Has suicide effected your life?

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It has impacted most of our lives in some way.
In junior high, I had a friend whose older brother committed suicide when she was eight years old. I couldn't believe the callous way so many people treated her when they found this out, telling her that her brother had gone to hell for killing himself. I was a devout Catholic at the time and I refused to buy into this condemnation of a person who was troubled enough to take his own life and the mental abuse of his surviving sister. I told her that I did not think that God was cruel enough to send a person who had been sad enough to kill himself to hell.
At the end of high school, one of my classmates hanged himself after his girlfriend broke up with him.
When my brother was a senior in high school one of his close friends killed himself with a gunshot to the head.
In the summer of 2004 my second cousin, who suffered from lifelong medication resistant depression, killed herself by overdose.
Although it is a person whom I never met in life that finally pushed me into doing something about my belief that there needs to be a new understanding and compassion in the mental health community and the world at large if we are to prevent future suicides, all of the aforementioned people are also part of my motivation and they live in my heart forever.
As well, I live with a mood disorder and consider suicide myself at least once a month. I do not know if I will end my life by suicide or not. But I do know that whatever the case, I want to do what I can before the time comes.

To Thine Own Self be True

(originally posted on Vampire Freaks. Unchanged because I'm too frazzled to bother.)
I have been gone from here a long time. School, work, family stuff, trying to work on the second book and promote the first one. A touch too much, as Bon Scott once said. I've had to figure out my priorities when it comes to social networking and promoting the book. (http://www.lilystrange.com)
For some people, sites like LinkedIn work, but I'm not a business person at heart, though I have been somewhat forced into being one on the side in order to promote my book. But promoting a fictional work to business people is preposterous. Sure, some of them may eventually grab a copy to take into the can and read a chapter or two while doing their daily do, but their focus is what the next thing in business is. My focus is what the next thing I'm going to create is.
I've driven myself crazy attempting to focus on promoting via social networking when my advertising budget is nil. I've finally narrowed the social networking sites I'm going to focus on way down.
Blogger, (http://lostbeneaththesurface.blogspot.com)
Facebook, (http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1653291128&ref=profile)
Myspace,(http://www.myspace.com/bloomingpsycho)
my own social network (http://newstrangeworld.ning.com)
my mini-zine (http://www.openzine.com/newstrangeworld)
and Vampire Freaks. (http://www.vampirefreaks.com/lilystrange)
I'm also a DJ on blip.fm (http://blip.fm/lilystrange) and I promote my book there by blipping songs based on words from my sentences in chronological order.
I've wasted enough time trying to promote the book as if its a business venture. It is a CREATIVE VENTURE first and foremost.

To thine own self be true, lest you get lost in a world not really your own and forget how the hell to get back.

May 09 Update

This blog was originally created specifically for showcasing chapters from the book but a bipolar mind is like a train that can't stay on the track, so it has derailed. And I am not going to try to re-impose this stringent format. I will still post chapters occasionally, when it suits me. But I will also post other shite that just happens to interest me or that I feel is good knowledge to spread, or when I've just got to figuratively bitch-slap some asshat with a rotten fish.
I have a lot of blogs and I'm trying to downsize. But what I don't really have at this point is a central location. Some place that people can go when they are wondering "and just WHAT does Lily Strange think about this?" Because that is really, really important to know.
I'm not going to kill all my other blogs. Some of them are very specialized and I like that. But the more general ones may be kind of swallowed up by this blog. There may be duplicate posts between this blog and another of my blogs sometimes. You just never know.
If the only problem with bipolar was that my thoughts were all over the place, it wouldn't be so bad. Maybe kind of annoying but not so bad. Its the emotional shit that comes with it that I'm not so keen on. If I could be in a good productive hypomanic state (where the paranoia and irritability are tempered by Lithium) forever, I would be the most productive person on the planet and so much fun to be around. Unfortunately the coin always flips to the suicidally depressed side and that is no fun at all for anybody.
I really do need to work on another issue of my mini-zine. I was doing it weekly for a while but it got to be too much. Bi-weekly may be a better goal to shoot for.
Other than that I'm very diligently working to get the first draft of the second book done by August.
This has been a bunch of shit about nothing. Thanks for reading!

