Posts tagged “mental health”
As a teenager I planned my own suicide with a specific date. I missed it, and that changed everything. Now I think of my life as a bonus round: the scoreboard is off, I can't win or lose, and everything I do beats the alternative of nothing.
I'm a gay man who grew up closeted in Trinidad, attending a Catholic boys school, contemplating suicide. I'm writing this for gay kids who need to hear what I needed to hear then: it gets better. Leave your town, come out to friends, fall in love. I was so wrong to despair.
The recent string of gay teen suicides is heartbreaking, but it's not a sudden surge. Three gay teenagers kill themselves every day in America. For every name you've heard this week, there are eighteen more you haven't. This is an ongoing crisis, not a news cycle.
A bad tooth led to metronidazole, which led to five days of crushing depression and nearly stepping in front of a bus. Turns out prescription antibiotics can do that to you. Our grasp on reality is terrifyingly fragile and subjective. I'm fine now, but it was a close thing.
Brain's fried but still firing. That end-of-week paradox where you finally have time to think and say something interesting, but can't. Until you can.
Rough week has left me wanting to destroy things, so Friday night I'm putting on all my spiky black gear and moshing at the Mean Fiddler. Anyone in?
Life is full of joy and suffering simultaneously. Don't feel guilty for laughing when others are hurting. If you can help, help. If you can't, live fully anyway. Laugh for those who can't. Savor what you have. Live harder in memory of those you've lost.
Low energy day, nothing worth blogging about. At least I tidied up and fixed my computer's annoying random shutdowns.
reset
DisorderRatingParanoid:LowSchizoid:ModerateSchizotypal:HighAntisocial:HighBorderline:LowHistrionic:HighNarcissistic:Very HighAvoidant:LowDependent:LowObsessive-Compulsive:Moderate-- Personality Disorder Test - Take It! -- I'm sure no one will be surprised to learn that I "seek attention and praise" and am "self-centered". It gets quite close to the bone though: They tend to be choosy about picking friends, since they believe that not just anyone is worthy of being their friend. They tend to make good first impressions, yet have difficulty maintaining long-lasting relationships. They are generally uninterested in the feelings of others and may take advantage of them. Whoops! I didn't realise that was a common psychosis. Likewise, the schizoidal stuff sounds like me: They sometimes believe to have extra sensory ability or that unrelated events relate to them in some important way. They generally engage in eccentric behavior and have difficulty concentrating for long periods of time. Their speech...
Back from a 6,000-mile trip to cold, smelly London, but at least I have broadband again. Also, calm down about Prince Harry, and apparently I'm borderline Asperger's. Please take these tests and tell me they're meaningless.
Winter is draining me. Short days, overcast skies, and cold weather have killed my energy and my motivation to blog. That's my excuse and I'm sticking with it.
Taking the weekend for myself.
I admit I judge straight people unfairly, mentally recategorizing friends I love as "not really straight" because I can't reconcile my affection for them with my distrust of their group. My heterophobia isn't rational or right, but it's where unprocessed pain goes. Sorry, breeders.
Jonathan Brandis killed himself, and it bummed me out more than I expected. I'd forgotten he existed until I saw the headline, and I'll probably forget again by tomorrow. Which honestly makes it sadder and more pointless than if I'd just missed him all along.
It's crisis season as university ends and the Rest of Our Lives looms. Everyone's questioning who they are and what comes next. Things aren't as bad as they seem, though. Sending a big communal hug to all. Also: knowing people who know things is almost as good as knowing things yourself.
I've spent years hiding behind "Seldo," a persona I built at 15 to escape being bullied, closeted, miserable Laurie. It worked brilliantly. Now I'm exhausted by my own invention. I want to stop collecting admirers and start earning understanding. Time to let Laurie grow up.
A poem I wrote, parked here until the poetry section is fixed. About happiness, fear of losing it, mortality, and wanting to stay in this moment forever.
