Latest Stories
Most recently published stories in Psyche.
Are Fidget Rings and Pop Its Stress-Relieving Tools or Modern-Day Snake Oil?
Whether or not there is a pandemic, we are an anxious species. "Humans aren't intended to sit there all day and utilize only our minds," explains Katherine Isbister, Ph.D., research director of the University of California, Santa Cruz's Social Emotional Technology Lab. But we must sit – in class, at work, while waiting for our daily cappuccino. And as we're doing so, our hands are looking for anything to do. It's only natural to have a fidget aid - something to automatically spin, squeeze, and push — from prayer beads to stress balls, spinning rings to pop pops. But why is that? Is there an advantage here, and if so, what is it? Are these items truly stress-relieving, mind-calming, and relaxing? Is this all snake oil, squeezable, pokable, and spinnable?
By Rashintha Lakshan4 years ago in Psyche
How I Lost and Regained the Sparkle in My Eye
Upon my diagnosis of bipolar 2 at 21, I no longer knew who I was. Everything I had thought about myself shifted through the lens of insanity. For example, I viewed my excessive energy to work 40-50 hours, sing in a choir, perform a play, and attend young adult activities during summer breaks as mania, and moments of anger, irritability, and tears as depression. Were my creativity, brilliance, and spontaneity only a product of mania? Did that mean depression was my "normal"?
By Eileen Davis4 years ago in Psyche
Therapy is Critical to Survival Part Two
One of the most stigmatized disorders in the world. But what is Autism? "Autism, or autism spectrum disorder (ASD), is a developmental disorder. It affects how people communicate and interact with others, as well as how they behave and learn.
By Cyanide Chaos4 years ago in Psyche
It Was 6 AM.
It was 6 am and it was my day off. The first one in a long while. When I looked out from the window of the bus I saw her sitting on a box. One of those big, green ones. Who knows what hides inside there. Wires, probably. Switches that control lights and buttons and the flashing green and red of the traffic lights.
By WriterinWonder4 years ago in Psyche
How Time Changes Us
I believe that it was 2017 when I was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder, Type II. I was 21 years old. At a turning point in most people's lives, their early twenties, I was finding out that I had a mental illness that would never go away and could never be fixed. Yes, I could remedy some things with medication and therapy, but it would be a lot of work for the rest of my life, and it would be very hard.
By Amanda Doyle4 years ago in Psyche
Stop Telling Yourself You Don’t Know
Do you ever find that you struggle to make decisions? You agonise about every tiny detail of the decision, you panic and have sleepless nights, terrified that you may make the wrong decision. You end up just accepting defeat, deciding you don’t know, and you are just too confused, and then end up making no decision (which is actually a decision in itself), or leaving things so long the decision is taken out of your hands.
By Shelly Freeman4 years ago in Psyche
Horror & Mental Health
“You're not afraid of the great world, Eddie, but of the small one inside yourself.” (King, Stephen. The Wastelands: The Dark Tower Iii. A Signet Book, 2003.) Perhaps we are all born with a healthy fear of the intrusive thoughts which our tell-tale hearts are capable of? Possibly, we invite personal demons into our tiny worlds by the casual over-exposure of visionaries' fears, personified in the media. Conceivably, the digestion of these horrors actually allows us to purge the dark and struggling sides of ourselves. Or just maybe, asking these ‘deep’ questions shows no justice to the fluidity of a universal audience, each person differing from the last. The conversation’s about the way horror media affects people have been long-lasting and strenuous for several years but the general idea that Horror is bad for you, is the most accepted/popular answer. What becomes of our mental health when we turn the corners of pages or look at the television to find figments of a scared imagination? The true response of this fault-line is that there can be no universal answer. Mental health is a near unfathomable spectrum within each human being. Never the same and always changing. Depending on the person, the horror genre could be a coming vessel of fear or a form of escapism from the vessel which lives in you. By no means am I an expert in the education of mental health, rather, I’m just a twenty-two year old woman who’s learning to cope with OCD, Anxiety and Depression. My personal experience and those close to me (who’ve felt comfortable enough to share) are the background from which I speak.
By Jaime Burbatt4 years ago in Psyche
