The Sacrifice of the Swan – Poem
A poem about a swan that should have been about a pelican!
Breaking Boundaries in Mental Health: A Guide to Unique Wellness Strategies
Image by Pexels This guest blog was written by Julia Merrill from befriendyourdoc.org Breaking Boundaries in Mental Health: A Guide to Unique Wellness Strategies In today’s fast-paced and demanding world, taking care of our mental health has become increasingly important. While traditional methods like therapy and exercise are effective, there are also unique and unconventional […]
A Genre…At Last!
My mental health writing is straddling a line between memoir and fiction. Many people say that this is “professional suicide” for a writer. The example that they always give is A Million Little Pieces by James Frey. He got his butt kicked because he classified it as a memoir, which is non-fiction and must be […]
Interview with an AI – Safety and Ethics
Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics are difficult to implement because it’s hard to define “harm.”
A really good podcast featuring Yours, Truly
I’m especially proud of this podcast that features my books. I talk about mental health issues, recovery, and stigma. It’s a fun watch, but if you’re busy, you can skim the transcript below the video. https://journeysdream.org/duncan-macleod-discusses-lived-experience-with-mental-health-challenges
Can Love Bring Happiness?
Please note this article is solely my opinion and ideas. I will understand if you disagree with me. I must work through some serious hate and anger. Writing this post is how I can best do so. This message contains my deepest philosophical beliefs on the nature of love. My spiritual identity is ‘feral Christian.’ […]
Madness, Mysticism, and Imagination
A psychiatrist once told me, “A psychotic is drowning in the waters where the mystic swims.” Mental health and mysticism are companions. My healing crisis was undoubtedly a spiritual awakening. I saw and did things that I had only ever read about in books like The Life and Teachings of the Masters of the Far […]
These 8 Self-Care Activities Will Do Wonders for Your Mental Health
Guest Blog by Julia Merrill of BefriendYourDoc.org Image via Pexels We live in a fast-paced world, and it’s easy to forget about our mental health. We get so bogged down with work, school, and other commitments and fail to take care of our minds as we do our physical health. But the truth is, we must […]
Review – The Silent Twins
Filmmaker Agnieszka Smoczynska depicts psychiatry and illness in a sympathetic light in “The Silent Twins”.
What Artificial Intelligence has to say about Mental Health Stigma
I asked an AI to write a guest article on my blog about Mental Health Stigma. Here’s what ChatGPT had to say. Please note that they got stuck at the word “from…” I’ll complete the thought for them. Mental health stigma refers to negative attitudes, beliefs, and stereotypes that exist towards people with mental health […]
The Missing Spice Girl
Here’s me, raw, a little off-key, but wailing along to former Spice Girl Melanie C’s “Never Be the Same Again” I heard this song in the park outside the Parliament Building in Tbilisi, Georgia. There was no electricity in most of the city, so the kids came down to 9 April Park and plugged in […]
My Interview on Own Your ‘Ish with Doc April
Watch my recent interview with Doc April from Own Your ‘Ish I got deep with the Doc, talking about the many facets of mental health stigma, starting with the way doctors are forced to treat their patients, and then the worst of all, the kind we perpetuate on ourselves by echoing the dark voices of […]
Fighting Stigma Through Literature
Another nice article came out about me on Authority Magazine. Read it here: Medium One of the tenets at the heart of my philosophy is a quote attributed to Mahatma Ghandi: The true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members. As someone who was once very vulnerable, […]
A really cool article about yours truly
I was asked to talk about my 5150 book series as a ‘Champion of Mental Health.’ Link to the article is just below: Click Here
The Skinny on Mental Health Stigma
Stigma begins during mental crisis and hospitalization, but its effects are far reaching. Stigma continues years afterwards. It affects the sufferers in nearly every aspect of their lives. Until it had a name, I didn’t know what was the horrible feeling that plagued me throughout my twenties. It’s called “Stigma”. Stigma is shame imposed from […]
The Mansplainer #1
A series of articles about stuff you might already know. I won’t apologize for assuming you don’t know something I write about. When humanity was at its peak, people yearned for knowledge. Now that we are on the decline, people with knowledge are ostracized or labeled “elitists”. Today, the hoi polloi asserts its right to […]
A short list of good things about Donald Trump
Today I read that Trump told his supporters to pipe down when they booed him on national television. He advocated that everyone should get the booster shot. Huh. No one is all bad. As much as I couldn’t bear to listen to Trump, he did a few things during his presidency that were positive from […]
Reader, Interrupted
What I Did For My Summer Vacation Most young adults in my circle spent the summer after freshman year doing interesting things. Some went to live on a winery in Italy; some worked on a kibbutz. I had a full-blown psychotic break and spent the whole summer in the mental hospital. It was only slightly […]
What I Have Learned About My Books
Readership vs. Mission I wrote 5150 and the other books in the Psychotic Break Series to make known what was unknowable. I wanted to take the reader through the mind of a new adult whose fragile mind shattered and rebuilt itself several times. My mission was a success. What I hadn’t considered was the readership […]