One of the Worst Feelings

Hey all - I'm sorry I'm so terrible at updating things. I'm still trying to find the time to upload my videos from Connecticon and that happened nearly a month ago. I began a new job two months ago and I'm still trying to get used to it as well as balancing a personal life. It hasn't been easy.

I've had a really shitty day and I miss the hell out of writing so I thought I would pop on over here and vent my thoughts a little. Ya know, hopefully get back into the groove of writing again.

One of the worst feelings in the world is being alone and having everyone against you. Sure you can shake it off when it's coming from complete strangers, even coworkers or classmates. But it is so much harder when it is your family, the people who are always supposed to have your back and have your best interests at heart. What a joke.

I often feel as if I'm the only sane person in my family and the only one with actual sense. Typically I am the voice of reason and I think logically about situations. I also refuse to be controlled and manipulated, which is the root of much clashing. I am often told in a nasty and negative way that I'm just like my father simply because I refuse to blindly agree and go with every little thing the heads of my family try to force upon me. I am just like my father was, and I'm damn proud to be - he was generous, kind, strong, thoughtful, intelligent, loving and supportive. Everything that my family often is not with me.

I discovered today that a major decision involving me and pretty much my life was made without my knowledge or input. Rightfully so, I was angry and upset. I didn't bother to try to get the others to reason or see my side of things because they never do, and they don't care what I have to say. A family member pretty much flat out told me that what I want does not matter. Yet I would be expected to help out and fund this venture if it does eventually go as my family hopes. And goddess forbid I show anyone the same low to non-existent level of respect that they show me.

I feel like nothing I do is ever good enough, my family always has their hands out demanding more and more from me. I do one thing and they expect more. I took on a very consuming job that I really in the beginning did not want but had to take to shut everyone up and to help out with bills. Luckily, I enjoy my job so it didn't end all that badly. I gave up a lot of things in my life in order to work almost every day. I pay my share of bills in my household, yet I get treated like I pay nothing at all. I get treated like I should be working 24/7, waiting hand and foot on my mother and handing over every cent of my paychecks.

 No. No. No. The thing is - I have my own life I need to live. My purpose in life is not to please anyone or be anyone's servant or dogs. I don't want to become like my parents. I have big dreams and ambitions that I intend to achieve, but I can't if I'm constantly being held back and berated for trying to go after them. See why I am so angry and hurt? Some may call what I constantly have to deal with abusive.

I am thankful for my friends. For the last few months I have felt alone, some of my friends have been too busy for me. But I am lucky to have one friend that no matter what she's dealing with is always there for me. I consider my friends my family, and their positivity really helps to balance out the negativity from my flesh and blood.

Thanks for listening to my rambling rant and I apologize if I sound like an embarrassing teenager airing their dirty laundry. But I do feel a bit better now. Plus retail therapy sure didn't hurt.

To end on a positive note - I send love and peaceful vibes your way, whoever you may be reading this. I wish that I could stay up all night and catch up on my various projects so that I can post them and share them with you all, but alas I have to work tomorrow....and I'm dying to play some Fallout 3.

Xoxo

Heather Zombie

Asthma Awareness & My Story

Hi everyone! I know it's been a while since I've updated. This is going to be a serious post, but fear not I promise you will be getting a fun post tomorrow!

I wanted to bring some awareness to a disease that I struggle with and share my story. I know a lot of you on twitter see me bitch about my lungs from time to time, it's finally time to explain why.  Asthma is a common disease but most people don't really know what it is, or how much it sucks. You're probably wondering why I'm randomly bringing this topic up. What sparked this post was something that happened Thursday of last week. I had a bad asthma attack after pushing myself too hard in a work out. That was followed by another, smaller attack on Friday night. I'm still feeling the effects of it and trying to recover from it. 

So what is asthma? Asthma is a common chronic lung disease that millions of people have. There is no cure for it but there are ways to treat it. It can last just through childhood or for a few years or even for a person's entire lifetime. Unfortunately, I've been dealing with it for most of my life and probably always will.  When a person has asthma, their bronchial tubes (aka their airway) become inflamed, narrow and swell when they have an attack. Extra mucus is produced as well, which as you can imagine this all makes it hard to breathe.

