I know what you're thinking. Introverts are people who are incredibly shy and taciturn. They wear black lipstick. They never ever have fun at parties. They rarely assert themselves, and they have like, one friend. This is all stereotypical nonsense, of course. Some of it may be true for some introverts - I have certainly been shy and have…
Spirit
From High School Druggies to Witches and Queens
When I made attempts at writing novels and short stories as a teenager, all of my main characters were girls in the throes of pill addiction. (Prophetic in a way, as my pill addiction grew to its full force in my early twenties.) They were pretty girls addicted to "Demerol" and "Benzedrine" and "Valium." (The novels of…
Continue reading ➞ From High School Druggies to Witches and Queens
A Full Life
One of my absolute favorite poems by one of my absolute favorite poets, Sharon Olds, has a section that goes a little something like this: "I could see her in a temple, tying someone up, or being tied up, or being made nothing, or making someone nothing, I saw she was full of cruelty and…
Chronic Pain
There's something wrong with me. I think anyone who has ever struggled with addiction, trauma, or depression can understand this negative record that gets stuck on repeat in our minds. Maybe you've thought it in passing about the way you look. Or the way you think. Or your inability to have intimacy in relationships. Or…
Last Men Standing: Shame and Fear
You get sober. Quit the booze and the pills or the meth and coke and pot or whatever it is that had its hooks in you. You get some time sober, and you start to feel better. You start to work the steps. You begin to build a concept of a Higher Power. Start to…
A Letter of Thanks, to a Pioneer of a Woman!
I wrote the following email to the creator of the blog, The Fuck It Diet, which I stumbled upon by accident a couple of years ago and consider one of the bravest and most honest forums on women and food. Like so many of us, Caroline went through years of dieting and body-obsession, sometimes in…
Continue reading ➞ A Letter of Thanks, to a Pioneer of a Woman!
Hell is other people. Love them anyway.
I sat in a meeting tonight and felt completely slimed by another woman's share. It was so pregnant with noxious trauma and so saturated in delusion and resentment and suffering that every word that spewed out of her mouth felt like a noose around my neck. I had to clutch my throat and shut my…
“And maybe some faith would do me good…”
Since I was little child, I always believe in some kind of Higher Power. Lucky for me, it has shifted and changed over the years. My parents raised me as a casual Methodist. We attended church each Sunday until I was around eleven. I sang in the children's choir and sneaked cookies and coffee after…
A Full Life 