I’d give anything to have nothing to write about this week.

There are going to be four million blog posts and articles and tributes in the coming weeks, and months, and maybe even years about Robin Williams, and how funny he was, and inspiring, and wonderful. There will be expressions of shock and horror at the fact that such an apparently happy man, a man who by most definitions had everything, took his own life. People will misunderstand. People will call him a coward. He was anything but. My post is sure to get lost in the shuffle, but I just have to post it anyway.

I wish I could say I was shocked, or that I didn’t understand why he did what he did. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. Robin Williams was always a man who had problems. His substance abuse problems were talked about openly and often. His choices…

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

“It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” ~ Albus Dumbledore

After I finished reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, I couldn’t have waited more than twenty minutes before starting the next one. In fact, the first three books came out so close together (and came into my hands even faster than that) that, for me, there may as well have been no gap between them at all.

As Harry enters his second year at Hogwarts, a number of new, very important things are established, and both the world and the scope of the story grow larger. Again, the series approaches some very serious subjects in a way that’s accessible and digestible to children. In the same way Sorcerer’s Stone is about life, death, and finding strength to face them, Harry Potter and the…

This one isn’t going to be easy to write. It might not be easy to read, either. Since I started this blog, I’ve been simultaneously eager for and dreading this blog, and I think it’s time. I’m going to talk about the hallucinations and delusions that strike me.

I remember being a child and assuming that my parents were poisoning me. It wasn’t a suspicion, but nor was it some panicked concern. I was just calmly certain that it was happening. I ate the food anyway, because I was far more concerned about them finding out that I had those kinds of thoughts than I was about the poison. The way I figured it was that if I was right, I might survive the poisoning, but if I told them about it they might kill me directly. If I was wrong, I would embarrass and hurt them. It was a…

In the earliest years of my life, I became an avid reader. As I’ve mentioned before, I started reading very early, and never stopped. I read comic books, children’s books, and a few adult novels. When I was in first grade, they put me in the third grade reading classes, and even that bored me to death. There wasn’t much I could find that really held my attention.

When I was in elementary school, I found the Borrowers novels, and I read them hastily in a single night, absolutely enraptured by their fascinating world. I also loved the rats of NIMH series, and read all three books with a great hunger. Though I still feel a deep affection for those novels, as they helped point my path in life, what they have done for me pales in comparison to one single series. If I’m being completely honest, I have a…

Before you quit because the road seems too long, turn around and look how far you’ve come.

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.

When your self worth goes up, your net worth goes with it. ~Mark Hansen

Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character. ~Einstein

Make today count. You’ll never get it back.

When you’re different, sometimes you don’t see the millions of people who accept you for what you are. All you notice is the person who doesn’t.

There is only one success; to be able to spend your life in your own way.

Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.

A positive attitude is contagious, but don’t wait to catch it from others. Be a carrier.

Live in such a way that if anyone should speak badly of you, no one would believe it.

I have…

In blogging about living with bipolar disorder, I have joined a movement of mental health consumers and advocates devoted to destigmatizing mental health issues. Together we offer each other compassion, support, and acceptance. Together we promote greater awareness and acceptance of mental health issues. Together we overcome the stigma within ourselves, within our families, and within our communities – local, state, national, and worldwide.