Writing Samples

"What You Say" - Insider - LifeWay teen girls devotional


"A Day in My Life" - Insider - LifeWay teen girls devotional


"Power Couple" - Fine Living Lancaster magazine

"Masterful Premarital Counseling" - Relevant Leader magazine

"Stepping Back into the Jungle" - Living With Teenagers magazine

"A Welcome Home" - Living With Teenagers magazine


"Social Security" - Living With Teenagers magazine Pin It

Mental Illness and Santa Claus

For the past few days, I have stupidly engaged myself in a conversation about mental illness with a group of individuals who don't believe it exists. Favorite conversation so far: "There are very few mental illnesses I believe in." I thought this was 2010, but apparently we are still stuck in Nazi Germany and sending schizophrenics (if you believe in schizophrenia) to the gas chambers.

Grow up, world. Open your eyes.

It actually began as a conversation about the marketing of antidepressants. No doubt, they are as foolish as any other drugs ads on TV. Remember the ED ad (it was either for Viagra or Cialis)where the couple was in separate bathtubs holding hands on the beach? Come on. Who does that? How about tampon ads that show menstruating women doing yoga with their legs up over their heads? Stupid. Drugs designed to treat MI aren't much better. When I started taking meds for my Bipolar Disorder, I didn't take up ballroom dancing, either. It's called ADVERTISING. It's meant to be over-the-top and memorable. It may be wrong, but it is what it is.

I'm sure you've heard the notion that the most homophobic people are trying to hide the fact that they are gay deep down. That may or may not be true, but I'm starting to think the same applies to people who deny that mental illness exists. I wonder if they know something is wrong and they just don't have the internal fortitude to admit they might HAVE a mental illness.

But really, my money is on pure ignorance.

Over the past few days, I have heard many people say that mental illness is not real and that all symptoms of MI have a cause. We should be treating the cause. This could not be more true, as it applies to anything. If you have Type II Diabetes, you have to lay off the sugar and carbs. If you have clogged arteries, you have to lay off the cholesterol. Does that mean you reject medication or other treatment from your doctor? Of course not. That would be foolish, right? But that doesn't mean your sweet tooth hasn't caused your pancreas to malfunction. That doesn't mean your blocked arteries aren't taxing your heart. YOU STILL TREAT THOSE THINGS.

So if my brain's wiring is screwed up and somebody can help me... why wouldn't I want them to?!? If drinking is making your depression worse, you stop drinking. If ingesting fake sugars is blocking your serotonin, you back off of those, too. BUT YOU STILL TREAT THE BRAIN.

Mental illness deniers floor me. You really can't convince them of anything and if you suggest they might be wrong, they treat you like you're an uneducated bumpkin who just fell off the turnip truck yesterday. Some people can be enlightened but some people are destined to wallow in their own ignorance and suffer needlessly because they can't make peace with something inside of them.

I just hope their doctor decides to believe in the flu the next time they come down with it. Pin It

I Was Bullied

Hello. My name is Julie Fidler, and I am a victim of bullying.
Or, I should say, I used to be.

Like some of you, I spent my childhood being harassed, picking gum out of my hair, and crying to mommy about the scrapes and bruises inflicted upon me by other children. Namely, a girl named Nicki who lived down the street until the 6th grade. She was Satan in a midget's body. I can't say she was popular, though at the time I thought she was. I now realize everyone was afraid of her. She made 'friends' by force.

When the neighborhood gathered for a game of Hide & Seek, Nicki always excluded me. Nobody asked questions or defended me. I was chubby and sensitive, a perfect target for such a hateful being. She called me everything but a Child Of God. When she moved, I thought life would get better. Ah, but it only got worse.

Jenny, the girl across the street, quickly took her place with the help of her trusted sidekick, whose name I now forget. And because Jenny's family hated my family for reasons no one ever explained to me, they also bullied me. I once parked my bicycle in their driveway when I came over to play with Jenny. Her mother wasn't home at the time, but when she arrived, she found me in the basement and told me that she wanted to hit my "mother-effing" bike (she used the real words), but she knew I'd go home to daddy and she didn't want to listen to him "bitch." Just one example of how kind that family was to me.

