Melody Holley

What is self love? Don’t be afraid to be yourself. Completely and wholly. Yourself. After all, we are all human.  We are often caught in this loop of negative self talk because we are limited by our circumstances of the cards we’ve been dealt. Take those cards and play them, play them well no matter what hand you’ve been dealt.  We aren’t called to be this immaculate ideal perfect human being. We are all flawed in some way. No one is perfect. We are called to be real.  This starts by taking off the masks.  Whether you face a mental illness or not, love yourself. Love everything about yourself. Accept the beauty that is yourself and don’t compare yourself to others. You were created to be special and unique just as you are.  You were beautifully designed from head to toe, every single detail was picked out - and you are beautiful. So stop talking negatively about yourself.  When you stop talking negatively about yourself you will be so surprised how the inte...

There is so much pain in life. There is so much hurt and there is so much strife. I can understand why anyone would want to escape reality. I can understand why anyone would want to leave this world behind in the belief that the afterlife has more to offer.  Right now, I am feeling it. In the past few weeks a lot of people close to me have lost close loved ones and have witnessed a lot of devastation. My heart breaks for them.  I understand grief because when I was 8 years old my grandma Mary past away and I was extremely close to her. She waited until we flew down to Florida to take her final breath and gave me her ring. To this day I still carry around the grief of my grandmas death and I believe she is a guardian angel watching over me.  Living in a world with so much pain and having a mental illness is hard. Some would say that living with so much pain causes the mental illness. It literally causes the chemical reaction in your brain because you can’t properly cope wi...

I’m not feeling intensely tonight so I have nothing profound to offer you. I wasn’t stuck in my head today. Isn’t that crazy? I don’t want this to turn into a journal where I just blog about what I did during the day, but when your day is filled with activities it takes you out of your own head and that’s a good place to be. Today I painted a cube. And it challenged me.  We should do things that make us lose our patience and challenges us. We shouldn’t strive to be mediocre. We should attempt to do things that test our abilities. I have zero patience and this really made me frustrated and I had to rise to the occasion. That is how and when we grow.  This is a 9 month course so I will definitely learn something from it whether it be how to paint or how to be patient.  Patience is the theme tonight. Living with a mental illness, I don’t know if you guys go through this but I certainly do. I lack patience. If I want something I want it right now. I don’t wait for things, I a...

We used to be kids in the backseat wasting time talking about high hopes and day dreams never thought love never thought life could take us far in what we believed This is a lyric from one of Mat Kearney songs and it really resonates with me. I am literally chasing my dreams right now being a mental health advocate. I have always dreamed big dreams and big things would happen, I never dreamed what they would be. I never had vision. Now I have a goal. That goal is to provide hope for you all. One way I will do that is by sharing pieces of myself and my story. Another way I will do that is providing strategies to cope. I will also do that by showing fragments of resilience and hope and courage to go out and be bold and share your own story with the world. I am so stepping out of my comfort zone, and you are stepping with me. I can see how many people view my blog, and I am so excited to see you guys following me on this journey. I am keeping calm and trusting ...

It was the day before my birthday. I walked into my job with my doctors note in hand. I went straight to HR, the people who are supposed to help you. The head HR person wasn’t there so the assistant came down and walked me over to my bosses office and that is when the worst of it happened. My dreams got ripped right out of my hands.  I worked at Electric Motor Contracting Company for 2 years and while I was in the mental hospital they told me I resigned. My question is, how could I have resigned while I was in the hospital?  Prior to all of this happening, I had just transitioned over to the nuclear side. I was very good at my job. I excelled with small motors and large motors and reorganized and made spread sheets for the entire storage unit and pumps department. So transitioning to nuclear was a dream come true!  Then I had a manic break that EMC did not understand. And when I said I wanted to be a gift giver in a state of delusion, they took that as me ...

EMC destroyed me. The stress of that place was the catalyst into my 3rd relapse. Again I wasn’t on medicine. I had a great man in my life. My job destroyed me. The people there, were terrible. Besides a handful. They were awful. I love my job now. That job was nothing but dirty polititcs. Thankfully I am no longer there.  That episode, hits a little too close to home and not enough time has passed for me to open up about it but soon enough I will.  Since this episode I have taken medicine religiously and not had a relapse. The doctors say I never will as long as I take medicine. So I will listen to the doctors.  My life has been a crazy, wild ride full of chaotic adventures. Way more than I have enough time to describe. They are all happy adventures. They are just delusions of grandeur. I have never gotten mad at anyone or gotten out of control. I’ve just done irrational things. Some of it is actually quite funny and I’ll break it down into posts as I go a...

In 2013 it happened again. Although this time it was triggered by my intense love for New York City. My uncle and my aunt took me for my graduation present and spoiled me rotten. We stayed at the Waldorf in the fanciest room with the best walk in shower. And I was treated like a princess.  The whirlwind of the hustle and bustle just catalysted a trigger in me that sent me into a spiral. When I can back from NYC I started dressing differently and acting differently and I started having delusions of gradious where I thought my dad had contacts watching over my every move.  I went to NYC April 5-8 and on April 13 the Boston bombing happened and that was when shit hit the fan. I thought I was the suspect they were looking for even though I had done nothing wrong but again with delusions of grandious you think that way. My dad kindly told me I wasn’t special enough and no one was looking for me.  He knew something was wrong so he took me to the ER where my fr...