My name is Nyaruai Gitonga. I will be 30 in February and I live in Nairobi Kenya. I have been rather morbid all my life, I’ve been fascinated by death more so curious on what the feeling just before one leaves this world is like. I took it as a legitimate curiosity which allowed me [...]
It’s pretty difficult to narrow down when my journey actually started, but I’d say it became most prominent during my junior year in high school. The summer before my junior year, I transferred schools and moved in with my aunt and uncle so I would have more educational opportunities. It was a gutsy move now [...]
Even though I had several encounters with schizophrenia when I was a child and a teen, it manifested itself around year 2000 when I was married with no kids but 10 miscarriages. It hit me hard but I fought back, fighting it until year 2008 when it completely engulfed me. I wrote a book about [...]
A Letter To Silence From The Girl Who Found Herself I want to thank you for your time, your comfort, your peace, for you have saved me from my demons. When I struggled with my depression and anxiety, I always knew I had you to count on. When I couldn’t get the conflicting thoughts of [...]
If I hold my arms out, I can tell you which way is east and which is west. I can point up and down to tell you that the sky is “north,” and the ground is “south.” Behind the wheel, that changes. “Head east” does not make sense to me. I have to think extremely [...]
Ho Ho Horrible: My Newfound Battle with Christmas Depression We’ve all heard the stories about depression around the holidays. People cite increased suicide rates with the enthusiasm of a toddler showing off their newest toy, despite the fact that these statistics have been proven false. To dismiss December as being a ‘safe’ month, however, is [...]
I was born into a family of extraordinary women. Many of them ahead of their time; they went to college, started companies, donated to Planned Parenthood, long before any of those things were acceptable for their gender. My grandmother loved telling a story about how my great-grandmother stormed into the house one day demanding a [...]
What Does your Face Say to the World? I don’t look sick. I look “normal.” That word haunts me. Is normal taking dozens of selfies from different angles to get the best one for social media so that people know how happy you are? No. Tried that. Is it begging someone to love you for [...]
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! [...]
Anchor I stared at the reflection of myself in what looked like a mirror, but really it was just a cloudy acrylic fiberglass, also known as, a ‘glassless mirror, the blue scrubs that I now wore were made of a thin cotton and the pants were so long that they were dragging on the floor. [...]
