My Mental Health story begins with seeing my dad talk to his auditory hallucinations when I was 12. Before then, he would often whisper something to himself, but around the age of 12, I began noticing that he would carry on full conversations with himself without uttering a word out loud. This was before I [...]
On Sunday January 6, 2019 I sat on my couch watching ESPN and suddenly the darkest moment in my life kicked in as I was in auto-pilot at that point and felt like I had no control of my actions, feelings and emotions. My suicide attempt wasn’t under my own control, it was the level [...]
Harm reduction is a set of principles used in addiction support. It is strategies for supporting people, in whatever stage of their drug use, to make their current use safer. Recently I have been playing with the idea of emotional harm reduction. How can I apply harm reduction to emotions and to our responses to [...]
When you’ve solved a hard problem Before words can be formed There’s a small spark of light And your brain’s slightly warmed Unannounced one strange night The light it turned on Slowly growing and glowing A magnificent dawn Next a flood of ideas Poured in all around me Till I bathed in pure truth And [...]
Sixteen years ago I was a forty-year-old employed white male who had just informed his doctor that he self-harmed by cutting his arm. My psychiatrist at the time spun in his chair to face me, shock showing on his face. “Teenage girls normally do that,” he informed me. My embarrassment was immediate but I’d promised [...]
There’s an advertisement that airs frequently on daytime tv lately for some medication that helps with a physical condition, where the man talks about how he’s accepted the fact that he’s not as young as he used to be, he’s not able to do the things he used to, and the changes he’s learned to [...]
I charm and beguile Smile that damn smile Who can resist the wiles of the snow princess? I’m weightless in wool Aglow in the snow Lend me your hand, let me keep your warm fingers cold. I’m dressed heavy, so heavy Drowning in a fortress around me What is my body to them all but [...]
What is depression? It is a masked intruder. It disguises itself in mundane moments, seeps darkly under doorways. There is no time to prepare. It arrives and announces, “You are not necessary in your own life.” And you believe it. You watch your husband play with the children in the other room after you screamed [...]
The first week of my grad school program in dance/movement therapy and counseling I found myself at an inpatient psychiatric hospital, holding a set of keys that would get me onto all of the locked units. I was considered a student extern, meaning that I did not work for the hospital, but was there as [...]
I remember when I was five, I talked to a boy in my head. He would ask about my day. I would ask about his, but he would never tell me. He did tell me his name was Chris. I told him my sister’s name was Chris. That’s how I remember his name. I had [...]
