Mental Health
In Human Parts. More on Medium.
HUMANS 101
I did reach out, but my people ignored me and you probably ignore your people too
I used to think I was someone who retreated when I needed help. I thought I isolated myself when faced with troubles. After doing internal work with the help of my therapist, I’ve recognized that retreating is a defense mechanism I’ve developed in response to feeling rejected.
I’m not the…
I’m lonely but I’m also not.
Wikipedia explains that Shrödinger’s Cat “is a thought experiment that illustrates a paradox of quantum superposition. In the thought experiment, a hypothetical cat may be considered simultaneously both alive and dead as a result of its fate being linked to a random subatomic event that may or may not occur.”…
After this year, September will just be September.
On her first day as a high school senior, my daughter wore a thrifted denim skirt with a black blouse. …
Lived Through This
I’m obsessed with all the numbers that mark the time that Ana was alive.
There are 3,289 members in a Facebook group that exists for parents who have lost children to cancer.
Each member represents a child who died from a disease that is underfunded and misunderstood, a child whose photo is decorated with a gold ribbon (or not). …
THIS IS US
Sometimes my mind goes haywire. But crabgrass I can manage.
Crabgrass emerges when your soil temperature reaches 55 degrees Fahrenheit for three straight days. You tend to see it first in compacted soil, but when it spreads through your lawn, it boxes out space for itself and settles into thick beds that fight off the grass you planted. Crabgrass roots…
Lived Through This
Rising and falling, over and over and over again
I’ve done quite a bit of musing while sitting on the beach this summer, and I thought I was done writing about it after my last piece. For anyone who thinks that I’ve been doing a tremendous amount of sitting on the beach, thus affording me copious time to ponder…
THIS IS US
I have no idea what instinct kicked in to get me to start doing this, but my pen flew as she talked
I received an email earlier this year from a friend — someone I know casually. Okay, she’s the girlfriend of a folk singer I listen to. Look, I can’t explain these things. Talk to my mother.
Anyway, her email began with, “So I guess you’re the suicide guy.” …
HUMANS 101
Why it’s time to stop fetishizing achievement-oriented pathology
As a recovering perfectionist, I feel the need to call a spade a spade — perfectionism isn’t a virtue. Somewhere along the line, we put it on the cultural pedestal and never looked back. …
THIS IS US
My daughter’s absence was like a wound, raw and weeping. Everything we did together reminded us of who we had lost.
Once I got married and became a mother, I understood that my whole self wasn’t just about me anymore. My life revolved around the other members of my familial collective — my husband and my two daughters. Four was the number that felt complete.
My world was driven by this…
A Memorial Meadow
Last October, I stood in my seacoast yard, listening to the waves and grieving the death of my wonderful Aunt Kathy from pancreatic cancer. My landscaper pressed me for a decision about mulching a ledge-filled patch of earth with a tiny view of the water. …
Human Parts
A publication from Medium about humanity: yours, mine, and ours.
