Caitlin McColl
Stories (137/0)
9 Ways to Deal with Anxiety
Have you ever woken up with your heart pounding and filled with dread for no particular reason? Or maybe your palms get sweaty and you feel all weak and panicky when you have to give a presentation in school? That’s anxiety, and something most of you are probably familiar with at some point in your life. Anxiety is our body’s natural response to stress, but it can also get out of control – when our body’s threat-detection system is malfunctioning. But everyone’s response to perceived threats or danger is different, so it can hard to identify the type of anxiety.
By Caitlin McColl3 years ago in Psyche
How You See The World
Chapter 1 - The Unseen He had walked past the place a million times and had never noticed it before. He pulled his thick wool coat tighter around himself, turning the collar up over his ears as another strong autumn wind blew past. His coat was black, and the low grey clouds made his white-blond hair seem even whiter than normal.
By Caitlin McColl3 years ago in Fiction
6 Ways You May Experience Grief
Have you ever felt that you aren’t going through grief in the right way? If so, know that there are lots of different kinds and what you are experiencing is totally normal. Grief is that hard-to-describe mix of feelings after you lose a loved one or even a cherished part of your life, like a job you loved, or if your best friend moved away, and it’s something that we will all eventually go through.
By Caitlin McColl3 years ago in Families
Radio Silence - Part 7
RICHARD The alarms went off as soon as Richard left the lab without the proper precautions. But at that point it was too late. He had heard the saying before of your heart sinking, but had never thought much about it until then. The minute the alarm began to blare throughout the hangar, he felt his heart, it felt like it was actually falling through his body and into his feet. It was the strangest feeling. He was thinking so much about his heart sitting in his feet that he didn't register the screaming and shouting right away. I must be in shock, he thought. It felt like things were happening in slow motion, and that he was simply an observer looking in from the outside. Someone in a suit ran up to him and shook him by the shoulders, a thin, reedy, balding man with glasses. What was his name again? Frank? He delivered presentations with lots of graphs and charts, Richard vaguely remembered. He remembered struggling to stay awake during Frank's presentations.
By Caitlin McColl3 years ago in Fiction
Have Writer's Block? Do This, Not That
As a writer, well, my whole life really, I’ve had the dreaded writer’s block more times than I can count. And it's very frustrating when your creative juices run dry and you’re scraping the bottom of the idea barrel and coming up with nothing much at all.
By Caitlin McColl3 years ago in Lifehack
Radio Silence - Part 6
Memories are a strange thing. They’re like movies that you can watch in your head, on repeat. Watching them over and over again. But they can also betray you. Somehow, sometimes they aren’t exactly how you remember them. Little things change. Or you imagine things happening that didn’t actually happen the way you think they did.
By Caitlin McColl3 years ago in Fiction
It Feels Like I've Come Home
I’ve always loved writing and have been doing it since I was a child. The first story I can remember writing, I must have been 5 or 6 and I put together an illustrated book (made of construction paper), about a knight called Michael (funny story, my husband’s name is Michael). I wrote fantasy stories throughout my teens, even giving a fairly dark and twisted one to my Dad for Father’s Day one year (he was probably like: uhhhh, thanks?). I ventured into fanfic in my teens writing some stories about Star Trek (TNG). For a short period I even ended up writing articles on Vampires (on the history and myth of them, which you can find on my website, (or here on Vocal starting with this one) after writing a paper for a Sociology class in University (that was a strange rabbit hole to go down!).
By Caitlin McColl3 years ago in Motivation
The Secrets of Fireflies
Oh no, she thought. This can’t be good. A sharp laugh echoed around her and she snapped her head up. “Thankfully you’re not a detective!” The voice floated toward her through the gloom. Anise didn’t think she’d spoken aloud. She could barely see in the dim light of the underground city, despite the watery green-ish glow from the firefly light, high above them. She lifted the dark lantern higher, bringing her companion’s features to life, melting away the sickly light from the fireflies. He looked healthy, and alive, unlike the person on the ground between them. His kind blue eyes with the crows-feet at the corners made her feel suddenly stronger than she felt a moment ago.
By Caitlin McColl3 years ago in Fiction