I currently live in a town that is home to a small state university.  School will be in session within the next two weeks once more.  As a result, several thousand college students will be coming back and this town will really come back to life from it’s annual summer hibernation.  Even though I graduated from ten years ago, and had a failed experiment that was grad school, I still enjoy seeing the college students returning and resuming what, for many Americans, has become a rite of passage into adulthood.  

All of this has me remembering when I went through during these years, not only in college but also as my mental illness progressed and eventually stabilized into some predictable cycles.  When I started college in the fall of 1999 ( I know, practically the dark ages to kids now coming of age), the internet was…

There have always been people who write that have written stories and poetry since they were children.  These types where those who always knew they would want to have writing and creativity be a part of their lives.  I was not among those types who just knew from an early age.  I didn’t stumble on the therapeutic value of writing until I was a senior in college.  By then I was only a year away from graduating with a business degree that deep down I knew I would never use in a career.  I never considered majoring in english and history, two of my three favorite subjects in high school (chemistry was my third favorite) because I believed the whole ‘you can’t find a job with a liberal arts or humanities degree’ nonsense when I was younger.  I didn’t take into consideration that a) my mental illness would probably prevent…

When I was first diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia I was clueless as to what exactly that entailed.  I knew that I would have to take anti-psychotic medications for a while and go to therapy.  Yet I had absolutely no idea how much my life was going to change.

As a result of my worsening mental illness, my ability to concentrate gradually became less and less.  I also had problems remembering details and paying attention.  It became bad enough that I had to give up on my original career dreams.  I started college as a Pre-Pharmacy student with the intention of becoming a research scientist for a pharmaceutical company.  Because of my worsening mental illness and deepening paranoid this dream became impossible to achieve. 

My grades were declining to where I wasn’t even sure I could stay in college, let alone go after my dream.  A change in course was in…

When I was first diagnosed with schizophrenia back in 2000, I was determined that in no way it would affect my plans for my life.  At the time I was in my second year of college studying pre-med courses.  I had done reasonably well in my first year of college even with an undiagnosed mental illness.  I figured that I would fight through this with very little problem.  Man, I was wrong.  After failing Organic Chemistry and having to drop a Calculus class, I was faced with some serious decisions to make.  I was also facing a mental illness that was getting worse with each passing day.  After half of a spring semester in 2001 of struggling to even make it to classes, let alone do well, I found myself in danger of flunking out entirely.  This was a serious blow to my ego and self confidence as I…

Money.  It’s something we all think about, worry about, and use on a daily basis.  But for something that is so important to our lives, it is something only a few really know how to use and manage.  We often think that ‘if only I had more money’ or ‘if things didn’t cost so much’ we would be happier and better off.  No we wouldn’t.  A person could make twice as much as they do now, yet if they don’t keep their spending and consuming in line, they’ll spend every last cent they have.  What you make or don’t make is not as important as how much we spend and even keep.  Those of us living in the more developed countries can live pretty decent on what we make as long as we know what we’re spending on what, make sure what we spend is less than we make, and…