I Wasn't a Bitch; I Was Schizophrenic -Michelle Hammer I didn't want to speak. I didn't want to be noticed. I didn't want to be bothered. I wanted to be completely ignored. It was high school, and I was an undiagnosed paranoid Schizophrenic. I remember thinking, “What's the point?” What was the point of doing [...]
Allow me to tell you something that I have dealt with and continue to manage, but certainly, does not define who I am as a person at all. I was diagnosed with a mental difference called schizophrenia. About two and a half years ago something happened to me; when a history of experienced trauma in [...]
Cicadas and Honeybees They’re buzzing again. The hum is warm like thick ribbons of honey unfurling to the bottom of my tea cup. As they flutter their wings faster, swarming around in my head I begin to feel their vibration throughout my entire body. My bones quiver under their drone. My toes prickle as if [...]
In a society where appearance is everything, I find it exceedingly difficult to get people to see past my beauty and into my reality. I present myself well groomed, well-spoken and my affect is rarely inappropriate. Due to these factors, no one would presume I suffer from an assortment of severe and pervasive mental illnesses. [...]
Psycho in Disguise A True Story about the Life of a Schizophrenic by Rochelle Tschida Words 1565 Date Sep. 7th, 2016 A waitress at The Modern on 53rd in New York City approaches your table. Her glasses are artistic, funky, slightly too big for the small face they adorn. People person, it’s obvious she has [...]
It’s 3 am…. My 18 year old wakes up, sobbing and screaming “Mommy!”. I rush into her room, knowing that she didn’t take her anti-psychotic medicine. “I’m bleeding, my hair, I hit my head when I fell and now it’s bleeding. My brain, inside my head… I’m going to die. I am dyeing Mamma. Oh [...]
I was six years old when I realized something was wrong with me. There had been signs before then, of course, which I had dismissed as being part of my temperament. Even at four years old I remember feeling sad, anxious, and uncomfortable. Back then, my anxiety manifested itself in a less harmful way. I [...]
Reflections on Overcoming Stigma to Pay Forward Back when I was just a yuppie, I learned a few points of wisdom that I want to pay forward to some mental health academics and administrators. I was learning to chop cheese steaks at a Korean owned deli and instantly enamored with this mentor on the grill, [...]
Trigger Warning: Talk of panic and paranoia. We're All Mad Here I have spent a vast amount of my adult life battling, confronting, denying, engaging and dancing with my nemesis diagnosis of Paranoid Schizophrenia. Most of the time I find myself just stuck. Belligerent thoughts that argue back and forth that are not my own. [...]
*BIG trigger warning on this post. Talks about Depression and has mention of some graphic suicidal thoughts and actions/ self harm. If you are easily triggered right now, I would not recommended reading this at all. * Unrelenting. Unforgiving. Empty. Hollow. Excruciatingly painful. Physically painful. Confusing. Heavy. Suffocating. Desperate. Lost. Isolated. This is what Depression [...]