Living with Aspberger's syndrome

Read my friend Wendy's article about what she endures as a homeless person with Aspberger's syndrome. Ignorance is alive and well in the 21st century, and the only cure for it is people who have the guts to tell it like it is. Wendy has no shortage of courage. Plus she is an Angel Squid. This is quite an achievement. I can't even figure out how to be a Squid Zygote!

This was my reply to Wendy:
Its hard living with any sort of mental or neurological illness. People will always judge us to be "abnormal" rather than taking the time to know who we really are. That's why I hope before I take the long walk home, so to speak, I can in some way open people's minds a little.

Wendy is certainly doing her part to open people's minds, just by walking this earth. She is one of those people that I can't help but think was sent here for a purpose. And she's not a snarky-ass curmudgeon like yours truly.
Wendy, you rule. I hope you stay strong and keep teaching the citizens of this ignorant world what we need to know to become as we truly should be.

They Shur Grows Em Stupid...

On the warpath today as the asshats make their way out of the woodwork. Here is what one idiot had to say about her reason for being one of the shitheads that post the suicide picture (aka psychic rape.) I will call her Moronica Fogdome.
"i have plenty of compassion. the first time i saw this i cried wondering how someone could be so depressed to kill themselves. But whats done is done. so i put this up for the people who enjoy blood and gore."
Well, Moronica, not everyone lives in a shallow, self-absorbed world and some people do become depressed enough to commit suicide. And I'm sure that his siblings really appreciate people like you who post this picture of their brother for "those who enjoy blood and gore." Do you think they enjoy witnessing this same awful scene again and again, a gift presented to the world by a grimy little sociopathic asshat who appears to have a dismaying number of kindred spirits? I'm sure that they are ever so grateful for the compassion of people like you. How would you like it if someone had a photo of your brother (or cousin or father or boyfriend) having ended his troubled life in a similar fashion? How would you like it if "compassionate" people like you were plastering pictures of him all over the internet?
Sometimes depression starts as a situational thing, sometimes its a biochemical thing, and sometimes both. And by catering to your fellow twats who "enjoy blood and gore" you perpetuate the cycle of apathy, turning a person who happened to suffer from mental illness into an object rather than a human being. I'm sure he's soooo touched that you cried over that photo, I hope that he posthumously pisses in your wine cooler.
This isn't fucking artwork from a Cannibal Corpse album cover. This is not a scene from a movie or a video game. This shit really happened. That object in the photo you lame fucks are mentally or actually jacking off over was a real person. You do not have compassion, you silly, self-serving cunt. And you certainly have no god damn common sense. I would be surprised to find out that you have an IQ bigger than your shoe size.
Same goes for all the other Moronicas out there. I don't have time to deal with each of you on a one to one basis, but when someone brings stupidity like this to my attention, I just have to speak my peace.

Do you have the guts not to be one of those who does the same shit just because everyone else is doing it? Use your fucking mind for a change!

Troll Protection

I am generally friendly to people who read my blogs and who contact me via email. But sometimes there are people on the Internet (as in real life) who are jackasses, and I won't waste my time with this sort. Nor will I give them access to certain more personal writings. Thus, if there is a blog of mine that you used to read but you now find is in private mode, don't take it personally. You can email me using the address in my profile and I will probably give you permission to access the blog. Unless you are the troll that necessitated me making it private in the first place, in which case, go fuck yourself. I realize that having put myself in the public eye that I have to put up with a certain amount of crap that I wouldn't otherwise bother myself with, but I will not tolerate abuse. Nobody else should either. Known trolls will be ignored, whether or not their comments are offensive initially. Let's just say that in my long life on this rock, I have learned not to let vampires into my house.

Support the Survivors of Chernobyl

I encourage you to buy Elena Filatova's book, Pluto's Realm. Not only will you be able to experience her amazing pictures, you will be helping her make her vision of supporting the people who still live in the abandoned villages around Chernobyl come true.
Elena is a true heroine, in my eyes. I wish I were as brave as she is.