I’m one of the lucky ones. Mental illness enslaved me when it locked its sturdy chains around my hands and feet in the late 1990s. But I fought back – strongly and fiercely. Not only against the curse of the illness itself, but against the curse of the stigma it uses to plague its victims. [...]
For many years I was caught up in the vicious cycle of alcohol, anxiety and depression. If I was anxious, I drank. If I was depressed, I drank. Then I would sober up and the anxiety and depression were still there, only now I felt even worse. I suffered from social anxiety. I just wanted [...]
Trigger warning *talk of suicide I’m a walking. talking contradiction…at least in my mind. Living with Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Major Depressive Disorder makes me feel like a complete hypocrite because of my contradictory thoughts. I’m simultaneously stressing out about all the things I want and need to do while I have many thoughts that [...]
Darkness surrounds me and I feel as though I can’t breathe. All I want to do is sleep and cry, but then I see a light at the end of the tunnel. I try to get up, but it’s like something is holding me down so I can’t move. I try to move but it [...]
The faces of mental illness put forward by the world never match mine. They’re nearly always white rather than brown, as I am; they’re generally wild eyed or in the context of violence or out of control. That’s not how the people in my life describe me, and even those closest to me often miss [...]
NIGHT TERRORS I understood suicide the very first time I heard of it around age 11, I had been committing it every night in my sleep for a decade. My earliest memories at 18 months old were of night terrors that included a suicidal death. Wads of snakes in various sizes, colors and patterns slithered [...]
Sometimes, I just don't know how To console you Reassure you that you have validity Not get impatient or angry when you disobey me Or allow you the amount of independence you claim you have. Sometimes, When your sweet little self Shows her grown up attitude I feel.... Defeated. Small. Inconsolable. Panicked. Like Whatever comes [...]
The day I disclosed the abuse to my supervisor at work, it had already manifested as a critical issue that needed to be addressed. She and I were alone in that office as I sat in silence staring at the floor, too ashamed and too frightened to force the words from my mouth. He was [...]
Cross-wired I’m such a cliché. Every day I feel like a fraud. I’m mentally ill, I write, I drink, I smoke, and I paint the sounds that I hear – I have synesthesia. I am obsessed with my senses, they’re finicky, they’re cross-wired. In many ways we’re all like this. We taste twice, once with [...]
In June 2005, I was returning to the United States from my first deployment. As soon as my unit landed, there was a lot of fanfare from the public. I truly felt like a “hero” because our unit helped facilitate the first election in Iraq. My job as an electronic technician, was to maintain communication [...]
