YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

It's been a while since I updated here. I'm not in China. I didn't end up going. There was a slight visa issue which I could have fixed, but decided to take it as a sign. I moved to a new city, not too far from home. I'm not working camp this summer, because I didn't think moving back home for the s...

Do any of you follow The Art Assignment, on Youtube? It's a pretty basic concept: an art curator asks her favourite artists to give the internet an art assignment. The internet is like, "fuckyea we will." Art ensues. The most recent one was to make an Embarrassing Object: https://youtu.be/...

Thanks so much for your support, Manuel. It helps a lot to have a place I can just come out and say "this happened and it messed with my head" without it messing with anybody else's head in my family. One of the things I've noticed I'm doing is getting really invested in all the little fam...

On the plus side, I am feeling not insignificant relief that it's just occurred to me that the likelihood of getting fired if I have a major depressive episode over there is in fact a form of non-suicidal exit strategy. Should the situation arise.

It's probably ridiculous that I'm less embarrassed by the idea of going to China, getting fired by the school, and having to come back home and tell everybody that, than I am by the idea of saying out loud right now that maybe I shouldn't go to China until I get like, professional strategies and shi...

Ticket to China is booked. Just a few weeks and a few bits of paperwork left before it's real. I've been really excited, but tonight, right now, I'm back pretty close to the same scared place I was in when I joined this board. I know it won't be the same solid wall, at least not for the next two day...

I don't feel pushed exactly. It's more just frustration that these feelings are threatening to get in the way of what should be a really lovely weekend with family before I go away. Anyway, the magic of a Quaker ceremony is that cuz can hope I'll say something lovely all he wants (if he even is, and...

The wedding is getting closer and I'm stressing out about this again. For a brief shining moment it looked like I might be able to skip the ceremony altogether by volunteering for childcare duty, but everybody involved in that decision has been like, "oh no, wouldn't want you to miss the ceremo...

Feeling better now...ironically, since I wrote this before I had oral surgery, and now there's a big bleeding hole in the back of my mouth. But now I'm not *anticipating* oral surgery, so less of a playground for all of everything that sets me off to play around in.

that.