*Trigger Warning - Sexually Explicit, Self-Harm* Worrying about Worrying But somewhere in my soul, I know I’ve met the thing before. Real Riches, - Emily Dickinson It is healthy to worry. It is okay to worry. If we didn’t worry, we wouldn’t plan for things and have backups and contingencies in place. Worry [...]
Recovery is Non-Linear Recovery is non-linear. Anyone who says that getting better is a straight line - I want their secret. I want to be stable, but what does that mean? It means sometimes being unstable, wobbly, broken in particular ways. We shatter and come together. We hurt and we heal. We scream, cry or [...]
I recall sitting in her office. She was warm and had a lovely smile. My childhood therapist. I didn’t know her name and I had no idea why I was there but my parents took me to her every week after nursery school. I played with G.I. Joe’s small plastic figurines; they were always saving [...]
I’ve always been the quiet kid. I was always described as “shy” or “bashful.” I rarely volunteered to read to the class or present my project. I had to be strong-armed into doing a lot of social events. School. Church. Work. If there was going to be people there, then I was terrified to go. [...]
Prozac stopped my nail biting I used to be a nail biter. I can remember biting my nails from the time that I was a small child (probably only six or seven) I would do it when I was nervous because I needed something to focus on rather than anxiety . But at the time [...]
“But what if I drop the baby?”: my life with postpartum OCD I always wanted to be a mom. When I met my husband, even though we were young and knew that starting a family was years away, it was something we still talked about and planned for. We picked out names that we liked, [...]
Although I have had an opportunity to rack up a fair share of successes, there was a time when I could barely leave my house as I struggled with the crippling symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), which causes uncontrollable, reoccurring thoughts and behaviors. This struggle occurred due to one major reason: there was little access [...]
I Have A Fabulous Life... And A Mental Illness I remember eating lunch in a bathroom stall in high school. That sucked. I think the bathroom might be the worst place ever to each lunch. It’s lonely and... it smells like poop. My heart breaks for that girl in the bathroom, quickly eating her ham [...]
The other week, I 'perved' on a teenage girl in a displacement camp. The sixteen or seventeen year-old from Nuba in South Sudan, now languishing uneasily in the nearby town of Kodok and being filmed by a team of BBC cameramen, was wearing a thread-bare, semi-transparent whisper white tobe (as is traditional in the region), [...]
I avoid talking to strangers! I am never comfortable in unfamiliar company, and wary of half the world it seems! There is one stranger who just won’t let me be, one who I am especially afraid of! She tells me that I am capable of terrible things. I pray to GOD I’m not! She hints [...]
