Linda Elena XO

Monday, July 21, 2025

Hi friends! If you've been here before, thank you for coming back. I f you're new welcome to this cozy corner of the internet.

After a long pause, I'm back - and here's why... After my last post I had just rediscovered who I was again and what I wanted from life. I realized I wanted to get into the world of business. So I took a local business class in my small state county. I loved everything about it so much! However, as my professional life was growing my personal life was slowly deteriorating.

My partner David and I ended things after 8 years of being together for several reasons that I won't include here but yeah especially with him living with me temporarily while he sorts out his living situation. We have realized we are not really compatible with each other and no longer want the same things anymore.

I went back to work as a cashier at a local gas station chain. I choose this job mainly because I wanted the experience in customer service. Boy, have I learned a lot!

Over the past few years my small business has fallen to the waist side but I think that's because I got caught up in overthinking what I should do with it.

I can now finally say I'm working towards rebuilding a relaunch for the business very soon. I've grown so much spiritually and that is what ties into my small business Faith Like Ruth Creations.

I also become a Mary Kay Beauty Consultant over these past few years. I've taken a little break these past few months from it to focus on getting my footing with my job as a cashier.

I've also taken a break from progressive counting therapy for my CPTSD. However, I'm happy to say I will be returning to it in the next session I have with my therapist.

I had lost interest in writing for the blog overtime weeks turned to months into years. Here I am rejuvenated with a new sense of purpose. I missed sharing my life on here but I am more than happy to return to it. The direction I will be taking this blog Linda Elena XO is with content topics including the following:

* Frugal Fashion

* Cozy Lifestyle Moments ( slow living, self-care, budgeting)

* Mental Health Reflections

I'd love to hear from you- why are you here? What do you hope to see more of ? Let's grow together!

With Love & Purpose | Linda Elena XO

Sunday, June 6, 2021

Living With Schizoaffective Disorder / Diary 01

It's been a long time since I've posted on this blog. Personally I've been dealing with a lot from not working to being hospitalized on a psych unit for attempted suicide. I've had a lot of mental health problems I've been dealing with. But as always I'm resilient which I'm not sure if that just comes from my upbringing or my deep southern ancestry pushing me forward. All I know that I learned this experience is part of my recovery is not just taking the medication and doing therapy it's also having a routine, doing yoga, practicing mindfulness in stressful situations. It's imperative for me to practice daily self care rituals like doing a puzzle, reading, or writing. It's not a privileged thing that I can't make time for I must make time for it because time and time again whenever I let these things slip little by little I will start to get worse mentally. Just like people have to check their insulin levels I have to check my mood swings and keep them balanced by making sure I'm taking care of my mental health. During my hospital stay it was expressed how rare it was from someone with my illness to be able to so coherent as I am and be able to be so aware of my illness. To some people they would be flattered by that insinuation but I was just a little offended and sad. I was offended because so many confuse mental illness with a lack of intelligence. I mean yeah it's harder to be more coherent but it doesn't mean that just because I'm schizophrenic that I forget all common sense and it made me sad because I realize the system is meant to keep people who have faced countless traumas that induced their illness to feel like they will never amount to anything close to the American Dream that we were sold on as children. That the best they can do is just to have a roof over their head and food in their bellies. Those are things to be grateful for but being diagnosed with a mental illness is not a death sentence. As humans each and everyone of us are capable of achieving our dream goals and living our ideal life regardless of our disabilities. I mean yeah we can complain that we have to work three times as hard as Joe Shmo but you know what that's not gonna get us closer to where we want to be. Life is sometimes unfair but everyone in life has their obstacles in life and it's not our disabilities that will prevent us from living a fulfilling life it's our state of mind and willingness to put the work into getting what we want to be that will determine if we fulfill our potential.

Tuesday, October 27, 2020

October 2020 Monthly Favorites

Hello Everyone! Boy, has it been a long time since I've posted on here. So many changes have happened, I've re branded my blog to Linda Elena and added a YouTube channel. I've also been brainstorming ideas and working on some new posts for the new year. I've wanted to improve the writing of my blog posts and give it more content than just my personal thoughts and opinions.

I've also been re watching Gilmore Girls which is now my go to TV series whenever I need a pick up. When I was in high school I used to watch this show a lot and it would help motivate me to try and do my homework. Coincidentally, when I was in high school I was more of book worm and a band geek but not so much a scholastic. Anyway I've re discovered my love for the show and have been loving the things I've picked up. Like getting back into reading and starting to take notes on books and articles that I come across. I'm seriously considering subscribing to a few magazines and newspapers to continue my thirst for learning. I've also made a couple other YouTube channels called Peachy Homemaker and Makeup By Linda Elena.

