My heart is telling me I need to leave and get out of town. My stomach is so nervous, it is threatening to wage a war and force me to completely shut down. This stupid blinking line is taunting me, saying I’m too scared to write the about ripples of 2016 that shattered me. Why [...]
Depression: Thinking in Metaphors I am depressed. The realization comes barreling down on me like a truck with no brakes, slamming headlong as splinters and shards slice open my reality. But the doctor isn’t in the office today. And it’s the weekend. And the counselor has no available openings for months. And I realize that [...]
It’s Me, Isn’t It? My dream was to get a PhD. in Philosophy from either Vanderbilt or Princeton. I’d been accepted to both of their graduate / postgraduate programs. It was Spring. I had spent all my years since college saving and planning for this. My problems started out with a (relatively) simple emotional issue: [...]
I am 34 years old and still feel like a kid when I engage my parents like this. I had called them and asked if I could come over and “talk about a few things.” What I want to talk about is me, mostly. This will be incredibly awkward. While we live in the same [...]
I have never been the one to bring blind optimism into any situation. I mean, I’ve always believed in hope, and having faith, but never that everything will work out exactly how I want. Frankly, the world doesn’t work that way, and I knew this even as a young child. My parents used to tell [...]
Locked Out Hopping onto the bathroom vanity made of fake marble, that my mother called elegant, I studied my face. The answer to my question had to be hiding somewhere in my features. Why wouldn't other kids play with me? With desperation, I searched my reflection for what made me unacceptable. Two slightly slanted green [...]
“I can’t do this anymore. I can’t help you.” “You just want me to admit that I am broken! You are looking for a reason to leave” “No. I am looking for a reason to stay.” Not everyone can can look at the exact moment when their lives changed. I am lucky. My partner Gray [...]
“My arm is a spider web, my brain is a raging fire and anyone who wants to tell me I’m fine doesn’t know what’s going on in my mind.” That is what I wrote on November 13th, not knowing that just 4 days later my friends and colleagues would be taking me to the ER [...]
I would like to start off by saying I am one of the many people to be hindered in life by depression. Many people who don’t necessarily struggle with depression think of it as only being overly sad; I’m here to tell you that is far from the truth. Depression can come in many forms [...]
Right now I feel like I’m standing on fairly level ground looking back over the past several months of spiraling anxiety and depression like a rocky, brambly, dark, deep canyon I just traversed. Things are slowing down now and seem a bit brighter. All the sleepless nights and nightmares, the headaches and stomachaches, the loss [...]
