"The Stare" Drawing

Diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia at the age of nineteen, Milly’s life has consisted of many and varied attempts to locate reality in the midst of psychosis. She navigates her mental illness with as much honesty as she knows how and tries to remember that no label can define her personhood. Milly draws and writes to find out who she is, because she’s pretty sure she’s been told wrong. Milly works as a paralegal and a freelance writer, trying to squeeze in time to draw around contract work and raising kids. Her writing has appeared in Awakened Voices, OC87 Recovery Diaries, and she is a contributor to The Mighty. Her essay, “The Third Plane,” will be published in a forthcoming anthology on parenting with mental illness called, How the Light Gets In, and she is making slow but sure progress on her first novel. Milly lives with her family on a rural prairie in North Idaho, where the tumbleweeds are as big as her minivan and ice cream cones are still a quarter. You can find her art and writing at , and follow her on Facebook or Twitter .