The Peachy Homemaker channel is a cultivation of things I've learned while living in a Treatment Apartment Program. The three main topics featured on this channel include budgeting, cleaning, and cooking. These were the things that I had to learn before I was approved to move forward to independently live on my own. I personally enjoy watching videos on these things and I thought it would be a nice hobby to make my own videos while also keeping up with these housekeeping tasks as well.

I'm still brainstorming video ideas for the Linda Elena channel and Makeup by Linda Elena. For Linda Elena its more of a personal channel so I was thinking of making videos that are more personal. Such as reading vlogs, cross stitching vlogs, mental health vlogs, and fitness related vlogs.

As for the Makeup by Linda Elena channel I want to make videos showcasing my progress in cosmetology. I want to try challenging myself in that medium to see if I really like doing cosmetology and if I want to pursue it by getting professionally trained.

As for music I've been obsessed with Ariana Grande's new music video Positions. The lyrics are completely relatable in terms of women always having to juggle everything. If you haven't watched it yet, you definitely should!

So those have been my October Favorites I didn't write them as a list this time and I hope that's okay with you guys! Let me know what you think in the comments section and what your favorites for the month have been too.

Tuesday, May 19, 2020

Vintage Acquisitions

I’m a 90’s baby so that means I literally lived through the transition of technology advancement. Therefore, it only makes sense that I have an affinity for vintage items. I wonder if I might one day hand down the items I’ve acquired to family members one day but at the moment I’m pleasantly happy with the enjoyment that I receive from them. I first started with collecting vinyl records at a thrift shop that I posted on here before. Along with the vinyl record player I purchased by myself at the time. I then bought instax mini 9 camera and spent a few months taking pictures of people and places that I met and had been at during the time. I will say the film is quite expensive to keep up with on a daily basis so I only reserve to purchase the film for special occasions and moments that I want to capture on mini Polaroids. Also, I’ve been lucky enough to have a friend who lent me their cassette player to use and luckily per chance I’ve been able to have been gifted some cassette tapes from an old friend. I love it and use it while I’m painting or drawing. I’m very lucky and blessed to have acquired these items over the years. Lately, I’ve had my eyes on some other vintage items such as a super 8 camera, a regular sized Polaroid camera, a vintage film camera, a CD player, and a typewriter. I hope your inspired to get purchase some vintage products and can tap into your inner vintage self.

Monday, May 11, 2020

Quarantine Life

The world has changed so much in the past few months. As we get used to this new way of life I’ve tried to make the most of it.

I’ve gotten more into trying new recipes to make at home. I’ve made sandwich bread to lengua tacos. I’ve really tried to develop new skills and come up with ideas for business adventures that I would like to pursue in the future. This pandemic has shown me what businesses responses look like when faced with this challenge and how to learn from it.

Throughout this pandemic I’ve also been commended by my therapist on keeping my relationship with my boyfriend healthy throughout this quarantine. An accomplishment I’ve been told that has been hard for many people. This quarantine has strengthened our relationship.

As the days go on I’ve learned to keep things in perspective. Even though I was disappointed about not being able to go camping this summer I’m willing to make that sacrifice to keep myself healthy. Instead I’ve learned to also relish the small minuscule things of day to day life. For example, when it’s a nice and relatively warm day outside and I’ve just woken up I make myself a nice warm cup of coffee and bring it outside and sit in my little foldable camping chair that’s sitting on the balcony and just relish in the beams from the sun’s light radiating warmth on my face and relax and enjoy the moment. I repeat positive mantras to myself and allow myself to feel absolute happiness and bliss.

I hope all of you are enjoying the little things in life and are remembering to keep things in perspective and most importantly staying safe

