Like my depression and anxiety, I’ve had small bouts of insomnia all my life that got progressively worse as I got older. It wasn’t until I stopped self-medicating (which I advise against, because it’s only kicking the can down the road and it’ll catch up to you tenfold) and taking my mental health seriously did [...]
Breaking the stigma associated with mental illness includes confronting the misconception surrounding treatment. When I first started taking medication for my depression I was ecstatic. I was finally going to be happy all the time. My doctor told me that it would take at least four weeks for me to notice a difference. I couldn’t [...]
I developed a sense of normalcy regarding suicide. A common episode in my home was the one where my parents would fight violently for hours on end. The fights almost always included my mother’s blood and my father’s drunken threats to kill himself. After repeated exposure to the remark, it started to slowly lose its [...]
Trigger warning - sexual abuse My name is Brittany, and I’m 26 years old. My start in this world wasn’t the best and was rough but I didn't let that determine who I was or what I was capable of. I was able to fight my way through life, landed on top many times and [...]
What is Schizoaffective? Schizoaffective disorder is a type of mental illness which is essentially a combination of schizophrenia and a mood disorder. There are actually two types of the disorder. The first type is Bipolar, which has episodes of mania and depression; and then there is the depressive type, which only includes episodes of major [...]
A Brief Introduction My friend told me a backstory is always good. But how far does one go back? And how much detail should be provided? There are many things about my past experiences and environment that have affected my mental health over the years, and some may have even affected the development of my [...]
I just did the ultimate Marie Kondo yesterday. I deleted my Facebook account after over 10 years on it. I immediately felt a calm I have not felt since the mid-2000s. Which was exactly what I had been hoping for. I hadn’t enjoyed the social media giant for the last few years but felt it [...]
My Father is a Man of the Woods, and my Mother a Woman of the Wind. Their record collection, now combined and collecting dust on a shelf in the basement, is organized alphabetically and chronologically according to each artist’s history of creating sound. It begins somewhere around ABBA and plods along to Point Z, where [...]
Come As You Are For #NEDAwareness Week NEDA (National Eating Disorder Association) is hosting Come As You Are for the week of February 25 - March 3, #NEDAwareness Week. The organization works tirelessly to help individuals and families affected by eating disorders. NEDA aims to be a “catalyst for prevention, cures, and access to quality [...]
When do you get back to normal? Maybe the better question is whether or not there even is such a thing as normal. Society tends to make us believe that we should fit into standards they’ve defined in order to be considered a part of the status quo. But what does that even mean? [...]
