Standard Deviations From the Beaten Path

Hey folks! In my head there have been big changes around here. Now maybe those changes will be converted to actual readable content. So I’ve hinted that I want to make this space less dedicated to exclusively science. My original dream of this being slick and professional is just going to be hindrance to me actually using it. Moreover, I’ve realized the value my being personal might have to some people reading. Particularly, Mark Chu-Carroll at Good Math, Bad Math brought up Mental Illness.

So I’ve said it once before, but I’ve been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. It’s not something I want to blog about, because it’s something I want to separate from my identity as much as possible. I don’t want to talk about what’s happened to me because of my disorder, or how it’s affected my education, my relationships, or my career. There are mental health blogs out there that I consume regularly, but I don’t want to and can’t be one of them. I want most of my personal life to remain personal, and there is little that is more private to me than the details of my mental health.

So why bring it up at all? Because someone might want to know that you can live with mental illness and have a thriving life full of passions and interests. Science is not an easy career, and physics especially is competitive and draining. But I can do it–I am doing it. And I want that knowledge to give somebody hope. So I promise more science, more math, more games, more commentary and reviews, and I can’t promise, but I can casually mention the serious, solid possibility of a co-blogger moving in in the next month or so. I’ll let her introduce herself when she gets here.

I’m reluctant to admit it (I’m not sure why), but I do value personal content in the blogs I read. My relationship with science is more complicated than what I do in the lab all day, and my online presence should reflect that. So I’ll try to be here more often, even if I don’t feel like what I have to say is especially profound. Hopefully I’ll see you around.

An article over at Feministe, “OK. folks, it’s time for a privilege check.”, on how its okay to take pills for problems that people have lived through even before there were pills around to treat them. Comment threads for posts like this tend to attract pseudo-science like moths to a flame. This was confirmed in a post on The Trouble With Spikol, which quoted the original article and some pieces from the comment thread. I’ll chime in from here after the fold. (more…)