Star Birth #2 @ 2014 Jane Waterman
Living with invisible illness

It’s Okay to Talk About It

In recent memory, as the saying goes, my experience has been higher than usual levels of chronic fatigue associated with my Sjogren’s. In the early years of my illness, I believed I successfully pushed through these times, and just disregarded the 3-hour naps aka crashes that would happen after a

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First Snow © 2012 Jane Waterman
Mental health challenges

Cracking

It’s been less than two days since my counsellor and Mrs Blackbird both agreed that I need to take a month’s stress leave to buffer my depression, but I already feel like the ice beneath the fine powder of yesterday’s first snow – cracking. Having to take ‘stress leave’ is

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After Vincent #5 © 2012 Jane Waterman
Invisible illness advocacy

Activist Love

I’m taking part in WEGO Health’s Health Activist Writer’s Month Challenge Day 14 #HAWMC – Thank a few of your fellow Health Activists for what they have done. Call them out by name or twitter handle. Share your love. I concur with many of my fellow health activists, and as I

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Dreamtime © 1994 Jane Waterman
Creativity

Depression and Creative Dreams

I wrote a little the other day about my daughter, A-, who was diagnosed this year with bipolar, and is currently battling a severe case of winter depression. This morning she came to me and said, “I wish I was still manic, like I was in the summer.” I asked why

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Lady of the Lake © 2004 Jane Waterman
Interior life

Becoming Jane

Day 25 – How have your goals as a patient/advocate/person evolved? My goals as a patient and person have evolved in so many ways, as I’ve talked about in several posts this month. And although I didn’t really recognize it, I have been an advocate for some time and that

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Angel #2 © 2012 Jane Waterman
Creativity

Dreams, Art and Invisible Illness

Day 24 – My own prompt: What dreams and goals have emerged for you as a consequence of being ill? “When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.”

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In the Shadow Lands
Living with invisible illness

Janet Frame – An Angel at My Table

Day 13 – Book report. What’s your favourite book and how can you tie it to your health or life? “I inhabited a territory of loneliness which resembles the place where the dying spend their time before death, and from where those who do return, living, to the world bring,

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Stained Glass © 2010 Jane Waterman
Creativity

Care Package for People with Sjogren’s and Depression

Day 9 – Community Care Package. Create the perfect care package for your members or fellow patients. Note: A Sjoggie is a person with Sjogren’s syndrome. A care package is all about comforting. Happily, there are a lot of things on this list that will comfort both people with depression

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Bleeding Heart © 2012 Jane Waterman
Healing toolkit

On Blogging – From Catharsis to Hope

I once heard it said that catharsis, on its own, does not lead to relief from our sufferings. I don’t think I truly understood that statement until last night. In the small hours yesterday, I took the opportunity to blog anonymously on a writing prompt related to something difficult, and

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Interior life

I Remember

As much as I want to write, I can’t find a starting place, so I’m going to use one of Natalie Goldberg’s ideas from ‘Writing Down the Bones’. I remember… I remember the year I was ten or eleven years old. We lived in a huge rented house, with dark

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