Difficult people are like the termites of the human spirit. They can be eating away at the tender parts of yourself for months on end before you notice, and then, suddenly, at a work meeting or a family dinner, you lose it. You might scream something unkind or have a temper tantrum much like the...

Every once in a while I pull out my one-year sobriety chip, which reads on the front, “To Thine Own Self Be True.” I have been sober for over 26 years now, but it was my one-year chip that meant the most to me, because during that first year I realized how difficult it is...

None of us ever set out to live a life with chronic pain and illness, but it happens. There comes that moment when you are sitting in yet another doctor’s office going over your symptoms for the third time that week, and the physician is simultaneously squinting his eyes, trying to make sense of your...

“How much should you push yourself with depression?” a woman asked me the other day. “How do you know what your limits should be?” She wanted to know whether or not she should scale back to part-time work or continue to slog through her full-time job. I hear this question a lot in the depression...

I keep going back to this quote by Vivian Greene when it comes to learning how to live with my chronic illness: “Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass … It’s about learning to dance in the rain.” In fact, every morning I drink out of a mug with that quote on it...