Action – Resisting Exile

21Sep 2025 by Linda Bayley

Minefield

I have a complicated relationship with the objects that surround me. I don't necessarily see the things themselves; instead, I see the stories attached to them. This makes me worry that if I get rid of the things, I'll lose the stories, too. The result is that at any moment while attempting to declutter, I could step on a memory bomb and lose an entire day to guilt and nostalgia. To help with this, I've started reading an excellent book by Matt Paxton called Keep the Memories, Lose the Stuff: Declutter, Downsize, and Move Forward with Your Life. I'm on Step 3, where Paxton talks about the emotional resonance of objects, and the guilt that can come with the idea of letting objects go. For me, the guilt is especially…

05Feb 2023 by Linda Bayley

Making Do

Action, Affirmation, Self-Esteem

At the beginning of 2019 I made a public pledge not to buy any more new clothing for a year. At last count I had 43 t-shirts in my closet, and that doesn't count the shirts that I've set aside to alter or repair. I really don't need anything new. Four years into that automatically-renewing pledge, I have more or less held the line, and have only purchased new clothing that I couldn't make myself or wouldn't want to buy second hand: a bathing suit, a couple of sports bras, socks, and underwear. I have been given socks and two sweaters as gifts, and I purchased a pair of used jeans so I could learn how to hem them. I don't miss shopping for clothes. A few months ago I…

20Feb 2021 by Linda Bayley

The Stories

Action, Musings

When the mother of one of my uncles died, about twenty years ago, he told me that he’d discovered that she’d put little tags on most of the furniture to tell each piece’s story: where it had come from, who it had belonged to, when it had been acquired. “I mean, who cares?” he said to me. “It’s just stuff.” Well, his mother cared, for one. I would have cared, too. “Stuff” carries stories with it, and I always love to hear them. I remember this conversation especially well because my own Gramma’s funeral had been just a few days earlier, and I had been through her apartment with my father and my cousins, and I’d had a list of the things I wanted to take home with me. None…

10Jan 2021 by Linda Bayley

Lil’ Punk Ass

Action

At first she was just a stick figure, a cardstock cutout made for a scene in an animated short in which she stands on a train track and reaches out while her father walks away from her. Her cameo was to last two or three seconds at most. Almost immediately though, she demanded more screen time. She pushed her way into another scene in the short where artwork was parading right to left: without warning there she was, marching along between two works at the end, shoving the one ahead of her when she got impatient. I told my friend Leif about this, that I hadn’t known she’d be in the scene until she showed up, and he replied, “LOL sure.” But she wasn’t supposed to be part of the…

10Jul 2019 by Linda Bayley

Extra Censory

Action, Affirmation, Uncategorized

It's been a long time since I've come to this space. Not because I haven't had anything to say, but because I've had too much. And I've been afraid. I think I've said before that I am terrified of offending anybody, but it's even more complicated than that now. Every time I feel ready to speak, some part of my reality shifts, and I learn another new way that my world view has been incorrect all this time. And if I had spoken when I wanted to, I would have been in danger of being called out for something, any one of the isms that I am either unaware of, or don't sufficiently understand. I would be found out as someone guilty of being a bad person, and that is…

02Jul 2018 by Linda Bayley

May proceed, but not

Action, Musings

The other day I came across my final exam report from the University of Waterloo. In my second term there, I failed three of my five classes: Calculus, Algebra, and Physics. I had gone to Waterloo with $19,000 worth of scholarships, a congratulatory letter from the Prime Minister of Canada, and the expectation that I would be a brilliant success. I left sixteen months later under a cloud of depression, the copper taste of failure in my mouth. I was there to study Mathematics, with the intent to specialize in Computer Science. If you had asked me when I was thirteen where I was going to go to school, I would have told you Carleton, to study journalism. Same thing if you had asked me when I was fourteen. I…

05May 2018 by Linda Bayley

Rescue

Action, Love

There's a new girl in my life. Her name is Daphne. She may be three years old, she may be younger. We don't know, because she was a stray. She was picked up from the streets of another city not far from mine, went through the lost and found process without being found, and eventually made her way to the SPCA branch only a half-hour's walk from where I work. I haven't written much in the last month, being paralyzed as I was with grief and uncertainty over what I should do with myself, now that Jazz is gone. For a few weeks I didn't do much of anything but struggle through the day and cry through the night. By April 7th I was starting to retch whenever I got…

21Mar 2018 by Linda Bayley

On stickers, and making choices

Action, Musings

Every day on my wall calendar at work shows one of three things: a big O means that I wasn't there. A bright, colourful sticker means that I made it all the way to three o'clock without buying a snack. A great big X means, well, I didn't earn a sticker. In February, I had a few good weeks. In March, I have had a few bad ones. I can prove it; I can see it happening. The evidence is right there on the calendar. To me, each sticker represents a day filled with healthy choices. I ate only the food I brought with me to work, and it was healthy food, and I felt satisfied with it. It was a day where I was able to do the things…

04Mar 2018 by Linda Bayley

Those eggshells

Action, Musings

Today my friend JDS told me something that an earlier version of me would have found devastating: he likes my personalities, except for one. That would be the personality that carries the ammo purse, the personality he has to tiptoe around, even if he's trying to pay me a compliment. A compliment, in fact, was what brought that personality out today. I didn't take that compliment at face value; I looked under the surface, and believed I found sarcasm there, believed he was trying to hurt me. Like the mistrustful dog who turns and snarls when you hold out your hand, I snapped at him. If you've dealt with a person with BPD, you're nodding your head right now. You're saying, "Yes, I'm always walking on eggshells. I never know…

03Mar 2018 by Linda Bayley

When stories intersect

Action

Look, I know there's absolutely nothing original about this blog. In terms of broad strokes, I think the experience of mental illness is pretty much the same for everyone. The only difference between the way my illness affects me and the way your illness affects you is in the tiny little details of where, when, how, and why. Like my friend JDS likes to say, there's nothing new under the sun. So really, sending these words out onto the internet is a pointless endeavour. I'm the only person guaranteed to read them. I could write them down in a journal and have exactly the same effect on the world. Right? Except, for some reason, I really need to send these words out, and not just keep them to myself. I…