Bipolars are criminals. Homicidal maniacs. Dangers to the public. Violent and in need of institutionalization. Selfish people acting out in an attempt to gain attention. Hi, I’m Megan, I’m bipolar and I am none of these things. And I’m none of the hundreds of other common misconceptions about bipolar, either. Bipolar disease (or “manic depression”) […]
“Beautiful sisters,” the barista complimented, handing us our matching black coffees. “She’s my mother,” I corrected, smiling at her deep blue eyes, vanilla-colored hair and tiny frame. I loved when people thought I looked like her. “Good genes,” he said. He couldn’t see the long ragged scar hidden beneath her sundress, the splinters along my […]
Right before I signed the paper, I looked into my husband’s fearful eyes and felt a wave of disbelief at the realization that I was about to consent to the very thing that I had desperately wanted to avoid. During the previous six months of my pregnancy, I huffed through prenatal yoga sessions, dragged my […]
Eventually, in the course of any new friendship or relationship, I have to reveal that I have diabetes. It’s usually greeted with a quizzical look and the question, “Wow, I thought only old/fat people have that,” or my personal favorite, “OH! My grandma DIED from that!” Um, great. By now I have my response down […]
I still remember the first time I noticed ringing in my ears: I was 15-years-old and had just gotten home from a concert. My friends and I were sitting around the kitchen table in my parents’ house, rehashing the evening’s events, when I suddenly heard a clear, high-pitched tone, sort of like the noise you hear […]
Like most high school kids, I often fell asleep during class when I was bored. But my last two years of high school, it started happening more frequently and I couldn’t control it. At my after-school job at a coffee bar, I would drink ever increasing amounts of coffee to stay awake during the day. […]
When I was a kid, I never chewed gum. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to see who could blow the biggest bubble with my friends. I loved all the fruity flavors gum had to offer; it was a tropical fruit world that I longed to be a part of. No, I didn’t chew gum […]
Kate is just like you or me: She is 29, lives in Ohio with her husband, holds down a job, and is the mother of a 3-year-old son. But for the past few years Kate has been living with the knowledge she is HIV+. Kate blogs about HIV+ life at A Girl Like Me, a […]
In retrospect, it was all inevitable. Not the details, like the time I grew so afraid of using the toilet that I urinated in cereal bowls in my apartment, or the time I collapsed outside a filling station in Sicily and told someone I couldn’t remember how to breathe. Those specific situations weren’t predictable, of […]
