This is a true story about me. First, I want to say that I wish I could go back and change a lot of my life choices but I obviously can't. Suicide and suicide attempts are terrible things to even consider. I hope my story helps someone else seek help instead of making the same poor choice that I did by staying silent.

I believe that you can be both happy and sad at the same time. I believe that you are capable of experiencing two emotions at once, even if they are polar opposites. I believe that you can experience two emotions while only recognizing one. Happiness and sadness do not necessarily coincide with each other. They can both live but never meet. On the flip side, happiness and sadness constantly walk hand in hand. They can reside beside each other in the same room. There are some nights you feel alone and all the sadness and remorse in your life fills you up. It expands into every crevice, every nook, and cranny, every inch of your body. Something happens though, maybe little, maybe big. It shines a patch of light and for while you still see the sadness, but you experience the happiness and soak up every last drop. And in that moment, it’s the best you ever felt. You feel like you are in two places at once. You feel like you are at opposite ends of the solar system. You feel stretched beyond capacity, beyond your breaking point. It builds up this high and you cannot get enough. When there is hardly any happiness left it clashes against the sadness and creates this sonic boom and a wall of insanity runs through your body and it's over. You lie on your bed numb and basically emotionless and you can’t get a clear thought through your mind. The music that once played ever so softly pounds in your ear and your blood pulses through your body at the same beat. During this time, you couldn’t be bothered. You just sit in peace before the sadness comes back and it all repeats again.

1-800-273-8255 By Logic

On February 15th a 40 year old woman took her own life. I may not have known her, but she was one of the 7 billion+ humans I share this planet I call home with. She had a life to live, family and friends who loved her, and so much left to add to the shared experience we are all living through. But n0w she's gone. And though I didn't know her, I can't help but feel pangs of genuine anger and sadness.

An Open Letter to Lady Gaga -

“No one is going to hold your hand if it looks like that,” I remember the first time that you told me that. Eight years old, I had chewed my nail and picked the cuticle so badly I was bleeding. “I just need a bandaid,” half embarrassed, with zero understanding of how anxiety can manifest itself.

Who is Patrick Bateman?

The physical health of Europeans is improving, yet the same cannot be said for mental health. Whereas public health has been a priority, it is mostly focused on physical health and disease prevention, with mental health being secondary. Nonetheless, suicide accounts for 1.4 percent of deaths worldwide and is the second most prominent cause of death amongst young people. The act of suicide should not be considered an individual issue, but rather one that affects that person’s family, their surroundings and society in general.

I was fairly late to the anxiety party, I can't say it was one I particularly wanted to be invited to after hanging around the depression get-togethers for too long.

Your brain is who you are, it’s what makes you, you. You wouldn’t be able to speak, breathe, move, or feel without your brain; so why damage it? When drugs enter the brain it interferes with everything, which can eventually lead to it changing how it works overtime. This also means you are at high risk for addiction, a serious disease that can ruin your entire life, even with the littlest amount of drugs or alcohol. Teens don’t know the dangers drugs and alcohol can do to your brain or the fact that you’re slowly poisoning your brain when you are consuming these harmful substances. In the long run, drugs and alcohol will ruin your life permanently; a little can do a whole lot.

