trauma

At its core, trauma can be thought of as the psychological wounds that persist, even when the physical ones are long gone.

Emetophobia
Emetophobia: Extreme fear of vomiting I wouldn't wish this phobia on anyone. At a young age I developed a phobia of throwing up. As a young kid, you can find it to be a pretty common thing that kids do. I can't remember a traumatic experience that I might have had when I was younger that would have caused this, all I know is that it drastically changed my life.
By Shay Gross4 years ago in Psyche
THE REALITY OF MENTAL ILLNESS
I just wanted to write this article to promote a little more awareness on the subject of mental health. As we are in the holiday season.
By Les Morgan4 years ago in Psyche
The Last Memory
So there I stood, rubbernecking at the idea that the spinning washing machine resembled my embryonic headache. With that reflection in mind, I went for a cold shower, aiming for easy treatment. The antidote lasted as long as the freezing water distracted me from the woodpecker drilling my brains. Not a second more.
By Ricky Lanusse4 years ago in Psyche
Sitting By The Pond.
I sit here watching the soft Lily-pads dance amongst only a few beautiful, purple, half-open little flowers. It reminds me of what you once said.
By Carol Ann Townend4 years ago in Psyche
J'SKAR
I He stared into the toddler’s eyes. It had stopped crying. It looked back at him, eyes wide with shock and wonderment. He scanned its body. It was a tiny, plump male wrapped with light leather blankets. Around its face tissue, a tint of red was concentrated in its nose and ears. It was feeling cold. J’skar felt his tail relax and slowly curl up. He couldn’t help but feel the little human was a part of nature, a part of the green grass, the wind and the trees. It was motherless, too. And he wouldn’t be surprised if it died from frostbite soon. J'skar approximated four hours.
By Nabeel Shah4 years ago in Psyche
Embracing the Darkness
She stopped letting people get close, she had become master of her mask and forged friendships based on half-truths. The invader left for a period, but our girl had become a husk of what she once had been. She ran headfirst towards danger, searching for anything to make her feel, she needed to feel, and she did for fleeting moments. She escaped herself. She drowned herself in alcohol. Felt painful bites of happiness with the heavier things but the happiness was fleeting, and the fall back was hard and brutal. She began to welcome pain; she embraced it because it was something to feel and then like all the other things, she stopped feeling it. Rage again was pacing inside of her, rattling her rib cage like a stuck door, it made purchase on her rib cage and climbed. It climbed up her throat and wrestled with her tongue. She fought it internally trying to swallow the fire that burned her, her rage, her tamed beast turned on her and forced its way to the surface. Rage kept people at bay and those that still stuck around after were thought fit to stay. Rage crept back down crawling back to the darkness that comforted it, to calm it as if to say it will be okay.
By Roxy Wolf4 years ago in Psyche
Embracing The Darkness
She met the darkness as a child and together they had grown. Darkness had filled the void that was left when innocence departed, its soul flying towards the place of healing where all shattered innocent souls go. She likes to believe that is a shining star in the sky waiting for another child to fill with daydreams, magical places and stories of fairies, princes and princesses, enchanted dreams of a world filled with endless possibilities. She hopes that the damage it received is not irreparable, that it is whole and as beautiful as she remembers. The darkness was uncomfortable and heavy when it had first arrived - both unsure of the other. Her body had not rejected it, surprising the darkness. It was tentative at first stretching slowly but as the years passed it touched parts of her and recoiled into itself as if scared of what it found. It waited in silence, until one day she had run to it instead of away from it. The darkness was surprised that she came to it for comfort, that she hid away inside pulling at the tendrils until she was wrapped in them as though the darkness was a blanket, the darkness was safety.
By Roxy Wolf4 years ago in Psyche
Embracing the Darkness
Anger clung to her skin its talons ripping away peeling back the flesh to expose the darkness that lies beneath. Not bone, not blood just rippling currents of black nothingness. Her eyes shifting from shining hazel to dull to nothing but a blank stare. She stopped fighting the emotions that clung to her, spreading inside her, venom dripped from her mouth when she spoke. Shooting daggers at those closest to her. Pushing them away. All the tender voices of those who knew part of the hell she had faced in those rooms, in those places, the hell that corrupted her but never the full truth, never the whole story they needn't know - the darkness that touched her, that invaded her, and each year lay dormant for a period of time before another pain sliced through her. It holds her gently like a mother holding its sleeping babe in its arms. It wraps her in the silky tendrils of darkness, in the stillness, her pain trapped and pushed back, anger and rage warming her in the belly of this beast. The venom kept those closest pushed back. Never close enough to see. The violent darkness that lives inside, the vengeful demon that holds her close to its chest, the only thing that never left her, the darkness never shied from her. It never left her even when everyone else had. The darkness sees her in all her wreckage and gently reminds her that around it she does not need to wear a mask.
By Roxy Wolf4 years ago in Psyche
Just Another Visit
It was late September when I was surprised by one of his spontaneous visits; I had been practicing hurdles and 200-meter sprints with my track coach after school with my teammates. Some of my friends were smiling and their eyes twinkled as they looked past my shoulders, curious I spun around.
By ROCK aka Andrea Polla (Simmons)4 years ago in Psyche
The Adjustment Process
As of November 4th, 2022, I will be travelling back to Ohio to live back with my family. I will have the basement studio apartment and work on the paperwork to have my husband back with me.
By Emily Curry (Rising Phoenix)4 years ago in Psyche
I Don’t Want To Be Crazy Anymore
Crazy. It’s an ugly word. No doubt, many will chastise me for using it. Let them come. I’m not describing someone else. I’m not describing mental illness. Crazy is how I feel, and no other word comes close.
By Scott Ninneman4 years ago in Psyche
Grief Is Funny Like That
I never expected him to actually finish anything. He was always leaving. I always picture him with a suitcase in his hand. Sometimes I wonder what he would look like now. When I close my eyes I still see his smile and I swear I could smell him, Well him before the shooting. I dream of him sometimes and he's smiling and walking toward me and then I wake up. I wake up happy then reality sets in. For a long time, I wasn't able to talk about it. Even thinking about his death made me sick to my stomach. Sometimes thinking about it still makes me sick to my stomach almost nine years later. I thought that I would be less traumatized by it after all of these years but I'm not. I'm still that traumatized 17-year-old who just lost her best friend to gun violence. Things can change in a heartbeat. If we didn't walk down that street at that time he would still be here. I would still have my best friend here. But I can't change that. It took me years to stop blaming myself. Somedays I still blame myself or I blame God. Not the actual person who murdered him.
By Nat 4 years ago in Psyche