The image of serial killers with schizophrenia was so strong in my mind and my subconsciousness that I was truly surprised to meet patients in a mental hospital, who would not hurt a fly. And this type of patients were the majority. It seemed like it was submissiveness that had brought them into the hospital, of course combined with some type of a mental illness. I later met a psychiatrist, who was giving assertiveness courses in the mental hospital, where he worked. Thus my observation could not have been totally wrong. I also learned later that the percentage of criminal offenders among mental...

For as long as I can remember I have been trying to help the less fortunate. I helped a classmate in primary school and she finished it. I helped a dyslectic high-school student and he finished high-school. I wrote a book about coping with mental illness Balancing the Beast – A Bright View of Schizoaffective Disorder, mostly because I wanted to inspire other people in a similar situation. Of course there were many cases, in which I could not help the person. I remember a mother who kept hugging her four-year-old son, whenever he had hit his younger brother, who was two. She explained to me that her...

How does fear really feel like? Do we ask ourselves this question or do we simply deny our trepidations? They are a nasty habit though. Just consider how much marketing is based on fears: the fear of getting ill, the fear of dying, the fear of having less than your neighbor etc. I can only describe how fear feels to me. It usually starts with a seemingly irrelevant thought. I try to send it away, but it won’t go. It is as if some dark power kept opening a dangerous computer program file. And then the thought grows. Pretty soon it fills the whole working memory in my brain. I can barely squeeze...

I have discovered recently, that one of the most important things in life is to know what you want. If you do not know, what you want, you cannot get anywhere and usually it is everybody else’s fault. I gave notice at a well paid job six years ago and it has not been easy since then. Almost simultaneously with quitting the job, my husband and I also moved from the capital of Slovenia to a smaller town. I had to build everything from scratch: a new job, new friends, a new balance. A new job is being a writer. It is far from being simple. I am also the publisher, which means I have to push myself to...

The local swimming pool has been renovated recently. Before trying it out, I ran into two people. One was a glass-is-half-empty-person. He said they had only renovated the roof and the windows. The lockers and the showers were still old though. His voice was full of disappointment and disdain. The other one was a glass-is-half-full-person. He said the pool has been nicely renovated and concluded with a smile on his face saying: “I think you are going to have a really good time there.” The so glorified “being positive” is not an abstract thing. Neither is it something you only think about, when...