Latest Stories
Most recently published stories in Psyche.
Nervous Energy
If you’re thinking of starting on anti-depressants to improve your mental health, you should be aware that they’re accompanied by a long list of side effects. I’m proud to say I researched them thoroughly before talking to my psychiatrist and that I felt ready for anything. I was expecting the headaches, the weight gain, and the nausea, and my doctor warned me to keep a close eye on how the pills affected my mood because, according to her, “feeling sad might be bad, but feeling nothing at all is worse.”
By Amanda Fernandes5 years ago in Psyche
A Quiet Place to Rest
The diagnosis of depression came thirteen years ago, in my early teens. Barely into puberty and already clinging to what little mental reserves I had left, I turned to a myriad of hobbies in order to distract myself. At first we fumbled together in these unknown waters, my mother and I, as we tried to grapple with this gaping cavern beneath our feet. What was I going to face for the rest of my life? How was I going to deal with it and come out the other side in one piece?
By Siobhan O’Neill 5 years ago in Psyche
WHAT IS BRAINSPOTTING?
“Where you look, affects how you feel. If something is bothering you, how you feel about it will literally change on whether you look off to your right or your left. Our eyes and brains are intricately woven together, and vision is the primary way that we, as humans, orient ourselves to our environment. Signals sent from our eyes are deeply processed in the brain. The brain then reflexively and intuitively redirects where we look, moment to moment. The brain is an incredible processing machine that digests and organises everything we experience. Trauma can overwhelm the brain’s processing capacity, leaving behind pieces of trauma, frozen in an unprocessed state. Brainspotting uses our field of vision to find where we are holding these traumas in our brain. Just as the eyes naturally scan the outside environment for information, they can also be used to scan our inside environments – our brains – for information. Brainspotting uses the visual field to turn the “scanner” back on itself and guide the brain to find the lost internal information. By keeping the gaze focused on the specific external spot, we maintain the brain’s focus on the specific internal spot where trauma is stored, in order to promote the deep processing that leads to the trauma’s release and resolution.”
By Annaelle Artsy5 years ago in Psyche
STEP BY STEP GUIDE TO SOLVE A PROBLEM USING YOUR INTUITION
I came across Christie Marie Sheldon through MindValley, which is a company that I discovered a couple of years ago that focuses on personal growth and offers courses, masterclasses and books from the best authors in personal development in the world. Christie Marie Sheldon is an intuitive healer and energetic coach which is not something that you would come across on a daily basis and it is one of those persons that can read your aura. If you have ever read about chakras and your chi energy or your aura then, that’s what she does. She can see it. She knows everything about you in an instant. I have experienced this with one of our Romanians energetic coaches and finding more information and insights from around the world, makes the initial learning far more precious and demonstrates once again, that we are more than this physical body. We are energy.
By Annaelle Artsy5 years ago in Psyche
SOUL LETTER TO MY DAUGHTER
Hello Child, With regard to your first question, if you can grasp and know the totality of your Being-all of the layers, and most importantly, the Divine within, then you know who you are. The Divine is living through you-all your motivations, thoughts, and actions are the Divine vibrations playing out in your unique being-separate but connected to all. You get to decide what to do, think, and feel. Remember that your will and your intention are the most powerful forces in the universe. What corrupts the Self is the blindness to all these layers of Being. If you have faith in the core of who you are beyond all that you "know," then you have what you need to trust.
By Justina Schacht5 years ago in Psyche
TRAUMA: The Diaries
I have been trying to cope broken-hearted for a long time. I tried every coping mechanism I was taught through psychology classes and by my therapists over the years. I tried to go through all five stages of grief, yet this heavy pain refuses to let me go. I was able to accept it, to understand it, and to move on without it. But after it all, the memories are still hunting me. They still remind me of what I have lost every time I try to sleep. I spent hours thinking it over; dissecting every one of them. Trying to find the reasons why. The moment when I started losing her. In the end, the answers to all my wonders remained unexplained and I needed to find a way to move on. To move on without closure.
