I have trouble getting approvals from my heath insurance company for basic antidepressants. And I have the best plan my agency has. I can't get high off this stuff! I'm not going to sell it! Getting my medication is critical. It's me saying, "I just want to live." And their response seems to be, "We agree that it's a matter of life and death; that's why we're declining it." Every time I get a cold, I have Tylenol with codeine coming out the wazoo. But the medication I need to live? Nah.

I wanted to write about my disorders for people like my husband or mother who don't suffer but have saved people. Mentally ill people don't have a choice in who they are. But those that stand by the mentally ill make an enormous difference. Even when I'm healthy enough to take care of myself I face constant battles, especially with insurance companies.

Every time I get scared or feel like I'm not going to be good enough at something, I say that mantra to myself. "Pretend you're good at it."

Some people we define as trolls are just critics. Sometimes they have a point. And I hear them. But for the ones who comment "I want to kill you in your sleep," I respond to them too.

It’s amazing how much you’re missing in a depressive state until you start to come out on the other side. It’s like breathing again after being underwater for far too long.

So many of us feel like we're misfits until we finally find our tribe - the other people who are are strange in the same way - and suddenly everything clicks.

I can finally see that all the terrible parts of my life, the embarrassing parts, the incidents I wanted to pretend never happened, and the things that make me "weird" and "different," were actually the most important parts of my life. They were the parts that made me ME.