Sometimes, some of the other girls up the street picked on me, too. Hell, everyone in my neighborhood picked on me at some point. I didn't have a backbone or any self-esteem. I had been sexually abused by a family friend and there were problems in my family. I just wanted to survive. Little kids are absolutely horrid to each other and everyone seemed to work together to make sure I was miserable. They were successful.

As I got older, I countered all of this by becoming hard as nails. So much so, I barely had any friends because I took the attitude that if anybody looked at me the wrong way, I would smash them to a bloody pulp. I developed a sick sense of humor and a foul mouth to back me up. I went from bullied to invisible... unless somebody messed with me. I wanted to kill myself. You bet your life I did. Either that, or I wanted a Mack truck to hit everyone at the bus stop on one of the mornings I stayed home from school.

Now I'm 31 and I don't hate those kids anymore. People change. I've changed, thank God. Do I still struggle? Yes, I do. I have been a churchgoing Christian since I was 13 and I still wrestle with the belief that other "church ladies" are better than me... or at least, they think they are. I don't like thinking about my childhood because it makes me very sad and as far as I am concerned, I never really HAD a childhood. But I have a good husband, a good life, an amazing God, and all in all, I think I've turned out OK.

What about the kids who never make it this far? What about the kids who take their own lives or go on a shooting spree at school? Who speaks for them?

Bullying used to be a rite of passage. You just...dealt with it. It was a part of growing up. Now we're all starting to realize that isn't the case, nor should it be. Bullying is serious and damages people for life. A talking-to by a teacher won't solve the problem. So what do we do? How do you take bullying seriously - and punish it seriously - while remaining age-appropriate? We can't throw kindergartners in jail for calling people fat, but we can't ignore it, either.

If nothing else, these kids need to be called out and held accountable. They should have to somehow atone for what they've done. And, because there is obviously a reason why kids act out in the first place, they should be given appropriate psychological help. I'm sorry, Nicki, but the way you acted back then wasn't normal. You needed a therapist. Desperately. We've all said something not nice, but you made it a way of life.

Those are the kids... that need to be dealt with.
The question is... how? Pin It

Safety Drains the Art Out of Living

Turns out, I'm a creative person. Who knew? Certainly not me! I never considered myself "artsy" even though I'm a writer because, to me, writing non-fiction is like writing a book report. You get the facts, you jot them down. I'm not a novelist or a playwright, though I've tried to be. I admire people who can lay out a fictional story and bring it to life. I long to be that way! By page ten, I'm ripping my hair out.

Back in August, I was given the opportunity to design some t-shirt designs for Amy Grant to sell on tour. If you don't know by now, I am a HUGE Amy Grant fan and have been for 20+ years. It all started when I painted the song lyrics to "Better Than A Hallelujah" and sent them off to my friend, who also happens to be Amy's manager. The next thing I knew, I was a shirt designer.

I enjoyed it so much I started painting other stuff. I have fallen in love with painting and over the past 2 months, I have done far more painting than writing. As wonderful as this is, it has made me realize that my love of writing has withered a bit. I used to write constantly but now I find it hard sometimes to really let go with words. This may sound odd, but I blame it on Facebook and the fact that I have virtually no anonymity anymore. Most writers would consider that a good thing. The more readership, the happier we are, right? Instead, I find myself a little put off by the fact that most of my family is on Facebook and a lot of them read and comment on what I write.

Friends and complete strangers applaud your honesty, whereas family cringes and begs you to keep things to yourself. I used to be very open and blunt about my life, but you don't see that too much anymore on this blog. Oh, have I mentioned no one in my immediate family has ever read my book or even owns a copy of it? So you see why I'm a little timid about opening the floodgates on Blogger.

I miss it, though. It was therapeutic. Writing about fluff and avoiding the deeper stuff takes some of the joy out of writing for me. I'm trying to regrow my coconuts so I can try and do that a little more.

When I paint, it's pretty cut-and-dry. Either you think I paint pretty stuff or you think I stink. Nobody looks at my paintings and calls my mother to ask her what's wrong with me. Nobody emails me to warn me to stop being so personal. Most of the time, what I write winds up in a drawer anyway. I could paint a picture of puppies eating a baby and none of you would ever know.

I've chosen painting over writing because it's safer. I've never liked playing it safe. It takes the art out of living.

Hopefully, I will be able to return to this blog a bigger, better loudmouth than ever before. Pin It