Tag: self-acceptance
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Running Home
Emma was in Boston the last time she’d ventured out for a jog. It had rained that morning and the puddles lay like landmines along her sidewalk-to-pond-and-back circuit. The mud splashed up to her ankles and had caked thickly on the laces of her running shoes. Now, in the living room of her parents’ Pennsylvanian…
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Invoking the Blank Page
I am looking to you, Blank Page, for help. I awoke today with Worry. While I was able to slough off the morning blanket, Worry persisted its shroud about me. An invisible source secures a tight hold around the top of my head. It clamps the innards of my chest. The cinches have been there…
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Stigmas, Silence, and Schooling
After almost nine years, I still cannot get a clear sense of what happened during the months that followed my high school graduation. The diagnosis that has become a descriptor of my identity fogs up the lenses of self-retrospection. Concepts like failure, accomplishment, becoming well-adjusted, figuring out the next steps in life, getting knocked down…
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The Pebble Drop
I am bipolar. Not like in the slang sense of the word. Not like just on bad days. Not like how people describe random eruptions of anger. Not like what you hear in that Katy Perry song. I have credentials. After I got my diagnosis, my father used to explain having a mental illness as…
Sophisticating the Rudimentary 