Hi, My name is Taylor.. I’ve had a rather strange journey.. I’ve had my highs and I’ve had my lows. They call me a silent sufferer. Because I’ll stay locked in my head about things that are serious for a long while. And just suffer the consequence and loneliness of my minds way of being a jerk. I am very humble I don’t take anything for granted... I think? I can actually be very positive despite the negative challenges I face inside my mind. I believe you can find the positive to every negative... and at times that can be hard! I’m really into the mind. I pay attention to facial expressions, body language, tome reactions, responses and remarks in order to better understand what people are really thinking... I pay attention to these things even when I’m not the one engaged in conversation with them to get an idea of not only who they are but how they think and why that’s how they think. I’m very literal and serious... although can’t anyone also be a huge goof ball. My down side I here is that I like to have control over everything around me I like to have everything close to me that I love so you could imagine how being a mother with out her children is extra challenging for me. I obsess on making myself perfect because I want them in my life. But I haven’t won that battle. I am a very open and very honest person I am not ashamed of anything about myself Although I do feel that I am failing my babies. I do feel ashamed of that. However I also feel it’s a shame that when you need your loved ones the most it’s conditional I feel when your at your lowest you should be able to count on them to not give up with out a fight on you but instead they get angry and blame everything on you just not caring. In reality they couldn’t be more wrong not care? My kids my life my my mind my heart my everything just all down the tubes and you think that I just don’t care? Why is it that people think that addicts just don’t care? Like you think I am happy with only living a partial life? Do you think I am happy that my children my children are not with me? I mean they are my babies how could I not care about that? Seriously? Simply because I’m addict means that I don’t care I guess... and everyone leaves it at that because they don’t want to deal with the truth but I. Reality because no body wants to deal with what needs to be dealt with in addiction addiction is the greatest most huge pandemic in the world and we lose thousands of people everyday to addiction! But never mind that right? I like to meet the needs of people who are spiritually hurting who are sad who have had a bad day who need a hug because I know how that feels so I’m easy to relate with . Empathy is a huge deal and I don’t think very many people have it which is a shame because we all have feelings and half the people bottle them up and go half the time being in a bad mood are just focussing tunnel vision on what they have to do which yay everyone loves 9 to 5 that’s what I live my life for systematic function yes haw!!! I like how systematic people don’t like to deal with the realities of addiction or to deal with the addict at all but yet their family member a people that are missed may e it’s a part of that systematic function and peoplw don’t even know it? In my stories I’m going write a lot about addiction

My eyes heavily cracked open after midday. For the past what seemed like years, I had regulated my routine to being that of non at all. Three days earlier Nick and I had imposed ourselves onto our friend, Eddie, and into his tiny studio apartment. A double mattress lay on the floor with a small flatscreen perched at the foot on a grey plastic milk crate. The menu screen for Sin City playing on repeat. I must have been tangled in those sweaty sheets for twenty four hours at least.

This is a true story about me. First, I want to say that I wish I could go back and change a lot of my life choices but I obviously can't. Suicide and suicide attempts are terrible things to even consider. I hope my story helps someone else seek help instead of making the same poor choice that I did by staying silent.

When someone is the victim of physical trauma such as a car crash, an act of violence, an accident, or disaster, or witnessing traumatic actions in riots, that person is existing in a highly focused, absorbed and emotional trance state. How that person is thinking is not going to be logical as they enter into survival mode. A person will respond to direct literal statements but may be unable to consciously process everything if their emotional intensity is too high. It takes training, support, and consistent feedback to operate under extreme stress, and those who do well have practiced several plans. Those who do well know how to access a situation and can work with what they have. This article will post basic principals to keep in mind that trained professionals from the dungeon to the solider get drilled on.

If you haven't read my first article, please do as soon as possible. It will be of great help and with end where we begin in this one. After I finally got a hold of myself and figured out how to calm myself down I realized, as will you, how much time I had lost worrying about things I couldn't control. Whether it be the dishes, laundry, or putting something off that could be done today. I blamed people for my worry when they had no control over it. I never even saw this issue until I went to my first group meeting. I had absolutely NO CONTROL over my feelings which screwed up my entire life. I made horrible decisions, financially and in my home life. I was the problem and no one could fix that but me. As I said, I had wasted a lot of time. That time was over. I started small with doing things for myself to keep myself within serenity. How do you start, you ask. Here are three ways to do that.

There's a time when we’re aware of being overstressed and know that we have to take time off from work to recharge. Although, sometimes we feel obligated to push through and think it’s better to keep at it due to having no time to rest.

For as long as I can remember, I have struggled with anxiety. I grew up as an anxious child and I have struggled with severe worrying my entire life. I have been on and off various anxiety medications and have participated in just about every form of therapy and exercise designed to help relieve anxiety.

