fbpx

Category: Rant

Your kids are not trophies

It’s so weird watching from my perspective now. Parents losing it over a bad call by a referee or a bad test score. That one moment is not going to define a life.

You gotta let go of the high achievement thing.

Let it go! Next week you won’t even remember that lousy call by the ref. We have forgotten to let kids be kids and to allow them to fail, grow and learn from it. We have forgotten to let them have free time for fear that a moment of unstructured time will mean they’ll not get into college … Read more...

How gummi bears saved my brain

I didn’t tell you how my brain tumor was discovered.

Charles was 3 years old and wanted to take a shower. No more baths! Daddy didn’t take baths. Daddy took showers so Charles needed to take showers.

I had to tell Charles that he could not eat his pack of gummy bears in the shower. He didn’t want to leave them because he knew I loved them. But I scooted him in the shower. Charles gets out of the shower and says. “Hey mom, you ate one!”

I say, “No way, I wouldn’t do that.”

Charles says, “Stick out your … Read more...

Toasting a brain tumor

Four years ago, my brain tumor returned. They’ve been watching it until some new technology was approved for the US. It was approved and two of the pieces of technology came to the US in late 2016. One of them in Buffalo, NY. That’s where I’ll have radiation to fry that sucker once and for all (hopefully) on Friday, August 25.

It’s a benign tumor in a not so great spot. Basically it’s a non-acoustic skull-based schwannoma that was once on my hypoglossal nerve (tongue nerve) and is now headed towards the brain stem.  Basically, it’s a tumor in the … Read more...

Y’all gotta stop being paranoid

paranoid

I’m out to lunch and someone starts talking, then they stop. “You’re not going to publish this on your blog, are you?”

I get a message on Facebook. Same question.

I get an email, phone call, text. Same question.

Only if you are submitting a story and I have your permission, will I publish a post.

I do not publish personal conversations here. Maybe one day there will be an exception. But only if I ask and you give me permission to publish it.

I’m not putting your name on it without your permission. I’m not publishing your loved one’s … Read more...

Bullying example. Are you setting limits on your child’s phone?

I have always advocated waiting as long as possible to get your child a smartphone. Too many parents hand them over and the kids have them 24/7. You don’t always know you have a vulnerable teen until after a suicide attempt or a completed suicide. And then it’s too late.

Kids have been murdered and raped because of apps. Bullying and other dangerous internet games have been contributing factors for suicide.

Allowing your kids, especially any kid under 18, carte blanche phone privileges is flat out dangerous. You are essentially allowing your child in the car with the flasher in … Read more...

A crazy post about name calling

I don't like to be called chicken

Drug addict, junkie, crack head, coke whore, druggie, doper, pill popper, dope fiend, stoner, tweaker, bag bitch.

Crazy, psycho, bat shit crazy, cuckoo, fucked up, cray-cray, dodgy, lunatic, demented, nutty, loony, demented, off his rocker, mad, unhinged, loco.

These are phrases we use to refer to those suffering from mental illness and substance use disorder.

I’ve even heard people who’ve been affected by either or both refer to someone else with the disease with these phrases.

I’ve heard it from doctors referring to patients they’ve treated.

I’ve heard it from mental health professionals.

I’ve heard it from those in the … Read more...

4 things we can do to help our kids cope with bullying

Bullying has been around forever. Nothing we do will make it go away completely. It’s part of childhood and adolescence and I believe meant to prepare people for adult life. There are bosses that are bullies, neighbors and relatives that are bullies and what we learn as children in terms of coping helps us later in these situations.

Funny thing is, although we are hearing more about it, bullying has actually decreased according to a big new study in the journal Pediatrics. In 2005, 28.5 percent of students surveyed reported experiencing at least one form of bullying. By 2014, … Read more...

Dangerous apps for kids and teens

A few years back, my marketing agency did a joke campaign on how staring at a cell phone could create “glowburn.”  Which meant that even after you put your phone away, the glow on your face remained as it was “burned” into your skin.

The truth is, our relationship with our mobile devices is not that healthy and it’s not for our kids either. Not only that, mobile phones and the apps can be dangerous.

Who is at risk?

Character traits — not technology — make young people vulnerable to becoming victims via popular apps. Those who are depressed, socially … Read more...

What’s a teen to do?

A friend of yours is depressed,
Cutting, binging, purging, drugging,
Suffering suicidal thoughts,
And you don’t know what to do.

You’re not supposed to fix this,
But you also can’t dismiss it.
You have ears,
I know you do,
I’ve seen them attached
To your hairdo.
I know you’re able to listen,
It’s so easy to do!

You can encourage that peer
To tell an adult that she holds dear.
It might just be a mother,
A sister or a brother,
A teacher or a preacher,
Or the aunt with a hair transplant.

Then there’s always cousin Ed
who wears … Read more...

Anne Moss is my first name

its-a

Just so you know, Anne Moss is my first name. It’s a double name–a Southern thing. Not Anne. Not Moss. Not Moss-Rogers. Anne Moss. Then Rogers, the last name.

Moss was my grandmother’s maiden name. And since my grandmother had two girls, the Moss name was in danger of dying out. So my mother attached the Moss to my name for a double name.

In North Carolina, this is not uncommon.

I have often been asked, “Can I call you Anne?” Well, no because that’s only half my name. Many of you might not have realized that was my … Read more...

Going all geeky on you

From February 1, 2016 – October 24, 2016

With your help, the posts on this blog have reached hundreds of thousands since February 1, 2016. There are some backdated posts I entered in here from Facebook prior to that date but 02/1/2016 is when I launched it.

I get messages, letters, phone calls and I do know at least 11 people have literally reached out for treatment for addiction, mental illness and suicidal thoughts. I don’t know how many others.

Countless other parents and young adults have found a support group for grief, mental illness or addiction on our … Read more...

My brain on grief unless I write

hamster-wheelIt is emotionally draining to write some of these posts. I do revisit the emotions of losing my son to suicide all over again which hurts like the devil.

The truth is the stories run round and round in my head like a hamster wheel. When I am stubborn and refuse to write about it, my thoughts stalk me until I let it out.

Stuffing the grief makes it worse–makes me feel like I’m stuck in quicksand.

I have from 10-20 unfinished entries in the back end of this website at any given time. Brain dumps some of them. Many … Read more...

Be the change if you’re not seeing the change you want – #JRW16

Thank you Lisa Mistra for this illustration. Love it! Melissa Scott Sinclair was the moderator, a talented author and writer for Richmond magazine and Style Weekly and I am the presenter on the topic of personal branding.

If you are an aspiring author in Richmond, Virginia, James River Writers is the group for you. Such a gracious, interesting, supportive and engaged group. I thoroughly enjoyed presenting to this group. And that’s saying something since I had been in a serious grief relapse.

The topic was personal branding and social media and I used some examples from this site, annemoss.com. It … Read more...

I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take this any more

I love this scene. One of my favorites of all time from the memorable 70’s movie, Network. I have not seen a movie this good in years. It illustrates how frustrated I feel about the loss of so many lives of young people especially in the last few years

How many thousands more kids do we have to lose to overdose and suicide before we make genuine change? Before we talk more openly? Before we demand more affordable treatment options for people with mental illness? Before we declare addiction as a disorder and not a moral failing?

How do … Read more...