Previous post on weight & health: How do I stop the pain? I've been trying to lose weight ever since I became fat in 2013. In my last post, I wrote about working with a natural health practitioner, who said my healing process had a spiritual element (ugh!). She...
Previous post on weight & health: Not getting better I run a depression support group Meetup and this week we talked about ways to treat depression other than with medication. I've happily been on anti-depressants since 2010, so I'm not knocking meds, but I wanted...
Even though my review of a podcast on depression wasn't favorable, I tweeted it and tagged the host, Krista Tippett, and the show itself, On Being. And Tippett responded! This is great, although I'm not sure what she means by "it often works this cyclical way." Does...
I didn't even get one month before the depression came back. It rolled back over me on Monday and as hard as I've been trying to pretend "as if," I can't stop it. The twelve step programs advocate "fake it til you make it." Act the way you wish you were and eventually...
HA HA HA HA HA! https://twitter.com/ChicanaOnEdge/status/971088839522603008
Previous post on weight & health: Weight loosening I recently revised the labels on my blog. If you go to the labels cloud in the right column (in desktop view) and click on fatness, you'll see that I've been obsessed with food, diets, exercise, losing and gaining...
When I found out that the husband of a friend had died I first felt sad, then angry. It makes me furious that so many people want to die, but instead people like her man die. But it's a random, godless world so there's no place to direct my anger. Everything just...
Inspired by the final blog post of Obesio the Loser, a former online-friend, here's a list of stuff I've noticed over the decades. 1. Sometimes it gets better. Sometimes it doesn't. 2. No two people are exactly alike, but few people are genuinely special. 3. I still...
I'm proud to say that the depression support group I started through Meetup.com is going strong. As you can see in this screenshot, I started it on October 10th and we now have 111 members. Between seven and ten of us meet every Monday evening in Rogers Park and we...
[NOTE: the name of our Meetup has since been changed to Depression: Friends Supporting Each Other because people thought the original name was too negative. Of course it was negative! We're talking about depression. But I listened to the members and we voted on a...
Wait! Start with Part One! Eleventh Session (Oct. 17, 2017) I'm bored with this program and bored with blogging about it. Usually 10-15 people show up, but today there were only eight. The first exercise was to write letters to ourselves about how we've changed...
Presence St. Joseph Hospital in Chicago, Illinois USA Start with Part One please! Ninth Session (Oct. 13, 2017) There's one man who consistently dozes in group and I feel for him because it sounds like he's on too strong a sleeping pill prescription....
Hey, start with Outpatient program for depression and anxiety, part one! Seventh session (Oct. 9, 2017) Today was weird. It was clear that at least some of the staff had read last week's blog posts and changed their behavior accordingly (on my third day there I...
One thing I like about mental illness support groups, outpatient programs and the nut house itself is that I can be myself 100%. Unlike anywhere else, I can take off my public face, express exactly what I'm feeling and say what's on my mind or stare dully into the...
Don't read this until you read Outpatient program for depression and anxiety, part one. Fifth session (Oct. 5, 2017) This morning I found the first hour disturbing. We did the usual check-in with the facilitator asking everyone about sleep, appetite,...