I had a traumatic childhood. My father was an addict, chronic hoarder, paranoid schizophrenic and a dealer. Whilst he never hurt me directly, the clientele he let into his house was a different story. For most of my young life, each day was an endless tedium of boredom and neglect punctuated by moments of intense [...]

Depression. You ask me: "what does depression look like?" Well, depression can be many things or just one thing at once. Sometimes, depression doesn’t look like anything; Sometimes depression is hidden. Depression has traits that are hard to understand. Depression looks like hands of a stranger coming up behind you grasping your neck, leaving little [...]

She had been the fearless one, entrapped in a perception that she had created for so long. She listened silently as her friends commented on the latest news. Another famous person had taken their own life. “What a waste” one said “I don’t feel sorry for them, they had everything,” Said another “Why?” was heard [...]

I lay here, curled under the covers at 1 p.m. Motionless, I stare at the curtain blocking the world out. Sometimes I think it ripples, feeling the breeze against the window. The overnight rain has subsided but I guess there’s more to come. The dark cloud of depression has settled itself in my room. Stretching [...]

This mental health office is pretty nice for a government room. There are ferns and lush ivy, and they seemed to be thriving. There are maps and trinkets all over, as if someone real works here. As if they might have a real name and maybe a whole life outside of these four walls. As [...]

I was voted most likely to succeed as a high school senior. Like so many things in my life, it surprised me. I thought I understood success, but I was wrong. My first year at Ohio State, I fell head-over-heels in love and married the next summer. A month after my wedding, newly 19, I [...]

Imagine being trapped inside a dark room with no windows...... there is a way out but it’s so dark inside the room that you know it's going to take time to find it. In this room, the air that fills it is toxic. Full of anxiety filled gases. Every breath you take plugs you with [...]

My Mental Health story begins with seeing my dad talk to his auditory hallucinations when I was 12. Before then, he would often whisper something to himself, but around the age of 12, I began noticing that he would carry on full conversations with himself without uttering a word out loud. This was before I [...]

On Sunday January 6, 2019 I sat on my couch watching ESPN and suddenly the darkest moment in my life kicked in as I was in auto-pilot at that point and felt like I had no control of my actions, feelings and emotions. My suicide attempt wasn’t under my own control, it was the level [...]