Tuesday, April 7, 2020

Music & Art Therapy

Music and art has been in my life throughout my entire life. From being in high school where I played the clarinet in jazz band, marching band, and regular band. I was very fortunate enough to be around people who were vastly talented at being able to learn instruments on their own I have always loved music from classical to bubblegum pop. It took awhile for me to eventually love folk and country music just as much. Throughout my life I've meticulously followed the evolution of music unfold throughout the past ten years or so. I saw how Taylor Swift's music in the beginning of her career became the catalyst of country music becoming mainstream and how it evolved from techno pop blowing up the charts to folky music like passenger's let her go being played continuously on the radio. I've always unknowingly used music as therapy. Some examples include when I had a disagreement with my parents or had a particularly hard day at school. Those teenage years I repeatedly played Christina Aguilera's album Stripped on my CD player. When her than new album Back to Basics came out it influenced my thirst for wanting to know more than just mainstream artists but the musicians that came before them. So basically what I'm trying to get at is that music has been part of my life. So when my therapist suggested making a playlist to listen to or to remember the lyrics from a favorite song to help cope with stressful situations I was all for it. So I created a playlist with songs that I loved throughout the years that make me still feel something and I can remember what parts of my life that each of these songs helped get through some difficult parts in my life.
However, because I'm an avid music lover I thought about making a list of my favorite songs from each month and posting it on my tumblr for any of you who happen to love music too and are looking for new music to listen to. So yes music is a form of therapy but throughout the past few years I've picked up drawing and painting as a form of therapy for coping with my schizophrenic symptoms. I found using my hands and just creating something from my imagination is just so relaxing and peaceful that it can calm me down enough and being able to focus on reality while I experience these symptoms. So if you're looking for new coping skills I suggest creating music playlists while you paint or draw and see how much it relaxes and distresses you!

Monday, September 24, 2018

Ambitions

I've been struggling with what type of content I want to publish on my blog. I do believe I want to continue posting my advice and experience with health and religion I would also like to do something I've never considered doing before. But before I tell you what that is I'll simply start with how I came up with the idea. I've been reading a book by Atul Gawande called Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance that was suggested from a blog I recently came across. Recently, I've become increasingly interested in knowing more about med school. It started with following a couple of med school student YouTube accounts to just get better ideas for studying but then after I earned my certification as a nursing aide I went to a training for an introduction to peer mentoring and it was there where I became open and hopeful when I had heard that one of the members who put the NYS certified peer specialist program together had started as a patient just like me and advanced into being a psychiatrist. I am taking classes to become a peer specialist simply because many of the people who have observed me over the past couple of years have regarded me as a role model for other people who have a mental illness. It's been a long time since I've been regarded as a role model. Even just writing it makes me feel that I don't deserve that title but I am also a notorious perfectionist and that is an asset to a point but I hardly give my self-credit when I deserve it. So I started the classes and in it, there are resources that are suggested some which I have become familiar with over the years such as Mary Ellen Copeland's WRAP and another book that caught my eye Instant Psychopharmacology. As a person with a mental illness I am prescribed medications for my illness but when I was first given the meds I wasn't in the state to comprehend what their names are or what they do. All I know is that my mom told me if I didn't take the meds then they would take me to court. I assumed they meant the hospital so I did what anyone left with any common sense would do I took the pills without question. It wasn't until I voluntarily came into a treatment apartment program that I was asked do you know what your meds are? Do you know how many milligrams each med is prescribed for? Do you know what each medication is for? Do you know what the symptoms are? So on and so forth which is why the psychopharmacology book interested me so much because it lists every medication used in psychiatry to treat people with mental illnesses. Originally I had been interested in just being a nurse maybe specializing as a psych nurse. The more and more I learned about med school it became increasingly apparent to me I want to be a psychiatrist. I am not delusional in the knowledge that learning to be a doctor is extremely hard. I am quite aware of that but do you know what else is hard? Having one of the most debilitating mental illnesses. I was lucky that they caught mine early and I am able to function relatively normally but I've had to work twice as hard than people my own age. I've learned coping skills, how to manage my symptoms and countless other things over the years. Recently I've reached a stagnant point in my recovery which is lacking the motivation to do simple things such as waking up early in the mornings consistently to know what my purpose in life is. Which is where some much overdue soul searching has come into play I am a strong believer that God gives us what we can handle and while some may look at their illness as a hindrance to their quality of life I look at it as a blessing. It' a blessing because I am looking at life differently from a more humble view but I've also grown so much and have explored what I want from life and I genuinely do love helping people. In a way, I view it as God getting me ready to do His work. I know I have a long way to go but in Gawande's book, his fourth suggestion for becoming a positive deviant is to write. So, I'm starting here on this blog to write about my experience and journey towards my ultimate goal which is to become a psychiatrist.

Thank you for reading this post. What obstacles have you overcome in life? Have you found your purpose in life? Let me know in the comments below!!

Wednesday, June 13, 2018

What Are My Roots?

