A safe place to talk openly about mental health & illness
This post was inspired by a post a little while back by Mio at Mentally Ill in America. Managing medications can be a basic part of mental illness/chronic illness life. But doing it without a system may only work for so long, especially when brain fog gets in the way. At that point, it might… Continue reading Managing Psych Medications: Getting a Pill Dosette
I originally introduced the rainbow model of mental illness functioning last year to capture some of my thoughts on the relationship between symptoms and functioning in mental illness. This is something that exists in my head rather than being an actual thing, and it's not a model in the scientific sense, but it shows some… Continue reading The Rainbow Model of Mental Illness Symptoms & Functioning
Winter Dragonflies wrote quite a while back about creating your peace. It made me think about the relationship between non-acceptance and suffering in the context of mental illness, and I started this draft that I've finally gotten around to writing. Mental illness isn't fun, that much is clear. How we relate to illness, wellness, and… Continue reading Non-Acceptance, Suffering, and Mental Illness
You may have heard of spoon theory, a popular metaphor for dealing with chronic illness and energy-depleting activities. You're probably less likely to have heard of a variant called fork theory, and you probably haven't heard of knife theory. In this post, we're going to do a deep dive into the mental illness cutlery drawer,… Continue reading The Mental Illness Cutlery Drawer: Spoons, Forks & More
I've never been a big social media person. Before I started blogging, I briefly had a Facebook account, but that didn't last long. Once I started blogging in 2017, I started using social media more, but that's contracted, in part because of depression, and in part because of COVID. When I started this blog, I… Continue reading My Depression’s Cooling Relationship with Social Media
Living alone, I have to do all my own grocery shopping. It's been that way for years, so no big deal, right? Well, what used to be a simple task has become a bit more of a production with mental illness tagging along. It turns out grocery shopping with mental illness isn't a great combination.… Continue reading Mental Illness Goes Grocery Shopping
Despite what the title might suggest, this post isn't about me being self-critical. I've been struggling for months with cognitive symptoms of depression, and on a daily basis I notice that it impairs my overall functioning. But it's not something I've ever had much of an objective sense of, until I tried the THINC-it test.… Continue reading The THINC-it Test in Depression: I’m Actually Getting Stupider
I have always found the cognitive symptoms of depression to be among the most disruptive to my overall functioning. When I'm really unwell it feels like I can't think my way out of a paper bag. I tend to describe the effect on my thinking as "mashed potato brains".