*Content Warning: explicit Eating Disorder symptoms, the use of numbers and weight-related discussion. Eating Disorders are not a diet. They are not a phase. They are not vanity. An Eating Disorder is a psychiatric illness. It has the highest mortality rate of any other mental illness. Did you know that the only thing you can [...]
The Filing Cabinet in my Head Like so many people I know, I suffer from multiple illnesses and each one is considered “invisible” as in, I struggle all day everyday but all of my symptoms are inside. The main diagnoses are Depression, Anxiety, Fibromyalgia, Endocrine Disorder, and an Eating Disorder. Like so many people I [...]
Sad. Comforting hug. A hand sweeps the mind with gentle flow, Soft and gentle touch becomes a daydream, Safe in the deepest corners of happiness, A mind escapes, but touch brings sadness, A touch becomes terrifying with warm hands, No words. No fun little girl games, Touch. Comforting hug. Not. Sad. Uncomfortable. Mind games plague [...]
My journey with mental illness started from the age of nine. Following a series of sexual experiences from the ages of six to eight, I found myself traumatized. My young mind couldn’t process what had occurred, and neurosis quickly set in. I started to feel a lot of shame and guilt as a result of [...]
*Content Warning: brief mention of disordered eating and specific foods. Over the last 4 years, I have talked about personifying Eating Disorders as a way to separate the person from the illness. I have talked about Ed as this mean, manipulative, lying jerk. I have used phrases like “kick Ed’s ass”, “break up with Ed”, [...]
Sometimes I feel like there are three sides to my brain: my POTS side, my anxiety side, and my “true me” side. Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome, or POTS, can wreak havoc on the body due to a faulty autonomic nervous system. The autonomic nervous system is the system in your body that controls everything you [...]
What are we but the sum of our memories and experiences? What if experiences are not remembered? What happens when that knowledge may be recovered? What does integration mean, really? What does it mean to be "multiple?" Separate experiences arise in separate states of conscious awareness. Each identity with their different set of memories stored, [...]
My strongest childhood memories are of headaches, backaches, sore legs, fatigue, and the constant feeling of needing to be small and of needing to hide. I presented to the world as a typical child. I was sometimes shy, sometimes outgoing, and usually very talkative. I went to ballet, jazz, tap dance, swimming, and piano lessons. [...]
Your dog ran away while you were at work. It’s okay, though, because we found her. I wasn’t sure how to process this text from my 18-year-old sister Gretchen, mostly because she had picked up the dog from the animal shelter two hours before sending it. She and her friend Gabby had been driving to [...]
by Lindsay Holmes Trigger Warning: This article contains graphic descriptions of suicide and self-harm. In his song “Hurts So Good,” John Mellencamp had it almost right. Sure, love may sometimes hurt good, but not in the way I’m talking about. I’m referring to the sweet burning release from pressing and [...]
