Category Archives: Mental Health

My Truth About My Postpartum Story – Part 2: Intensive Care Unit

…I was in and out. Sometimes I woke up and couldn’t move. Strapped to the bed. Until they thought I didn’t need the straps anymore. One day…night…?…I woke up in panic. What’s all this stuff on my face, in my mouth, choking me, silencing me. Get it off! Get it off! I grabbed and grabbed and then my husband is on top of me holding down my arms, my body, “Nurse! NURSE! I need some help in here!” People rushed in. Held me down. Strapped me in. Rushed something into my IV and…gone. Out like a light.

My Truth About My Postpartum Story – Part 1: The Ambulance

I haven’t told my story – the story that continually haunts me. I haven’t told my story. Not to me. Not to anyone. Not completely. Little snippets here and there, but not in its entirety. It took me a long time to gather the memories. I haven’t told my story, but in order to completely heal. In order to move on. In the case that someone else has a similar unique story, I need to tell my story.

Fasting Current Events

Presidential elections, racial injustice, killer virus, and on and on and on. Everywhere you turn, it’s there. It’s a flyer hanging on your door with someone smiling. Usually a man. Usually white. Many times surrounded by a beautiful wife and two or three darling children in well coordinated clothing. Maybe even matching. Maybe even aContinue reading “Fasting Current Events”

Hurting People Hurt People: Part 3 – Recovery

My manic-depressive cycles spread my moods all over like a strong wind blows sand in patterned deposits next to a turbulent sea. Except I haven’t figured out the pattern so that I can flow with it, embrace it, and control it. I’m seeking recovery, but the journey is long, arduous, and leaves me parched, longing for stability in soft ever drifting sand.

Hurting People Hurt People: Part 2 – Mean Girl

Receiving a diagnosis of manic-depression in 2019 has flipped my world upside down. Again. If it’s not one crisis, it’s another. My life is a continual cycle of moods rising up into uncontrollable energy, peaking in a fight or flight rampage, and then a hard crash into depression. Now to address the hurt. The fight or flight impulses. The mean girl.

The Enduring Leader

A lot of who I am today is because of the belief, values, and characteristics Coach Inglis instilled in me in my 4 years under his coaching. God puts people in your life for a reason. Hold onto those who have made the biggest difference in your life. Tell them!

My Journey in Writing…And Why It Matters To Anyone

The next day I brought my poem to school and something novel happened for my 8 year old self in 1991 where computers were just something you had a class for about 30 minutes per week. My teacher typed up my poem, put a floral border on it, and there it came through her dot-matrix printer. I was so excited. To see MY words on a piece of PRINTED paper! I took pink, blue, purple and green markers and neatly colored the flowers. I rifle through my parent’s basement every time I visit them (which isn’t often these days). Every time I come up empty handed and every time my heart breaks a little more for that lost paper which held my first significant piece of writing in a long journey of growing love for the craft.

What It’s Like to Have an Anxiety Attack and Still Believe in God

Like a gigantic ocean wave washing over a small child, you don’t know which way is up but you need to breathe, you need to think. Or not think. Or…find the ocean floor to rest your heavy body or the open sky to finally catch your breath.