It’s nice when there’s a good day. Wake up and I got what I call “energy.” That’s the feeling of bounce, like imagine an old elastic band, okay, and you stretch it but it’s gone. You see the rips starting and get worried; an average day for me. Get a new one and there’s bounce. [...]
What any trauma survivor wants is one simple thing: to be believed. It's enough to know that something out of your control happened to you. When you have the strength to tell someone that you were violated, and the person on the other end doesn't believe you that is devastating. Your head feels like it [...]
*Trigger warning - sexual abuse Stay in my body. I don't want to. I wish I could float above it like I used to when it started to happen. I want to check out. I want to be free. I don’t want to remember what happened to me. I don’t want to recall hands on me. [...]
Why I Waited Too Long To Feel Better The top 10 places panic attacks have hit throughout the years of my life: Under a table in California. In a movie theater. In a restaurant after worrying I’d eaten too fast. In a meeting at a huge, round table where I couldn't hide. In my bed, [...]
One of the crucial things to remember about living with mental illness is this: the more you know yourself the better chance you have of having a happy successful life. When you receive a diagnosis, remember that this is a diagnostic tool to help you heal. Once you know what you have, you can start [...]
The first antidepressant side-effect to hit me was the yawning; it became a constant. I started to wonder if I'd ever be able to stop. “Don’t worry about it,” Duncan reassured me. “After the sleep deprivation you’ve been through, yawning all the time is perfectly reasonable. It’s your body’s way of giving in to the [...]
Prozac stopped my nail biting I used to be a nail biter. I can remember biting my nails from the time that I was a small child (probably only six or seven) I would do it when I was nervous because I needed something to focus on rather than anxiety . But at the time [...]
I can remember sitting in my therapist’s office and feeling a distinct sense of loss. I had just been given a temporary and non-medical diagnosis of Cyclothymia. For months leading up to this moment I had been dealing with increasingly harder downswings followed by upswings of mania. Most of these episodes would happen over the [...]
"Do you have your keys?" "Yes." "Do you have your wallet?" "Yeah." ... "Okay, so do you have your keys?" "I told you, yes." "I still want to make sure." "Nothing has changed since 45 seconds ago." "Right, but still. Can you just check?" "I have them." "Can I see them?" Unzips bag "Here." "Okay [...]
dear bipolar, you’d think after 18 years together we’d know each other pretty well. but yet there are still parts of you that are unknown to me. you are like my innermost organs, always there but i didn’t learn about you till later on. this body isn’t mine anymore bipolar, it’s ours. i can’t see [...]
