Will we fear for change or embrace the ambiguity of opportunity? I have been stuck in a self-made dilemma, to stay home or move out… Much of my anxiety around the latter is tied to my perfectionism of wanting everything to feel right and look right to be the “right” choice, but my good friend [...]
Author: Michelle Abdon
To This We Owe Ourselves
Dear Friend, We cannot claim the inheritance of stars and skies. The world was not created to charm us into certainty. This world is not our birthright. Nature’s grace moves swiftly and beautifully past us. We fold and unfold by the things that carry us. We build houses on hills, the fallacy of kings with [...]
There’s more to suicide prevention than just talking about it
How profound is it to be so connected to the pain of someone that you feel compelled to change it? I recently said this to someone I look up to after I noticed how lost and disempowered he seemed to feel regarding the current political climate and violent loss of black lives at the hands [...]
Before you stop taking your meds, read this
Are you also feeling tempted to go cold turkey on your medications? Read this before you make any firm decisions. Maybe we can both learn something together in the process of contemplating our medication.
At the forefront of change
For most of my life, I’ve known depression for almost as long as I’ve known myself. There was a “me” before mental illness and there is still a me even with mental illness, but my mental illness is not the all-encompassing way I know myself. Just as there is a you in spite of all [...]
This is not the end of the world
The world may feel like it’s ending right now. A lot of us are at a loss for words to capture how we’re feeling amidst this chaos of a global pandemic, the largest civil rights movement, and the turmoil of our own lives as we learn to adapt to the politics of living and doing. [...]
The Equilibrium of Change
A lot of the people I admire have told me, “The only constant in life is change.” My high school robotics coach told me this along with her wife followed by some of my family members and therapists. It seems as if they are all reading from the same hymn and if a myriad of [...]
Remembering the Human Spirit
When the world is moving incredibly fast, it’s hard to take a deep breath. Today, I was driving back from the grocery store when this wave of anxiety washed over me. My heart started palpitating and I noticed myself holding in my breath. I pulled over to a nearby parking lot of a park and [...]
10 Things ‘Incandescent Alphabets’ taught me about psychosis
GoodReads describes Annie Roger’s book as, “Psychosis, an invasion of mind and body from without, creates an enigma about what is happening and thrusts the individual into radical isolation. What are the subjective details of such experiences? This book explores psychosis as knowledge cut off from history, truth that cannot be articulated in any other [...]
Process oriented vs outcome oriented
“So often we judge ourselves by our outcomes," are the last words my therapist offered me as a food for thought before we ended our conversation today. My therapist and I were talking about how just because a decision you made turned sour or caused trouble, its outcome is not a reflection on your character. [...]