Tag: mental-health

Your 2025 Holiday Peptalk

2025 is almost over. Winter holidays have arrived. My Yule decorations are up, my house is full of leftover turkey, and my playlist is going strong.

I am so glad to see this year go. It’s taken so much from me. I promise I won’t belabor this too much. It’s a downer for me, too. But most of my year was spent caring for the Darling Husband after a horrible stroke. He’s getting better now, but he still requires care throughout the day. My long-term critique job ended because the site folded. We had to move out of my dream apartment and are sharing a house with roommates for the first time in my life. And as if that all wasn’t enough, our beloved cat Harper died.

I don’t say all this to make anyone feel sorry for me. God knows life could be a lot worse. I say it all to let you know where I’m coming from. So when I say I’ll be spending the rest of the year doing whatever is needed to boost my holiday vibe, you’ll understand why.

If you see me on social media appearing way too cheesy and cheerful, mind your business.

And yet, all that’s happened to me this year is nothing compared to what so many have faced. Our country is in rough shape right now. People are losing jobs, losing loved ones, losing their very lives. People can’t afford to feed their families. People are afraid.

Joy to the world, indeed.

I swear, it feels like I’m singing carols and decorating my house while the world burns down around me. You might feel the same way. But here we are. The snow is falling, the calendars have just one page, and whether we’re ready or not, the holiday season is here. So, how do we handle it?

Don’t feel guilty

Do you enjoy the holidays? Great! Do all the holiday things you can. Watch all the movies. Listen to all the music. Wear the obnoxious sweaters. Post a million pictures of your decorations, food, and pets in silly costumes.

Please, post pets in silly costumes and tag me on Instagram. I want to see.

Don’t feel guilty about this. Yes, people are suffering right now. Yes, it can feel almost ghoulish to enjoy food and fun while people are not eating on the regular. But I want you to keep three things in mind.

One: depriving yourself of joy will not give joy to others. It will just mean there’s less joy in the world.

Two, you didn’t cause the suffering of others. I know, I feel guilty too. But we didn’t cause the exorbitant grocery prices. We didn’t ask ICE to kidnap our neighbors and family. We didn’t fire hundreds of government employees. None of us wants this to happen.

(Unless you voted for the current president, then you are absolutely at fault, and I hope you have the holiday you voted for.)

And three, while other people are struggling right now, you’re probably suffering too! You could probably use a little holiday cheer. If a peppermint mocha latte and a stroll through the Christmas lights feels like self-care to you, go do it!

Try to do good where you can

It’s always a good time to help others. But right now it might be needed more than ever. And it’s insanely convenient this time of year.

If you can, donate to food banks. Get something for Toys for Tots. Donate old clothes, toys, whatever you need.

If you haven’t got the extra money, that’s totally understandable. Is there a way you can donate your time? If not to an organization, maybe just in your neighborhood? Can you shovel a neighbor’s walk? Can you double a recipe and take some food over? What can you do to make someone’s day a little bit better?

We’re all in this together. We should do what we can to help.

Pivot!

For all the reasons we’ve already talked about, and a whole bunch more I don’t want to go into, you might not be able to do some of your holiday traditions this year.

Trust me, I’m right there with you.

It’s important right now to be flexible. And I get that the holidays are the time when details matter the most. The exact chocolates, the matching pjs from the same company, the specific trip to the specific store. With the specific person, of course.

Let me start by acknowledging that this is painful. Even if it seems silly, our traditions are traditions for a reason. One of the main reasons why the holidays are so important to us is that they’re so nostalgic. We cook the same things our parents made. We wear the same sorts of things as when we were little. We watch the same movies or TV shows that we watch every year. We read the same books we read every year. A disruption of that feels devastating.

But if we let ourselves get hung up on these details, we lose all chance of joy. And a little joy is nothing to take lightly.

I hope that your holiday season is full of rest, good food, and lots of books. I hope you get to spend it with someone you like. And I hope to see you around here again next week.

Paper Beats World is a labor of love. If you love what I do here, please consider liking and sharing this post and leaving a comment. You can also support me financially on Ko-fi.

0

Some thoughts on Jimmy Kimmel

I’m in the process of actively moving and close to a breaking point, stress-wise. So if today’s post doesn’t feel as polished as others, I ask you to bear with me.

