ISSUE 2

CONTENTS 40. 
On Labels, Feeling Broken, and 88.  e Great Unknown
Th 116. A
 fterlife: The Inspiring Legacy
Coming Out Yet Again Hannah Shone of The 19th Century Medium
3. Editor’s Letter Ellen Murray 92.  I nterview With Bassey Ikpi Melissa-Kelly Franklin

8.  Claiming Ownership 34. That Bitter Pull: Thoughts on Hannah Moitt 122.  Agora
Taylor Xochihua Living With Mental Illness 96.  
A Distilled Journal Gemma Correll
and 11 Notes to Myself Cat McGuire 124.  Moon Story
6.  I’m Not Okay, Cupid
Angelica Jade Bastién Kate Gallagher
Lisa di Antoni 100. How to Cure a Trauma Survivor
45. Molasses Martina Dominique Dansereau 140. Charlie The Survivor
10.  In Medias Res.
Hannah Moitt Bethany Rose Lamont
Lucia Tang 102. O ut of the Woods: Folktales
30. Church Mothers Portrait: and Recovery Narratives 145. DFG
13.  Self Acceptance Comic
Imade Nibokun Emily Hutchinson Mikael Hattingh
SBTL CLNG
54. 
 Anxiety Monster 105. M
 y First Diet 146. An Open Conversation on
14.  ~Beyonce Voice~
Margaret Anne Rebecca Katz The Intersections of Physical
Bitch, I’m Trans*
L’lerrét Jazelle Ailith 60.  D
 epression in YA and the 106. Th
 e Shifaa Project: Mental Disability and Mental Health
Latin@ Community Health in Muslim Society Rhea Allan, Bethany Rose Lamont
16. 
An Interview With Dior Vargas
Cindy L. Rodriguez Ethar Hamid and Cat Smith
Hannah Moitt
66. Escaping Abuse 109.  Take Care 151. Auto-Poltergeist
20. Living With
Margaret Anne SBTL CLNG Maria Cohut
Emotional Impermanence
Chelsea Patterson 67. Warning 110. Making a Change: Why the 152. Growth
Megan Merchant Canadian Mental Health System SBTL CLNG
25.  ntitled
U
Tommi pg 68.  e Decision to be Happy
Th Needs Fixing 152. Call For Submissions
Katharine Lunn Charlotte Allan
26. The Unicorn Effect
Vilissa Thompson, LMSW 71. 
 Transmorgifier 112. A Collection of Poems Cover artwork by Laura Callaghan
Rebecca Katz Ethar Hamid
29. On Writing When Depressed
Hanna Milner 72.  Memory Like the Sun
Allison Augustyn
30. Medicinal
Leanne Matthews 76. Bring the Girl Back
Amaal Said A Note on Content Warnings These content warnings are printed in
31.  Often
77.  alling on Death
C red on the first page of each piece, in the
Jane Kerrison
Amaal Said To ensure that Doll Hospital is a positive place top left-hand corner. Of course, as this
32. 
 The Illustrated Mum
78. I ’ll Never Get Over it/ for its readers the following subjects (when is a journal on mental health, all articles
Harley Collins
But I’m Gonna Try explored explicitly, and potentially triggeringly) highlight difficult topics to a certain
34. There and Back Again are provided with content warnings: degree. If there is a particular subject you
Mia Castiglione
Olivia James
82.  Orange is the New Blog feel needs a warning in future issues, or
37. Three Poems Rape, suicide, transmisogyny, ableism, if any of the current pieces in this issue
Anna Govier 86. Everything is Okay
Yumi Sakugawa anxiety, self harm, alcoholism, domestic require additional warnings or content
38. Depression Land abuse, sexual abuse and sexual assault notes, please let us know and we would
Gemma Correll 87. Silent Witness
Yumi Sakugawa be happy to include it.

1
 Long time no speak!

Issue Two! It exists! And you’re reading it! Hooray! If Issue One hinged around
the ‘who’: who has been ‘elected’ to speak on the subject of mental health, and
how this reflects existing power structures, then Issue Two centres around the
‘what’: what do we mean when we say mental health? What elements of our
mental health do we hide in order to be taken seriously? What other issues
GRAPHIC DESIGN Maggie Webster and intersecting oppressions are thrown under the metaphorical bus in a
desperate attempt to rebrand mental health into something palatable, something
EDITOR IN CHIEF Bethany Rose Lamont acceptable and, dare I say it, something marketable?!

COPYEDITOR Catherine Gaffney Whilst, if you squint and tilt your head under certain lights I can almost
(but not quite) be branded as a legit mental health advocate person, I would
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Cat Smith like to go on record saying that, for the majority of my time editing this
Cassie Osei issue I was unemployed, in my pyjamas, and crying softly into my laptop.
Eline Van den Broeck Because there isn’t an end point with mental illness. I’m still as fucked up
Ginger Lockhart as I ever was, and I may be speaking out on mental health but that doesn’t
Hannah Moitt mean I don’t get scared (I AM TERRIFIED), haven’t internalized all that
Kristen Tollan neurotypical bullshit, don’t feel like there’s certain parts of my mental health
Alaina Leary I need to hide in order for strangers on the internet to ‘like’ me or the work I
do. Because being like oh hey I’m a paranoid schizophrenic and here’s a cute
SOCIAL MEDIA DIRECTORS Emily Taylor anecdote on me having a psychotic episode in the middle of Oxford Street
Alaina Leary (Tru story! It sucked!) has proven to be a sure way to lose Twitter followers?!

SOCIAL MEDIA ASSISTANT
FUNDING AND OUTREACH DIRECTORS
Cassie Osei
Fauve Hamerlijnck
Hanna Millner
All art, images and writing published
are the copyright of the authors cited,
all contributors retain ownership to
their work and has been published
with their permission.
Endless fangirling for Maggie, our graphic designer, who without her hard
work and aesthetic abilities, you would be reading this in like Microsoft
Paint or something. She designs all these spreads and they’re so beautiful!
Do you love them? I love them. Cat for being both an awesome co-worker
and a wonderful friend. Cassie for being the world’s most magical magical
girl. Fauve for being a hell of a lot more practical than I am. Alaina, Gin and
Emily for all the social media excellence. Hanna for helping us with form
filling and other scary things. Catherine whose copy editing skills means I
won’t spell my own name wrong like I did in the last issue. Hannah for being
perfect. Kristen for her help on editing. Eline, for everything. And you, for
being here, reading this, I love you and I thank you.

But what are you waiting for! Issue Two! Issue Two! Let’s read Issue Two!

Love Beth

XOX

2 3
 Taylor Xochihua

it is hard to determine my self-worth

looking at it from far away,
I can see the good bits, qualities marked off on a checklist
but it feels as though I am applying these characteristics to not-me,
a mask that I put on and take off when I want to
the not-me has all the good qualities,
and when I have returned from my post in the sky
and fill up my body I find that it doesn’t fit like it should
my body is lumpy, bumpy, fleshy and prone to mistakes
my body is bruised, cut, and pudgy
my body is creased at funny angles and marked with the patterns of my growth
but even when it doesn’t fit
when I want to tear it off
and float overhead as a passive observer
it is still my body,
the scar I got from falling down the steps,
moles dancing around my body like a connect-the-dots no one finished,
a swipe of darker pigmentation next to my right eye that looks like a patch of paint,
my hips jutting out like mountains,
the stretch marks glittering in the sun
it’s a comfortable shirt that doesn’t fit you right anymore
but you can’t bear to be rid of it
my body has carried me through, supported me, put up with me
it is a part of me even when I don’t want it to be
my body is mine, I love it, I hate it
there is never a moment of entirely one or the other, but
I claim ownership. n