Hi, I'm bipolar.

"I like giving it to people."

1997 I met the man that I would marry. I have continued to go undiagnosed. Although I continued drinking, I was no longer doing drugs. I started to substitute cutting for the drugs. We dated for two years before getting married. It was not an easy relationship. Everyone has issues but I don't think he realized how deep mine ran. He loved me, though, even through the drinking. After we were married things were great for a few years. I got pregnant early on so my drinking stopped. We had a baby about every two years from 2000 - 2005. After my last baby I went into a depression. My doctors figured it was postpartum depression so the medication they prescribed was short term. So I felt better for a little while. I started focusing all my attention on raising the kids. What I couldn't realize at the time was that I was in a manic period. Mania can be just as destructive as depression. I felt like I could do anything and was having black outs. I would go shopping and when I got home, have no idea what I had bought. This seems strange but I was having dissociative episodes and had no control over what was happening. Then a major change to our lives pushed me back into depression. My husband started attending a school three hours away that he had to stay at all week. He would only be able to come home on the weekends. So we made the decision to move so his commute would be a little bit shorter. I started drinking again. I was bouncing between mania and depression. I had what was called rapid cycling. I put further strain on our marriage with drinking during depression and spending in mania and the constant self-harm. Around this time I was officially diagnosed with bipolar disorder. I went on several medications. I started experiencing side effects, including extreme fatigue. It was not an easy time with four young children, side effects and not having my husband at home. After a year of ups and downs, he graduated. Part of his new career required that we move to a new area. We had no choice but to leave family and friends behind. This increased my depression and the strain on our marriage. My husband had no idea how far I had fallen. One night he was out on night shift and I decided that I couldn't continue. I had nothing left and only saw one way out. I got drunk and tried, once again, to take my life. It was my youngest child that saved me. She got up to use the bathroom and needed my help. There was no way I was going to let her see me like that. Since I was quite intoxicated, I couldn't remember my husband's cell phone number. So I dialed 911 and explained the situation. Everyone came....police, fire, ambulance. It was complete chaos. No one could find my husband so they were preparing the kids to go with someone. Then as they were loading me in the ambulance he came home. He was extremely confused and kept trying to get in the ambulance with me. I screamed at him to leave me alone and go help the kids. After I sobered up at the hospital I was admitted to my first psychiatric hospital. It took them about two months to get my medicine where it needed to be. Once I was discharged, I did not immediately go home as our marriage had not improved during this time. We spent about a month apart. During this time I did a lot of self reflection. I began to realize how much was happening in my mind. I also knew that running from my marriage was not the answer. So I went home. I felt like I was getting somewhere with my health. The process to accepting my diagnoses had started. We were ready to work on our marriage and my health. The problem was that I was very timid and not very knowledgeable about bipolar disorder. Whatever the psychiatrist suggested, I did. That was a big mistake. He started over medicating me. I slept all the time. My routine was get up, move to the couch and sleep some more. My husband had to work, take care of four young kids, run the house and take care of me. On my good days I knew something had to change. I realized I was over medicated. So instead of talking to the doctor........I just quit taking my medications. I don't EVER recommend this. I fell into a very dark hole. During this fall I tried to take my life once more and ended up back in a hospital. When I was able to be released, I once again felt like I was getting somewhere. My medications were working and we were working on our marriage. It was at this point that I returned to church and my relationship with God. My husband and I were baptized in a local lake. We felt renewal in our marriage and I felt renewal in myself. We made the decision to move back to the area around our friends and family. This was one of the best decisions we ever made.....

I’m writing this as I continue to reflect on the emotional impact of the George Floyd murder on myself as a black woman and on the world that has seen that video and the subsequent fallout in the protests, looting etc.

Take a deep breath so you don’t lose control, I coached myself as I finished the last of, enough dishes for a dinner party of eight or more. My hands were trembling, which in return made it difficult to hold the soap filled plates while scrubbing away food grease. My husband quickly paced from the living room, down the hall and back, out through the sunroom then repeat.

