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I’ve been home alone for five days. Laura took a much-deserved mini-break with a friend. I relaxed for two days. I had two events on my calendar. First, a Pride event in New Castle that was lovely. Unfortunately, I ate a late dinner coupled with heat and not enough water so I was sick most […]
I am not of Indigenous or Native descent. I am a descended from white European colonizers, mainly from the British Isles and Western Europe who settled in what we now label as Pennsylvania, Maryland, and North Carolina. I do try to listen and learn from my Indigenous friends, colleagues, and trusted sources. I’ve tried to […]
Today, my therapist and I did a symptom review where we ‘sorted’ my current and very recent symptoms into three categories: Anxiety, Depression, and Hypomania. Then we looked at the intersection of these symptoms, this sorting, with my trauma symptoms. I was struggling to distinguish between Anxiety and Hypomania, so she literally created a divide […]
Easter brings to mind a lot of bullet point memories In 1983, things were bleak financially. I was 12 years old and in 7th grade. So, of course, my Dad decided to join my cousins on a spring fishing trip to the Outer Banks over Easter. They weren’t high end, but it was still money […]
Recently, The City University of New York Center for Community Media invited me to speak at a summit on hate crimes & media, covering my expenses & a $200 stipend. I booked train, planning on using the stipend to cover my wife’s ticket. I told them I would be doing this. I followed up to […]
Things did get better over the weekend. But the hypomania is still lingering. You know that day when you are recovering from the flu or a bad cold and you think “hey maybe I could get through work” so you don’t blow another sick day? But you really need to take that sick day to […]
Yesterday I posted about my bout of hypomania. I don’t want anyone to worry so I’m checking in. First, I have a good treatment team and supportive wife. I’m safe, I’m not struggling alone or to get basic needs met. I am, however, struggling and feeling like crap. My mind is full of thoughts I […]
I didn’t know ‘dread’ is a clinical symptom. The difference between anxiety and dread is that anxiety is an unpleasant state of mental uneasiness, nervousness, apprehension and obsession or concern about some uncertain event while dread is great fear in view of impending evil; fearful apprehension of danger; anticipatory terror. So my spin through last week took me down a dark path […]
Content Note: Alcohol, depression, death, grief In 2015, a woman named Heather completed the AMPLIFY Q&A and she caught my attention. This response in particular has stayed with me all of these years later. What motivated you to take part in this project? I don’t talk about this part of my life a lot, and when […]
Now I’ve heard there was a secret chord That David played, and it pleased the Lord But you don’t really care for music, do you? I’ve always known that my family moved to West Mifflin when I was a preschooler so while I can lay claim to that corner of the blue collar world as […]
