Summer 2020: my mind fell apart. The simplest way to explain it is that my psychiatrist, health care provider and I slowly and carefully weaned me off Effexor for a year, and my first day without it at all was July 4th. Within 24 hours I stopped being able to fall...
Alice Yin of The Chicago Tribune interviewed me for a story with a very long name: Mental health groups mobilize virtual community for those isolated by coronavirus outbreak. ‘This is a lifeline for people.’ Because my Depression: Friends Supporting Each Other Meetup...
Talked to my therapist last night and reviewed that people's main response to danger is to go into a state of shock because shock reduces pain. Whether it's physical pain or the emotional pain of being yelled at by a boss or fearing an important relationship is about...
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...
I completed an Intensive Outpatient Program for depression. Here’s Part 7 of my experience.
I completed an Intensive Outpatient Program for depression. Here’s Part 6 of my experience.
I completed an Intensive Outpatient Program for depression. Here’s Part 5 of my experience.
I completed an Intensive Outpatient Program for depression. Here’s Part 4 of my experience.
I completed an Intensive Outpatient Program for depression. Here’s Part 3 of my experience.
I completed an Intensive Outpatient Program for depression. Here’s Part 2 of my experience.
I completed an Intensive Outpatient Program for depression. This is how it went.
Next post on weight & health: Determined At the age of 50, I'm now on my fifth year of being fat. When I went from size 10 to size 18 in the last months of my marriage in 2013, I thought, "I'm not worried about gaining weight. I've been thin and active my...
My cousin-once-removed asked me about meditation, so here's my story. I started with guided meditation when I was in my mid-twenties. I liked listening to someone else's voice as it led me through a visualization exercise that helped me relax and feel completely...