There’s an app for that! Alicen and Andrea discuss mental health apps. Find out what ones Alicen loved and which ones she… didn’t.
Theme song by Tyson Kerr.
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This week Andrea and Alicen talk about therapy. Spoiler alert: they’re both big fans.
Theme song by Tyson Kerr.
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There’s a reason self-help books are one of the highest selling genres of books. I know a lot of people frown upon them and think that people who read them are “weak” or “desperate” but it’s just not true. There are self-help books for everything, and I think that’s fantastic. I personally love anything motivational and inspirational and that’s why I’ve started reading more of these books.
Earlier this year I read The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin and was so inspired by it that I decided to create my own Happiness Project. Now for those of you who haven’t read the book what Gretchen did was dedicate a year of her life to being happier. She had a different theme for every month and within those themes she had goals.
I’m not a huge fan of starting things on January 1 because it feels too much like a New Years Resolution to me, and I tend to always break those. So instead, because my year of rejections has ended, I decided to make this a birthday year, starting in August, instead of a calendar year.
I’m not going to get too much into what I’m doing every month since I’m going to write a blog post at the end of each month, however, I’m going to give you a sneak peek of the theme for every month.
I hope you’ll all enjoy my journey for the next year I’m finding my own happiness and trying new things. Subscribe to my blog so you don’t miss out on any of my adventures for the next year.
Do you know what’s crazy? That people are still using the word crazy! In this episode, Andrea and Alicen discuss why we need to find a better word and why Crazy Ex-Girlfriend owns the word and manages to be one of the greatest shows ever.
Theme song by Tyson Kerr.
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This week we get very real and Alicen tries to fight her self stigma as we discuss two parts of Borderline Personality Disorder: Favourite People and splitting.
Theme song by Tyson Kerr.
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Last year I read a tweet about a woman who decided to get rejected 20 times the year she turned 30 and it taught her a lot. After all, you can’t expect to have success if you don’t put yourself out there. Since it was almost my birthday when I read the tweet, I decided to get rejected 12 times the year I turned 24. It hasn’t been quite a year, but I’ve made 13 attempts and have been rejected 12 times.
My first attempt was an article I wrote and submitted to HelloGiggles. I don’t want to get too in detail about what it was about since it’s now irrelevant, but I spent so much time working on this personal essay and didn’t hear back from HelloGiggles for months. By the time I finally heard back, it was too late and I knew there was no way I would ever let the article see the light of day. REJECTION 1.
My second, third, and fourth attempts were all screenwriting competitions I submitted a pilot to. I went to school for screenwriting and hadn’t done anything with the tv pilot I wrote while I was in school for ages despite it being my passion project. So after a couple more edits, I put it back out there and didn’t even place in the competition. REJECTION 2, 3 AND 4.
Last fall I ended up sitting alone at a soccer game. Do I know anything about sports? No. Do I care about sports? Also no. However, I ended up texting a friend all my reactions, which were golden enough that I decided to write them into an article: attempt 5. I put it on Buzzfeed, (which I can’t find now, but you can read it here) but it was rejected as a featured post. REJECTION 5.
Attempt 6 wasn’t putting myself out there as much as it was me doing a challenge that would either become a personal success or failure. This challenge was NaNoWriMo, also known as National Novel Writing Month. You can read my full blog post about my NaNo experience here. I didn’t think I’d be able to write 50k words in a month, but not only did I accomplish that, but I also did it in 22 days. SUCCESS 1.
Then this year I wrote a blog post about BPD (which you can read here) and along with posting it on my own blog, I submitted it to The Mighty. However, it was rejected. REJECTION 6.
Along the same lines, I also recently applied to write for the upcoming mental health publication ”The Breakdown”, and didn’t get it. REJECTION 7.
It’s no secret that I’ve been struggling financially lately, and so attempts 9-13 were part-time job applications. I applied to Spool of Thread (cause you all know how much I love sewing), two front desk reception jobs, and two sales associate jobs. Well, I’m still broke and I didn’t get an interview at any of them. REJECTIONS 8-12.
You might be wondering what the point of me writing about all this is since out of 13 attempts I only had one success. I’ve previously written about how you can learn more from failure than from success, and I really believe that. I learned so much putting myself out there. If I hadn’t have submitted my abandoned script to screenwriting competitions, I wouldn’t have fallen back in love with it and rewrote it as a novel for NaNo. Every rejected article has made me a better writer. I’ve learned I need to be more aggressive when I apply for jobs. These are all really valuable lessons. I’m no longer as afraid of failure as I used to be, and I can’t wait to have more rejections (and successes, of course) in the future.
In this episode of NES, Alicen gets personal as she talks to Andrea about Borderline Personality Disorder, a highly stigmatized and misunderstood mental illness.
Theme song by Tyson Kerr.
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This week Alicen and Andrea tackle anxiety. What’s the difference between fear and anxiety? Find out here.
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Check out the latest episode of Not Enough Spoons
In our first episode of Not Enough Spoons, Alicen talks about her experience with depression. Also, if the title of our podcast confuses you, never fear! It’s all explained here!
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I’m sure anyone who follows me on Twitter already knows this, but May is mental health awareness month. I used to keep pretty quiet about my own mental illness, but it’s never going to be normalized if we don’t talk about it. I’m not ashamed that to quote a friend of mine, I have a bunch of letters and acronyms that follow my name. Alicen Ricard, sufferer of GAD, OCD, BPD, and depression. Not as good of a title as Daenerys Targaryen, but I own it. I am not my mental illnesses but I do have mental illnesses and I’m not afraid to talk about it.
One of the steps I’m taking in my mission to normalize mental health issues is to start a podcast about it. I’ve been working on it for quite a while and am pleased to announce that the first episode is going to be released next week.
I approached my friend Andrea and I one night and nervously told her my idea and asked if she’d produce it. To my delight, she said yes and the podcast was born.
With help from my co-host/producer, Andrea, I dive into various topics on mental illness and types of mental illness themselves while debunking common stigmas and misconceptions about them.
I’m more than a little nervous about putting my own story and mental illness on the line, but I truly feel it’s important.
Not Enough Spoons podcast will release its first episode on May 21, 2019.
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If you have a topic suggestion for us or want to share your own mental health journey with us you can send an email to notenoughspoonspodcast@gmail.com