The Advantages and Disadvantages of Being a Bartender with Borderline Personality Disorder. The lights are dim and the music is blaring. There are drink orders being shouted at me while I’m in the middle of mixing, shaking, and pouring cocktails. The bartender working alongside me is on her phone. I roll my eyes. “Ding! Ding! [...]
I had few "constants" in my early life. We moved often and had no financial stability. Mental and emotional abuse by my stepfather made each day hard to predict. Physical and sexual abuse by my stepbrother, however, was consistent. Because we moved so often, and I had to say goodbye to so many, I learned [...]
Trigger warning - sexual abuse We were all girls once The men who assaulted me had assaulted other girls before me. They assaulted other girls after me. We’re part of the same rusted chain, those girls and I, the chain that tethers us together the same chain that tethers us to the gate on the [...]
Stigma Fighters - Michelle Joni CATHARSIS AND UNICORNS “The Queen of Play is Depressed!” This was my first subject line to the doctor who would soon become my first adult [...]
When I was growing up, we had a clawfoot tub- no shower- and while it was inconvenient at times, it became very comfortable to relax in. After a long day of wrestling practice, or biking across town to play pickup football with my friends, a nice long hot soak was the perfect remedy for my [...]
I don’t want to be disabled but I am. I have multiple disabilities. I don’t even know if I like the word disability. Dis-ability – it’s so negative. In the 1990s when I was growing up, you insulted another person by “dissing” them. When I hear the word disability, I feel that I’m being dissed [...]
I’m a 27-year-old native New Yorker with the accent to boot. Yes, I’m that New Yorker that rolls my eyes at the vacation “zombies” that clog the sidewalk and I’m not afraid to tell them where they can put it as soon as they start getting full of themselves. Even when I moved to Massachusetts [...]
That Time My Therapist Told Me I Wasn’t Raped — And Other Ways People Dismissed My Body I can’t remember when it started. I remember looking up at my mother, perhaps age 4, and she was trying to get me to eat a cookie, saying I wouldn’t get fat, that it was OK. I [...]
“It’s Not Me, It’s My Brain” -- Sarah Comerford Recently I wrote the introduction to the fourth Stigma Fighters anthology. It was a proud moment for me. I’ve been with this organization since its inception, and I am thrilled how far we’ve come. I mention this in the introduction, but I also mention how far [...]
Mental Illness Is Ugly - Sparklle Rainne and Sarah Fader Once upon a time, I lit a box of vomit on fire. It was an attempt to hide my Bulimia. I had nowhere to purge, so I puked into a box and slept with it in my room all night until I could drag it [...]
