The List: Flashbacks and Failures
I wonder if the version of me from 2017 just wants to be heard, understood, validated and integrated. Sometimes she knocks quietly, other times she rages.
A Hospital Surgeon Falls Victim to Psychiatry
I had been a prestigious obstetrician and gynaecologist for 22 years. Then my world started to collapse, and I made an appointment with a psychiatrist.
The Unspoken Lexicon of Healing: When My Symptoms Became Stories
Longing is not something to medicate; it’s proof of what we’ve loved.
Interview with Jessica Fairfax Hirst: The Withdrawal First Aid Kit
A conversation with artist Jessica Fairfax Hirst about the process behind her "Withdrawal First Aid Kit" art installation.
Reclaiming Myself After Lexapro
For far too many people, psychiatric drugs have become the casual default answer rather than the last resort.
Sweltering in My Own Sour Breath
All I could feel was nightmares budding and leafing darkly from my nerve endings, swinging and rustling in the black air of my grief.
Beyond Medication: Meeting People in Their Worlds
Dementia strips away memory and function, but it does not erase the longing for meaning. If anything, it exposes it more starkly.
The Prescription Pad of Spirit
My boldest "treatment measures" by far did not involve clinicians or doctors or insurance at all.
Labeled, Medicated, Misdiagnosed — Until I Rewired My Own Brain
I’m not a doctor. I’m a patient. But I solved what six psychiatrists could not.
Why I Kept Going Back: Breaking Free From Trauma Bonds
Breaking free from trauma bonds is a process of doubt, pain, and courage. It’s learning to trust yourself again after years of confusion.
On Love in America
After I nearly died during open-heart surgery, I realized that there is no room in this second life for anything but gratitude — and love.
A Manner of Speaking
A cinematic prose poem that uses metaphor and symbol to capture the essence of experiences for which there are no words.
Community, Ethics, and Healing Amidst the Great Unraveling
If our treatment is only aligned with the individualist reductionist model, we are unwittingly contributing to destruction.
Reflections on My Mistrust for Other Mental Health Workers
I learned to hold my tongue around mental health workers. I dealt with their slurs by working harder and longer than them.
When Repair Doesn’t Come: A Trauma Survivor Reflects on a Rupture With Her Therapist
I spent years in therapy slowly learning how to feel safe with another human being. But then came the rupture.
Two Voices and One Chair
It’s a war between two voices. The writer’s voice shapes, composes, imagines. The trauma’s voice: raw, insistent, unfiltered, breaking in.
Antipsychotics—And How I’ve Learned to Manage the Side Effects
While suppressing pathological symptoms, drugs also suppress the normal instinct of "wanting to move" and "wanting to enjoy life".
The Report That Erased Me: How Misdiagnosis and Neglect Delayed My Healing
What looks like defiance is often a child screaming: "I don't know how to trust you, prove me wrong."
They Called It Psychiatry – I Call It Punishment
I was fighting something far more dangerous than madness — I was fighting a culture of fear and suppression masquerading as mental health care.
The Trouble with Lived Experience: When Peer Support Compounds Trauma by Denying Abuse
Trauma and abuse are different experiences, and they require different forms of support, accountability, and healing.
The Degrees on the Wall
The therapists who helped me most weren’t the ones who dazzled with their knowledge. They were the ones who made me feel less alone.
The Whispered Rules of Belonging: How Counseling Education Tried to Silence Me
I started to understand that I wasn’t just being trained in therapeutic skills. I was being trained to conform.
Two Years Later: My TMS Story, From Gaslighting to Finding My Voice
This didn’t feel like a temporary adjustment phase. It felt like my brain was glitching.
Conceptual Synaesthesia as Cognitive Literacy
I don’t just feel things; I translate them. For those of us who experience it, it is not a novelty. It is a structure for thinking.
Are We Sober Yet?
I asked my psychiatrist if the Lexapro could be making it harder for me to stop drinking. He laughed and assured me that it was impossible.
