mental health journalist
“A route is a predefined path or course taken by transportation vehicles to move goods or services from one location to another, ensuring efficient delivery.” When I was in elementary school, around nine or ten years old, I fell in love with the idea of making money by delivering newspapers. Somehow the idea of cruising the pre-dawn…
I told my kids as soon as they were old enough to access the internet that I would answer any questions they have. “Don’t Google,” I begged. So, when my young daughter disrupted me during one of my work-from-home days, I maintained my cool. I swiveled in my office chair and faced her at the…
“We’re talking about prepositions today,” the professor announces to a classroom full of military students from all branches. I was there as part of Army Reserves Advanced Individual Training or AIT, which is the job training part of entering the Armed Forces. Anyone with a Military Occupational Skill or MOS relating to communications attended the…
So, dear reader(s) I have decided to make this a flash essay blog where I will share a story every Friday related to parenting, and offer a sort of Dear Abby advice column. This should be fun. I am playing with calling it “Parenting on the borderline” or something similarly witty. Friday January 9, 2026…
“Hello?” “Hi, this is Ellen, Margie’s daughter,” I tell the people in Mom’s address book on the phone. The teachers in my elementary school decorated the social studies teacher’s classroom for his milestone birthday, hanging colorful banners that said, “Lordy, Lordy, Jim Rondash is Forty.” Learning his first name delights me as much as witnessing…
Tracing the path of scar tissue in my veins, faintly visible through the skin, with the pad of my index finger hurts like pressing on a bruise I can’t see. Clumps of cartilage balled like rubber cement. The meaty parts of both hands are swollen from pulling my thumbs away from my wrists so that…
One thing I like about dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) is the way it prepares the client for the end of the therapeutic relationship. In her memoir, the founder of DBT, Marsha Linehan, writes DBT is different than psychodynamic therapy because she tells highly suicidal people with borderline personality disorder (BPD) what to do. Having figured…
I don’t know where Duane got the sawed-off shotgun, but I let him put it in the trunk of my Ford Taurus – the one that I bought used with a broken ignition. All I needed to start that car was a screwdriver. Duane was a year younger than I but had already spent years…
“OK, yeah, I’m just going to park it. I’ll see you inside,” I told Mom. Key in the ignition, I turned the engine over and checked the rear view mirror. I was sixteen and a half, which mattered at the time I wanted my driver’s license. I needed a way to get to work. By…
In October 2018, my mom, my husband, our two children and I drove to Savannah, Georgia, to celebrate my fortieth birthday. I finally had a job that offered paid time off, so I wanted to travel. “What better time to check out Tybee Island Beach than fall, when it’s cold enough to keep sunbathers away,”…