Chinchilla Time

I'm sure you've all heard of animals who are able to pose as therapeutic assistants to humans - the normal situation usually includes a horse or a dog. While I do not argue that horses, dogs, cats and your other usual choices are incredibly cute and can be very helpful, my kind of anxiety tends to be curbed by an animal who is just about as anxious about life as I am.

 Meet Lenny. 

Lenny has been my partner in anxious crime for 6 months. He is 8 months old and loves to sit on shoulders, but heaven help you if you attempt to grab him. Don't let his cute and fuzzy exterior fool you, he goes from fluffy and sweet to rabid and hissing within a second of being irritated. (The similarity between him and I in personality are uncanny at times). His diet consists of huge amounts of timothy hay and a hand full of pellets every day - along with the occasional oats and goji berry. He is of the nocturnal variety and is not to be disturbed during the day. His hobbies include scaling the cage walls, sitting in his hammocks, and chewing the wooden ledges upon which he is sitting until they are virtually non-existent and he plummets down to meet his certain death squishy fleece floor. 

Although Chinchillas have the sort of temperament that represent an extremely paranoid, feline character, they are loving and rewarding in every sense of the word when they nuzzle up to your face after a long day or let you hold them without sinking their front two wood-eating teeth into your finger *winning*.

In short, watching Lenny running around, getting up to his daily (and nightly) activities takes the mind off of one's impending doom. And that's always a plus. You'll be sure to hear about, and see more of him. 

Dancing in Drunken Honesty

First of all, I need to make one thing clear.

I am not an alcoholic. It even says so on my Twitter Account.
Please use this confession as a piece of unsensored honesty, and laugh at it. I understand my behaviour was not up to par with that of an adult, or of anyone really, and I have learned my lesson.

The number of times I have been drunk is a sum total of four. It is for this reason that my level of tolerance of alcohol is somewhere between -10 and dead.

I have never resorted to substance abuse when feeling under the weather. I never grew up around smokers and my parents barely had any alcohol in the house. I was also, for lack of a better word, a ninnie. I was, and still am at times, afraid to rebel.

Well let me tell you, two nights ago was not one of those times..

It all started when I had engaged in conflict with my boyfriend, who is now as of two nights ago my ex-boyfriend. I was upset. I had a bottle of Cookies and Cream liqueur left over from a night with friends (yes I am proud to state that I actually have those) and I got drunk. (*I am not proud to state that I did that). I've since been told that it happens to the best of us.

Getting drunk at home is a rather lonely experience. There was no one who was on a mental vacation at the time, as I was, so the decent, drunken-lunatic conversation that I was trying to achieve was met with concerned looks and then fits of laughter.

It was all fun and games until I stood on the cat. (She's okay. Pissed off. But okay) This seemed to upset me even further, catalysing a release of built up emotion so big that I (apparently) fell on the floor and refused to get up until the cat forgave me.

As you can imagine, this took some time.

I have to give my mom some credit though. Somewhere between my declaration of love and respect for her and my pouring my heart out to my father about how much I miss him and aspire to be like him one day, she got me to bed at a decent hour (3 am is decent if you look at things in context) and had me in therapy the next morning.

To be fair I'm just glad I told them how much I loved them, and that I didn't reveal things that would get me into trouble, such as the fact that I once knocked my mom's cell phone into a kitchen sink full of dirty dishwater.

That's a story for another day though.

I also have another story about my therapist. The best stories are always about therapists.

Things I Learned From This Experience

1. Do not get drunk on your own at home. Besides the responsible and obvious reasons for this, there will be no one to go on a mental vacation with you and you'll just end up looking like an idiot.
2. Cats are surprisingly robust (and squishy) creatures. 
3. Boyfriends who have become ex-boyfriends are no reason to get drunk for, no matter how much of a good idea it seems to be at the time. (Side note: The liquer did help me to remember the fun side of the relationship - such as the time I narrowly missed his head with a cricket bat when attempting to demonstrate to him exactly why society should encourage cricket as more of aa girl's sport too.)

So, there you have it, my first confession. Please feel free to share this with your friends, as I did and they had a good laugh, which is what I need at the end of the day - laughter, friends and a whole lot of therapy.

I Know What You're Thinking

And no, it isn’t because I am a mind reader. In fact, I think that one of the many skills I lack in the first place is the ability to read people. Attempting to perceive others’ emotions, thoughts and attitudes?  I can barely recognise my own on a good day. Alas, I digress.

“What in the name of fuzzy turtles do flaming Lotus Flowers have to do with anything?”

A lot, actually. They have a lot to do with my confessions, thoughts and experiences. Lotus flowers are the symbols of recovery from Mental Disorders. This may come as a shock, but I happen to suffer from several disorders, namely Major Depressive Disorder and Borderline Personality Disorder. From my own understanding, I have come to the conclusion that I am simply sad and unable to do much about it.

“Okay, we understand why Lotus Flowers are important, but why are they on fire?”

I think the answer is open to interpretation really. Anything that is flaming is automatically pretty cool. Unless it’s your head. In which case it is definitely not cool. (Pun intended).

I’ll leave it at that for now.

Don’t get me wrong, my head is filled with rainbows, unicorns and the like. The only problem is they are very sad – especially the unicorns.

Maybe one day they will cheer up, the lemurs will dance around in merry cheer and the leprechauns will hit the jackpot at the casino and stop pestering the rainbows.

Am I being overly optimistic?

I hope not.

What I do hope is that the confessions I present to you based on my daily majestic and oh-so-exciting life makes you smile and think of happy unicorns.

Because what’s better than seeing a unicorn smile?

*Insert picture of fantastically happy unicorn here - the internet is slacking in this regard*

Until next time!

Kendra
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