Depression. Anxiety.

For every tragic story there is a beginning. The roadmap that got you to that point. For me, it was a wonderful fairytale turned nightmare.

Mothers, the strongest creature in our world. They are able to do the job of six people in one day, for multiple children. They are able to go almost all day without drinking water or eating well, or even taking time for themselves! We see this strength almost right after a mother finds out she is pregnant. She puts her child before everything. She goes back to school, not because she wants to, but because she sees the future she could provide for her children. We don’t, however, see her inner struggle. We don’t see the mom with a week old newborn struggling to stay afloat mentally. We don’t see the battle—no, the war—that is going on inside of her mind that she is fighting everyday. She is strong, but she can’t do it on her own.

I was not diagnosed with Obsessive-Compulsive disorder until I began therapy during treatment for my drug addiction. After careful observation and consideration, my therapist came to the conclusion that I most likely have been suffering from OCD for the better part of my life. As a result, I was most likely attempting to self-medicate the symptoms of my OCD with substances, eventually leading to my drug addiction. It is not uncommon for addicts to have co-occurring disorders that helped fuel their drug or alcohol addictions, and because of this, I am extremely passionate about spreading awareness pertaining to mental health and addiction.

Anxiety is more than a word.

I can’t remember much about my disorder preceding the time that I was, say, 12 years old. However, I do remember the traumatic moments that likely started it all.

A lot of times, you hear people with medical or mental health conditions "disown" their diagnoses. They refrain from saying "my cancer", or, "my anxiety"—and for good reason. It has been shown that by separating yourself from your illness, you don't take on the negative attributes; you are not your illness.

There's a certain strength that comes along with being honest about where you need to be met.

My name is Richard Jones and this is my story!

I am an atheist. I hold to no gods, no faith, no religion. I don’t have a problem with people finding faith comforting, but I don’t believe in proselytizing and I think that “mission trips” are just a fancy way to say “colonialism.” However, a couple of years ago, I had a friend join The Satanic Temple, and because I try to take an active interest in the lives of my friends, I looked it up. And what I found there, was the Seven Tenets, that are the fundamental base to The Satanic Temple. They resonated with me, and I read more and wrote them out; and over the last two years, have applied them to my life, and my therapist and I agree for once that they have helped me. So without pretense or expectation, I present to you the Seven Tenets, and how I have applied them to my life to aid in my constant process of tweaking my outlook to improve my mental health.

I was recently asked what my favorite comic book was when I was growing up. My answer: I didn’t read comic books growing up. They seemed to feature mostly ducks and mice in outfits, which unnerved me and so I took my shaken soul to other forms of reading material like Laura Ingalls, Astrid Lindgren, Daphne Du Maurier, Oriana Fallacci, even Erica Jong. (TOOOOOOO YOUNG. NOT READY. STILL NOT READY)

This is a painting I did not that long ago. It symbolizes many things for me, but that's another story. This one is about Recovery from addiction. Many people think, "Once an addict, always an addict," and while that is true in some ways, its not true in all. I am four years clean. I never thought I'd see the day. I wanted to die at one point in my life. But little by little, after I was done with rehab (which I checked myself into without being forced), I began to rebuild my life. I started as a waitress—a waitress with a bachelor's degree. I used to be so bitter about that fact. I thought, "Why am I waiting tables when I could be doing so much more? I mean, I'm EDUCATED." But then God told me that I needed to humble myself. There are a lot of people out there with college degrees they aren't using. So what makes me so special? It was just my ambition and determination talking. So I did humble myself and I realized that I didn't get into the terrible shape I was in overnight, and I definitely wasn't going to undo all of that damage overnight, or in a day, or a month, or maybe even a year! I began to just explore. I ended up finding a "desk job," which made me realize even more that I do NOT want any desk job or confining job. I want to spread my creative wings and use my soul to do whatever it is I decide to do. I finally left the office job scene altogether, and decided one day that I am going to be a Copywriter. Because if I work hard enough at writing for others, maybe one day I will get to write about what I am SO passionate about: recovery. I just want that person out there struggling to get clean, stay clean, or rebuild to know that it IS possible, and I am living proof. I want to put together a group of people with a testimony to go to the schools in my area and talk openly and candidly about drugs, and what type of life comes along with them. And most importantly, I want to let them all know it CAN HAPPEN TO THEM. It is so easy to fall into addiction, and the street drugs these days are seriously lethal, and your chances are slim of living through it—and if you do, you'll most likely end up institutionalized. That is hell on earth, TRUST ME, I was there once upon a time. SO my short message is that recovery is possible... find your passion and GO AFTER IT and do what sparks your SOUL. Don't settle for anything less because we only get one life and wasting it doubting yourself is a tragedy.

