“His words had set off a chain reaction, the beginning of an epiphany that would leave me finally free to reject the stigma of being “the bad child,” and move toward the freedom of self-love and healing.”Continue reading Sabotage or Saving Grace? Psychiatric Diagnosis Can Be Both
When you have to mourn
Then mourn.
When you have to cry,
Then cry.
It’s head down and on his knees
That a man remembers how to fly.Continue reading A Poem
I believe that just as someone with diabetes might need to take a pill or get medical attention, the same goes for someone with a mental health condition. A person with a mental health condition is not their diagnosis or a label, but a person just like anyone else. Continue reading A Personal Story
By William When I first heard of the “Recovery Model” for mental illness during a hospital stay, I reacted quite angrily. I had been living with Bipolar Disorder I (the more extreme version) for about 26 years. After I was first diagnosed at 19, I went to an honors college while working full time inContinue reading An Outsider’s View of Recovery
By Frank Pace I remember laying in my bed when I was about five or six and wondering why I felt like I just didn’t belong, or if there was just something wrong with me…I felt defective. It was like everybody else had instructions for living and I never got mine. As I got older,Continue reading A Personal Story
By Jeff One evening, I had a little “conversation” with my dog, Sarah. It was a cold December Saturday night during the height of the COVID outbreak. I had been on disability the past three months because I was so physically and mentally unhealthy. My wife and I separated just a few weeks before IContinue reading A Conversation with Sarah
1975 was the year psychobabble and Cognitive Behavior Therapy both made the pages of Merriam Webster’s Dictionary, and my dad re-married. My new word that summer in the backyard of our new two-story house was hammock— it had give, it made room for me. At nine, I could pull it around me like a cocoonContinue reading A Poem
By Marty McLaughlin Introduction Hi. My name is Marty McLaughlin. By day I work as a mild-mannered engineer. But at night I transform into a mysterious crime-fighting hero who is an inspiration to peace-loving citizens everywhere…Er…Take that last part back. I’m just me. I’ve always been me, no matter how hard I try to beContinue reading A Personal Story
By Michelle I understand that most of us have read a plethora of articles around the Meghan Markle interview. It would be easy to speak of the drama and anticipation of the event, but I wanted to write through the lens of accessibility. What I concluded from Meghan’s interview with Oprah had little to doContinue reading A Personal Story – We’re the Same
By Maureen So as not to dive abruptly into the depths of my mental illnesses, I would like to quickly, yet formally, introduce myself. My name is Maureen, and I am a sophomore studying political science at the University of Michigan. I was raised in a large Irish Catholic family (the youngest of eight children!)Continue reading A Personal Story
