This is the entry where I traditionally write a letter to myself.

Dear Renee from Blogathon 2007,

I am writing to you from one year in the future.  You’ve still got a long way to go from where you are.  I see you there, in my mind, sitting on the back porch, smoking a cigarette and crying as you wrote a letter very much like this one.  That was a ( Read more... )

Any of you who have ever seen a pharmaceutical commercial know there are side effects to medications.  So many side effects, in fact, that sometimes the medication causes exactly what it is supposed to heal.  When you seek help for a mental illness, the list of side effects can be daunting, and this chooses some to avoid medications altogether.

I ( Read more... )

First off, for some reason my site isn’t loading properly in IE, but seems to be fine in Firefox.  Frustrating, especially to my dear mother.

Second, the post:

I have a friend who sometimes believes she is cursed.  She believes that whatever higher power exists gave her bipolar disorder as a punishment.  She does not believe this all the time, but ( Read more... )

I’ve written a lot about openness in the past few entries, and I think what I want to capture most in my own openness is a sense of childlike wonder.  The above photo (that you have to go to genreimpaired.com to see) I think illustrates exactly what I want to have in my life.  Pure joy at something as simple as a piece of candy that he doesn’t even ( Read more... )

I would like to say I am fighting just for the common good when I write about mental illness.  That would be the noble thing to do, right?

Not for me.  I’m fighting for that too, but primarily I am here, working on my own wellness, for these two handsome guys at the top of the post. (if you want to see the photo, please go to www.genreimpaired.com)

( Read more... )

She woke up one morning and it was like no other day she had ever had before.  Sure, her back still hurt, her kid still whined, her husband still had to go to work, the dog even vomited on the floor.  In all those ways, it was the same.

But somehow, this day was different.

The laundry still needed to be done, in fact, a load had soured in the wash ( Read more... )

“What’s up?” he asks, plopping down on the sofa beside me, his arm automatically goes to encompass my shoulders.  Subconsciously, I shy away.

I force myself to gravitate nearer him, though the thought of human contact is repulsive to me now, “Not much,” I say, but there’s a shiver in my voice.

I will pretend to be okay.  I will not let him see the ( Read more... )

I have said that it is important to have a support network, but I think it must be said that it is equally important to know how to stand on your own.  You cannot forgo self-reliance just because you have people to lean on, otherwise you will never be able to stand.

In addition to being taken care of at times, we need to know how to take care of ( Read more... )

It seems like everything works in threes, doesn’t it?  Deaths, births, collections bills all seem to come into my life in threes.  Three begins to seem like the number of the universe.

And there are three of me, I think.  Maybe there are three of all of us, and we’re just crowded into our brains, sweating, trying to surface, to be the dominant ( Read more... )

Sometimes, just sometimes, things are perfect with this woman he lives with.  Sometimes it doesn’t matter that she calls herself crazy, because you wouldn’t know it to talk to her.  Sometimes he thinks she is just too hard on herself, and there really isn’t much wrong.

Sometimes, just sometimes, things are amazing.  This woman he married is wild ( Read more... )