I should come with a consumer warning, like the labels that say "Handle with care" or "May be hazardous to your health." I am unfit for human consumption. I struggle to articulate how awful and isolating this feels, but I can't find the words.

I always feel bad laughing at people who act crazy. But sometimes the things they do are so damned funny. I wonder what I'd look like if I slipped a few notches on the mental-health index.

The bottom line is that my life has already almost slipped away from me. I have two choices: I can end it or I can fight like hell to save it.

I should come with a consumer warning, like the labels that say "Handle with care" or "May be hazardous to your health." I am unfit for human consumption. I struggle to articulate how awful and isolating this feels, but I can't find the words.

The infinity of this vacancy, the pervasive pain, the longing for some spirit, some lightness, some joy - that's all that is left.

Some struggles are so solitary that they drown in words.

People say, "I have heart disease," not "I am heart disease." Somehow the presumption of a person's individuality is not compromised by those diagnostic labels. All the labels tell us is that the person has a specific challenge with which he or she struggles in a highly diverse life. But call someone "a schizophrenic" or "a borderline" and the shorthand has a way of closing the chapter on the person. It reduces a multifaceted human being to a diagnosis and lulls us into a false sense that those words tell us who the person is, rather than only telling us how the person suffers.