artwork by Vikki Chu

4 5
SUICIDE, ANXIETY
I’M NOT
OKAY,
CUPID
Lisa di Antoni
The psych hospital intake process is like riding
backwards on a slowly revolving merry-go-
round: interminable and nauseating.
“Why are you here?”
“I couldn’t convince my doctor that I
wouldn’t kill myself this weekend.”
“Do you have a plan?”
“Yes.”
I was running low on sleep; frustrated,
I had waited for the morning light to lay
me down the night before. Blearily I recited
the answers to the same series of questions
over and over. Do they do this to make sure
you’re not lying?
There was only one question I
wouldn’t answer.
“Attracted to men, women, or both?”
Why did they need to know? I asked
one doctor why it was important. “The sexual
trauma you described earlier can have an
effect on your sexual preference.” A bastion of
progressive thought, this institution.
This was a religious hospital, run by a
newish Christian movement that valued
both “vibrant health” and the “traditional
family.” Bible verses intermittently littered
the walls, along with dingy pictures of tulip
6 7
fields and peeling iterations of the word
“hope.” The carpet was a dusky pink, as were
the little hangerless closets where we stored
our things and the cupboards which housed
our pb and j sandwiches and granola bars.
Though it was my first time in the
psych ward, it wasn’t the first time I’d
been treated at this hospital. One of the
highest-rated hospitals in the USA, it was
also located roughly five minutes from my
house by car. A few years earlier, I had spent
five months under the care of a resident
psychiatrist. I admitted to her once that I
was attracted to women. At our next session,
she recommended a book that reassured
me that I wasn’t a lesbian as long as I didn’t
do anything lesbianish. She seemed pretty
excited to have found what she must have
considered a much gentler approach than
conversion therapy. Hate the sin and all that.
In her defense, I was married to a man
at the time and I was trying my darndest
to practice Catholicism in the hope that
my suffering would eventually become
meaningful. Even so, I never read the book.
She graduated a couple weeks after that
session, so I allowed our relationship to end
in a whisper. I vowed then that I would
never again go to a religious hospital.
Because I was admitted at about 6:00
p.m., after the doctors went home for the
day, I went to bed that first night without
a milligram of psychotropic medication
in my body. An hour after I fell asleep,
at about 3 a.m., my roommate moved in.
And by “moved in,” I mean that she was
sternly ordered by various nurses to lie
in bed and be quiet. I wondered offhand
if they balanced the ward by pairing up
manics and depressives in the little lockless
bedrooms. Shuffling angrily under her
sheets, my roommate asked me how long
we were expected to lie there. “I don’t know,”
I said, surprised by my cartoonishly small
voice. I was mid-panic attack at the time.
Convinced she was going to try to kill me,
I lay still as the pain crushed my chest and
shortened my breathing. The panic attack
passed, though my paranoia and anxiety
did not. In the hallucinatory space between
sleep and waking, I saw demon faces on the
glossy white walls and screamed to my new
roommate for help, only to see her wide and
placid blue eyes piercing mine, unblinking,
as if she didn’t hear me.
My roommate did not come out of her
room until dinner the next evening, thanks
to the powerful tranquilizer they had given
her. When she did enter the makeshift
dining room, she was wrapped in a blanket,
her pretty heavy-lidded eyes rubbed red. She
made unearthly grunting sounds, as if lifting
flour sacks instead of lifting fork to mouth.
Over my cafeteria spaghetti and orange
juice, I furtively inspected her. She was
so familiar. Where had I seen her before?
When it came to me, I froze. OkCupid.
She had messaged me first.
‘I know you’re moving to France soon, but
 I really want to date you! Wanna go on a date?
Sorry, maybe that was too forward. Let me
start again...
Sup babe,
You’re hot. Can I have your number?’
No that wasn’t good either...
‘Good morning,
If you would kindly message me back, I
would be grateful.’
It was cute. She was cute. I remember
telling a friend that it was perfect that she
was named Willow, my favorite character
from my favorite TV show, Buffy. We
messaged back and forth until her frequent
requests to meet right away started to weird
me out. Her profile said she had a boyfriend.
‘Girls don’t count,’ apparently.
In the ward, I didn’t have to try too hard
to avoid her. I mostly lay in bed. She would
periodically pack up my stuff in a brown
paper bag she had brought, but other than
8 9
that we got along just fine. I hoped to a god
I didn’t believe in that she wouldn’t reveal
my secret. The worry of whether or not she
would tell, of whether or not the doctors
would find out, of what might happen if
they did, if they would even let me go home,
gripped my chest like a fist.
As the days passed, the grip loosened
a little. One of the beautiful things about
the psych ward is seeing people get better.
Like seeing the droopy-eyed brunette lady
who kept to her room and never spoke come
out and laugh during a game of ultimate
frisbee. She was on her seventh round of
electroshock. Willow was getting better,
too. She had graduated from grunting and
ranting to being able to hold a conversation.
She asked me if I could please tell her where
we had met before.
“OkCupid,” I said. My heart galloped.
“I don’t think that’s true, but okay,” she
said, and left to go ask the rest of the ward if
they wanted to watch her dance.
I got better too. No longer an immediate
danger to myself, I went back to a knifeless,
beltless home, which was miles better than
an internetless ward. I eagerly checked my
emails and browsed my favorite sites before
the idea popped into my head. Why not go
back and look at Willow’s emails? Just to
remember her better.
She looked similar. Heavy-lidded eyes,
long blond hair. But she wasn’t the same
person. Her name wasn’t Willow, it was
Stephanie. Where the memory of sharing
her name with my friend came from, I still
don’t know. I remember it even though I
know it never happened.
Sylvia Plath, who the great scholar Kay
Redfield Jamison diagnosed posthumously
with bipolar disorder, the same as me, wrote,
‘To the person in the bell jar, blank and stopped
as a dead baby, the world itself is a bad dream.’
Though my memories of my roommate
were nothing more than waking nightmare,
the real danger was true enough. The
American Psychological Association states,
“No, lesbian, gay, and bisexual orientations
are not disorders. Research has found no
inherent association between any of these
sexual orientations and psychopathology.
Both heterosexual behavior and homosexual
behavior are normal aspects of human
sexuality.” What will it take for hospitals to
treat queer patients with respect? What is
the cost to queer people with an illness like
mine, which has a 1 in 5 suicide rate?
When will queer people with mental
illnesses be able to wake up from the bad
dream, the world itself ? n
 Lucia Tang
artwork by Eleanor Byrne
After my roommate withdrew for the term,
I started leaving things in the common
room. My coats huddled together on every
surface. Makeup spread on the table, and
dark clouds bloomed across the bathtub. The
drain was webbed with long black hairs.
Then one morning I woke up crying.
When I patted the nightstand for my
ringing cell phone, there was warm water
on my cheeks. I felt like the last sob
was still hitching in my chest. I couldn’t
remember the dream. It had something to
do with being naked in a public space, the
image tawdry and cliché.
In the dream, I stood outside myself. I
could see my own white flesh from behind,
the hair looped in front of my shoulders, the
way I always wear it in real life.
I’ve always been the kind of person who cried
rarely but cataclysmically. It happened once a
year— big ugly tears. They gave my face red
patches and my voice a ragged sound.
There was always some stupid reason: a
lost favorite shirt, an abstract debate with my
dad that turned into sudden argument. But the
rest of the time I’d be dry-eyed, all caustic wit
and stylized smiles. My friends never believed
me when I told them I felt sad.
10
Normally, I can talk and talk and float
outside myself. But every time I practiced
with my Chinese folk dance troupe, my
limbs had their own insistent weight. I
couldn’t forget the tension in my hands,
clutching handkerchief or silk fan. Sweat
beaded at my hairline. Only after I walked
offstage did I even think to check if my
makeup was running.
I was never hyperaware of some
audience’s judgment, which I feel so keenly
whenever I talk. The limits of my attention
contracted, to just the outlines of my body.
There was a while when the tears came
easily, in short frequent bursts. There were
no reasons I could name, however stupid.
They rose to the surface when I read, and the
text wavered annoyingly. Salt rubbed at my
contacts in the morning.
So, one of those Mondays I sat in my
seminar, observing the hitch of my chest
like I was taking geological records. When
my eyes misted over, I waited for it to
pass before catching Professor Granoff ’s
attention with some question on Indian
natural science. I kept my voice so steady, no
one noticed.
Dining halls, libraries, common rooms—
every crowded space felt empty to me. The
people I didn’t talk to would go away with
a moist blink. The limits of my attention
contracted to my body. It demanded
11
 attention, like every day I was dancing, the
waltz pattern slow and surreal.
Memory has always felt abstract to me. I
was there, I think, wearing blue. I did this.
And I felt happy. But I can’t see the blue of
my dress, sky or bread mold or cobalt. I can’t
summon up the soaring in my chest that my
brain has bloodlessly labeled joy. It feels like
my memories belong to me as much as a
freshly recalled novel, no more.
But when I danced, the motion was hard
to recall. Impossible to imagine how my
moving limbs look from outside my body.
Afterwards, I’d think, I danced—already
forgetting what it meant.
It sounds crazy, but in my head, that crying
kick started with that stupid naked dream.
When the sadness was real, I felt lost in the
present. I sat heavily in my chair with my
head hurting, feeling tightness along strange
places in my upper back, like new muscles
had just grown in.
At night, I Googled symptoms for
clinical depression. I filled my empty
common room with slow hymns, the
kind they play at Christian funerals, and
daydreamed incoherently about ocean water
and Latin mass. I slept greedily. But when
I startled in the night I’d lie awake for a
long time, rubbing at the place in my chest
where it felt like a thread was pulling. The
unpleasantness was so weirdly spellbinding
that I wanted to go still and just pay
attention to it.
12
It falls on me suddenly. And just as suddenly
it goes away, becoming no more tangible
than writing. The hurt in my chest has come
unstitched. But I still breathe a little cautiously,
tensed against its re-emersion.
When the sadness hangs on me, I have
trouble seeing more than an hour ahead, a day
ahead—Tylenol I’d take or not take for the
headache before going to bed, eyedrops for my
sore eyes in the morning. Now I can picture
them again, other nights that stretch out into
the future—movies and laughter, conversation,
friends. It’s a bright line leading out of the
present I can now see beyond—leading outside
the boundaries of my body.
This freedom from gonging temples and
stinging eyes—it’s a freedom I didn’t know
to be grateful for.
I remembered the parts of me I
usually ignore, the breastbone and tear
glands that came awake with sadness.
I felt fully alive, like I was dancing. But
“fully alive” is uncomfortable.
There’s no room for stories or theories
inside a head that’s pulsing with warm blood.
Memory gets squeezed out of tensed muscles.
The future’s too airy for its physical density.
The only thing I’m conscious of is this body. n
SBTL CLNG - subtleceiling.tumblr.com
13
TRANSMISOGYNY
BITCH, I’M TRANS*
I couldn’t wait until Trans Day of
Visibility to do this so I apologize.
I just had a recent experience that
really enlightened me. Yesterday,
I was sitting outside enjoying the
weather and reading a novel for
my Women in World History
course when a friend of mine
rolled up and screamed my
name. I ran to her and we got
to chatting by her car and after
a bit, we decided to go hang out
in the French Quarter (I reside
in New Orleans, LA) and enjoy
the festival that was going on
and whatnot. We spend about
an hour trying to find parking
and then when we finally did,
we hopped out of the car and
started strutting around and
having conversation. Being a
black trans* woman walking out
in public with daylight to spare
in a very populated area like a
festival is pretty nerve-wracking
to say the least. But I was just
doing my thing and trying to
blend in with the community.
However, that didn’t particularly
happen. We would walk past
certain men and hear com-
ments like, “dude looks like a
14
~ Beyoncé Voice ~
L’lerrét Jazelle Ailith
lady” or, “that’s a tranny”. But
also, we’d have men following
us to catcall us, commenting
on how beautiful we are, and
even shining flashlights at our
behinds to “check to see if we
had dicks.”
All of that sounds pretty pa-
thetic, right? At the end of the
day, I did not “pass” and I was
again pretty bummed about
it, especially since I’ve been
on hormones for going on 2.5
months now and expecting some
revolutionary change (which
I knew I shouldn’t have been
expecting). But then I realized–I
am only worried about passing in
sexually charged spaces. When
I’m going out for dinner or just
simply running random errands,
the concept of “passing” does
not even cross my little mind.
I really don’t care about it, you
know? I couldn’t give a rat’s ass
what gender people saw me as,
unbeknownst to my transition
or whatever. But whenever I find
myself in spaces where men are
either trying to sexualize me or
place me in their little conquest
for picking up the hottest chicks,
the worry is real. But why should
I ever be worried about passing
to be a greater victim to the
male gaze? To me, the whole
issue about “passing” is that you
don’t feel beautiful enough for
men to want you as the woman
you are because you are of trans*
experience and that is just not
comfortable or acceptable for
a man to deal with. That is
complete bullshit. I refuse to
be insecure in my skin because
a man can’t put me in a box and
feel 100% secure in objectifying
me or having owndership of my
body. No thanks.
A lot of people ask me to place
the moment where I felt I was
born in the wrong body. I ab-
solutely hate that cis-cceptable
trans* narrative. I never thought
I was born in the wrong body.
My body is perfect in my eyes.
I felt great in my skin and for as
long as I can remember, I dealt
with ways to affirm my identity
while accepting who I was and
what skin I was in. Being trans*
to me has always been a thing
in my life but I just didn’t have
the language to describe it or the
understanding to conceptualize
it to the extent that I can now.
I was born of trans* experi-
ence. My destiny was always to
ultimately find what expression
of my gender and persona was
right for me and it wasn’t until
I realized that I was able to alter
the hormonal balance inside
of me to have my body more
accurately portray the image of
myself that I had on the inside
that I truly found peace. My outer
transness however you see it is
actually a step deep, deep, deep
in a transition that I’ve been hav-
ing psychologically, emotionally,
spiritually, intellectually, etc since
the first time I realized I was
“different” as a toddler.
I say all that to affirm my being
as not trying to meld into cisness
and simply be a “regular” woman
and all that jazz. I am tired of
trying to be acceptable to society
and be ashamed of the fact that
I am trans* for whatever reason.
Bitch, I’m trans* and I love it!
When I conceptualized the
perfect partner for me, I never
envisioned a man that wanted
normalcy. I am queer as all
hell and I wanted a man that
accepted that fact and would
grow right along with me.
Before I accepted this “trans”
identity on my person, I found
beauty in being androgynous and cannot “pass” in a lot of
and respected men who found
beauty in that as well. So why
spaces but I’m still beautiful
and will always be trans,* “pass”
change that perspective now? or not–so now what? We need
I shouldn’t have to. I guess this more people having the internal
piece is more of an encourage- struggle because it signifies a
ment and affirmation for my challenge of normativity. I am
own self. I worked so hard to a change agent. I am owning
live in my truth and accept all my transness. I refuse to be
of my queerness and now I am depressed about not “passing.”
ashamed of it coming to light? I Bye, Felicia. I do long to see
shouldn’t be. Me being ashamed that stereotypical woman in
of my body and features and the mirror but if I never do,
downing myself when people then so be it. I will love the
“clock my tea” is inherently me androgyny that makes me
still dealing with internalized who I am and as far as men are
transphobia that I thought I concerned, I value this for it is
had done away with months now easier for me to weed out
ago. But it’s okay because the the assholes and indulge men
first step in enlightenment is worthy of my time. n
admitting you have a problem,
right? I love the fact that I am
trans* and I make it my busi-
ness to broadcast that fact in
every new environment I find
myself in because I am proud
of that identity and refuse to be
normalized as simply female. Yes,
I want my female identity to be
affirmed but if people can “see my
transness” (whatever that is), then
so be it. I’m going to embrace
that shit. It’s so revolutionary
to me to walk down a street,
have a man find me attractive
and proceed to pursue me, then
realize I’m of trans* experience
and proceed to having his little
internal struggle going on. Yes,
hun, I’m beautiful and trans*
15
 Writer, public speaker, counsellor, and
activist Dior Vargas is a powerhouse of
feminist mental health advocacy whose work
(online and offline) is as sincere and hands-
on as it is far-reaching. In 2014 Dior started
AN INTERVIEW WITH the People of Color & Mental Illness Photo
Project, a campaign that showed people of
colour around the world being frank about
their mental illnesses. In July she secured
funding via Kickstarter to take the project
to the next level: bringing in a professional
photographer to widen the scope and
audience of the project. Her work has been
instrumental in increasing representation
of people of colour in mental health and
helping to combat the stigma of mental
health in the Latinx community, reflected
in her being honoured at the White House
as a Champion of Change for Disability
Advocacy Across Generations just last
month. We were overjoyed to get a chance
to speak to her about the project and about
how race and mental health intersect.
HM: Can we talk about the People of Color
and Mental Illness Photo Project? It’s
incredible how affecting it is to see people who
look like us who also live with mental illness.
What kind of reactions have you had to the
images and project?
DV: I’ve received an overwhelming response
from people and it’s been so amazing and
extremely meaningful. A lot of people have
said that upon seeing the photos they felt
DIOR VARGAS less alone and it gave them hope, which is
exactly what I was aiming for. Also, people
have told me that as a result of the project,
INTERVIEW BY HANNAH MOITT for the first time they had the courage to
share their experiences with friends and
family. Upon doing so, they’ve received a
16
lot of unexpected support. I hope that is
indicative of the eventual dissipation of
mental illness stigma. Unfortunately I have
also received negative feedback from people
who don’t understand the need for this
project, much less these discussions. I wrote
a Huffington Post article where I discussed
this project and people commented that
segmenting communities is unnecessary, that
we are all one race and that we share the
same problems. I highly disagree. People of
color live with multiple oppressions, which
add to the detriment of their mental health
and wellbeing.
HM: You’ve spoken about how women of colour
are excluded from the dialogue about mental
health by media that often represents mental
illness only from the perspective of white
women. Given this underlying racism in many
mental health and feminist organisations,
what do you feel they could be doing to help
people of colour feel welcome in conversations
about mental health?
DV: I think creating safe spaces for people of
color would be a great start. If we had spaces
where we wouldn’t feel judged and could speak
freely we would be able to accomplish a lot
more. Also cultural competency is extremely
lacking; we live with different experiences that
professionals in the health care industry usually
don’t understand and therefore show disrespect
towards, which can be very demeaning and
invalidating. I think these organizations need
to be honest and transparent about what they
need to improve and find people who are
already doing this work so they can collaborate.
I also think that they need to go directly into
these communities and listen to what the
needs are.
17
 HM: Personally, the fact that many healthcare
professionals are white and male has been
a source of worry when considering seeking
medical help for my depression. Do you have
any tips for women/people of colour on how to
make this process as comfortable as possible?
DV: Past experiences of communities of
color with the health care system is fraught
with mistrust and inadequate treatment.
It’s extremely disheartening. In order to
make this process more comfortable, it is
important for us to know what our needs
are and not to feel afraid to ask for them.
We need to be advocates for ourselves and
our mental health care. While the majority
of health care professionals are male and
white, there are some people of color who
are working in this field and finding these
people to be part of our mental health care
can do a lot to make this process more
positive. With this in mind, I have started
a survey where I am collecting information
from LGBTQIA-friendly, POC therapists
in the U.S. so that people can access this
18
information. Navigating this system is hard
enough and I wanted to add some ease to it.
HM: I think there’s real power in the DIY-
ness of mental health discourse amongst
communities of colour online. It does make
one feel like we could all have something to
contribute just by virtue of sharing in those
experiences. Is there anyone whose work you’ve
found particularly inspiring or uplifting? Do
you have any advice for other women/people of
colour who want to start their own initiative
or project on or offline?
DV: I think there are a lot of people doing
amazing work to create spaces for discussion
and provide resources. One example is
Dr. Nadia Richardson who created No
More Martyrs, which is a mental health
awareness campaign committed to building
an online community of support for black
women with mental health concerns. I
think that one should figure out what they
are passionate about and find ways to get
involved with organizations, community
groups, and/or other activists. A lot of these useful and that I am doing something to
people will appreciate the support. Also, help others. But I will admit that it is hard
reach out to activists for advice because sometimes. I add a lot of pressure to myself
they are most likely happy to mentor you and my projects so it can be very stress-
or help you figure things out. Doing one’s inducing. I need to prioritize my mental
research is very beneficial because that health more which is what I promote in my
informs you of the work that is needed and work. I try to do simple things like watch
assists in finding ways to fill the gap. If you a funny show on Netflix, listen to music or
have a project in mind just start it. Don’t spend time with friends and family. n
worry about it being 100% right. Be patient
with yourself and be open to constructive
criticism and improvement.
HM: As someone who is active in a number of
projects, how do you balance taking care of your
mental health with the idea that you have to be
constantly productive?
DV: One of the main reasons why I do the
work that I do is because I am constantly
trying to find meaning to my experience
with mental illness and suicidal ideation.
I think that being productive helps offset
my bouts of depression and anxiety. It takes
my mind off of things and makes me feel
19
9 .1 4 P M - 9.53 P M
Texts I sent to my boyfriend last night:
9:14 pm: “Where are you?”
9:14 pm: “Can I call you?”
9:20 pm: “Can we talk? Can we try?”
9:21 pm: “Please say something, don’t just leave me.”
LIVING
9:30 pm: “Please don’t leave, please I need you.”
9:35 pm: “Please, I need you, I will talk about
whatever you want to.”
WITH
9:36 pm: “Just talk to me, that’s all I want, that’s
all I’m asking. Please don’t ignore me like this.”
EMOTIONAL
9:37 pm: “Please, I’m starting to panic and all I
need is [sic] to talk to you, please don’t do this.”
9:38 pm: “Fuck, please say something to me before I
IMPERMANENCE
have a panic attack. I’m scared. I need you.”
9:51 pm: “Please fuck just say something to me
Chelsea Patterson I’m freaking out why won’t you say anything
you said it was gonna be ok you said that.”
9:52 pm: “Please I can’t sleep until I talk to you
I’m too upset and worked up now.”
9:53 pm: “Please I don’t know what to do I’m
breaking down again I just need you to talk
to me just talk god fuck please idk what will
happen I’m so scared.”
Have you heard of object permanence? You
probably have, I think most people know of
it whether by that name or another. When
children are very young, the concept of
20
object permanence doesn’t exist for them:
when something is not in their line of sight,
it is as if it doesn’t exist. That’s why playing
peekaboo is so fascinating for babies–when
you cover your face, it really is as though that
part of you has disappeared quite suddenly.
Since babies don’t understand fear the same
way that older children and adults do, this is
fascinating rather than frightening to them.
Here’s a concept that I bet you haven’t
heard of, because it is rarely spoken of
outside of mental health communities, and
even then almost solely in communities of
people studying or living with borderline
personality disorder, like myself. A Google
search for the term returns few results,
the majority of them links to sites that
tend to demonize people with BPD,
making it difficult to learn about without
risking exposure to material that can be
dangerously stigmatizing.
Emotional permanence (sometimes
referred to as object constancy), much like
its sister, object permanence, describes the
ability to realize that something continues
to exist when you cannot see it or are not
experiencing it. Rather than being a physical
object, it is the emotional connection
with others, specifically their feelings
toward you (especially positive emotions
such as love and caring) that emotional
permanence describes.
For those of us living with borderline
personality disorder, emotional permanence
can be very difficult for us to experience.
People with BPD often live in constant fear
of abandonment by those whom we love and
are close to, like our partners, friends, and
family. These fears are fed by our difficulty
experiencing emotional permanence. When
21
 we are separated from someone important
to us, even for a short time like a period of
hours or days, our grasp on their feelings
for us can begin to weaken. Memories of
kind words exchanged, loving moments,
and fun times often start to fade and can
become meaningless. Just like the baby
playing peekaboo forgets that their mother’s
face exists, each time someone with BPD is
separated from someone they love, we can
begin to forget that the kind feelings that
person holds for us exist.
Difficulty experiencing emotional
permanence informs many of the major
symptoms of BPD, and often has the
effect of putting strain on relationships. It’s
important to realize that this is no one’s
fault–maintaining a healthy relationship
requires the commitment and understanding
of each person in it. This is even more
necessary when one of those people
lives with borderline, and struggles with
emotional permanence issues. If both parties
aren’t willing to try and understand why
someone with BPD may be acting a certain
way, as well as the importance of patience,
gentle reinforcement, and kind explanations,
that relationship can falter.
My boyfriend lives in Seattle. I live
in Chicago. I know that we share a time
difference of two hours. I know that he’s
usually not awake yet in the morning when
I force myself up off of my uncomfortable
futon to go to work. I know that he has
things to do and people to see, just like I
do. And yet, every single day there is the
inevitability, the fullness of waiting. We are
both full and heavy and ripe with waiting for
the missed phone call and the panic.
Do you know that Joanna Newsom lyric
22
from “Only Skin”? I’ll tell it to you:
“But always up the mountainside you’re
clambering,
groping, hungry for anything;
picking through your pocket linings —
well, what is this?
Scrap of sassafras, eh Sisyphus?”
For me, life is often like this. It is so
terrifying, the uncertainty of emotions.
Always groping around for whatever
reinforcement I can get that I’m still loved
and wanted. Always waiting for the ball
to drop. Every good conversation that we
have is like reaching the summit of the
mountain, and knowing that something will artwork by Gemma Correll
go wrong and I will be pushed right back
down to the bottom to work on mending
our trust yet again. It’s exhausting, and it
can feel so pointless. We’ve been together
for years, and I still can’t trust his feelings
unless we’re in the same room. It’s a constant
cycle: feeling reassured after a talk goes Eventually, he answers, upset and feeling feeling betrayed when they go without you;
well, until eventually there’s a missed call attacked when he was just napping or and so on. Things that might not be a big deal
or unanswered text at a moment when I’m making dinner or trying to find his charger. to other people become all that you can think
feeling vulnerable. A few hours of waiting I apologize, I cry, he tries to calm me down, about: what did I do wrong, why don’t they
while my mind whispers that this is it, he’s we both feel angry and upset and no one like me anymore?
tired of you–and finally the onset of the knows where to direct it. In the end, we’re The important thing is that you can
panic when my mind bends to the pressure mentally exhausted and neither of us knows recognize these thoughts, and the cycle that
it’s been placing on itself. how to feel. emotional impermanence can lead to, when
My chest seems to be simultaneously This cycle of events has happened many you’re experiencing them. Creating a space
sinking in on itself and expanding too times, although this example is extreme. It to step back and evaluate your thought
rapidly; I feel like I will burst and collapse can happen in quieter ways. Seeing a good patterns, feelings, and actions can be a huge
in on myself all at once. Unwittingly, my friend change their profile picture to one help in pulling yourself out of that cycle,
fingers type out a series of gradually less with your other friends in it, but not you, or at least lessening its impact on you
coherent and more hysterical text messages. leaving you wondering if they all like each and your relationships.
I make 23 phone calls. Each attempt to other better than they like you, if you’re just During a time when you’re feeling calm
communicate that fails fuels my fear and a pity friend or a burden; not getting an (I know), maybe early afternoon while the
continues to push me further into panic. invite to an event when a friend does and sun comes in through the windows and you
23
 can sit in a warm puddle of light and drink
an iced coffee, try going back through texts,
Facebook messages, Tumblr posts, and
personal writing that you did during a time
that you were experiencing panic about
being abandoned. If you’re okay looking back
through that stuff (it can help to know that
there’s someone you can stop to talk to if you
get overwhelmed) you can try tracing what
it was that set off the cycle – what were you
talking about right before the tone shifted
to desperate or panicked? Triggers can range
from something that was said, some kind
of action that was or wasn’t taken, and even
the tone that you perceived a person to be
speaking in.
If you can identify what kind of
actions, subjects or tones cause you to start
panicking, you can begin looking out for
those triggers in your daily life and build
a space out of that awareness to retreat
into – rather than panicking immediately,
you can eventually come to recognize when
and why you enter the cycle. This awareness
creates a little outcropping on the side of
that cliff it feels like you’re tumbling down,
something to grab onto and slow your roll,
giving you a bit of space to breathe and time
to decelerate. Once you know what triggers
you, you can also talk to the people around
you about different ways that they can
approach those situations and conversations
with you. A caring partner or friend will
always be willing to work with you and
understand that you can’t control what is
triggering to you!
For me, this exercise has been a great
help. Before I started reflecting on these
moments of panic and what happened
during the interactions where I was
24
triggered, life was a lot more difficult. I’m
not saying it’s easy now, by any means
– there is no magic cure for emotional
impermanence or the panic it can create.
What is different is that I now see patterns
to my panic where before it seemed utterly
wild and uncontrollable. Dissecting the
interactions that made me feel scared that
I was being left behind, where I felt like I
was losing the love of someone important
to me, has shown me that certain specific
actions often seem to trigger that sense
of overwhelming loss of control. Now my
partner and I are able to work together to
avoid those triggers as often as we can, and
it feels powerful to know that I can have
some measure of control over this.
Of course, change doesn’t happen
overnight. Don’t feel like you’re doing
something wrong if you can’t create that
space for yourself right away – it’s tough
to live with emotional impermanence, and
you’re brave for trying to find a way to
deal with the things that trigger you. After
years together, my boyfriend and I are still
working through it. I still send panicked
texts, he still gets frustrated. But there are a
lot fewer texts like the ones at the beginning
of this piece, and that feels like something
that we can both be proud of. n
Tommi pg (formally Katie Parrish)
25

Vilissa Thompson, LMSW
I am Black.
I am physically disabled.
I am a woman.
It has taken me almost 30 years to embrace
all of my identities at the same time.
Growing up, I never felt fully included
within any of the three groups. Being in a
wheelchair made me stand out in the Black
community like a sore thumb–people were
friendly, but never knew how to approach
the “little disabled Black girl in the chair.” In
school, I was in mainstream classes, and was
dubbed “the smart disabled girl.” This meant
that I was separated from the other disabled
children in my schools because I wasn’t “like”
them; I was treated as a super cripple – a cute,
sweet, well-mannered kid who was incredibly
smart despite being in the chair. And as a
girl, the boys didn’t date me–they didn’t want
26
a disabled girlfriend, but thought that my
crushes on them were funny.
Within each identity, I had battling
roles to overcome: I felt cast out as black
and disabled; to those able-bodied I was the
“right” kind of disabled that allowed me to
not be seen as “useless”; and I wasn’t deemed
attractive or dateable by the boys I liked.
However, there were dynamic moments and
connections that reshaped how I viewed
these identities, and how I grew to love the
woman I saw in the mirror.
The first was the fact that I was
incredibly fortunate to have been raised by
a Grandmother who acted as a buffer for
me against the ignorance–my Grandmother
loved me unconditionally, and I knew this
with every fiber of my being at a young
age. She was my carer, my advocate, and
I was (and still am) the apple of her eye.
The bond was further strengthened by the
fact that I had part of her name, something
she adamantly wanted, that my mother
obliged. That connection, plus her love for
me, showed me that I was loveable, special,
and valued, even in a society that tried to say
otherwise. It was her example that taught
me what being a Black woman was about,
and as I grew into my own womanhood,
I used her as a model for what I could
become, but as a disabled version.
In addition to having my
Grandmother’s unwavering love, I learned
what I was good at: excelling in my classes,
and writing. The praise I received as an
honor roll student soothed the exclusion
and pain I felt in school–I was “good” at
something someone my age was expected
to be, I liked the attention I received from
the adults, and enjoyed watching my able-
bodied peers get envious that the “girl
in the chair” was better than them. In a
twisted sense, these strengths laid sturdier
bricks onto the foundation for my self-
esteem and confidence as I navigated an
ableist, ignorant world.
Though those bricks solidified the
foundation, they also made me feel like a
unicorn: there were not a lot of disabled
people of colour around me in my classes.
The attention I received for doing well in my
classes was positive, but it also created pressure
for me to be “perfect.” I knew that I was
representing two main groups of my identities,
being disabled and Black. Because there were
not many of us in these settings, I knew that
I couldn’t “mess up” or misbehave as other
students did (plus I knew what would happen
to me at home if I did... Grandmother did
not play when it came to acting up in school).
I have always felt a sense of weight from the
identities I carried; I never thought of it as a
burden, but having eyes on me and knowing
the opinions of others about my existence was
the burden I felt.
It was when I ventured off to college
that I began to meet other disabled people
who understood my plight, and who also
carried the unicorn weight I held up. Those
friendships allowed me to see that my life
mattered greatly, and so did my voice. Though
I enjoyed my friendships, I noticed one thing:
I had not befriended many disabled people of
colour, or women of colour with disabilities
like myself. Not having individuals who
understood the unique challenges of being
of colour and disabled left a gaping hole that
desperately needed to be filled.
It was not until 2013 when I created
my self-advocacy organization that I finally
began connecting with disabled people of
colour, and finally, disabled women of colour.
Being of colour is a huge part of who I am,
that exceptionally grew in definition when
I undertook African American Studies in
college to learn more about my history as
a Black American. It is only fitting that
connecting with disabled Black women,
and other minorities, would make me feel
complete in this experience. What I found
from meeting and befriending these women
was that we were all desiring to meet each
other, and struggled to find women who
looked like us in the disabled community, in
our schools, and in our communities. They
shared similar issues with feeling accepted
in the racial group they were members of,
struggled with embracing their sexuality
and femininity, and worried about finding a
partner who would love them–basically all of
the matters I had been concerned about all
of my life. Connecting with each other had
27
 a powerful effect on validating our struggles
and achievements. These are my disabled
Sistas–no other friendships come close to
what I experience when I reach out to them.
They “get” me, and have closed the hole that
previously existed. I finally felt accepted for
who I was as an African American disabled
woman because I saw other women who
looked just like me–I no longer felt like a
unicorn, or an outcast.
The triple jeopardy hand I have been
dealt with in life has not been easy by
any means, but quite frankly, I would not
change it either. I am proud of the reflection
that stares back at me in the mirror; I am
fearless, I am strong, and most importantly,
I am perfectly imperfect. The experiences
I endured along the journey to embracing
my three identities greatly shaped how I
view and interact with the world around
me–I would not hold the strong levels of
compassion, understanding, and empathy I
possess if I was not born the way I am. My
differences are my strengths, not weaknesses,
and at almost 30, I understand that to be
fervently true. I am strong enough to live
this life because it is who I am meant to be.
When I go out into the world, I hold
my head up high because I have no reason
to doubt my worth–I am fearlessly and
unapologetically me. n
28
ON WRITING WHEN DEPRESSED (FRAGMENTS FROM MY NOTEBOOK)
Hanna Milner
Various people have told me that depression is linked to creativity, and as a result I
have always been thoroughly disappointed in my attempts to write when depressed.
Things I’ve written while very depressed include a full page of I’m not really here no
I’m not really here no I’m not really here no I’m not really here no, half a page of why
is everything not quite right not quite right not quite right not quite right, some sort
of incoherent scrawl about wanting an ending, and simply the sentence I want to be
outside looking at the stars, you fuckers.
At times I feel a total immobilisation of body and mind. Or rather – I don’t feel it, it
just is. And I’ve realised I have to be careful... sometimes I really do need time alone
to do nothing and ‘recover’, and sometimes I just tell myself I do.
I think I’m being good to myself
Allowing a slowness, a restfulness,
A nothingness.
A deadening.
I panic, in a grey, lifeless sort of way
But that, too, subsides into the mire.
A recurring sentence in my diary is I felt like I was trying very hard to be a part of the world
today. When I’m feeling ‘okay’, this doesn’t make much sense to me. But this feeling of
total disconnection always comes back in the end. Being trapped inside my own head
(i.e. trying to write) does not help, but some sort of physical contact with the world can.
As scrawled in my notebook recently, I knew the solution and I didn’t do it (I stayed inside
all day). And when I do manage to lift my eyes away from their internal gaze, I am often
filled with the complete opposite feeling – an overwhelming sense of unity with everyone
(which can be equally disconcerting); I look at others sometimes and I feel so happy and full
of love. Look at you with your notebook like mine and those funny sketches inside. I want to
know your thoughts, talk to me. I love you.
So I guess what I’m trying to say is; maybe don’t write when you’re very depressed.
Maybe just sit outside for a bit, or dip your fingers in beautiful blue ink and draw
something terrible. At least for me, trying to pull words out of the void is a futile task. n
29
 MEDICINAL OFTEN

