Monkey Momma Creations
Novels, Art and Blog of
Karin Davis
Karin Davis
Author, Artist, Creator
Hey y’all, What’s Up?
I am the main Artist for Monkey Momma Creations. I also write blogs, create videos and write novels. I am a mom to a teenager and disabled. I write as therapy and boredom relief.
You’ll also find me as Caysea Davis in some settings. I’ll have a blog up shortly on this.
Art
I am a multimedia artist.
I work with various art forms and media, from 3D printing to epoxy tumblers to paintings. I make various jewelry items, keychains, toys, whatever suits my fancy.
I usually don’t take commissions, instead I prefer to craft from my heart and soul on my own schedule. Some days, it’s a struggle just to get out of bed, so deadlines are not great for me. Thus, I craft and make art as I get inspiration, and then place it for sale.
You can check out my Etsy store at https://monkeymommacreations.etsy.com for my current art available for sale. I add new items all the time.
I have a few production partners I work with on some Print on Demand items available on my Etsy Shop. My available journals can be found for sale on Amazon by searching Karin Davis.
The Mind of Monkey Momma
NOVELS Coming Soon
Books One through Three
Against Principalities and Powers
Beta’s Boy ** Planned release Dec 2024
A Beta struggles with good, evil and love when he goes from single to Father and Mate overnight. Can Jackson save his family from evil?
Obsidian’s Inferno
Fire follows Stevie throughout her life. Will her inferno destroy her pack or will she save her mate?
Furfur’s Fall
**Coming soon
Recipes
Direct Links to Recipe Cards
More Recipes coming soon
Art Sales and Contact:
I don’t take commissions due to my chronic illnesses. Ready to sell art can be found on my Etsy. Novels will be available on Amazon upon completion.
If you enjoy the content here or on my YouTube, buy me a Rockstar by sending money to the links below.
Insta: monkey_momma08
Facebook Author Page: Caysea MonkeymommaCreations
Email: karin@monkeymommacreations.com
Suicide Awareness
Hey y’all, Monkey Momma here. Today’s post is gonna be tough for some to read, but it’s an important topic to discuss. One of my goals with this blog/vlog/art enterprise is to raise awareness of mental health issues and help end the stigma of mental health issues, especially in industries where people are “supposed” to be emotionless and in-humanely strong. So, hold onto your butts, because today we’re gonna talk about suicide.
In no way is anything here intended to be medical or mental health professional advice, and my tricks I discuss may or may not work for any particular individual. This is just my personal experience that I hope might help at least one person out there.
As most people who know me know, I spent most of my adolescence and adulthood in various aspects of emergency services. I have done search and rescue, been in emergency medicine from First Responder to Paramedic, was a volunteer firefighter, wildland firefighter, and an emergency medical dispatcher. In addition to this, I am a survivor of child abuse, both physical and emotional. I am neurodivergent and suffer from depression. I have spent a good deal of my life putting my mind and body in danger to help others, most of the time with little to no recognition and often at companies that care nothing for their employees.
Since I was very young, I have dealt with an overwhelming feeling of darkness in my mind. It feels like shadowy arms and hands are holding me back from being fully emotionally present in many situations. Sometimes, this was a help. I could shut down when I was being hit by the “man” who was supposed to be my protector for whatever he perceived was my current misdeed. I could shut down when I was doing CPR and starting IV’s on a young girl who was lacerated every two inches up her body from being sucked under a speed boat in the lake. Not to say those incidents didn’t affect me later, but I got through the incident by shutting down emotionally.
But the darkness also keeps me from enjoying life. Things that should be happy and bright are shadowed by this feeling of being pulled into darkness. When I was about 15-16 years old, I was first formally diagnosed with depression. Through a lifetime of trying to save others and be everything I feel others expect of me as a daughter, sister, aunt, mom, paramedic, firefighter, dispatcher, mom and wife, I struggled with depression and many times, suicidal thoughts. For many people with severe depression, there is a voice, or voices, in your head that keep telling you ‘you are worthless’, ‘you’re a waste of space’, and that the world would be better off without you. Sometimes, these voices go the next step and even tell you to try to take your life. I still struggle with this often.
