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

Hurricane Issac struck my part of the world this week. I should state up front that we were very fortunate; my parents' house only had some minor damage with some missing roof tiles and fallen section of fence. Others in the same city had to be rescued due to flooding, but we've lucked out yet again (very similar experience 7 years ago with Katrina).

I try to remember that and keep things in perspective, but...

We lost power for close to three days, and it sucked horribly. The humidity and heat were unbearable and my usual outlets and social connections - almost all internet related - were totally cut off. I spent a lot of time lying in bed trying to not exist or doing some really crappy crossword puzzles. In some ways, it was kind of meditative. In others, it was absolutely maddening. I'm still trying to figure out if a brief spurt of artistic creativity near the end of the power outage was a sign I need to spend more time away from teh computar.

i'm glad to hear that you and your family were relatively save during the storm.

It's one thing to take a willful vacation from technology, it's another thing when it's forced liked this, I hope you got something out of the meditate quality of those crossword puzzles. Good luck with being able to manufacture that creative energy to be able to make something on your own without needing nature to put you in a place where all you have left is your creativity. Try to remember how you felt when you were able to create and maybe you'll be able to control that and get then intentionally.

Stay safe and good luck if there are any other storms that rip through there. I'm in coastal Virginia so sometimes the storms hit here but it's probably never as drastic as what you get.