SOFT AND MADE OF MELTING SNOW 'I am and not, I freeze and yet am burned, Since from myself another self I turned. My care is like my shadow in the sun, Follows me flying, flies when I pursue it, Stands and lies by me, doth what I have done.' It was hot. Exactly eight-hundred [...]
Let me tell you about a time, a time of crime, well it’s a crime in my head, a memory that still fills me with dread. Hitting rock bottom on a personal level, I staggered into my flatmates room with a knife, out of my mind, a sign of hope I couldn’t find, deep down [...]
The Rhinoceros On Top of Us Lauren Hunchar writing for Stigma Fighters Once, I was a teenager in the early years of her acquaintance with depression. I was a girl scared of her own thoughts, feeling alone, confused, ashamed. I got scared enough to tell Mom I was worried; scared enough to push past the [...]
We grew up with self-esteem We grew up with this notion that to be happy, we needed to have good self-esteem. We were taught to be self-confident, assured, secure in ourselves. We were told to fake it till you make it, to project a sense of self-esteem even when we didn’t like ourselves. This thinking [...]
HypersexualityMaySometimesBeAtrocious By the time you wonder if you’re manic, you already are. I check off symptoms on the Goldberg Mania Questionnaire, hoping I don’t meet the highest score, florid mania. Ivan Goldberg was pretty clever. Loss of interest in eating and sleeping? Definitely. Hypersexuality? Nope. But before the plane takes off on my way home [...]
I Have 30 Tabs Open In My Browser and My Brain I’m hypomanic/manic. There are 30 tabs open in my browser. It’s difficult to close any of them, even after bookmarking, because how will I remember what I was looking for? Noting the websites seems like a good way to track the manic stream before [...]
Shame is a stronger, more-lasting emotion than love or grief. It’s can stain one’s soul in shades that never lighten or fade with time. Sex is so often the earliest lesson plan in shame. There are expectations and attitudes which are acceptable within contexts we learn through trial and error, standards to cleave to demonstrate [...]
Depression does not discriminate. Depression doesn’t care who you are or what you achieve or how funny or cute or smart or kind you are. Depression can take anyone down. And unless you’ve been in the empty abyss of depression, I can promise you that you will not fully understand what a nasty liar depression [...]
Pondering my own existence. Hear them pondering it too.... Everyone has different views of who and what we are, or should be. An incomplete part of the whole, or one whole part complete itself? Who do they want to stay, who needs to go? Am I real? There's a constant back and forth with what's [...]
So, after I nearly took my own life back in 2011, it was only that point in my mental history that I really focused on being real with myself. I went through a lengthy outpatient program. I found a (nother) therapist. She was one of many. There have been so many therapists that have floated through [...]