I have always smiled my way through adversity and being put in Mental Health Hospitals again and again is no different. I think it started happening to me though long before I was ever diagnosed with a mental health diagnosis.

I believe that you can be both happy and sad at the same time. I believe that you are capable of experiencing two emotions at once, even if they are polar opposites. I believe that you can experience two emotions while only recognizing one. Happiness and sadness do not necessarily coincide with each other. They can both live but never meet. On the flip side, happiness and sadness constantly walk hand in hand. They can reside beside each other in the same room. There are some nights you feel alone and all the sadness and remorse in your life fills you up. It expands into every crevice, every nook, and cranny, every inch of your body. Something happens though, maybe little, maybe big. It shines a patch of light and for while you still see the sadness, but you experience the happiness and soak up every last drop. And in that moment, it’s the best you ever felt. You feel like you are in two places at once. You feel like you are at opposite ends of the solar system. You feel stretched beyond capacity, beyond your breaking point. It builds up this high and you cannot get enough. When there is hardly any happiness left it clashes against the sadness and creates this sonic boom and a wall of insanity runs through your body and it's over. You lie on your bed numb and basically emotionless and you can’t get a clear thought through your mind. The music that once played ever so softly pounds in your ear and your blood pulses through your body at the same beat. During this time, you couldn’t be bothered. You just sit in peace before the sadness comes back and it all repeats again.

It was cold and she was empty. She could feel nothing but despair. Alone in a dark room she lay in her rugged and broken bed. Her curtains pulled back and window wide open so she could stare out in to the blackness of the night sky. Jess the young girl, who nobody cared about, had nothing to lose and nothing to fight for. She was on her own and to her that was normal because she had never known anything different.

Another sunrise in North America.

Well how do I begin this.. Let me start by saying I suffer from Skitzofrenia. I’m also a addict I’m now medicated but when I wasn’t let me tell you about just a little bit of the craziness I experienced mentally...

I’m sure most of us have had thoughts of wishing a part of our body looked different, our hair was thicker, or our eyes were a different color -- because, who hasn’t, right? For me, I wish my boobs were a little bigger, more perky. I wish my bikini line didn’t get such bad razor burn. I wish my teeth were straighter, whiter. There are many physical characteristics I’d like to change, but I’ve also learned how to accept myself just the way I am. That’s not to say I don’t still have those thoughts, because I do. And I’m sure you’ve experienced them a time or two as well. What’s important is to be aware of how often and how extreme those thoughts occur.

Anorexia is an eating disorder characterized by weight loss, difficulties maintaining a healthy weight, and oftentimes, a distorted body image, and it actually isn’t about food at all. In reality, this disorder is an unhealthy and possibly life-threatening way to cope with emotional issues surrounding a negative body image and poor self worth. At any given moment, 0.4% of young women and 0.1% of young men will suffer from anorexia nervosa.

I swore to myself I wouldn’t talk about having an eating disorder. Especially after I ‘recovered’ (aka – I gained weight so nobody could tell anymore). I tried to shake it off of me as if it was some embarrassing phase where photos were the only evidence that it existed – to get rid of it like it wasn’t apart of me. But it’s a mental illness – you don’t recover from it, it doesn’t just leave – things just become more muted? Throughout the years I’ve tried to keep it away from lovers and friends but I love to drink and eventually, I tell someone and then the closer I get to them the harder it is to hide it. The bad habits start to emerge, the weird relationship with food, the nasty comments about myself, and the endless cycle of dieting.

I wake up in intense pain. My physical body was aching with unbelievable sensation that it had almost rotten away during the few hours of the night. My eyes stuck together momentarily as I awaken, the dry tears from the previous night stung. I lifted my heavy head and body out of bed and dragged myself towards the dresser. I couldn’t think of anything worse than going to school that day, but I had to push myself. The extra steps are exactly what will get me back on track.

