Aspiring Poet, heartfelt thoughts.I have Just Discovered that I can write

  The Death of Thinkers There is something dying inside us. It doesn't bleed. It doesn't scream. There is no funeral. No mourners gather. No bell announces the hour. It simply becomes quieter. A question goes unasked. A thought goes unfinished. A doubt is swallowed. And eventually, we become comfortable with the silence. I call it the death of the thinker. We like to believe that we live in the most informed age in human history. Perhaps we do. But I sometimes wonder if we have confused being informed with being awake. We carry entire libraries in our pockets. We can summon an answer before curiosity has even finished forming the question. We can hear thousands of opinions before we have had the opportunity to develop our own. And perhaps that is the problem. We are surrounded by so much thought— that we no longer have to think. Someone has already written the conclusion. Someone has already explained the outrage. Someone has already identified the villain. Someone has already ...

  “Why Didn’t You Answer Me?” — What You Don’t See Happening Inside a Mentally Ill Mind There is something I wish people understood about mental illness. Not something complicated. Not something that requires a medical degree. Just this: Sometimes I need a moment before I can answer you. You may ask me a question, and I may just sit there. Quiet. Looking at you. You might think I'm ignoring you. You might think I wasn't listening. You might think I don't care enough to answer. You might even ask again, a little louder this time. "Did you hear me?" Yes. I heard you. My mind is just trying to catch up. There Is a World Behind the Silence When someone doesn't have bipolar disorder, manic depression, schizophrenia, or another serious mental illness, it can be difficult to understand what happens inside the mind of someone who does. Most people ask a question and expect an answer. Question. Answer. Simple. But sometimes my mind doesn't work that way. You ask me...

  When Your Own Body Becomes a Stranger Dystonia Awareness Month — The Storms We Hide, the Families Who Stand in the Rain There is a kind of fear that comes with dystonia that is difficult to explain. Sometimes it isn't the fear of having the disease. It is the fear of admitting that you might. Because once you say the word dystonia , the possibility becomes real. And sometimes people would rather live in the uncertainty of “Maybe it's nothing” than face the terrifying question of “What if it is?” I understand that fear. I have lived through dystonic storms. And I have watched my sister fight them— every single day. So when I talk about dystonia, I am not talking about something I learned from a pamphlet. I am talking about something that has lived inside my family. The Storm Nobody Wants to Name Sometimes it begins with something small. A muscle pulling when it shouldn't. A movement that doesn't feel voluntary. A strange posture. A cramp that keeps r...

Surely I Can't Be the Only One When Mental Illness Becomes More Than a Family Can Carry There is something I have been carrying around in my mind for a long time. And lately, I keep coming back to the same question: Surely I can't be the only one. Surely my family isn't the only family that has reached that terrifying place where you love someone deeply, would do almost anything for them, and yet finally have to admit: We cannot provide the level of care this person needs. That sentence is incredibly difficult to say. Because it can sound like giving up. It can sound like abandonment. It can sound like saying, “You're too much for us.” But that isn't what we're saying. What we're really saying is: “We love you. That's why we're asking for help.” I'm Not Writing This From the Outside Looking In I'm not writing this as someone looking at mental illness from the outside. I know what it is like when your own mind doesn't alwa...