I have the best boyfriend.

Flowers I got from William a month ago.

As I mentioned in this blog article on my mental illness, I have mental illness. Yesterday I woke up with an anxiety attack about how my life is at the moment. I won't get into the details here. William, my boyfriend whom I live with, reassured me about everything then helped me start to make myself an early lunch. Afterwards, his mom called and I surprised him by saying I would like to go out for lunch and even go to the DMV (despite the DMV making me anxious too.) All in all, I managed to come back from a severe anxiety attack to the point where I left my comfort zone to be around 1) his mother and 2) the DMV. (His mother isn't really that stressful, but being around her still can push my social anxiety if I don't have enough spoons.) 

I came home at about 4pm. I called my therapist to double check an appointment and my psychiatrist to make one, then I promptly went to bed to detox from the day.

I woke up today with William saying he had a gift for me. I was confused, because we don't have any money for him to buy me anything. He then gave me this:

It's an small garlic jar filled with my protection sea salt, sunflower petals, and topped off with his worry stone he carried in his pocket. He gave it to me for protection.

My boyfriend isn't pagan or "New Age", though. (He believes in pantheistic secular humanism.) He also isn't someone who does magic. This isn't the type of thing he does normally. But he did this for me, because he knows I believe in it and work with it. Just like the gifts he got me for my birthday.

So. I'm just. Floored by how lovely this is. It's really soothing to look at, which I think is because he gave me it.

Reflections on Sunday's Ritual

My Parshall Cross that I gave the UU's Little Free Library has a new home it seems on the banner! I'm happy it's still able to protect the church. I saw it tonight while attending January's UU pagan group's get-together. First ritual with a different organizer. While I'm still overall enjoying my visits with the group, I still have a bit of a complaint as someone without Wiccanate privilege. I don't know how to exactly bring up these sort of complaints... but at least I can voice them on this blog, eh?

Mental Illness and Spirituality

From Hyperbole and a Half: Depression Part 2

When I was living in Philadelphia, I attended an open Full Moon Ritual at a local Wiccan Coven. I went with two other pagans I had met previously and attended two Sabbats with at the same Coven. This was just at the beginning of my path in paganism, so I felt very new, out of place, and ignorant. I was also probably the youngest person of legal age there (which is to say, I was 18 and everyone else was 28+.) This ritual was different in that my friend had a visitor from Florida joining us. An elderly witch who had been a witch for more than the sum of my lifetime.

On the car ride home, we somehow started talking about mental illness. Mine in particular. I don't recall the timeframe, but I might have brought up how I wasn't doing well in school and would probably be moving to my parents' house in Nebraska. The witch from Florida said something to the effect of, "If you give yourself over to the Goddess, she would take away all your sadness."

Perhaps it was Lugh who gave me the strength, but I was able to firmly and boldly say, "No. That is not how mental illness works, and is extremely ignorant to suggest that it is."