Suicide: Shhhhhh
When we have a strong urge to live, it must be very difficult to understand another person’s wish to die. So far, no one has been willing or able to “go there” with me.
The MD and the Imaginary Eating Disorder
He could have asked me if there was a specific event that had precipitated my suicide attempt. He could have asked if I had a history of trauma. He could have simply asked, “What happened?” “What are you feeling?” or “So what’s going on?” Nope. He chose to open our meeting with an accusatory remark about a make-believe eating disorder.
Transmuting Historical Trauma
I believe that my surges from the unconscious (what some might call “psychotic episodes”) contain an inner wisdom and force that has a tremendous capacity to encourage the healing of intergenerational trauma. This essay explores an energy that is especially potent and accessible during these periods of unconscious spelunking.
Only When It Poured
Disposable toothbrushes and sporks. Crayons instead of pens. Little pills in little paper cups. Someone would come. Someone would go. The days turned into nights and back again.
How Creativity and Flexibility in Therapy Changed My Healing Journey
This is not meant to be an indictment of DBT, but an example of how important it is to make changes when a treatment doesn’t work.
A Thief in the Hospital
I knew by then that there was a thief, but I tried not to rush to conclusions. I couldn’t even think of the possibility that it could be one of the staff. They go into the field in order to help people.
Trying to Fly Above—An Example of Sequencity
I consider synchronicity and sequencity connections to be gifts. The meaning involved is often much deeper and more personal than other people will recognize.
Letters to My Doctors (Part 1)
I struggle as to how to talk to you guys, and there can be no progress without communication. Today, I am attempting to begin a bridge so that you will not be afraid of me and I will not be afraid of you.
To My Black Crows of Wisdom
Some might wonder why I'm still stumbling in the desert when there are cars and jobs and museums downtown, but really, the turquoise dawn is in the canyons. The thing is, my people seem to need this nutrition, the rarified medicine of this particular cactus and that specific root that I haven't found anywhere else.
Regarding the Impossibility of Recovery
Popular illness narratives tend to be of the restitution sort: I was living my life, I became sick, I got well and picked up where I left off. However, this idea that ill health is a journey to wellness doesn’t help someone with a chronic illness or disability to tell her own story, which may not have a (conventional) happy ending. The notion of ‘recovery’ can be damaging when a return to health may not be possible.
The “Sick Enough” Paradox in Eating Disorder Treatment
I had internalized that not only would I be socially rewarded for starving myself, but also that I could only earn care by proving that I was sick enough to meet their criteria.
My Recovery from ‘Schizophrenia’ through Psychotherapy and Writing
I was never told directly that I had 'schizophrenia', and I am very glad about this. I know I was feeling bad, very bad, and was unsure of what to do, but I don’t see how a diagnosis could have helped me at that time. What could I have done with it? To be marked with a label like that would likely have caused me to rebel even more.
Words from My Heart to ‘My Heart’: What Might Have Helped My Late Friend?
More than two and a half years later, I’m still processing my grief, still picturing our happiness and innocence as kids, and still acknowledging our struggles and pain.
Voicehearing, Reinaldo, and My Work as The Writer
The Writer has outlined a significant work through my hands, dictated by the voice of someone who lived at some point a long time ago, such as London in 1682 A.D.
Missionary Headshrinkers in Gold Canyons: A Survivor’s Perspective
Missionaries and psychiatrists have failed not through lack of compassion but through lack of willingness to take a long walk and a long, long talk to ask the neighbors what they need and the people what they already know.
From Self-Harm to Self-Empowerment: Liberation Through Words
In contemporary U.S. culture, people who intentionally hurt their bodies are called “insane.” We may starve ourselves or carve ourselves, taking to the extreme culturally-embedded norms like thinness in an effort to fight against marginalization or cope with internalized shame. But instead of obtaining the voice or place in society we yearn for, we are further ostracized.
A Love Letter to the Mad
My madness forged me. Madness led me to deeper truths. Madness discarded beliefs which no longer served me.
The Wind Never Lies
When I was young I believed the world spoke to me. Lightning split across the sky to the pulse of my thoughts. Rings around...
“All for the Best of the Patient”
For psychiatric ‘help’ to happen by force is a paradox and makes absolutely no sense. It can destroy people's personality and self-confidence. It can lead, in the long run, to physical and psychological disability. My dear daughter Luise got caught in this ‘helping system’ by mistake, but she didn't make it out alive. I'm sad to say I later discovered that the way Luise was treated was more the rule than the exception.
Engaging Voices, Part 2: Working Our Way Toward Connection
Sam Ruck shares his fourth excerpt from his book Healing Companions, which describes his life with, and love for, his wife and her “alters.”
Being Mad is Liberating
Being mad is liberating. Well, at least with practice and determination, because, let’s face it, being mental (with a confirmed diagnosis) is not a high status on the scale of popularity in our society, defined as it is by the standards of normality.
A Victim Re-Victimised
I had just been physically abused, deprived of my liberty and had my property stolen. Yet, I was the one who was being arrested.
Reconstruction: A Recovery Narrative
When I read recovery stories, I am sometimes challenged by the prospect of thinking about my life in linear terms, "Here are the years...
The Note
I’ve helped dozens of my students through tough times and suicidal thoughts. But my own child? How do I handle THIS?
Giving Caregivers a Platform: Leigh, Mother of Melissa
This is the story of a young woman who suffered through the agony of "kindling" and other drug-related harm, eventually dying by suicide. This is also the story of her mother’s path ahead.
