My first depression hit in high school after a major car accident. The day I returned to school, there was a fire alarm and I had excruciating pain due to my concussion. I isolated, but thought I'd get through once I got to college and could start a new life. I didn't know that more [...]
*Trigger Warning - Suicide* I am 70 years old. My story won't end stigmatization. It was around in the earlier years of my life and it is still around. It doesn't bother me much 'cause I don't wear a flag'. "Crazy" is not 'who' I am. Schizophrenia is my diagnosis. In Canada, the disorder [...]
Trigger Warning *Suicide* In 2012 I put a gun to my chest and pulled the trigger. That was when I realized that I had a problem. For years I’ve suffered with severe depression, bipolar disorder, and drug/alcohol addiction. As a queer non-binary man living in the South I had always had issues with self [...]
I'm living on a tropical island, surrounded by beautiful people, and I'm constantly treated like a VIP. That's all true, but it's not the whole story. I'm also a 39-year-old alcoholic who abandoned his wife, 8 kids, church job, and everything else that once mattered to me. My rental is 1,700 miles away from my [...]
My Struggle With Bulimia And Addiction For many people, addiction isn’t their only struggle. It’s estimated that nearly half of all persons afflicted with addiction also suffer from a co-occurring disorder. This may be depression, bipolar disorder, PTSD or an eating disorder. Body dysmorphia and eating disorders can begin at any time, and for me [...]
Free The first time I thought about killing myself, I was seven or eight years old. My parents had recently separated. With their separation, the thin film that had kept me from falling into a dark hole wore through. In fact, I had reoccurring dreams about it, about a hole, in our front yard, sucking [...]
WHY DO MENTAL ILLNESS AND ADDICTION SEEM TO SO OFTEN GO TOGETHER? _______________________________________________________ The day I asked myself how I had travelled so deeply into my depression—when all I wanted was to get out—I wore an anti-suicide smock and cried in a basement jail cell in Williston, North Dakota. I write that I travelled to [...]
Freed Control is my Insanity My name is Jay Insalaco. I am a husband, father of two beautiful children, and a public worker. Life wasn't always like this, here’s my story. In 1995 when I was 19, I started going to a rave club in New York City called "the tunnel". At this club I [...]
