Author: Michelle

I've lived with mental illness my whole life. I walk hand-in-hand with my neuroses these days, and sometimes I write about what that's like for me. I prefer the peaceful coexistence of détente to the open warfare of the past. I'm also in recovery from an eating disorder that ate decades of my life, pun intended. It's been hard: recovery is very much a walk through hell - the rainbows, puppies, and chocolate fountains come later - but it's worth it. Recovery lets you have the life the eating disorder promises and lies about 💜
Mental Health

A bit like a meat puppet.

Depression makes me feel a bit like a meat puppet. That’s a graphic description perhaps, but not an inaccurate expression of my current state.

Depression leaves me here but not here; I am a body I haul around and put through the motions, a marionette, a pantomime puppet who is not a real girl. I walk and talk but the disconnect is huge; I feign emotions and connection but it’s an empty act. Depression makes everything unreal, distant…
Continue reading A bit like a meat puppet.

Unknown's avatarMichelle12 Comments
Mental Health

Nothing breaks like a heart.

Some people don’t believe hearts can break. Some people believe broken hearts only come with age; you can’t experience them without a certain maturity. And some people believe broken hearts are terminal and forever, that it’s a “one and done” kind of thing. Bless them. They’re all entitled to an opinion. I, however, disagree. Hearts break, age isn’t a factor, and it can happen over and over again… Continue reading Nothing breaks like a heart.

Unknown's avatarMichelle6 Comments
Mental Health

So anyhow, radiation.

It’s been an interesting few months. That’s actually an ancient Chinese curse – may you live in interesting times. Regardless of whether I’ve been cursed or not – and I suspect not despite my tendency towards self-pity – this last little bit has been tension-filled and fraught.

I had an unfortunate result with a mammogram several months back. A “suspicious lesion” showed up and the tests and procedures that followed started a train in motion that’s proving difficult to get off…
Continue reading So anyhow, radiation.

Unknown's avatarMichelle14 Comments