"Survival, if we have to do it alone, is not easy, and it is not getting easier. "

"...we need more people to understand that even though we may be suffering from an illness, we are not 'less than,' but people just like them."

"The conspiracy to dump people on the streets who can’t make it in the conventional workplaces is a slap in the face to our right to exist."

A morning in the life of Jack Bragen, who lives with chronic schizoaffective disorder.

I’m disabled and I’m unable to make it in a conventional job. I’m facing very hard challenges at this point in life.

I must face this demon myself, Bragen writes.

The prejudice against people with psychiatric problems seems to be the last socially acceptable form of bigotry, Bragen writes.

Fear is a constant burden for people living in poverty, but it can also be a helpful guide.

I live in my car, and that could qualify me as homeless. I also have a memory problem: I can’t remember what my name is, with whom I once lived, or even where I came from.

Bragen received an unprecedented amount of mail from Social Security starting in the year 2020, forcing him to engage in a rigorous process of proving his disabilities were legitimate. This was the result of a policy change by the Trump administration.

Your voice can be a useful tool of self-defense when a situation begins to escalate, Bragen writes.

Living in poverty leads to bad health and premature aging, Bragen writes.

Author Jack Bragen laments how difficult it is for low-income people who don't pay taxes to receive stimulus checks.

Jack Bragen reflects on the government's responsibility to protect its people.

Fiction about a trip to the dollar store gone wrong.

Jack Bragen writes about the experience of emerging from a period of psychosis, using his own experience as a guide.

For cover, I inhabited the biggest of the frogs. But then I...realized that I was about to be eaten, too, and this would truly be my end.

Let’s face it: we are harshly penalized for any work activity that we might try to do. I’ve experienced this firsthand. The Social Security Administration boasts otherwise and claims that they offer incentives toward working. This is bogus.

Money brings power. While it doesn’t give power over oneself, it gives power over external conditions, events, and people.

There are many causes of unemployability. Being disabled and older, and not having a college degree are near the top of the list.

The following is a narrative of the onset of schizophrenia, told from the perspective of the individual who is in the process of becoming ill.

We are now seeing the fallout of President Trump’s 2021 Budget, which targets the most vulnerable people and pays the people at the very top with a nifty tax break.

App-based driving is a mixed bag; it is a sign of desperate times, but it fills a need for many.

People who violate our overly complex and needlessly punitive web of laws, when they do so due to being disconnected from reality due to a psychiatric illness, are suffering from an illness and they are not criminals.

Frederick Walford has been in treatment for "delusional thoughts" for years now. But what if I told you he has been misdiagnosed?

Mental health consumers are rendered impotent by the verbal and psychological tactics of those in the mental health treatment system. This prevents us from building decent lives for ourselves.

Justin had what he wanted. Natascha was a one-year-old, female, Russian Blue cat, in near-perfect health. He had bought a pet hospital months before to avoid answering the questions of an adoption agency or county shelter.

As an adult with mental illness and progressive values, my primary focus is not on national politics or getting Trump out of office. My main concern is about the treatment of people who live with mental illness and our lack of opportunities to better our conditions.

When we see our fellow human beings wither away and die on the streets, when we see encampments in the news that appear not much better than living under a pile of trash, when we see human beings who have names...the cure is not worse than the disease. Something must be done.

The current pandemic makes it seem as though the world has gone insane. This time, I'm not crazy, but neither are other people. Reality has taken a surreal turn.

I’m prefacing this essay with a personal statement: I’m in favor of money and I’m in favor of me having

Many people with disabilities are dependent on government benefits in order to survive. However, the process of acquiring these benefits is nowhere near easy. It can be deeply intimidating, making it feel inaccessible for those who already struggle with disabilities.

It is well known to almost anyone exposed to Buddhism that its originator, Gautama Buddha, left behind rule of a

If you are unable to work competitively due to a disability and you receive benefits because of this, it isn’t free money—it comes with certain costs. Disability benefits and SSI are set up to impose limitations in what you can and can’t do.

Creating multiple inconveniences was one of many strategies for interfering with James Michaelson’s inconvenient, daily activities. He was opening a can of tomatoes, and my prompt instructed me to speak into the microphone.

The California Legislature is currently considering Assembly Bill 5, could make it much more difficult to work as an independent

Recap of part II: “As if to punctuate what it had said, the car abruptly accelerated and passed a cluster

When basic necessities aren’t present, or when one’s living conditions are otherwise compromised, (such as if you live in a

Recap of part I: The force put out by the book, the evil force, was stronger. It was involuntary: I

In a car, on my way to work, I saw the ever-present, giant, illuminated billboards along my flight path, displaying

I am constantly astounded at the level of sophistication reached by modern day swindlers. If ordinary folks fail to be

When a person is born disabled or becomes disabled as an adult, they are in for a life of hardship

We face a spectrum of cruelty, from bullying in the schools to the inhumanity of poverty and the catastrophic cruelty of war and nuclear bombs. Inhumanity leads to senseless shootings at the local level and senseless wars on the global level. People must learn to be kinder and more humane.

Compassion means empathy and imagining the perspective of others. The idea that “we are all one” may be dismissed as straight out of the 1960s. But that idea stays with me and continues to influence me. This consciousness of love and compassion is one of the pillars of most religions.

Before the first medications were developed, lobotomies were used on the most difficult cases, and electroshock was often used as well. Even with modern treatments and knowledge in the field of psychiatry, senseless cruelty continues to be perpetrated upon persons who suffer from mental health problems.

When I die, or after I die, I want to look back at my life and see that I ate that cookie, I drank that vodka, I made love to that woman. I did not shy away from living because of the petty fear that death might come sooner.