Latest Stories
Most recently published stories in Psyche.
When Was The Last Time You Had Dialogue With Yourself?
Have you ever thought of your own nature? What are your pure desires, or do you know yourself well enough? We always question ourselves for one or another thing. This happens because we are not sure of ourselves sometimes. Usually, this unsureness ends up in the conflict with our own selves. It is okay to come across yourself. It is okay to have the dialogue with yourself, because perhaps throughout the whole life you most likely will not able to find someone better than yourself to talk to.
By Mariam Pagava6 years ago in Psyche
Anxiety
I get asked regularly what it’s like to live with anxiety and despite how much I try to explain it there simply is no short answer. Anxiety is not the same in every person, it is also not the same everyday, every hour, every minute and every second. I have been living alongside my anxiety for years so I can’t remember a time where I was living without it. My anxiety is such an essential role in my life and when I get asked “What is it like living with anxiety?” my first thought is always ‘ I don’t know, it’s the same as I’ve always lived’ which can be a bit confusing at times even for me.
By Ashley Ramos6 years ago in Psyche
Mental Health Coping Skills Vlog
Hello Dear readers. I have been breaking with convention a bit and posting things of a slightly different nature as you may know. There have been a couple of things going on, one of them is that I have been experiencing a fair bit of stress lately. The funny thing is that the stress seems to stay in my blankets. Namely, I feel stressed about facing the world but if I can get up and get dressed I stand a much better chance of facing my problems and at the very least leaving the house to try and do them. Last night was kind of a special night for me because I love to participate in 5-minute live story readings for cash prizes, and the theme for the story was 'disability'. I couldn't have picked a more perfect theme, I loved the idea of talking about my illness and where it took me. The main problem was that I had to make it as though I were telling a story, even though my story was pretty much completely non-fiction. I won't go too much further into it, I thought I would try and post a relevant photo first and then paste in the text of the story I wrote in case any of my readers would like it. Once again I strongly encourage any regular readers to write me with any questions, I can even keep the responses anonymous, and I have no problem even doing some heavy research to answer any questions you have. I think the biggest thing I can say is that once you find a good medication and have a stable life, you can then go into things like a life-skills group where they teach you to better communicate with others, then perhaps once done this successfully, a person who has been in a hospital for a long stay for psychiatric reasons can look into part-time education (and I often recommend distance learning, especially if you are a little older), bettering themselves, keeping their lives low-stress, and then when you are ready move to the next step of finding normal employment. I think this is a time when volunteering is really good because a lot of employers like the idea that you will work for nothing (just kidding) and many other advantages like filling in any large gaps of time in your resume. So, here goes, picture below and then at the bottom of today's message I will paste in my winning story. Take care everyone!
By Leif Gregersen6 years ago in Psyche
"Living Your Best Life" Doesn't Have to Be In the Future
If you’ve been on Instagram or Twitter in the last few years, you’ve most likely seen the term “living your best life” thrown around quite. I actually enjoy the concept, but I do feel that it’s a bit exclusive. Who is allowed to “live their best life?” Typically, it’s people on vacation, or people who just landed their dream job, or people in a seemingly ideal romantic relationship. We flock towards all the picture-perfect snapshots of people’s lives, we say things like “Omg this is GOALS!” and quietly accept that one day, maybe we will have that same kind of happiness.
By Brittany Valentine6 years ago in Psyche
Late Night Ramblings
Today I honestly don’t know what to write about. There’s so much that I want to type and let out into the world, but the fear of the consequences drives me crazy. There is so much I want to reveal for everybody to know and see. I’m just so frustrated that I’m literally lost. Writing for me has always been about honesty, but today I don’t even have that.
By Gourav Bhattacharya6 years ago in Psyche
Hypnotherapy & the Subconscious Mind
If you’ve ever asked yourself “why am I like this,” and you haven’t found an answer, you’ve come to the right place. If you have a pretty good grasp on yourself but you still struggle to actually change the course of your life, you have come to the right place as well. Your holy grail lies in exploring and “reprogramming” your subconscious mind. This sounds complicated, but it is actually pretty simple, once you understand what it all means.
