Living INXS

For weeks now, I’ve been feeling good. I’m only on lithium. Everything looks different. It’s not euphoria, it’s not madness, it’s just being alive again. Now I want to go out, talk, connect. I want people around me. I want…

I don’t get people who say a manic night means nothing just because you don’t remember it. Since when does something only matter if it gets saved in your memory? In that moment, I was in the sky. I felt…

You take your own life because there comes a point when nothing makes sense anymore. Not the euphoria, not the depression, not the chemical void the meds leave behind. It’s not that you want to die. You just don’t want…

when your body is loaded with benzodiazepines, antipsychotics, and mood stabilizers? You can’t think clearly, you can’t react fast, you can’t feel like you used to. Everything is harder. Walking, talking, focusing. These meds are necessary, yes, but they’re also…

I’ve spent weeks under the effects of 800 mg of quetiapine a day. I can barely think. I struggle to follow a conversation, to read, to focus on anything for more than five minutes. I live trapped in a heavy…

Yesterday, I got fired. I try to see it as a new beginning, an opportunity, but fear is stronger. I’m 52, mentally ill, and my options keep shrinking. The system isn’t built for people like me. The market doesn’t wait…

Life is defined by the people you connect with. But when you have a mental illness, there are almost no real connections. Most disappear or don’t know how to stay. You end up isolated, surviving through three or four ties…