Brain Spew in Lieu of Wit

I have always been very focused on my identity - what do I believe in? Do I embody those values in both thought and action? How am I perceived and how can I better align those perceptions with who I want to be? How is my environment, past and current, affecting how I see myself? How are my mental illness, pain, and fatigue affecting my behavior? What are my goals and how are they affecting my self image? Okay, so I've been accused of excessive metacognition . I blame reading so much philosophy and Victorian literature as a kid (the stoic and socratic philosophies are great for building this skill, but I digress). I also wanted to be a teacher at a very young age and have always been very aware of societal expectations, so I have spent most of my life being very careful of what I publicly share about myself and what might be used against me should some parent or administrator feel they need to take me down or control me. ....I also grew up in a family where you needed to know ...

Another year between posts. I would usually give a quick summary of the missing time, but I think I'll skip that this round. I'm moving back into a position where I can start planning consistent updates, but I also know that I have difficulty maintaining routines with my personal projects. The important thing is that I'm writing now. I'm trying to focus on that. I'm afraid. I'm exhausted and in pain. I worry my medication regimen has become merely a stop-gap, but I don't know what "properly medicated" looks like for me. I think I'm finally recovering from my 2015 burnout, which is bittersweet. I contemplate putting my schedule in a tighter stranglehold, knowing that it hasn't worked in the past and any goals I was trying to attain just fell between my fingers like sand. I'm afraid for so many reasons. Donald Trump's presidency has been...exhausting and infuriating. He's inconsistent, volatile, racist, and completely out of t...

                Let’s talk about anxiety. It’s an insidious and amorphous part of living with mental illness and/or trauma. It’s very difficult to ignore the expected spikes of anxiety – like right before a test, performance, or interview – but there is a cause and, in most cases, there are coping mechanisms to help ease the tension such as studying, practicing, or coaching. Then there are the unexpected spikes of anxiety – panic attacks , unpleasant surprises, and bad news. These spikes often have fewer coping mechanisms associated with them, but they are still very difficult to flat out ignore.                 The anxiety that I’m focusing on, though, is the creeping, background anxiety that rests in the back of your brain and broils in the pit of your stomach. It’s the anxiety that quietly chips at your confidence and makes you q...

                 I have recently re-entered the process I irreverently refer to as “medication roulette,” where the balance between relieving symptoms and managing side effects seems to have more to do with luck and fate than anything concrete. Those with chronic conditions will be intimately familiar with the dance of finding the combination of medication, doses, and timing that will suitably treat an ailment. My personal experience is centered in managing my own mental illness, but I have commiserated with so many people who have a variety of illnesses about this process. Medication is not the “easy way out,” and the assumption that someone who requires medication is somehow less strong or less disciplined than anyone else is false and harmful. While medication isn’t necessary or suitable for everyone, I explore how difficult it can be to find and maintain a stable balance in the whirlwind of diagnosis, s...