The View from a Drawbridge

Tag: depression

  • On Coming Out in Public

    On Valentine’s Day, actress Ellen Page came out in front of a large group of people at the Time to Thrive conference in Las Vegas. You can hear her moving and heartfelt speech by going here if you get my blog by e-mail: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hlCEIUATzg  but I’ll also attach the video below. Since her speech, there…

  • Mandated Joy

    For those of us who struggle with depression, the holidays can be a particularly challenging time of year. In any other season, the thick blanket of painful sadness, when it descends, seems almost like a natural, albeit unwelcome part of the life cycle. Friends and family find it easier to avert their gaze, and we…

  • Contemplating Suicide? What I’d Say to a Jumper

    Recently someone I love very much told me that she had attempted suicide a couple of times in the past year. This broke my heart because I had no idea she was suffering in silence. Having struggled with depression my whole life, I know what it’s like to want to throw off that thick blanket…

  • Rain, Rain, Here to Stay?

    For the past 24 hours I’ve been treated to a deluge of epic proportions, and from the look of the radar, there’s no end in sight. Flood warnings, traffic accidents, and dogs who refuse to go outside to do their business are all par for the course. Somehow even the open spaces feel claustrophobic. Construction…

  • Abundance is Mine!

    After several years of experiencing profoundly bad luck and making astoundingly bad decisions with horrifying consequences, suddenly the other day I lifted my head up, dropped the thick cloak of depression onto my dusty and neglected floor, and was promptly smacked squarely in the face with abundance. I got a new job, practically by accident.…

  • Mental Illness and the Internet

    Sometimes I really think that cyberspace is not the healthiest place to be. Every once in a while I encounter someone who is clearly in need of help, and since I’m not a mental health professional I am definitely not the go-to girl in situations of this nature. Generally all I can do is the…

  • Stage Mothers

    Anyone who has seen the musical “Gypsy” knows that certain people turn into the stage mothers from hell. It really ought to be a mental designation in the DSM 5, and it should be defined as someone who is so unhappy with her own life that she attempts to live vicariously through that of her…

  • Hold on to your Highest Point

    I’m having a really, really bad few days. They come, they go. The older you get, the more you realize it’s not the end of the world. The pendulum always swings back the other direction eventually. So, on days like this, when my boss shows his true a**hole colors, the man in my life has…

  • History Repeats Itself

    Here in America most of us think of the Great Depression as being something that impacted our country alone. Not so. The depression did originate in the United States after the stock market crashed in 1929, but it spread throughout the world, causing drops in personal income, tax revenue, and international trade. Unemployment went sky…

  • It’s World Hijab Day. Should I Care?

    In the interest of full disclosure, I am not a Muslim. I’m a Unitarian Universalist. But I have worn a hijab on two occasions. Since I am not a Hijabi (which is a woman who wears a hijab), and have not experienced what it is like to wear a head scarf day in and day…