Starter Packs
If you’re new(er) to my work (or not!), here are some recommended previously published works of mine that may be of interest to you … lots of my pieces touch on more than one theme … these are just playlists I’ve curated, by theme.
(The works I tend to recommend most and hear about most are *starred.)
on Mental Health Care
My book, *A Kind of Mirraculas Paradise: A True Story About Schizophrenia (Scribner), available in paperback, as an ebook, an audiobook (which I read in part, with my pre-T voice) and in French from Belfond. Here’s its website. I always encourage folks to request it at your local library and / or buy it from your favorite local bestseller, whether in person (always appreciated!) or via Bookshop.
My feature for *The Believer on electroshock/ECT from fall ‘24. It’s a deep look at the wider debates to do with how we even decide what’s “true” about “mental illnesses” and their “treatment” … historically in our society, and presently — and in our popular culture.
My article for The Cut: “It’s Not Just Britney” about the past and present of psychiatric patient civil rights (written during #freebritney in 2021).
The Kirkbride Plan: My reported 99% Invisible episode on the past (and future?) of mental health care in America. From 2021 but evergreen (other than my voice).
“Applied Bob Studies”: my 2020 story for This American Life on how Uncle Bob’s path inspired my own, in terms of moving to the country, and coming out at long last …
“Out of the Maze”: an essay for Guernica about the painting that’s on the AKOMP paperback and the man who painted it. It hangs in the Bethlem Museum of the Mind. It’s also an essay about my own journey grappling with commenting publicly on mental health.
My podcast *Mad Chat, which is available only on YouTube (for the time being) and is highly recommended to anyone interested in these discussions. I co-created it in 2019 and it was beloved by even the NYT.
on Transness / Gender
For This American Life, the *story of my singing voice, before and after Testosterone … see also my first story for TAL, described just above.
For Esquire: My essay on going to camp with *150 fellow trans men … a very life-changing experience
And my other one for Esquire about working with a speech therapist to learn to speak ‘like a man,’ post-T …
And my first for Esquire *on mourning the trans boyhood I never got …
For Them: *“How Marie Kondo Helped Me Sort Out My Gender” about how I first started coming out as nonbinary, at about thirty … My egg cracking essay, as trans folks say.
And for Them: my former column Between the Binary …
“A Farewell To Boobs”: On my fear and indecision ahead of getting top surgery
And its follow up, on learning to hate my body less, after that surgery …
“My Gmail Won’t Stop Deadnaming Me,” complaining about all the “stressful nonsense” that comes with being nonbinary/trans …
My open letter to brands begging them to sell shit to trans and nonbinary people …
My essay for Lit Hub about the challenges of coming out “in public” as my first book also did.
For 99% Invisible: *Where Do We Go From Here? - a reported audio deep dive about the past and future of bathroom design.
Also see: my recent shorter, personal essay for Cosmopolitan “Learning to Pee at age 37” …
My essay for Eater: “The Delicious, Life-Saving Joys of the Trad Trans Lifestyle”
on “Self-Care”
Listen to me discuss my whole “what’s helping today” slogan more and my views on “mental health” and “self-care” during this interview on the TED podcast How to Be a Better Human: “Why We Should Rethink What Mental Health Means.
My newsletter What’s Helping Today is in general highly recommended to anyone interested in these topics. (Note: Please don’t subscribe on substack bur rather on the newsletter’s new platform: beehiiv.) Here’s a recent-ish re-introduction of the whole newsletter and my work (especially related to these topics).
Here’s a recent post where I wrote more about my own self-care routine
You may want to check out this one on breathing or this one on small talk and addressing our actual feelings during an era of catastrophe or this one on guilt v. shame or this one on on worry or this one on whyyy meditation.
Here’s this older Dear Sandy advice column talking about how I finally started meditating after 20 years of trying and failing.
