Mentally Ill and Living Well

Be yourself; Everyone else is already taken.

— Oscar Wilde.

This is my first entry in my new blog. I am announcing the debut of my new book, Song For My Baby and Other Stories, due out in June, 2020. It is a testament to the fact people can live well while mentally ill. They can enjoy family life, the company of close friends, and pass times the envy of many. My family gathered around me when I got ill, my friends stuck by me, and I played handball, downhill skied, duck hunted, and fished until Hell would not have it. Anything to put me out of the misery I was in. Good times replaced bad times. No one is as sick as you are? I’ve been there, when there was no hope, no view except the bottom of a Manhattan glass. I was known hence forth as my sister’s schizophrenic bother. My only claim to fame was I lived well. Today, I compared myself to people who are healthy and have full lives. Once, I compared myself to nutcases and thought I was doing well. And I was! Those days are gone and I entered a new era of fighting it out with everyone else.