Our Latest Blogs

Hello, dear readers. Today, I want to share my personal journey of battling body dysmorphic disorder (BDD). For 26 years, I lived in a body I found disgusting, believing I was unattractive and flawed. The constant comparisons to others left me feeling inadequate and isolated. However, through perseverance, support, and professional help, I have started […]

My mom is a wonderful mother. She’s kind, loves classic rock, has funny stories—and she loves me. I know that. I have always known that. Ever since I can remember, I wanted to be understanding of her problem. I saw her drinking and began to justify how normal it was. Resentment was there, but it […]

I did not inherit Kim Kardashian’s butt. I inherited my father’s rear end – flat and wide. I passed this rear end down to one of our girls. The other lucked out and inherited her father’s butt – a cute pop-out affair from years of squats and deadlifts. Perfect for twerking, but her father and […]

For the entirety of my life, I have tried to do right in everything and by everyone. For the first time this past year, I questioned my capacity to do that and, in turn, questioned everything that I thought I knew about myself. Since adolescence, I have prided myself upon my successes, resiliency, willingness to […]

About 15 years ago, I told my therapist about the social isolation I was struggling with. It had been a few years since my mental breakdown, and I didn’t want to be seen by my friends until I felt better. I didn’t know what to say to them, so I avoided them. I was too […]

I thought I was happy with who I became, but the repercussions didn’t agree   I grew up in a small town located in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The school I attended was K-12, with all of us located in one building. The entirety of my graduating class was 20 people, each of whom […]

Content Advisory: This guest blog post contains frank language about sex. This is not something I’ve admitted publicly or even to more than a handful of close friends. I have had OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder) since I can remember. It started as constant handwashing (whenever I touched someone) and obsessively checking that my door was locked. […]

Being depressed, then getting out of it, then falling into it again—does that sound familiar? If you are a depression survivor, most likely you know how it feels. It may feel like you are walking on a never-ending path or a journey that keeps dragging you to the same point over and over again. But […]

College drop-out. At the height of my anxiety, depression, and inner turmoil, I struggled to take care of myself, let alone do something as demanding as learning and participating in academics. Despite having gone to see therapists, cycling through medications, and buying a shelf’s worth of self-help books, I was floundering, barely able to keep […]

I am here to say that there is much hope for people who have a mental illness.  From 1990 through 2001, I was hospitalized four times.  Most of the recurring visits were due to my perception that the regular consumption of medicine would put me into a class of people who suffer from stigmatization.  Mostly […]

Today’s world is a world of constant controversy. No one seems to agree—on anything. No wonder anxiety plagues so many of us! I often wonder if I will ever get better—less depressed, less anxious, less paranoid, with this current state of things. It reminds me that although I was personally diagnosed with bipolar disorder, depression, […]

I had a trauma-filled childhood with a single, alcoholic, abusive mother. She belittled me, neglected me, and really acted like she hated me. She said she wished I wasn’t born, called me a slut and too fat or too thin. Nothing was good enough for her, except her alcohol. I could never make her happy, no […]

I bite my tongue until it bleeds, my stomach turns to knots, and my whole body tenses up. I overthink every step I take, the clothes I wear, my make-up, every person I walk by. Am I going to use the self-checkout or talk to the clerk? What if the self-checkout freezes and I have […]

Here are three things I know for sure: Dealing with Postpartum Depression (PPD) is hard. Watching your partner struggle with clinical depression is hard. Doing both at the same time feels unbearable. Dealing with PPD is Hard I gave birth to my first child on January 16th, 2020. I’m not quite sure I can accurately […]

In 2015, I fell off of a cliff. I faced a long recovery from orthopedic and internal injuries, but thankfully, I made it out alive. From gaining strength and mobility to walk again to learning to live with a traumatic brain injury, each step of my healing journey presented a new set of challenges. What […]

“Ava, Sophia, and Emma were hanging out again without me. I saw it on their Instagram stories… But that’s ok. I planned to workout today, which means I don’t have time to go anyway.” I wrote in my diary, “Besides, I’m too tired to go socializing with people.” That was two years ago. I was […]

I experienced a happy childhood in many ways.  My father was a college professor, and my mother had a medical transcription business at home.  I was loved and cared for.  Seven years after my birth, my sister Laura came along.  She was a joy and a delight to me. I attended a private school, and […]

I stumbled on something random the other day. I was driving in the car, and my negative voices, which I hear often but not constantly, were especially loud. They were telling me to drive my car off the road and that God wanted me dead. I knew that this was not true. I had spent […]

Many people living with a mental illness will hit extreme lows in their lives. They may feel discouraged as they shut themselves off from friends or family, struggle to find work or even refuse all forms of treatment. About one year ago, I hit that low point. I had just moved out of my parents’ […]

Over the last few years, depression has become much more widespread. We’ve all heard it before, “mental health issues don’t discriminate,” and that quote couldn’t be more accurate. Depression impacts people in the suburbs and on farms, in inner cities and refugee camps, in boardrooms and in classrooms. It is estimated that over 300 million […]

