In back, Jane and Mrs Blackbird; in front, Annette and her husband.
Healing toolkit

Gifts

Even as my world shrank over the years, it was enriched in many ways through the social networks I developed online. The impact of those social networks on my quality of life cannot be understated. Indeed, it was in one of my first online groups in 1997 that I met

Read more...
After Munch #3 © 2012 Jane Waterman
Mental health challenges

Taking Stock of Depression

I didn’t want to be here right now. After a year and a half of hell of dealing with a mental illness that wasn’t my own and dealing with the aftermath of that; of trying to get my abdominal pain resolved once and for all and getting partial resolution (which

Read more...
Pain Study © 2013 Jane Waterman
Mental health challenges

Grasping for Answers

I have mentally begun this post for weeks, but a chronically ill life has a way of shaking loose any idea of control over one’s destiny. Anyone who has been ill for a while will understand what I mean when I say I’m suffering a bad case of doctor fatigue.

Read more...
Eternity © 2004 Jane Waterman
Invisible illnesses

Watermark

A watermark is an outline of the tide’s advance and retreat. In some ways I feel like I am part of that outline, lying at low ebb, among the beautiful broken detritus of the sea. These last weeks I have been merely functioning: meeting the very real needs of the

Read more...
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

Read more...
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

Read more...
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

Read more...
Immunity © 1994 Jane Waterman
Invisible illnesses

Fatigue and Invisible Illness

There are many types of fatigue, some of which are unknown to those who have never experienced a chronic invisible illness. The first kind is the result of physical exertion, which generally leads to an almost pleasant tiredness, as it is often accompanied by the knowledge of a job well

Read more...
Lake Mercuris © 2001 Jane Waterman
Creativity

Thoughts from the Front Lines of Depression

As a long-time sufferer with depression, I can unreservedly say that helping care for a loved one in acute depression challenges everything you know and have come to understand and believe about the illness. Above all, I find my thoughts coming back to the same things. Depression is not a boogeyman.

Read more...
A Storm Comes © 2011 Jane Waterman
Invisible illnesses

Depression is a Physical Illness

A quandry for any writer, not just a blogger, arises at those times when to tell your story means to risk betraying a confidence, either that of a loved one or a villain. The former, you wish to protect with all your heart; the latter, to avoid, if only to

Read more...