Tina’s Supplied Honesty

F A M I L Y

I ran into a stranger as he passed by,

‘Oh excuse me please’ was my reply.

He said, ‘Please excuse me too;

I wasn’t watching for you.’

We were very polite, this stranger and I.

We went on our way and we said goodbye.

But at home a different story is told,

How we treat our loved ones, young and old.

Later that day, cooking the evening meal,

My son stood beside me very still.

When I turned, I nearly knocked him down.

‘Move out of the way,’ I said with a frown.

He walked away, his little heart broken.

I didn’t realize how harshly I’d spoken.

While I lay awake in bed, God’s still small voice came to me and said,

‘While dealing with a stranger,  common courtesy you use,

but the family you love, you seem to abuse.

Go and look on the kitchen floor,

You’ll find some flowers there by the door.

Those are the flowers he brought for you.

He picked them himself: pink, yellow and blue.

He stood very quietly not to spoil the surprise,

you never saw the tears that filled his little eyes.’

By this time, I felt very small,

And now my tears began to fall. (more…)

I was watching something a few weeks ago and when someone said that they wanted to confess an indiscretion a friend told them that confessing is just as guilty as what they lied about in the first place. I can recall seeing these situations addressed on the hit show, “Friday Night Lights” and the movie, “A Good Woman”.

Lies are selfish, and your confession may just be even more selfish! If you have done something that was bad enough you felt a lie was necessary, then isn’t your confession only to clear your own conscious. I am sorry I cannot remember the exact quote, but in “A Good Woman” when a gal wanted to confess that she planned to have an affair another woman told her that a confession is just forcing someone else to deal with your bad decision. I would have to agree, especially in the situation from the movie. In the movie she did plan to have an affair, but only because she was led to believe her husband was having a long term affair with another woman. While waiting for the man who fancied her to come home she was talked to her senses and went home to wait for her husband. She may have considered an affair, but in reality she never did break her husband’s trust. She did not lie about where she was, or who she was with (okay, maybe she omitted it). She just had a moment where she thought that she wanted to feel loved by someone, but realized her husband was actually faithful and went home to him. In this situation of course we would say we would like to know the truth, but in reality doesn’t it just put that extra bit of doubt into our minds that is really unnecessary?

Of course some confessions are always needed to your loved ones, but you really need to think about what kind of consequences you are forcing another to deal with because you were dishonest or a bad person. It is not fair to force others to deal with your mistakes just simply because you have a guilty conscious suddenly. Hopefully, that will also deter you from making mistakes like that in the future!

Personally I agree with both sides of this debate. I believe that it all depends upon the lie, and the reason for the lie.

I know that when I have always talked to my spouses (current and past) I have always said that if they have made a mistake I would just like to know so that I do not look like a fool in the end. However, when I have found out about indiscretions I have said, to myself many times, that I wish I just could go back to the way it was before I knew. I think that this really counts for the smaller white lies. Of course we would love to think that our loved ones never hide anything from us, yet I truly believe that sometimes never being forced to deal with a situation can be the best for you sometimes.

Say your spouse had a moment of horrible judgment and did something foolish, yet realized their mistakes and took the proper steps to correct it. Would you want to know about their lapse of judgment? Of course your initial reaction is, ‘yes, I do not want any secrets in my relationship’. However, what would knowing really give you? It now gives you a reason to doubt their judgment, which causes worry, which causes fear, which causes fights. To me that just doesn’t sound like something that is necessary. Of course we would rather never even have to deal with this situation in the first place, but we are all human therefore we all have moments where our judgment is not great.

I know with my current relationship I have one of these situations and the lie was so stupid and so petty, yet he tried to cover it so well that sometimes I really worry that it could cause so many doubts that it can ruin or previously prefect relationship.

Warning to all of you fellas out there; if you lie about something absolutely stupid and ridiculous claiming “I just didn’t want it to hurt you honey”, then the girl somehow finds out, you have just doomed the next 6 months (at least) of your relationship! You will constantly be questioned, and she will always randomly think ‘how do I know if this is a lie?’ As shocking as it may seem, big lies are easier to forgive than small ones. Most girls would all agree, a big lie is understandable (maybe not forgivable in a relationship, but understandable nonetheless) while a small lie just makes people think, ‘if they’ll lie about this, won’t they lie about anything?’

What are your experiences with white lies? When do you think they are necessary or when do you think they just begin to fuel a deadly fire?!

The holiday season is a very stressful time of year! It is stressful because it becomes an over load of finding enough time to keep up your normal routines, getting enough time in with all the friends and family that you love most, and reconnecting with those whom you may have lost touch with throughout the year. It is a time when it is supposed to be embracing love, but we all know that with the pressure of the holiday season it can cause rifts in our personal relationships or even cause them to end.

Dealing with break ups can be hard enough, let alone dealing with them during the magical time of the year. I have had many questions about how to break up with dignity or in a mature manner. I think that this is the best time of year to really cover it. (more…)

I have saw many different shows over the last few years touch on the subject of Bipolar disorder in teenagers. While I think that it is great that they do touch on this subject, and attempt to educate people on this very serious, and common issue for many teenagers and adults throughout the world. I think that it is also important to point out that the shows do not exactly portray a perfect image of what the illness can look like. In the shows and movies they often have the extreme or very dramatic portions of the disorder. I am not saying that they are not accurate, but they are not how everyone with the illness acts.

