TW: Abuse, Eating Disorder, Suicidal Thoughts I am 18 years old, but I feel as though I am just finally figuring out my place in this world and my identity. All my life I have lived with social and generalized anxiety disorders, as well as depression. It was not until I reached high school when [...]
Marble I hold a green and blue swirled marble in the palm of my hand. This fragile sphere is a miniature earth—I am larger than life. Sophia Falco is the author of The Immortal Sunflower (UnCollected Press, 2019), a winner of the Raw Art Review Poetry Chapbook Contest. The Immortal Sunflower is a [...]
In the spring of 2015, after a stay in a psychiatric ward, I was diagnosed with a psychotic disorder. For a long time, I struggled to accept my illness. I was ashamed of it. The very idea of talking about it to anyone was embarrassing to me as if having a mental illness made me [...]
*trigger warning - self-harm* When I first became mentally unwell, I never thought I'd be here now, sharing my story—a survivor of my own minds torment. I was 16 when I was first diagnosed with clinical depression. I was in such a dark place, scared of the thoughts in my head, scared of what people [...]
Oops, I Left My Anxiety At Home When you have had anxiety for as long as I have, it kind of becomes a part of your identity. Life without it feels great but strange and unfamiliar at the same time. My most recent episode of crippling anxiety resulted in being prescribed a ~very~ effective medication. [...]
*content warning - suicidal ideation* It was November and traffic was awful. A downpour had turned the freeway into one long hydroplane. Even if I hadn’t been sobbing, visibility was almost nil. My two children were strapped in their car seats behind me. Both were screaming, the three-year-old punctuating every shriek with a kick to [...]
I’ve read that 70-90% of people with a diagnosis of schizophrenia are totally unemployed or completely disabled. I received this diagnosis when I was 20. And today I decided to shut down the home based business I have been running for the last 10 months, mostly because of the toll it was taking on my [...]
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