Red Lipstick When people talk about anxiety they talk about the huge and strange ways it impacts your life... what they don't talk about is how it can deteriorate the day to day. There was once a time when I was too afraid to wear red lipstick. I felt too bold, too visible, and not [...]
Trigger warning- self harm When I was in the 7th grade, I cut myself for the first time. I didn’t even really know why I was doing it. I just knew I was hurting and so far, my attempts to get someone to take the way I was feeling, had failed. I told a family [...]
Oprah said that when something isn’t working right in our lives first the universe gives us a whisper, then a nudge, then a push, then a shove. Then we’ll get hit with a brick and if we still don’t listen an earthquake will come along and totally disrupt our lives. Well, I waited for the [...]
*Trigger Warning - sexual abuse My name is LJ, I was born and raised in New York. I was born into pure chaos, the youngest of five to two dysfunctional parents. I have had PTSD since the age of 4. During the course of my childhood I was tortured, neglected, starved, and sexually abused my various adults...including [...]
I am going to write about me, but I have to start earlier. Mental illness has a genetic component and mood and thought disorders tend to run in my family. When I was 15, my 21 year old brother was away at college. He had a psychotic break, but we didn’t know what had happened. [...]
Land of the (not so stigma) Free I am livid. I am so frustrated and hurt that I am physically shaking. As someone who almost lost their life to a treatable condition because of negative stereotypes, misinformation, and stigmatizing jokes, I will not laugh when a presidential candidate insults their opponents by implying they are [...]
Hello. I have wrote for Stigma Fighters previously about my Trich once before. You may or may not know what it is depending on if you've heard about it or have it yourself or perhaps know someone who has it. A month after I submitted my essay to Stigma Fighters I wrote another essay or [...]
When you have a mental illness, it’s customary to look back on your life and try to decipher when it all started. I’ll start with this: I’ve always felt different. That might sound cliché, but it’s true. As a teenager, I was quiet. I spent a lot of time locked in my room reading books. [...]
Sickness, Stress and Self-doubt… And Then There’s Me…. By Berni OK, I was a miserable child, from what I remember. I was the only kid with glasses. I moved about because dad's work moved about. So I joined my junior school mid-year. Don’t ask me at what age. Anyway I was bullied at junior school [...]
Psychotic episodes from 19-33 years old. All I could do was hang on for the ride. From spending a vast amount of money to going from job to job while still staying in my field. From having numerous sexual partners to having unsafe sex with them. To having my 20s a blur and my 30s a little [...]
