Gum on My Shoe

You have no clue what it’s like.. to be raped as your entrance into womanhood to shove food in your mouth followed by fingers, emptying all but that one thing that won’t budge to run into the arms of a cult for stability to suffer and beg with stifled tears at the foot of your husband to graduate with honors against all odds to succeed in a profession stacked against you for being a woman to fall into the vice grip of a pit bull illness tossed about like a rag doll to gain then lose each and every thing and not just things to crawl back.. once more.. to lose it all over again because no one understands You have no clue what it’s like.. to have a hand and heart held out to you across an ocean steadily and calmly pulling me to shore, to higher ground.. my best friend.. You have no clue.. I do Fran  

I did something remarkable yesterday. I laid down on a bed of tall grass, in a graveyard. I gazed up at the sun sparkling through the trees. I closed my eyes. When my time comes I won’t be resting in the earth. I will be riding on the waves of the sea with my beloved Bo, a golden, an angel. Friends may carve a stone or have a memorial. I only care that there is joy. I only care that there is kindness. I only care that there is freedom, the meaning of my name and my aspiration. Fran  

Stressing, striving, and straining never got me anywhere but sick. I was totally committed to my goals and achieving them at all costs. And I did. I was very successful as an electrical engineer, loved my work. I had the car, the house, the mate, the life. However, I had no balance, no boundaries, which basically translates into no wisdom. Inevitably, coupled with sickness, I lost it all. After many years of thrashing and grieving, beauty appeared. I found that tiny bit inside that was true. I listened to that and it grew. The same philosophy of striving can be applied to healing. Getting fixed, getting normal, getting free of whatever ails you. At all costs. There are a lot of people who are not shy to tell you what to do. I listened and clung to every word until I hit the wall with no money and no cure and was once again only left with that tiny little bit. This time I accepted my illnesses, even embracing them. I now saw them as teachers who were merely showing me how to care for...

I’ve never been one to cut myself off from my “normal” life when I am on vacation. I know people who turn off their mobile phones and put their emails and social media on hold when they are away. It’s not a matter of right or wrong, but that’s never worked for me. Connection is important to me and I’d feel I was denying myself something enriching and valuable if I were to turn my back on it all. As I like to say, I don’t take vacations away from my friends—I take them with me! I’ve always loved photography, and with my smartphone and a decent internet connection (a prime consideration when I am looking for new holiday destinations and accommodation) I can share my experiences more or less in real time, instead of having to wait until I return home to process and post my photos. It’s also important to me that I keep in touch with friends, especially those reciprocal relationships which benefit both parties and which have established regular, often daily or near daily, rhythms....

Always Unstable: Bipolar and Hospitalisation: A Memoir is a book that was a long time in the making, 26 years in fact. I started to write it after my second hospitalization within a year. I felt like I had a lot to share, a lot to own up to, and a story to tell that maybe others might find interesting or helpful. I was already running a blog but I wanted to do something more. I had a bigger story to tell, one that couldn’t be contained within a blog post and one that I didn’t want to draw out over a series. The main focus of my book is my five hospitalisations over the last ten or eleven years. Psychiatric hospitalisations. Although I probably don’t need to clarify that. The first one was when I was 15, I had tried to kill myself, unsuccessfully much to my dismay. The second one didn’t come until ten years later, it was soon after I was told that I had Bipolar Disorder. I was hospitalised for a Bipolar mixed episode. Next was the mania and the eating disorder, then the electroconv...

This article has also been published at The Good Men Project . It inspired an exploration of weakness and emotional vulnerability which you can read here . Dear Dad I’m sitting here on a Sunday afternoon in my rocking chair, watching the tennis on television. How many afternoons did you spend like this, watching sport from your armchair? Tennis from Wimbledon, snooker, football on a Saturday. The classified football results became a familiar and comforting litany, though I never understood them. This is how I remember you. In your chair watching television. Benevolent but, like the football results, a mystery to me. What do I know of you; of my father, the man? What were your dreams? Your fears? Your doubts? What did you long for? What did you hate? I don’t think you were deliberately closed to me, but I never asked, and I can’t recall you venturing to share. I know you didn’t share Mum’s religiosity. Her churchgoing. Her faith. I recall one conversation between you. You te...

Three years ago this week, Fran was on board the RMS Queen Mary 2 , en route from New York to Hamburg via Southampton. It was the start of a three month European tour that we knew would seriously challenge her mental and physical health—and our friendship. I tracked the ship’s position and on board webcam several times a day. With each hour that passed, my best friend was closing the three thousand miles that had separated us since we first met online two years before. We were excited at the prospect of meeting face to face in Southampton, but we had never been as out of touch as we were through this week of the crossing. On board internet was prohibitively expensive, so our usual instant messaging, voice, and video calls were out of the question. We had arranged that I would send Fran a single text message each morning and evening, so she did not feel alone and isolated from the outside world, but it was too costly for her to reply. The week at sea was a lesson in trust and a pow...