Latest Stories
Most recently published stories in Psyche.
A Guide to BPD
I've never been quiet about my mental health, while I haven't been as open as I am now, I've never made a conscious effort to hide it. However, there are many people that I know who fight specifically to prevent people from finding out about their diagnoses. I'm hoping my writing this will help them be honest with themselves and their loved ones, but also help those close to them understand and accept who they are no matter what their issues are.
By Kerri Maguire8 years ago in Psyche
Isolation and Anxiety
Mental health transparency is becoming a more and more mainstream with each passing year. I know more about my friends’ mental health concerns than I ever expected that I would. I know who struggles with depression, who struggles with anxiety and I think it’s amazing that they feel like they can share those struggles in an open forum without feeling like they will be ostracized because of it.
By D. Gabrielle Jensen8 years ago in Psyche
What They Don't Know
Yesterday was my 30th birthday. A day I had long been dreading. A bittersweet day to have been alive. You see I suffer from depression. Though my friends and family knew I was having a hard time recently, no one really knew how bad it had gotten. A few weeks ago as I laid in my bed crying, listening to my children play in the other room, I made the decision. I was going to take my own life. I was going to end this suffering that has haunted my family for far too long. They deserve to be happy. But how could they ever be happy when they have a mother who is always depressed?
By Jaye Rivera8 years ago in Psyche
An Altered Sense of Reality; Schizophrenia
Throughout history many explanations have been offered to explain why people act in unnatural ways; from supernatural explanations such as possession by demons or gods to an imbalance of bodily fluids (blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile). Today, western civilizations' theories of abnormality emphasize biological causes. Our advanced knowledge of human biology has allowed us to systematically name, diagnose and offer treatment for an ever expanding list of psychological disorders.
By Joe Snaith8 years ago in Psyche
A Pause for Cookies and Sunshine
I am not sad. I am not grief-stricken. I am me, in all my glory, an emotional being that feels and thinks too much. I remember long ago a friend proclaimed, “Tommy, you can’t express this side of you, people will make fun of you.” She was right. How I wanted so much for her to be wrong. She saw what I did not want to see: a world that does not care that you are hurting. And today it gives me pause, as I watched a tear cascade down the cheek of an unknown woman in the middle of Starbucks, for the world to see her at her weakest, her most vulnerable. What will people think of her, as she tries to quietly melt away into the world? Why, instead of reaching out, does the world shy away from pain?
By Thomas Switzer8 years ago in Psyche
Stigma Reduction Can Have Different Outcomes
Things have been said in the past few months that really got me wound up about the different types of stigma reduction. It consists of raising awareness, including being comfortable talking about the topic and normalization, including an acceptance of the topic.
By Bushra Shahriar8 years ago in Psyche
Okay
The table was grimy, covered in years of spilled coffee and cigarette ash, the hand-made doilies my stepmother had laid out making the edges between clean and filth stand out garishly. It was late, but summer in Norway means that there was light coming into the windows even at half-past two in the morning. Across from me was a chain-smoking man with my nose and dark hair, slack faced and glazed over with either fatigue or nicotine; it didn't seem possible to tell which. My stepmother hovered just outside the door to the area that served as dining, living, and occasional guest room in the tiny European house and my half-brother who was just a few months past seven years old was asleep upstairs. As my father smoked one cigarette after another, sometimes lighting the next before the first was fully finished, I tried to find my words, to put what had happened into the air between us.
By Amanda Frazier8 years ago in Psyche
Destigmatizing Mental Illnesses, Trauma, and Addiction
Suicide is never an easy thing to cope with or talk about. This year seems to have become the year that quite a few high-profile celebrities have elected to take the "easy" way out of their problems. The problem with regarding suicide that way, however, is that it's rarely an easy choice for the person who feels like life just isn't worth living anymore.
By Raven Aurora8 years ago in Psyche
My Experience of Parenting with Mental Illness
Being a parent is a huge responsibility, but for someone with mental illness, it can be very difficult. I became a parent at just eighteen years old, it wasn't planned and I had no idea I was pregnant. I had never been taught about pregnancy, contraception or child birth, so as you can imagine, I was in shock.
By Carol Ann Townend8 years ago in Psyche
Depression
It's not cowardly. It doesn't make you a horrible person for experiencing it. It does not make you weak. In fact, having depression and battling it as strong as you are makes you a fighter. A warrior. A magician. Cause to play with the alchemy of management to the disarray that exists in your mind is some real magic. Just making it out of bed some days when it feels like your whole world is caving in, and you can't stop the tears from coming, and you're sure this is the spell that's going to take you is fucking magic.
By Miss Riddle8 years ago in Psyche