Leanne Matthews Jane Kerrison

Her dried up hand reached to Often the hardest part is that

Place a little pink tablet life goes on.
On my little pink tongue.
How quaint. When you fall down a flight of stairs
Do you feel nauseated or run out of painkillers,
(Not nauseous)? you still have to make dinner.
Do you feel faint?
Have you begun the vomiting? When you forget your phone number
I thought of going catatonic to save myself or can’t get out of bed,
But the thoughts were sucked up with gauze when the floor disappears under used tissues,
Like the pus they were. your knees buckle or your head spins.
Yes Clothes still dirty when
Very love leans subordinate to sadness.
Soon
Nod nod nod Insomnia won’t hold back the morning. n
And then sleep
She pats my head. That is what she wanted.
With the plastic disbelief of an Rx bottle
She will cure me. n

30 31
ALCOHOLISM, SEXUAL & DOMESTIC ABUSE, SELF HARM, SUICIDE
Harley Collins
artwork by herikita
My mum, for as long as I have
known her, has always had a prob-
lem with drinking. Smoking, too,
but the drinking is worse.
I’d wake up nearly every Saturday
morning and find Mum collapsed
outside our flat, or lying at the
bottom of the stairs (when she
managed to unlock the front
door). This would happen after
I spent most of the night up
in worry, wondering where
she was because she wouldn’t
pick up her phone. She’d drink
in the morning, the afternoon
and the evening, but still manage
to get up for work and do ‘normal
things’ for most of the week.
It was just a ‘thing’ my mum did.
I always thought I’d made a big
deal out of it when she was safe
a few hours later. But I was more
concerned with Mum and Dad
constantly fighting, pushing each
other into walls, kicking doors
down and aiming punches at
one another with clenched fists.
I hated my dad. I fucking hated
him. I wondered why he had to
pick on my mum like that, why
everything was her fault. I couldn’t
bear to be in the same room as
him for years. He frightened me
and I will probably always hold
onto that feeling, if only a small
32
part. I knew there was something
wrong with him from a young age.
But never with Mum. Nope. She
was our rock, the one that held
the family patchwork together.
The drinking? It was nothing,
I was overreacting. It didn’t
mean anything.
I was about 16 when my
mum told me that she suf-
fered from depression. At the
time, I didn’t know what to say.
Depression is a word that is so
common and way more widely
spoken about than other mental
health disorders.
The drinking, the fighting, the
outbursts of “I hate my fucking
life, I want to die” now had some-
thing to correlate with. It made
sense, but I didn’t question it. It
wasn’t my place to, I thought.
After she’d had a fight with my dad
one night, Mum said that she still
cut herself. She hadn’t told anyone
else, only me. I felt ashamed for not
noticing.Worst of all, I couldn’t even
imagine her doing it.
She told me she tried committing
suicide before by overdosing on
pills, before being driven to hospital
to have her stomach pumped. So
why couldn’t I picture her self-
harming? Was it because that
had happened before I was born
and I wasn’t there to prevent it?
Whenever Mum would get into
a bad place, I questioned how
much I was really doing to help,
or how little. What can I do to
make it better? What can I do to
make it go away? Why can’t I, her
daughter, do a damn thing about
it? Here she is, a bright, kind and
thoughtful woman, who is going
through this shit in her 40s and
I’m doing nothing to make it right.
I can’t understand it. I’m not
depressed. I am part of a family
with a history of alcoholism, mental
health issues, domestic and sexual
abuse - the list goes on. That’s the
thing, though–I am part of it, not
one of the cruxes. Crying for my
mum, for our family, until my
face is covered in blotches won’t
change that.
Man, I can try my hardest to
understand, but I won’t, not deep
down. I’ll sympathise and be there
for support. But what good am I,
really? I can’t relate to my mum’s
feelings. I won’t know what it is
like, day in and day out, living and
breathing an abusive childhood,
struggling with self-worth and
fighting off constant, bombarding,
suicidal thoughts.
No one tells you what it is like
having a parent with mental health
troubles. No one tells you how to
deal with it. It’s a visible part of
our lives, but entirely invisible at
the same time. I don’t know who
to speak to and, honestly, I am not
sure there is someone. I’m indirectly
affected, not directly. Who would that I can do now is listen, and (I mean, seriously, how many times
want to talk to a person whose that’s a hard thing to admit. It’s has this same phrase been said or
parents or grandparents are the that feeling of helplessness, being written down?), but there isn’t a
ones with the problems, not you? useless to those that you love.That’s cure. Stupid me thought that there
what gets me the most. probably was–if it was happening
Guilt – that’s the only thing I can
to people I loved, then there has
be sure I’ve felt and still do, slightly. Mum’s been into therapy now, got to be, right? But there isn’t,
Guilty that, no matter what I do, dealing with problems that have or at least it isn’t something I
I’ll never be able to take back the been harboured for decades. She can provide.
things that have upset my mum. took that step, admitting that
Guilty that I went on and on something was wrong and needed And that’s okay. At least I get that
about this person who said they to seek out help. Not just for anyone, part. I’ll just keep supporting her
loved me, who said they loved but for her. And that’s a good thing. like I have been doing for years,
my mum, who said they loved She’s been letting it out, speaking be there when she needs to talk
our whole family, but had done to someone who can give her the – that’s one thing I am sure of.
this to her. They made her the way advice that I can’t. All of this, I hope, will one day
she is now. They were a catalyst. get her to the place she wants to
I wish I could have been that
They were responsible. be. Happy. Within life, but most
person – the guidance, the un- importantly, in herself. n
We’ve talked, cried together, talked derstanding, the one to ‘make
and cried some more. All I know it better’. It sounds silly to say
33
 THERE
AND
BACK
AGAIN
O L IVIA JAM ES
In August of 2014 I packed my life into
a pair of suitcases and took a flight to
Shannon, Ireland. It was the longest flight
I’d ever been on, over twelve hours of travel
all told. I wouldn’t be returning home for a
year. The plan was grad school, a Master’s
degree, at University College Cork.
The night before I left, I cried so hard I
couldn’t breathe. My dad came in to double-
check on travel plans and found me curled
in the fetal position, wracked with sobs. I
was utterly terrified of what I was doing. I
didn’t want to go. It had all been a mistake.
I’ve lived my whole life in Minnesota,
usually surrounded by highly supportive
family and friends. When I was 18, I came
down with a bad case of the eating disorder
and spent the next five years battling with
anorexia, depression, generalized anxiety,
and borderline personality disorder traits.
It was, to say the least, a rough patch. My
undergraduate years are not ones that I
look back on fondly.
34
But I had been steadily improving for
months, and I felt ready for a change. I’ve
always wanted to go abroad, and graduate
school seemed like the perfect way to do
it: get a degree and live in another country.
Perfect! My therapist thought I was ready
to take a big step like this, I felt fairly stable,
and I got accepted to the one university I
had applied to: University College Cork,
a Master’s degree in Global Ethics. I was
moving forward with my life.
But somehow, between accepting the
offer for the program and actually leaving
home, I found that my life at home was
good. Really good. The prospect of giving
that up for a year of struggling, and trying to
make friends, and being intensely lonely, was
more painful and terrifying than anything I
had ever considered in my life. It had been
nearly five years since I had felt ok for any
extended period of time. The prospect of
returning to the hell-pit that is depression
was something I couldn’t stomach.
One of the hallmarks of people with
anorexia is a high level of perfectionism.
We like to commit to things and do them
absolutely right every single time. We hate
to disappoint. We are the people pleasers,
the girls who will follow the “right” path
until it kills us. I am doggedly committed to
following through on my promises, and so I
quietly began to foster fear and unhappiness
inside myself, only letting it out in moments
of extreme vulnerability. Over the months
before I left, it became clear: I didn’t want to
go. I didn’t know why I was going. I loved
my family and friends and life where I
was. I wanted to stay.
I packed up. I moved out of my
apartment. I finished my job. I said goodbye
to my friends. And, after a long night of
heaving sobs and snot all over my face, I got
up and caught my plane.
Twelve hours, very little sleep, and many
miniature breakdowns later, I finally reached
Cork and in some miracle of dissociation
my body managed to sleep for 18 hours.
Welcome to Ireland.
My father, along for the ride to help
me move in to my new apartment in Cork,
shepherded me through the streets of the
foreign city. Most of the first days are a
hazy blur of appointments, getting lost and
periodic crying fits.
By the time my father caught his plane
home a week later, I was a mess of anxiety,
loneliness, fear, and uncertainty. The city
was cramped and dirty. The university wasn’t
communicating with me. My apartment was
tiny and dank (with a broken window to
boot). The only things open past 6 p.m. were
the pubs. And trying to communicate with
my friends across a six-hour time difference
was not working out well.
When you have a mental illness,
new and stressful situations come with
higher risks than they do for someone
who has a friendlier brain. For some
people, trying something outside of their
comfort zone has the potential to make
them really anxious or unhappy. For me,
it comes with the potential of serious
physical harm or death (anorexia has
the highest mortality rate of any mental
illness, and mine comes with a side
portion of self harm).
35
 darkening nights.
From the first moment I made the irreparable. I could have fixed it. But it was
I used to call on God
decision to leave, my family and I knew that one thing too much. I called the airport and
You say, on beaches,
there was the possibility that I would crash got a ticket home for the end of September.
the memory of hurt in my garden at night
and burn and we would need to pull the It hurt to do this. I felt as if I was
is sometimes greater when the stars were full and tight.
plug. There was always a Plan B: come home disappointing everyone who was sending me
than the hurt itself, I used to call on God
and be safe. We talked to my therapist, we support, excitement, and love. I had never
and I say as one would a mother
talked to each other, and we had all the steps failed at anything before. I was giving up an
that is nonsense, in a world without sight,
in place just in case something went wrong. opportunity others would kill for, just because
the memory is always fonder. in the blackest of black nights.
It wasn’t as if I went in expecting to give it was hard. What was wrong with me?
The mind casts back I used to call on God.
up part way through. I certainly tried to make Well what was wrong with me was that I
to its farthest shores
it work. I met new people. I made sure to leave have a mental illness. Sometimes that means
and brings on bonfires,
my apartment every day even if I didn’t have I can’t do things that other people can do
fireflies, sunsets and
anywhere to go or anything to see. I planned and I can’t enjoy things that other people
rings of stone. Low- Do you see the boot on my shoulder?
trips around the country. I went to all the would enjoy. As hard as it is to accept, it
flying larks, snow drops I feel it.
orientation events at the school, filled out all isn’t actually something wrong with me. It
as white as mice I feel it with all its dirty,
their forms, started registering for classes. I just was that this situation was not making me
and early morning dew. brazen weight.
kept on trying because the alternative was to a happier or better person, but rather it was
Not for it the hurt, I know its heft
give up. Fail. Go home. pushing me back into unhealthiness.
the flaming hot shame its shape
But with every attempt to be ok, I knew So while there are some people who would
of fever, of sickness; its muck.
that this place was not for me. I knew that I deem my experience a failure, I am proud of
not for it the slap I feel it.
didn’t have the tools to be utterly alone, at least myself for choosing to call the airline, change
in the face, the words And you feel it too.
not yet. I knew that I had been infinitely my plane ticket, haul a pair of fifty pound
like a fist, like a kiss. I try to rid myself of this
lucky to have the happiness that was starting suitcases around by myself, and get my ass
No, memory is always fonder, boot the size of a galaxy,
to peek through in my life at home and that home. I am proud because I have laughed
I say, such a fond thing. but yet it stays,
giving that up had been utter foolishness. nearly every day since I got home. I am proud
heavy and strange.
The worst part was the loneliness. I because my friends hugged me when they saw
It kicks me on the breast,
was miserable. I missed my friends with a me, and at least one told me “I was so relieved
it fills me with the anger
fierceness I hadn’t thought possible. I texted when I heard you were coming home.” I am
I used to call on God of the righteously wronged,
and emailed and Skyped and chatted and proud because for the first time in my life, I
as the clouds shifted it settles in the crook of my
would have sent smoke signals if I thought made an utterly selfish decision to take care of
in the sky and the day neck and allows me no rest.
I could have gotten responses from them myself. For someone with my particular blend
was made bright. I used This boot is filled with anxiety,
faster. It was like trying to hold water in of depression, anorexia, BPD, and anxiety,
to carry him about in my it will explode soon,
cupped hands. The brief flashes of happiness this is unheard of. I prioritized myself over
pocket like a smooth, it will reach the moon,
I got from our conversations would flit expectations, and that is not only healthy, but
sacred stone, stroking it it will whirl me around
away the moment we stopped talking, or also political, in a world where mental illness is
when the moment felt right. and turn my insides
sometimes they would never happen at all. supposed to be quiet and unobtrusive.
I used to call on God inside out. n
At the beginning of the third week, I I went to Ireland. I got really sick and I came
at all hours, as the
learned that I was registered for the wrong home. It was the right decision and I’m glad I did
sickness shifted in me Anna Govier
program. It wasn’t a mistake that was it. I’m glad that I chose to be healthy. n
and the days turned to

36 37
 Gemma Correll – from The Worrier’s Guide to Life,
Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2015

38 39
 ON LABE LS, FEE LI N G B ROK E N, AN D COM I N G OUT YET AGAI N
Ellen Murray

There have been many themes throughout
my life. Love, discovery, obsession. I loved
many of the people I grew up around dearly,
and continue to love some of them today.
My family raised me in the most loving
environment imaginable, and I enjoyed a
stress-free childhood that many do not get
to experience.
As I grew up to hit puberty, a stunning
sense of confusion and disassociation
between myself and my body made me feel
like I was totally broken. I later learned that
I was transgender. There were words for
what I was experiencing, and things I could
do to make myself feel better. Today, this
part of me is comfortable and homely, and
the fact that I’ve fought to get to this point
makes it feel all the better.
I have since come out as transgender. It
changed my life, and it changed it for the
better. As I grew up through that stressful
puberty, my anxiety and mental health
did not match anyone else I knew. I was
socially and intellectually drowned by my
developing mental state, and it made me feel
worthless and helpless. I felt broken, and
I had very, very little hope for a long time.
I later learned that I had a mental illness,
and that there were words for what I was
experiencing, and things I could do to make
myself feel better. Today, my mental illness
is manageable, and I’m getting better all
the time. I know a lot more how my brain
works, and that struggle for all those years
makes my relative happiness of today seem
much brighter than it probably actually is.
I have since also come out as having
experienced serious mental illness. Again, it
changed my life, and for the better.
Well, there’s another thing that’s
been playing on my mind for a long time.
Like being transgender, it’s something
I’ve known for a very long time, even if
I haven’t acknowledged it for as long.
It’s something I’ve only been speaking
about publicly for a very short time, and
something I’ve only told my parents and
some friends very recently. Like being
transgender, it has affected how I grew
up and related to other people, and has
presented its own challenges to how I’ve
thought of myself.
I have issues with my senses – particularly
heat, touch and light, and they get overloaded
pretty quickly at times. Certain social
interactions are pretty difficult for me, and I
have passionate interests that literally no-one
else finds exciting. I experience a background
level of anxiety that’s much higher than
most people, and that spikes when my senses
are overloaded to a very high level. I need
to regulate my senses regularly and have
downtime to “recover” from participating
in society. These are things that I’m only
beginning to understand and develop coping
mechanisms for.
I felt disconnected from my friends
growing up, and (I bet you’re noticing a trend
with these), yet again, I felt broken. Nothing
seemed to explain what I was experiencing,
and I felt like I was falling further and further
behind my friends and peers.
Well, I’m autistic. I’m on the (very long)
waiting list for a mental health referral
which will end in a diagnosis to that effect,
anyway. According to my GP, other medical
professionals I’ve been talking to, a dozen or
so autistic friends of mine and a lot of research
online, there’s not much doubt whatsoever
about that. Everything fits, and it explains
a heck of a lot. I fit with the a great deal of
what are commonly considered autistic traits,
and every time
I recollect my
childhood, more
and more things
are making sense
with this new-
found information.
Sorry if I’m
being clumsy with
my terminology
here – although I
can describe these
feelings to myself, talking to others about
them is still very new. I’m saying about it
now before I get a professional diagnosis in
the same way I said about being trans before
I got a professional diagnosis of gender
dysphoria. This is something I’m sure of,
and is something a lot of my friends have
seemingly known for a long time, too.
Realising this is far from a bad thing.
Having this word to describe who and what
I am, which fits and explains things so well,
is liberating and relieving. It feels exactly
like when I realised I was trans, gay, and
mentally ill. It didn’t necessarily solve all
my problems, but it gave me the language
to begin to do so. Words are powerful, and
in these instances, words have given me an
incredible amount of hope and drive.
If I may moralise for a short while,
I suppose I’d just like to say that labels
are extremely important for some
people. Having labels for who I am
has not solved my problems in and of
itself, but it has empowered me to join
communities, get
what I need and
ultimately work
towards bettering
myself. Labels
have likely saved
my life, in a way.
The main reason
for me writing
this, though, is
like coming out
to people as trans
and mentally ill, it’s much easier and less
exhausting for me to do it this way.
It’s a coping mechanism, really. n

40 41
SUICIDE
THAT BITTER PULL:
THOUGHTS ON LIVING
WITH MENTAL ILLNESS AND
11 NOTES TO MYSELF
Angelica Jade Bastién
I call suicide “that bitter pull” because
that’s what it feels like for me. Like a
strong, never-ending tug at the back of
my mind. Even on good days I think
about suicide. But it has only been
recently that I have started to create
detailed plans of how to end my life
after years of a manageable sort of
misery. What I would wear. What my
suicide notes would say. What my final
words would be before I finally gave
into that bitter pull.
It has been difficult articulating a
reason to live. About two weeks ago on a
Wednesday I found myself so overcome
by depression and anxiety I couldn’t
go into work. Instead I was writing
suicide notes and making my way to the
Western blue line stop to jump in front
of a train. At 21, I imagined wearing
my favorite bright magenta dress made
of silk and jumping from the top of my
apartment building. I imagined that I
would look like a bright flower hurtling
to the ground to the people below. My
younger self imagined this as a beautiful
end to a life dominated by self-hate and
ugliness. But suicide is not beautiful.
And yet, we romanticize it culturally,
don’t we?
When I’m depressed I can’t eat. I
can’t get out of bed. I can’t function,
let alone write anything of value.
42
Why does this cultural myth of the creative
genius overcome by depression persist?
Because it is comforting to believe the trade-
off for debilitating mental anguish is creative
fire, rather than a life dominated by regrets
and dead-ends.
I’m not saying my struggle with bipolar
disorder and anxiety doesn’t contribute to
my work as a writer. Madness is a major
theme for me creatively. My illness has
shaped my identity greatly. And I think my
struggles have made me a stronger person
and a more dynamic writer. But, I have very
limited output during my darkest moments.
What good is creativity when all your
energy is going towards thoughts of suicide?
I realize I will never be the writer I want to
be without handling my mental illness and
getting healthy.
Screenwriting is my blood passion.
Creating new worlds and characters
got me through my second trip to the
mental hospital at 16. Cinema has been
as important in shaping my identity as
my struggle with mental illness and being
a black Latina. I want to (I will) create
cinema–not just comment on it. I need to
dramatically change my circumstances to
find happiness rather than being complacent
in my misery.
On April 17th I turned 26. I have been
taking into account the changes that need to
be made in my life to be mentally healthy, to
find some peace. I wonder what my younger
self would think about my place in life.
Would 16-year-old Angelica, fresh out of
her second stint in the mental hospital, be
proud of her 26-year-old self ?
I am not sure what my future holds.
I am making momentous changes in my
life, internally and externally. Moving from 4. Learn to love yourself. You are wondrous.
Chicago is just the beginning. Personally, I
want to live, write, and love with passion… 5. W hen darkness encroaches watch Now,
just like all the madwomen I admire now Voyager, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Stoker,
(see: Taylor, Elizabeth). But sometimes it is Sweet Smell of Success, Le Samourai.
difficult just to wake up in the morning and Read the poetry of Sylvia Plath.
put one foot in front of the other. Read the prose of Junot Diaz, Helen
As a reminder to myself, here are some Oyeyemi, and Megan Abbott. Look at
things I should keep in mind as I navigate the art of Frida Kahlo and Caravaggio.
the madness in my head and the change Read your favorite comics bright with
that is reworking the architecture of my the images of Dick Grayson, Wonder
life. I hope my transparency about living Woman, and Zatanna. Turn to the art
as a black Latina struggling with mental you love. Explore to find new artistic
illness brings a bit of light into the lives of treasures that provide a beacon through
women like me. the dark.
NOTES TO SELF ON NAVIGATING LIFE
AND MENTAL ILLNESS:
1. W hen your mother turns away during
your episodes remind yourself afterwards
it isn’t because she thinks you’re a diseased
thing. It is because she wishes her love
could heal you.
2. W hen you think of the way your
brother said, in an even voice, that
your madness is to blame for his
childhood remind yourself
that you’re
both navigating
wounds that have
yet to be stitched.
3. Forgive your
brother. Forgive
your father. The
hate you carry
towards them only
poisons you.
43

