Sammy Gets Happy

A Cynic’s Guide to Mindfulness

(and being less of a miserable prick)

Content Warning: All posts contain frequent use of profanity, strong language and adult themes.

  • On Wednesdays, we don’t eat – the surprising benefits of fasting

    This might be the most controversial topic I get into on here (although I do like the word cunt, and that seems to do the trick too), so here we go!  Onto the greatest of all time hack for mental health to ever enter my life.  

    This is where mindfulness entered the fray and my anger really subsided.  This is where I learned that my anxiety could be rooted in more than just past trauma, but in my day to day choices.  This is where I learned I am so much stronger than I previously thought (and I already thought I was pretty damn strong).

    This is where I learned about extended fasting and its positive effects on the brain.  

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  • Dead little brother, dying father, anxieties for the future

    I had gotten to a place of being okay again.  I was in therapy and finally able to put down the bottle in the evenings.  I had fitness, antidepressants and even the worlds shittiest therapy cat on my side.  I would still have anxiety attacks from time to time and anything related to my brother made me ugly cry, but I could give life a passing grade.  

    That’s when I got a call from my dad at work.

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  • Get a therapy cat they said, it will be fun they said – How a fluffy orange menace nearly destroyed a marriage

    Grief is a funny thing.  I acted in ways I never had previously all because my brother died.  Maybe that’s why I decided to gamble on the following action and the pros really weren’t worth the cons.  I’ve said it before and I will say it again, I never once claimed to be smart and the next entry will be solid evidence to back my claim.

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  • Cognitive Behavioural Therapy – AKA the hardest thing I’ve ever done 

    After a very public meltdown and coming to terms with the fact I wasn’t dealing with the death of my sibling in a healthy way, I finally started therapy.  Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (“CBT”) to be exact.  CBT had been suggested to me previously for something seemingly unrelated (and in candid conversation which should have been a waving red flag I may not have been operating as well as I thought I was in the past). 

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  • When life gives you dead little brothers, make catastrophically bad choices in your grief 

    This one is going to be fucking hard, yo.  

    This blog/website is about overcoming mental health struggles (and unrelated to this entry finding creative outlets) so the content can, and will get dark. 

    Trigger Warnings: drug abuse, alcoholism, attempted suicide, self sabotaging, and general fuckupery of life.

    As I mentioned before, no kid gets out of childhood unscathed and lets just say without getting into the details, my brother and I were battered and bruised.  As the oldest child, it was expected of me to be the example, so short of a brief acting out phase in high school, I was the “good child”.  I kept my head down and except for the occasional scuffle, I did all the things I was supposed to. I found the art of great pretending and was able to function well in society and blend in.  My brother found heroin.  

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  • Part 2 of 2 – Poorly managed depression/anxiety disorder, meets PPD

    In last weeks blog post post I talked about my past thoughts on medications, a tipping point of needing them regardless of what the fuck I thought, and finally talking to my doctor about getting a prescription for an antidepressant. 

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  • How to write and illustrate a children’s book with no prior experience (but plenty of mental breakdowns) – Past, Present and Future (Creativity Update #1)

    These types of updates with be sporadic rather than weekly, only happening when new and interesting things in relation to creativity occur.

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  • Poorly Managed Depression and Anxiety Disorder, meet PPD

    I grew up seeing sickly grandparents on handfuls of medication that kept them (barely) living and I knew from a young age that I needed to take better care of myself to avoid turning into them.  Doing things that swerved heart disease and type 2 diabetes were high on my list of priorities, but I also never wanted to take any kind of mood-stabilizers that always seemed to have a laundry list of potential side affects (ironically including suicide), or have them change me fundamentally as a person (even though the person I was, kind of sucked). 

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  • No Pain, No Gain – Combating mental health issues with fitness

    Before I kick things off, just a little disclaimer: 

    I’m not at all suggesting that if anyone does *insert arbitrary number of things*  you can be cured of your mental health struggles – that would be a flat out lie and kind of fucked up to say. I’m just a regular unqualified person (with a potty mouth) sharing my thoughts, feelings, struggles and newly inspired goals. I am very aware of the fact that mental health is deeply personal and it’s possible that absolutely none of the things that helped me will help you.  What I am saying is that in my over 30 years of life, I’ve never experienced this level of calm in my brain and I can only guess that the things I did leading up to this state are the reasons why.

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  • Happy Birthday to ME! & first drafts of a Cynic’s Guide to Mindfulness (and being less of a miserable prick)

    They say you are only as old as you feel and as I write this post I have an ice pack securely attached to my right knee following a soccer game – so coincidentally, today I feel old as fuck.  

    In addition to another year older, this birthday in particular marks my first writing achievement I set out for myself a few months back when I first came out of my most recent depression fog.  Life was hard following a few shitty things that happened to the people in my life I love (and I was a very selfish person, so the list of people I even like, never mind love is small), which eventually prompted a leave of absence from work.  

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