I woke up today to the news that Jimmy Kimmel Live has been cancelled. And this is very scary. It comes after learning that Stephen Colbert’s show was cancelled. Kimmel’s end appears to be swifter. While Colbert will still be on the air until May, Kimmel’s show seems to be gone as of now.

I could be wrong. Please let me know in the comments.

I can only imagine that Seth Meyers is counting the days until his show is pulled.

Now, I’m not scared so much for Kimmel and Colbert themselves. They’re both wealthy men who will, I’m sure, bounce back from this just fine. Colbert just won an Emmy, for God’s sake. I’m sure they’ll find another platform.

What scares me is this. If this is what’s happening to the popular, visible, wealthy white men who are standing up to Trump, what is happening to the people like us? People with little blogs and little voices? How many of those voices have been silenced without us even noticing?

This is the eventuality that writers have been warning about for years. As news media is controlled by fewer and fewer companies, our access to it becomes easier to lose. It’s the same thing that happened as publishing companies began to buy each other up. This led to more gatekeepers, more control over what books were coming out, and worse treatment of writers. Because where were we going to go?

It’s been happening for decades, and now we’re truly seeing the results. We’re seeing how easy it is for one small, petty man to quiet voices he doesn’t like.

Let’s talk about Trump. And let’s talk about the staggering hypocrisy from the right.

See, the First Amendment is the first for a reason. I’m not sure why so many people today seem to want to hop right over that one and defend the second so quickly. But clearly that’s what’s happening.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances”

But Nicole, you might say, no one’s taking away the First Amendment rights of late-night show hosts. They are perfectly free to say whatever they want. And that’s true. They’ll probably have very popular podcasts. Freedom of Speech doesn’t guarantee freedom of reach.

But you don’t have to remove Freedom of Speech if you can just silence everyone who disagrees with you. If you strangle every avenue they have to be heard. Sure, we can say whatever we want. But if no one can hear us, it doesn’t really matter.

I’d also like to point out that removing voices from large platforms corrodes the already shaky trust we have in our news media. It’s hard to know who to trust when the established voices aren’t established anymore. It’s also just easier to trust the word of someone who has a whole team of writers, fact checkers and editors behind them.

When someone on a late-night or news show tells you something, it isn’t just them talking. And this goes for everyone in the media. Rachel Maddow has a team of writers. And that helps us trust in what they’re saying more.

All this is being done intentionally so that we the people don’t know what’s happening. To let information and misinformation combine until we don’t know which way is up. And it’s working.

Fortunately, there are things we can do.

We can verify sources on social media before we share things. Don’t be part of the problem. Don’t share news unless it’s from a reputable source.

Of course, for that we need to know who the reputable sources are. I always trust the Associated Press, personally. I tend to trust late-night people, John Stewart, John Oliver, and Some More News.

Trust what you’re seeing with your own eyes. We can look around and see that climate change is impacting us. We can see that the economy is struggling. We can see prices going up and wages remaining stagnant. We can see police violence and racism on the rise. We can see women’s rights and LGBTQ+ rights being stripped away. Don’t let someone tell you that you’re not seeing what’s right in front of you.

More than anything, don’t allow yourself to be bogged down with despair. Don’t let fear cripple you. Take care of yourself, and take action. It’s the same advice I give every time I talk about politics. Vote. Go to protests if it’s safe for you to do so. Write politicians. Write physical mail and send it. Support your local libraries, local schools, and local food pantries.

After I’m moved, I’ll be doing a series about media literacy and disaster preparation. Until then, stay safe and stay informed.

1

Writing when someone you love is ill

I didn’t mean for this post to be late today, but it does kind of fit into the theme.

My husband has several chronic illnesses. I don’t want to go into details because that’s not my story to tell. Suffice it to say that caring for his health is a full-time job for him and a part-time job for me.

If you’ll recall, I also have a full-time job, as well as trying my damndest to have a writing career.

Having a partner with chronic illness is a journey. It’s difficult to watch someone you love suffer. It’s terrifying to come close to losing them. It’s hard to make plans for the day, let alone the future when you just have no way of knowing how their health is going to be from day to day. Some days he’s fine, some days he can’t get out of bed. Some days he goes to the hospital.

