self-awareness

Bully, Bully

/ Laura Mock / Leave a comment
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Dolls and Tornadoes

Some people collect dolls. I avoided those at all costs. The only time I ever remember playing with a doll involved a tornado, being about nine, a little girl younger than I was who was crying, and being in the basement of someone else’s house. There was also hail. Lots of hail.

Actually, that’s not quite true. My mom once made me a Laura Ingalls doll — yarn braids, calico dress, the whole pioneer bit. She even had a tent. I loved that thing because my mom made it. My sister named hers Wendy Ingalls. It’s the only doll I ever actually played with.

That summer I collected tornadoes, but that’s a different blog.

Some people collect classic cars. That seems like a lot of work, a lot of time, and a lot more money than I have to invest. At one point, I decided to collect key chains because I thought it would be unique. It didn’t take long to find another sixteen-year-old collector. Now, my goal is to carry the smallest number of keys possible, so key chains are low on the list as well.

First Collection: Bullies

The first thing I ever collected was bullies. Her name was Heidi Hammond. She was the kind of girl whose parents pulled children out of class and placed them elsewhere. If she said you had friends, you had friends. If she said you didn’t…well, you get the picture.

My family moved to her town in the harshest winter in that western Colorado town’s history. We were living in a fifth-wheel camper while trying to build our own house. My parents were building it themselves. In the winter. In the coldest winter…ever. Did I mention it was cold?

Heidi’s family graciously took us in and let us live in their basement until we could move into the house.

My Personal Nellie Oleson

This was in the days of Little House on the Prairie. I loved that show. Heidi did too. She was my own personal Nellie Olesen. And I was her Laura Ingalls. It didn’t help that my name is Laura.

Heidi took notes. She copied everything Nellie did and used it on me. I, the girl living in her basement, was at her mercy under strict orders from my mother to be nice. When Nellie — I mean Heidi — did something, I had to let it go. When she stood me under a tree and knocked a nest of larval caterpillars into my hair, I ran away screaming… and let it go.

In one episode, Nellie Oleson pretended she couldn’t walk for attention. The next week, Heidi was on crutches, then a wheelchair. Surprise. If Nellie played a trick on Laura, Heidi played it on me.

My mom once told me Heidi beat me up sometimes, but I honestly don’t remember that. I remember the mental abuse. I remember how she got away with it. I remember how obvious she was.

I don’t know how long we stayed in their house, but Heidi remained my personal Nellie Oleson for as long as I lived there. She bullied everyone. Not that it’s a consolation when you’re a first or second grader.

Playground Persona

I had the opportunity to become a bully in third and fourth grade. I was in a different school, a different state. I had new friends and was acting tough. I didn’t want the same experience, so I tried to make sure no one could push me around again. If a boy needed to be stood up to, I was your gal.

My best friend and I took on all the boys in dodgeball every day at lunch. And we beat them. They never realized only having two people was an advantage over twenty. We couldn’t miss, and we had lots of room to duck.

But my friends also came to me when they needed someone to talk to about home, someone being mean, or whatever else bothered them. Being the tough kid and the safe kid was a balancing act I hadn’t mastered.

Then one day, a new girl came to school who looked a lot like me. We weren’t related. Just coincidence. But I was tough, and my friends were hyping me up.

“Hey, that girl’s got your face!” one said.
“What are you gonna do? You were here first!” another asked.
“You gonna beat her up?”

It was silly — the idea of beating someone up because we looked alike. But I had to be tough. I let them rile me up for several days.

By then, the playground bully rumor had reached the girl. She stayed on the far side of the playground. I didn’t want a fight. I didn’t want to hurt her. But I didn’t know how to step out of the persona I had created.

Finally, at the end of the week, I approached her. She had a group surrounding her. My “posse” was behind me. They asked if I was going to do it now. Her group told me to leave her alone.

I ignored everyone and asked if she wanted to play. Until that moment, I hadn’t known how to build a bridge. I hadn’t wanted to scare anyone. I wasn’t trying to be a bully or mean. I just didn’t want to relive the experience.

Learning Hard Kindness

Seeing her protected and safe, I realized I was protected and safe too. Even though my friends had been egging me on, they were just protecting the persona I had created. They were protecting me as much as the other girl’s friends protected her. I wasn’t alone anymore.

I certainly collected more bullies over time, worse ones. But I don’t have to let them change me. There are still people who try to bully us as adults. I don’t have to respond with bluster. I don’t have to just let it go. I can stand up for myself — a hard kindness to learn, a skill to master.