Here is a comparison to show you what a normal bronchial tube looks like and what one affected by asthma looks like:

Here's another view so you can get a better idea:

Yeah, it sucks. 

There are certain triggers from allergens, air temperature and exertion that can set off an attack. It varies from person to person. The severity of it also varies. Some people get asthma so bad that they become hospitalized or even pass out. Others like my case are usually easily controlled.

So what is my asthma story? To start with, I have really shitty lungs. When I was about 6 years old I had a bad case of pneumonia. It was really sudden and surprising. It was the end of summer and I was on vacation in Vermont with my parents. Suddenly I became really sick and was vomiting like crazy, so they rushed me home to my doctor. From there I was hospitalized. I was then diagnosed with a lung disease called Emphysema. Emphysema is a type of lung disease classified as COPD (or Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease). It damages the alveoli (air sacs) in the lungs. Because of that, my body wasn't getting the oxygen it needed and it was difficult to breathe. My right lung also had a small hole in it that was leaking fluid so that had to be patched up in surgery along with a Lung Volume reduction surgery. The doctors pretty much scraped my lungs and removed wedges of damaged lung tissue.

Emphysema is most commonly caused by smoking. My parents were heavy smokers that smoked around me all the time as a kid. They continued to smoke around me despite doctors and surgeons warnings until my dad died when I was 18, and when my mom quit smoking when I was 21. 21 years of heavy secondhand smoke can wreak havoc on your lungs. So please if you smoke and have children or nieces or nephews do not smoke around them. You can cause serious and life long damage.

I honestly don't know a ton about emphysema. I recently started doing research because I was wondering if my illness as a child was still affecting me and my parents weren't too concerned about it after I recovered. No one even told me what it was, just that it made me really sick and I had to have lung surgery because of it. It turns out there is no cure for Emphysema and apparently I still have it and always will. But there are ways to treat it and live with it.

I should mention that typically people don't get Emphysema until they're in their 50s/60s, even in their 40s. It's very rare to be diagnosed with it before 25 let alone as a child. So I'm 22 with the lungs of an old lady. Yay me.

I have asthma as a result of the emphysema. My main triggers are cold air, being sick and major exertion. Winters are absolute hell for me, the cold air makes it so I can't breathe every time I leave the house. When I catch a cold it is usually 10 times worse because my asthma complicates it.

Growing up I was stuck using a Nebulizer, which is a machine that emits a vapor with medication that you breathe in. I had to have breathing treatments from it so often that we had to buy a machine. 

Yup, that's a variation of the machine. It sucks having to use one but they do help. 

I was less reliant on it as I grew older so my parents got rid of it. But now, every once in a while or when I have a bad cold or attack I have to go to my doctor's office for a treatment.

As a kid I also had to take Advair Diskus, which is a Fluctonase/Salmeterol inhaled powder along with another inhaler. It basically was an inhaled steroid to help my lungs. Now, I only use my Proair HFA Albuterol Sulfate rescue inhaler when I feel symptoms coming on or when they persist.

I have never had an asthma attack bad enough to hospitalize me but I nearly have. When the purple wedding happened on Game of Thrones (I'll be nice and not spoil it for anyone), I became so excited that I had an asthma attack. It was the worst one of my life. I honestly probably should have gone to the hospital but I turned out alright! I coughed like crazy and could barely breathe for a week. I got few hours of sleep each night because it was impossible for me to lie down and still be able to breathe. I would wake up in the middle of the night nearly chocking on coughs. Yeah, that was a real blast.

It typically takes me between a few days to a week to recover from an attack. It depends on the severity of the attack and if I have any aftershocks. An aftershock is what I call a smaller asthma attack as a result of the bigger one. When I have an asthma attack, I have a very hard time breathing and cough like crazy. My chest becomes tight and my lungs feel irritated. It has gotten to the point of me feeling faint before but I've never fainted from one. Sometimes they give me dizzy spells, but a lot of that also has to due with the exhaustion I get as a result of asthma. I usually keep my inhaler in close proximity at all times just in case.

