Trigger warning: I go into a bit of backstory regarding how my super religious homeschooled upbringing changed how my mental health as a teenager was/wasn’t treated. Some of this content could be triggering. In the deep South, you go to church every Sunday, say “y’all”, and always properly address your elders. You drink sweet tea [...]
Mervyn Kaufman gives voice and color to the full range of emotions he experienced while seeking help to treat his depression. Who knew that this wimpy guy with a wispy beard was actually tough enough to help me turn my life around? He was of medium height with sloping shoulders and a slightly thick gut. [...]
i can kinda understand why i didn't used to express how i was feeling. because i was traumatized by my own "father." days extending to months, to years have i heard my father shout at me, harshly asserting that i am to blame for his mishaps, his key gone missing, so he grabbed me by [...]
Re(member) Dad? By Patrick J. Derilus remember that time, when we lived in West Haverstraw, that time i was about a teenage boy in middle school, and my mom was outside doing something, you came out of the shower, humming some kind of a moribund song. i walked out of my room, and you snatched [...]
I was six years old when I realized something was wrong with me. There had been signs before then, of course, which I had dismissed as being part of my temperament. Even at four years old I remember feeling sad, anxious, and uncomfortable. Back then, my anxiety manifested itself in a less harmful way. I [...]
Involuntarily staring at 'nothing' is a coping mechanism used by millions with PTSD. It is a sign of Dissociative Disorder. Dissociation is a daily part of my life. I do it countless times a day both knowingly and unknowingly. I say that because while I realize that I do dissociate quite often, I don’t always [...]
My dear old friend depression used to visit me a couple times a year, then she started coming around once a month, eventually she just moved in. Now I can't imagine not living with her by my side. She sleeps in my bed, she eats my food, she goes out with my friends. At first [...]
Addiction is a disease that affects those closest to the addict. This could be because of the money that is stolen or spent on treatment, the emotional turmoil caused by not knowing if the person is safe, or any other number of ways that addiction affects the family. However, an unforeseen effect that addiction has [...]
It was rare that my sister, Sandi, and I visited my father at the same time, but that summer things had fallen into place, and we spent the last weeks of July crammed into a trailer five miles outside Belton. The trailer was half a century old, eight feet wide and forty feet long, but [...]
I’ve been reading through people’s stories, their struggles, their battles, and one thing repeatedly stands out to me. Most people start their stories with the age that they felt their mental illness really took a hold, usually around 13 or 15, thereabouts. But what if you always felt it? What if from the young ages [...]
