mental health journalist
I shiver when my cell phone vibrates from Mom’s calls; my brother’s calls more often make me nervous. “Oh, no. What happened to Joe now?” sort of thinking. This time they teamed up, called from Joe’s number and put me on speaker phone. In the spirit of anti-hypocrisy, I accepted my mother’s invitation to my…
The bug had it coming. They all do. Waving like a fly strip in the wind, you know, I don’t look forward to seeing you again. Over the last few days/weeks/moments buried in blinks, flies have been buzzing through my kitchen and around my bathroom mirror. I hate flies. They mean death is near. Shit…
“Run. Away. Screaming.” That’s what I told Russell when we started dating in early 2008. Now, we’re married with two teenagers. I’ve been trying to make sense of the first thirty years of my life for the last fifteen. People with borderline personality disorder (BPD) are among the most suicidal and toughest clients to counsel….
A psychiatrist helped me name my demon in 1997. Spoiler alert: it’s me.
I hurt myself by pulling my thumbs away from my body causing inflamed tendons to swell and pop. The joints do, too. The small bones in the fingers feel relief with the snap crack of my knuckles, but I can feel I’m doing damage. The swelling pools in the space between my pointer finger and…
It’s 80 degrees as the sun sets minutes before 9 p.m. on the longest day of the year. The day with the most light seems like the perfect time to make time for reflection on the shorter days that came before. Peak sunshine at the end of a rainy week. Tears fall across my smile….
“Is this the right neighborhood?” I wonder as I park in a cul-de-sac and open the rental car door. This could be anywhere; it doesn’t stand out as a tourist location. There isn’t a single parking space. It’s so small and unassuming – are we allowed to be here? My husband, Russell, reads a sign…
Two storm systems moved through Georgia in January like bookends to the month. The day after former President Jimmy Carter was laid to rest, the ground froze, and Georgians enjoyed a rare weekend of winter. A cold air mass fixed across the region and combined with an area of low pressure, bringing then-Gulf of Mexico…
Joe stood and watched while Dan convulsed. Whatever thoughts, panic or guilt going through either of their minds was between them and God. Dan’s nose was caked in dried blood, and his mouth was covered in a sticky white foam. Joe gave Dan the heroin. The detectives who arrived later knew that much. Joe later…
papier-mâché personality There are three of me, I’m told, but I can’t remember who they are. Me then. Me now. My reflection. I made a friend once, out of papier-mâché. I cannot spell that hyphenated word; I copy and paste. My favorite part of telling people was always the pause between, “I made a new…