What is well?

First off, I would like to apologize to everyone for not updating my blog sooner. I have been lazy as of late! My question today that I pose to all of you is what is well?

Some of us take our medicine and others do not. Does one make us more well then the other? I take my medicine as prescribe and I still get schizophrenic episode. However, if I didn’t take my meds. I would probably be homeless and wondering the streets!

I mean does going to therapy make us well or not? Sometimes when we in therapy stuff stays with us because our time is up and we can’t work through the rest. I realize a lot of people practice “door knob” therapy, where we don’t tell the therapist what’s really serious until fifteen minutes before time is up. However, does crying and releasing all this sad emotion good? I have often wondered if a hundred years from now if they would think that is just inhuman. However, hashing through serious stuff in until it becomes a scare and not a wound helps a lot. I know I said it before group therapy helps me tremendously. Without the support of my fellow peers in the rooms, I don’t know where I would be.

Does living a normal life make us well? For example we could go to work. But isn’t true that sometimes it brings more stress then it is worth? However, don’t we want to be productive members of society? I think that is good for the soul. Although, I don’t hold a job, I volunteer.

I think maybe we have to choose the lesser of two evils. What is well anyway? I think it’s funny if a poor person is mentally ill, she is called crazy. However, if a rich person is mentally ill, she is called eccentric. In this world we have to be ourselves. The most important thing is to be true to ourselves. And if that means sometimes we seem a little off to people, well so be it! However, keep taking those meds, going to therapy, and being productive members of society.

The Passing of my Uncle Dick

My Uncle Dick was very special to me. When I was about eleven years old, I wanted a pen pal. I had just learned how to write letters to people through English class. I am sure that between e – mails and texts now children learn much earlier now. Anyway, I wanted a pen pal and I looked in one of my “little kid” magazines and it said you had to have five dollars to get a name of another kid across the country. I am sure now that five dollars isn’t a lot, but back in the early nineties it was. Thus, it started; I looked on our family’s kitchen table and saw a letter from my Uncle Dick. Now as long as I could remember my Uncle wrote my parents and then wrote a paragraph for me. My parents had busy lives and didn’t write him very often. However, me, like I said, wanted a pen pal. So began a letter writing spree of letters once a month between a little girl and her Uncle. Now for the next eighteen years I would write once a month and my Uncle Dick would write back!

At the beginning of this year, I think my oldest Uncle, my Uncle Dick new something was up. He would write me instead of the usual one letter, a letter every other day. He wouldn’t mail them until he got his Social Security check, but I would get them all (about fifteen) from him in the beginning of the month. He was writing less and telling me that he couldn’t remember from day to day. Then it happened. Last Monday, my Uncle Bill called my Dad. (Both my Uncle Dick and my Uncle Bill are my father’s brothers). We happened to be in the car on our way taking my Dad to work. My Dad pulled over and talked to him (you can’t drive in NY and talk on the cellphone). I knew it was about Uncle Dick and my Mom was squeezing my Dad’s hand and asking him if Dick died. My Dad got off the phone and told us. It wouldn’t be later that evening until I talked to my Uncle Bill myself that I would learn how my Uncle had died. My Uncle Dick, who was going to be seventy – two in August, died alone in his apartment because he had an infection that caused all his organs to shut down.

Now this raises a lot of question for me. First, what is the difference between grieving and being symptomatic? When I cry do I take it too far? I had to learn this when my Grandma died in 2005! I think the most important thing is to talk about the grief with someone no matter if it’s a friend, family member, higher power, or even an animal! The Second question, am I going to die alone? Will I be like my Uncle and have someone find me in a chair slumped over fighting to stay alive, but already died? I surround myself with friends. Also one thing I will always have is a phone. That’s the reason my Uncle Dick wrote to us because he had no other means of communication. No he wasn’t deaf; he just didn’t like the phone. Third, will I have made enough difference in the world that I would have five concerned family members cleaning out my apartment once I am gone? I guess all I can do is be me, let go, and let God do the rest!

Mentally Ill
By Amanda R. Blodgett

First, you don’t give a
Shit about eating.
The food on your plate
Is an enemy.
It only sustains a life
Not worth living.

Then you haunt the
Night like a ghost.
Who needs sleep
When your dead?


Suddenly,
You are not
Bathing,
Brushing your teeth
Combing your hair
Or being conscious.

Finally, your actions
Are not yours.
You wonder aimlessly
Already gone.