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I’m still doing okay – safe with friends and taking things one day at a time. I went back to court last week, negotiated and agreed to a continuance, and took a break. Spent a lot of time with my nephews this weekend. We had a firepit fire and made s’mores. Celebrated a birthday and […]
Content Note: mental health, childhood abuse, police encounter, 302 or civil commitment, anti-trans actions, support Thank you for showing up for me during a really tough time. How Your Support is Keeping Me Safe With your help, I was able to pay the retainer for a great lawyer who has been helpful, kind, and pragmatic. […]
July is Disability Pride Month. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was passed on July 26, 1990, to prohibit discrimination against people with disabilities. Following this legislation, Boston held the first Disability Pride Day event in July 1990 and Disability Pride Month was born. “To change the way people think about and define “disability,” to […]
I’ve written about this many times, but June is a very difficult month for me. This year, a particular challenge has been my trauma processing work – digging in deep to some stuff that’s so hard to face, so painful, so so so much I can’t discuss with anyone except my therapist. And my therapist […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Last week, my therapist and I picked up with EMDR to process more trauma. We intentionally defined a period of my childhood that was brutal, 1979-1983, or the years of 4th to 8th grade. Historically, EMDR has been quite helpful with my lesser traumas and anxiety. The hard stuff hasn’t cooperated and we’ve respected that. […]
