I’m trying to avoid being furious, but they’re not making it easy.
00. Preamble
I did receive the first two economic impact payments, abbreviated EIP1 and EIP2, so I know that the infrastructure is there, so to speak. My monthly payouts from Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) each include “TREAS” in their description, so I know these agencies are routinely able to process things. I can further gather from this that my bank is able to receive those payments from those agencies.
Bipolar disorder, PTSD, and more than a decade of eating disorder shenanigans have wrecked a lot of me, but I’m not dead yet. I’m working toward getting…
My mom died in 2017. This is how it went down and what I learned in the process.
[Warning: contains medical kerfufflery and a lot of talk about death and dying, in case that wasn’t clear.]
It may be a controversial opinion, but I truly am in favor of assisted suicide under certain circumstances. If the person knows that their illness has no effective treatment, or that the treatment is likely to greatly diminish their quality of life, they may choose to avoid treatment altogether.
If they are able to give informed consent, they should be allowed to choose to die. By that, I mean they should be given the option alongside the menu of other traditional choices…
It didn’t have to go down like this.
The first thing you have to understand about my mom is that she needed an advocate by her side, and the first thing you have to know about me is that I didn’t trust anyone else to do it.
Years ago, that might not have been possible. But there seems to have been a shift in the medical field, and people are realizing more and more that involving a patient’s family in the care process has benefits for everyone at the table, including the patient. In this case, it mattered more than most, because my mother had been admitted to…
There was no way I could have known, but I did.
This is a story in three parts. It chronicles three times when I had physical symptoms that led to surprising, real-world revelations in my little universe of one.
Is intuition something you’re born with? Can it be trained? Can anyone train up their intuition, or are certain people better attuned to whatever it is that makes intuition possible?
Because it’s true: intuition is entirely possible. I’m not talking about predicting the future with any real specificity, at least for me. I’m referring to something more general. The only real problem is that I don’t have control over much of it.
…
What a long, strange trip it’s been. I regret nothing, aside from not understanding more of it sooner.
I was a large child. I mean that in terms of my weight as well as my height. Kids grow at different rates, and I was among the tallest in my grade when I was 9 and 10 years old.
But I was also one of the fattest kids, and I was bullied relentlessly for it. It didn’t help that I had thick glasses — I’m extremely far-sighted — and frizzy, unruly hair I had no idea how to care for or maintain.
Then came middle school, which is rough for most people. For me, going through female puberty was…
I’m not sure if I can or should legally say the name of the employer that made this short film required viewing, but it rhymes with “all fart.” And if I did say it, no one would be shocked in the slightest.
Once upon a time, I needed a gig, so I applied anywhere that was hiring. The local big-box retailer called and summoned me for an interview, initially for their grocery section, but then for their back-to-school crew. That department also came with responsibilities in fabrics and crafts, as well as what was called “celebrations,” where they kept the party stuff.
It was me and another new hire, in the training and interview area, in the back of the store. Most of the stuff we’d seen up to that point had been your run-of-the-mill, new hire spiel. …
Agent Orange, as I like to call him, pulled the worst parts out of the members of the republican party and used them to attract a very specific kind of voter who could reliably be expected to have multiple guns, feels marginalized, and can be motivated to express their frustration through violence and intimidation.
Let Me Be Clear
Biden isn’t perfect. Neither is Harris, and neither is Obama or Clinton or Warren or Sanders. These are objective facts. The perfect candidate and leader does not exist.
And in terms of my personal political leanings, I want to be up front about that as well: I swing hard to the left. Biden is a moderate democrat, and I would have preferred someone more my speed, but what’s done is done, and not getting to vote for my preferred kind of candidate isn’t something I was worried about in November. …
Or: it’s not just your political affiliation that’s being monitored, and it’s not just rival political factions doing it.
I’ve been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. I received that diagnosis when I was around 18 years old, partly because my mom had been diagnosed with the same disorder. The diagnostic criteria were met, but as a lot of folks with significant time spent around mental healthcare will tell you, overlapping diagnoses happen quite a bit. Treatment can be a moving target, even when there is not a dual diagnosis.
I’m 31 now. I’ve learned a lot about my brain and how to predict some of its shifts, the ebbing and flowing of things, and I think I’ve got a better…
As someone who has been living with complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD) for a very long time, I have a theory. My expectations are low, but nothing drives home a point like being smacked in the face with the evidence.
My partner and I were listening to NPR’s live broadcast of the events as they unfolded on January 6. We could scarcely believe what we were hearing. It’s a huge cliche, but as Americans, we often think and act as if certain things are impossible in this country.
On the night of the election in 2016, I felt a similar sort of way: it was such a bizarre thing to watch happen. My dad and I were watching it live, and I felt helpless and horrified by it.
That was a lifetime ago. I wanted to be wrong about what…
This is a story about my dad and how he got his start in radio — and a client that stuck with him for decades.
One day, in my late teens, my dad and I were in the car together on our way from my hometown to the university from which I would earn my bachelor’s degree. I don’t remember how it came up, but we were talking about jobs we’d had, and he was telling me about his first radio gigs.
He had wanted to go into radio, and he had a wonderful voice for it. But he was petrified. …
