My mother has spent her life trying to fix herself. Like all of us, she has some things she’d like to be better at, some healthy habits she wants to build, and some issues that she wishes would go away. Unlike most of us, she also has schizophrenia, so her own negative self talk is…
Category: mental health
The 12 days of skipping Christmas
On the first day of skipping Christmas… I tested positive for Covid. I had already decided not to try to do much for the festive season this year, and this made me thing, “how can I do even less?” On the second day of skipping Christmas…I remembered that I had thought about making cards from…
Pre-flight jitters
I love traveling, but I hate traveling. The whole infrastructure for international travel is laden with bureaucracy, delays, and confusion in the best of times. (Post) Pandemic times are not the best of times. You may have heard about the mayhem at the Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam over the summer. Five hour security lines, delayed…
Finding Purpose, Fighting MEH
As humans, we are drawn to meaning and purpose. This makes us pretty unique among the animal kingdom. I’ve never met a dog who was concerned about making a difference in the world. Our inclination to find, make, and seek meaning also tends to make us a little miserable. The basics of survival never feel…
Blogging for Mental Health
Once upon a time, I joined Livejournal. I was a latecomer to the platform, and I already had a blog elsewhere in 2006, but I had a few new (younger) acquaintances on the platform, and I was interested in reading what they wrote about. Then I started writing there, too, and it became a great…
Becoming Mr. Spock
Matter of fact. That’s how my writing coach described a few sections of my memoir. I’m writing my way through my high school years, and I’m realizing that I really don’t feel any kind of way about it. Teenage girls have big feelings, she told me, as if I should know that. I was a…
Black Coffee
I love a hot cup of pure, black coffee. On Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays, I eschew my morning coffee concoction (“bulletproof,” with MCT oil, collagen, and Nutpod creamer) and drink my coffee how I’ve always preferred it. These are my intermittent fasting days, but I never feel like I’m depriving myself when I have a…
Mid-year check-in
I launched this blog around the beginning of 2022, and while I am pleased with some of the content I’ve published, it is not really the blog that I want it to be. Why? I’m writing it as if I’m an expert trying to “monetize” or create professional clout in an area that I’m frankly…
Why You’ll Never Be Happy
If you want to enjoy your life, stop trying to be happy. There are so many books and podcasts and courses about finding happiness, you’d think there might be a formula or set of steps you can follow, but here’s the secret they never put on the book jacket: happiness is not a state that…
Get comfortable being uncomfortable
Why are you so uncomfortable? Why do we work so hard to avoid discomfort? Within our first few days of existence we’ve figured out that discomfort is part of the deal. To cope with it, we scream our heads off. We have to depend on others to change our diapers, feed us when we’re hungry,…
Plumb Wonderful 