The kindest thing I ever heard my father say about me is that I was smart. Really smart. My father never spoke for the sake of being kind. If reality happened to be kind, then so be it. So, when I heard him tell his long-time friend that his daughter, who he scarcely seemed to […]

You’ll hear this phrase a lot: Your diagnosis doesn’t define you. These aren’t the worst words someone could say to you. In varying forms of ignorance and hurtfulness I’ve been told: You don’t look like you have bipolar disorder That’s a lot to take in I don’t think I can do this These comments and […]

“2:48 am” My body lay still as a doll as I dully gazed at the clock on my desk. My slow, sad, depressing music reverberated and echoed off the walls in my bedroom. I could not sleep. I did not want to get up, move, or feel anything at all. These long restless nights had […]

Evan had just returned home from his final race of the season when I caught up with him. We decided to take a hike up to a ridge on the outskirts of his city. He was quick to smile, and you could see his eyes dance with animation when we discussed his recent activities. But […]

“Mood likely and able to change between high and low without warning” – this was written on the keychain charm my mother carried around when I was in my teens. I didn’t understand what bipolar disorder was. I didn’t notice her symptoms, because I simply didn’t know the difference. I’ve always been around mental illness […]

I’m Jo, artist, writer and Renaissance Soul with a potty sense of humor. For over thirty years, I suffered from depression and anxiety, a result of my toxic upbringing followed by post-natal depression. It was a pain in my posterior because I really, really wanted to indulge in my creativity and the Renaissance Soul side […]

“It’s not that bad.” “Others have it worse.” “I’m just being a child.” “I’m not really depressed.” “I’m being ridiculous.” “I’m just a weak person.” “I should be able to handle this myself.” “Why am I being such a baby?” “Stop being stupid.” “Get over it.” Do you hear yourself thinking these things over and […]

Generally, you see “impostor syndrome” in the context of someone’s performance at work. However, in my experience, as well as Fiona Thomas’, it can occur with mental health as well.  Even more so, a few Google searches show its application outside of work performance—in relationships, parenting, talent, and then some. One thing that all people […]

Depression. What a loaded word. Not a word I used to let myself say or really think about. A word that used to make me unbearably uncomfortable and filled with shame. A word that people can joke about and may not completely understand. Ten letters that convey so much. Depression. Depression and I were not […]

I wake up with the feeling that my head is full of cotton wool. At least, that’s how I describe it. It’s hard to put the feeling into words. Thoughts seem sluggish and disoriented. “You need to get out of bed,” a quiet voice whispers. I glance at the clock. It’s 11 am and well […]

“2:32 am” I stared down at my empty shot glasses. The night was as silent as a graveyard. I stumbled to the edge of the mall rooftop and peered off at the city lights in Chiang Mai, Thailand. I was a 20-year-old college student at the time and I had taken the semester off from […]

I didn’t always care about the way I looked. For most of my childhood, I was more focused on making mud pies and playing with my toys. I don’t think I ever thought much about the way anyone looked, or even the way I looked. All the people I loved were loved for who they […]

Mental illness found me at 19 years old. I was in my second year of university with the world at my fingertips, yet I could not get out of bed. I was ridden with depression, anxiety and horrible mood swings that hung over me like a dark cloud. To escape my situation, I would self […]

A lot of older people say that kids nowadays are coddled and overprotected; shielded from figuring out how to fight their own battles so they can function in a cruel unforgiving world, a world where emotional regulation and conflict resolution skills are essential. I can’t speak for every millennial but in my case, they would […]

To live life means to go through a series of roadblocks in our journey, but what happens when the roadblock stems from a mental health disorder? Every mental health disorder is unique and no one goes through similar symptoms or experiences. Each and every person’s experience is distinct. And any mental health disorder can bring […]

I still don’t know which is more unbelievable: waking up one morning last year to discover I was 60 or realizing that Mick Jagger and Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones will both be turning 75 later this year. They say a rolling stone gathers no moss, but Mick and Keith managed to accumulate their […]

Today, we kick off May Mental Health Awareness Month with a guest blog post from a New York man who found a way back from the pain of a mental health crisis through the exercise of creativity. GH Kleiner describes himself as “an empath who can visualize and draw my thoughts and feelings.”  His artwork […]

On January 29th 2014, I went to sleep. When I woke up the next morning, my father was gone. I spent a long month doing all I could to find him, to hope that he would come home and open that front door, but he never did. On March 3rd 2014, he was found a […]

“Weather is a great metaphor for life, sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s bad, and there’s nothing much you can do about it but carry an umbrella.” – Terri Guillemets A few days ago, most of us had never even heard the term “bombogenesis.”  Now, many of  us who live on the east coast are experiencing the […]

I feel like with any illness, whether it be mental or physical, there is always a denial period. For some this will be short and for others longer. For me, it was years! In this article, I’ll take you through my own personal story of anxiety: looking at how it gradually got worse and the […]

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is very real. A diagnosis that extends far beyond members of the armed forces who have lived through combat, it affects people all over the world. This frequently misunderstood diagnosis, which often goes hand-in-hand with depression, does not have to instill fear, but can actually be an opportunity to embolden survivors. […]