Medium Posts – Week of December 22, 2019

In the past two months, I’ve been producing a lot of content for Medium. Unfortunately, that means the Speaking Bipolar blog has been a little neglected. I will correct that in the new year.

So no one feels left out, here are links to everything I’ve written in the last few weeks. I hope to post similar pages every week. There’s a lot here, so please bookmark this page so you can come back again later.

All links are friend links, so you can read each post in its entirety even if you’re not a Medium member. Please feel free to share these links with anyone.

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I See You
I wrote this poem for everyone who has ever felt invisible or like no one saw their pain. It’s the piece that gives me the most pride out of everything I’ve written recently.

Here’s the video version of the poem.

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Do We All Live in the Same World?
It’s too easy to sit in judgment of others. This post looks at reasons we should stop judging.

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My Greatest Gift is Found in a Few Simple Letters
Written in response to a writing prompt, this story looks at the handwritten letters that still bring me joy more than a decade after they were written.

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Revealing What Happens When Experiencing Bipolar Blur
Bipolar Blur is an expression I came up with to explain the days when the world is moving too fast around you. I explain it further in the post.

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Bipolar Blur – Poem
I wrote this poem before the above post to show what it feels like to be in the blur. The poem has a video version here.

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How Chronic Illness Has Changed My Everyday Life
For all my fellow spoonies and those of you who want to understand us, this story is about the ways chronic illness affected my life.

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The Frustrating Struggle to Stop Writing in Passive Voice
If you’re a writer, you’ll identify with this one. It highlights some lessons I learned from reading Stephen King’s On Writing and how I’m trying to improve in my craft.

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Five TV Characters to Invite for an Epic Dinner
If you were having a dinner party and could only invite five people, who would you invite? That was the writing prompt that inspired this story. I took the humorous route and invited TV characters. It’s a fun way to close out the year and a fun prompt to write about if you’re so inclined.

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Someone Please Explain the ‘Affordable’ in Affordable Health Care
Sometimes you just need to rant. After considering my healthcare options for next year, I couldn’t help but feel a little defeated. Here’s what came out.

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I Was the Shy Kid Determined to Do It All on My Own
Is being independent a bad thing? Here’s a story about how independence shaped my youth.

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Mountain
When you have a chronic and/or mental illness, even the simplest of actions can feel impossible. This poem examines how those easy tasks might feel to you. Video version below.

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We don’t always need to say the words, “I love you.” Many times we express our emotions in other ways. Listen for the Silent “I Love You’s” is a post about listening for those other ways.

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Face in the Mirror is a poem about how living with mental illness or the after-effects of prior abuse can sometimes make you feel unrecognizable to yourself. It has a video, too.

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There’s been a lot of feedback from the story, Is Self-Harm About Seeking Attention? To answer some of the questions I’ve received, I wrote a follow-up post, I Stopped Self-Harming. Now What?

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Some time ago, a man I used to work with lost his son to suicide. I didn’t feel like I could reach out to him after years of no contact, but I had to write something. Confessions of Suicidal Ideation for a Grieving Father is the letter I would like to send.

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Imposter Syndrome is one of the biggest buzz phrases of our time. Does Anyone Actually Believe They Are Successful? is my thoughts on the subject.

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Torture is a poem I wrote way back in 2004. It’s about the way you feel when you love someone who doesn’t love you back. Yep, you guess it, there’s a video.

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Finally, this post is about how I manage to work full-time with a chronic illness. I’m sure you’ll enjoy Solutions for Working Full-Time With a Chronic Illness.

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This is a lot, but hopefully you found a couple stories you wanted to read. If there’s ever a topic or question you’d like me to write about, please let me know. Leave a comment on any post.

Until next time, keep fighting.