humanity

Mental health is a fundamental right; the future of humanity depends on it.

The Effects on Children who Witness Verbal Abuse Between Parents
When a child witnesses verbal abuse between the two people they love most in the world, it is devastating, and it affects them deeply. They grow up with the idea this type of love and drama is normal, and the effects can linger long after they become adults and leave their dysfunctional home.
By The Writer Chick5 years ago in Psyche
My Own Demise
My dry mouth ajar, lips cracking open and bleeding with my dry tongue screaming at the sky. The wind eats my ragged plea to not be heard by anyone. I fall to the ground and rain starts to speckle my skin feeling cold followed by a warm gust of wind. I can see the swirling funnel in the distance heading my direction but I cannot bring myself to unfold my legs and stand to save myself. I just sat there in a crumpled pile unable to make sense of what was happening anymore. How did I get here after all I have done and strived to avoid this and yet here I am in the exact place and situation I thought I could escape. I always knew my life was going to end prematurely, I had planned on it actually to escape the pain of existence. To avoid my eyes that have always looked longingly into themselves in their reflection in the mirror pleading with themselves to stop resisting the inevitable. Being stubborn has always been a trait that roared louder in my Leo blood than any other. I naively and idealistically thought I could change my fate and set to worm at doing so without a plan or means to carry out the non existent plan. Years passed and life, despite minor struggles and ignoring indiscretions and disrespect suffered at others hands, I ignorantly tricked myself into believing that I could just shove all that down inside and pretend it didn’t happen or make excuses for a reason behind why it happened and explained it away and accepted the abuse as warranted. My eyes never met another person’s, my voice no louder than a whisper, trying to shrink my fat body maybe melt myself like ice or out run my skin and just be pure wind into as tiny a position as was possible hoping no one would notice the elephant in the room or apologize for the space I took up. Walking around apologizing for existing and smiling and making it into a game I played to see how long I could play before my character expired. As the winds increase and my crumpled body remains firmly planted to the ground in direct line with the funnel I felt myself lift from the ground being dragged into the funnel and to my demise my ragged cry still going unheard forever. Before there was nothing left of me my final thought haunted me no one will notice any way because you never mattered. Why try when the funnel is actually you dragging yourself into chaos and undermining all the precious efforts taken in vain. I am my own worst enemy because I never mattered to me either. There’s a part of me that cries out to save myself but deep inside I know that no one values me therefore there is nothing worth saving anymore. I believe that once you have settled for broken it is too difficult to see anything other than all my shattered pieces scattered all across the floor and I have nothing left to attempt to even cheaply fashion it together. I lost my grandmother and grandfather two years ago and she always prayed for me which made me feel like I meant something to her and she would always say she knows I do not believe her but she loved me. During her last week on this earth she was very confused and in and out of reality. She thought I was there to help her like a therapist and she shared to me the therapist that she always worries about her granddaughter or me but she doesn’t know this and proceeds to tell me that she just feels so bad for her because she is so heavy and people do not accept her and what a tragedy that she is so heavy she would be so pretty if she would just lose some weight. I became extremely upset and told my mother and aunt what had happened and that I wanted to leave and they stated she was so confused she did t even know she was talking to me and she wasn’t being mean or trying to hurt me because she didn’t know. This hurt me even more. I have never in my life been touched by a person that actually cared about me or accepted me. I was also not allowed to make sound when I cried because it annoyed my father and least of all was I allowed to have any aversive feelings about how I was treated because after all I was heavy and do not meet acceptable standards. I learned to just be quiet and when I cried tears would just stream down my face but my mouth stayed closed and all that surrounded me was silence. There were times my father would not allow me to eat dinner stating I had probably eaten enough throughout the day to sustain my current heaviness and did not need any more food and there were times that I had not eaten all day but would be denied food due to being overweight. My mother would yell across the room at a party to question whether or not I wanted to actually eat another cookie that I had in my hand because after all I had already had one. I at one point spent two years working out and eating healthy and lost 150 pounds and everyone was so proud of me except me. When I looked at myself I didn’t recognize myself. I felt bigger then than I had when I weighed 150 pounds more. I felt unsafe and lost in a unfamiliar foreign body. Then guys started showing me attention and it was unwanted but none the less I got it and I knew if anything happened I could not protect myself. All I had ever tried to do was to keep people su attention off of me so I could be safe but fat or thin I received attention that I did not want. Being fat made me more of a target for people’s eyes filled with disdain and disgust when looking at me. I could not hide what I was and people could not hide their judgment nor did they try. I worked in a psychiatric unit and patients would call me the four hundred pound tattooed freak. One woman told me I was beautiful and that she wrote a poem about me and proceeded to sing it to me all night as I was placed outside her door to watch another patient and she referred to me in her symphony as the beautiful sumo wrestler, so majestic. Despite my efforts I find myself stuck between continuing to earn my life no matter the hit, punch, nasty word or look, the unwanted touching, being ostracized and not accepted because I believe or believed I had so much to give and was much more capable than the life I was leading and just finally giving in to popular opinion. I find myself thinking maybe I am not more capable of anything other than where I am at and what if my life just proceeds to get worse. Then why did I fight so hard to save and claim a life that is tanking so quickly and is so out of control that it is beyond saving? To keep living alone, lonely and worthless. Why fight the inevitable plus I am just tired so unbelievably tired of always and I do mean always having to prove that I am worthy of being in the world. I wish oh do I wish that things could have been different that maybe I was a diamond in the rough and I got kicked into the river and the water could wear me down to make me smooth, acceptable and just like everyone else but all I continue to feel is jagged, rough edges and I keep cutting myself on them.
