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Hi! My name is Katherine and I'm new here (obviously).

I have diagnoses of schizoaffective disorder - bipolar type, OCD, PTSD, and Panic disorder with agoraphobia. I was recently given a fully favorable decision for SSDI.

I love animals. I have three dogs and two cats. I'm an artist and a mental health advocate. I go to doctor's (psychiatrist's) appointments with people with mental health conditions and make sure they are treated fairly and appropriately. I also offer peer support (though I'm still in training). It's all volunteer work and I can only do it between episodes, which have taken up almost the entire past year.

I'm a Unitarian Universalist and very active in the church when I'm doing okay. It helps me feel better to be around all the nice, accepting people who don't care that I'm pretty weird. It's a really open, loving type of place. We do a lot of service projects and I'm also the co-chair of the Fellowship Committee. It's a lazy committee though, because no one ever wants to do any of the things we offer, other than Wednesday potlucks before the Wednesday night service. But I digress.

I'm 30, married to a wonderful man who accepts me and loves me just the way I am. My mother has metastatic breast cancer so I spend a lot of time helping her and driving her to her chemo appointments.

So I try to stay busy when I'm doing well. It's not work-level activity (I still spend a lot of my days stuck on the couch listening to the voices) but it keeps me looking forward to certain days of the week so I get through the bad days more easily.

I also am a member of a meditation sangha that practices under the teachings of the venerable Thich Naht Hanh. Meditation helps me with my anxiety, which is pretty bad right now considering everything that's been happening in my life.

It was nice to get my award letter from the SSA though. Took a load off my shoulders. Now I have some financial independence and can pay my bills (I have some in collections, I've defaulted on my student loans, etc). I can also contribute to the household so we're not living paycheck to paycheck. We'll have a little room to start a savings and work on our credit scores (which are abysmal) so we can buy a house sometime in the next ten years.


Anyway, if you read all this nonsense, thank you very much for putting up with me! I'm very happy to be here, I could always use support and maybe my mental health activism and advocacy work can be utilized to help someone else. That's my hope anyway.

Thank you for having me!