6. Don’t look into the eyes of any man for
salvation or happiness or an identity. You
can only find that within yourself.
7. Meditate.
8. Don’t feel shame for your madness, your
blackness, or your desires.
9. You are not a burden on those you love.
10. Be relentless in the pursuit
of your passions.
44
SUICIDE
11. W hen you feel that bitter pull remind
yourself about all you love in life. Cook
yourself a great brunch of shrimp, grits,
and gravy. Play with Professor Butch
Cassidy. Call those you love and hold
their voices as close to your ear as
possible. Write about the madness until
you break it into submission, even if
it just for the night. Remind yourself
you are a survivor. You always have
been. There is a fire in you no man, no
disaster can put out.
Please, Angelica, do not give into that
bitter pull. n
45
46 47
48 49
50 51
52 53
 CHURCH MOTHERS PORTRAIT:
EXCERPT FROM DEPRESSED
WHILE BLACK
Imade Nibokun
The first question therapists typically
ask is if a family member has ever
dealt with mental illness.
In my two years of therapy, I’ve told a
Christian counselor, a cognitive behavioral
specialist, and an avant-garde therapist the
same exasperated comment: “If they did, I
wouldn’t know.” In the back of my mind, I
wondered about the missing pieces of my
mom, and the mother who raised her.
Since my mom’s two main goals were
for me not to get raped or backslide, I
know more about my mom’s religion
than my mom. Growing up in the 90’s
and early 2000’s, I learned that liking
Tweet’s tight military outfit in Jet
Magazine was “worldly” and that asking
my mom what “Tint” meant terrified her
because she thought I said tits. I was just
a normal girl with vices like playing
basketball after the streetlights came
on, sneaking Talib Kweli on my radio,
and practicing the heel-toe in my
grandma’s living room after she went
to sleep. I didn’t think I was a bad girl,
but my mom saw the projection of her
fears more than she saw me.
While I was raised to be a good,
C.O.G.I.C. Christian, my Presbyterian
grandma let my mom decide who she
wanted to be. After our weekly Sunday
soul food dinners, long after my mom
54
left to sleep for her third shift-nursing
job, my grandma would sit at the head
of the table in her heavy, wooden chair,
rest her elbow on the armrest, and point
her wrinkled fingers with its large, dated
rings and remenisce about her youngest
daughter. My grandma spoke of my
mom in a way I longed for my mom to
speak about me: with pride.
My mom’s childhood was told
as a series of jump-cuts where the
story becomes lost in the legend. She
shocked a racist librarian for wanting
a library card as a child in Teaneck,
NJ. Every time I remember this story,
I think of the black-and-white photo
of my mom at her school desk with a
long oval face, crooked curled bangs,
wide set eyes, and a smile with a gap
in the middle. For some reason, that
photo was right by my mom’s alarm
clock, so when she looked at the time,
she could remember who she was.
If I had done what my mom did
in her teens, I wouldn’t be surprised if
she kicked me out the house. My mom
didn’t just listen to secular music. She
made it. She was the lead singer of a 60’s
girl group inspired by Motown’s Martha
and the Vandellas. A grainy black and
white picture taped to the middle of
her bedroom door was a rare glimpse
of her musical prowess. The photo
showed my mom singing mid-sentence
as if she’s mouthing an emphatic “Oh!”
Her flipped out wig, flowing gown,
and delicate embrace of the long, corded
microphone made her look like a queen.
My grandma, a woman who sounded
like a creaky attic when she sang,
purchased my mom’s fancy dresses. Clearly,
my grandma was my mom’s greatest fan.
I often heard this growing up: “Your
mother’s voice was sooo beautiful!”
My mom later turned down a record
contract because a family lawyer advised
her to, but she always described this time
like a star quarterback who blew out his
knee. My mom spoke with a mixture of
regret and pride but she often resolved
to the latter. “I was the first person in my
high school with a natural!” She often
gloated while pointing at the small
mound of hair in her graduation photo.
I remember that family folklore, but I
only heard this once when I was an adult:
“I don’t know why I looked so sad! I was a
sad-looking baby.” My mom was referring
to her puffy cheeks and squinting eyes in
an early 1950’s photo, with my grandma
and granddad. Both of her parents wore
pressed suits and look weary, removed, and
proud, as if someone took the photo too
early and captured a glimpse of who they
really were. Since I never saw my mom
cry outside of “feeling the anointing” in
church, that was the only time I remember
my mom describing herself as sad.
I don’t know why my mom let her
emotions fade into the background.
But I know that my granddad got all
the great qualities while my grandma
was his weaker foil. He was tall, sharply
dressed, prosperous, and proud while
my grandma was less than five feet
and shrinking, in stature and courage.
My granddad was the head of one of
the first black families to live in Teaneck
and have a thriving business. Not too bad
for a former South Carolina golf caddy
who says “one, two three, fow.” But my
grandma, who to me was the family’s rock,
was characterized as “too nervous.” She
was the breadwinner for my older siblings’
childhoods and half of mine, but my
mom questioned my grandma’s emotional
stability. Somehow, my grandfather was
always missing from this conversation,
despite being an alcoholic.
“I remember when I was a child...”
my mom would often touch her face and
shake her head, “and your grandmother
was driving, and she never was a good
driver, even when I was a child. Just
when she was about to hit another car,
she took both hands off the steering
wheel and said ‘ahhhh!!!’ I thought, oh
no! I’m not going to be like that.” My
mom often chuckled in reflection of all
of my grandma’s car accidents, and they
were many. As nervous as my grandma
was, she’s also impulsive. She’s known
to jut into an intersection and total yet
another boxy, 80’s model car. “When I
get old, I’m not going to be all nervous
like your grandma. She can’t even talk
after the accident!” My mom would sigh
heavy and wring her hands to mimic
my grandma’s go-to response when
she’s flustered. “Uh-uh. I’m going to be
clear and in my right mind. And I’m not
worrying about you. All I got to answer
to is God Himself. I can’t save you.”
55
 Maybe my grandma’s emotional
nature was the reason my mom equated
vulnerability to weakness.
I do know that my mom’s hardened
exterior has a lot to with her militant
Afrocentricity. Growing up, she projected
a sense of fierce martyrdom. “White folks
can’t go through what we go through.
They’d think about killing themselves.
Shoot, they go through half of what we go
through and can’t barely take it.”
My mom made me feel that not
only am I smarter than most white
people, I’m stronger too. I assumed she
developed this ethos from the stories
she told about her alma mater Central
State University in Wilberforce, Ohio,
which seemed like the predecessor to
A Different World. When discussing
her college years, my mom still fumed
about her stolen door poster, which
featured shoeless Olympians Tommie
Smith and John Carlos in a black
power salute. Even her class of 1974
yearbook had a gold black power fist on
it, which seemed revolutionary to my
code switching, non-HBCU perspective.
When the relationship was mentioned it
was once and only once.
My mom got pregnant her senior
year in college by a Nigerian engineering
student who was ten years her senior.
Telling her parents that she was
pregnant was bad enough, so she refused
to become a college dropout. She was
determined to complete her studies, and
often went on long campus walks to
ensure a healthy pregnancy. My mom
56
obtained a bachelor’s degree in music
with an infant child and a distant man.
Not long after, death encroached in
the most intimate way imaginable. My
mom’s older sister died in a car accident,
which ended the life of her unborn
child. My mom’s father later died a slow
and shriveling death of emphysema.
The most I could get out of my mom
about that time was, “we just had to get
through it.” Grieving was a footnote in
family conversations. I wonder if a sense
of racial superiority dehumanized my
family. My mom gave room for white
people to hurt, but not herself.
She left her lifelong dream of
becoming an opera singer when her
music teacher died of cancer, an event
that she seemed to quietly mourn with
each retelling. But my father didn’t care
for her musical aspiration, probably
because he saw it as less important than
his engineering career. I wonder if that
was the moment when my mom’s agency
began to erode. The stage was where my
mom could transform from a shy and
quiet person to a performer. Besides
singing, I don’t know anything else that
my mom truly loved.
After she relocated for my father’s job
in Pensacola, Florida in the late 70’s, he
grabbed my mom once with a look that
he would do it again, and worse. She left
her marriage that was cobbled together
from manipulation and low self-esteem. “I
wasn’t very pretty, and your father was the
only one who wanted me,” my mom once
said in a rare candid moment with my
brother. I don’t know why my mom felt
that way. I don’t think I’ll ever know.
Leaving her husband and her
dream, my mom moved back into
my grandma’s house with my pre-
school aged older sister and brother.
During this time, my mom found a
more effective tool to embolden her
sense of self than singing and marrying
an emblem of Africa. She filled the
void with Jesus in 1982, at a Harlem
Pentecostal church with a brownstone
crack house for a neighbor. Skeletons
with skin rested on the stoop and
vacantly gazed at church members.
Christ Cathedral C.O.G.I.C. was
a refuge in the crack 80’s for a life
wounded by a broken marriage. My
mom no longer left for disco clubs,
leaving my brother to cry on the steps.
She exchanged all-night parties for
all-night prayer sessions. The extremism
of Christ Cathedral offered the
religious piety that my grandma’s liberal
Presbyterian church, where the deacons
smoked while counting the money,
couldn’t offer. Instead of brief (and
boring) sermons from speakers “who
let me walk right into hell” (my mom’s
words), she attended three-hour services
on Sunday morning AND afternoon
that were solely based on evangelism.
A mid-week service offered the same.
My mom soaked in this culture of
absolutism as she formed the backbone
of my early 90’s C.O.G.I.C. upbringing.
She had little respect for Baptists (“I
don’t know if they’re even saved”) and
thought her Presbyterian upbringing was
a complete waste of time. Accusatory
phrases like, “But do you have the
evidence?” and “Unless you’re baptized,
you cannot be born again” were commonly
used during Christ Cathedral sermons.
Charismatic Christian leaders have a
way of pointing you towards the horizon
while forgetting to tell you where you
are. My mom was a saint, a follower of
Christ, and a respected junior deaconess
who provided water to Pastor Bell after
his “in the spirit” praying. Religion can
be a buffer against a society that labels
the black poor as lazy, dumb, inferior,
and criminal. This may be one of the
reasons why, according to a 2008 study
from National Institutes of Health,
90.4% of African-Americans use
religion as a coping mechanism during
stressful experiences compared to 66.4%
of whites. But many times, going to
church was stress itself.
As a kid, I didn’t understand why I
had to be so quiet when everything was
so loud.
Church seemed like a galaxy away
from my childhood concerns. Christ
Cathedral’s stage had plush, blue-
carpeted steps leading to the choir
stand and further back, there was the
baptismal pool that looked like a fancy
bathtub. A half moon-shaped portrait
of John baptizing Jesus towered in the
background. They both looked pale as
paper, and not like the shades of off-
white, yellow, brown, and blue-black
that filled the church. Heaven was up
57
 there, but all I cared about was beating praise!” would egg the church into a
Tanesha at tic-tac-toe and getting shouting frenzy. The massive choir with
a chance to lick the sweet-as-candy their celestial white robes sung until they
adhesive on the tithing envelope. My were tired. The band was just as raucous.
Willy Wonka church world would The drummer was heavy-handed, the
come crashing down when my mom, organist’s sound permeated everything,
frustrated that I was too loud, punished and the bassist’s rhythmic “boom-boom-
me with her twisting hand pinch that boom-boom” provided ample warning
left me stifling a very audible ouch! that a praise break had just begun.
As I grew older, I recognized that There was so much pressure to “get
people could silence their personal happy” and “get off your feet and thank
problems in preacher squalling and God for what He had done” that there
Hallelujah shouts. My mom was was no time for meditation. Church
certainly one of the loudest, with her visitors who weren’t loud enough
trademark “HEEEY!!!” where she would or didn’t feel like standing up were
snap her head back, raise her shoulders, considered ungrateful or even demonic.
and clench her fists in the air and If they didn’t comply, glares were soon
momentarily freeze. My mom would to follow. I lived within and without my
often stand up in the upholstered pews mother’s glares, until I realized some of those
with her back bent and her face to the glares were a projection of my own. n
floor. She stabbed the ground with her
heels while her balled hands were at her Check out more of Imade’s work at:
side. My mom’s wide, round butt would depressedwhileblack.tumblr.com
graze against my face while I sat, to
the point where I would almost bounce
off of it, slip on my Mary Jane shoes,
and retreat to a safer, “shouting-free”
location. My mom shouted her way to
the aisle, where on rare occasions, white-
gloved ushers made a circle around her
to prevent my mom from hitting others.
Bulky speakers hung from the
wrapping white balcony and funneled
amplified sound right into your eardrum.
I could almost hear Pastor Bell’s spit
land on the hot mic during a sermon.
Pastor Bell’s dramatic breaths and
guttural “Somebody give God some

58 59
SUICIDE
DEPRESSION IN
YA AND THE
LATIN@ COMMUNITY
Cindy L. Rodriguez
arwork by Laura Callaghan
When I was 23 years old, I left
Connecticut for Boston for what
should have been an amazing
experience. I had been recently
hired to be a researcher for the
Boston Globe’s award-winning
investigative team, a dream come
true for a young journalist. Over
the next two years, however,
depression slowly ruined me,
although many people close to
me never knew. I wrote about
it for The Courant years later,
when my mind was clear enough
to make sense of it. Here’s an
excerpt from that article:
“It was a rainy February night
in 1997 when it became appar-
ent that the depression was no
longer a temporary emotion, but
a disease that had invaded every
part of my life. I had gotten into
my car after work and cried all
the way home. I can’t remember
why. But I remember feeling
like I was choking, like every
nerve in my body was numb,
like someone was squeezing my
heart and everything good inside
of me had been twisted around.
I remember feeling hopeless.
60
I knew then that this thing eat-
ing away at me would not just
go away. For a long time, I was
convinced it would. I believed
that the admirable traits I in-
herited from those before me,
like frankness and humor, would
overpower this flaw.
But days and months had blurred
into more than a year. Fatigue
had seeped into my bones and
smiling became an effort — a
false statement. I was tired all
day and couldn’t sleep at night. I
called into work sick with a flu I
didn’t have. I pried myself off the
sheets to make it in other days.
My memory was deteriorating.
I could listen to someone talk at
length and not absorb a single
word. I have no detailed recol-
lection of certain events.
Still, I thought the depression
was situational. I was having
a rough time at work, feeling
beat-up emotionally and unap-
preciated. With my career being
such a significant part of my
identity, I felt shaken and unsure
of my talents and abilities. Still,
something inside of me was
fighting back. I thought I could
pull myself out of it.
That February night, it was
my mom who convinced me
that this was bigger. That it
was something that didn’t just
belong to me — that I had
inherited it. That it belonged to
her and my grandmother before
her. This was out of my control.
‘You are definitely depressed,’
she said. ‘Promise me you will
see someone.’
Six days later, I sat in a psychia-
trist’s office, unsure of what to
do exactly. Isn’t this a luxury for
wealthy people? Or a necessity
for people with real problems?
It was hard to justify needing
this, being an otherwise perfectly
healthy and successful 25-year-old.
Yet, when I opened my mouth,
a load of hurt poured out and
the hour flew by.
Ten years later, I was planning
and drafting what would be-
come When Reason Breaks, my
debut young adult novel about
depression, attempted suicide,
and the life and work of Emily
Dickinson that was released
February 10, 2015. While writ-
ing, I knew some readers would
wonder why either of the two
main characters—Emily Delgado
and Elizabeth Davis—would
want to kill herself. Nothing
tragic had happened to either
of them. To some readers, none
of their problems will be seen
as good enough reasons to at-
tempt suicide. They’ll want a big
61
 reveal moment: “Oh, she was
(fill in the blank with a horrible
experience). No wonder she’s
depressed and suicidal. That’s
a legitimate reason.”
When I was depressed, I didn’t
think I had a right to be because,
like my characters, nothing tragic
had happened to me. I wanted
to have a significant event,
something I could point to and
say, “Ah-ha, that’s the reason.
If I address this one, obvious,
horrible thing that happened
to me, then I’ll be okay.” But I
didn’t have that thing. Many
depressed people don’t. And
with the absence of something
obviously wrong in my life, I
pushed through the days for far
too long, thinking what some
people might think about my
characters: that my problems
weren’t significant enough.
This kind of thinking can lead to
tragedy because the depression
goes untreated, something which
I’ve discovered happens often in
the Latin@ community.
National health organizations
report that Latin@s are at higher
risk for depression than other
minorities. Women experience
major depression more often
than men, and of students
in grades 9–12, significantly
more Latinas have attempted
62
suicide than their non-Latina
peers. Yet, most Latin@s with
mental health problems never
get treated. A lack of access to
affordable services and the stigma
attached to mental illnesses are
cited as barriers to treatment.
Untreated depression can lead
to suicide, which is the third-
leading cause of death for all
people aged 15–24.
Studies show that Latin@s
often complain to doctors
about individual symptoms
of depression, such as physical
pain or an inability to sleep, and
are, therefore, treated for those
specific complaints. Meanwhile,
a diagnosis of depression is
delayed or never determined.
My resistance to treatment
came in the form of denial or
perhaps stubbornness. I knew
something was wrong with me.
I had all of the tell-tale signs. I
was an educated person with a
full-time job and health insurance,
and still, I put off contacting my
primary care doctor, who then
referred me to a psychiatrist. I
kept thinking, or hoping, that if
I did something different, like
exercise more, everything else
would change.
These statistics and my own
experience with depression
got me thinking about how it
is represented in young adult
fiction, and I realized that in the
books I’ve read, white characters
are more likely to land on a
psychiatrist’s couch. Most of
the Latin@ characters in novels
I’ve read fight through mild to
severe depression without medi-
cal help, or they are somehow
detained, in a treatment facility
or group home, and the therapy
is required. These narratives do
represent what’s happening, in
general, in Latin@ communities,
according to the research, but if we
never see Latin@ characters seek
and receive traditional therapy, I
fear we are sending the message
that comprehensive therapy for
depression is, indeed, reserved
for wealthy white people. While
many Latin@s do not seek treat-
ment, some do, and we need to
hear those individual stories in
addition to the overall statistics
linked to Latin@ communities.
In a recent blog post for Latin@s
in Kid Lit, titled ‘“I’m okay”:
Resilience & Depression in
Cindy L. Rodriguez’s When
Reason Breaks,’ Sonia Alejandra
Rodríguez addressed the idea of
understanding depression as an
individual problem rather than a
community issue. Rodríguez is a
PhD candidate at the University
of California, Riverside. Her
academic life and activism are
committed to making diverse
literature available to children
and youth of colour. Her doctoral sion have made it difficult for
dissertation focuses on healing these young teens to stay alive.
processes in Latin@ children’s In other words, while parents
and young adult fiction. She and families can certainly be a
has written insightful analyses factor in one’s depression, I am
for the site centered on trauma weary of saying that Latin@
and healing in literary works youth are depressed and/or
such as Super Cilantro Girl by attempting suicide because
Juan Felipe Herrera, América of their families.”
is Her Name by
Luis J. Rodriguez,
Last Night I Sang
to the Monster by
Benjamin Alire
Saenz, and my
novel, When Rea-
son Breaks.
In the post,
Rodríguez cited
Dr. Luis H. Zayas’s
research on Latina
teen suicide, which
connects suicide
attempts to dif-
ficulties assimilat-
ing to dominant
American society because of Moving beyond statistics of an
the teens’ immigrant parents’ entire community and looking
traditional values. Rodríguez at individual stories can also
states she is hesitant about help writers avoid the creation
placing the blame for suicide of “a single story.” In her 2009
attempts on the parents, even TED Talk, novelist Chimamanda
though this is noted as only Ngozi Adichie explains “the
one of the possible reasons. danger of a single story,” which
“What I feel is missing from an occurs when the mainstream
understanding of Latin@ teen media and other dominant
suicide attempts and suicide rates power structures present an
is a discussion of how racism entire community as a single,
and other histories of oppres- definitive story illustrated with
63
 a handful of images. She relays
her experiences as a Nigerian
encountering people, including
her college roommate, who had
fixed ideas about all African
people based on their limited
exposure to stories from the
continent. She says if you
show a people as one thing
64
over and over again, that is
what they become. One story
becomes the only story, and
this only serves to emphasize
how we are different rather
than how we are similar. She
even admits she employed the
single story mentality in rela-
tion to immigration, which is
portrayed as synonymous with
Mexican people. When she
visited Guadalajara, she said
she felt ashamed to realize she
was observing Mexican people
through the lens of the single
immigration story presented in
the news. “Stories matter. Many
stories matter,” she says. That
she first wrote white
characters who ate ap-
ples and talked about
the weather, instead
of creating Nigerian
characters, is an example
of “how impressionable
and vulnerable we are
in the face of a story,
particularly as children.”
I fear the single story when
it comes to the portrayal
of Latin@s with mental
health issues. I haven’t read
every book that features
a Latin@ character with
depression, anxiety, or
other mental illnesses,
but the ones I have read
have presented Latin@s
as resilient and capable
of carrying on without
seeking medical attention.
We inadvertently support
mental health stigmas by
always creating Latin@
characters who ignore or
push through obvious
symptoms and never
get professional help. If
we ignore the Latin@s seeking
help for mental illnesses by not
representing them in stories, we
are essentially presenting a single
story. We are saying “This is the
Latin@ reality,” and we do not
even hint at other possibilities.
We often talk about books serv-
ing as windows and mirrors for
readers, and we agree that young
readers need both. It seems the
dominant message is to soldier
on in “mirror books” for young
Latin@s with mental health
issues. Characters like them do
not seek treatment. If we want
young Latin@ readers to consider
traditional treatment for mental
illnesses—if we want to avoid the
danger of a single story—then
we have to more often portray
this in fiction.
In When Reason Breaks, one
of the main characters visits a
doctor and gets medication, but
doesn’t take it. Later, however,
the character accepts real help
after her suicide attempt. She
commits herself to traditional
therapy, which includes medi-
cation, counseling, and a safety
plan. The story includes some of
the resistance cited in medical
research, but this resistance is
not admirable and leads nowhere
good. I did not want to create
a depressed character who
could just “get over it” through
willpower, positive thinking, or getting help at some point
a personal or romantic relation- instead of suffering through
ship. It was important for me their pain. Maybe more teens
to show that the only way she will see themselves in these
would get better was through books and understand that
a combination of medication, their problems are significant
therapy, and a commitment to enough, that they don’t need
better understand herself and a “real reason” to feel the way
the disease. they do, because in reality,
depression is the real reason. n
In another blog post for Latin@s
in Kid Lit, titled “A poet, América
knows, belongs everywhere”:
Healing & Latin@ Children’s
Literature, Sonia Rodríguez
writes, “Recent conversations
about the need for diversity in
children’s literature have dis-
cussed at length the impact that
being or not being represented
in books can have on a child’s
self-esteem and where they see
themselves positioned in society.
These conversations have made
visible the discrimination within
publishing industries and the
ways that children of colour
stand to lose the most. Diversity
is important to my project simply
because stories about children
of colour can save their lives.”
I agree, and I hope that as the
Latin@ population continues to
grow, barriers are removed so that
more Latin@s seek treatment
for mental illnesses. I also hope
more children’s authors tackle
the variety of mental illnesses
and show characters of colour
65
 WAR-
NING
Megan Merchant

I inherited a colour, and cotton, continues to shrink

grey, and a crazy gene fresh pairs of orange into sleep-filled days.
that activates once traction socks When
a baby arrives. to keep from slipping I lean in
on the always to give her a kiss,
As a child, I prepared, just-washed floor. she whispers
painted every surface cyan, It’s an imbalance, that the light is
kept jars of indigo beads they explained, too bright.
in the window, learned I’m not sure
a slow waltz I could do so surly I’d fall if she is talking
at the lip of the hospital at the lip of anything, about the musty
roof, gown flapping or shift daylight
like a flag. into the place filtering through
of lead and ash. the covered
I thought the hospital window,
would be the same My grandmother
stone grey facility is the only or speaking
my aunt stayed in one I know to the sepia
after my cousin who ghosts that
was born. escaped, adorn her walls.

