Nightmares: Wicked and Visceral

Visceral dreaming, vivid nightmares I ran out of my Zoloft a couple days ago. Now this has happened before and I am very aware of the pattern. It takes a while before the Zoloft starts to have an effect on my emotions. While that’s still true, I’ve been having vivid nightmares. Oh about what do you ask? Sex imparticular. Along

A Story of Severe Postpartum Depression with Psychotic Features

Tragedies, Trauma, Disasters. What’s the common thread? Unfortunately, these are all the things that in most circumstances have to occur in order for change to happen. Why you ask? I suppose as a “civilized” (and I use that word lightly) society, when things appear to be going along swimmingly, nobody sees a need for change. So, let’s

Razor’s Edge; I will get back up

Are we measured by the worth of the words we speak? Or the words whose ears we reach. I can remember in a strange foggy, yet with surreal clarity, the moment I gripped the razor in my hand and pushed it down into my wrist. I still have the scars. I remember watching the blood

Rat Infestation, Stellar Turkey Gobblers and Killer Cold Medicine

One of those things is a LIE! So here’s the thing I’ve noticed. Some of you (my readers), are fickle. Actually, that’s not really true. MOST of you require some kind of some strange attention grabbing headline in order to read the article. The article to date that caught the most viewers the fastest; Snot, Diarrhea, Chicken Bones!

The Walking Dead

Zombie Shuffle   A woman I have been talking and corresponding with recently said the experience of being in the Psychiatric Hospital seemed as traumatic as the Postpartum Psychosis Episode itself. I myself have often reflected on that and felt similar. The things you experience inside a mental health facility can be very scary, especially if

Blackmail, Grief, Guilt, Sensationalism and Finally a Media Award?

Anonymous calls and where they lead In 2005, when I was getting custody back of my daughter, someone made an anonymous call to the Kennebec Journal and said; “You want to write a story about a child killer who’s getting her daughter back?”. Well that prompted a series of phone calls to my attorney John

Life For Death Punishment?

Is an Eye for an Eye Always Necessary?   I remember at the very end of my trial when the judge sentenced me to the commissioner (back into AMHI) and said there was nothing he could do to punish me more than what I had already been through. That was just the beginning of my

Nightmare Alley

What Dreams May Come For a decade I had the same recurring nightmare; that I would walk into the Augusta Mental Health Institute for some kind of meeting, the doors would close behind me, and I couldn’t get out. The dreams always started off with me having to go there for something innocuous. Once inside

Dirty Little Secrets

Forced Sterilization or Self Imposed? Compulsory Sterilization in a Civilized World I was 19 and my daughter (Shey) was about 6 months old I am not sure of the exact moment in time when I realized I would have to get sterilized in order for the powers that be to start supporting my release. I just remember

Walking the Line

I Walk the Line   I have walked the line between living for one child or dying for another. There’s never a good, right or perfect answer. I just have to live with knowing that I have walked the line and probably always will. My daughter and I on her 9th birthday in 2002 When