I am a 26-year-old Mexican American who lives with a mental illness. I am a C.N.A and a blogger. I am a Christian, daughter, sister, girlfriend, and a friend. I come from a small town in western New York. My parents are Catholic's who are conservative and are hard workers who come from big Mexican families and married and started a family young. Both my parents are strong Catholics and they both came from strong Catholic families. They sometimes struggle to understand why I try out different churches that are not Catholic. I feel as though I am being called to a church that speaks to my soul and makes me feel like I am completely connected with God but I have learned that I will always respect my parents denomination and have a special place in my heart for the Catholic faith because it is where I first learned about God and because my family's roots are strongly attached to the Catholic Church. I would like to write more posts on my blog about my spirituality and make faith-based posts on the blog. I don't want to write posts just for the views or followers. I want to write posts that speak to people and inspire them. I want to use this blog to make a positive impact on people's lives. I hope that if you're reading this that you will get more of a picture of who I am and get a clearer sense of what this blog is about.

Sunday, June 10, 2018

Sunday Morning Vol. 6

Good Morning! Welcome to another Sunday Mornings post. It has been quite the week for me. The first favorite for me this week has got to be the book of Matthew.

1. Book of Matthew

This week my patience was tested. To give a background to it I have to attend a day treatment program twice a week and I choose to live in a place where I am provided service for treatment as well. I am a pretty well tempered individual and am not used to being around people who scream and harass everyone. However with being provided these services I come into contact with people who are just like this. Well, one of the individuals really triggered me to react just like they do by yelling and raising my voice. I won’t go into any further detail than that just to protect HIPAA rules but I hope you have an understanding. You see raising my voice and acting just like that person didn’t mean I was winning the argument. No, it meant that Satan won that fight because I wasn't being a Christian and I wasn’t serving God by my actions, I was serving my pride. Sometimes we will come into contact with individuals who are so twisted and angry and instead of fighting fire with fire we need to just learn to let it go. We need to learn to understand that there will be people who just don’t get it and it’s not our job to fix them or correct them. They need to learn on their own how to be humble, kind, and respectful individuals. I’ve been reading and studying the Book of Matthew and in the book is a verse that states, “For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” It was so easy for me to get caught up in anger and let that control what I said but what I’ve learned from this situation is to hold my tongue and speak only words of kindness for that is what I truly am to the core and allow whoever the devil is using to test me to speak their words of emptiness. Not only that but forgive them for their actions and learn from it on how to be a better Christian. It doesn’t make me weak on the contrary it makes me stronger by disciplining myself to be a light and only to speak light into the world. If you feel as though you are struggling with something similar to this situation remember to stay strong and do not let someone else’s pain and anger change who you truly are.

2. Sketching

I’ve been quite stressed out about the next chapter of my life and to help distract myself from the nerves I’ve prayed about it and started to use my hobbies as a healthy distraction. I sketched this image from a pin I saved on Pinterest and it was incredibly stress-relieving.

Do you have any hobbies that help you relieve stress? If so let me know what they are in the comment section down below!

3. Inspirational and Motivational Video

I like to watch videos of nursing students, law school students, and med school students. I find a lot of them helpful for study tips and how to manage my time better. I came across this video in my subscription box this week and found it really inspiring and motivational to work hard to reach my goals so I thought I’d share it on here if you’re in a rut and need something to motivate you to accomplish your dreams.

I hope you all have a wonderful Sunday!

Saturday, June 2, 2018

Sunday Mornings Vol.5

Hi everyone! I hope you're all having a great day! I'm going to post this one a little earlier than what I intended. Here are some of the things that I've been loving lately.

I hope you enjoy!

Cleaning Videos

My cleaning game had been seriously struggling it's hard to have the motivation to keep my apartment clean when I've had a long and tiring day. Along with following a new daily schedule where I give myself an hour pretty much every day to do a deep cleaning of a different room once a week it's been easier to keep on top of cleaning I have found watching cleaning videos on YouTube has helped me a ton.

Apartment Inspo

So because of all these cleaning videos I've gathered several ideas for my apartment. I've saved a lot of ideas to my Pinterest board called apartment inspo.

Thank you for stopping by and I hope you're all having a wonderful Weekend!

Monday, March 19, 2018

Bible Journaling

So recently I've really been getting into Bible journaling. So I researched about it more and came across a video by Jordan Lee Dooley. I mentioned her in a previous post but I thought I would share with you how I go about Bible journaling.

This is my Bible journal it's an ESV version.

This is my notes that pertain to anything that has to do with Bible journaling.

So I use the color coding theme that Jordan talks about in her video.

These are my notes on the 45 plan that Jordan shares on her website.

These are the tools that I use Zebra Midliner highlighters, Staedler stabilo fine point pens, and post it notes in all sorts of sizes.

Hope you enjoyed!

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