Essays on Mental Illness and Recovery
by Michael David Crawford

"You're as mad as a cut snake, but at least you're an independent thinker."
-- posted by my gold bling shines in my diary.

15-Aug-2000 Make a Bonfire of Your Reputations

Following are words of wisdom I have striven to live by, even since I was a little child. Imagine my surprise when I first read them in a book at the age of thirty-six.

15-Dec-2008 Why I Write So Many Essays On Madness

I write to tease out from the faded, garbled, torn and scattered pages of my horribly misprinted Mental Book the Answers to my Important Questions.

11-Apr-2003 Living With Schizoaffective Disorder

If just one person learns from your experiences, then you will be remembered as a silent giant. -- Gwen DePaz

16-Aug-2007 The Schizophrenic Symptom of Flat Affect

How I compensate for my inability to express my feelings directly by expressing them through writing and music instead.

26-Apr-2007 Tremor

It's a side effect of the medicine I take for my mental illness

18-Mar-2007 Don't Let It Get You Down

Words of advice to a broken man on how I overcame my mental illness and made a good life for myself as a software engineer.

20-Jul-2007 [ Scripting.com] Programming and Madness

I have some experience with understanding of human relationships, and with healing, I'd like to discuss with you.

23-Apr-2003 On Creativity

An interview of artist, writer, musician and computer programmer Michael David Crawford by Matt Buice.

17-Jul-2004 I Am Not Happy

I don't expect that I will ever be happy for any length of time, and that I'll have to struggle to find the few fleeting moments of happiness that I do get to enjoy.

3-Apr-2004 What Is the Key to Happiness?

I have known such despair, you wouldn't think I could ever be happy, but I know great joy too. I want to share some of what I've learned with you.

11-Apr-2006 Michael Crawford Meets Sigmund Freud

So many years spent searching desperately for an answer, only to have everything change - and change for the better - in a single day.

12-Jul-2005 I Don't Know What This New Internet Will Look Like

... but I am as confident as I am that the Sun will rise tomorrow that it will be safe from terrorists. After all, we have the children to think about.

3-May-2005 The Way of the White Hat SEO Ninja

Why I don't want to let the AdSense scammers dupe innocent webmasters: Google AdSense saved me from poverty due to my mental illness.

1-Aug-2003 Links to Tens of Thousands of Legal Music Downloads

Enjoy free music without getting in trouble by downloading the legal MP3s many musicians provide as a way to promote themselves.

8-Apr-2006 Is There a Cause for Which You Would Give Your Life?

Is there any person or principle for which you would give your life? I am absolutely serious in asking you this, and if you don't have one yet, I assert it's worth your while to find one.

6-Sep-2006 My Deepest Fear

They're the worse kind of police there are. If they catch you, there ain't no attorney gonna save your ass: You're going DOWN.

2-Jan-2005 I Have So Many Questions About Music

What is Music? How can I make some? How can I compose Music that sounds like my own?

17-Sep-2006 Writing as a Symptom of Mental Illness

Nothing comforts me when I'm anxious the way writing does, and I have never been so anxious as when I moved to Vancouver.

Surfing On A Mushroom Cloud

I put my surfboard atop the hydrogen bomb, pushed The Big Red Button and oooowheee! Cowabunga!

1-May-1997 Wigging: Learn About Manic Depression

I am manic-depressive.

19-Apr-2005 What I Learned from Stephen King Today

Don't be discouraged by setbacks: failure is absolutely certain if you give up. Your hard work and persistence will ultimately be rewarded.

6-May-2005 Self Employment: Even on a Good Day Things are Hard

This essay will help you understand why I want to get out of software consulting, even though it can be high paying work.

22-Jul-2006 I've Never Screwed Up This Way Before

I walked back into the living room this morning after pouring a second cup of coffee, when Bonita said...

9-Apr-2003 Reality is Something You Make

Please try to understand and take this with you if you take nothing else from this discussion.

7-Apr-2004 A Day at the Dump

A story I wrote when I was manic.

18-Jan-2007 Finding Jesus

'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'

23-Feb-2007 I Bought Jesus A Smokie Last Night

I think John is mentally ill. I think John is deeply depressed.

16-Jan-2007 Rachel

How hard can it be to show a stranger a moment of kindness?

12-Sep-2006 The Sad Woman

I saw a young woman crouched down on the ground, against a wall. She was crying sorrowfully.

13-Oct-2006 Normal Is Just A Setting On The Washing Machine

I'm a productive little worker bee, but I'm too tired at the end of the day to carry out my grand ambitions.

2-Oct-2006 Uninspired

I don't like what I have become.

23-Sep-2006 Why Does This Move Me So?

Let those who come after see to it that their names not be forgotten.

21-Aug-2009 Pain and Suffering

Have I found The Holy Grail?

Essays on Mental Illness - Living with Schizoaffective Disorder

Home - Writing - Music - Photography - Drawings - Paintings - The Artist - michael@geometricvisions.com