People that have depression such as myself have our good days and our bad. Do we tell others? No, well I know I don't. I keep it to myself, I don't want others to see anything but my happy cheerful self. I don't want to speak the existence of the depression. I thought that maybe if I hide it good enough it would go away, but it doesn't.

Madness creeps up your spine.

In January 2018, my housing provider referred me to a new surf therapy program which was being piloted. I was sceptical; how on earth could surfing be therapeutic? Wouldn’t I drown? At that point I was willing to try anything to help my ever-worsening PTSD.

Why is it we remember the insults more than the compliments? I don't know – something about that sort of sucks. Even when we might receive a dozen compliments over a short space of time and a single insult months prior – it's the insult that gels and stands above all else. And those few compliments? Damn – they're never enough to make us forget about that one rude remark.

I have now found a new hobby and that is writing letters to parts of me that I struggle with. My mind and my thoughts are an endless battle. This battle originates from life experiences. I shouldn’t think that circumstances will continue to reoccur or if someone cheated me that means everyone else will. I should be strong enough to know I need to heal and not to drag anyone into my darkness. Everyone goes through trauma, heartbreak or loss in their life, if it starts to affect your wellbeing and relationship then working on them is vital.

I have never known damage this closely. I have never known this feeling of being cracked and bulleted all over, as if falling in a blank space this deeply. Empty hands, nothingness in the fingers, no one to help stunt a trust fall. A back flip is all it takes for me to crumble into millions of tiny molecules. It’s always felt like a part of me has gone missing. Something was stolen from me and never restored. My heart, my soul, my feelings? What is it that’s walked away from me and never returned home ? This habit of always giving myself to everyone who seems to be missing a part of themselves, this flaw of believing every individual who turns up to me with teary puppy eyes but a knife pointed at my back, this naivety in me that makes it so easy for everyone to manipulate me like a puppet they use to entertain themselves on a boring Sunday evening, seems to have costed me way more than what losing trillions would have.

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.

There was something wrong with me.

In the interest of full disclosure, there are links to Amazon books. Opening will benefit the author financially.

So, to explain the photo, this was a test strip that I used to test the remaining paraphernalia I had left, after I had overdosed and nearly lost my life to fentanyl. Like most people I started with a Percocet prescription from the “doc” aka my dealer. Soon enough you realize these grab ahold of your life and they do not let go. Soon the dosages aren’t enough and you resort to buying your pain medication on the street. I lasted about 10 years of just using what doc prescribed, but soon enough I was searching the streets of a very dangerous neighborhood, basically racially profiling anyone I thought could get me what I needed. (I had heard from some friends certain blocks have guys standing outside selling them). After about 3 hours of paranoia and debating wether or not to get out of my car I met “T”. He was as friendly as your local deli lady, asked me what i needed and, let me tell you his customer service was bettter then Walmart’s lol. But anyway, I proceed to wait on the corner of a street where 15 other dealers are standing trying to get their money. “T” returns with the Percocet, something seemed different about them but I figured hey it might’ve got messed up during shipping whatever excuse you tell yourself because you value safety less then getting high when you an addict. I even approached it somewhat smart, did half my usual dose to make sure nothing was wrong with them... seemed to be working. I take my normal dose and two hours later I wake up in a hospital, with a breathing tube down my neck because it was laced with fentanyl. And my heart had stopped my lungs would not operate on their own, I was damn near a vegetable. I’ll never forget the pain on my mother’s face... I nearly lost everything I loved, and destroyed the ones who love me...

Addiction.

Everyone in their life feels lonely at least once. When you start getting this feeling called loneliness, then no matter how many people surround you, it is still felt. It seems like you have lost interest in life, and you are aimless. You feel like there is no reason for being alive and such things. So the important thing is to know the reasons why you are feeling lonely and how you can overcome it.

I have now found a new hobby and that is writing letters to parts of me that I struggle with. My mind and my thoughts are an endless battle. This battle originates from life experiences. I shouldn’t think that circumstances will continue to reoccur or if someone cheated me that means everyone else will. I should be strong enough to know I need to heal and not to drag anyone into my darkness. Everyone goes through trauma, heartbreak or loss in their life, if it starts to affect your wellbeing and relationship then working on them is vital.

