I was sitting as still as I could on our old couch, but time seemingly didn't notice my static state and continued to blissfully tick as I sat there, my body as a statue and my mind as a vortex. It was only 10 minutes until my first shift, my first real shift anyway, at [...]
Etching Therapeutically It’s amazing how tears never flow when fingers bleed through the screen. When a mind becomes tangible through etchings. The feelings caged find face. A picture. A palpable existence. Words are my minds eternal soul. ________________________________________________ Dear Words, If I didn’t find you, who would I be? Would I live among the pill [...]
Some People Just Suck Carefully maneuvering to grab the third plane of the day, I reached the line to board. Dressed in royal blue, the gate agent made his first announcement. "Anyone who needs assistance, extra time, or has a disability may board now. I approached the front of the line. "Pardon me." I said [...]
My father told me once that the only people you can ever truly rely on for support are your family. This is the only occasion I can think of that my father has been completely and unquestionably wrong. Since developing an eating disorder, I have found a team of allies that includes family and beyond, [...]
I was in Florida. This wasn't my home. My home was in Pennsylvania, but I left that home in search of something new. I told myself that I was going to Florida for a fresh start, but I was really running away from the dismal life I was leading 2000 miles to the north. When [...]
A birthday party in my Chicano family looks something like this: all of my aunts are in the kitchen frying up tacos to eat with homemade rice, beans, and fideo while my uncles and the cousins are all scattered around the house, cracking jokes, watching sports, playing with the family babies, but mostly waiting for [...]
GOOD DAYS AND BAD DAYS Dear friend, I apologize I haven’t written to you in a while… I am probably typing it to you right now because of some selfish reason which I don’t wish to enclose. The fact is I don’t remember what I wrote to you last time. Too much or too little [...]
No matter who we are, no matter the color of our skin, the religion we practice, the socioeconomic status we live in or our sexual preference, we are all living in a stigma. From the day each and every one of us are born we are signed up for a stigma that we never asked [...]
So, I was given the suggestion to write for Stigma Fighters from a contributor – who happens to be one of my closest friends. I have bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety and I happen to hallucinate because of an accident. I am medicated, but sometimes the meds do not work. My coping mechanisms, one of which [...]
The moment I was sat in my room on the bed and the only thing I could see was the stack of tablets in front of me. I overdosed on antidepressants and other household drugs such as paracetamol. Luckily for me the combination was not toxic enough to kill me before I was found by [...]