Being in any type of relationship with an alcoholic or an addict is just hard for everyone involved. You want and try so hard to save this person from their self-destructive ways.

So you find yourself in a blended family with stepchildren, some who are grown up. By no fault of your own, one of the stepchildren happens to become a drug addict. You and your partner are non-drug users, not alcoholics and never have been. You are both "Normies" (normal people who do not alter their state of being by getting high or drunk all the time, preferring to mentally keep it normal).

The feeling of shame is one of the most overpowering feelings you can ever experience. The definition of the emotion implies that you had to have done something, therefore, you feel humiliated or embarrassed. I'm sure we've all been there after doing something out of character, and you end up feeling shameful.

I am not exactly sure how to start this article, but I think that it is important to discuss the importance of meeting one's emotional needs. In fact, for everyday life, it is vital, because if your own personal needs are not met, you start to withdraw from your interpersonal relationships, and become what some call a hermit. While every once and a while it is okay to hide in your shell, you need to make sure that this does not take over your entire life, because it is unhealthy to stay away from people for too long.

Looks can be deceiving.

Anxiety is more than a word.

I remember the first time I told someone that I suffered from severe anxiety. The person, who was my employer at the time, replied with, "I get stressed sometimes, too." Really? Stressed?

This past Wednesday, I had what would be considered a mental crack. Not a complete breakdown, but I had broken down throughout the day. Waking up on my day off, I had experienced a series of fluxes in my emotions that all lead up to me feeling empty and overflowing with tears. You may be wondering why or even when did I figure out that I was mentally cracking. Through the tears and anguish, I had begun to search out, to figuring out the reasons why. Why was I so damn sad when everything around me has been going well? Why was I feeling so empty that mustering the feeling of being "full" was a difficult task, especially in the things that had been going very well for me?

When I was eight, I felt true sadness for the first time; real, deep sadness. The kind of sadness that can’t be cured with a hug from your mum.

My aunt, who, like me, struggles with mental illness (me, bipolar disorder, her chronic depression). We've begun to exchange letters to track our comings and goings in hopes of at least to keep a steady diary charting our moods, at most to offer one another consolation and guidance to live fuller, more stable lives.

I was not diagnosed with Obsessive-Compulsive disorder until I began therapy during treatment for my drug addiction. After careful observation and consideration, my therapist came to the conclusion that I most likely have been suffering from OCD for the better part of my life. As a result, I was most likely attempting to self-medicate the symptoms of my OCD with substances, eventually leading to my drug addiction. It is not uncommon for addicts to have co-occurring disorders that helped fuel their drug or alcohol addictions, and because of this, I am extremely passionate about spreading awareness pertaining to mental health and addiction.

My mental illness feels like I'm in the midst of a giant, cluttered, shrub. I feel trapped, I struggle to move, and I am almost constantly terrified. Even though I have a mental health condition, none of the labels make sense to me perfectly. I used to think that illness was treated with a straightforward approach, you get ill, then diagnosed, then treated, and then better. I am now realising that my illness—and no illness—is that linear and predictable.

Depression. Anxiety.

The loneliest road to walk is the road that leads to a place of isolation and an acute loneliness, brought on through the parasite force known as depression. You’re stuck inside a shell that has cracked and is seeping the most destructive emotions, tearing at your body and mind, and no matter how hard you try you just cannot shake it loose.