Do you have racing thoughts and anxiety?

2

Bipolar disorder can have many co-occurring diagnoses. Today I am going to discuss just two of my co-occurring diagnoses and give you an example of each of them and how they would have affected my friendships, if I wasn’t open about having bipolar disorder with my friends. I think you will agree with me that the fact that I am open about having bipolar disorder with my close friends is something that has benefited me on my path to recovery for mental health.

The need to be desired, it is a topic many women will avoid. They think it shows weakness to express the need to have a man find them attractive. I don’t. Maybe it was the many years of being overweight, but I love when I get hit on by a man. Being bipolar I admit that my need for a man to flirt with me takes on a life of its own. I love it! I crave the attention, and don’t feel as good about myself when it isn’t happening on a regular basis. Being told I am pretty, sexy, hot all makes me feel wanted and, after feeling like the ugly duckling for most of my life, I find nothing more thrilling.

Recently a friend texted me upset because a family member wasn’t being understanding of the complications due to her autoimmune disease. My friend was very distraught as this had her in tears because she was being expected to do something that she knew she was not capable of handling and I was reminded of my own situation and how many times I have had to learn to say no to someone in order to put my own well being and illness first.

Dumping a bucket of water on a wicked witch is like dumping a bucket of truth on a narcissist. The difference is this. You can collect water from any place to dump on a witch. The hose, the sea, rain, the toilet. It doesn't matter. Dump and watch them melt.

I was four years old when my mom told me the story of a goat she had. Adventures of a premie who lived in a tote at the foot of her bed because she was born in too cold of a month. My mom named her Lisa.

In September of 2018, I lost my emotional support animal, Rascal. Not only was Rascal my puppy that had been there for 10 years, but he had been there on nights I put blades to my skin, nights I had been molested, nights where I tried to kill myself, nights ex boyfriends would throw me down stairs, push me out of cars, and throw me to the floor, and nights where no one was there for me. Losing him was one of the biggest pains, simply because he held all of that in his small, ten pound, four-legged body. The worst part about it was, it only took him a few hours to die. We did not expect him to grow so fuckin sick in hours and I did not expect to hold my very best friend as we had to end his suffering from a silent cancer. This drove me off the rails. Who was going to let me cry on them and cheer me up at the same time? Who was going to hold my deepest secrets and not tell a soul? In October of 2018, after nights on end of college parties, drinking bottles on top of bottles, staying around friends I knew were fake but they kept it from being silent, I knew it was time. I knew that I was ready to kill myself. I had nothing. So, I disappeared with no trace. No one knew where I went, if I died, or been taken. I drove to a psychiatric hospital and checked myself in. I told myself, if I still want to kill myself after getting professional help, I can. But first, I have to try. For a suicidal person, I was quite reasonable. I knew I wanted to get better but knew that it would take a village for someone with as much trauma as me. I was fucking scared. I had never even seen a hospital specifically for psychiatric needs. I had been in and out of the Psych wing of Emergency Rooms, but never to a hospital that specializes. I was scared, but oddly excited. I WANTED to get better. I did not want to constantly feel suicidal and sickened by myself. Just barely over a month before, I had gotten raped on my BIRTHDAY.

People that have depression such as myself have our good days and our bad. Do we tell others? No, well I know I don't. I keep it to myself, I don't want others to see anything but my happy cheerful self. I don't want to speak the existence of the depression. I thought that maybe if I hide it good enough it would go away, but it doesn't.

Madness creeps up your spine.

I have never known damage this closely. I have never known this feeling of being cracked and bulleted all over, as if falling in a blank space this deeply. Empty hands, nothingness in the fingers, no one to help stunt a trust fall. A back flip is all it takes for me to crumble into millions of tiny molecules. It’s always felt like a part of me has gone missing. Something was stolen from me and never restored. My heart, my soul, my feelings? What is it that’s walked away from me and never returned home ? This habit of always giving myself to everyone who seems to be missing a part of themselves, this flaw of believing every individual who turns up to me with teary puppy eyes but a knife pointed at my back, this naivety in me that makes it so easy for everyone to manipulate me like a puppet they use to entertain themselves on a boring Sunday evening, seems to have costed me way more than what losing trillions would have.

