Last week, without thinking too much or too hard about the particular metaphors used, I posted an excerpt from one of my favorite magazines, The Sun, about the language we use to describe mental illness. I posted it because when I first read it it gave me that little inner thrill of personal recognition, that moment that you sometimes get in ( Read more... )

From "Sy Syfransky's Notebook", The Sun, June 2010

What if psychiatrists came up with different language to describe the suffering of people who troop into their consulting rooms every day? Instead of diagnosing a young women with "borderline personality disorder," how about "lost in the realm of fluttering leaves"? Instead of "depression," how ( Read more... )

I am having an appallingly awful week with my hands, where they are every bit as bad as they have ever been. It is the kind of week where when I go to a restaurant I think about what kind of food I could order that won't require me to use utensils. The kind of week where I do things like brush my hair left-handed because it hurts too much to hold ( Read more... )

regular readers may have noticed that I have been posting very very infrequently lately. Some of that has to do with the frustrations of trying to use the Dragon dictation software, but more of it has to do with depression. My physical life is very hard right now -- at least, by most measures: I do recognize that I am not living in a third world ( Read more... )

Okay, I'm going to give myself 10 minutes to bitch and then I'm going to get back to work, dammit ( Read more... )

I've been thinking about this 100 days project.  About how I feel ok about missing, oh, say, one day a week, but that this whole idea has gone to hell in a hand basket since I got sick. I was thinking how everyday that goes by where I don't add a post makes me feel guilty and sad that I haven't been able to stick to the commitment I made to myself ( Read more... )

[Late, because we have no internet at home right now.  I'll do another one later tonight ( Read more... )

I have no love for today. No love, I tell you.

( Grumping ahead. )