By Brittany Valentine6 years ago in Psyche
I am Not Weak...A Black Man with a Mental Illness
I admired the bridge as I drove across it and thought to myself, this would be a great place to jump and die. It has been nearly a decade since I thought about killing myself. Back then, I thought about suicide more than I thought about my children.
By Carlin Hertz6 years ago in Psyche
AnXiEtY
Growing up is inevitable, there is absolutely no way around it. Unfortunately there are many obstacles thrown at us as we grow - although these aren't always bad they're usually thrown at us for learning experiences. There are many nights that I catch myself hiding out in my room after a long day of work, or school - for me, these are obstacles. Sometimes I'll spend a whole day in my room, barely leaving or interacting with a house full of people. For me, after a day of forced interaction with people - I need some time to myself to rejuvenate. There are days that I feel really good, but my anxiety is always with me.
By Shay Gross6 years ago in Psyche
Locked inside my head
It was another day in the life of a “normal” teenager. I put normal in quotations because what even is normal. I guess you could say I was a typical teenager. It was the summer after high school graduation. I was still trying to decide if college was for me or what I was going to do with my life. I visited a local community college to see what my options were. After that I was in route to see my girlfriend at the time and bring her some lunch. Earlier this day we had a fight and I wanted to make it up to her. Anyways, I was driving along and started to feel extremely paranoid. I started having intrusive thoughts that someone was following me. I pulled over into a gas station and the thoughts began to sound like voices. Voices asking for help inside the gas station. Then I heard what I thought was god or someone telling me to go inside the gas station and help these people. I went inside and asked who needed help and the people inside looked at me sideways. Like I was crazy for lack of a better term. I started panicking and went back to my car. The tears came and my breathing quickened. I was having a panic attack for the first time ever in my life. I didn’t know that’s what it was at the time so I called my mom to ask her for help. I believed I was having a heart attack or something and was dying. I told her about the voices and that god was talking to me. She told me to stay put and she was coming to get me. While on the phone with her a man walked up to my window waving money at me. I think he thought I was in trouble and needed it. Thinking about it now I wish I could thank that man. But I was too manic to even recognize his generosity. My mom arrived and transported me to a place called the stress center. Once I got there things become a lot fuzzier so the details are blurry. I’m going to try my best to describe my experience. The man that questioned me at the stress center was a big man with a deep voice. I truly believed he was god and he was testing me. Very scary delusion, thinking I’m sitting across from god. After our discussion they admitted me into the actual hospital on the psych floor. They ran so many tests to figure out why this was happening. From my point of view it felt like I had died and gone to hell. I was seeing and hearing many different scary things. I saw shadows and demon faces in my hospital window. At one point I thought the devil was in the room with me. The tv was sending me messages on how to get out of this hell. I started reading the Bible and praying. So many different insane thoughts went through my mind. It’s like I was locked in this alternate reality. Ultimately I lost touch with reality and became a completely different person. I’m sure my loved ones would agree with that. Their experience of the whole matter is completely different than mine. I’d like to interview them and get their point of view one day. The reason I’m telling this story is to put it out there for others to relate to and possibly educate others on what it’s like for me to experience psychosis. Which is what was happening to me. This was just the first psychotic episode I’ve had. All together I’ve had 3 episodes. Back to the story. After a week in the hospital I was put in the inpatient unit of the stress center. I spent a couple weeks there recovering and getting back to myself. It took a while to recover and my brain was never the same after that traumatic episode. At this point the doctors still didn’t know what was wrong with me. But this was the first sign of my bipolar. At the beginning we all believed it was a one time thing caused by stress and my drug usage. Sorry if this didn’t make any sense. Hopefully you learned something or related in some way. Life was never the same after this. This disorder for me is debilitating. Every person with bipolar disorder has a different experience. If you made it this far thank you for reading and reach out to me with any questions you may have. I’m not the best writer so please excuse any mistakes I made. Also I’m always here as support for anyone struggling with mental illness or just life in general.
By Lindsey Weber6 years ago in Psyche