I asked Amy Phillips of 50 Minute Hour to weigh in on pedophilia. She argues for distinguishing between offenders and those with fantasies alone, recommending jail for the former and therapy for both, and notes promising new drugs that suppress sex drive.
Britain has up to 1.1 million paedophiles, and we can't jail them all. Criminalisation and persecution drive the problem underground. Treatment works better than prison, as one clinic's 80% success rate showed before hysteria shut it down. This is majority persecution of a minority, nothing more.
Sick with a cold, raging toothache, and a computer that keeps rebooting. Awful weekend. Then I watched a stranger stop to rescue a worm from the pavement using a twig, and honestly, that fixed everything.
A poem wrestling with guilt, shame, and the crushing weight of others' judgment. I question why I internalize their bigotry, why I can't cast it aside, and reckon with a darker truth: I might be just like them if I weren't the one they condemn.
A poem about the quiet contradiction of shyness: wanting connection but fearing it, holding my tongue while hoping someone turns my way and sees me anyway.
A poem about a chaotic, brilliant, maddening woman who crashes cars, weds drifters, makes stunning art, and somehow survives it all. Neurotic, yes, but those rare flashes of genius and insight make enduring her worth it.
A poem about a girl broken down by school, parents, and society until she believed she was worthless. Conditioned to apologize for existing, she forgot her gifts. The ending is devastating and intentional.
A poem about a self-destructive friend who performs danger for spectators while real friends rush him to the ER at 2am. He's not truly crazy, just a careful liar craving attention from people who are fans, not friends.
A poem about the suffocating cost of "perfect" religious upbringing, where every thought, touch, and doubt is controlled. The model child, shaped entirely by his parents' will, has nowhere for his rage to go. Until they find the body.
A poem of encouragement built on the idea that problems are time-soluble, that invisible struggles are still real, and that sometimes the best advice is recognizing someone is already doing fine. I'll be here regardless.
A poem about the overwhelming paralysis of wanting to fix everything and fixing nothing, as problems pile into a crushing wall of inaction. But a billion of us feel this way, and together we might hold it back.
A poem and prose piece urging you to stop living in fear of judgment. Nobody is watching as closely as you think, the walls are imaginary, and the only thing stopping you from being yourself is you. Let it go. You have nothing to hide.
A poem about a bright kid lost in isolation, depression, and silent suffering. Old scars, shattered dreams, and the weight of an unwitnessed fall into darkness.
Feeling numb, pointless, and stuck in a fog. First love that wasn't, wanting what I can't have, too tired to cry. But I'm not giving up. I'll fight my way back to happy.
A poem reminding us that we live on a lucky rock, shielded from a nuclear sun, wrapped in living green, replenished by purifying rain. A million die each day, yet more are born. How dare we complain?
A poem about a man paralyzed by self-doubt, unable to see his own impact on the world because he's too close to his own life to gain perspective.
A poem about the unknowable self that lurks within, driving my actions without my consent. I've traveled far but never found myself, and this hidden inner force clouds my judgment, harms those I love, and leaves me pleading for forgiveness from those I've hurt.
Secrets fester when you hide them. You think no one notices, but really no one knows, and the paranoia is worse than the secret itself. Pain doesn't have to be dramatic to be real. Let it out. In the open, problems shrink. Secrets only look dirty in the dark.
A poem about breaking out of isolation and connecting with others. Stop hiding in your shell, get out there, share a glance, feel the crowd, make human contact. Life hurts when you live it alone.
Being surrounded by people who don't know I'm gay has brought back every awful feeling I'd forgotten: the guilt, the vigilance, the claustrophobia of hiding. Acceptance has to keep happening. I refuse to be recloseted again. I'll out myself, help others, and fight everything that keeps closets closed.
I'm only creative when I'm unhappy. Stress and discomfort generate ideas; peace and quiet are just when I execute them. My best creative period was during depression. The problem: creating things makes me happy, which kills creativity. I need resistance to move, and I can't manufacture genuine opposition for myself.
