My Brain's Not Broken

Something exciting happened this week! I was nominated by Caz over at Mental Health From The Other Side for the Real Neat Blog Award! I love following my UK bloggers, and Caz’s blog that shares her experience not only personally but professionally is a treat to read and an inspiring story!

I hope you can pop over and give her posts a read. As someone who doesn’t work in the healthcare world, I think there’s a ton of value to people who experience mental illness while also having to be in that professional setting.

The Real Neat Blog Award Rules

Here are the rules:

1. Accept the nomination and thank the person who nominated you, leaving a link to their blog.
2. Answer the 10 questions
3. Nominate your chosen bloggers and send them a link to let them know they’ve been nominated.
4. Ask your nominees to participate by answering the same questions.

Now that I’ve accepted the nomination and thanked the awesome blogger who nominated me, time to answer the questions!

Questions

1. What is your favorite color? This is a tough one. For a long time, red was far and away my favorite color, but orange has been making a strong case for years with the help of my younger brother. It’s more of a 1 and 1A now, instead of a 1 and 2.
2. Who would you say you admire most? My parents. I could say I admire them because they’ve been my role models my whole life, but in recent years, the better reason I admire them so much is their willingness to learn. Whether it’s mental health, human rights or anything else, their ability to grow and change stands out among all the Gen Xers I know who refuse to accept anything that’s new.
3. If you could describe yourself as a color, what would it be and why? This might be the reason I love orange so much, is because that’s the color I feel like describes me best. It’s a little different, and it doesn’t need as much attention as others, but the people who love it really love it – and that’s what counts.
4. Where is your favorite place on Earth and what makes it so special? Tough call. Prague would be my favorite place to live, but ‘favorite favorite’ goes to Manarola, a village in the Cinque Terre in Italy. That’s the one place I’ve been to where I have felt happy the entire time I was there.
5. What is your favorite food and why? I get some flack for this, but it’s chicken fried steak and I have no shame about it. The biggest reason is that it’s not as easily accessible for me, and so whenever I have it, it feels like a special occasion or a big deal.
6. What is your favorite book of all-time? Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison (not The Invisible Man – that’s H.G. Wells!) is my favorite book for sure. It’s a long read, but the text is just as relevant then as it is today. Would recommend for sure!
7. Why do you enjoy writing and blogging? I’ve loved writing for as long as I can remember. I don’t think I’m good at a lot of things personally, but writing has always been one of very few areas that I’ve always felt confident in. I didn’t know how much I would enjoy blogging when I first started three years ago, but it’s given more than I expected. I love that my writing style works well as blogging, and the love I’ve been given and the community I’ve found in doing my blog is far beyond anything I imagined.
8. What type of music do you enjoy? I am all over the place music-wise, but my two favorite genres that I’d specifically mention are Indie Folk and Soul – anything from Roo Panes to Marvin Gaye!
9. What are your favorite hobbies (besides writing) and why do you like them? My favorite hobbies of all-time have to be basketball  and travel. I played basketball my whole life, it’s my favorite sport and I played competitively until I was 18. I like it because the basketball community is one of the places I’ve always felt like I belonged; it didn’t always matter what else was going on, when I’m on the court I don’t have to think about anything else except the next play. Traveling will be difficult for…a while. But it’s special to me because there because I know that I’m never happier than when I am traveling to a new country. I am an adventurer at heart, and I feel like I have confidence I never have when I travel – 16 countries and counting!
10. What is your favourite song and singer/band? My favorite song is easily Stand By Me by Ben E. King, I’ve listened to it thousands of times and it gets my every time. My favorite singer is George Ezra, who actually sings my second-favorite song of all-time, Blame It On Me (I really like to rank things)

Nominees

I’ve never really nominated anyone for something like this before, so forgive me if you’ve already done this! But here are the bloggers I’ll nominate:

1. DCMori from Getting Off Effexor
2. SimplyWendi from Simply Chronically Ill
3. Ashley from Mental Health at Home
4. PoojaG from LifesFineWhine
5. Bri from Brittain is Mental
6. Julie Krupp from Enhanced Perspective
7. Susan from My Unforgiving Thoughts