Monday September 16th, 7 AM:

Mothers, the strongest creature in our world. They are able to do the job of six people in one day, for multiple children. They are able to go almost all day without drinking water or eating well, or even taking time for themselves! We see this strength almost right after a mother finds out she is pregnant. She puts her child before everything. She goes back to school, not because she wants to, but because she sees the future she could provide for her children. We don’t, however, see her inner struggle. We don’t see the mom with a week old newborn struggling to stay afloat mentally. We don’t see the battle—no, the war—that is going on inside of her mind that she is fighting everyday. She is strong, but she can’t do it on her own.

I can’t remember much about my disorder preceding the time that I was, say, 12 years old. However, I do remember the traumatic moments that likely started it all.

Over the last few years we have seen the phrase, ‘toxic masculinity’ being used more and more. While the majority of the time this is used to put down men and blame the patriarchy for most of the issues women face in the modern western world; there is actually a massive issue here and it is going largely ignored.

There are two people inside of me.

This isn’t as easy as people make it out to be. People tell me to just be more active. To change my diet. Go to the gym. Work out. It isn’t that simple. It is never that simple.

I was 8 years old when I started my first ever diet, Weight Watchers. Before I had finished growing or hit puberty, I was already trying to make myself smaller. This sparked a long journey of crash dieting, disordered eating, starvation, and body dysmorphia. My parents were only doing what they thought was best, guided by the poor advice of a medical professional. If you are familiar with my story, then you know that they had already lost one daughter at this point. I think my changing body was a reminder of my mortality to them. I think we were all existing in a system that preyed upon this fear. I already had so much of my childhood taken away from me through the trauma of losing my little sister. Diet culture was right there to swoop in and take what little childhood I had left.

Introduction

I joke about it extensively. I mention it in passing from time to time. I’ve never really talked about it, though. Partially out of fear, partially out of frustration, I try to keep it at arm’s length. Consider this my first steps to try and change that.

So, I recently discovered something that could potentially work incredibly well, providing it gets the attention it deserves. I saw an article online, which went into detail about the new Hidden Disability Sunflower Lanyard Scheme.

Though we think that our generation is full of labels, and the that effects can be noticed as universal effects shared among people from different walks of life, it not very much of a new field that we are going into; as the theory of labelling had its origin since 1897 when a French author Emile Durkheim first suggested that behaviours are deviant only when society labelled them as deviant. The effects of labelling people can be observed in numerous wide spectrums, as the variables can vary among different people and the society they are in, such as different effects on labelling of gay people may vary from country to country, or how the effects can vary from labels associated with the person’s socioeconomic status or mental health. Even though these labels may be deemed negative, it is pretty much an undeniable fact that they are essential and pretty much incorporated in our social daily life, and to have them dismissed from our lives are just impossible.

I know some of you have heard someone say “this too shall pass.” I remember being a little girl in church with my mom, she’d be upset or sad about something, and an elder of the church would hug her so tight and whisper “this too shall pass!” My mom would cry a little and shake her head like they had a secret, they just knew she was going to be alright.

For every tragic story there is a beginning. The roadmap that got you to that point. For me, it was a wonderful fairytale turned nightmare.

Mom...

It was a hot summer day in North Carolina and the family decided to head out to the lake to cool off and enjoy the day. This was a big lake, with very deep waters and I remember that you couldn’t go out very far before it was over your head. I was around the age of 10, and I really wasn’t that great of a swimmer and got frightened anytime someone tried holding me down or pulling on me in the water, so I stayed pretty close to the shoreline. I remember being on the shore when I noticed that my sisters had all gone to the end of the very long pier, or at least to me it seemed a mile out into the dark water. I decided I wanted to go be with them, so I ran down the pier afraid of missing out on anything fun. I remember almost reaching the end where my sisters all older than me had gathered sitting on the edge when I started to slide on the wet pier floor and flew right off the end into the lake.

Healing Through Art Therapy

There a lot of issues that are stigmatized in society, whether it be mental illness, drugs, or other various health issues. That is just to name a few and I am sure there are tons more. So, why did society become that way? Was society always so intolerant or naive to these issues?

I wrote this script after reading the screenplay for one of my favorite movies, Forest Gump.