Trust in Mental Health Treatment #7/Messages in a Bottle #18: Meda-Analysis

Do you ever get handed such comedy gold that it’s actually kind of intimidating? Like, the low-hanging fruit is so low-hanging that you suspect it’s a trap**?  It’s terrifying, isn’t it? I mean, with a joke so easy it writes itself, how can you possibly screw it up?! So, of course, you panic freeze and …

It’s Not Delivery. It’s Depression Pizza!

CW: Discussions of the lingering relationships between food and life events. No specific mentions of disordered eating, but please use caution if discussions of food and/or emotional eating are potentially triggering topics. All descriptions of the related life events are in the past, though they are mentioned in the context of eating those same foods …

Cue the Waterworks

CW: emotional abuse, threats of self-harm (made by others, not me) and references to past childhood abuse (without details) I have a tradition I like to call 'Crying on Christmas Eve.' In the Before Times, when Americans were still welcome in the rest of the world, it was an annual pre-trip ritual I had to …

ACE in the Hole

CW: Discussions of childhood ACES. Mentions of alcohol use and verbal abuse during childhood. Read safely! Partner (on phone): "'Always,' 'Never,' 'I don't know how to answer that. It was 'Always' when we still lived there, but 'Never' now because we have public transportation? Well, okay, not 'Never.' Public transportation isn't perfect out here, and …

We Should All Be Tired

"I’m so very, very tired" I first heard this spoken by a colleague of color this week trying to explain the toll that seeing yet one more blatant murder of a black man in America had taken on him. Then I saw it posted by others of color on Facebook. Then, once I'd seen it …

It Can’t Happen Here?

CW: American eugenics in the time of corona. States announcing they will deny life-saving treatment to corona patients if they have disabilities such as "Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, autism and other such conditions." For anyone who has ever said, "it can't happen here..." Yes, it can. And it has already (as you will well know …

Where's Whoopsie #26: Could Trump's Words like *Silent* Raindrops Fall?!

CW: American politics and corona. Seriously. WTF, America?! So, uh, I'll totally be back to my usual semi-humorous self later this week. But, I need to go scream somewhere for a minute, and here is the "safest" place I can think. I have said repeatedly that people are the scariest part of any pandemic to …

“Lavender, Where Are You?”

CW: Descriptions of childhood emotional abuse. There will come a point in 2020 when I can officially say that I have lived longer outside the 9th Circle of Hell than I have within it. I will not, unfortunately, be concurrently able to say that I have spent more time outside of Hell than I have …

Where’s Whoopsie #25/Improv #19: Hazy Shade of Waiting

Does an afternoon of quiet relaxation in a cafe with a journal, a sketchpad, a kindle, and some hot chocolate sound like bliss to you? More importantly, does it actually yield bliss for you? Because I have learned that the gulf between "sounds like" and "is" is about as wide as the gulf between my …

Meteorologic Misanthropy #1: Smoke in the Office/Water from the Sky

Fun Fact #1: I haven't just been in a fair number of disasters. They tend to follow me. Think I'm kidding? At literally every job I've ever had, there has been a fire in the office within the first two months of my starting there. (I have never worked at a restaurant, a fireworks manufacturing …