Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: "Reigniting the Flames of My Past"
For months after the attack, I couldn't close my eyes without envisioning the face of my attacker. I suffered horrific flashbacks and nightmares. For four years after the attack I was unable to sleep alone in my house. I obsessively checked windows, doors, and locks. By age 17, I'd suffered my first panic attack. Soon I became unable to leave my apartment for weeks at a time, ending my modeling career abruptly. This just became a way of life. -P.K. Philips
Depression: "Forced to Smile"
Depression is like walking around in a big bubble of tar. It slows you down and suffocates you, it’s a heavy weight and it seems all the way inside you. It makes everything feel like more of an effort or challenge and it’s exhausting. It stays there like a barrier between you and the world, but it’s invisible tar that you have to smile your way through and pretend isn’t there! - Kate Elliot
Anxiety: "The World Is Against Me"
All my life I’ve been told that anxiety is something people make up in their heads. The word gets flashed around without realizing the reality that it is for far too many people. Reality is having panic attacks about taking care of my daughter or being alone with her. Reality is constantly having an ache in my stomach like something isn’t right. Reality is hiding in the bathroom, shaking and feeling like I can’t breathe in the corner. Reality is helping customers at my job when the entire room feels like it’s caving in. Reality is putting on a smile and pretending like 5 million things aren’t going through my head at one time giving me no pause and no rest. Anxiety is something a lot of this world has chosen to belittle or ignore. But anxiety is reality for so many people. Anxiety is reality for me. So everyday, I get up, I ask God for strength for the battle he has given me that today I come out victorious and I tackle my anxiety one moment at a time. -Shelbie Parmiter-Dodd
Insomnia: "Wide Awake"
It’s 1am. I had a full day at work today and have been exhausted since I woke up. Yet I can’t sleep. I want to. The lights are off, my phone is away, and my eyes are closed. I’m all tucked in, yet I can’t sleep. I didn’t get much sleep last night, so I thought I must surely be able to sleep tonight. I can’t, though. My eyes feel like they are glued open, and my brain won’t shut off. I’m so, so tired. I really want to sleep, and I know I’ll be exhausted all day tomorrow. Yet, I know that tomorrow night I won’t be able to sleep either. That’s just how it goes, I guess. -anonymous
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder: "Obsessive Worries"
It can be small things, like only wanting even numbers for volumes, or if tools or pencils and notebooks aren't symmetrical, you're going to lose everything. Sometimes even needing everything clean and sanitized can be the way you keep your sanity. You're always on edge because you have to look out for a nightmare waiting to happen.
-anonymous
Bipolar Disorder: "Split"
I become easily distracted or overwhelmed. I am very hard on myself, so much so that my bipolar is disguised as 'type A personality' or 'perfectionist'. I know many people can relate to this. I take on many responsibilities and feel completely capable, then days later feel like I am incompetent and failing in every area of my life. I can juggle four jobs at once, then need to hole up in my room for two days straight. My memory is greatly affected by bipolar disorder. This is what affects me the most. In turn, it becomes frustration and hopelessness. My manic episodes - though few and far between - cause me to retreat from social settings, worrying my friends and colleagues. I don't tell many people I have this diagnosis, because there is a stigma that I will become like the Incredible Hulk, or people are afraid to get too close because they never know if I'll be Dr. Jekyl or Mr. Hyde. But that is far from the truth. I have almost no depressive symptoms. I am happy-go-lucky, ambitious, and a go-getter. When I get overwhelmed, I retreat and sometimes it does feel like the end of the world, but those who love me understand that they may need to give me space and time and their 'advice' won't hold merit. I don't want people to see me and associate me with mood swings. I'm not moody, and I'm not mean. I am overwhelmed with too many emotions at the same time and I can't always hide how I'm feeling. -anonymous
Anorexia: "How I See Myself"
When you spend time focused on the size of your jeans or the number on the scale, you lose a lot of yourself. The numbers erase the constant bruising. The numbers make the fainting in class worth it. The numbers hide the fact that your period has been scarily irregular. But the numbers don't make you feel good. The numbers don't bring back the guy who left, and they don't make your mother love you any more. I learned the hard way that once you start worrying about the numbers, they become all encompassing. The numbers were more important than I was. The numbers didn't make me beautiful or make me loved or make me valued. The numbers didn’t make anything better. Even when I stopped relying on the numbers, they still haunted me. The issues that brought me to rely on these numbers still rear their head and make a mockery of my life. They affect my fertility, my hair growth, and my bones. They affect my thoughts and behaviors. They make me relapse into thinking about those damn numbers again. -anonymous
Tourette Syndrome: "Forced to Tic"
“How can you have Tourette’s when you barely ever cuss?” No one understands that Tourette Syndrome rarely involves uncontrollable cursing. For most people it’s a nose twitch or a sniffle, a skip or a stomach roll. People stare, wondering why your arm has been jerking, practically out of your socket, for the last two minutes. They never say anything, though. No one ever asks why I do such things; they just laugh and point and assume I’m weird. It feels weird. It feels weird to have a part of your body constantly twitching out of control to the point where you’re in pain and sweating from uncontrollably holding your breath for too long. It feels weird to have a permanent itch that your hand is forced to scratch. It’s as if someone else is in control of my body, and that’s weird. But not the weird you think. If only they would just ask... -Anna Jean Ouellette