When I was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, I scoured the internet for answers. I looked through every forum, every social media, and every support group for answers. Why am I like this? Was I always like this? Did my trauma cause this? I certainly got a few answers, but one that surprised me was to a question that I didn’t even ask. This was the discovery of the “favorite person”, the awareness of which made everything about my past relationships fall perfectly into place.

It’s 6pm, Dec 28.

There are an estimated amount of 30 million people in the U.S. alone that suffer from an eating disorder. Approximately every hour, someone will die as a direct result. In the general population, there will be one person for every one hundred people to have some form of this mental illness. For dancers, it’s one for every five. Let that settle in your mind; that’s a whopping 20% of our dance community that deals with an eating disorder.

The Beginning

"Okay. Today's going to be a good day. You're going to be strong. You’re not going to eat," I tell myself as I stand in front of the mirror in my underwear. I turn left. I turn right. I twist my knees in to make my thighs look farther apart. I count my ribs, wishing I could see them all outlined against my skin without having to suck in my gut. I grab my upper arm, measuring how far around my hand can clasp.

“We Are Inherently Abusive.”

As a Leonardo da Vinci enthusiast, artist and ferocious reader, I have collected books and read countless biographies on him, visited museums with his collections, studied his works online, and emulated many of his artworks in various media. And after all this time, I cannot shake off the feeling that this extraordinary Renaissance man, who was prolific in so many fields might have Multiple Personality Disorder.

They don’t, actually.

“You look sick”

Please allow me to be open and honest. I am an African American male in my 40s, and I suffer from a mental health illness. I have depression, anxiety, and at one point in my life, I tried to commit suicide.

Have you ever wondered if you had a Mental Health Disorder?

Based off real events.

I sat here this evening looking through a years worth of documentation. Ten notebooks of garbage and evidence to the madness that occurred over the past year of my life. Not on purpose mind you. I was merely looking for lost or “vanished” passwords to get into some accounts. The harassment, the bullying, the threatening, the control. People knowing things about me that nobody should know, and the taunting and teasing about them toward me, or TO me. Knowing personal things about me. Teasing me about them. Making me do such insane stuff on promises that were never fulfilled. Stripping down for a Facebook photo, putting me on a dating site. 5000 Nigerians following me and harassing me on Facebook. Thousands of disgusting pictures sent in my fb messenger. I could go on with the list of the year’s worth of antics, but I won’t. And, I will never get down to the bottom of it either. As far as who is responsible. Who did this to me? Why was I so deserving of a years worth of hell? I almost killed myself on three occasions. Oh, I know, because I humiliated a man of pride and ego. Probably a few men, it seems. Because and But.... I don’t think any of them realized they had been having sex with a 7-year-old, every time they were having sex with me.

There was a rainbow trout who lived in the babbling brook.

What a word, suicide. There are so many of us people who think about this time and again. I know that it has crossed my mind a few times during my life so far. I think that most just talk about it to get attention from people. The thing about it is to me it is an easy way out. I have had three friends do it and getting over it is something that is hard. The many questions like could I have done something to stop it and when it happens we feel guilty. If you have never had to deal with it you can’t imagine what it is like.

Today was day one back from holidays and it was a busy start. With 8 clients scheduled in and a phone that rang or received frequent texts for new appointment requests. I have been a Psychologist for nearly 20 years now and everyday my practice gets busier. Humans are struggling and the demand is growing.

There are many sentences and cliches you hear over and over when it comes to be a Psychologist. Oh so you can read minds then! Oh I better be careful what I say around you! Are you analysing me now? So tell me what type of person am I? Or sometimes its just a strange look that you receive as someone then quietly sneaks away. Despite the commonality of these reactions none of those reflections even come close to capturing the essence of the day to day experience of a being Psychologist.