This older essay for Bon Appétit on running and my own mental health …
This older post on how I learned to not just tolerate but love stuff like baths …
Again this column for Them on my past and present relationship with doing yoga … and hating and loving my body, as a trans person.
for Parents … (re: mental health and/or gender)
I encourage you to read my book, AKOMP …
See this (older) long response I wrote to a mother of a trans woman, who was worried about her daughter
See also this other advice column responding to another cis adult, worried about a vulnerable minor in their community, reflecting some more of my thoughts and experiences …
For parents of trans/gnc people, I highly recommend my Esquire essay about mourning my own trans boyhood …
For trans/queer folks who are estranged especially, I recommend these (older) essays touching on themes like “chosen families” and such, for Bon Appétit and for Them …
for Media Professionals
Check out this short recent one for Equal Access Public Media for even more on the media’s dangerous credulity regarding transphobic nonsense.
Listen to my interview on Cancel Me, Daddy re: the transphobia at the NYT (Apple, Spotify, YouTube). Also check out this long, two-part What’s Helping Today post, which I released along with that CMD episode (first part, second).
Here’s a recent WHT with recommended alternatives to the NYT and other outlets that are stubbornly transphobic … including recommended queer/trans independent outlets you all could consider supporting instead …
Please also consider listening to this episode of Proxy with Yowei Shaw featuring me — all about that viral post, cis allyship and me interpreting the silences (Apple, Spotify).
You may want to read this long and old but still-relevant essay on on my own errors when first reporting on “mental health care” — published on Mad in America. See also this Guernica essay (which I described above).
See my (older) op-ed for CNN about the media’s tendency to scapegoat people with psych disabilities for violent crimes, per the Right — and just how wrong that is …
Worth checking out my aforementioned pieces for The Cut and The Believer re: the media’s errors when reporting on “mental health” and people diagnosed with serious mental illnesses … and anything else in my mental health section above, especially my book …
Note for fellow reporters/editors/producers especially: You can also hire me to consult with your media organization about how to make your “mental health” coverage better …
for Nature Lovers
& Green Thumbs …
Check out my monthly gardening column for the popular local Catskill Crew newsletter. Here was the first column, here was the second and the third.
My Eater essay about growing my own food, a love-letter to my garden and to my rural home in the Catskills Mountains…
My first This American Life story, about how and why I moved here …
The first Dear Sandy advice column in which I responded to someone in Tasmania about being queer/trans in rural places …
Speaking of, my newsletter What’s Helping Today is recommended; I’m often mentioning my garden and cooking there …
For locals: I’ve got a super short but IMO great essay in this little Catskills & Hudson Valley Wildsam travel guide. My essay is about loving it here and about … birds (specifically the dawn chorus).
for Cooks & Bakers
Check out my brand new: Sandy’s Recipe Club!
My old but IMO still great *Ina Garten profile for BuzzFeed News, from 2016
My (aforementioned) Eater essay on growing my own food
And my (older) essay on my annual “Not Thanksgiving” tradition, for Bon Appétit …
My (also older) essay for BuzzFeed News about being a lifelong pie baker … and baking pie as mental health care …
My interview in Taste re: my online sourdough classes (which I live-streamed during lockdown in 2020) …
for Musicians &
Music Lovers
My book about Uncle Bob, who was huge into music (especially Hendrix) and was himself a talented musician, especially a guitarist … Hence on book tours I passed out hundreds of glow-in-the-dark AKOMP guitar picks to people …
You can hear tiny bits of Uncle Bob’s music (which sometimes readers do ask about) both during this wonderful Organist story on AKOMP, produced by host Andrew Leland, and also in the AKOMP audiobook itself …
You should also probably listen to my This American Life story about my own singing voice …
Here’s a playlist I made inspired by AKOMP … basically a soundtrack.
I do release my own playlists, one public one a month nowadays, mostly long and ambient …
for Pop Culture Lovers
My late podcast Mad Chat is highly recommended — we only made 10 episodes, all evergreen, on various TV shows and movies and other such in terms of how they portray mental health-related topics: Bojack Horseman, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Six Feet Under, Reefer Madness, Frasier, Batman: The Animated Series, Killing Eve, Donnie Darko, the entire holiday of Halloween … and my guests included rad folks with lived experience, activists, journalists and other sorts writers, all people I adore chatting with about such topics — like … journalist Hannah Giorgis, Meredith Talusan, fiction writer and memoirist Esmé Weijun Wang, poet and memoirist Nichole Perkins, poet and speaker Sarah Kay, cannabis-focused journalist Amanda Chicago Lewis, comedian and TV writer Yassir Lester, and … podcast host and comedy writer, Tracy Clayton. For the time being, Mad Chat is only available on YouTube. It features my pre-T voice but otherwise I think it’s held up pretty well! Here’s Mad Chat’s trailer if you want to check that out first.
for more re: mental health and culture, check out my Believer feature on electroshock / ECT digs into tons of portrayals of this technology and psychiatry in our (pop) culture — particularly well-known books, movies and TV shows.
