her Bertha. This story has a great ending. Bertha had two adorable kittens in a box in my living room. They both have heads and legs. I wasn't sure if the kittens would be properly assembled, but cuteness transcended incest and wah lah...two adorable babies.

All three have good homes and none are sluts.

So, I'm procrastinating about the move, which stems from fear, which makes everything worse.

Currently, my life is as scary as one of those dungeons where witches were kept during the Salem Witch Trials, and are now used as museums and scary, expensive haunted venues. This is also from personal experience. It was Halloween. I have no idea how I ended up in a freaking witch museum by myself. I froze and cried. They had to turn on the emergency lights (which ruined things for everyone), then backed me up like a bus  - beeeep, beeeep, beeeep.

Everyone behind me was pissed or laughing. I mean, little kids were skipping through the thing like it was Disney's Clubhouse and I was pissing myself.

I am similarly anxious about this move. I'm really scared and stumped, which just edges out being a scared stump.

IN ADDITION, I've had lifelong cold-induced asthma and am not supposed to do anything in sub-30 degree weather but walk from warm building to warm building with a scarf wrapped around my mouth to keep my respiratory system all moist (I HATE THAT WORD!). Since steroid and rescue inhalers don't help enough to keep me from dying in 3 minutes or less, I have to now buy a 100.00 portable nebulizer so I'm not found face down in yellow snow, which would just be my luck.

Even better, I'll be face first in a pile of snow and no one will notice except for the neighbor's dog who will trot over and lift his leg over my head.

This all just sucks and I'm freaking myself out writing this, so me and my frog pjs will go collapse in a ball of horror.