Nellie Oleson left the show for several years. When she returned, she was completely changed. Not just surface-level nice. True internal change. The kind that comes from deep reflection. The kind that comes from facing your own reflection and being disgusted by what you see.

I’ve had several of those moments in life. They’ve led to huge, life-altering changes. That’s the kind of 180-degree change Nellie Oleson had.

I’ve always wondered if Heidi Hammond followed her that far.

Update: December 2025

This morning I spoke with my mom, and she confirmed what I’ve always carried: things with Heidi Hammond were as bad as I remember. They got so bad that the only way to keep me safe was to send me far away. She sent me eight hours across the state to live with my grandparents.

We had been outsiders there; we weren’t Mormon in a deeply Mormon community. Being different made me fair game. My mom knew we couldn’t fight back, couldn’t even push too hard without making everything worse. So she did the hardest, kindest thing she could: she removed me from the harm.

Heidi never had to look in the mirror I might have held up. But because my mom carried me to safety, I grew up with the space to learn how to hold gentler mirrors for others — and to step in early when I see someone else in the line of fire.

I’m sharing this not for pity, but because so many of us never got the tidy redemption scene Nellie did. Sometimes survival looks like distance. And sometimes the greatest kindness is the long drive that gets you there.

Thank you, Mom. And thank you for reading this far.

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My Litmus Test for Depression—and the Surprising Cure I Found

/ Laura Mock / Leave a comment

Kindness, Litmus Tests, and Madam Depression

Pinch your thumb and index finger together tightly until there’s no space between them. Now loosen up just enough to let the tiniest sliver of light through.

That is the margin by which I missed graduating from high school with honors — one one-hundredth of a point.

It was my own fault. I pretty much slept through my junior year. I mean that quite literally. I ditched classes left and right to sleep in the library. I made up some lost ground my senior year, but still missed honors by a smidgen.

More than thirty years have passed, and it still bothers me. I graduated from college with honors — but not high school.

Why was high school a sleepwalk?
Depression. Madam Depression has been my most constant companion for nearly forty years. We’ve become quite the dynamic duo. She’s a hanger-on like no other. Once she got her grip on me, she has never, not for one minute, truly let go.

Infection

At times, medications have quieted her voice, but after a while, she always sneaks back in — like a festering infection you can’t quite kick. Eventually the medications need to change, then change again, and again. In earlier years, I tried things that harmed me, desperate to find anything that hurt more than the pain of depression. Self-medication, self-harm… very poor responses to the very real pain depression brings.

I vividly remember the day my psychiatrist said, “For some people, we don’t aim for a seven or eight in terms of mood. Sometimes, a steady five or six is a victory.”
I knew she meant me. She’s seen me through hard times — the times I hurt myself physically, the times I hurt myself in my own thoughts and actions.

These days, I can say with some contentment that Madam Depression isn’t the loudest thing in my life. She just exists in the background — a nagging squatter who feels entitled to steal my cable, my happiness, and my joy.

Over the years, I’ve always known exactly how dark things were by one simple litmus test:
Can I write?

Fifteen years ago, I wrote a science fiction novel — three times. The same one, three times—each version bigger, heavier, more out of control. I drowned in it. Madam Depression kept whispering that I couldn’t have finished it well, and even if I did, no one would have read it anyway.

I haven’t written since then.

Yet those characters still beg for life. They sit on the sidelines in my head, patient and eager, warming the bench and watching for my signal that it’s finally their turn.

Then, on September 13, 2025, I met the young woman whose simple question changed the direction of my life. She refocused my vision outward—toward the calling of Kindness.

Within half an hour, the idea for this blog sparked. Within a day, I had written the first piece. Since then, posts have been flowing weekly, sometimes daily. I’m writing in my sleep. I’m writing in the shower and while driving. While I’m writing one blog post, another one is banging on the door. Even Spam calls give me ideas.

Everything that happens becomes a new possibility. A deer crosses the road? “I’m going to blog about that.” A guy swerves around a line of cars to intentionally run a red light (true story)? Oh, I’m definitely blogging that.

Here’s the mind-blowing part: Madam Depression is losing her footing.

She’s no longer taking up so much space in my heart and head that nothing else can fit. Her sludge of despair and hooks of malice are weakening. Where she once wrapped me in barbed wire, whispering that I’d never truly feel joy or freedom, the metal is rusting. The shackles are cracking. The chains are dropping away.

