*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: Self-Harm* I never felt like I belonged. I grew up in the hood and never had a home. Literally. For some reason it was just me and my mom. She was very abusive. I kind of know why now that I am older. She tried. She was severely abused when she grew [...]
It's been 6 years but the memory of my first panic attack is as fresh as it happened yesterday. It was my first day to my job after graduation and I was travelling to work on the metro train. Suddenly, I noticed my chest was getting tightly grabbed from inside, there was no pain just [...]
*Note: These poems are not a series but rather individual poems that stand by themselves* Pinwheels Purple clouds spin like pinwheels I shoot my crimson arrow droplets burst my soul falls with them still my ego is drenched with sorrow. I shoot my crimson arrow I am high as that child’s kite still my [...]
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 [...]
TW: Abuse, Eating Disorder, Suicidal Thoughts I am 18 years old, but I feel as though I am just finally figuring out my place in this world and my identity. All my life I have lived with social and generalized anxiety disorders, as well as depression. It was not until I reached high school when [...]
Marble I hold a green and blue swirled marble in the palm of my hand. This fragile sphere is a miniature earth—I am larger than life. Sophia Falco is the author of The Immortal Sunflower (UnCollected Press, 2019), a winner of the Raw Art Review Poetry Chapbook Contest. The Immortal Sunflower is a [...]
In the spring of 2015, after a stay in a psychiatric ward, I was diagnosed with a psychotic disorder. For a long time, I struggled to accept my illness. I was ashamed of it. The very idea of talking about it to anyone was embarrassing to me as if having a mental illness made me [...]
*trigger warning - self-harm* When I first became mentally unwell, I never thought I'd be here now, sharing my story—a survivor of my own minds torment. I was 16 when I was first diagnosed with clinical depression. I was in such a dark place, scared of the thoughts in my head, scared of what people [...]
Oops, I Left My Anxiety At Home When you have had anxiety for as long as I have, it kind of becomes a part of your identity. Life without it feels great but strange and unfamiliar at the same time. My most recent episode of crippling anxiety resulted in being prescribed a ~very~ effective medication. [...]
