I was 18 when I was first diagnosed with anxiety and depression. It was after Christmas break, my freshman year of college. After a night of partying, I woke up hungover, depressed and at my wit’s end. My parents came out that day to check on me after I called and cried into the phone. [...]
On Listening to Schizophrenia by Robert Wertzler The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone: He cannot choose but hear; And thus spake on that ancient man, The bright-eyed Mariner. From: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1798 I have written elsewhere on the subject of listening to those afflicted with mental illness, especially [...]
I am an #EverydayWarrior. Every day I wake up and face a battle. Not because I am courageous or brave. No, I face a battle every day because I have to. My name is Caylee Shea and I have debilitating, chronic illness. After receiving the Gardasil Vaccine when I was 19 years old, my life [...]
You walk in to the old basement gymnasium. The silence is only relieved by the crawling ticks of cheap lighting and the desperate whine of a fly that followed you in from the cold. Lucky for you the fly leaves you alone and heads for the tiny snack table that’s covered with stale donuts and [...]
Educate or Suffer My Wrath I hate waking up in the morning. Every day is a constant struggle but mornings are a defining moment. When I open my eyes, fate is decided for me. Which side of the Bipolar spectrum will I be on today? I never get to choose. It chooses for me. What [...]
They don’t know… What it feels like to be inside my head All day Long. To run with the thoughts and fears That whiz through my brain Constantly. To worry about what others will think Because I’m not “normal.” Or what people conceive as normal. They don’t know How hard I try to appear normal, [...]
Monday, November 9, 2015 - Speed of Mental Illness When the mind goes a speed that isn’t sanely normal, it makes me wish I had more than one Danica. When I first wake up in the morning, lately most mornings I would just like to stay in bed. The room feels dark and cold. Outside [...]
Sometimes depression sneaks up on you. You're just going about your day without a care in the world, and you realize there's a little tug at your heart that's demanding attention. As you look into the situation, you realize you've been growing more and more depressed over the last few days, and now, there's no [...]
From Thug to Advocate Growing up in inner city Washington D.C. hearing gun shots was an everyday thing. In the early ‘90s D.C. was like a war zone and violence was something that I had grown accustomed to throughout my childhood. My changing point came when I was 14 years old in 1996. My brother [...]
Terminal Illness –The Paradoxical Motivator There is a bikini bottom on my kitchen table! As ridiculous as this may sound, the memento from my daughters’ summer laundry is symbolically larger than life and I’m sure the visual is pretty amusing too. Amid the other remnants of our newly unkempt existence, I try with all of [...]
