On bad days, I don’t know where the anxiety stops and the chronic pain begins. The tightening in my chest could be warning of a panic attack or of a fibromyalgia flare that will spread across my chest, down my arms and into my hands, rendering me unable to write – both my work and [...]
*Trigger Warning - Sexually Explicit, Self-Harm* Worrying about Worrying But somewhere in my soul, I know I’ve met the thing before. Real Riches, - Emily Dickinson It is healthy to worry. It is okay to worry. If we didn’t worry, we wouldn’t plan for things and have backups and contingencies in place. Worry [...]
*Trigger Warning - Suicide* I am 70 years old. My story won't end stigmatization. It was around in the earlier years of my life and it is still around. It doesn't bother me much 'cause I don't wear a flag'. "Crazy" is not 'who' I am. Schizophrenia is my diagnosis. In Canada, the disorder [...]
*Note: These poems are not a series but rather individual poems that stand by themselves* Pinwheels Purple clouds spin like pinwheels I shoot my crimson arrow droplets burst my soul falls with them still my ego is drenched with sorrow. I shoot my crimson arrow I am high as that child’s kite still my [...]
Trigger Warning *Suicide* In 2012 I put a gun to my chest and pulled the trigger. That was when I realized that I had a problem. For years I’ve suffered with severe depression, bipolar disorder, and drug/alcohol addiction. As a queer non-binary man living in the South I had always had issues with self [...]
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 [...]
*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 [...]
*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 [...]
