About Me

Writing about myself is... not easy. It's hard for those of us with mental illness to sometimes think complementary of ourselves and actually mean it. You can say all the "positive affirmations" in the world, but to actually mean it, that's an entirely different game. It's a game I'm not always ready to play.

Like I've already mentioned, I suffer from mental illness - several of them, to be precise. Bipolar II, anxiety, and ADHD - it's a lovely combination to live with, I can assure you. When I dip into a depression thanks to the bipolar, I become increasingly anxious and afraid of things. The anxiety cannot be reached through reason or fact, and when I'm anxious I have an even harder time paying attention to things and making decisions than I normally do. It's made adult life next to impossible for me, but nevertheless, I'm learning to cope. It has taken years of trial and error, dozens of adjustments to my medications, and countless hours of therapy, not to mention the thousands of dollars my parents have been spending on this. Oh, and can you imagine the millions of people out there who don't have parents to fall back on? But that's a rant for another day.

At 25 years old, I'm somewhat struggling to find my place in the world. In some ways, I've found it - I have a nice two bedroom lower duplex apartment in Minneapolis that I share with my boyfriend, and my awesome landlord lets us keep our numerous pets. I don't have any intentions on moving from here and Ross and I and the critters are all perfectly happy together. That can't be my entire life, though - I need a purpose. I need a career, a calling - hell, even a job would do. Sadly, despite the pickup in the economy, people still won't hire someone with as dire a resume as mine. I didn't finish college, and my last job was a temp job over a year ago. It's... not looking good.

I've always wanted to be a writer. I did some work as a freelancer for awhile, but well, the online writing market is shit these days unless you're willing to work for pennies and live in Mumbai. Besides, that's not the type of writing I really want to do, that's just the stuff that pays the bills. I've always wanted to write books. Novels, to be precise. This is where being mentally ill is a double-edged sword - while some of the most brilliant writers in the English language have suffered from mental illness, they also did manage to get something down on paper no matter what their affliction. I, on the other hand, am so wracked with anxiety that I can't actually write most of the time.

Oh, what's that? I'm writing right now? Well, you see, this is different - this is nonfiction. This is my life. That's easy. Ask me to write an article about whooping cough or Brazil and I can pump those babies out like nobody's business. Ask me to write a story about a Brazilian with whooping cough? I'm paralyzed. I freeze up. I have all of these stories in my head but to just get them down is like pulling teeth made of diamonds.

So, that's why I've started this blog, started this site, whatever you want to call it. I'm going to pull some diamond teeth. I'm going to write something, even if it is just bullshit about what I ate for lunch (currently eating a Lean Cuisine French bread pizza) or why I'm pissed that my ferret is still pooping on the floor when there's a perfectly serviceable litter box not ten feet away. It's better than the nothing I was doing. Besides, maybe somebody will find my life with all of these critters fascinating, I don't know. It's a thought.