It can be hard to figure out what a “normal” response to our current situation looks like, but it’s even harder for those who have mental health issues. Here are some things I’m doing to try and embrace our new reality, while at the same time cutting myself some slack.

I’m at high-risk due to chronic health issues and a weak and scarred lung for complications from Covid-19, so my partner and I decided in March to keep me home whenever possible. …

Discovering, and delighting in, the genderqueer body

6am Hit the snooze button several times, friend. It’s too early. Nothing good happens before 7am.

7am Look in the closet. Close the closet. Open some dresser drawers. Close some dresser drawers. Get in the shower.

7:15am Review the chair pile of I-Wore-It-Once-For-Like-An-Hour (IWIOFLAH ) clothing in the corner. Reject everything.

7:22am Go back to the closet. Finger everything a second time, especially that sheer, light blue, off-the-shoulder blouse you got at the swap meet that one time that you think about wearing at least once a week but have never actually worn out of the house, because that’s a great use of your time this morning. …

Self-care is important. It can also be triggering and harmful. It can feel out of reach for those with mental health issues. It’s definitely gone off the rails of common sense in some areas.

Retail therapy, taking a trip to a foreign country, spa days, or buying the latest gadgets that do something to your body or make something to put into your body are all things touted as “Self-Care.” You deserve it, they purr. “Treat yo self,” say Donna and Tom from Parks and Rec. (Love that series, tho. Big Knope fan.)

Sorry if this bursts your bubble, but 99% of the time you need to do something more practical, probably free or way less expensive, and something that might initially not feel like something you’d like to do. I’m talking about filing paperwork piled up on the counter cluttering your kitchen and mind, or finally making an appointment for the doctor exam you dislike, or folding the laundry, or sitting down with a cup of coffee and writing that email you’d been avoiding, or caulking the bathtub before the drywall molds. …

My church preferred the huskier, happier, healthier version of Jesus, and that’s what I saw after I overdosed

Trigger Warning: This story contains descriptions of assault and rape.

I don’t believe in heaven.

I was raised on a steady drip of Jesus and a Heavenly Father who created me, and who not only knows my name, but also cares deeply about each and every decision I’ve ever made and will ever make. It’s a lot of pressure to put on a kid, making you believe you hold the results of eternity in your small, dirt-smudged hands, and that lying about putting your dime in the tithing jar will get you banished to outer darkness forever.

Too many traumatic things happened to me at too young of an age for me to buy any of it. I tried on and off over the years to dive in and become a true believer, but for me, it always ended up feeling wrong. …

The queer, middle-aged struggle to find home and start over in Los Angeles

We are two 40-ish (almost heart)broke(en) queers who are starting over, together.

We are both still married (and almost divorced), to supportive and kind men who themselves are now in happy, fulfilling relationships with people they care about.

We each have four kids between the ages of 4 and 29, all of whom do not live with us a majority of the time. We are aware that this itself opens up another can of worms in terms of conversations to have, because the combination of gender norms, patriarchy, and other women can be cruel, unkind, and judgmental in and of itself. …

My daughter calls me using the magic of the future. I can see her face and the faces of my grandchildren on my cellphone. I grab a fourteen-inch, posable, superhero action figure and a small, purple, plastic vegetable with a face and pretend they are flying with each other. I make the cape on the masked man in black wave like he’s going extra fast. “Whooooosh,” I say. My grandson smiles and laughs and my day is made.

I’m incredibly lucky because I get to see their faces almost every day. Sometimes my granddaughter insists on holding the phone, which really means eating my face, and she hangs up several times before we’re done, ending with her haltingly waving to me bye-bye. I watch them coo and cry, and then start to scoot, then crawl, and then one day they say, “DeeDee! Guys!” …