Category: Recovery


  • The Next Mental Health Mountain Climb

    Five days ago, I began a different kind of climb — not up a mountain, but through a medication change that could finally free me from akathisia. Years of medication-induced restlessness pushed my nervous system to the edge and drove me toward substances just to survive daily life. Now, with careful medical support, I’m starting…

    Read More


  • No glimmer in my eyes

    Six years ago, that smile wasn’t real—I was flat, numb, and buried under a stack of psychiatric medications that dulled everything human in me. I was surviving, not living. Hospitalizations, psychosis, loss after loss followed. Then, unexpectedly, a research trial changed the trajectory. A Vagus Nerve Stimulator didn’t save me overnight—but it gave me a…

    Read More


  • Living With a Dopamine-Deficient Brain: Why Addiction Made Too Much Sense to Me

    Most people don’t wake up thinking about dopamine. I do. For me, it isn’t a trendy neuroscience term — it’s the invisible force behind my focus, my addictions, and my long road to recovery. Living with a chronically low dopamine baseline feels like existing in grayscale while everyone else lives in color. Substances once felt…

    Read More


  • 300 days ago, I broke up with my drug dealer.

    Three hundred days ago, I walked away from my drug dealer—and it came in a shiny, “natural” package. Kratom didn’t look dangerous. It promised relief, energy, healing. What it delivered was dependence. My opioid receptors didn’t care that it came from a plant. The withdrawals were brutal, the marketing still predatory, and the lie of…

    Read More


  • Ever feel hijacked by your emotions?

    Emotional urges can hijack the wheel fast. You know the choice won’t help, you see the outcome coming—and sometimes you do it anyway. For me, that looks like food that spikes my blood sugar. Tonight, I didn’t use a skill I know works: Opposite Action. And I’m living with the consequence. But this isn’t about…

    Read More