They used electricity her hair, When I turn

to bring her back, brilliant white, to leave,
like test pattern colour bars she squints,
on the tv. turned early as if behind
and has refused a windshield,
My facility to fade driving headlong
was named after into the sun. n
a saint, even as
smelled of sulfur her body
Margaret Anne - doodlemancy.com

66 67
SUICIDE
When I was 18 I wanted to stop living, at
least for a little while. I remember being
a desperate crying mess in my parents’
bathroom, I can’t remember how I got in
that state, and it occurred to me to drink the
toilet bleach. Would I have gone through
with it? I can’t remember much of what I
was thinking. But I do remember one thing:
I’d just read and loved Pride and Prejudice
by Jane Austen and I wouldn’t be able to read
her other books if I went through with it.
After I calmed down I still hadn’t
calmed down enough. I switched my phone
off and hid it in my wardrobe because I
didn’t want to be in contact with friends.
Eighteen-year-olds generally tend to be in
flux, off to university, starting new jobs. They
had no way of getting in touch and I didn’t
want them to. I consciously drifted away.
I was on anti-depressants for about six
months. During that time I knitted a scarf in
bed and I now keep it on the back of my desk
chair. It’s quite ugly but it means a lot to me.
And then at this point in the story
people want to hear that you got over
it and you are now constantly blissfully
happy all the time. You overcame adversity
– congratulations!
Our generation is particularly bad about
this, I feel. We pin and post inspiring / hollow
quotes in pretty fonts over beautiful landscapes
or muscular bodies. We can do anything!
Mind over matter. The only person stopping
68
you succeeding is you. Make the decision to be
happy. Don’t be lazy. But life isn’t as easy, or as
mind-numbingly simple, as that.
I tend to get SAD in the winter. My
depressions are now seasonal. So in the
autumn I plan my attack against it. Less
time spent looking at screens, more time
with people and puppies. I develop an
exercise plan. I say I’ll stay away from
convenience pizzas and only eat healthy
and nutritious food. I can beat my emotions
using my mind. But, inevitably, I fall off the
wagon sometime in November. I become
flaky and start cancelling plans at the last
minute. Or I cry when I drop a bottle and it
breaks. I will blame this on the Dairy Milk I
had two days ago, or that I haven’t been using
my Happy Light enough. If I had just done
something different, I wouldn’t feel bad.
These positive affirmations and
intentions can help. Keeping to an exercise
plan helped me enormously in winter
2013/14 and I had a worse time this past
winter when I let it go. But this sort of
thinking can also set people back because it
doesn’t always work; we can start to blame
ourselves more for not trying hard enough.
If we start to believe that our mind-
sets are the only obstacle getting in
the way of our own happiness–not our
oversensitive amygdala, traumatic pasts,
an inability to eat or pitiful serotonin
levels or thousands of other things–
then we start to feel like bigger failures.
69
 A friend once told me ‘never be afraid
to show your emotions.’ And we shouldn’t
be. We are not perfect and we never will
be. Our lives demand so much from us but
we should be allowed to say we’re not ok if
we’re not ok. The general public seem to be
a lot better at dealing with mental health
problems than they ever were, but they’re
happiest when it’s already been dealt with in
the past, an obstacle in the story of your life.
Overcoming mental illness is not a
decision, a flick of a switch. Our stories
are not yet finished; they are constantly
being written and rewritten. Mental health
difficulties are, most of the time, something
we have to learn to manage and live with.
To people who haven’t been lucky
enough to experience a debilitating state,
we may look like we are feeling sorry for
70
ourselves, that we could get better if only we
would just try more. In Sense and Sensibility,
Elinor says ‘I wish, as well as everybody else, to
be perfectly happy; but, like everybody else, it
must be in my own way.’
People who suffer from chronic mental
health difficulties can’t suddenly decide
that they don’t have their particular illness
anymore. We learn to live with it, in our own
way. I think it becomes easier if we are able
to be kinder to ourselves, if we don’t give our
overloaded brains more to overcome. Maybe
positive thinking can have the opposite
effect to that which it intends; it can imply
that there is only one way to do everything.
Do whatever works for you. Curing mental
illness is not a decision. It’s not your fault. n
Rebecca Katz
71
 Allison Augustyn
My very first memory is of a
plastic yellow bucket, shining
in the sun, balanced on the
end of the dock in the pond
outside our house. I was three
years old, with my father, and
my newish brain wrinkled and
folded around these thoughts: I
want the bucket. I want to hold
the brightness.
I take a step forward and fall
into the black.
There is the sensation of being
tossed by something larger than
me. I am tumbled and twisted
in the current until I can no
longer breathe.
Strong hands pull me back into
the sunlight. I am coughing.
My father pounding my back.
My bare feet swing through
the air and land inside the
house on the cold kitchen
floor. I remember the heaviness
of wet clothes, my mother
stripping me dry, her nails
and line-dried towel scrap-
ing my skin. That’s where the
memory ends.
Except that it doesn’t. I think
about this memory all the time.
and have all my life. It sends me
into a panic. Sometimes I dream
about it. Sometimes several
72
nights in a row, and I wake up
drenched in sweat. I’m more than
10 times the age I was when it
happened, and I can still close
my eyes and feel as if I’m still
standing on the dock.
Or maybe just standing on the
edge. What I’ve only recently
realized is that this memory
is my brain’s canary in the coal
mine. The more I see and dream
it, the closer I am to falling into
depression. The sensation of
being twisted underwater, un-
able to breathe, reminds me of
being pulled under by my brain’s
faulty chemistry. If I don’t take
care, that chemistry, and those
sensations, will take me over.
I wish I could remember when
this whole depression thing
started, but I also think it has
been a part of me all my life. It
took me a long time to figure
that out. I had a pretty nice,
normal life growing up, so I
didn’t think I should be de-
pressed. I struggled with identity,
feminism and femininity, with
being who I was. Who didn’t?
That’s what it means to be a
teenager, to be human. There
were tough times and bullying
and embarrassing locker room
scenes, but life wasn’t miserable,
not by a long shot.
So why was I so miserable?
One thing I’ve since figured
out is that I never looked at
my feelings closely enough.
I neglected myself for years,
under the heavy impression
that I could snap myself out
of it. Paying attention to and
validating your feelings are
tough skills to develop without
help, and my parents were
from a generation that didn’t
value those skills when it came
to depression.
I was told to “quit feeling
sorry for myself,” and “go do
something for someone who
is worse off than you.” Not
bad advice, perspective and
all, but not exactly something
that could fix the problem. It
couldn’t, because depression
is a chemical imbalance in
the brain, and no amount of
good deeds can change that.
But who knew any of that,
especially when no one ever
talked about it?
I don’t blame my parents at all.
Depression is still not understood
in the medical field, and is often
swept aside in polite company.
They didn’t know what to do,
or if they should do anything.
Even I didn’t know if I should
do anything.
So I did nothing.
73
 One day I was grown up and
had a life that people said was
good, but I was still pretty
unhappy. I had stuffed my
feelings down so often that
I often exploded for no good
reason, while the darkest parts
of me stayed packed away in
my brain, along with my old
favorite bands and bad rela-
tionships, reams of sad poetry
and the time I punched a hole
through the wall in college.
I forgot about that hole in the wall.
What else is in these boxes?
Here’s the time I cried until
I hyperventilated and passed
out in my dorm room. Here’s
the blackout episode where I’m
pretty sure I swam naked in
some body of water, but don’t
really remember. Here are too
many boxes filled with empty
bourbon bottles and cartons
of cigarettes, and bags of junk
food, fruitless attempts to fill the
empty feeling. I was throwing
everything I had at feelings I
couldn’t ignore, so much that I
was drowning in failed attempts
and bad decisions.
Drowning. Reaching for the yel-
low bucket. Tossed by something
bigger than myself.
I started to open the boxes in
my mind and things finally fell
74
into place. And then all hell
broke loose.
I won’t tell you all the bad things
I did when I realized how de-
pressed I was, how I felt justi-
fied in my bad behavior – that
is another story. But I will say
that my anger burned hot and
bright until it burned me out,
and I was left lying in bed one
day for over 24 hours, wishing
I had a big red “OFF” button
so I could end it all.
My life, I mean.
I knew I needed help. Along
with all the bad things packed
deep within my brain, I still
had a few good thoughts that
helped me realize that I was in
a dangerous place. I got some
help, I got some drugs, I
made a few good decisions and
changed my life. I did it on my
own, and I was proud of that. I
traveled, I learned new things.
I started writing again. I fell in
love and got married.
I got off the drugs. I got de-
pressed again.
Somehow, this was surprising
to me.
I thought I had conquered it.
But because I knew more about
depression this second big
episode around, I had a better
sense of it, though I resisted it,
couldn’t yet accept what was
happening. Then I dreamed of
the yellow bucket, the first time
in years, and saw the depression
coming a mile away.
I thought if I kept going, kept
running, I would eventually
outrun the depression. But a
mile isn’t so far away after all,
and neither is life. My life is
here, now. And to live it, I have
to experience it. All of it.
And, surprise again, accepting
depression has freed me from
the stigma of it. For the first
time in my life, I’m no longer
ashamed because I’ve come to
accept it as a part of who I am,
and that it’s physiological, not
something I’m choosing. Not
my “fault.” What I can choose
is how I live with it, and how I
interact with others, knowing
what I do.
So I got on medication again,
and that helped a million times
over. That guy I married? He has
shown me time and again that
he loves me no matter what, and
I’m finally allowing myself to
really believe it. I have friends
who know that my brain will
fuck with me, maybe even with
them, and they still accept me,
even the brain part of me. And
though my mom has passed away,
I know that my dad will always
be my protector and pull me out
of the darkness. All I have to do
is be honest, and ask for help.
If they can do it, I can do it. I try
to love myself as well as they do.
I try to accept that yes, my brain
is missing a few key ingredients,
and no, that doesn’t mean I’m
a bad person. It means I need
help, and medicine. I’ve spent the
last few months on Buproprion,
which I can’t pronounce without
sounding like I’ve got a mouth
full of Bupropion. I’d better
learn how to say it, because my
psychiatrist says that I’ll be on
it for at least two years while I
retrain my brain to carry more
of the right chemicals down the
right neural pathways. If you give
it a few years to fully build up,
your brain will maintain those
connections, and then you go
off the drugs. Maybe.
But it almost doesn’t matter,
because these are the options
I have, and I’m taking them.
I’m not afraid to talk about it
anymore, which means more
doors are open to me. And I’ve
also been able to approach my
yellow bucket memory with
some clarity, looking at it more
closely without being so terrified
of where it will take me. I play
that near-drowning forward and
backward in my head, watch
all the moving parts. I wonder
why I am so afraid of something
that happened so long ago, an
event I cannot change. I wonder
what I can change now instead.
If I learn to be strong instead of
fearful, I will stop feeding the
memory. It will fade into the
right time and place in history,
in perspective, as something that
happened to me a long time ago
and turned out just fine. I’m
grown up now and can rescue
myself. I’m not always great at
it, and sometimes it’s messier
than I’d like, but I’m still here.
There is one part of the memory
I would like to keep close. I once
was a girl who loved the light
enough to reach out and touch
it, a girl who tried. Of all the
things to remember about that
day, that is the most important.
To keep trying. n
75
 BRING THE GIRL BACK
Amaal Said
She was calling on something we couldn’t see.
It wasn’t God but her eyes were closed.
She probably forgot you were her mother
when she left those scratches on your left cheek.
You forgave her, knowing that something
was trying to leave her body.
None of us could pull it out of her,
ease her back into her bus seat.
I ran to the back not out of embarrassment,
but when your girl slipped through your fingers
and ran out into the road
I smelt my father’s plot of land
outside our house in Kenya.
I was ten again, on my knees in the toilet,
scrubbing my older sister’s shit off the floor.
76
I heard my father telling me to clean it,
put her into the bed, make sure she makes it
through the night without running
through a window into the bushes.
Your girl is so strong; it took both of your arms
and a stranger’s to hold her down,
and even then she found an exit route onto the road,
screaming as the cars honked.
I am sorry I couldn’t help you drag her into the house,
I was busy chasing my sister through the streets.
I didn’t remember her being that fast
but I did it because I knew my father
would blame me for losing her.
I knew she wasn’t running from me.
Something was trying to take her away,
eating her from the inside. n
CALLING ON DEATH
Amaal Said
Mama wants you in an institution
but you’ve seen them on the television.
A patient tried to bite through the metal gate using teeth,
others were smashing their head onto the bed frame,
inviting the loss of memory.
Running into the road does not mean a car
will kill you instantly, it means your mama
will use her body to save yours, pulling you back.
She will do this each time you try it, asking herself
why you can’t stand to stay inside her house.
Mama is a lot older now and one day she’ll give up,
call the authorities and they’ll come
with their police dogs, their handcuffs
and a cage just big enough to scoop you up,
put you in and take you away with.
You are frightened she won’t miss you,
that she’ll breathe easier knowing she won’t
have to watch her baby running through the road
outside her kitchen window, wondering how much
you really want to die this time. n
77
RAPE & SEXUAL ASSAULT
I’LL NEVER GET OVER IT/
BUT I’M GONNA TRY
Mia Castiglione
This morning I woke up on the floor in the
bathroom and I don’t know how I got there.
All I can assume is that I had a nightmare
and I was sleepwalking again. My room and
bathroom are connected so at least I have
the knowledge that my parents didn’t see
me. At least I can still assure myself that
they have no idea what happened down the
hall from them that night. I still have that.
This all started two years ago in May.
I never used to sleepwalk. I know from
experience that sleepwalking and doing
weird shit in your sleep is something
that can be brought on by severe trauma,
but I don’t feel like what happened
to me was very “severe,” it’s more of a
mild trauma. Something that happens
and you compartmentalize and move
on. Something that isn’t specific to me.
Nothing special. Nothing to cry over,
nothing to still be having nightmares over,
and nothing to sleepwalk over.
On New Year’s Eve 2013 I drove home
from my best friend’s house after having
my very first New Year’s kiss with my
first girlfriend. The window in the car was
open so she could smoke. It was cold but
I liked watching her smoke, she would
smile and it helped her stop bouncing her
leg. I should have known what was going
to happen because we’d had a tumultuous
relationship so far and why would that
change just because it’s a new year, just
because she’s in my hometown, in my
house, in my bed?
78
It was probably two or three in the
morning when we got back and we kissed
and laughed and I sat in her lap, but I asked
her to stop and apologized over and over
again until she fell asleep. It’s a weird feeling
watching your girlfriend fall asleep, and then
watching her body wake up and smirk at
you while it climbs on top of you. You know
deep down that it’s not really her, but you
can’t fully process that with her eyes staring
down at you the whole time. It’s hard to
explain that to people without launching
into a complete definition of dissociative
identity disorder1 but my friend who read
this said, “This isn’t about her anymore. This
is about you.”
I play the night over and over in my
head every night before I go to sleep. I’ve
started falling asleep watching Netflix
(Malcolm in the Middle, The Office, That
’70s Show, Chopped) to try and avoid that
memory. I avoid places that I went with
her while she was visiting. I avoid listening
to Rihanna because she loved Rihanna.
This is what my therapist calls “avoidance
behavior” and it is “completely normal for
people who have been through something
this traumatic.” She likes to remind me of
that whenever I ask if I’m fucked up now.
For a lot of people avoidance helps relieve
some of their anxiety about a specific event
or memory, but for me avoidance gives
me even more anxiety about the thing I’m
trying to avoid. This in turn makes me avoid
more things, some of which have nothing
to do with the thoughts that I’m trying to
run away from in the first place. I’ve been
working on it, slowly, and one day I will be
able to fall asleep without the TV playing in
the background.
Writing about this is difficult. Accepting
it wasn’t as difficult as writing about it now.
I’ve made photo projects and written poems
about it. I don’t hold it inside as much as I
hold other things inside because I know that
talking about those things helps me make
sense of them; writing about them, though
it’s painful, helps. When I feel especially lost,
I try to ground myself by calling a friend,
asking someone to call me. It reminds me
that I’m real when I feel separated from the
world, like there is a glass box around me
(my therapist calls this “depersonalization”).
Recently, during one of those phone calls
with my friend, I got stuck thinking about
how everything that happened wasn’t really
real because my ex is a girl and I’m a girl and
I can’t really get raped by a girl can I?
“I understand why you feel that way,”
she said. Her voice sounded far away and I
had to strain myself to hear her, “but it isn’t
fair to invalidate yourself.”
And I try not to do that. I don’t see it
as invalidation, but that’s what I’m doing.
Making it seem not as bad, like it wasn’t
something traumatic that happened to
me. You see, talking about it and Talking
About It are two very different things for
me and I hardly do the latter. I downplay
what happened by making jokes about
how ridiculous it is, I downplay everything
I’m feeling because I don’t want people
to see me as fragile, I don’t want people
to see me as some poor kid who feels
empty and full all at once all the time.
I don’t want to be anything because
of what happened to me. But, a lot of
what I’ve become is in response to what
happened, and that is something I’m
terrified to admit.
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 For almost a year I didn’t allow myself to I wanted to write about learning to heal,
feel anything about the entire night. It was but I am still learning how. All I know is that
something that happened, but I was still in a you need to have people around you that you
relationship I felt safe in, I still had friends, and trust, and who have no qualms about calling
I wasn’t isolated (which had been a problem in out your tendency to try and avoid big subjects.
the past), so I didn’t think it was a big deal. My Have people around that will help to ground
girlfriend and I talked about it as much as we you, people that will text you goofy pictures at
could, and we tried to help the other when we night when they know you’re having a hard time,
could. We did a lot of talking at night because people who will read over essays that you write
that’s when our guards were down, that’s when about the Worst Night. People who understand
we weren’t with our friends. The first time I that tonight you have to sleep in the bathroom
heard her cry about it over the phone was the and will remember to knock before they open the
first time I had a flashback. The first time I door in the middle of the night to pee. n
heard her cry about it was the first time I felt
anything for myself. I admit what I felt was
mostly anger that she could cry and I couldn’t.
We broke up exactly three months after New 1. There is something I should probably
Years. It’s been more than a year, almost two, explain: she had an undiagnosed dissociative
and I am still struggling to remind myself that disorder at the time, and two of three of her
no matter how safe some things feel, it’s not alters that I knew of hated my existence.
always really, truly, the kind of safety you need.
I’m trying to write about this from an
unattached place, but I’ve moved from my
bed to the bathroom floor because I was
never raped in the bathroom. Avoidance
behavior. I wrote earlier that what happened
to me wasn’t special and I knew then that
that was a lie because who else can say, “I
was my ex’s trigger, and her reaction was to
turn into another person, and that person
wanted to hurt me in an irreversible way,
and they succeeded,” besides me? It’s lonely
and scary having such a different story than
everyone else, not being able to relate. Being
able to read over other’s essays and think,
“Yes, this makes sense. This resonates.” I
understand this is a big part of healing for me–
and accepting that my reality is so different
from the “average” story takes that small
safety blanket and throws it into the fire.

