Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness Only More So: A Memoir

by Mark Vonnegut Md

Art is lunging forward without certainty about where you are going or how to get there, being open to and dependent on what luck, the paint, the typo, the dissonance, give you. Without art you’re stuck with yourself as you are and life as you think life is.

Friendships and sports were like spelling

and

handwriting—things that were supposed to be easy and that were easy for most people but myste...

Introverts almost never cause me trouble and are usually much better at what they do than extroverts. Extroverts are too busy slapping one another on the back, team building, and making fun of introverts to get much done. Extroverts are amazed and baffled by how much some introverts get done and assume that they, the extroverts, are somehow actually responsible.

Now when honking cars start sounding like my name or other things happen that could be the voices warming up, I’m not thrilled or terrified. “I’ve got a lot going on,” I say. “You’ll have to wait your turn.”

If recovery from mental illness depended on the goodness, mercy, and rational behavior of others, we’d all be screwed. Peace of mind is inversely proportional to expectations.

He was a wonderful writer and capable of great warmth and kindness, but he fiercely defended and exercised his right to be a pain in the ass on a regular basis.