Category: Community
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My unpopular opinion: It’s okay to say “mentally ill.”
When I was in college, I had a roommate who found a great many things weird. She used “weird” to describe things more than any other word. In an effort to get her to help her open her mind, I would respond that it isn’t weird, just different. After a while of this, she started…
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Let’s start here
Homeless people are as diverse as other people we group together. I have heard friends and acquaintances talk about “these homeless people” followed by some overall judgement about how they’re all on drugs or they all break into people’s homes and cars. It’s easier to oversimplify, pass judgement, and move on. Homelessness is a difficult…
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These homeless people…
Are alone in the world. Have a partner. Have children. Have community around them. Have who families don’t know where they are. Have families who cannot convince them to accept help. Have Anosognosia and cannot see they need help. Have created family on the streets. Are old, young, families, singles. Have mental illness. Have drug…
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If wishes were horses
People wish for many things. We wish for things to be other than how they are. We wish that bad things would not happen. We wish for terrible things to be better than they are. When things do not go as wished, it can be hard to explain. Sometimes we think it’s unlucky. Sometimes we…
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You never really know
I was talking tonight with a woman who had offered to help with my mom. She had set aside a comp. ticket to hear her music group perform. I didn’t go and wanted to thank her. I had put off calling her since I hadn’t explained anything to her about my mother other than she…
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The news
I can’t read the news today. Four dead from the cold in Portland since the beginning of the year. My friends, full of compassion and righteous anger, make feelings known. I am grateful for them, yet it guts me quietly. I wish I didn’t have to know. Here, it is raining torrentially for days. I…
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How long does it take to get a 78 year old woman off the street?
I’ll give you a hint: she’s now 79 and still on the streets.
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Hi, I’m Dooley.
Dooley is my family nickname from childhood. It seems most appropriate as a pen name because I will be writing about my family, my mother, her mental illness, and homelessness particularly. I would love to tell you I am embracing anonymity to protect my mother’s privacy. That is part of it, of course. The fact…