Struggling © 2014 Jane Waterman
Mental health challenges

Love Your Depression

If any other person said “love your depression” to me, I probably wouldn’t talk to them much longer. However, when my counsellor says “love your depression”, I know it’s not some positive thinking message she’s trying to whitewash this crippling pain with. She’s inviting me to think about things in

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Transformation @ 2014 Jane Waterman
Living with invisible illness

Life Interrupted, Again

I had big hopes for this year. I still do. However, the difference is those hopes have been modified from the impossible, unrealistic ones I had grasped for as I fled 2013, and have reformed as smaller, realistic, and somehow more magnificent hopes – ones that may one day manifest.

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Spectres @ 2013 Jane Waterman
Living with invisible illness

Breakdown

After so many years of battling with depression, it shouldn’t fail to surprise me that I can be so horribly wrong about its power and the lies it tells. I’d like to think that after so many years of fighting the good fight, I’d achieved some kind of mastery over

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Resilience @ 2013 Jane Waterman
Healing toolkit

Chronic Illness and Acceptance

One of the most difficult things I have encountered recently is not the challenges caused by life situations, or the challenges associated with health problems. The challenges that rock my world are more fundamental ones: ones that don’t require a chronic illness to understand, but ones that may be part

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In the Shadow Lands
Interior life

Wordless Wednesday #2

I’m taking part in WEGO Health’s Health Activist Writer’s Month Challenge Day 10 #HAWMC – It’s often hard to like pictures of ourselves – post your favourite picture of yourself. Though today is technically “Wordless Wednesday,” tell us why it’s your favourite and what it means to you.  Being wordless is

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Love © 2002 Carmen Waterman
Invisible illnesses

Guest Post: Caregiving 101

I’m taking part in WEGO Health’s Health Activist Writer’s Month Challenge Day 9 #HAWMC – As a parent with health conditions or parent to a child(ren) with health conditions, what do you hope you’re doing right? Today I’m thrilled to present the first guest blog post on Blackbird at Night, written

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Garden of Time © 2003 Jane Waterman
Creativity

To My Future Self

I’m taking part in WEGO Health’s Health Activist Writer’s Month Challenge Day 6 #HAWMC – Write a letter to an older you (tell us what age you’re writing to!). What do you want to ask yourself? What lesson do you want to make sure you remember? I’m writing to my

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Namaste © 2012 Jane Waterman
Invisible illness advocacy

Sister, Can You Spare A Dream?

I’m taking part in WEGO Health’s Health Activist Writer’s Month Challenge Day 5 #HAWMC – If I could do anything as a Health Activist… Think big today! Money/time/physical limitations are no longer an issue. What is your biggest goal that is now possible? Today I woke up on the realist

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Heart Song © 2013 Jane Waterman
Interior life

Emotions and Chronic Illness

I’m taking part in WEGO Health’s Health Activist Writer’s Month Challenge Day 1 #HAWMC – Why you write – tell us a little bit about why you write about your health online and what got you started. Why do I write? My thoughts about my reasons for writing changed several

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Breaking the Waves #1 © 2013 Jane Waterman
Interior life

(Not) Identifying With Being A Sick Person

As strange as it may sound, approaching my 23rd anniversary of being a sick person (I remember it well – the food poisoning, giardia or whatever it was that triggered the whole thing and led to me spending most of my 24th birthday puking),  I think one of my best

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