Doing the Work

Recap: Hi, I’m Laura. I made an attempt at blogging like this before, but honestly, hardly anyone knew it existed, let alone read it. I turned the blog’s name into a band-okay-duo’s name (with my partner), which felt really great at first. But something was missing. Then I realized what went wrong with the original blog—the audience problem—and I realized I could change things if I stopped screaming into the void and started talking to people instead. And boy, would that be work. But worth it? For the sake of a second-hand domain name?

Definitely.

So here’s what you can expect from Delicately Off-Balance now:

1. Most of the truth about what life is like, for me, living with my particular diagnoses. (I will be completely honest but probably not completely forthcoming.)
2. Occasional new music, written by myself (Laura) and sometimes my partner (Adam), and, typically, tested on our dog (Echo).
3. Weekly blog posts about mental health, music, the intersection of the two, and sometimes just whatever inspires me to write.
4. The odd guest post from Adam. You probably won’t get any from Echo.

And just who is Delicately Off-Balance?

Here is Laura, your friendly host here at the DOB blog. I will certainly go, or possibly already have gone by the time you read this, into more detail on all of these things in other posts, but here’s a summary. I’m a person in my mid-thirties who was, not quite correctly, diagnosed as depressed in high school. The reality turned out to be a little more complicated, as I realized when I read Carrie Fisher’s The Best Awful. I’m bipolar (bipolar II, if you know what that means already), with a whole slew of anxieties along for the ride. I have a degree in music and one in psychology. And while I eventually flourished, in a life that had lithium in it, in a school setting, my anxiety interferes with my success in the real world. This blog is, honestly, part of a last-ditch attempt to create a life I can live with.

Here is Adam, who will provide a more through introduction in the first guest post you see! Adam is my musical partner of many years and my spouse of 10, as of this year. The love of my life, and somehow able to see who I really was through the episodes of hypomania and depression when we first met.

…and that is it for Delicately Off-Balance! These are the two people you need to be worried about (and be very worried) around here, for the moment. They have had exactly one performance under this name, and that was for one person. Folks, your entertainment!

By the way, here is Honorary Member Echo! Echo is a four-year-old Havanese. As you can, I’m sure, see, she is adorable. She is sometimes brave and sometimes shy, which I get. She likes to lick tears, which is certainly one way to help a person (me) stop crying.