80 81

I am currently an inmate of the CA
Department of Corrections. I am a Woman
in my 30’s with a wonderful, loving
family. I was sentenced 9/23/14 to 3 years
(18 months) in the CA Department of
Corrections. With the help of my Husband, I
will share my journey. These are actual letters
from my time (real time) of incarceration.
Day 2 (9/24/2014)
Today was horrible. I had nothing to do. The
anxiety of the cell and being here, along with
desperately missing my family was so hard.
Finally after 9.5 hours in my cell, we
got one hour out. I didn’t waste any time
and called my family. I was so thankful for
the phone call. Just to hear the voices of my
husband and kids was priceless.
Lockdown at 8:30pm.
I spent the rest of the night getting to
know my roommate before lights out at 10pm.
At least I didn’t have any trouble
sleeping, because I was so exhausted from
the night before.
Day 5 (9/27/2014)
I made it through most of the day without
a tear. But, after dinner, I could not hold it
82
in longer. I miss my family so much. That’s
the hardest thing I have ever had to endure.
I have hit rock bottom, so the only way is up
from here. I spent most of my day writing.
We finally got the afternoon shift instead
of the morning. So after lunch, got to get
out. Enjoyed the sun, rode the exercise bike,
and watched Law and Order. I tried to call
my Dad, but couldn’t get an answer. It was
upsetting, because I really wanted to talk to
him. I love and miss him so much. He is the
best Dad and means a lot to me. His love and
support through this has meant the world to
me. I thought I was just a disappointment to
him, but that was not the case. He loves me so
much and I love him, always have.
I hope my books come soon. I am feeling
really down. At dinner, Mama J asked me “You
really hate this place don’t you”, of course I do. I
miss my family so much. I just want to be with
them. I am also afraid of the future. Am I going
to be able to support my family again? Will I be
the same person? I don’t want to lose myself here.
It’s so easy to sink into depression in here.
I had a good cry, cried it out and
focussed on the positive. My visit tonight
with my two favorite boys.
It made my evening. It was real good. I
needed that visit. It was wonderful to see my
Husband and handsome Son. He has such a
gorgeous smile. He is a very special boy with
a heart of gold.
As a Mom, I got two magnificent
children. They fill my heart with love and
make me so proud. I beam with happiness
when I see them. I can’t wait to hold and
hug them again.
Finished the night off with part of a movie
and thankfulness of another passing day.
Day 6 (9/28/14)
My biggest fear and anxiety is finding a job
again. Getting a second chance. There are
so many obstacles we face when we get out
of jail and/or prison. Finding a job, finding
a home, putting our finances back in order,
finding treatment, getting back, and/or
reuniting with our children. I want to put
together a foundation that helps women
coming out of jail/prison get back on their
feet and get their lives back in order.
I am just waiting for tonight’s free time.
I can’t wait to make the call to my Husband
and kids. I’ll then go to the window and
look up to the sky for the stars and know
my Husband will be thinking of me. My
Husband wrote this for me before I left:
Look to the Sky and think of Me
Look to the Stars and that’s where I’ll be
Close your eyes and know you’re going to be alright
I’ll close mine too and be holding you tight
Day 10 (10/2/14)
Breakfast in our cells this morning. Don’t
know why. But, I hope it doesn’t mean a
whole day of lockdown. Usually, I go back
to sleep after breakfast, but today, I couldn’t.
I was missing my Husband and kids. The
anxiety of possibly being in our cells all day
got to me. My mind was racing and I could
not go back to sleep. I tried counting, but it
didn’t work at all. My mind was still racing. I
did eventually fall back asleep.
Enjoying the day room this morning.
Watching Animal Planet. It’s nice and quiet
today. A lot of people are at court or got
to go home today. So, it was peaceful and
enjoyable for once. One of the new girls was
enjoying the sun by the windows upstairs.
When she headed downstairs, she passed out
and collapsed down the stairs to the floor.
Everyone jumped up to get the deputies’
attention. She was out cold. The deputy went
to assist her and called medical. We were back
in lockdown.
I finished my book today. It was amazing.
An absolute wonderful story. A great read. I
can’t wait to tell my friend. She will love it. I
will have to suggest it for the book club.
I didn’t run out of tears, I got a little sad.
I think my book was an escape and it made
me happy.
Now that it’s done, I was thrown back
into reality. So, I am a little depressed,
missing my Husband and kids so much. I
need the time to pass faster. I just want to
move on past all this. I hope I get a new
book soon and thankfully get to see my
family tomorrow.
I go to sleep tonight, thankful another
day has passed.
Day 15 (10/7/14)
Last night after day room time, we had to
move cells. My bunkmate moved to Cell
1 and I am now in Cell 11. I am on the
bottom tier. I finally get comfortable and
now I have to start over again. When I
83
 got in the new cell, my new bunkmate was
already asleep. It took a while to fall asleep,
because my mind was racing and I was sad
about the move. But, I finally calmed down
and fell asleep.
I am out of books to read right now, so I
know that it’s making my time harder. I wish
I was busier.
I can’t wait for day room time this
evening. I really need to talk to my family.
I miss them so much. Today was really
rough and I was really down. I called them
right away. When I heard my Husband
say “Hello” I cried. I cried pretty much the
entire phone call. I miss my Husband and
kids so much. Of course, my Husband was
amazing and he helped me through it. He is
wonderful. I am thankful for him everyday. I
can’t believe how much he loves me. I wrote
the following for him today:
Please take care of me, my heart aches and
depression haunts my days.
I miss you desperately, as my depression deepens,
my only hope is your love.
I need not to be troubled or afraid, for I need to
remember I am deeply loved by you.
You are my rock, whom I find protection from the
turmoil in my life.
You watch over me and encourage me to be strong.
I know you are always with me, as I gaze up at
the stars.
I love you.
Day 16 / Part 2 (10/8/14)
Just finished lunch and a fight almost broke
out. Who knows what it was about. Someone
looking at someone wrong, someone butting
into another inmate’s conversation, who
knows. I don’t know, but the one inmate who
has already been on lockdown, was egging on
84
the girl. The other girl’s friends told her it wasn’t
worth it. It’s not just a write and lockdown. It’s
additional charges. No fight is worth being in
here longer. You have to be careful here because,
there are girls here that are the “shit starters”.
The ones that don’t fight, but convince others to
fight and do their dirty work. You have to avoid
them because they are not your friends no matter
how much they try to convince you that they
are. Real friends don’t use you, they look out for
you. We all made it back to our cells without
incident. Let’s hope it stays that way. I want my
full afternoon time.
I am struggling again today. I am better than
yesterday, but my anxiety and depression won’t
seem to leave me alone. I haven’t been eating and
I keep crying all the time. I really hate feeling this
way, but when all you do is sit around and wait
for the time to pass you by, it’s hard not to get
down. I really miss my Husband and kids. I do
my cell exercises, that helps me feel a little better.
I also started drawing and colouring inspirational
posters for my family. That helps the time go by
and relaxes me. I finished my daughter’s today
and am working on my Husband’s now. While
working on them, I came up with, “Posters from
Prison”. I could make these, sell them, and use the
money for “Sisters For a Second Chance”.
I just took a chance and volunteered to
move back to the top tier. I think I am going
to be sick. I hope I made the right decision.
It’s 11pm and my bunkmate is fast asleep.
So, we will see how tomorrow goes. My
heart is racing, hope I can sleep.
Day 22 (10/14/14)
Let love lift me higher...
Last night was rough. I was in a very bad
place and super down. My roommate had
a breakdown too and was really upset.
This place will do that to you. You have no
control of your life on the outside. So you
feel helpless. You are locked down for 20+
hours and you feel trapped and powerless.
Time passes so slow, the days, the hours, the
minutes just drag on and there seems to be
no end to the pain and hurt you feel. There
is nothing you can do to change your current
situation. You’re trapped and then the
hopelessness sets in and the loneliness builds
up and you just want to give up.
It was a rough night for me because we had a
different deputy, so the
idea of getting out for
three hours again was
gone and immediately
the anxiety set in.
Knowing I am only
going to get one hour
just kills me. It’s my
own fault. I set myself
up for disappointment.
I should have known it
was a one-time thing
and to expect the same amount of time again was
a recipe for disaster for me. Then I got my emails.
My Sister did a bunch of research for me and I
am super thankful for it. It was informative, but
not promising on assisting me to get home to my
family. Then the email from my Daughter just
killed me. She is struggling and having a hard
time now. She feels alone with no one to talk to
or just be there for her. I am gone and she wishes
I was there for her. My Daughter desperately
needs me and I am not there for her, I feel awful.
She is holding everything inside and it’s not
healthy. She needs help, but doesn’t want it. The
anguish I feel right now is unbearable. I want so
desperately to be there for my Daughter and I
can’t. This is so hard. I cry myself to sleep, praying
that tomorrow is a better day for my Daughter. I
pray that in the end, my Husband, Daughter, and
Son make it through all this. I hope they know
how much I love and miss them.
I wake up today not feeling great. But,
I have two choices. I can drown in my tears
and give up or I can stand up, be strong, and
power through this day. I chose option two.
I got up and I am powering through the day.
I wouldn’t say I am happy or feeling good,
but I can say that I am not giving up. I am
fighting to be strong for my Daughter. If I
don’t want her to give
up, then I can’t give
up. So, I am going
to be strong and we
are going to make it
through this together.
My family needs me
and I need them. I
just have to try and
be there for them
as much as possible
while I’m away. I
was pretty numb most of the day, but as the
day progressed, I got better. Then I got my
emails. My motivation to keep going got
stronger. I am moving upward and onward.
Like my Dad said, “Don’t count the days.
make the days count.” I know I can do this.
I just need to dig deep. I have an incredible
family counting and waiting on me to
come home. I refuse to let this beat me. I
will overcome this and continue to fight
everyday. I know I have a lot to offer and so
much to give. I can and will do this. I will be
stronger and a better person in the end. n
Read more of family orange’s story at:
http://orangethenewblog.blogspot.co.uk/
85
 Yumi Sakugawa

86 87
CHILDHOOD SEXUAL ABUSE
April 2011:
I left Hospital.
It was a weird experience because I
didn’t feel “better” or “cured”–just numb. I
had to leave because I was turning 18. I’d
spent the past four months on a unit where
I had to ask before I did anything, where
privacy was non-existent, and most days
were spent watching the ever-repetitive
music channel on big plastic, squelchy sofas.
I didn’t like it there, even though there
THE GREAT UNKNOWN were worse things I could have been doing
with my time, like cutting and starving
words and artwork myself. But being thrust out of a surreal
Hannah Shone experience like Inpatient Hospital, with
nothing much to say about it, except I was
too old to be there anymore, was confusing
and disorientating. I felt angry. I didn’t have
a life-changing moment, or even felt cared
for. Instead there was just a life inside the
unit, and now a life out.
I already knew I wanted to fight my
illnesses, but I didn’t know how, and I left
hospital feeling none the wiser. Instead
of helpful resources, I had an anxiety that
seemed to consume everything in its wake.
88
When friends I’d lost contact with
months ago began celebrating their 18th
birthdays, with glossy lips, sparkly miniskirts,
shots of alcohol, and friends by the armful,
I was out of my depth. Hospital had been
like an incubator, and I still felt premature.
My interactions on the unit had been with
other patients who were at least three years
younger than me. I’d even gone back to
“classes”, sitting in a small classroom just like
Primary School. Bright reassuring colours
and cartoon characters covered the walls.
When I left hospital I expected to be an
“adult”. Instead it was like I was bouncing
ages, back to 8, 12, 15. Coming of age is
hard, but turning 18 when you’re sick is even
worse. I hadn’t really counted on living to
18. There was this new fear of the future.
What would I do with my life? How could
I possibly become a person responsible, and
stable, enough to have a life of their own?
Part of me wanted to sprint for freedom, the
other cried for the lull of TOP40! and the
purgatory of the hospital.
89
 There is nothing scarier than the Great felt reduced to a toddler, tugging on his needs. And that is exactly what I did. The After lots and lots of time doing little
Unknown. For me, that was having friends, shirt when I needed to go home. It was relationship I had gotten into was not the things, and giving myself lots of room to
crowded parties and growing up. I celebrated humiliating. In the end I resorted to not healthiest, he was controlling and selfish. process and care for myself, bit by bit the Great
my 18th with just my family and a Hello going out full stop. This guy didn’t think about my problems Unknown felt a little smaller than it did two
Kitty cake. It felt hideously childish, like After four months of isolating myself and for one second, he reduced me to his idea years ago. Now, nearing three years from my
I was showing up for everyone else except seeing only my boyfriend, he began to slip of a girlfriend, not a human being. During discharge from Inpatient, the anxiety I feel is
myself. I hated hospital for stripping me away. It was a long time coming; he was burnt this time I thought I had my depression significantly less, and I know how to manage
back to my rawest and out between balancing and eating disorder under control, but it got it. There are days when the vast expanse of
then dumping me. I felt work, my neediness and worse, and I relapsed. It felt like I was lying the universe, of space and time, and my own
so small in a big new his friends. We broke up, under a bus. But even in this fragile state I future, gives me panic attacks, but I learn to
world and angry that I and I was on my own. realised I was worth more. support myself, give myself room for these
could not be normal. I blamed myself at the After the relationship ended my first occasional steps backwards. Learning to be
My boyfriend time, feeling even more year of university began. This was the my own person and to face my fears has been,
at the time couldn’t faulty and unfixable. cornerstone, this was the mark on my chart and still is, fucking hard but instead of fearing
understand my fear of Being on my own for that was a success. I found friends, people I the future, I crave it. Now when I think of the
these dark, new, places a while allowed me to could relate to, people so so different from future, I feel liberated. n
being 18 offered me. wallow a little, but I those I met at school. People who believed
He couldn’t fathom knew eventually I was in me, who slowly brought me out of my
the pit of anxiousness going to have to step shell. I had more confidence.
and violent sickness out of my own personal Something inside me clicked which
the whole ordeal prison cell. told me my voice is important. That is
caused me. Crowds, I tried hard to fit what I say to myself when I second-
spilt drinks, leering back into my old life, I guess myself, when I feel my feelings are
men, pulsating music, a got into a relationship overreacting, stupid or irrational,
room full of strangers. with my best (and only)
I resented it all for friend thinking I was “My voice is important.”
making me feel so in love, but in reality
lost. I pressured myself I was desperate for Even if I don’t believe it in that very
even more. As if being a connection. At the moment and I feel silly, saying it out loud
unable to conquer time my experience helps me to stay grounded.
the fear of “partying connecting with people Making healthy friendships with others
hard” like a real “young adult” made me a was through sex. I didn’t have friends. I didn’t helped a lot, but befriending myself was
failure, doomed to never make friends, or know that you could love your friends, have what changed things.
somehow defective and unfun. sensitive and emotional connections with Without the responsibility for anyone’s
My boyfriend’s “encouragement” only people without them needing sex from you. happiness except my own I learned to be
made it worse. He enjoyed going out, I realise this makes me seem naïve, but easier on myself.
he liked the noise, the drinking and the it is just a consequence of years of childhood Taking small breaks from the outside
banter. When I did tag along (after much sexual abuse, and being unable to define world and allowing myself to be the recluse I
persuasion, about a months notice and 100+ things sexually for yourself, because you were took comfort in being, but also giving myself
trips to the bathroom to pee nervously) I always conditioned to satisfy someone else’s a little nudge out the front door to socialise.

90 91
 INTERVIEW WITH BASSEY IKPI
Interview by Hannah Moitt
You may know award-winning writer, poet,
spoken word artist and organiser Bassey
Ikpi for any number of things: her honest
and powerful writing, her work on mental
health advocacy, her hilarious Twitter
account. Bassey is the accomplished founder
of The Siwe Project, an international non-
profit organisation dedicated to providing
opportunity
for and
amplifying
conversations
about mental
health
within the
global black
community.
She recently
moved from
the United
States back
to Nigeria, where she was born, to promote
#NoShameDay – an annual campaign to
reduce stigma surrounding mental health
through openness and sharing of stories. We
spoke to Bassey about this and her other
work in Nigeria, her experiences with mental
health, and how she takes care of herself.
HM: Could you tell me about the work you’re
doing in Nigeria? I’m sure you have some
exciting projects underway!
BI: I’m working on several projects – mainly
television – but also I’m partnering with an
organization in Abuja (the capital) to bring
The Siwe Project’s “No Shame Day” to
92
Nigeria. I’m really excited about that. One
of my passions is bringing mental health
awareness to communities who have huge
stigmas in regards to mental illness.
I’m also writing and developing and
hosting a TV project that I’m humbled to
be a part of. It’s cool because so much of
what I do, I do for both my identities as a
Nigerian and
an American
so this TV
project has
its roots in
America but
is tailored for
the Nigerian
culture and
humor. I’m
looking
forward to
seeing how it
shapes up. I’m also signed to Farafina books,
the imprint that publishes Chimamanda
Adichie here in Nigeria, and I’m working on a
book project for them. So yeah, pretty exciting.
HM: Has your current tour differed from
the projects you were working on in the US?
What’s the feedback been like?
BI: In the States, I was primarily doing
public speaking, performing poetry. I’d
been doing that for over a decade and I no
longer wanted that to be my life. I have
been working in television off and on since
I was 15 and had this idea that I wanted to
go back to it. I started creating content and
I showed some to a friend of mine, Kemi
Adetiba (famed Nigerian director) and she
encouraged me to come to Nigeria and
try to set things up. Even though Shonda
Rhimes and Issa Rae have opened doors
for Black women and content, there still
isn’t a lot of room for “us” in Hollywood
and I was really keen on having something
for the diaspora. Nigeria hasn’t been easy
but ultimately, it is the best place. The
connections I’ve made and the movements
would have taken decades in the States and
I’ve accomplished a lot in a relatively short
amount of time. It hasn’t been easy and
there is still a way to go but I’m confident
that it will be exactly as I pictured. I have
bigger dreams than just being a performer
or producer, and being able to build what
I envision here is scary but I know it’s
possible. That’s an awesome feeling. I’m not
great at being patient but I’ve had to learn
to be. I’ve learned a lot about myself… for
better or worse. But I’m proud that I have
been as resilient and focused as I’ve been.
I’ve wanted to give up many times and
have devastating setbacks but each setback
has been (this is really corny) a blessing in
disguise because had the thing I wanted
worked out, then this better thing wouldn’t
have come along or I wouldn’t have been
available for it. I wish I could tell you in
detail what that is but I just can’t yet!
HM: With The Siwe Project you centralise
openness about mental health issues – does this
to some degree stem from realisations made
during your own mental health journey?
BI: I believe that everyone has their own
path to mental wellness. I’ve learned that
my being open about my journey has helped
people feel less shame about their own.
If they see someone who looks like them,
looks relatively ‘okay’ but has this inner
challenge and has managed to live a pretty
full and complete life, it reduces the fears
that come with seeking treatment or even
just admitting that there’s a problem. The
reason I talk about “no shame” and being
open is that if people kept their illnesses
to themselves but were privately seeking
treatment or taking care of themselves,
that’s fantastic! I don’t think anyone should
be forced to make it public or become an
advocate. But what I’ve discovered is that
those who hide it are also not likely to
seek help. The shame is so entrenched in
their psyche that even if no soul ever finds
out, they will not help themselves. So The
Siwe Project was born because I am lucky
enough to have a platform where I can
speak out and encourage others. When I
write something people will read it. If I
stand on a stage or on TV and talk about it,
people will listen. I get to tell my own story.
Not the story the media or pop culture or
superstition tells about a person with mental
illness; I get to tell Bassey Ikpi’s Story. And
my hope is that that emboldens people
to tell their own stories and share those
stories with others so that we can see how
interconnected we are.
When I was first diagnosed, I thought I
was alone. I thought it was just me, the only
93
 Black girl in the world, living in Brooklyn
with this made-up disease I let these doctors
talk me into believing I had. So I decided
to write about it and I was shocked at how
many responses I got from all over the
world. I was, honestly, expecting one. One
other person, maybe in Australia, but I got
people from all over the world. And all I
did from then was share stories on my blog
about finding the right meds, the ups and
downs, being hospitalized, being scared
to tell new friends or boyfriends, etc. And
people really connected with that. I’m not as
personal anymore because over the last ten
years, the Internet has gotten progressively
meaner and I believe in self-care above
all else. So though I do tell a few personal
anecdotes, I’m nowhere as detailed. And my
encouragement to others is self-care above
all else.
HM: It’s interesting because some of your
work primarily utilises online spaces but you
also do a lot of work face-to-face. How do you
maintain a balance between online and offline
connection? Has your online work affected how
you work offline, if at all?
BI: I used to connect with people offline
a lot. I’d give my phone number or call
and spend hours talking to someone about
their health and answering questions and
directing them to the proper treatment or
doctors or whatever they need. I realized
that it was starting to take a toll on me.
People are so happy to have someone who
“gets it” that they can lean too heavily
sometimes and I would feel guilty not
being available but “self-care” became a
mantra. I still speak to people but I keep
the interactions to a minimum. Especially if
94
they don’t do any steps to help themselves
beyond contacting me. If you still haven’t
seen a doctor or started taking your meds, I
have to bow out quietly. Because I’ve then
become a fixation or a crutch and that’s not
healthy for either of us.
So I’ve gone back to sharing a bit online.
Every once in a while, I will just randomly
start speaking about mental health and
answer questions and then that’s it. I walk
away. It’s for my own well-being.
HM: In your writing and spoken word, you’re
very frank about how mental illness has
impacted on your work, yet you have several
successful projects and a broad output. Do you
have any tips for how to maintain productivity
whilst looking after one’s mental health?
BI: I do what I can, when I can. That’s the
long and short of it. Recently, I was going for myself that says, “You can do this later.” I love to read but I don’t usually go to
through a depression and failed spectacularly And the truth is, you can, I’m not the books anymore. When I was a kid they were
at a deadline for an article about mental President, there’s no life-or-death balance definitely soothing. As an adult, some books
health and pop culture. I was so embarrassed if I’m a day or two late on something. It can add to anxiety and stress. I’ve grown
and I kept promising that I would do it in may feel like that but it’s not that. I also to rely on music. My iTunes is filled with
the morning, tomorrow afternoon, give me had to rearrange what I called productivity. some of the worst (awesome) pop songs
until Sunday etc., etc. But I had to be honest Sometimes, getting out of bed is the greatest and Broadway show tunes. I like to dance
and say, “I cannot write this. I don’t have accomplishment that day. Sometimes staying so I can dance and lip-synch and get things
the place or the space for it.” That kind of in it, is the greatest act of kindness I can out that way. I wish I did yoga or cooked
honesty and authenticity has saved my life provide myself. It’s all okay. It has to be. I or something more useful but for me just
several times. Because on top of depression, won’t die or risk my health for something my headphones and some crap music make
you don’t need failure or guilt. Thank God that has a “tomorrow”. me inexplicably happy. As does talking to
the editor understood. But I still felt terrible. friends. When you see me Tweeting a lot of
I had to forgive myself and move on. I can HM: So is that what self-care means to you? jokes or “nonsense”, that’s a soothing space for
usually pull something out at the last minute More generally, are there any books, films or me. When I just want to laugh and make other
and my inability to do that also told me that artists that you find soothing or cathartic? people laugh, I go to Twitter and just fire off
I was in worse shape than I thought and I BI: Self-care means knowing when to stop and jokes. It’s weird but that helps a lot too. n
needed to take care of that. say no. It means knowing what soothes and
As for my other projects, I know when saves. It means making sure that you are okay
to push myself and when to take it easy. I before you step out and try to save the world.
know when to step back and find a space It’s knowing that you can’t save the world.
95
 June 2, 2014
I’ve been feeling trapped in the spiral of my
own mind for some time now, and although
I know that writing it out will help shake
me loose, I keep avoiding it. I’m afraid of
what I will find if I shake too hard. I prefer
to stay in the shadows where my thoughts
are shrouded in fern-fringed darkness.
In the last minutes of my twenties I was
wondering who I had become and who I
wanted to be. As usual, my thoughts fluttered
like butterflies disturbed, and I was not able to
pin them down, mostly. One idea did stick out.
I am afraid. And I want not to be.
I’m thirty now. It is time to learn my
own dark places, learn to see. It’s not
just the monsters who hide in the dark,
so does the moon.
August 31, 2014
I am not good with change. Maybe it’s
because my imagination is always so far
ahead that when something changes, whole
dream castles shatter into rubble.
I like my changes slow – creeping moss on
stone. Sometimes I dream of fast changes: hair,
body, hope. Sometimes I dream of going back.
Sometimes I dream of permeability of time
and chance. But I know that will never happen.
Sudden changes are cracks in ice – the
surface of a long slow change. Sudden
changes are choice. Sudden changes happen
to us. Sudden changes are life.
I am not strong, but I am stoic. I am soft
and silent. I am spiky chestnut shells and
shiny smooth chestnut. I am strong
96
August 31, 2014 ii
i.
I have dropped the basket
I am not okay.
It’s hard for me to say that.
I am not okay.
These past few weeks I have cried a lot. I’m
also starting to come to terms with the idea
that I will not always be okay.
ii.
I’ve been writing this post for a long while
now. Every day that the cracks fill in and
I gain balance makes me want to examine
those cracks less. I don’t want to admit to
my frailty, as though in admitting it I am
defining myself as frail. I’m afraid that in
admitting to fragility, the cracks that define
it to me will harden and widen; I’ll become
only brokenness and fear.
iii.
Today I feel stronger, closer to whole, but I’m
not ready to leave the forest just yet. Safety and
quiet shadows. Maybe I will never be stable
or sturdy, but something broken has shifted,
letting new light through.
Maybe I am the forest
Pine needle floor – soft and sharp – hiding
decay and unevenness.
Even decay is new life.
I can’t be so afraid to let dead things
fall away.
97
 iv. I think it may be time to enforce my own
I am newmade every day, every choice. boundaries and learn to let people in.

