This…is part weird announcement, part rant. I wrote this piece a few months ago, the week I terminated therapy. I didn’t really expect to keep writing full posts about the experience of mental illness. And it’s true. I’ve been managing my eating well. I haven’t been panicky at the prospect of getting dressed in the …
Category Archive: Mental Health
May 05 2013
[Blogathon] Wildly Inappropriate Things to Say to People With Eating Disorders
1. But you’re not skinny! I swear to god, you’d think daring to have an eating disorder while not being rail skinny was the equivalent of wandering around yelling “I WAS MURDERED” while still breathing. No. Staaaahp. 2. But if you don’t think you’re thin enough, what does that make me?! Bad at understanding mental …
May 05 2013
[Blogathon] Your Jerkbrain is a Puppy & Coping With Anxiety
I’m posting every hour on the hour until 6pm for SSAWeek! This post was suggested by William Brinkman. Have something you want me to write about? Donate $20 or more to the Secular Student Alliance and tweet me! An Exercise in Imperfect Analogies Treat your jerkbrain like a puppy. Do you scream when your fuzzy pup pees a little on …
Apr 28 2013
For Best Results, Trust in God and Use Large Sample Sizes
Earlier this week, Crommunist pointed me to this article in The Atlantic, People Who Believe in God are More Responsive to Treatment of Depression. And ohhh boy do I have feelings and crinkly skeptic eyebrows. [As a side note, I’d like to thank The Atlantic for putting a link to the original research in their footnotes. Nice touch, actually …
Apr 22 2013
Your ED Friend: Six Years Later
[Obvious TW is really glaringly obvious.] “I had an eating disorder.” “I guessed.” We were juniors, boyfriend and girlfriend, officially. Up late and texting, doing that flirting thing where you demand each others deepest secrets and pretend you’re giving yours away. Except I did give mine away. “I had an eating disorder.” I was lying, of …
Apr 16 2013
5 beautiful things from today
I’m trying to force myself to be more engaged with the world, which can be difficult to do when you’ve got the imaginary pressure of “must write something brilliant” when really you just aren’t feeling brilliant at all. Instead, see all of these other brilliant things. 1. Modern Art in Cake Caitlin Freeman makes awesome …
Apr 15 2013
Boston and the bad that reveals the good
When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” — Fred Rogers So when you spot violence, or bigotry, or intolerance or fear or just garden-variety misogyny, hatred or ignorance, just look …
Apr 11 2013
So You Want To Talk About Multiple Personalities?
I’ve gotten a few requests over my blogging time to talk about multiple personality disorder. I’ve (half) jokingly told friends that this post would garner me a great deal of upset commenters but here it is. Important Note: My opinions on the scientific validity of this disorder DO NOT reflect any belief that identified ‘multiples’ …
Apr 09 2013
Psychometrics: Using and Abusing
Look, SkepTech already has my favorite talk up! Stephanie talks about psychometry: the way we measure concepts in psychology. It’s the intersection of statistics and psych, and I dearly love it. I was particularly happy about her answers to questions about fMRI’s and [my question] what we should keep fixing in how we measure intelligence.
Mar 23 2013
On Running Out of Feelings, and What to Do Next
Hello, internet. This is where I come to spill my secrets, right? Sometime between last week and this one, I went numb–ran out of feelings. I think it was somewhere after the third friend in forty-eight hours contacted me with questions about leaving abusive relationships, between finals and Steubenville and painful anniversaries and suddenly having …








Ashley's co-blogger is a third year student at Northwestern University who runs on coffee and snark. . At some point, she'd like to make people sit on couches and tell her about their feelings, but right now she writes in different places around the internet and makes silly faces when she doesn't know what to say. She's the president of her local Secular Student Alliance affiliate, and she is on the Secular Woman speakers bureau. Opinions do not necessarily reflect those of the Secular Student Alliance
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