I have pretty much always identified as female. Cis-gender. I have never thought about anything else, really. I have never been aware that there are other options out there, much less considered them. But I’ve also been on the tomboy side of female, right from the get-go. I hung out with boys, I beat up boys, I followed boys into the bathroom and watched them pee. I really really wanted a penis, and I tried as hard as I could to grow one. I remember when I was little I’d sit in the passenger seat of the car as I went with one of my parents on an errand-running mission, and I would feel a certain friction between my legs or against my groin from the way I was sitting on the seat, the way the seatbelt fit or my pants were tugging, and imagine a penis growing between my legs.
creativity Archive
When Addicts Go Manic – Or Things Normal People Do
The other day I was mentioning to a friend that I want to quit drinking coffee. “Don’t quit EVERYTHING,” she said. She does have a point. I have quit smoking, drinking, drugs, eating animals, eating animal products, eating gluten, eating fried foods, eating fast foods, etc. Well, the latter two for the most part. I attempt to consume healthily on top of those restrictions. I don’t gamble or even set foot inside casinos. I don’t do anything that could become an addiction. I even got rid of facebook. And there are many more parts of my moderate stability equation that seem strict to some. It normally seems like I have things under control.
Untitled
It was created during a stay in the psychiatric ward at my local hospital… I don’t know what else to say about it. I kind of went into a zone and just painted until I felt finished.
My Experience with “Bipolar Disorder” (Corvus)
I have the innate human longing for community and love, and also decades of experience that teaches me about group dynamics and human behavior and interaction. I know what I am susceptible to, who and what can trigger me, and who can lead me in the direction of becoming someone I am not, or someone I do not wish to be. I have embraced the autonomous individual from a social species. And that is who I am.
For me, being “bipolar” is about my environment as much as it is about my mind. Almost 30 years of experience to put into words… It is impossible. So I am spitting out the feelings instead.
Misrepresentation, Diversion and Truth: Talking about SSDI
One of the hardest things about existing in a community is that eventually you will have to meet new people. The elephant will enter the room. “What do you do?” “No, what do you do for work?” I am on SSDI, Social Security Disability Income. That means I don’t work in the technical sense. I sit around in my underwear drinking iced coffee and working on my novel while the government sees fit to direct deposit funds every month. I go to the grocery store and use food stamps to buy spinach and chicken.
Emily Carr, I Love You
I would like to welcome the newest member of our writing team, Winter Hammell. Her first post with QMH.org is an elegant story about pouring her feelings about mental illness into a single portrait.
i drew the #6 sable brush across the canvas with the steady hand of a cartographer, laying down a bold stroke of phthalo blue lightened with a tip of titanium white.
Holding the palette on my left thumb, clutching three brushes between my fingers, and one clenched in my teeth, i could taste the rich, luxurious oils. Drunk on the exotic perfume of linseed oil and rectified turpentine, i stroked and dabbed the canvas of gesso-primed Italian linen.
Paranoia Paranoia, Everybody’s comin’ to get me…
triggers: suicide mention, delusion, paranoia, hallucination, mania, depression, historical abuse of mental health patients and queers
I am somewhere in the more manic fray of things. And I am paranoid. Probably delusional. It’s so much easier said than actually believed. I can say “It is delusional to think that everyone is against you, that even the people closest to you are hiding deep and damaging secrets, that everyone is only pretending to like you when they are around you…” But to truly believe that these thoughts are wrong is a gift.
My Experience with Bipolar II Disorder (Hanners)
Trigger warning for description of a suicide attempt, and discussion of sexual assault.
All my life, I’ve been told by those around me that I am highly intelligent, and could do just about anything I set my mind to. I got good grades in school, for the most part (though they dropped a fair bit close to graduating high school), and was known as a happy-go-lucky kid that always found the positive side of just about anything (or anyone).
Redesigning the Rollercoaster
Trigger warnings for discussions of drug addiction, alcoholism, sexual assault, suicide, and other possibly sensitive issues.
My experiences with mental health and sexuality have been just that. Rollercoasters. Rollercoasters of self discovery, of emotion, of fear and shame, of love and experience. Always traveling up and down throughout my life. Here’s the shortest story that I could condense these parts of my life into.