After an attack, during what I call the recovery period I continue to feel the effects from it for at least a few days. My chest will still feel tight and I will have issues breathing sometimes. I'll be wheezy and coughing. Asthma attacks always leave me feeling tired and weak. If I exert myself physically in any way I become in danger of having another attack. Sometimes it is difficult to sleep because it'll be harder to sleep lying down. I also will have mucusy lungs and end up coughing a lot of that up ( I know, it's totally gross). Then there's the fun lung/chest/stomach muscle/back ache I sometimes end up with if I'm coughing really hard or often and from also breathing in more deeply to prevent coughing. Honestly it leaves me feeling pretty horrible. To help speed up the recovery, I try to rest a lot and not do much of anything as well as drink lots of water and use my inhaler.

For the past few years I have felt like my asthma attacks have worsened and become more frequent. But for now, they're controlled fairly easily.

Anyway I hope that this post educated everyone on the seriousness of asthma. If you have a loved one with this disease I feel it's important to educate yourself so you can help them if needed. It also helps to be understanding of it. I know my family doesn't always understand and insists that there is nothing wrong with me when I'm coughing and feeling like shit. If you suspect you could have asthma, get tested. If you have asthma, always keep a form of treatment nearby. Don't be stupid.

To end this on a good note, this video is my new favorite thing xD. [Here's a link in case you can't see the embedded video www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbdvogFyZZM ]Keep an eye out for tomorrow's much more fun post!

Xoxo

Stay Creepy <3 

Anxiety

Hi everyone! Today I am going to talk about my struggle with anxiety. It is no secret that I do have it, but I don't really talk too much in detail about it. I'm usually a pretty secretive person that keeps things to themselves and I normally try to keep it from seeming like I'm having any sort of problem. I don't like people worrying about me or really knowing too much. When I wrote this post earlier this afternoon, I was having problems with my anxiety. I'm not writing this to complain or anything, I just decided to write something to try to calm myself down and to try to help anyone struggling. I hope that my experience can help someone feel not so alone and maybe educate some others. Also before you continue you, I have added a feature where you can subscribe and get an email whenever I post something. Please subscribe if you enjoy this blog ^__^! It makes me so happy to see that people care what I have to see and that they actually enjoy my posts. So thank you to all of my awesome readers, you guys are awesome. So without further ado, here is my post:


Anxiety sucks. I am lucky enough to not deal with constant anxiety or have it at the level where I need medication to control it (I have been tested). My doctor says it is not bad enough to be considered clinical. But sometimes I do have problems, more often in the past 6 months or so than ever before.

It sucks having problems in public. Due to the fact that I look much younger than my age, I get treated like a child. Afterwards I just feel stupid and embarrassed. I had a particularly embarrassing  panic attack when I was having my first wisdom teeth surgery. I was spoken to and treated like a little girl afraid of needles. Also acted like I was stupid for getting so worked up and scared. They kept asking if I needed anyone and insisted on bringing in the person that was my ride (the most unhelpful person ever). People treat you like you're crazy. Hell, my own family treats me like I'm crazy every single time I have a panic attack or when I make the mistake of telling them that I couldn't sleep because of it. I have even overheard certain people talking about me, about the subject insisting something is wrong with me. If you have anxiety: you're not crazy. If you have a loved one that suffers from anxiety do not treat them like they are crazy. Give them comfort and try to help. If you yell at them to calm down (this is the shit I often have to deal with) it will only make it worse.


My anxiety usually kicks in when I get very stressed or something causes me to panic, I will then have panic attacks. It is always triggered by something, I don't have my attacks without reason. They aren't often enough to be worrisome or a gigantic issue. Most of the time, I am okay. As I am writing this, I am fighting one off. But also as I am writing and keeping my mind busy I am calming down. I have been having a significant amount of anxiety since Friday night, it did subside until an hour or so ago [Note: at time of writing, I write my posts on my phone ahead of posting] when something else made me very anxious, which then turned to me panicking a bit.

Sometimes it can be over something small, others big. Everyone's symptoms vary, and even do with the magnitude of the stress. My typical symptoms start with my heart beat becoming rapid, accompanied by breathing becoming a little difficult, sweaty palms and of course an overwhelming amount of panic and loss of control.