By Nat Roxxx5 years ago in Psyche
The Man, the Myth, and the Madness
I sat on the edge of a sheer cliff, where no one’s sight penetrated the darkness of that pit met its ground. Wound tighter than and coiled steel spring, I gripped the dark earth with all my might, and leaned over the edge, undeterred from my desire to know that final destination, because it was my fault. I had always been my fault, or at least that was what I had been told. Over, and over a voice taunted me with my fate. I was fated to fail.
By John Michael Poling5 years ago in Psyche
Our Life and Times
A few days ago it was raining, cold and windy. The whistling of the winds reminded me of the book/movie Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. It is based on a wild, passionate story of intense love between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, a boy adopted by Catherine's father.
By She Writes5 years ago in Psyche
How I didn't commit Suicide and how it can help you
Chapter one My life story Don’t ask questions I don’t have answers for them. All I ask is for someone to listen to me and hear me out and hopefully understand why I'm writing this. I'll start from the beginning when my mom was still around.
By Alexis Ashe5 years ago in Psyche
My Quarantine Hobby
I’m sure the day will come when we are all telling our children, grandchildren, nieces & nephews not to take SH*T for granted. We’ll be talking to them about COVID-19 until we go blue in the face. How people lost their minds but also found themselves and forgot how to act human or be the most human they’d ever been in their lives.
By Andrea Bonder5 years ago in Psyche
Pitch Black
Even though I was surrounded by people, I was still alone in the world. It’s a strange feeling to be in a crowd, a jostling society, mingling with other humans and still feel disconnected. I sense an underlying fear that tugs at us all. Pulling our ankle, our sock our leg, nagging us for attention. I see fear as a little demonoid child who is feeling neglected and wishes for validation. Giving fear the validation and attention it needs allows it to be calmed, recognised, reassured, comforted, and validated. Just like in co-dependant and unbalanced relationship dynamics you must communicate with your fear before it becomes a bigger problem. It’s also known as shadow work. Dr Carl Gustav Jung speaks of the collective unconscious as our individual fears and elements of ourselves; personalities and characters etc, which we have suppressed, denied and shunned. These are parts of us that exist whether we like it or not. We all have parts of ourselves that we don’t like, whether they are tortured memories which we want to forget, or trauma’s that have broken us and altered our reality, making us who we are today. Collectively suppressed we make a union of communal shadows, manifesting in anxiety, depression, paranoia, illness and unease. I feel as though we are in a time of hiding. Hibernating and fatigue. There’s an electricity that runs on a low frequency within society, signalling that another lockdown is not welcome. Perhaps I am more anxious than I thought I was. Now having seen others and felt their energy wondering town I see fear is under the surface for most people, simmering. An anxiety of isolation and control. The uncertainty of our future is a weight looming, oppressive, grey and muggy. The crisp clear blue skies, the clouds dramatically half shadowed, and half brilliantly highlighted from the radiant low hanging sun. These are the days that bring light, smiles, and optimism to the air, even when it rains. We do what we have to do. I bought what I needed today before the “non essential” shops shut tomorrow. I’m sure that Preserve would be classified as an “essential shop”, that way I can still get my vanoffee cashews ;) #yum. Wandering town my energy and concentration levels were low so I got my essentials and only made a few detours before home. 1. Charity shop, looking for winter boots, and a fur coat, preferably leopard print. 2. MacDonalds, where I got a takeaway double cheeseburger, large fries and a chocolate milkshake. #noregrets. Perhaps I was comfort and panic eating. 3. Simply Pleasure to see Gem and get Kat’s current number. On the bus home were two young school girls sat at the front of the bus talking enthusiastically with one another. One of them was talking about the darkest day of the year, saying that “soon it will be dark by 3:30pm.” “Really?!” says the other with exclamation. “Yeah like pitch black!” she replies. “Not pitch black surely, aren’t there lights?” “No! Pitch black everywhere!” They were the only ones talking on the top floor of the double decker. It was as if everyone was silently witnessing their innocent conversation bubble. I felt like a member of audience for a reality TV show. One of the girls gets off and they say bye. Now silence. The girl remaining gets off at the stop before mine. She’s strawberry blonde long hair down to her back, she’s very small, perhaps 4ft”something, Caucasian with a bountiful meadow of freckles across her cheeks, she’s in a school uniform, trousers, blazer, and a gigantic rucksack, it's square and half her size. She holds onto the bus rail waiting for the vehicle to stop. Then off she bounces into the world. I watch the leaves fall from the tree as we pull away to our next destination on route.