I am writing this post though, to remind myself and others in similar situations that this is not the option to take. That voice is wrong, and you must find ways to fight and ignore it. I know it’s hard. I can sit in the back of an ambulance and talk another depressed person through these thoughts, but I still find it hard to stop them for myself. If you can’t fight them alone, seek help from a friend, a doctor, someone. Call 911 and talk to a dispatcher until fire and EMS arrives if you must. But don’t take that step and try to end your life. As cliché as it sounds, it is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.
Resources
- Safe Call Now:
- 1-206-459-3020
- 24-hour line for First Responders
- Fire/EMS helpline
- 1-888-731-3473
- Ran by Natl Vol Fire Council
- Natl Suicide Prevention Lifeline
- 1-800-273-8255
- Crisis Text Line
- Text to 741-741 to speak with a counselor
- Veteran's Crisis Line
- 1-800-273-8255 & press 1
- or text 838255
- For US Veterans Only
- 13 Reasons Why Resource Site
- Suicide.org
What can you do?
What helps me to not take that step is to remember what suicide would do to those I leave behind. In fact, I have a list of reasons, people actually, that would be affected if I died. My daughter, my husband, my nieces and nephews, my cats. I remind myself of them, just listing their names, when I get too far into the darkness to see any other options.
I know the feeling of being affected by another’s suicide, and I remind myself I don’t want anyone I love to feel like that. During the ambulance phase of my EMS career, I had many good partners, but there were three guys who held very special spots in my heart. One, I married. Another is like an older brother to me. The third was my “EMS Little Brother”. We started out with me as his FTO and became partners in the next shift bid. We worked together well and got along great. He really was like a little brother. After the company closed, he moved across the country, but we remained Facebook friends. As with many things in life, distance faded our friendship. However, we still chatted occasionally over Facebook, and did the typical birthday posts and stuff. We chatted over a post shortly before Thanksgiving one year and didn’t get a chance to talk for a while after that. I thought it was mostly the holidays and Facebook’s crazy algorithms keeping me from seeing his posts and didn’t think much of it. When I went to his page on his birthday shortly after the new year, I found out he had hung himself. I knew he was struggling, but I didn’t think he’d ever take it that far.
I mean, this was a guy who I had sat in an ambulance with and discussed the negative effects of suicide after 5150 calls. We had been angry together at patients who had tried and failed, leaving their families to care for them in vegetative states for decades. We had been sad together for the kids who found their parent dead. And I found out not only did he hang himself; his stepson was the one to find him. I was, at the same time, sad at losing my friend, and angry that he would do that to his son and family. And us, his friends and EMS family. That feeling, of not being sure how to move on without a friend, of being mad and sad at the same time… well, it sucks. Especially when you get the news right before going in to work as a dispatcher and one of your first calls of the shift is trying to talk a stranger into putting pressure on her bleeding wrists while you and your unit are trying to find her because she doesn’t know exactly where she is around the hospital she just left because they couldn’t help her.
I can’t let someone I love feel like that.
Suicide is a true public health crisis.
The statistics for suicide are frightening. In 2021, more than 48,000 American Adults took their own lives. That’s one death every eleven minutes. In 2017, when I first wrote this article, it was at around 45,000. Of the 2017 numbers 6,139 were Veterans of the Armed Forces. 140 of these were law enforcement officers, 103 were firefighters, numbers higher than the numbers of line of duty deaths for the same careers that year. The average suicide rate for EMS providers is 64.9 per 100,000 , which is over five times the rate in the general populace. Think about those numbers a bit. Think about how many people had to wake up one day and realize they would never see the person they cared about again.
