Mental illness is not easy. You cannot simply tell a depressed person to be positive and get over it. You cannot tell someone suffering from anxiety to just stay calm. You cannot reassure a person battling anorexia that if they just eat something it will go away. Mental illness is hard. It’s complicated, exhausting and [...]
Good days Some days, I am allowed to like the things I like. I have the glorious freedom to approach life in an unconventional way and to be someone that I have never seen in other people. Some days it's like I have the permission to celebrate and embrace and relish in the differences between [...]
HOW I LEARNED TO LIVE WITH MY ANXIETY DISORDER I've been battling anxiety since I was young. Like many children, I was terrified of the dark and unable to sleep unless the closet light was left on. But during my early school years, my anxiety manifested into a deep fear of traveling to unfamiliar places [...]
Anti-High Functioning I have been told many times that I am so high functioning for someone with depression. For a long time I not only did not mind this label but I embraced it. I thought I was fooling everyone, including myself with how I felt even though my cognition was rather disabled. I am [...]
1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 2000 - 500 - 60 - 30 - 400 = ??? Banana, 90. Pizza, 150-300. Apple, 100. Coffee, 0. For someone who hates math as much as I do, you would never know by looking at my life. In 2011 my life became a complete numbers game. Counting steps, squats, [...]
Bubble and gurgle Boil and spout These ugly feelings Want to come out Warm acidic pressure Tight eyes and sealed lips it's a wonder they can't tell I'm near falling to bits A quick action A thoughtless mistake Killed all good vibes Quiet animosity overtakes Shut my mouth Glue close my eyes But not my [...]
Four words you never want to hear: ‘I want to die.’ Or, the other variation, ‘I want to kill myself.’ Living with two children with serious mental illness who were diagnosed very early (age 7/8) who also have pretty constant suicidal ideation is, just frankly, stressful and heartbreaking. I can remember when my now nineteen-year-old [...]
When someone says they “literally had an anxiety attack” when something stressful happens, try thinking about this next time. An anxiety attack is two words I would love to never say again, never have again, and it hurts when you hear someone use a term that is utterly devastating to you as a joking phrase. [...]
I was always diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder (along with a diagnosis with PSTD). I was okay with that. It took some time, but I was okay with my diagnosis. I wasn't always. I went through stages. At first I was made at the defect that I was born with. Then I was sad, because I [...]
I've fought my battles with mental health for years. I never really stepped back to take a look at what was going on because I never thought about having a mental health disorder, no matter how I felt, because it wasn't something that people spoke about openly. I knew the symptoms for a flu, I [...]