I want you no more. In your origin you seemed fruitful, but through the entirety of the process I saw you for what you really were. The salty drops fall on my meadows no longer. The reservoir from which they originate shall be depleted. These thoughts I have when you appear to me are of the nefarious kind. Like a Nosferatu, your thirst is unquenchable. However, this gluttonous greed that you withhold will be apprehended from your heart. Worry not though. These precious sins of yours shall be put back where they belong. The abyss that I was trapped in will be their new resting place. Seek them not, for you will never reach them. For none of us can return to the place that we were born. Once we decide to grab that light, we cannot return to the comfortable darkness. Not even you, darkness itself may return to it. While in nature you are dark, but it entitles you not to the bed of darkness.

It was one of those dreary days where a grey filter covers the land. I remember it clearly because the old Allen Inn looked incredibly musty when I first saw it peering through the fog on that brisk November afternoon. It was a historical building from the 1800’s made of brick and covered with rich, green verdure like laced stockings crawling up its sides. The Inn was located not far from my childhood home and I can remember riding my bike past it as a child. My pigtails matched the pom-poms that dangled from my handlebars as I glided down Fowler Street. At the time, I didn’t know what the place was, I only ever heard my mom say, “You better settle down or you’re going to the Inn!” I figured she meant she was going to book me a room all by myself so she could have some peace and quiet at home. Peace and quiet, that’s why I had returned to the place, to soothe my mind.

Disclaimer: The following account of the given NHS symptom relates solely to the writer and is, in no way, a blanket generalisation of how all people think it feel. It has been shared to potentially allow more understanding, or to allow other sufferers to take comfort knowing they aren't alone.

May is mental health awareness month and I, your obnoxiously woke friend, haven’t said anything about it. I’ve felt very self conscious about it, not because I have an “it” to talk about, but because I suddenly feel very inadequate. Who did I think I was to try to articulate any of the complexities of living with a mental illness? Why did I want to start talking about this in public and set myself any expectation to live up to? All I am now is a diagnosis, and, depending on who you are, that’s maybe not a good thing.

This morning I have been in a weird mood. I am not happy, but I am not sad. I am more in thought. I am, of course, thankful that at least I awakened to see another day, right? My kids are healthy and here, and my life seems to be okay if I was an outsider looking in. Many do not know that is what depression looks like. I go to therapy, take medication to control these vibes, But none of that works for more it seems. I want to be transparent at a point in my life, and I do not want to make the outside look good as much as I want the inside to feel good. That is the most essential part.

Are mental health issues really on the rise? Some would argue that, statistically, yes they are, on the basis that Gen-Z Snowflakes are too easily upset and too ready to ‘identify’ with whatever personality or issue they choose. They lack the definitive British resilience, the Stiff Upper Lip, the Keep Calm and Carry On mentality.

This excerpt from my life is a true account; and, due to the traumatic nature and the way our memory works- fully accurate, as well. Childhood and adolescence will have to wait- too many tales of horror to be told of those years. My book is in progress.

At the time, I thought it was alright. I thought I was the one for you as you to me. Then my worst nightmare happened. My world went from bright to dark over a course of 4 years. I never believed you would actually hurt me until one day you looked at me as if I were nothing to you... The look in your eyes scared me and when I ran you grabbed me and asked "Where are you going?" and I passed out. That's how hard you hit me. The next day at school you acted like nothing happened but how can I? How am I able to just smile and be fine with knowing you hit me and constantly thinking when it's going to happen again. I was so scared and eventually it was like clockwork being with you. I wrote down in my diary how often you would hit me and honestly it could make a book along with a sequel.

My life has been less than graceful, to put it nicely, so I'm going to be following my pattern by writing this in a less than graceful way. I'm not going to worry too much on being chronologically correct because I don't even really know when certain things happened in my own life. So I guess just sit back and enjoy the roller coaster.

Part 2

The decision to post this article has not been easy, in fact writing this article has been a lulling thought in my mind for a while. 'But the thing is…you have to decide whether you want to write the story, and sometimes that can be very difficult'