Suicide is not the way to solve the pain and problems in your life. It just transfers those problems to others. Everyone from the person who finds your body, the paramedic, firefighters, and cops that respond to that person’s call for help, the Coroner, your friends, your family, your neighbors… they are all affected. You may think no one cares, but someone, even if it’s just the dispatcher who takes the call from the person who finds your body, will care. If you feel like you have no choice, reach out. I am going to include a list of resources on this post. These are nowhere near all the resources available. The easiest resource to access is the emergency system. Call 9-1-1, or your local emergency services number for your area. Help will be on the way.
But, I can't look weak in front of the crew...
Even if you are in public safety, construction, or whatever macho, show no emotion field, don’t let a stigma of having to be strong or potential embarrassment keep you from calling. Think about it this way, would you rather transport a coworker to a hospital for psychiatric treatment, or transport them to the trauma center because they tried to kill themselves, or worse, sit with their body, waiting for the Coroner to arrive and take it away, with their family crying and leaning on you for support? I’d wager you’d rather transport them for psychiatric help than the alternative. Don’t make your coworkers have to sit with your body. Seek help before it’s too late. There is always another option. ALWAYS.
On the other hand, those who care about people with depression have a role to play in suicide prevention, too. Remember, you may not realize someone you know has suicidal thoughts. With the stigmas surrounding mental health in our society, people around you may be suffering severe depression or other mental health issues without you even knowing. They may even appear to be regular, happy people. Often, with depression, we become really good at acting like we are fine. Just as chronic pain patients and the neurodivergent do, we learn to mask. We learn to smile, even when the smile doesn’t reach our soul. This is why it is so important to try to be kind to everyone. I am not advocating being a doormat, or giving away more than you can, or anything like that. I simply mean, don’t be a jerk. Don’t cut people off, use your turn signal, hold a door for someone whose hands are full. Smile at people, say hi.
Back to basics
Basically, remember how we were taught to treat others back in kindergarten? Do that. If you are generally kind to others, it will brighten their days a little. For someone with severe depression who may be contemplating ending their life, just that little bit of kindness may be enough to save them. Yeah, we all have bad days, I do myself, but if we all strive to be kinder, it could go a long way to helping people with depression and suicidal ideations. It can also help a lot of other aspects of our society that aren’t the topic of this post.
This blog post is now super long, so I want to wrap it up with the main point I want to make. There is always a better option than suicide. If you find yourself contemplating it, think about those who will be affected. You won’t be ending any of your pain, you will just transfer it to someone else. Everyone should try to be kinder to help brighten the world. I am not saying it’s easy, because I know firsthand it is not. Fighting suicidal thoughts is one of the hardest things in the world to do.
But, please, keep fighting.
80's Culinary Creations
MMC002
Gramcracker’s Catalina Chicken
Hey y'all, what's up? Today, I want to share an old family recipe with you. Well, not that old, it's from the 80's. That is really not that long ago, kids!
Growing up in the 1970s and 1980s was an interesting time for the kids of Generation X. For the first time, it was the norm for kids to be “latch-key” kids, with either a working single parent or both parents working out of the home. As technology evolved, we changed and grew with it. Our parents worked long hours, with long commutes. They were busy and dinner time often became quick out of necessity. Microwave ovens were first made for domestic use in 1967 and their use became widespread in the late 70s and early 80s as parents started looking for even quicker ways to make dinner after a busy day. They were the trendy kitchen cooking appliance in the 80s in the same way the InstaPot is trending these days.
My mom was no exception to this trend. Working long days in San Francisco, followed by a long commute on public transit home, Mom decided to take a course at the local community college to learn cooking techniques for the relatively new cooking device.
I don’t remember many good recipes coming out of that, except one dish my mom is pretty good at making, which we called “Russian Chicken” because of the Russian salad dressing used in the sauce. It came from The Microwave Guide & Cookbook, a cookbook written by the great minds at General Electric, who hade become a major distributor of home microwaves by the early 1980s. The GE Cookbook was the textbook for Mom’s course at the community college.
