When I post a photo on social media, or send it along through email, I will often get the response: “Keep living your best life.” I find it incredibly confusing. Along with the photos, if anyone was paying attention to the text of anything I was sharing, I was talking about my search for a … Continue reading “Living My Best Life”
Tag: Depression
Showing Up
In my previous posts, I have touched on what it means for me for the people in my life to Show Up when I’m sick. From the Caring Letters approach to suicide prevention I refer to in Is “Suicide Survivors’” Grief a Lie?, to listing the simple things people do that actually help at the end … Continue reading Showing Up
What Sticks
As I child, I was told I held grudges. That my excellent memory and ability to recall details from the past could be a gift but was also a curse. I did not let go. I held onto things and unjustly used them against people in the future. It was a convenient way for anyone … Continue reading What Sticks
What Resonates
When I was 15, and I got my official diagnosis, I went on a quest to learn about and understand my illness and to fight that isolation where it seemed no one shared all these feelings I was having, all the suffering. This was 1996, so I went to my local public library and checked … Continue reading What Resonates
Not Today
What do we say to the God of Death? Not Today. I am at a strange moment in my life. I tried to build a new life for myself diligently, escaping what felt like a toxic narrative loop, and even embraced the uncertainty of how it would turn out. Then it came crumbling down in … Continue reading Not Today
The Happy Mask
I have continually strived to be more authentic, more open, more real about my struggles. I wore a happy mask for most of my life. That first hospitalization at age 15, the dangers of the mask was my biggest epiphany. That the energy and time I expended pretending I was fine was creating a schism … Continue reading The Happy Mask
Have you tried to meditate? Oh, Fuck off.
Have you tried to meditate? Because I found it really helped me…… Oh fuck off already. Have you used St. John’s Wart? Have you checked your thyroid? Have you been exercising regularly? Do you practice yoga? Have you done Cognitive Behavior Therapy? You just need to learn to combat your negative thinking. A multivitamin? Do … Continue reading Have you tried to meditate? Oh, Fuck off.
Dissecting a Diagnosis.
I traditionally put a lot of stock in a diagnosis. It made, what was otherwise dismissed or denied in my adolescent years as teenage angst, feel real, acknowledged, validated. That need for a diagnosis persisted over the years, it felt like the only way I could get the world to see I wasn’t lazy, too … Continue reading Dissecting a Diagnosis.
Vocabulary of Depression
We lack the vocabulary to discuss depression. People have desperately tried to distinguish ordinary sadness from depression. We rely on slew of insufficient metaphors as described in this link. We tell the world, we can’t get out of bed, we describe it as excruciating emotional pain or joy-less malaise, we emphasize it’s physical manifestations reciting … Continue reading Vocabulary of Depression
Inside My Madness 