Darkness surrounds me and I feel as though I can’t breathe. All I want to do is sleep and cry, but then I see a light at the end of the tunnel. I try to get up, but it’s like something is holding me down so I can’t move. I try to move but it [...]
The faces of mental illness put forward by the world never match mine. They’re nearly always white rather than brown, as I am; they’re generally wild eyed or in the context of violence or out of control. That’s not how the people in my life describe me, and even those closest to me often miss [...]
NIGHT TERRORS I understood suicide the very first time I heard of it around age 11, I had been committing it every night in my sleep for a decade. My earliest memories at 18 months old were of night terrors that included a suicidal death. Wads of snakes in various sizes, colors and patterns slithered [...]
Sometimes, I just don't know how To console you Reassure you that you have validity Not get impatient or angry when you disobey me Or allow you the amount of independence you claim you have. Sometimes, When your sweet little self Shows her grown up attitude I feel.... Defeated. Small. Inconsolable. Panicked. Like Whatever comes [...]
The day I disclosed the abuse to my supervisor at work, it had already manifested as a critical issue that needed to be addressed. She and I were alone in that office as I sat in silence staring at the floor, too ashamed and too frightened to force the words from my mouth. He was [...]
Cross-wired I’m such a cliché. Every day I feel like a fraud. I’m mentally ill, I write, I drink, I smoke, and I paint the sounds that I hear – I have synesthesia. I am obsessed with my senses, they’re finicky, they’re cross-wired. In many ways we’re all like this. We taste twice, once with [...]
In June 2005, I was returning to the United States from my first deployment. As soon as my unit landed, there was a lot of fanfare from the public. I truly felt like a “hero” because our unit helped facilitate the first election in Iraq. My job as an electronic technician, was to maintain communication [...]
CRASH I’m just going to let loose. Forget about punctuation marks and such. I’m spewing a hornet’s nest from my mouth. I’ve been riding a manic high for three days now, one I haven’t felt in over a year. Oh the things I got done and the creative projects and I wanted to skip in [...]
My story is one you have heard before. I suffered in silence for many years while Major Depressive Disorder slowly destroyed my mind. Alongside the disorder, I also had worsening sleep apnea which denied my body, and mind, the rest it needed to recover. Together, my self-esteem was destroyed and my ability to function in [...]
What does living with PTSD mean to me? That’s both an easy question and a difficult one, mainly because while I could spout off a bunch of facts about what it is, the symptoms, causes, treatments, and all that, it’s much more personal to someone who suffers from it. Living with the trauma of being [...]
