You are not the sum of what your friends tell you. Despite what people say, no one knows you better than you know yourself. They receive a projection of you. You know how you are, and you know how you tick.
loss Archive
25 Feb 2013
I would explain it to you, but I don’t know how.
These past months (as gone by my silence) have slowly burned me down to nothing. I took on too much took quickly, became everyone’s rock, and I forgot about myself.
My brothers death happened seven months ago. People are now telling me it’s time to pack his things away, time to dust his room (which is now my room). People are telling me it’s time to put him away.
But how am I meant to put away a life I am just beginning to grieve? And from this, I get asked; “Why do you feel this way now?”
14 Feb 2013
Death and the aftermath
My wife died four months ago. We had fought the night before, ending with her saying she was taking a bunch of pills. I thought she was joking. I woke up next to a corpse. I woke up with a black eye I didn’t remember getting and spent five minutes trying to clean the vomit from around her mouth until I realized she was dead. Time stands still, memories fail. I called 911 and the person on the line tried to get me to move her from the bed to the floor. I tried, moving a women my same height to the floor, dancing with rigor mortis. A rush of urine. It was then, holding that corpse, that it first hit me.
22 Nov 2012
Brother Mine
I’m afraid you have become furniture, brother mine.
Nothing but an engraved box among a hollow wooden desk.
You’re not longer those books your read, the letters that lined
The inside of your throat and tongue. You’re no longer
The songs you played with shaking fingers and bouncing
Legs at three AM when the world finally dozed to sleep.
16 Nov 2012
Bad Psychiatry Still Haunts Us
In 1988, when I had just turned 14, I made the life changing mistake of trying to figure out what I was using the materials I had on hand. In this case, it was a copy of the book written by Dr. David Reuben in 1968, “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (But Were Afraid to Ask).” The book came from my mother’s top shelf on adult topics, and for a kids just hitting puberty and dying slowly with the changes, I needed answers. Namely, why did puberty feel so wrong, why did I feel a need to be female, and why did I pray every night to wake up right.
26 Sep 2012
The Science and Mathematics of Death
Editor’s note – this story is continued from On Death, Depression, And The Moments Of Solitude That Follow.
I feel with death, a new journey in life begins. We must relearn how to live for the sake of our livelihoods. For the sake of life itself.
31 Aug 2012
On Death, Depression, And The Moments Of Solitude That Follow
Trigger Warning: Death, Depression
My brother passed away of this month. He was a young man, only 23 years old and beginning his life. He, like the majority of my family, suffered greatly from mental illness. We shared depression, anxiety, and OCD. Though, sadly, his mental illnesses seemed to grow as mine began to ease.
But now that he is gone, I am yet again forced to work and understand my depression. I always wished it were something tangible that I could hold within my hands and pull layers away to physically understand it. I want to be able to understand the immensity. The silence. The deafening noise that combats that eerie moments of peace.
11 Jul 2012
Suicide: An Emotional Tsunami
The thing with suicide, though, is that it isn’t just a single event. It’s a trigger event that sets off waves of destruction, and even those who aren’t directly linked to that person, who aren’t close to them, are affected, and the ripple effects are wide spread and devastating to everyone within reach. We’re all affected, particularly in the queer community, and doubly so in the trans community.
09 Dec 2011
Redefining My Dreams
A terrible crime has been committed, a brutal murder. The suspect? Mental Illness. The victim? My dreams. In the past 3 years, I have gone from a successful professional with a promising career and a wonderful loving partner, to an emotional wreck, unsure if I am even able to hold down a full time job anymore.
25 Nov 2011
My Mother, Madness, and Me
I would like to welcome the newest member of our writing team, Gabriel Charonzec. In his first post with us, he talks about his relationship with his mother, and how she supported him through his struggles with anxiety and depression. Sometimes love conquers all, and we are glad that this was one case in which […]
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