depression Archive

A Trans Woman’s Open Letter to Her Dad

Hi Dad,

It is time to address the last sticking point in my transition. I don’t need to remind you that I am making the single biggest step in this journey in three weeks (and yes, I’m absolutely certain). If required, I will go into greater detail, but you don’t want that and I’m not excited to have to.

Accessing Mental Health Care While Trans

Trigger Warning: physically and sexually violent imagery, transphobia

I recently moved to Boston from NYC. Moving can be stressful for a variety of reasons. As a trans man with mental illness, it can be especially stressful for me to try to make sure all of my healthcare continues without gaps.

Persistent Past in a Present Future

My therapist has a thing for drawing me charts that she hopes I bring home and post on my wall (I do). It ends up straining both my eyes and my mind. We tend to get into complicated conversations that involve chaos theory and the nature of humans. My most recent chart (a flow chart of such) describes how the past connects us to depression, the future to anxiety, and the present to calm and balance. But I have questions. As I usually do.

Small Steps: Adventures in Prescriptions and Dosing

After a lot of work with my psychiatrist, we managed to, more or less, titrate my medications to acceptable doses that managed my anxiety and depression (again, more or less). Primarily, these were my Paxil and Wellbutrin, which are my long term maintenance medications. A little bit of Ambien here to counter the side effects, and a little bit of Klonopin there to pick up the occasional slack (an intense background social anxiety), and I’m pretty much golden.

Gay Men & Depression

Depression and anxiety are very common among gay men, and some of the most common reasons why some gay men feel depressed include the homophobia surrounding them of the feeling of guilt. I have many gay friends that use to feel guilty about being gay, because they believe they have not only disappointed and saddened their family, but also their friends. However, this isn’t a general rule. When it comes to depression, it is classified in chronic depression and severe depression. Fortunately, both of them can be treated.

“The Beast” – A comic by me

I would like to welcome the newest member of our writing team, Sydney. In her first post with us, she expresses her experiences with depression with humor. Thanks for sharing with us, Sydney!

After a long hiatus, my depression came back. I made this comic to deal with it.

Faith and Sexuality with Bipolar

New to a wholehearted identification with the LGBTQ community, new to thinking of myself—knowing myself—as gay, my skin was as thin as paper when it came to perceived attacks on my identity. I felt as vulnerable and exposed as in the months after people learned I had a mental illness, so many years ago. I felt naked, like by coming out I had stripped away some vital protection that came with people thinking of me as straight, or even bisexual—capable, at least, of feeling sexual attraction to men—and that now I walked around people with an intimate part of me laid bare. To be gay, bi, pan, asexual, or queer in some other way is so much more than sex, but that’s what I felt like everyone in my family and close circle of friends were thinking about when they talked to me. I felt so incredibly revealed.

This Kid Don’t Stand A Chance

I can’t imagine living past my 20′s. I don’t know why. Maybe its the eating disorder, the depression, the increased chance of being the victim of violent crime due to being black and queer.

As The Wheel Turns: New Diagnosis

Three years ago, when I FINALLY got some psychiatric help for an episode that was already almost a year old at that point (thanks for nothing), my then-psychiatrist diagnosed me with panic disorder/agoraphobia, OCD, Borderline Personality Disorder, depressive disorder, dissociative disorder, and Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified. Believe it or not, I was okay with that. It gave me something to hold onto, because I couldn’t make sense out of what was happening to me anymore. By the time I got in to see him, it was already too late. The damage was done. I will never fully recover. It’s not pessimism, just plain fact. Too much has happened to me, and rearranged my brain and how I perceive things.

Too Big to Fail

You probably know my name, my face, and my story. You may at some point looked up to me. That’s fine. I sought out a role as a leader in the community for a reason. I thought I could help, and people tell me I have succeeded. Researchers tell me their studies keep coming back with the same result; study participants keep saying the group that I somehow ended up leading saved their lives.