Backsliding

According to the National Institutes of Health, it is estimated that people with mental illnesses experience “a median delay of 10 years after onset until the first contact with a general medical doctor and 11 years until the first contact with a psychiatrist. Even though more severe mental disorders were associated with shorter delays, the […]

ECT- The Day Of

quick note: it’s come to my attention some internet folk from a whole other moment in my life and who didn’t like me much have found this blog and chat about it sometimes. I just wanted to say that there are really no hard feelings on my end, and I hope if any of y’all […]

Stigma and Mental Illness

“One of the things that baffles me (and there are quite a few) is how there can be so much lingering stigma with regards to mental illness, specifically bipolar disorder. In my opinion, living with manic depression takes a tremendous amount of balls…At times, being bipolar can be an all-consuming challenge, requiring a lot of […]

ECT Part II (the prep)

I’ve been trying to figure out how to describe ECT, and since it’s such a bizzaro procedure that everyone experiences differently, I feel like there’s a lot of pressure to get it right. But I guess really, between the memory loss and the other ECT effects, it’s not going to be perfect. It’s just […]

On Suicide

Before I get deeper into the world of ECT (I swear, there’s a part II coming!), I heard today about the loss of Chester Bennington to suicide. Linkin Park was always sort of in the periphery for me, but that’s not really the point. Every time I read about another celebrity’s (or non) suicide, I’m […]

ECT Part I (the preamble)

I just found the rest of my scattershot notes from the hospital, all written with a tiny golf pencil that the nurse gave me after I promised I wouldn’t hurt myself with it. I told her I would first have to figure out how a person could hurt themselves with a golf pencil, but she […]

15 Questions People Who’ve Been Suicidal Wish They Had Been Asked

This is so good, and so true.