While chicken can safely be cooked from raw in the microwave, according to the recipe (and the fact that my sisters and I never came down with Salmonella after eating microwaved chicken); as an adult I have always been a little wary of cooking meats in the microwave. Reheating, defrosting, yeah, but straight cooking it in a microwave kind of weirds me out. But this recipe is tasty, so I converted it to an oven cooked dish back in my early 20s. And it’s still super simple and quick to make.
I have been breaking out some of my simpler dishes for dinner lately, because chronic illness is a monster that drains the energy. This one is simple and uses some of the items I already had in the pantry. And, totally low spoon preparation and cooking.
The entire dish only takes three ingredients. You start with raw boneless chicken. I mostly use chicken breasts, but you can also make this with chicken thighs, if that’s all you have. I usually use skinless, but that is also up to you. This is a really versatile dish. I have never done it, but I would guess you could even use pork or another poultry if you can’t get chicken for some reason. Basically, any white meat should work well in this recipe. You cut the meat into chicken tender sized pieces and add to the sauce.
The sauce is easy. It’s basically a “dump dish” style. All you need to do is dump the salad dressing and onion soup mix into a square baking pan and mix it together. (Yeah, one pan dish! Easy clean up!) You can use any onion soup mix and it tastes great. I’ve made it with Lipton mix, store brands, dollar store brands, a couple times I even mixed up my own onion soup mix from a recipe I found on Pinterest. They all work. For the salad dressing, the optimal flavor comes with Russian dressing. I have never found this flavor in any other brand than Wish Bone. I’m not sure if it’s exclusive to them, but I have never found a generic or Kraft or what not of it. If you can’t find Russian dressing, you can use Catalina or French dressing with decent results. Since the first version of this blog, we at DFam have started calling it Catalina Chicken. Russia invaded the Ukraine in 2022. The currently posting version of this blog is going up in 2024 and they’re still fighting. We don’t see much point in Russia having invaded the Ukraine and so much pointless death, so we changed the name.
Anyways, once you have the sauce mixed, add the chicken into the pan and bake at 400℉ for 30 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked through. I usually serve it with either rice, bread or rolls, but of course, you can choose whatever you have available. If serving with rice, it is really good if you serve it in a bowl and drizzle some of the sauce into the rice as well.
Anyway, I hope y’all enjoy this recipe. It has been a family favorite since I was a kid, and hopefully you will enjoy it too. Oh, I have no idea how long or what temperature my mom used in the microwave for it. I guess if you really want to know, you could hunt down the cookbook, or send me a message thru my contact me page and I’ll see if Mom can look it up for you.
Living with Invisible and Chronic Illnesses
Part of the reason I don’t do commissions or custom art requests is because of my chronic illnesses. Most of these are invisible, meaning, you can’t see them just looking at me. I’m not the only one out there with invisible illnesses. In fact, Harvard Medical estimates that about 6 million Americans suffer from disabilities that are not obvious to observers. There are signs of these conditions, but it’s not like a person in a wheelchair, where you can look and see the disability.
But it’s still there, even if no one can see it.
That’s why they are referred to as “invisible illnesses”.
Perhaps the hardest part of living with an invisible illness is the simple fact that it is invisible. Not that I am complaining that those of us with invisible illnesses aren't in a wheelchair or in some other way clearly disabled. But, since we "look" healthy, or healthy-ish, people often treat us poorly when we are limited by our conditions.
