If living with your mental illness, and sometimes barely surviving it, has you so exhausted that silence becomes your language, I am fluent. "Converse" with me.

HERE IS MY THANKS TO THE MONSTERS Absurd as it sounds, I "throw roses into the abyss" and say thanks to "the monsters who didn't succeed in swallowing me alive" every day. How could I not? Grappling with those monsters shaped me into the person I am today: informing my spiritual worldview, forging my character, … Continue reading HERE IS MY THANKS TO THE MONSTERS →

PURGING THE POISONS FROM YOUR HEART Harsh, painful experience has taught me that forgiveness is essential to my spiritual and mental well-being. As the AA Big Book so aptly states, "Resentment is the number one offender." Holding onto a grudge against someone else is spiritually corrosive. It's like waking up every morning and dousing my … Continue reading PURGING THE POISONS FROM YOUR HEART →

It's OK to have a mental illness and addiction. I have Bipolar Disorder, Alcoholism, and an Addiction. It just means that I have triple the amount of experience, strength, and hope to share; a trifecta of fellow sufferers to help, and from whom I can receive help; and three times the motivation to work my … Continue reading HITTING THE TRIFECTA →

The Barbarism of Bedlam "San Luis Obispo County, CA — Terrifying video of an in-custody death has recently been released confirming police officers tortured a man for days in a restraint chair and then laughed as he spent his final moments alive suffering in agony in his jail cell." I didn't post the video because … Continue reading The Barbarism of Bedlam →

DETACHING WITH LOVE If you don't understand that I have a mental illness, and respect that aspect of me, then we can't be friends. Or family. My spiritual belief is to practice love and tolerance, though I sometimes fall woefully short. Nevertheless, I keep striving. But a corollary to that tenet is to detach with … Continue reading DETACHING WITH LOVE →

LOVE US ADDICTS Addiction is indeed a special kind of Hell. Like a wicked, tentacled demon, it reaches down your throat, grasps your soul by its very roots, and rips it right out of you. Leaving a gaping spiritual wound and a hunger that can only be satisfied by more alcohol, more drugs, more food, … Continue reading LOVE US ADDICTS →

"MY PEOPLE" ARE BEAUTIFUL "The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of those depths." -Elisabeth Kubler-Ross If you have a mental illness or an addiction, you are my people. I "get you" and I know that you … Continue reading “MY PEOPLE” ARE BEAUTIFUL →

FEAR IS A LIAR A healthy instinctive fear of clear and present danger is both unavoidable and healthy. If there was no "fight or flight" response if I accidentally stepped in front of a fast moving car, I'd end up as a large and macabre hood ornament. Problem is, as humans, and particularly humans with … Continue reading FEAR IS A LIAR →

YOURS IN SOLIDARITY "I'm able to see the good in those who face the darkness because I've been there myself." "Facing the darkness" can mean many things to many people, but for me, the legs of my spiritual journey most devoid of light have been the ones in which I was under relentless attack by … Continue reading YOURS IN SOLIDARITY →