And the truth is there's never anything other than pain. Everything else is an illusion. The sad part is that we're meant to go on, walking through it day after day. We're meant to keep our chins up, smile, never give up, never give in to it. That's what it means to be human.

You went off your meds, and you feel awful. You know that stopping your meds triggers an episode. Now you are manic, and it doesn't feel as good as they describe it on tv or on the internet. You're struggling to slow yourself down, to keep yourself contained. You feel drugged and heavy under the weight of the new meds, and everything is wrong. ( Read more... )

I've been working with kids a little, and I find that I like them quite a bit. Each one is interesting and unique, full of thoughts and anecdotes and half-formed connections. I like helping them to make sense of their world. Because, after all, that's what teaching is ( Read more... )

One day, when I was young, I read my sister's journal. Among the tales of boys and voices of friends was this: "My sister is my best friend ( Read more... )

A conversation I had today has me doing a slow crawl through my past. There is a lot of past to crawl through. It surprises me again and again that I am thirty-five. I know so little about the world and how to move in it ( Read more... )

I wonder how people care for each other. It seems like such a transitory thing. One day they're holding on, even when you're squirming for them to let you go, the next you're nothing but a crumpled piece of paper that they throw on the ground. Not in the trash can, on the ground because you're lower than trash, the lowest. You're not worth anything ( Read more... )

I am tired these days. I don't have the energy to sit up all night watching reruns of sitcoms I've seen a million times before. I don't have the luxury of sitting and wallowing in anxiety until I'm afraid to move or to speak. I don't wonder about monsters under the bed (or couch as it were), or in the closet, or in the shower. I have more pressing ( Read more... )

Sometimes I get overwhelmed by all the roles that I play in the world. Who I am and who I am going to be. Sometimes it's the simple ones. I think about the fact that I'm a daughter, a sister, an aunt, a friend. And these things surprise and amaze me. But they're relatively every day. What really makes my heart tremble are the other things. The fact ( Read more... )

Dear Jo ( Read more... )

I don't think that when someone makes a mistake, even a big one, that we should throw them away. I don't think that we are meant to wash our hands of each other in times of crisis and move on with our lives. My brother is no longer the small boy we used to dress up in doll's clothing and introduce to people as our sister. My brother is a crack ( Read more... )