There are countless books and blogs about living with a partner with a chronic illness. That’s not what I’m here today to talk about, that’s way out of my lane. What I do want to talk about is maintaining a creative career while caring for a loved one with a chronic illness. Because it’s what I’ve been doing for almost ten years now.

You do not have to keep writing for an audience

Let’s just get this out of the way first. If you don’t want to keep writing for anyone but yourself. I don’t care if you are in the middle of a series. I don’t care if people are waiting with bated breath on the cliffhanger of a lifetime. I don’t care if you’re Stephen King. If Tabitha King suddenly took a nose dive health wise I would light a candle for her and expect to never see another King book.

The people you love will always be more important than any success you might find in this world. If you don’t have the physical or mental bandwidth to create for days, weeks, or even years at a time, that is okay. You don’t owe your art to anyone. Everything else in this post is for people who want to keep going.

Don’t feel guilty

That being said, you do not need to feel guilty if you want to keep writing. My writing career has gotten me through some very dark moments. Having work that I was passionate about has given me something to focus on when I felt useless. It gives me something that is for me. And we all deserve something that is for us. We all need something that is for us.

Be realistic about how much you can take on.

I might seem like the worst person to talk about this. I’m working on a sci-fi series, a podcast series, multiple short stories, writing for this blog, and writing reviews on Haunted MTL. And yes, sometimes that is too much. That’s why this post came out in the afternoon instead of in the morning.

But let’s be fair, there’s always more I could be doing. Things I’d like to do. I’d like to create audiobooks. I’d like to write a serialized story on Wattpad. I’d like to make a true crime podcast series, enter more contests, write more short stories, do more micro-fiction on social media. I want to do so much more than I realistically can do.

Here’s what I suggest. Make a list of everything you want to do. All the projects you would love to work on. Take your time.

Then, list all of your projects from the ones you most want to do to the least.

I keep a whole list on Notion at all times. Sometimes projects drop off the list, and sometimes more get added. But I’m always putting my energy on the top priorities of that list. So if I can only get one thing done, it’s at least the most important thing.

Learn to write in strange places

I am so blessed to have an office in my home. I use it to work from home and write my stories and I love it. It’s bursting with light, colors, art and books. I have ample desk space, a comfortable chair and a place for all my pens.

I don’t always get to write there, though. I have gotten very good at writing in waiting rooms and hospitals. I have written in a notebook balanced on my knees in an uncomfortable plastic chair. I have written on my laptop, sitting on an emergency room couch and trying not to think of what sort of fluids that couch might contain. I’ve written in cafeterias, on patios, with bad cups of coffee and the same Lipton tea every hospital seems to have.

Because of this, I’ve always kept a writer’s bag. I can do an updated post about this if you’d like. I don’t go anywhere without a notebook and pen. Even if I don’t know I’m going to be stuck somewhere for a time and might as well do some writing, I might suddenly get stuck somewhere and be inspired to write a little short fiction.

Be flexible

This one sort of goes along with the last piece of advice.

When you’re dealing with a chronic illness, things cannot always go to plan. This is true for most of us anyway. Washing machines break. People call off at work so you have to go cover for them. The power goes out. The internet goes out. People with chronic illness and their families aren’t immune to these things. We just have that extra hurdle of health to consider. I might be right on pace to meet a deadline, or get a blog post out in time, and suddenly get waylaid because a health concern took precedence.

This is why it’s important to under-promise when it comes to deadlines. Whether you’re working with a publisher or just setting a deadline of your own. If you think something’s going to take a week, plan for two. Trust me, no one is ever angry that you beat a deadline.

You have to be ready for your day to not look how you expected it to look, and roll with it. Trust me, I hate this. This is not where I thrive. I thrive when everything happens exactly how my Google calendar says it’s supposed to happen. I am mentally prepared for that, I have supplies and snacks for that. But we don’t always get to live the day we planned for. We have to live the day we have.

I have a lot more to say about this topic, but we’re running long as it is and this post is late as it is. So I’ll be doing part two next week. See you then.

Paper Beats World is a labor of love. If you love what we do here, please like and share this post. You can also support us financially on Ko-fi.

Man in The Woods is now available on Smashwords and almost everywhere!

1

A WordPress.com Website.

Up ↑