v.
bone weariness and fresh grass
December 22/2014
I’m only interested in the dusk world.
New moon resolutions: Don’t apologize for
feeling. Own them, take responsibility for
them, for how they effect my actions, but
don’t apologize.
Self-care is an incantation: it requires
preparation and repetition.
January 10/2015
I’m so used to hiding behind text, and
subtext and intertext. I know that when I say
sea foam I mean heartbroken and ruthless
and I’ve said it before in a poem, the Little
Mermaid turned into foam when she died,
and so I think it is clear. but I want to stop
using code and just say what I mean.
March 9/2015
It’s so easy for me to believe that people
want to get rid of me, that they don’t want
me around. I can bend any narrative into
a conspiracy against me. It is not fair. Not
to me, not to the people around me. I’ve
spent so long taking the blame for things
I could not control and none of the blame
for the things I should have.
Some days are worse than others.
I need to learn to find a point between
pretending that I am not hurt and
favouring an injury so much that I hurt
myself everywhere else.
May 4/2015
In the summer I feel like it is okay to be weird.
I am the remnant of a wild thing. I am a
tamed survivor.

If poetry is to tell the truth and tell it slant,
effective communication is to tell it straight
and clear. I’ve never been very good at that
and I’ve never really cared to be. I liked being
secret. I’ve come to realize that although
part of my secretiveness is fear and distrust,
part is joy in secrecy. I’ve always revelled in
secrets – secret codes, secret hideaways, secret
handshakes. Places that were hidden and
mine. I’ve always guarded my own spaces
with jealousy, I preferred entering other
people’s space, fitting their parameters.
May 31/2015
I’ve been crying a lot. Again.
I feel closed off, like kudzu grows over my
emotions (kudzu can grow two feet a day, I
read that). Even when you cut it back, you
can only control it. To get rid of it, you need
to find the roots. I haven’t found the roots.
June 13/2015
I have a hard time seeing myself clearly,
sometimes I can’t see myself at all and it’s
like I’m not even real, I’m a wraith walking
through a world of solidity. I feel like June 14/2015
nobody can see me. I spend so much time Washed kitchen window
trying to find just the right metaphor to
describe myself, my feelings, my lacks. Most Analogy: Relationships are like bones. When
recently: a peony, tightly closed, hard bud, there’s a break and it is held apart too long, it
needing work to open – finally open and begins to grow back wrong, stiff, no mobility.
SO glorious and so fragile – too much rain
or sun and it wilts. But that metaphor isn’t Re break
perfect, I feel hard and fragile at the same Re cast
time, and so dangerous. I thought that if I Heal true
could give people a space to be vulnerable,
I wouldn’t have to be. If I want to repair June 17/2015
relationships, I need to learn to let people see Sometimes I feel my mind sliding, growing
me EVEN WHEN I CAN’T SEE MYSELF. over the wounds, shifting the truths. n

98 99
 HOW TO CURE A TRAUMA SURVIVOR

Martina Dominique Dansereau

artwork by Emily Dibble

This trauma is early morning at the ocean shore:

thick fog and blurry shapes with the outline of something
lapping at your feet. It kisses your toes, dances away,
reaches again. Sometimes it folds itself so thin
that it is only when you brush against it the wrong way
that it draws blood. You pretend it isn’t there,
that it doesn’t linger in your smile and knock
against the windows in your eyes, but it never
completely goes away. This is your first shadow,
your second skin. This is a carcass tied to your ankles
dragging behind you with every step. Some days
maybe it feels lighter, but then there are the days when
your knees shake like trees in the wind and your spine
is filled with so much sadness that it cracks when
you try to stand upright. These days you curl
into yourself like a question mark and every part of you
wants to collapse. All of the memories you have
swallowed have turned your stomach into a churchyard.
The tombstones here are etched with the names
of the ones who did this to you, and there is no cure
for ghosts. There is a naked tree in your throat
and all you can do is try to wait out the winter
and not to cut yourself down until a time when,
maybe, it will hurt less when your leaves begin to shed.
On the nights when you start to come out of your skin
because the trauma is taking up too much space
for you to fit, don’t try to put yourself back in.
Just sit with it, gently, aching. There is a reason
you call yourself a trauma survivor, not a trauma
victim. You have survived. And that is enough.
And sometimes that’s all you’ll ever do.
And there is no need for anything more. n

100 101
 OUT OF THE WOODS:
FOLKTALES AND
RECOVERY NARRATIVES
Emily Hutchinson
artwork by Vikki Chu
One of the hardest things I have
found about my own mental
health struggles is feeling like
I don’t fit into the narrative of
what a mentally ill person is
supposed to be or supposed to
be doing. However this feeling
seems to be common to so many
people struggling with their
mental health, that it must be the
narratives that need to change
to fit us, and not the other way
around. We are presented with
a one-size-fits-all approach
in almost every discourse on
mental health.
We are told that the ultimate goal,
for all of us, should be ‘recovery’.
If you’re not constantly aiming
for this, then you’re doing it
wrong. This is supposed to be
the end of a journey where we
have become free of all symp-
toms and no longer categorize
ourselves as a person with a
mental health condition, or, more
worryingly, a place where we can
appear neurotypical to the world
around us. For many of us this
rigid definition of ‘recovery’ as
an end goal is not possible, not
realistic, or not desirable.
102
Certainly what ‘recovery’ or
‘getting better’ looks and feels
like will be vastly different from
person to person. My moods and
my symptoms fluctuate over
time, but for me, a time when
I might not think of myself as
a person with a mental health
condition seems impossible, or
at least unthinkably far-off. This,
according to the standard mental
health narrative, is supposed
to mean that I am constantly
miserable, or that my perspec-
tive is defeatist. But really I just
want the freedom to define my
own narrative, and decide what
my own goals are. The desire to
create your own narrative is a
long-standing human impulse;
I think it’s important for us to
rewrite and reclaim narratives—
not just in literary sense, but in
terms of what we hear and how
we think about mental health.
There is a long tradition of
women using storytelling as a
way to adapt to and understand
the world around them. Folktales
have historically been told by
women as an escape during
long hours of menial labour and
housework. Some stories imagine
transformed surroundings: beastly
husbands become princes and
hungry families are provided
with an endless supply of food.
Other stories offer a release for
women’s deepest anxieties, or a
103
 warning about the dangers of life.
While many tales and endings
are fantastical, they nevertheless
provide a platform for women
to imagine their desires and
fears, and function as a way for
women to try to take control of
their surroundings. The telling
of folktales has always been a
way for women to both cope
and create.
One of the most beautiful things
about folktales to me is that each
version of a specific tale bears
the mark of different places and
people. Angela Carter describes
folktales in terms of cooking:
‘is there a definitive recipe for
potato soup?’ she asks. Yet the
mainstream perception of fairy-
tales nowadays is again more
of a one-size-fits-all narrative
than a melting pot of recipes.
Many of the most famous
tales, or versions of tales, offer
a similar journey and a similar
ending. This is what we think of
as the typical ‘fairytale ending’:
the hero or heroine overcomes
their troubles, gets married,
and lives ‘happily ever after’.
It’s a narrative we are taught to
aspire to from an early age. Aside
from the notion of marriage as
an ultimate goal, I am worried
by the more general and more
insidious idea that everyone’s
conception of happiness is, and
should be, the same thing.
104
The common folktale motif of beauty of folktales has always
a journey into the woods often been that no two people’s stories
offers this same one-track ap- are exactly the same. The idea
proach. There has been much that one day we will master our
scholarship on the symbolism of surroundings may be romantic,
the forest in all kinds of literature. but it ignores the struggles we
They are a site of danger, dark- have to overcome and the other
ness and confusion, but also of goals we have to accomplish,
wonder and magic. The forest whatever they may be. It can
is a place to get lost, but also be difficult to remind yourself
to find yourself. The objective, that you’re not obliged to fall in
however, is always to get out of line with prescribed narratives
the woods. Hansel and Gretel or conform with anyone else’s
characters, in most versions of idea of a person with a mental
the tale, find their way home to illness. Despite this, it’s vital to
their father. Red Riding Hood, remember that our tales are ours
depending on the version, either to create. n
dies in the woods or escapes
and finds her way home. I love
Francis Spufford’s observation
that ‘the forest is where you are
when your surroundings are
not mastered’ . Implicit in this
statement, however, is the idea
that once you have mastered
your surroundings, you can, and
will want to, find your way out
of the woods. Ultimately, you’re
aiming to get out: the woods are
not a place you can stay for long.
The assumption is that everyone
has the same goal: to recover, to
get out of the woods. However
some of us can’t, or won’t, or
don’t want to—there’s no one
‘right’ way of doing things.
Maybe I won’t ‘make it out’,
of the woods but instead learn Rebecca Katz
to make my home here. The
105
 THE SHIFAA PROJECT: MENTAL
HEALTH IN MUSLIM SOCIETY
Ethar Hamid
Islam views the issue of health in
a holistic way; spiritual, physical,
psychological, emotional, and
mental health are all promoted as
important keys to happiness: “Islam
takes a holistic approach to health,
connecting it to the well-being of
the mind (‘aql), body (jism) and
spirit (ruh),” (Islam, F., & Campbell,
R. A., 2014, p. 233). Keeping in
line with their religion’s teachings
on the importance of mental and
psychological health, Muslims
established the first asylum in the
world for the recuperation of people
suffering from mental illness, which
was instigated by Muslim physicians
and psychologists in eighth-century
Baghdad (Sabry, W., & Vohra, A.,
2013, p. 206). With the obvious
concern for and services done in the
name of mental health demonstrated
by Islam and Muslims, it is
surprising that many societies in the
Muslim world today view mental
illness as socially unacceptable. But
then again, societies’ going against
their religions’ teachings is common
and predictable. And the present-
day stagnation in Muslim scientific
advancement undoubtedly plays a
role in Islamic societies’ discomfort
with the issue of mental illness.
Mental and psychological
disorders and problems are
106
viewed with shame in many
Muslim societies; “…in many
Muslim communities…mental
illness is often underreported and
undiagnosed because of the fear
of misunderstanding by mental
health professionals and community
censure and stigma. Rather than
being viewed as a psychological and
physical illness (i.e. neurochemical
imbalance that can be treated
through medication and therapy),
some Muslims attribute mental
illness to metaphysical forces (i.e.
jinn/devil possession) brought about
by the sufferer’s sinful life and own
weakness” (Islam, F., & Campbell, R.
A., 2014, p. 230).
The belief in a supernatural
origin of mental illness taken by
some Muslims today is contradictory
to the view on mental illness taken
by Islamic scholars and Muslim
physicians in the past; “Muslim
scholars (of the Medieval Period)
including Ibn Sina (known in the
West as Avicenna – the founder
of Modern Medicine)… viewed
mental disorders as conditions
that were physiologically based,”
(Sabry, W., & Vohra, A., 2013, p.
206), and rejected the idea that
mental illness is due to supernatural
causes (Islam, F., & Campbell, R.
A., 2014, p. 232). This considering
mental disorders as health issues
(and not supernaturally-based) “led
to the establishment of the first
psychiatric ward in Baghdad, Iraq
in 705 CE by al-Razi (one of the
greatest Islamic physicians). This was
the first psychiatric hospital in the
world. According to al Razi’s views,
mental disorders were considered
medical conditions, and were treated
by using psychotherapy and drug
treatments,” (Sabry, W., & Vohra,
A., 2013, p. 206).
With the current unease with
mental illness demonstrated by
Muslim societies, yet the great
consideration for mental illness
demonstrated by Islamic scholars
of history, it would be invaluable
to today’s Muslim communities
to take solid Islamic teachings to
break Muslims’ false beliefs about
the origins and nature of mental
illness. If this can be achieved,
contributing to the eradication of
stigma against mental illness that
is present in Muslim communities
can be possible.
Those of the Islamic persuasion,
may not find many resources
available to them that are tailored
to their religious convictions. “A
realization that different people
need different treatment, especially
help that is religious in nature, is…
acknowledged by the American
Psychological Association’s Ethical
Code of Conduct, which specifies
that psychologists need to respect
and consider the religious views of
a client and, in case they cannot,
that the client should be referred
to a psychologist who can” (Haque,
A., 2004, p. 53). Considering the
recognition that mental health
practitioners should regard their
patients’ religious views, given by the
Ethical Code of Conduct of the APA,
counseling sessions would ideally
be led by psychologists/counselors
sensitive to the Islamic faith, in order
to create a comfortable environment
for the attendees. The formation of
a counseling service by The Islamic
Society of North America would be
much-needed in the present Muslim
community in America: “While there
is some effort on the part of certain
Muslim organizations to establish
counseling services for Muslims,
formal services or agencies tailored
for the needs of Muslim clients are
severely lacking. This may be partly
because there are very few therapists
who are well-grounded in Islamic
approaches to treatment and also
due to a lack of Muslim professionals
interested in starting such services”
(Haque, A., 2004, p. 53).
107
 The Muslim community is a WORKS CITED
significantly large (and growing)
community in the United States. Haque, A. (2004). Religion and mental
Such a community should not be health: The Case of American Mus-
in the dark about mental health, or lims. Journal of Religion and Health,
suffer silently with mental health 43(1), 45-58.
problems. The need to educate
Muslims about the true nature of Islam, F., & Campbell, R. A. (2014).
mental illness (that is even evident “Satan has Afflicted Me!” jinn-possession
in the Islamic tradition) and the and mental illness in the qur’an. Journal
need to have an avenue for them of Religion and Health, 53(1), 229-43.
to seek comfort and treatment for
mental illnesses and conditions that Sabry, W., & Vohra, A. (2013). Role of
is in sync with their religious beliefs Islam in the Management of Psychiatric
is critical at this time. Islam and Disorders. Indian Journal of Psychiatry,
Campbell (2014) note that due to 55, 205-214.
“the distrust towards mainstream
mental health care services, the
marginalization and isolation that
many Muslims are subjected to in
Western society, and the community
shame associated with mental illness,
Muslim communities severely
underutilize mental health care
services” (p. 241). But when there
are programs and services especially
formatted for Muslims that educate
and counsel them on the issue of
mental health, eventually, tolerance,
recovery and shifaa (Allah’s healing)
can occur. n

SBTL CLNG - subtleceiling.tumblr.com

108 109
SUICIDE
MAKING A CHANGE:
WHY THE CANADIAN MENTAL
HEALTH SYSTEM NEEDS FIXING
Charlotte Allan
My name is Charlotte Allan, I just turned
17 and I’m from London Ontario, Canada.
I have suffered with mental illness severely
over the past three years. I was struggling
not only with my mental illness, but with
the ability to receive treatment. The waiting
list for someone like myself, who was having
suicidal ideations, was at least six months to
two years. After a year of barely holding on,
I received treatment and was sent back to
my public high school, where I realized once
again that there was little to no help for kids
like myself.
In most high schools in Canada there
are guidance counselors who help you
choose courses and provide mild support
and advice. They were not mental health
experts, and that was not their job. The
teachers in the classrooms were a far cry
from being anywhere near supportive to
those who were mentally ill. I remember a
teacher telling me that mental illness is just
a teen phase. Unfortunately my “phase” has
been my whole life.
Needless to say there is little support
for people like myself. When I did more
research my guidance counselor told me that
we do in fact have a school psychologist,
which came as a surprise to me and everyone
at the school. During the three years at my
public high school I had been in and out
of hospitals and I had never once seen the
school psychologist; she came to our school
once every few months. A shock to me
110
considering my high school had never had a
health class about mental illness, never had
an assembly on mental health, or any real
information on mental illness, leaving us all
in the dark.
I wish my school and story was just a
random horror story fluke. After spending
eight months in the hospital for my mental
illnesses, I was sent back to my high school
again. Even after my suicide attempt I still
had almost no support. The hospital was
the safe haven I had never experienced in
my life. I met people who made me realize
I wasn’t alone in this tornado of feelings
and scary isolation. While I was here I met
youths who were just like me – we had
different struggles, but we had one thing in
common: we all had faced adversity, we all
had been outcasts because we were sick.
This is why I am so passionate about
making a change. They were the most
amazing people I have ever met. I made
a friendship with a girl there who was
much younger than I was; she was still in
elementary school (Grade 7, 11 years old).
The first day I met her a mean child youth
counselor asked her if she could introduce
herself and she said “Can you? I’m at a really
good part in my book.” After that I knew
we’d be friends.
For anyone who has been in treatment,
you know it’s a dark place, but this girl made
the whole room smile, from her endless
amount of questions, to her gap-toothed
grin that made you feel warm even if you
were feeling so hopeless. She was the light
of the room and I often bring myself back
there to the group and her head back
laughing, and all of us, even for a split
second, being free from our demons.
We all knew that we’d have to go back
to the harsh reality of our schools, where
there was no longer a safe place for us. After
I had been back at school for two weeks, I
came home from school and my mom had
a worried look on her face, she said there
was someone on the phone who wanted
to talk to me. I don’t really remember this
very well, but I remember her handing me
the phone and there was a nurse from the
hospital saying through muffled tears that
the girl in our group had lost her battle with
her mental illness. I have never screamed
and felt so helpless. It’s been a year and
a half since she left, and the world still
feels empty without her here. The anger
I felt towards the hospital and the school
system was so strong inside me, I decided
to make it into something productive rather
than destructive. I have been developing a
documentary about youth in Canada who
have mental illnesses and how they have
been wronged by the mental health system.
While interviewing the principal of my high
school I was told it was not a problem and
that our mental health system is fine. The
fight is certainly not over and I will continue
to push until every youth can feel safe in this
supposedly free country, and they will never
feel like there is nothing left. n
111
 A COLLECTION OF POEMS

Ethar Hamid

ALMOST PERFUME, ILLNESS, AND RESENTMENT

I will go down to the lake The days smelled like musk, I remember.
And dip my toes in the blue-green water, It was only my mom who carried the scent,
Tadpoles tickling my feet. But somehow, I recall the whole day smelling like that.
It would be a cliché scene I also remember
If it weren’t for my bottle of morning Prozac Pill after pill
Sitting beside me, That I would have to swallow,
On the grass. Each month a different one, seemingly,
It will be a good morning, Because they never worked.
The sun rising above me What was wrong with me?
Like a citrus fruit that smolders a rusty scarlet. Why couldn’t I be perfect and glowing, like my mom?
I will lie down on my back Her patience and love even as I would kick and scream
And let a ladybug crawl over my chest. Were taunting.
No one will stare at me She even had the audacity to smell like musk as she tried to soothe me, still.
Until maybe I start muttering
To the voices talking to me I remember green pills, yellow ones, white ones, and blue ones.
To leave me alone. I remember how it took so long to find a pill that actually worked –
I will not look different— A pale pink one that reminds me, painfully,
I will not be different Of my mom.
Unless I lie there, frozen, Pale pink is her favorite colour.
Too weighed down Of course it is. n
To even shoo away the birds
That gather
On my head. n First published by Volition, the undergraduate literary magazine of
George Mason University, and later reprinted by the Origami Poems Project.