By Jean-Patrick Roy5 years ago in Psyche
Peace
I wake up and the need to put my thoughts in order construes to the blank sheet of paper that’s right in front of me. How can I determine how I feel in words that can only explain so much but explain everything at the same time? It’s like the meaning of love, an easy thing to get into that can bring you a sense of belonging and peace. I enjoy writing about mental illness because it’s what I experience. It’s a matter that is controversial to society but internally devastating to someone experiencing it. My experience was like no other when I was going through it. It was like my mind took over my entire being and controlled everything I thought and said. It’s not something that I feel is necessary to be judged by. It’s not something that should be poked by blame for. It’s something that should be seen like any kind of disease. It’s like having a tumor in the brain, you take medication to devour it, to shrink the mass that is holding back the person’s ability to function correctly. It just occurs relentlessly and freely in the mind. Where no one knows how it occurs or why. But it is an experience like no other and perhaps its partially psychological because its unique to the persons experience in life. However, it is still unknowingly occurring in good people. The mind is not who you are, it is like a navigating device determining, analyzing, and experiencing who you want to be. When I journal, it brings me a sense of eye-opening experiences because not everything I think and feel makes sense. That’s the downside to having schizophrenia it injures the mind and makes everything you experience seem hindering. I can have a thought that I’m worthless and the voices take over and I get the choice to agree. Yet, sometimes I don’t even know why I think this way. It isn’t something that I’ve done or said that has allowed me to go down the path of self-destruction. But rather a feeling of worthlessness. Where does this feeling come from? I think it comes from the chemical imbalance in my brain that is disturbing the chemicals that allow me to feel the right way. You see it’s all a science and not a spiritual disconnection with god. It should not be stigmatized. It is something I have to deal with on a regular basis because there has been more stigmatizing then trying to find answers to what is happening in the mind. It has to be more than a chemical imbalance because there are people who take up to ten medications and still, they hallucinate and hear voices that disturb their everyday life. It’s easy to think the intrusive thoughts that happen in my mind are something that is real because everything you experience in your consciousness is created in your subconscious. Everything that occurs In your mind is the experience you face in life. So, at first you can’t help but believe it’s all true. But with care and wisdom you realize its one experience you face in life and don’t have to make it your reality even though its disturbing. I don’t wish this illness on anyone it is hard to come out of when it’s something you face every day not knowing when the voices will occur or when you’re going to hallucinate. With great support and medication, you can choose to believe it Is just a disease that is medical and physical. Although there are still people out there who believe it’s a spiritual occurrence and that is easy to believe, its only detrimental to the person experiencing this to believe that. The reason is because it’s easy to feel like you’re being punished by something beyond you. Believing that will cause a feeling of not wanting to exist. So, with great care I want to illustrate that it’s important to realize it is a brain disease and nothing more that brings me too a sense of peace and realization.
By Cerina Galvan5 years ago in Psyche
Interactions with Non-living Objects and Virtual Realities in a Seriously Complex World
Let’s dig down the word ‘interaction’ a bit. ‘To act’ means doing something. ‘To react’ means doing something in response to an act which has already been taken place. ‘Interaction’ means exchanging of action and reactions repeatedly between or among the doers who are involved.
By Moshiur Rahman5 years ago in Psyche
“The Unseen World”
We are born into this world with five senses. These help us to navigate through it and to be able to move and function. The human body is a miraculous mechanism. If one of the senses is lost or minimized, the others are usually enhanced, making up for the loss. Internally we have the intuition, an inner sense of knowing. It can be more or less understood by the individual and one can learn to use it more and more. This is also called an “hunch” and can be in tune with reality. In some cases it is based on experience. Then it can be misleading if the person has had traumatic experiences or was indoctrinated in a set of beliefs.
By Don McDougle5 years ago in Psyche
