The year is 2015. I am underneath a hay baler. Helping Dad tinker on one thing or another, I can’t recall. I do clearly remember the thought that washed over me when I was alone underneath the baler. “Wouldn’t it be nice if this whole thing just collapsed on me right now?” There it was. One of the early appearances of the dark thought machine. … Continue reading The Dark Thought Machine

Getting diagnosed with a mental illness as a teenager was hard. It was messy. It was scary. I was navigating completely foreign territory. Enter doctors, drugs, hospitals. All while everyone else was in high school. I had a truly amazing support system. I talked to people with mental health issues. But they were all quite a bit older than me. I was missing someone, one … Continue reading The One I never Had

I was writing a draft recently. I kept thinking of a way to capture the essence of resilience, and what it means to me. Then I started to wonder, what does resilience mean to others? Sure, google has definitions available, but I think that resilience can mean different things to different people. We all have different personalities, beliefs, and life experiences. So I posed the … Continue reading A Little Help From my Friends: Defining Resilience

Attrition- the action or process of gradually reducing the strength or effectiveness of someone or something through sustained attack or pressure. A year ago I was in one of the most severe depressive episodes in recent history. It has been a struggle to maintain any positive momentum since then. I have been under siege from different aspects of my illness. I have been battered again, … Continue reading A Year of Attrition

The day is September 13th. In June I started a new antidepressant. The new medication did not help. It backfired. And though I knew that I should talk with my psychiatrist and stop taking it, I shrugged my shoulders and kept on. I stood by and observed. Watched as I began to come undone. Slowly and quietly. I need to mention that the most common … Continue reading When the Bough Breaks

The hourglass of time continues to drain. Spring has bloomed into summer. I take advantage of the warmth and sunshine. I do my best to keep track of all the good things. All in the name of staying on the right side of stability, maybe even growth. Within me there is a gap. The gap that separates myself from madness. I flirt with the gap, … Continue reading Conversing with a Ghost

“Is this Trevor?” “This is the pharmacy, we just got your new prescription for Wellbutrin faxed to us.” “Would you like us to add it to your bubble pack, or just put it in a vial?” “A vial? Okay that’s what I thought. Thank you, have a good day.” I got up at 9:52 for an appointment at 10 this morning. A video call with … Continue reading Run Aground

It has been some time since I’ve posted anything. Ideas come sometimes, but I keep them to myself. I don’t want to write about how I feel. I don’t want to write about anything. I can feel myself tightening up, protecting my inner thoughts from the outside world. It’s a familiar feeling, one that gives me comfort that I am the only one who is … Continue reading Steady Onward

The sun is shining today. Winter snow is melting away. Birdsong and the sound of street traffic filter into the house as I sit with my computer. Outside noises are overshadowed by the melancholic music coming through my headphones, courtesy of the London Philharmonic Orchestra. I have been listening to the same music piece on repeat often during the last week or so. Winter appears … Continue reading Shifting With the Seasons

We have a word in society that impacts people every single day. To give you an idea, I spent some time browsing Statistics Canada. This word was the second leading cause of death between Canadians aged 15-34 in 2019. Why do we have such a barrier around this word when we are losing so many of our loved ones? In 2019 Stats Canada reported 1179 … Continue reading Let’s Talk About the S-Word

Fall 2014- My grade 11 psychology class. I am taking notes from the overhead projector in the room. The slide highlights some of the major symptoms of depression. As I write the information down on my paper, I realize I am putting a checkmark beside nearly every single symptom. There it is staring me in the face. Trevor, you are depressed. Of course I am, … Continue reading The Rising of the Storm

Another day, another maze of thoughts in my brain. Mostly negative thoughts. I usually do one of two things to manage them. Either I embrace them and fall into negative thought patterns, or I ignore them and distract myself until they go away. There is a third option that I use every now and then, and I used it today. Two words. Pen. Paper. Being … Continue reading Put it Down on Paper