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Dishes Lie
Don’t trust the dishes. Don’t get me wrong–I’m proud of being able to wash dishes. For years, it was a task shuffled off to my spouse; even more so than other mundane tasks because the specific...
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Choosing the Tiger
There’s an old short story called “The Lady or the Tiger.” In it, a man must choose between two identical doors. Behind one is a beautiful princess for him to marry, and behind the other is a...
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Ave Atque Vale, Robin Williams
Friends, we’ve lost another one. It’s been ten minutes since I heard about the death of Robin Williams, and I’m starting this with the tears still on my face because I have to begin expressing it....
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You’re Not…Are You?
“You’re not feeling suicidal…are you?” During the week after the suicide of Robin Williams, the question came to me three times from three people close to me. That’s exactly how it was phrased, too....
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Leap of (Non)Faith
I must do something I do not believe in at the moment. I must do something I do not think will do me any good. I must go somewhere, say something, plan something that I’m convinced is futile. This is...
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Ghost Town
In most stories, when the main character becomes a ghost, they try very hard to send messages to the living. They get frustrated when they can’t, and they work on finding ways to affect the world...
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The Opaque Flask
I wouldn’t want my psychiatrist’s job. Therapists have many challenges, as I know, but psychiatrists usually see their patients less often and for less time–and have to figure out what drugs to...
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The Cruellest Month
April is the cruellest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land… “The Waste Land” T.S. Eliot I’m no literature scholar. I don’t know what Eliot meant by these lines, or the long and complex poem...
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Hope For the Wrong Thing
I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope, For hope would be hope for the wrong thing… –T.S. Eliot I have been waiting for inspiration. I’ve been waiting for Not This Song to feel like my...
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What Do You Do?
There are few questions that I dread like this one. There are few places more guaranteed to produce this question than a reunion. I graduated with my counseling degree in 2005. Last weekend I attended...
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Cease-Fire
“I come to thee for charitable license, That we may wander o’er this bloody field To book our dead and then to bury them…” –Shakespeare, Henry V, Act IV, Scene 7 It is not the first battle, or the...
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I Miss My Badge
I don’t want to be here today. Today, I don’t want to be a poet, or a homeschooling mom, or an unpublished writer, or an addict. Today, I especially don’t want to be a person with bipolar disorder....
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Poised
What does it take to return from a trip into the dark? A long bout of clinical depression tends to be followed by a long and gradual return, but shorter dips require a quicker springback. How do we...
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Don’t Take This From Me
All right, bipolar disorder. You try to take a lot of things from me. Sometimes you succeed, and sink your claws into your prize until I wrench it back. Fine. Keep trying to take my sleep. Or my...
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When All Else Fails…
Tell the truth. It’s something I tell myself about the things I write. Can’t be clever, or cute, or topical today? Then just be authentic. Tell the truth about something, and let it be enough. I’ve...
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The Cycle of Apologies
I am so tired of apologizing, but I don’t see how I can stop doing it. I’m not even sure I want to stop doing it. I don’t want to live my life as a walking apology, but I also don’t want to become the...
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A Familiar Conversation
Those who share some of my issues will be relieved to know that I am taking steps to obtain a supply of my bipolar meds again. Having dropped the ball during the previous months and the stresses I’ve...
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