In many of the TV shows they show the teenagers going from extremely happy to extremely sad within a very short time. It is very true that anything can trigger a change within a bipolar person, but it is not that they cannot handle any normal situations. I think it goes without saying that we all know people with bipolar disorder, and we know that each person is different and reacts differently to their illness. I think that it is important to understand when you are dealing with a person who is bipolar. It is hard for some people to understand that someone they know may truly have this disorder. That one friend that seems to fly off the handle sometimes may have bipolar disorder, or the other friend who seems to take extreme offense to small situations may be manic depressive or bipolar. From personal experience it is very hard to deal with those around you who have the disorder. You may not know what will set them off, or how they will react to the label of being mentally ill. It is very important to understand that these people do not live with the common sense mind frame that we expect of everyone.

As many of you probably know there are two parts of Bipolar disorder; Mania and Depression. To find more information about warning signs, and the types of bipolar disorder view this very informative article from health.com!

If you have stories to share about your experiences with bipolar disorder I would be glad to share them in helps to educate others, just email them to me teenskee@gmail.com. If you have questions or concerns you can email them to me as well so that we can work together to find you help and answers!

I got my inspiration for this post from watching old episodes of The Bill Engvall Show.  The first one that I saw was very touching though so I just had to take some time to write about it.

The family has a dog named Raffle, who they realized had cancer. The whole plot of the show was to decide if they wanted to put their dog down, or give up their vacation to try surgery without knowing if it would really even help their dog at all. To me this is something that just makes my heart swell thinking about it. I love my dog as he was my child! I have been made fun of since the day that I got this adorable little bugger! I always think of him pretty much as a human, he is a person in my family. (more…)

Lately due to the holidays, as well as many other things within my life, I have done quite a bit of questioning myself, and some soul searching. In August I had a very rough month! It was a month of many shocking situations and the months following it were almost just as rough for me! I ran into my first issue within my relationship, then I had many “friends” from the past who came back into my life. They were promising me the world when in reality all they were interested in was taking my shining stars and leaving me in the dark.

I have a very interesting and crazy past, at least that is what I am always told when I do finally confide in someone new about some things from my childhood or young adult life. I still openly say that I know I am extremely young! I am only 23 years, and I am often taught that I have so much left to learn about people and relationships.

Last August my boyfriend was very convinced that my job was toxic for me. I get severe migraines and the work environment was just not healthy for me. I agreed that I wanted to do something more rewarding until I could go back to college. We then made the decision that I would quit my job and baby sit for a mutual friend and my sister. Things did not work out with that, and I found myself dabbling into the world of freelance writing. I always enjoyed helping friends and family with their relationship issues, and I was often told that I was great at it. (more…)

While watching the last episode of “Glee” it suddenly hits me how much this show revolves around dishonesty. Of course it is obvious in the plot line, but when you first see some of the lies the show revolves around it is hard to see them as realistic lies that we may encounter. Then this episode comes along and touches on exposing even more lies then finishes the show off with the group singing “True Colors”.

When I was in choir in high school my teacher just happened for this to be a the song that all choirs sang together on for our senior concert. Of course this senior concert was while my boyfriend and I were breaking up. The break up was pretty simple and straight forward. He was older and we went to different schools, his best friend was in my choir though and we were very close. It happened that he was watching me while we were singing that song and it really touched me. They were all getting ready to leave the school, and I was just starting my journey there really. Since that day, whenever I see someone for what they really are this song pops back into my head.

It does not always have to mean that someone truly is a great person inside, but sometimes you see their true colors and realize they are not that great inside after all. This episode really got me thinking about past relationships and present ones. Sometimes true colors shining through are deal makers and sometimes they are deal breakers! What are your absolute true color moments from your life? Were the deal makers, deal breakers, or just reassuring that you were making the right choices?

So I was milling around a site after accidentally running across it. It was a site like Yahoo! Answers, and they actually had a category labeled “sex in teenage relationships”. I was completely shocked! Then on top of that of course my curiosity had to get the best of me, and I had to read some of the questions that were on the site. I was so shocked and disgusted! One of the teenagers misspelled infection, and blockage! Gosh, I was just totally shocked!!! Many other teenagers were asking common sense questions that would be answered in a very simple health class! One said that middle school students were having sex and that it was known some of them had STD’s!

UGH! I know that I am old fashioned, but no matter what this should never be okay or acceptable!
I just had to vent a bit about this! I know that it happens everywhere but do these answer sites really need to give them encouragement by their own category to ask for technique advice?! Gross!

After writing a post on another blog about Taylor Swift’s skit on Saturday Night Live poking fun at the ultra famous moment with Kanye West, I realized that the post may be better for this blog instead. After watching the hilarious video I started to think about what it really means to create your own legacy, and started wondering if people really realized when they were creating their legacy. When you are a celebrity we all know that most actions are carefully planned so that you do can try to avoid as much bad publicity as possible, otherwise one decision really can ruin your entire career. However, it is very clear that Kanye was not thinking through all aspects of his decision to ruin Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech at the MTV Video Music Awards a few months back. Yes, many say that he did it for publicity, but I beg to differ. I believe that this was just another typical Kanye west temper tantrum that has ruined his career.

With all of that being said, I do not think that most people really take the time to think about the long term memory of their decisions! Yes of course we take the time to think about the consequences of our decisions, but do we think this could end up being my legacy? Long after I am gone when my name comes up this will be what people remember me for! (more…)