The worst panic attack I have ever had was strangely not due to losing my dad. For those that don't know, I lost my dad to cancer in 2012. I will most likely do a post discussing it eventually. The worst panic attack I have ever had lasted on and off for about 2 days. I count it as a whole one because literally I would be fine for a few minutes and talked myself down but then the panic would start again.

It started at night around the time I was going to go to bed, some time last year. I had found a strange lump/bump on my body in a place that scared me to death. Until I was able to get it checked out, I was convinced it was a tumor or something. Luckily it was absolutely nothing alarming but at the time I was terrified. Could anyone truly blame me? Anyone that has lost a loved one to cancer would feel that nervous at anything even remotely alarming towards it. I literally felt like I was going to die that night, due to the severity of my anxiety. My heart would not stop racing even after a few hours, I could hardly breathe. I was shaking uncontrollably which brought along the feeling of being cold. I also could not stop crying. When I have a bad attack, the shaking comes and it sucks, it can be to the point where I can't stand still and have to stay sitting. I started feeling like I was going to throw up and/or pass out. I slept maybe two hours that night with the symptoms carrying on and off through the next day until I knew there was no need to panic anymore. Ones like this are very rare for me. If you have never experienced anything like that, you are very lucky because it is not a fun feeling.

I started having anxiety, which I didn't even remember until recently when I was a little kid. There was an incident that for me was pretty traumatic where I fell down 2 flights of stairs and the people I was with didn't do anything to help me. I was hurt and in a lot of pain but they refused to take me to a hospital and didn't even tell my parents. That caused horrible anxiety to the point where I constantly panicked and was afraid of everything. That luckily went away! I honestly think I repressed the entire thing for a while.  But when my dad died, my anxiety problems (though way less severe) returned and I've been having issues ever since.

What really surprised me to discover when I started having problems again was the aftermath of attacks. That is something you don't hear about a lot. It differs from person to person. For me, I just feel mentally and physically drained, achy and very tired.  Right now, I'm exhausted and a bit shaky [at time of writing]. It for me will last a day to a week depending on the severity.

There are tons of ways you can calm down from an attack or try to keep one away. I usually will listen to music and keep my mind busy. Writing for this blog has been helping me a lot. There is an app I have on my ipod called Breathe2Relax that is a life saver. It helps you to breathe deeply and relax. It also has relaxing images and music. Rain Free is another app, it contains rain sounds. You can control how long you want it to play and there is a huge variety of sounds. It helps me sleep when I can't for whatever reason and it's very relaxing.

This is a screen shot of what both apps look like, from my ipod touch.

 You can pick up a hobby such as knitting or crocheting, something to keep your hands and mind busy. I like to draw or paint. It can be very therapeutic. I find that really good books (fictional) can help you to escape and relax. I spent all day yesterday reading Kakashi (my favorite anime character, I'm a major fangirl for him. He's from Naruto) fanfiction to calm my nerves. Even keep a favorite book accessible that you can turn to for comfort, I normally will turn to the Harry Potter books.

I often will try to talk myself down as well, it eventually helps. I will ask myself why I am panicking? Why should I be so nervous/stressed over this. I will tell myself that it is okay that it will pass and really I can't change the situation. My favorite thing to do is pampering. I will take a nice long shower while listening to music. I use my favorite soaps and lotions. Use my favorite shampoo, do a deep conditioning of my hair. Do a face mask and apply my best skincare products. Put on one of my favorite perfumes/body sprays. Paint my nails and put on my bathrobe and comfiest PJs. It's all about using the things that comfort you.


This is one of the more personal topics I will discuss. I am a person that tends to not put things all out there so it took a lot for me to be able to post this and be so open. It actually made me sort of nervous to post this, thinking people may night like it. I hope that some of you at least do or maybe can relate.

Thank you for reading! As I stated in the beginning, my intentions behind this post were to educate and help others suffering from anxiety. I hope that my personal story can help someone, remember you're not alone!!

Xoxo
Moon prism power makeup!