I have had strangers be rude to me when I am moving slowly. I have had strangers say nasty things when I must sit and rest. Things like if I "just dieted" I wouldn't be "so fat" and need to sit down. No wonder I don't like most people. I eat healthier than most people I know. Because of a medical condition I was diagnosed with at 16, I have had a constant struggle with weight. But my weight was never an issue that held me back from anything in life. When I was a paramedic, I was able to run calls, lift patients, help with extrications, even repel down mountain cliffs and hike, carrying a back boarded patient, over a mile in the dark to a safe rendezvous point with my rig. I played baseball for my company team, shot and taught archery, went to the gym daily, if not twice a day. I took my then toddler to the park and almost kept up with her as she was running around. We went for walks in nature, or even around our block. I worked 12-18 hour shifts as an emergency dispatcher, or 24-96 hour shifts as a paramedic without getting tired. Sometimes I thought I was tired, but it wasn’t until I experienced the chronic fatigue of fibromyalgia and severe depression that I utterly understood fatigue. It wasn't until I developed fibromyalgia that I started having to take rest breaks and not being able to move at a normal speed.
The symptoms of chronic illnesses can literally steal your life. I have lost my career, my favorite sport, my ability to fully enjoy my favorite place in the world. I miss out on family events because I'm too tired. I can't always get housework done in a timely manner, because I am usually in too much pain, or I am too exhausted to finish. I can't finish projects in a timely manner.
One of the main reasons I don’t do custom orders, instead focusing on individual art pieces is that I can’t guarantee I can make an order by a reasonable deadline.
One of the last times my family and I went to my favorite place in the entire world, Disneyland, I couldn’t fully enjoy the trip. I was in so much pain after an hour into walking around I just could not be fully present in the moment. The pain and inability to enjoy my Happy Place led to depression symptoms. It was strange to not feel happy and peaceful on Pirates of the Caribbean, the one place in the world I have always been able to defeat my depression symptoms in the past. Can you imagine how it feels to not be able to be happy at what was once your Happy Place? It is soul crushing. I can now only experience theme parks with a mobility scooter.
There is so much that chronic illnesses have stolen from me, it is overwhelming. And, when others don't recognize that and treat me rudely or get irritated with me for it, it makes me feel even worse.
That's why I think it is so important for people to know about the symptoms of conditions people they care about. And it is especially important not to be a dick to strangers, because you don't know what they may be going through.
I am what invisible illness looks like.
One of my main chronic illnesses is fibromyalgia. The medical industry still has much to learn about the causes, treatments and exact way fibromyalgia works in the body. Most doctors currently think it is an auto-immune disease. The primary symptom of fibromyalgia is widespread pain. Literally, everything hurts, all the time. The doctors prescribe a variety of pain medications to help control the pain, but none of them do.
There is a heightened pain response to pressure. There are specific spots on the body that are more susceptible to this, but basically anywhere can have issues where it is painful or uncomfortable to be touched. I also have sleep apnea and am supposed to use a CPAP while sleeping. I can’t use it because I have issues sleeping with the mask on. The mask and straps lay right over my cheekbones, which are a pressure point site for me. Even when I used the smallest mask type my medical provider can prescribe, it still caused problems. It can also be hard to sleep because of the pressure the bed itself puts on my body.
In addition to the sleeping problems associated with pain and pressure, other sleep issues, like insomnia are a major component of fibromyalgia. The sleep issues contribute to, but are not the only cause of, the major fatigue most fibromyalgia sufferers experience. The fatigue is one of the worse parts of fibromyalgia for me. Yes, the whole-body pain sucks, but, for me at least, the fatigue causes the most problems. I wake up exhausted. I spend my day exhausted usually shower right before bed because the simple act of showering completely drains any energy I have. If I shower in the morning, I must rest after to get even enough energy to sit on the couch. Washing my hair, which is thick and down to my knees, takes more energy than I have on any given day. I only wash my hair about twice a month, which sounds bad, but it’s the only way I can retain my long braid that I am trying to keep as a symbol of my commitment to my husband. I started growing my hair out from a super short cut I had been wearing for ease in EMS shortly before I met him. When we started dating, he asked me to keep growing my hair as long as we were together. I promised him I would and have kept that promise for over 20 years. Something that makes me sad to think about is that I may eventually have to cut my hair as it gets harder and harder for me to care for it myself.