And she’s wrong — gloriously wrong.

The moment I chose Kindness, something shifted. I stopped looking so much at myself, stopped asking “What’s wrong with me?” or “What’s in this for me?” and started looking at the people around me.

“What can I do for that one person right now?”

I stopped saying, “Woe is me.”

Is Kindness a cure?
Maybe not for the chemical imbalances of depression — those are real, scientific, measurable. But it is absolutely a force that redirects my mind, my energy, my attention, my sense of purpose.

For me, Kindness passes the litmus test as a method of treatment — because right now, Madam Depression is less a coffin and more like that stray piece of toilet paper stuck to your shoe.

Fiber Optics and a Steady Seven (December 2025)

Madam Depression may have been stealing my cable, but I’m upgrading to fiber.

Yesterday, after 25 years of walking this road together, my psychiatrist read the words I’d written about you, the litmus tests, the chains starting to shake loose. She looked up, floored, and said it made her whole day. (And this was at 8:30 a.m., before the world had even caffeinated.)

Too often she has to tell her patients that a steady five or six on the mood scale is a hard-won victory — the best some might ever hold. So when she asked where I am now, I paused, listened to the quiet in my chest, and said, “I think I’m at a seven.” For the first time I can remember. Not a fleeting high, but a sustained hum of light. A true, honest to goodness 7 out of 10. That’s not just teetering on more good than bad. Or, how I’ve too often looked at it, at least it’s not more bad than good.

She smiled and shared something I’d half-suspected: kindness isn’t just my north star; it’s science-backed medicine. She mentioned a Duke University study on the “Three Good Things” intervention — where folks jot down daily positives, often laced with acts of kindness — and how it measurably eases depression, burnout, and that bone-deep exhaustion. Turns out, turning outward doesn’t just rust the barbed wire; it builds resilience that sticks.

Kindness passes every test now — not because it erases the chemistry, but because it redirects the current. From woe-is-me to what-can-I-do-for-you. From squatter to stray. And seven? That’s the view from a clearer window: parties thrown, banners waved, words flowing, mirrors held for others… and finally, one for myself.

If you’re reading this and Madam Depression has her hooks in you too — start small. One good thing. One kind turn. The upgrade is waiting. Remember, cable carries a signal based on electricity, it’s something easily disrupted and corrupted. Fiber optic is based on light — and light always extinguishes the darkness. It never happens the other way around.

Let kindness be a light in the dark places for you. I am so grateful for the path of kindness, those who travel it with me, and to a seven. I see eights on the horizon.

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From Lepers to Leprechauns: A Reflection on Perspective

/ Laura Mock / Leave a comment

Yep, those are the words I thought I heard the pastor say the other Sunday. It’s the hearing aids, I swear.

I immediately shoved my fist in my mouth to stop an inappropriate LLOL moment. (Legit Laugh Out Loud. Yes, I just made that up.) He was talking about a leper colony.

But oh, the image that popped into my head: a leprechaun colony. Lucky the Leprechaun leaping through rainbows, pots of gold overflowing, little green-suited men sliding down rainbows and dancing through clover. The lead singer of our praise band, sitting right next to me was not amused by my amusement.

Then the leprechauns leapt straight into biblical times in my overactive, overachieving imagination, and I almost had to fake-sneeze to get myself under control.

A Tale of Ten Lepers (and One Overactive Imagination)

The sermon was very good — about gratitude.

Ten lepers were healed, but only one came back to say thank you. The thanks weren’t a requirement; the healing had already happened. But the gratitude afterward served a purpose.

One more paragraph of church, I promise. (Well, one and a tiny bit.)

The other nine went on talking about the rabbi who healed them, following instructions to show themselves to the high priests. But the last man came back. Jesus told him his faith had made him whole.

Same event. Same healing. Two completely different narratives.

Breakfast at the House of Many Huddles

Fast forward a couple weeks. My person and I were at our usual Saturday breakfast at the good old House of Many Huddles.

I don’t go out to eat without two $5 bills in my pocket — one to put toward someone’s bill, and one toward my fundraiser. (I’m currently raising enough to reshoe all the servers. At the time, I was still thinking small and just working on a pair for one server with severe plantar fasciitis.)

I handed my $5 and my kindness note to our server. She misunderstood and gave everything directly to the customer.

About fifteen minutes later, the same woman walked up to my table holding the paper and the money.

“Are you the one who sent this?” she asked.

“Well, yes, but they weren’t supposed to let you know—”

“I can take care of myself,” she cut in. She was abrupt.