Here’s a WHT mentioning some of my very favorite works of (comforting) pop culture.
on Psych Patient Civil Rights / “Mad Pride”
My recent opinions essay for Assigned Media on covering mainstream psychiatry as a science journalist, given my own “biases” (identities, experiences, diagnoses). Also see, my article for The Cut about the psychiatric patient civil rights movement — especially when it comes to the public and media’s frequently repeated errors.
Again, HIGHLY encouraged you read my book, AKOMP (see above for more).
Again, my big feature for The Believer mag (published fall ‘24) on the self-identified electroshock survivors and these same debates, focused upon perhaps psychiatry’s most controversial treatment still in use.
My long and older but evergreen reflection for Mad in America about my own errors when first attempting to parse truth from fiction regarding psychiatric patient civil rights. (This media organization is recommended to anyone interested in this subject matter in particular.)
My episode of Mad Chat with Caroline Mazel-Carlton of the Wildflower Alliance (which I discussed in The Cut article as well) is particularly recommended, as are my conversations with author Esmé Weijun Wang and also with Jonah Bossewitch (an activist with lived experience who’s got a PhD in psychiatric patient civil rights activism history).
I’d also recommend my writings on the related topic of cis allyship and how we create more of it. Also see this post on shame and how it impedes growth in the creating-allies sense. Also see this long post about media corruption by transphobia and how we combat it. Also maybe check out this one, about someone who inspires me to speak up to bullies and against hate.
on Spirituality &
Mental Health / Gender
HIGHLY recommend my book. See above for more about accessing it.
I’d recommend my writings on my own deal on topics like yoga and meditation — like this older one on how to start meditating.
See again the first-ever “Dear Sandy” column “On Queerness in Rural Places” (older post) and my new-ish Eater essay on how living here connects me to land and spirit.
Also, I won’t spoil why, read my big Believer feature (read all the way to the end) …
for AKOMP fans …
Here again is a playlist I made inspired by the book …
And here are a few essays I wrote about my own journey of both completing the project and how it’s impacted me since, for example …
This essay for Guernica and on memory and madness and finding my own way with truth as regards psychiatric labels …
This reflection for Lit Hub about my own process of coming out (as nonbinary at first) as AKOMP also did.
This piece on Uncle Bob’s path inspiring my own (my first for This American Life)
This essay for BuzzFeed Reader (RIP) about writing “mental health” and my own self-care routines, then.
This op-ed for CNN about the GOP’s scapegoating of psychiatric patients for their own eugenicist harms.
My Best Advice for the Worst Days…
My general purpose, concise: “Advice for Shitty AF Times”
My evergreen advice for *cis allies who feel despair about what’s happening to trans people …
Its companion post: To trans people who feel despair.
This Xtra article by Jude Doyle wherein I was quoted on how trans people are surviving despair … see also this other one in which I’m also quoted.
A long more advanced What’s Helping Today with advice for those times when the pain is really unbearable (I say therein but it’s more of a 201-level me-rant, but, sharing here nonetheless. If you’re new to my writings on these topics, you want to start for example here).
My direct words on suicide itself: “Promise Me You’ll Survive.” (As it mentions, you may want to read my big feature for The Believer, all the way to the end.)
Jonah Bossewitch’s analysis of suicide and Donnie Darko during our Mad Chat discussion quite astute.
My words about breathing … (which, if you can do it right now, just take a slow long deep out breath. Or two or three …)
I also recommend this WHT naming my comforting things to watch and listen to and so forth.
Whoever’s reading this out there, especially if today’s really challenging, know I’m sending you love … always feel free to reach out, especially if that’d be of help to you … tell me what’s helping you today? I can’t always respond to what folks say to me, but I do enjoy hearing from you. xo SEA