In fact, between the carpal tunnel, fibromyalgia pain and exhaustion, there are times, I can’t even brush out and re-braid my hair. I’m sure the few people who see me like this just assume I’m a lazy slob, but I really hate the appearance I present to the world at times like this. I am not really a slob; I try to stay groomed and keep my surroundings clean. It’s just so hard when I am always exhausted. And that doesn’t even consider the depression.
Memory issues are also a major problem with fibromyalgia, and I am no exception to this. I have a lot of short-term memory issues and often suffer from what is called “brain fog”. Brain Fog really sucks. It can make someone feel like an idiot at times. I constantly just cannot come up with the names of simple things. Other people report forgetting other words, but I have noticed nouns are one of the big categories of words I forget. One common thing I forget the name of is the oven. I am constantly having to just describe it or point at it because I simply cannot come up with its name. Other times, there are other words I can’t remember. It can be very embarrassing, especially when it happens around other people. The short-term memory issues are also problematic. I can’t remember things that just happened, or things people have asked me to do. I can’t remember recipes to dishes I’ve been making all my life. It really makes life difficult, and I am sure would make it impossible to hold a job, despite the pain and fatigue.
There are other problems that come with the Fibro as well, such as restless leg syndrome, irritable bowel syndrome and numbness or tingling in the extremities. The numbness and tingling are a fun one to deal with for me (that’s sarcasm, by the way). Whenever an issue like my current hand numbness comes up, it is always a challenge to figure out which condition is the cause. It is critical to figure out whether it’s the carpal tunnel, fibromyalgia, or diabetes since they all have different treatments to fix it.
The cause of fibromyalgia is unknown. It was only first defined in 1990, with updates to the definition in 2011. In Europe, it is considered a neurobiological condition, and treated mostly with medications. In America, it is thought to be more of a somatic syndrome. The ICD-10, which is what most insurance companies look at for payment for treatments, lists Fibro as a disease of the musculoskeletal system and connective tissue. While much of the medical field, and a great deal of society, dismisses fibromyalgia sufferers as mental cases, the ICD-10 states it is a functional somatic syndrome and NOT a mental disorder. However, the stigma remains and people still judge sufferers. Which makes life even harder for us.
Fibromyalgia usually onsets during middle age, although it can affect people much younger. It affects women much more often than men. Mental disorders are often co-morbid with fibromyalgia and other chronic illnesses. For me, these include anxiety, depression, antisocial personality disorder and PTSD. These conditions cause symptoms that compound the fibromyalgia symptoms. For instance, my anxiety gives me weird dystopian survival dreams. Most of the time, every muscle in my body tenses up during these dreams, and I often have sporadic muscle contractions during them. In addition to increasing chronic fatigue, this increases the muscle pain I am constantly in.
The bottom line is chronic illnesses severely affect sufferers’ lives and functionality. We often move slow, must rest often, and may not look as put together as society deems the “norm”. People often judge us. They say we’re lazy, we should diet, we’re slobs, we’re losers… Well, most chronic illness patients are spending a greater percentage of their energy than a regular person just being out. We watch our diet better than most people because certain things like gluten, sugar, carbs, meats, and about a hundred other things can trigger our illnesses to get worse. For me, with the many conditions I have, the list of things to avoid eating is extremely long. The list of things I can safely eat is extremely short. We may look like we don’t care about our appearance, but most of the time we do, we just physically can’t do anything about it at the time. We have typically lost a lot in our lives, so maybe we are losers. So, if you see someone who “looks” healthy, or has no obvious signs of disability parking in a handicap spot (with appropriate placards, of course), or using the go-kart buggy in a store, or even just walking or moving slow in the aisle, think twice before you make a mean comment. Think twice before you make a judgment that the person is lazy for using the go-kart, or cheating the system with the parking placard, or whatever. That person may have an invisible, chronic illness. Disabilities are not always visible, and it really isn’t your place to judge. Be nice to others.
Be Kind.
This world needs more understanding and less judging.
