"Where were you?" "What happened?" "Are you coming back?"

I've had messages containing those questions and others a lot lately so here I am trying to answer them.

My name is Mikki and I have MDD (Major Depressive Disorder).

What that means is I'm prone to severe depression, it doesn't mean I'm bi-polar or have a chemical imbalance.  I've been called sensitive (often overly but that's always by someone who has been completely insensitive to justify their behavior)...I am regular sensitive! I've also worked very hard for the last 30 years to live life with a higher awareness. It makes life tricky. Also when I get depressed I get agoraphobic which does not help matters.

I'm not on drugs....prescribed or otherwise. They don't work for me and can take a depression to the end of the road for me....you know the one that ends with an obituary.  What's always worked for me (because I never had any other option) is solitude....withdrawal. Reach out and talk to people does not work for me...I know, I've tried it.  Once while sitting looking at a pile of pills I was about to take I reached out...to my 'best friend' and when I told her how I was feeling (not easy) she told me she couldn't talk because there was a pair of shoes she wanted to go buy and hung up on me. Another time while waiting for MRI results to tell me if I had a brain tumor or not I reached out to a "call me if you need to talk, I mean it, I'm here for you" friend who after 3 minutes (while I was crying) took another call and forgot about me.  And we won't even mention family because that would make your hair curl.

So you can see why I'm not jumping at the chance to reach out and talk.
Obviously I'm doing better or I wouldn't be writing this.

The "What happened?" question is easily answered.
I trusted someone who, knowing my past with people letting me down, told me "I'm a true friend, I will always have your back" and then promptly wasn't and didn't...and then some!  I'm the poster child for 'No good deed goes unpunished'.

It pushed me over the edge of the cliff I was standing on. I had once again let someone into my life who just wanted to use me. That shakes you to your core when you're attracting the last thing you want.  You realize that your judgement of people sucks and fear of people sets in. You try to just get on with life but it eats at you from the inside....this thing called depression, when not acknowledged starts to shut you down. My beading suffered....I started making really stupid mistakes. My videos suffered the same thing. My tutorial writing also. And that just served to make the depression bigger, deeper, longer.

I had to do a lot of soul searching to find the trigger points.  I come from a family of narcissists....it goes back generations on both sides. I was born an empath.....and the abuse began bringing with it mental illness and I became a very high functioning schizophrenic (I worked very hard on that and was pronounced 'cured' at 40).    I was also born a problem solver, hence being able to overcome schizophrenia, but it's not easy and one of the things you do to solve the problems is keep drawing them into your life till they are fixed.  So because some level of my psyche wants to solve the issue of dealing with narcissism I keep attracting them and I don't know how to stop it other than not letting anyone in close, drawing the line at helping people very closely around me.  

I have to change myself....that's my only area of control.
Writing this is kind of my last 'being open' thing I want to do....it''s an explanation of the change in me and my work. And as I type I argue with myself that I don't need to explain myself.  I am me and that's good enough. I have to give what I have to give, and if it's not enough for someone, well, as a few people have said "not my circus, not my monkeys". 

Am I coming back?  Well....yes. But differently. How differently...I honestly don't know.

Writing tutorials or trying to was making my depression worse...there's nothing like failing at something that used to come easily to worsen depression and make you feel worthless. And complex beading went down the drain too.....at one point it took me six attempts to make a simple peyote tube....and I was beginning to hate beads and all their associations.   Try not to stress when that is going on AND it's how you make your living!  I was in the "Pit of Despair" having my life drained out of me a year at a time (see "Princess Bride").

I had to stop pushing myself. I had to fall in love with beads again (not there yet).  So I decided to make some finished jewelry using one of a kind items...my collection of cabs and donuts.  Simple things with clean lines and technical beading. 

I was binge watching "True Blood" (the bottom design is called "Fangbanger Pendant") at the same time which made me play with the 'tusk' or 'fang' gemstones I'd bought in Berkeley. This is a bead shape I have fallen in love with and as I only had the five and couldn't find any anywhere online it made me think of the polymer clay stash I had.  So along with adding a "Finished Jewelry" section to my store I'll also be adding a "Polymer Clay" section. 

I am a little addicted to making 'fangs' right now and there will be a large variety (many one of a kinds) in my store but I have some other designs in the works too.

I'm hoping that the polymer components will get me back into writing tutorials that use them but I also hope people will use them for their own designs. My stomach still pretty much turns to stone and I still feel like throwing up when I think about writing but I know at some point I'll get past it....sooner rather than later I hope.

I have closed the Bead Mavens blog as I need to focus on my own business/life but it will stay up so everyone can access the info and freebies. Everything is changing...how I work, how I look (I'm now a blonde), how I design and what I design.  I'm beginning to feel myself again although I'm now Newme (no! not Sarah), still compassionate and kind but not fairy blood to a vampire.

I have learned one major thing.....when someone says "I have your back" I think I'm getting this:

But I'm probably getting this:

I will survive!