Blog: Taken from my SubStack newsletter, Mental Wellness

DAY 5: Friday

WEDNESDAY

I slept like the dead and woke with difficulty even though I’d been slept for 14 hours. Brenda, a tour guide from Tours By Locals, met me at the hotel and we hopped into her brand new MG HS SUV. We had met and discussed our itinerary and logistics for weeks, and it was nice to finally put a face to her name. She said it was very unusual for any of her clients to ask for an itinerary solely geared towards animals but she was open to the idea. She was a...

Well, in some ways I can tell that I am rusty at this whole international travel thing. In others, I can see that it’s just like getting in the groove of anything else you’ve practiced a lot in the past. I have certainly prepped longer and harder on this trip to Africa than I have on any other trip I’ve ever taken…mainly because it’s a brand new destination for me and because I have medical and mental health issues that I wasn’t battling back when...

Two posts ago, I talked about the trip to Africa that I am about to go on in less than a week, and my last post offered lessons I have learned about traveling with medical and mental health struggles, specifically during the planning of this trip. Now, here are some more lessons that I’ve learned and lived through during the years I was in eastern Europe and east Asia and my other travels to 31 countries. They should be applicable to anyone and everyone when...

In my last post, I discussed my travel plans to Africa, which are coming up in a week. Traveling with mental and medical illnesses DOES make traveling extra stressful, but not impossible. I think just recognizing that it will take a lot more time and energy than it would for a “normal” person and planning for it accordingly makes travel more accessible to us.

Here are lessons that I have learned during the planning of this trip to Africa (I am sure...

So, I’m going to Africa in a couple of weeks.

For a month.

Alone.

I swear I am not totally crazy (though we have established I am at least a little), and I swear that I’m not just being irresponsibly impulsive.

WHEN DID I START THINKING ABOUT THIS TRIP?

Well, when my ex and I sold our house in Maryland this past February, I set some of my money aside for a big trip. Though there are lots of places I still want to go (South America, the Stans, Scandinavia in...

I have recently been watching Brilliant Minds with my mom and grandmother. I love this show because it is all about solving medical mysteries, and the protagonist, Dr. Wolf, is a unique, brilliant doctor who does everything he can to understand and help his patients (what I would give to have a doctor like this in real life!). Dr. Wolf has a history of trauma and lives with a disease that prevents him from recognizing faces called prosopagnosia or Face Blindness. He also struggles with not...

Sorry for the radio silence, folks.

After job hunting full-time since March (including 87+ applications, a dozen interviews in-person and on zoom, as well as multiple scams), I finally landed a job a couple of weeks ago with a trust and estates law firm in California. Despite the arduous one-month process of negotiations that involved sending/receiving over a hundred emails with the recruiter, compiling references from past jobs that apparently no longer give references, completing background...

Well, I feel like I’m losing my mind today (not a terribly unusual occurrence).

I’ve been complaining to my psychiatrist and my therapist that I get so overwhelmed some days that I become paralyzed. The paralyzed feeling then seems to overpower me even more, and no matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to get anything done. That fact that it feels like a million things need to be done immobilizes me even further.

It’s akin to what I feel when I am in a crisis....

“A friend is one that knows you as you are, understands where you have been, accepts what you have become, and still, gently allows you to grow.”--William Shakespeare

I know I tend to talk about hard things…things from my past, things I’m going through now, lessons I’ve learned and am learning. But today I just want to talk about the wonderful love and support I receive from the people in my life and how I am brimming over with gratitude.

IN THE PAST:

I have made many friends and relationships...

Thoughts on Therapists

I have a new therapist.

I seem to go through them like a kid who has a new stash of Halloween candy, or like a washing machine or dryer that eats socks. At this point, I’ve easily seen dozens of therapists.

I promise I don’t just discard them willy-nilly. And I’m not just being a difficult client. Finding a new therapist is honestly like being on a dating app. You see someone you think you’ll like, and after one date, you realize “Hell...

My friend sent me this Harry Potter clip in regards to her frustration with a man in her life, and I couldn’t help but giggle. I told her that we, like Hermione, definitely don’t seem to have problems with our emotional capacity. It is chock-full of all the feelings. And we laughed.

But the more I thought about the clip, the more I realized that I am actually more like Ron. Maybe not in my emotional capacity. But certainly in my capacity to handle stress.

WHAT DO I MEAN?

I mean that my...

Well, I have been trying to write a post on coping strategies vs. maladaptive behaviors, but this week has become a series of unfortunate events that has rendered me completely useless it seems. I didn’t sleep at all last night and hard as I tried, I couldn’t write down a dang, cotton-pickin’ (there’s my Southern coming out) word on my well-thought-out and researched blog post.

So, fuck it.

You get sleepless stream-of-consciousness instead.

It’s amazing to me...