depression
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four days a week. almost every week this year. I’ve added up the minutes — over 3,000 of them so far — in the recovery support group, in the chair across from my therapist, in the waiting room at the clinic with its flickering light, the hum of an old vending machine, and an odd…
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in group one patient replaces another. it’s really hard to see someone you love backslide. and sometimes it’s really difficult to remember that there are so many more sides to someone than their illness. witnessing the cycle of people coming and going in a treatment, the weight of loving someone who struggles — if God…
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right now, my guitar is just a few steps away, but it might as well be 10,000 miles. there’s a distance between us that’s hard to explain — a space that feels impossible to cross. depression (in my case, a co-occurring mental disorder) has a way of making everything feel slow, like the world keeps…
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our group leader uses this cool exercise to help us reflect on and address the fears in our lives. she calls it fear in a hat. in this exercise, each person anonymously writes down a fear on a piece of paper. you’re supposed to begin with the words, the worst thing that could happen would…
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I’ve been thinking about this recently. it’s something we talk about a lot in group. we wrestle with, at the same time, trying to maintain this sense we’re OK as we are, and where we are, being works in progress, while striving each day to climb out of someplace dark over to somewhere brighter. it…
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my mom loves, really loves, this song. so much so that she named me after something sweet and surprising she heard in the lyrics. (it’s at the 1:07 mark.) it was released in 1970. she couldn’t have known then (she wasn’t even born) how much the words, hold on, it’s gonna be alright, you’re gonna…
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you know that group of friends in high school that shared a lunch table and spent practically every Friday night together? you know, the cool kids, the populars, the jocks, the brains, the floaters (who got in with everyone), the good-ats? I wasn’t one of them. I was the one all those kids labeled a…
cookie nieves 