It’s Mental Health Awareness Month – We Gotta Talk About It

I'm very passionate about mental health. I suffer from generalized anxiety disorder and a form of depression. It's not easy. I see a therapist on a regular basis, whom I adore, and I take medication, which I do not enjoy, but it's a necessary part of my healthcare. Don't ask my insurance company anything about that, they have nothing to say as I pay 100% out of pocket for my therapy bills, but that's not the point of this post. Too many old-school thought processes tell us to "muscle through" these "tough emotions" and "man up" or any number of other colloquialisms designed to diminish the fact that mental health issues are real and cannot be controlled through sheer willpower. Chemical imbalances in your brain cannot be corrected without medication. No oils, meditation, or other holistic approaches will solve that piece of the puzzle. I'm not saying you shouldn't be...
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Recipe For: Rumors

Rumors. What a thing. They get started and then take off like wildfire! Today a friend from high school and I got to reminiscing about a rumor that's now 24 years old! THE RUMOR IS NEARLY A QUARTER CENTURY OLD AND WE ARE STILL TALKING ABOUT IT. Without giving away any incriminating information (which may be completely false for all we know!), it's something that was such a big deal at our high school, and such a big rumor, we are still talking about it more than two decades later. My personal belief is all rumors are rooted in some truth. It may be completely distorted and overblown, but these things just don't begin out of nowhere. With this specific high school rumor, perhaps this person was in a compromising position and it looked worse than it was or was at the wrong place at the wrong time. I'm not...
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Meditation Is Not For Me

As I think many can agree, telling someone to calm down or take a deep breath is the surest and quickest way to make a person do the exact opposite. I will erupt, lose my mind and forget to breathe and will suddenly begin to hyperventilate. So when people encourage those with anxiety, like me, to meditate and find their center, I basically have to check to make sure my eyeballs are still inside my head and haven't rolled out onto the floor from rolling them so hard. It just doesn't work for me. I live out loud. For me, I have to essentially vomit up my thoughts and feelings so I can look at them in front of me so I can see how I best want to handle them. It's how I process. That's why, as I shared in my bio, I've written many blogs over the years...
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Teens, Social Media and Mental Health

As a woman who suffers from mental health disorders including generalized anxiety disorder and a type of depression, I'm acutely aware of all the ways society deems to destroy mental health in our world. Just ask my insurance company, oh wait, I forgot, they don't care and that's why I pay 100% out of pocket for my therapy bills. Assholes. As a mother on the brink of giving her soon-to-be 12-year-old her first cell phone, I'm painfully aware I'm embarking on uncharted waters. I got my first cell phone after I turned sixteen and started driving. It was for emergencies only and my parents scared me into thinking it basically had three minutes on it. Essentially I just carried it around in my purse. It wasn't until my sophomore year of college I signed up for my own phone, and learned exactly how many minutes I had, but I still...
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Heather Chastain

About Heather

(So, my web designer says I needed to include a bio, though I find this task silly because, if you’re here, you know me.)

I’m a writer. It’s what I do. It’s a cathartic mechanism when I need release from my anxiety. I’ve had blogs in the past; I’ve taken them down, but I never stopped writing. I simply can’t. My notes app is forever long as it’s filled with pages and pages of different topics. Sometimes I just write a few sentences. Sometimes I write paragraphs.

Recently, I've been writing long essays. My friends and others I hold dear have coaxed me into sharing my work again.

So that's what I'm doing, you wicked, pushy people. LOL

I have no desire to see my writing be anything more than an opportunity to share what I love doing most. I have no interest in this blog reaching the masses.

I thought it would be fun to call it My Spicy Disaster because that's often how I feel. A complete mess of epic proportion. So join me, if you'd like, and let's pretend we're not sitting amongst the chaos crying, but laughing instead.

Or maybe we do cry sometimes, but then wipe our tears and remember one person’s disaster is another person’s … well, who the hell knows …

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