It was three years ago - almost to the day now. I only know that because Facebook reminds me. Most of the first year of my son's life is gone, lost, erased from my memory. Before he was born I knew nothing about traumatic births. I thought that postpartum depression was middle class White women [...]
I Am Surely Dying... It truly amazes me how in the matter of just a few days, my body and my brain, can completely double cross me... A friend of mine recently posted how we are less than 200 days away from Christmas. This had me thinking about last Christmas and my immediate family that [...]
Fighting the Deluge I have told my story more times than I care to count. It is a staple of rehab: you start at childhood and narrate through your addiction. You tell the sordid story of your suffering until you reach the heartwarming conclusion where everyone hears what you learned and how you are all [...]
I realized something was different when I was in grade school. When I was six, the compulsions were small – like scratching my nose exactly five times or touching part of my bedpost before I went to sleep. But as I grew, so did they. Even though we were not a religious Jewish family, I [...]
I’m 50 years old, and I have PTSD that is probably complicated by traumatic brain injury. To look at me you wouldn’t know, but I have an EEG scan of my brain to prove it. Until recently, I didn’t know what it was like to not feel anxiety, depression, paranoia, shame and a nagging belief [...]
ME: Mental illness roared into our family like a freight train in the winter of 2002, when he was seven years old. It was probably always there, like a whisper in the distant woods and even though we knew it was eventually going to find us, there was nothing that could be done to prepare [...]
To Be Both Client and Clinician By Vincent J. Fitzgerald I sit in serene, soft light and contemplate what is safe to share, and what I should withhold. My war against anxiety is fought on many fronts, and I am battle weary from its barrage of multiple manifestations. Across from me a person waits for [...]
I’m eight years old, sitting alone in my room; Dr. Phil is playing on the TV. A blonde woman is crying about her inability to wear red or associate with numbers that say 666. I can’t tear my eyes away. The same red shirt has hung in my closet for the last year because I [...]
Have you ever completely lost control? I am not talking about a bad frat party in college, I am talking about when your body and mind don't match up. This can happen in so many ways injuries, illness, today for me it was a massive anxiety attack. I'd suffered from postpartum anxiety after the birth [...]
Being Good At Living With Mental Illness Doesn’t Mean I Don’t Have It “How do you just talk to people so easily?” she asked me. “I’d be so anxious.” “That’s my secret,” I replied, pulling out my best Mark Ruffalo in The Avengers voice. “I’m always anxious.” I’m often told, especially by people in mental [...]
