Labels are for Jars
The very first thing I did, on my path to healing, was to stop labeling my brain. This was a huge shift. Labels had been my crutch for years. I’d been an active and eager participant in finding external reasons why I was the way I was. I’d had 12 labels—diagnoses—placed on my brain over…
An Open Letter to Those Going off Medication
“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” —Anaïs Nin Recently, I’ve been seeing more and more stories / posts / tweets by people in the process of withdrawing from medication. These have brought up both a swell of compassion and a…
Before (I Have Known Pain)
These days, most of the time, I feel pretty calm. The mind gets wound up, sure, and sometimes there’s anger or agitation or sadness, but all in all, underlying it is a feeling of peace. That wasn’t always the case. Mine was not a transient depression or anxiety disorder. Over the course of 22 years,…