I do not behave myself in my illness.
I am the most impatient of patients.
I am prickly and on edge.
I cannot play the role of saint or martyr.

I tire of this endless rest.
This endless pain.
This endless lack of pleasure.
I long for life as it was before.

Before wasn’t perfect, BUT —
It was a life of relative ease.
A life of general health.
A life of endless possibility and potential!

And I took it all for granted.

I tire of even this –
My endless moaning and lamenting.
Woe is Me.
Boo-fucking-Hoo. …

A lot can change in a year.

Last Valentine’s Day, my heart was broken into a million pieces by betrayal from the person I spent my entire life with. I was sad and depressed, sinking into a spiral of complicated grief.

I never felt more alone in my life.

This year, my heart physically aches because of an insidious virus called COVID-19 that broke into my home on New Year’s Day. The virus has latched onto my body, refusing to go away quietly.

I’m not a long-hauler yet, but I’m told it’s common to have symptoms linger for weeks and months.

A lot can change in a year.

Last Valentine’s Day, I was without…

For me, 2020 did not start on a great note.

After spending three decades with my husband, I started the year as a single person living on her own for the first time ever. The holidays were a blur of moving and grieving. I was on autopilot — pushing through the days. Everything in my life was in upheaval.

And then a strange thing happened. The world was suddenly in sync with me. A global pandemic and worldwide lockdown meant everybody’s life was in upheaval.

I was no longer alone in my uncertainty, desperation, isolation, and confusion.

Suffering with grace

For years, I…

A year ago, I escaped to Jamaica to attend a psilocybin retreat. I didn’t want to spend my 52nd birthday alone. After a sudden and painful separation, I thought it would be better to spend my birthday with strangers doing magic mushrooms than it would be to spend it alone.

I was right. The retreat was immensely healing and transformative. And it turned out those strangers were no strangers at all. Thanks to the intensive therapeutic experience we shared, those strangers became my band of brothers and healing partners in a mere week. …

“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.” (Henry David Thoreau)

This global pandemic and political divide have all of us feeling stuck in place. I know about being stuck. For six years, I was sidelined and benched by chronic Lyme. By the time I felt well and emerged from a cocoon of chronic fatigue, sickness, and depression — my life had moved on without me.

Sadly, the world does not stop marching forward, whether…

Today, October 10, I will see lots of people posting about World Mental Health Day in support of de-stigmatizing mental illness.

Posting an inspirational quote or declaration of support is all fine and good, but it’s NOT enough. And worse, it can actually do more harm than good, because it minimizes the experience of mental illness and it feels like a condescending pat on the head.

We need to be able to build real conversations about mental health. And we need to check our blind spots and change the way we interact with people with mental illness.

I speak candidly…

One year ago, I was finally regaining my health despite the shock of marital separation. At the time I thought this difficult period was something my family would get through together in private. Then I was betrayed in the most spectacularly crass and humiliating public way. This was my response that dark night. It might not have been graceful, but it was honest.

September 29, 2019

I have been fairly open about my life over the years here on Facebook. I’m not one for keeping secrets. As they say in AA, you’re only as sick as your secrets.

But I…

“Well, most folks seem to think they’re right and you’re wrong …They’re certainly entitled to think that, and they’re entitled to full respect for their opinions,” said Atticus, “but before I can live with other folks I’ve got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.” (Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird)

Maybe it’s because I was raised Catholic, or perhaps it’s just the way I’m wired — but I have little tolerance for selective morality. …