By Heather Naomi5 years ago in Psyche
The Thoughton
Thought is not an option. We all think about stuff. Coming here, you're thinking about stuff. Wondering what's coming next. Seeking to discover more, perhaps, about the way reality really operates. We are all beset by some kind of mental health issue at some point in our lives. With lots of labels flying around, there's (at least) one for everyone. To my mind, and with good reason, the bedrock of our life's construction (i.e. the quantum world) is a great place to start - a platform from which your explorations can take you just about anywhere in searching for yourself.
By Quantumology5 years ago in Psyche
Suicide Ideation Awareness Costume
Content Warning: Suicide, cutting, and some graphics. Hi :) My name is Nicole, and since this is my first entry on Vocal ((I've been dying to start an account for years,)) I thought maybe I should start this by telling you a little bit about myself ((start with the lighter traumas before we dive into the deep end.)) I am a 35 yr old cis female living with Schizophrenia, Complex PTSD, and Dissociative Identity Disorder. I am extremely driven by my creativity- and I also use it to heal through "Art Therapy," which is something I will probably want to talk more about as time goes on. Art Therapy is the biggest reason I still feel like a person, with hopes to function better, more and more as time goes on. My main creative outlets are fashion, music, and writing-- hence the reason Vocal caught my eye in the first place. Most of what I write about here in the future will probably be about living with my disorders and the things I am trying to do in order to prevent my symptoms from worsening more than they already have as of recently. My hope is to spend my lifetime essentially creating as much awareness as possible through the channel that is me in the times I am able to- about important topics such as mental health, suicide ideation, art therapy, and anything else that I struggle with and things I have found to help with that struggle or ease the pain. Since I was diagnosed at 17, I have treated myself as my own science experiment ((I have an Associates Degree in Science)) and I have been actively studying what it means to have the mental illnesses I have, and everything I can do to try and live a life as high functioning as possible. My plans are to finish writing a book about these things, and also launch a docu-series on what its like to live with schizophrenia, cptsd, and DID in particular- as I have been filming for 5 years+. My biggest goal is to open my own facility one day that helps people deal with mental illness, suicide ideation, addiction, and extensive trauma with a focus on child molestation. I have about a million ideas and a million different things I would like to do with the life I have been given- but I am hindered greatly lately by the worsening of my condition. For example- I feel like uploading on this platform will help me to compile everything a little bit better for the book I would like to finish and release one day, but I have developed speech problems as my schizophrenia has worsened in the past 5 years or so. Usually. i type like. this. so that. i can use. the periods. as "stops" for me to "stop" and take a breath and focus . on how to get. the next word. out. instead. of getting frustrated. and quitting. and going. mute. This also essentially. happens when. I speak out. loud- causing me to pause. often in between. words. or phrases. Thankfully for you- I also suffer from obsessive compulsive disorder- and I know how to edit out the periods that give me uncontrollable anxiety about the way they must look and how hard it must be to read that way! So I will do what I can in order to edit to the best of my ability, but i might not fuss so much over the "i'"s being capitalized- i hope thats okay :)
By Nicole Monet Quinn5 years ago in Psyche
Surving Narcissistic Abuse
DISCLAIMER: THIS STORY CONTAINS TALK ABOUT SEXUAL ABUSE AND EMOTIONAL ABUSE, IF YOU ARE SENSITIVE TO THESE TOPICS PLEASE CLICK OUT OF THIS STORY, IF YOU WANT TO READ MORE, YOU MAY CONTINUE.
By Hypnotic Peach235 years ago in Psyche
Coming home to your soul
Agreeing to things just to keep the peace is a trauma response and so is the need to stay busy all the time. I wish someone would have told me that earlier so I could have begun my healing journey sooner. Children who grow up with broken foundations often do not know that they have deep hidden trauma and feelings of worthlessness in their minds. The whole ‘I am not good enough’ record playing at the back of your mind whenever something good happens to you or is offered to you, holds you back in life on multiple occasions. I don’t think that I ever wanted anyone’s sympathy, I just wanted people to understand. I craved the love I gave, and I expected it from the ones who could not give it to me. Maybe that’s why now I know what love is. Another thing that I did not realize earlier on was that if something is for you, whether it is a relationship, a job, or a friendship you will not have to force it.
By Devika Pathak5 years ago in Psyche
Rem
It was cloudy in the bar. It had recently acquired new management and they were apparently going for an angsty, gothic vibe. Patrons waded through a foot and a half of artificial fog in the low light. You’d think we were all vampires upon entry, but in truth, there might have been one or two, the first being the owner. Most of us were pretty dark and broody anyway though, so it was fitting. Being an unregistered Mags was a lonely life and the only safe place was the bar, so, naturally, we were all drunks.
By Max Malone5 years ago in Psyche