Mental Illness

Here are five powerful things that did — Swallow a pill and talk about your problems. That's how mental health is treated in the U.S. I'm not here to knock these things. Countless people benefit from these interventions. They save lives. But after many years of therapy and medication, I realized I needed to go in another direction. …

A Poem About Compulsive Behaviors

Living with and learning about bipolar disorder — Let’s face it, we all have our individual experiences of bipolar episodes. Some experience ‘stability’ in between episodes, whilst other people don’t have a reprieve whatsoever. Again, some of us experience highs & lows, whilst others may only experience one or the other. I fall into the latter grouping. …

“O you who have believed, why do you say what you do not do? Great is hatred in the sight of Allah that you say what you do not do.” (Quran 61:2-3) This quote from the Quran highlights the seriousness of hypocrisy in the eyes of Allah and the importance of being true to one’s words and actions. It reminds Muslims to practice what they preach and to be honest and sincere in their beliefs. Hypocrisy (Nifaq):

Being abused for feminist reasons, by a feminist cis man. Content warning: intimate partner violence, abuse, consent violations I fled my relationship and home in January. Since then, I’ve returned often to mulling over what happened in the 6.5 years I spent with my ex-partner, ruminating, digging through the stacks (the records- oh the records! I am a scientist, I…

Not too long ago, my friend asked me if I considered mental illness to be a chronic illness. My knee-jerk reaction was to say no. I’d always thought of chronic illnesses to be a physical ailment. But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense to say…

“Who’s your favorite person?” for a neurotypical person this question might imply to name the person you look up to the most; that someone you like to spend time with, and so on. But for someone like me, a BPD patient and neurodivergent, this implies so many other things. Let…

The hardest thing to do is stop something that makes you feel good — Having the power to make a strongly thought-out individual like me out of myself was nothing but a miracle, I thought. Yup, that’s right, every day, I always get in my way! Trying to outshine the other piece of shit I feel I have buried deep inside my bones is…

Depression. She had a blanket laid over her lap. She was gaunt. Eyes sunken. Pale. Weight that she couldn’t spare, slipping from her. A flightless trembling bird, stuck in a shrinking nest. She talked of the new medications, daily routines and rituals they prescribed. She cried for her boys, her life…