My father told me once that the only people you can ever truly rely on for support are your family. This is the only occasion I can think of that my father has been completely and unquestionably wrong. Since developing an eating disorder, I have found a team of allies that includes family and beyond, [...]
I was in Florida. This wasn't my home. My home was in Pennsylvania, but I left that home in search of something new. I told myself that I was going to Florida for a fresh start, but I was really running away from the dismal life I was leading 2000 miles to the north. When [...]
For many years of my life I lived with and suffered from depression. I had an inability to open up about my emotions and the trauma I had experienced early on in life. At thirteen I was in a life changing car accident. An accident that forever made me different but at thirteen no one [...]
A birthday party in my Chicano family looks something like this: all of my aunts are in the kitchen frying up tacos to eat with homemade rice, beans, and fideo while my uncles and the cousins are all scattered around the house, cracking jokes, watching sports, playing with the family babies, but mostly waiting for [...]
Part 2 I was taking the subway when I finally broke down. I wandered into a pizza place, and then cried my guts out. Cops came and drove me to the hospital. When there, I got a new diagnosis of Schizoaffective disorder with bipolar features. They put me on meds and sent me home. I [...]
GOOD DAYS AND BAD DAYS Dear friend, I apologize I haven’t written to you in a while… I am probably typing it to you right now because of some selfish reason which I don’t wish to enclose. The fact is I don’t remember what I wrote to you last time. Too much or too little [...]
Part 1: My mental illness journey is a long and circuitous one. It began as soon as I could tell the difference between sad and happy. It now continues today, although I am fortunate and proud to be in recovery. My father was an abusive person, both to my mother and myself. We always [...]
Are you worth fighting for? There was a time when we were close. I looked to you as a mentor, a father figure. Now, the only thing you do is criticize me. I wish you could see the good in me. I wish you could support me. I know that you are a narcissist. But, [...]
No matter who we are, no matter the color of our skin, the religion we practice, the socioeconomic status we live in or our sexual preference, we are all living in a stigma. From the day each and every one of us are born we are signed up for a stigma that we never asked [...]
So, I was given the suggestion to write for Stigma Fighters from a contributor – who happens to be one of my closest friends. I have bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety and I happen to hallucinate because of an accident. I am medicated, but sometimes the meds do not work. My coping mechanisms, one of which [...]
