Mental Health
Tangled: Exploring the Overlapping Symptoms of ADHD and Trauma
CONTENT NOTE: discussion of domestic/child abuse . . . . . . . . . Hypervigilance, trouble focusing, dissociating, trouble maintaining relationships. These are only some of the common symptoms that overlap between ADHD and the effects of trauma. …
You Make Me Sick: The Dehumanizing Trauma of Disability Benefits Processes
CONTENT NOTE: in-depth discussion of trauma, including medical ableism, as well as brief mentions of childhood neglect and abuse, antisemitism, physical violence, and war/conflict . . . . . . . . . . . . One Sunday in…
Video Games and Madness: A World of Harmful Tropes
Having just recovered from another one of many depressive episodes I’ve had throughout my life, I’ve had time to reflect on my relationship to madness and reality. Being of a philosophical bent, I ruminate on these things out of habit. …
Slowing Down and Embracing Surgical Recovery is Still Living
I am working through one of those once a half-decade-or-so massive health shifts that folks with any chronic condition may find familiar: a rapid shift in function, surgery to implant more metal bits in me that set off alarms whenever…
Why Inspirational Memes About Mental Health Disabilities Are So Damaging
As a person with mental health disabilities, nothing makes me seethe like those who create inspirational memes that do more damage than good to the people in my community. Whenever I encounter such feel-good shibboleths, my hands tense, my breathing …
Disability Isn’t a Halloween Costume
Last year, a friend who hadn’t seen me in a few years asked whether my bright, sparkly purple cane was part of my sense of style. I dress whimsically in colorful outfits with a lot of patterns and he’d never …
Identifying as “Disabled” Brings Me Peace in a World Hostile to My Existence
Before I entered college, I never thought about disability. Or at least, I never thought about it with that exact word. Mental illness. Mentally ill. Disorder. Burden. These were all words I used to describe myself before “disabled” and “disability” …
My Disabilities Make Me Both Broken and Whole
A dichotomy is defined as a contrast between two things. It is two stones with a gulf between them, two planets on opposite sides of the sun, two opinions, two political parties, two opposites. And in my case, one person. …