“Right, I was just—”

“I’m not interested.” She set everything on the table. “I don’t want to get involved.”

I looked up at her — a Baby Boomer, from a generation that worked hard for what it has. A generation of proud men and women who hold their heads high with good reason. With starch in their shirts and resolve to put most of us to shame. Maybe the blessing I intended came across as an insult.

Rather than explain myself, I did something incredibly hard for me: I stopped defending.

“Ma’am, I’m sorry,” I said. “I was trying to be a blessing to you. I apologize if I offended you.”

“Yes, well. I just don’t want to be involved.”

She went back to her breakfast.

Two Stories, One Moment

It took me two weeks to write about it because it took me that long to get perspective.

At first I was hurt and angry.

She turned down my blessing! How dare she!

But then I heard a possible narrative on her side:

I can take care of myself just fine. How dare she?

Two people. Same moment. Same action.

Two completely different stories.

Maybe our disagreements, our misunderstandings, our “why can’t they just see it my way?” moments
aren’t as simple as I think.

Maybe I’m missing something basic: perspective.

Maybe where I saw leprechauns in my naïveté, she saw lepers.

Who am I to dictate how a gift is received? Because it isn’t really a gift if you can’t turn it down — that edges into threat or manipulation, and that’s the last thing I ever wanted her (or anyone) to feel from me.

Maybe we were both right. We just weren’t seeing the same thing.

I certainly don’t want the four-leaf clovers and pots of gold of my intentions to become stumbling blocks to trip her up, or barbed wire around her heart. Maybe if I see her again, I can find a gentler way to show kindness — one she can receive — and maybe someday she’ll see a bit of the leprechaun side of the road too.

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My Harshest Critic

/ Laura Mock / Leave a comment

We’ve probably all looked at ourselves at some point with the realization that we are our own harshest critic — perhaps with the exception of the narcissists among us. But then, this blog probably isn’t the best smelling flower on the vine for them anyway.

Lately, that thought’s been circling my mind. It started something like this:

I’m feeling really kind these days. I want to share that with others.
What’s a good way to do that?
Oh, I know! I’ll start a blog.

That’ll be easy — everyone does it.

Oh wow. This is hard. But everyone does it.
I thought I was smarter than this. Even people who aren’t very smart can do it.
What’s wrong with me?

That’s kind of the big circle of critical thinking about myself.
Or more accurately, the big circle of unkindness.

Then I had a couple of small successes.
I actually got a few posts written! I even had a like before I went public.
I don’t know how that happened, but it did — like magic.

This wasn’t going to be so hard after all!
My earlier fears were just tiredness and long days and the overwhelming thought of how much stuff goes into an actual blog.
But I could do this.

Oh geez.
I can’t even set up a menu.
I don’t know how to put a post on the right page.
I have two pages called the same thing, and one of them just says Page Not Found.
I’ve lost one of my posts — it has to be here somewhere — and the self-recriminations come harsher and faster.

I hate the theme I picked. I don’t know how to fix it.
Even AI is quirking an eyebrow at me like I’m a lost cause.
ChatGPT talks down to me, pats me on the head, and says, “There, there, it will be all right.”
GROK just looks at me smugly, gives me a fifteen-point plan with sub-steps, and says, “Chop. Chop.”

“I can’t do this. I can’t do this. What was I thinking?”

I’m twirling now — like an ice skater in that final, breathtaking blur, when she goes from graceful spin to dizzying, faceless motion, the audience holding its breath.

But then…

But then it happens. We all stand and shout with her in joy as she comes to a stop amid a spray of ice and glory.
She shines for us — heaving chest, triumphant smile, cheeks aglow with the accomplishment born of countless hours, early mornings, bleeding feet, and a thousand unshed tears.
Every fall, every hidden fear, every quiet moment of doubt leads to a pinnacle — this one single moment when everything stands still and the world stops moving to acknowledge… her.

I have to remember: the spinning stops.
Likes and follows may not be tossed my way like roses on the ice, especially after only a few weeks and a half-broken site.

And this post isn’t a plea for pity — it’s a reminder to myself.
Kindness includes me, too.

This blog will come together eventually. I’ll get it organized and working the way I want. The likes, follows, and “atta girls” will come — but those were never the real goal anyway. Measuring my worth by them, or by my own harsh criticism, just keeps me spinning in circles. It’s time to let the ice settle and simply enjoy the glide.

After all, being kind starts at home — and that includes me.

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