112 113
 WATCHING AN AFTERNOON

They are here. They were here when I was fourteen, and that was the worst of their presence, Settled in at a solitary nook of a coffee shop
and now, they are here, again. “Why?” I want to ask them. “Why me?” But if anything, they will No one knows about, on the outskirts of town,
probably respond with a maddening “because.” They don’t care about me. They would be happy to Our conversation turns to how withdrawing from people
see me spiral into a painful insanity. Was the first symptom of both our illnesses,
And how we vow to never be like that, again.
They are here; they are watching. That tinker behind the walls? That was them. That bump, We then talk about the irony of our coffee shop preference.
somewhere in the house? That was them, too. But lately, they are not as owl-eyed as before. Be- Over chocolate cheesecake and iced green tea,
fore, they were unblinking…focused…and unforgiving. Lately, they’ve softened their gaze, a little. We talk about how sugar and caffeine aren’t so good for us,
Our eyes smiling at each other, all the while.
A few years ago, I had wanted to scream at these criminals – they were puncturing holes in my
peace of mind; they were shredding up any feelings of security, all with nonchalant hearts and As you scrape the remnants of icing off of your plate,
nimble hands. It is only now, at their second arrival do I question if they are the cause of my I come to know that you’re the only one I really have,
unsettled mind, or if it is my disturbed mind that produces them. Maybe this is a sign that I’m a Perhaps because of the destruction my illness has done, in my life.
little bit better than before. n A not-fully-formed sadness creeps in,
And my eyes cast down, for a moment. n

First published by Better Mental Health magazine

First published by the Origami Poems Project.

114 115
 AFTERLIFE: THE INSPIRING LEGACY
OF THE 19TH CENTURY MEDIUM

Melissa-Kelly Franklin
artwork Daphné Gerhard

Depictions of mediums and psychics

permeate popular culture, with all the
classic spine-tingling, table-rapping and
floorboard-creaking that goes with their
supernatural territory. These depictions tend
to fall into a series of classic representations:
there is the big-hearted medium whose
‘can-do’ attitude helps lost souls cross over to
the afterlife, like Melinda Gordon of Ghost
Whisperer; the ‘go-to girl’ medium who is
the crime-fighter’s last resort to cracking
open that sticky kidnapping or murder
case, a là Annie of The Gift and Allison
Dubois of Medium; or the opportunistic
medium trying desperately to carve out a
living, like the touring mother-daughter
team in Gillian Armstrong’s Death Defying
Acts (let’s try to forget that disappointing
depiction of the girl-medium in Woody
Allen’s Magic in the Moonlight, which
reduces her to yet another unrealistic white
manic pixie dream girl trope).
While it has to be said that some of
these depictions do make an effort to show
a complex woman beyond the hocus-pocus
–portraying the challenges of juggling
motherhood and family-life with their
supernatural day-jobs for example–the way
we see mediums depicted in popular culture
doesn’t always do justice to the extraordinary
individuals they were, historically. We’re
missing out on celebrating some of their
most inspirational qualities–including their
professional ingenuity and countercultural

116 117
 lifestyles, which contributed to the gradual
shift in gender politics that helped pave
the way for female suffrage and twentieth-
century feminism.
In 1848 two little girls from rural
upstate New York, Katherine and Margaret
Fox, claimed to be able to communicate with
the spirits that haunted their family home,
and before long, the sisters were national
sensations. Their fame precipitated an
explosion of table-rappers and mystics that
saw Spiritualism rapidly spread across all
tiers of society, from middle-class American
parlours, across the Atlantic to the séance
dabblings of Queen Victoria herself. The
Spiritualist movement of the nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries (which also
attracted followers as famous as Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle) was one of the few spheres of
Victorian society where women had some
social power distinct from men. As historian
Alex Owen explains, women mediums were
considered superior to men, and their very
femininity was celebrated as the quality that
made them receptive to the spirit world and
excel at their practice.
Interestingly, unlike others of
their gender, mediums gained almost
unprecedented social mobility. Working-
class and lower-middle-class mediums
were able to access the inner sanctums of
the upper classes by virtue of their skill
and professional reputation. With this in
mind, we can see that while some women
spiritualists no doubt believed deeply in
their psychic abilities, others were conscious
charlatans determined to change their
personal circumstances by ‘setting up’ as
mediums. Whether or not you believe in
the ability to commune with spirits, it’s
118
difficult not to be impressed by the ability circles. She was once the medium favoured was actually the source of their strength as
of these women to change their social and by Abraham Lincoln’s wife and as R. mediums. Alex Owen explains how Florence
financial circumstances by tapping into a Laurence Moore explains, was thus granted Theobald discovered her propensity for
phenomenon which had so engaged the access to the most exclusive social circle in mediumship through extended periods of ill
contemporary zeitgeist. the United States. In her autobiography physical and mental health from childhood.
There are numerous fascinating examples she even claimed to have been involved in Florence’s early ‘spinal weakness’ isolated
of mediums highlighting their agency and political discussions
autonomy within a usually highly restrictive with Lincoln after
patriarchal context. Many mediums showed the Civil War, as did
great entrepreneurial spirit by conducting fellow medium Cora
solo lecture tours, setting up businesses and Richmond, both sought
advertising their highly sought-after skills. after for their skills in
The professionalisation of mediumship did divination.
cause some public controversy, with many These women of
people believing that the spiritual ‘gift’ modest education
should be offered to grieving individuals found themselves in
and families gratis. However, most mediums demand during some
stood by their right to charge a fee to cover of the most formative
their living and travel expenses, including events in political
the famous medium Emma Hardinge who history. As sketchy as
wrote in 1861, ‘if my mediumistic gift is the calling on mediums
most in requisition, it is no less worthy of for potentially
being exchanged for bread than any other’. dubious political
Medium Amanda Jones also used her advice may seem, I
abilities profitably, developing artistic have to laud them for
and entrepreneurial careers alongside her seizing opportunities
mediumship. Thanks to the inspiration of that changed their
her ‘spirit-guides’ she also became a poet otherwise restrictive
and inventor, securing patents for an oil and pre-destined
burner and a vacuum process for food social circumstances.
preservation. While her business ventures However, while
weren’t especially lucrative, historian R. Spiritualism and
Laurence Moore writes that she enjoyed mediumship could
a fulfilling life, unmarried and financially offer women some
independent, until she passed away at social freedom and self-sufficiency, the road her as a child, leaving her lonely, introverted
seventy-nine years of age. wasn’t always an easy one. Many successful and anxious. Owen suggests the possibility
Similarly, a lack of education didn’t mediums were said to have discovered their that this ‘spinal weakness’ may not have been
prevent historical medium Cora Maynard, abilities from their sick-bed, and some a physical condition, but rather one of the
‘an unlettered girl’ as she described herself, claimed that the physical and emotional ‘hysterical afflictions’ that were in vogue as
from moving in powerful social and political fragility of certain members of the ‘fairer sex’ a blanket diagnosis when treating physically
119

weak and emotionally fragile young women
and girls. When Florence discovered her
potential as a medium, she believed that it
was her ill health and resulting isolation
that had prepared her for her revered new
path. We can see this notion mirrored in the
mental-illness-as-creative-inspiration myth
associated with authors such as Sylvia Plath
and Virginia Woolf.
Other women spiritualists’ skills
120
were less well-received. Some found
themselves falling foul of lunacy orders
filed by embittered husbands and family
members who wished to curtail what was
considered to be radical and embarrassing
behaviour. Georgina Weldon, a Victorian
Englishwoman known for her progressive
politics, is just one of many women
who fell victim to such attacks. Judith
Walkowitz describes Georgina as true
non-conformist. She was a proponent of
the rational dress movement, developed
a music and performance school for
orphaned and poor children in her home,
wore her hair cropped short and was a
strict vegetarian. Her husband left her after
violent disagreements about her lifestyle
choices, leaving her with the lease of their
house and a £1000 annual stipend. He
obviously tired of this arrangement, because
he later attempted to have her committed to
an insane asylum. Fortunately, she cleverly
eschewed incarceration and later filed lawsuits
against the men who had at-tempted to falsely
commit her. She didn’t hire a lawyer and
instead decided to represent herself in the case.
This gesture, along with her eloquence in the
courtroom, led her to being dubbed ‘the Portia
of the law courts’ by the English press.
Other spiritualists were less fortunate.
Myra Himelhoch and Arthur Shaffer
recount the experience of Elizabeth
Packard, a young American woman who
was married to a cold and controlling
clergyman fifteen years her senior. When
she converted to Spiritualism in the 1860s
her husband declared her insane and had
her institutionalised, after years of marriage
and several children. Throughout her
incarceration she campaigned for her release
and wrote essays about her experiences and
the poor conditions at the asylum, which
she hid behind a mirror in her room. Three
years later she was released and declared
sane after a public sanity trial. Although
she was left penniless by her estranged
husband, she managed to support herself
through a publishing career. She used
these publications to encourage legislative
reforms, not only to improve conditions for
people living in asylums, but also to protect
reformers and radical thinkers from being
falsely committed because of their counter-
cultural and ‘deviant’ views.
It isn’t difficult for us to see and treasure
the cultural contributions of troubled artists
and intellectuals like Van Gogh, George
Frederic Handel, Virginia Woolf or Sylvia
Plath–their work connects with us directly,
and is the source of endless inspiration
for film and literature. It is easier however
for popular culture to dismiss women
mediums as narrative devices and quirky side
characters, because they have no tangible
output for us to appreciate. I personally
find it incredibly inspiring to see how these
women used cultural ideas of womanhood,
femininity and sensitivity to change their
individual circumstances, and I would
love for depictions of women mediums in
popular culture to give more credit to these
proto-feminists for their activism. I hope
that the examples of these unique women
can inspire those of us whose lives have
been impacted by feelings of social isolation,
powerlessness, chronic illness and emotional
fragility. These women transcended society’s
limiting expectations of them, and I hope
that we can celebrate in ourselves what they
represented socially and professionally. n
121
122 123
 1. (as they were wont to do)
and she had fallen head first,
Ten years ago, in what appeared
an astronaut fell. to some distant onlookers
to be a swan dive.
She lost her grip on one of her poles
and fell into a crater. (Alice had shut her eyes as she fell.)

It was not the one she had been scouting,
but one her crew had been
avoiding.
“Saving it”, they had said
Kate Gallagher
(half-joking),
artwork by Becca Hyman
“for the next crew”,
but truly they were afraid.
Captain Alice Cicopa
had stood near the edge
with her team
and turned away,
saying that it was too deep
to be known,
not yet mapped.
Let the cartographers come first
she had said,
and divided the crew to their tasks
without another word.
She went back later to look again.
To see if the blackness was richer there,
if the air was as heavy
(near that hole)
as she had felt before.
This time though,
she climbed up a different way.
A moon rock had slipped,
She was angry at herself.
The first thought that came to her
when she landed in this world was:
“Stupid, stupid, stupid.”
She had rolled over on her back
and lay there for a while,
breathing and feeling the hard ground on
her back.
Above her was a strange and glowing sky.
She tried to sit up,
and found that she could hardly move.
Her space suit was too heavy
or her body was too weak,
and she couldn’t tell which.
She began to panic-
tear at the buckles.
This was it now,
certain death,
smothered by her own stupidity
in a hole on the moon.
She slowly,
Carefully
unhooked
the rest of her suit
and stepped out.

124 125
 The suit, which
had been lauded on Earth
for it’s ground breaking design
was now so heavy.
Even her long underwear
felt heavy here.
Even her hair.
The air was cool, and damp.
She thought she might be in a cave.
The top of the cave, the walls,
(even the ground )
were covered in dimly glowing stones,
some jewel toned,
some that looked like wet quartz
in all different sizes.
The light was even and bright,
like a clear early morning,
and filled the space completely.
When she reached down to lift a stone,
it was malleable in her hands like clay,
and warm to the touch.
She pressed her thumb in
and when she pulled away,
it held the impression.
She dropped it,
and it hit the ground:
with a sound
like plates crashing.
She nearly screamed,
but caught herself.
The last thing she wanted to do
was start some kind of avalanche.
She didn’t feel very composed.
She sat near where she had fallen,
and tried to find where she had come through.
She didn’t see it anywhere.
She looked around, “Soon”,
her head growing heavy Frances said,
and her eyelids drooping. with delighted impatience.
Where was she? Ann nodded.
They were sitting arm in arm,
2. Frances’s head
on Ann’s freckled shoulder.
Ann and Frances were sitting out in the garden, Ann was watching the flowers in the garden
leaning under the squat little tree twist and die with the coming night.
that bore sweet, speckled fruit each night.
Ann loved this tree. The yard was full of flowers.
It reminded her of a giant strawberry bush, Low, perfumed white dots,
with its wide leaves tall dramatic sweeps
and thready branches. of red and yellow,
That’s what they called it, too. hollow blue shells like milkweed,
The strawberry tree. dark and smooth like sea glass.
Frances reached up Ann had designed them all,
and checked underneath pressing them one by one into place.
a low hanging leaf. She had spent a long time on the garden,
There was nothing there. smoothing down petals,

126 127
 It made this place seem flat,
Green, so vital and telling on earth the even light glowing and fading,
meant nothing here. casting no shadows.

and tilling the strange,
viscous dirt until one day,
it had come together.
Plants grew fast here,
and died
and grew again.
Each morning,
the shrivelled stems
would plump and stiffen,
the flowers would unfurl
and they would move like gears,
slowly winding stem around stem.
The leaves and pollenless pistils,
the tenderest new sprouts
and sharpest thorns
would spin and weave until the dusk,
when finally the day’s intricate web was spun,
and the plants would again recede.
Ann knew there was a way to read the web,
to tell the weather of the weeks to come
and years past,
to see the face of your love,
or to learn a heady truth
from the patterns in your garden.
She had never cared to learn,
but sometimes
when she stood over the still night yard,
she would idly wonder what it said.
Tonight,
Fran’s ear hot against her arm,
the tree crackling gently
as the fruit ripened on the branch,
she wished that she could read the garden web.
For all the deep blues and purples,
rich reds,
and juicy yellows,
Ann missed the greenness of earth.
The colour of life, of rich nutrient,
without which the ocean
would be just salty gray and hollow blue.
She had laughed with relief
(and some kind of gentle grief )
when she first realized,
just after arriving here,
what was making this place
feel so frightening to her.
Frances had laughed too,
but she had noticed right away
and had already shrugged it off
when Ann looked around
and exclaimed
“Green!”
It didn’t bother her the way it bothered Ann.
They had been sitting in a lor at the time,
on their way from the landing place
to their new home,
having just arrived days earlier.
The lor was new to them,
and Frances felt sick
the way they hung suspended aloft inside
while the outer pod spun,
carrying them roundly
toward their destination.
It felt like being swung through the air
in a netted sack,
like the one that had hung in her old
kitchen
to hold the browning bananas
and tough skinned apples
she bought and never ate.
Frances missed the sun most of all.
Especially then when they first had come.
It made her feel like a paper doll,
and she would shudder,
imagining her body being moved
and bent
by the Moon’s ancient fingers.
The weight of skin
and the lightness of bone,
the even jewel toned lighting,
and the new, jagged colours
that could be seen
only here in this place
made Frances feel
like she was dreaming.
While folding laundry in the sunroom,
or bringing the roof down in the summer rain,
she would wonder where she was,
like a child just beginning to hold memories.
At the end of a long day
she would think how strange it was
that time fell away here
instead of just quietly passing,
how hours were shed
and minutes flung aside.
It never went away,
the tilted,
foreign feeling
of this place.
The calendar here was still cyclical
and still they called it a year,
but it was different altogether,
measured in stillness,
somehow.

128 129
 Aging was different too. at the unexpected ease and joy
Flesh was heavy in this place, of creating their shelter in the Moon.
and everybody looked old,
their skin sagging and wrinkled At first theirs was a simple dwelling
within a few cycles, but as the years passed,
even the children. they had added things,
and taken down others.
It used to sicken Ann
to see the children like that: They had replaced the solid roof
shrivelled with a moving puzzle,
and to her earthly mind, and with the right manoeuvres
looking close to death. it would open like a secret box.

She barely noticed now, Ann had stained the water windows
having learned how to gauge health with smears of petal ink
and age and they flowed
in new, small ways, like strange glass
through the clarity in someone’s eyes or voice, within their heavy magnetic frames.
or maybe the fullness of their hair.
She couldn’t explain it exactly, Frances had chipped the tile
how it was you came from the petrified gardens,
to learn the signs of vitality. a vast expanse near the landing
where flowers had become hard and sleek,
You just get used to it, like glazed clay.
she would say to newcomers,
with the assurance She had laid it in the kitchen
and impatience of an older sibling. in no particular pattern
Nobody went hungry here, but once laid
and nobody was cold. it had begun to spin a brittle web,
The light yellow rocks so slowly
bound together it had taken them long weeks
with a red plant called L’hur to notice the changes.
into a kind of cement,
and while some All the plants were edible here.
were more elaborate, Some were sweet,
many homes were built simply or had juicy sap that tasted uncannily like a
with those abundant supplies. scrambled egg,
and some were so bitter
Frances and Ann had built theirs they would pucker your tongue for days
together, and days.
delighted with each new wall,

130 131
 Studies had been done
and recipes developed,
but they hadn’t yet learned
how to create a plant for it’s flavor.
The taste of each new plant
couldn’t be determined
until after it was formed.
Little books full of recipes
were handed out each First Day,
with a sticker for each one
that you could press onto your wrist
and be guided through each new recipe
as if your hands were not your own.
132
Ann used to distrust it.
She would refuse,
saying she knew how to cook,
and feeling horrified,
not understanding the process
and imagining
her body
jerking out of control.
Yet Frances
had the heavy weight
of optimism on her shoulders.
She couldn’t bear
to see Ann
missing something wonderful
out of superstitious fear
and so she had made herself a pest She felt disoriented
until finally Ann had done it but determined to regain control of her situation.
one day
while Frances was out. This was not behavior,
she said firmly to herself,
She had pressed on a recipe for stew, befitting of a space captain.
and felt a surge.
She went out to the garden, She sat up slowly,
and although her arms felt nauseous, and straightened her spine.
oddly weighted and lifted Her hair fell heavily around her face
while she stroked the delicate petals and it seemed to her
and checked under the low leaves in the yard, that it had grown
she was not overtaken. longer in the time that she had been asleep.
She took the patch off. She stood
and tied her hair
Later, when she went inside, on top of her head
she had made the stew with a stiff band.
as if from memory,
and felt her body’s relief in the motions. She gathered her suit,
and pieced it back together
After that she used them often, carefully,
and delighted in the comforting familiarity so that she could easily dress later.
of being guided through something new She shuddered,
with what felt like her own gentle attention. her mind overtaken
She would imagine sometimes for a moment
it was a grandmother she had never known, with the image of herself
standing over her and showing her the way. taking a turn
and landing back
3. on the surface of the moon,
with no air
When Captain Cicopa woke up, and nothing to protect her
she was still laying on that cold, glowing ground. from the raw forces of the galaxy.
Her suit was in pieces,
scattered around her, She shook her head.
and her thin white long underwear
was twisted, The suit was too heavy
almost backwards. to move around in down here,
She had been sleeping fitfully and she had to find out more.
for a long while, it seemed.
133
 An entrance, a being, something everything the same. It began to grow there,
to help her understand She began to walk, to weave and wind.
what place this was. and then, run.
She tried to focus,
Better to die on the surface of the moon She ran as far as she could. to steady her racing mind.
than to sit here and die of cowardice.
Her hair fell down She reached out
This world was so empty, and she realized and grabbed the strings,
she thought. (with a shock) pulling them toward her.
that it was trailing They stay rooted in the rock
As her head cleared, on the ground but stretched high and wide
it became apparent behind her. like taffy as she pulled.
that the depth of the cave
was unknowable She wrapped it around her body She began to work.
because of the consistency like a cloak
of the glowing stone and began to laugh. She stretched from red to red,
and crystal. weaving the strings into ropes
She sat on the ground, and stretching them thin
It was like a hall of mirrors, cross legged like a child like dough into curving walls.
she thought. and began to lift the stones, and the dark red flesh
each a different colour, When she was done, underneath
The same for so long, and stack them like blocks. she lay down inside her strange shelter, sat dim
the floor and the ceiling, exhausted, in her hands.
Her mind felt foggy and quickly fell into a deep and
and she began to cry dreamless sleep. She offered it to Ann.
as the stones melded one into another.
4. Ann broke
She pressed a hard glowing crystal a chunk off
into a dark blue rock As the world grew dim with the dusk, and began to suck
and watched it melt in her hands, the speckled fruit on the hard fruit.
stringy and sticky, from the strawberry tree
the colour of the earth’s blue sky. dropped. It tasted a little bitter and sweet,
She tried to wipe it on the ground, fragrant like smoke and lemon peel,
and saw the strings attach Frances reached up and turned soft and creamy
to the porous red to pluck in her mouth like cake icing.
and slide like oil the largest one,
from the yellow. and began to peel it. She had built this tree
after Frances
The brown shell and her had fought,
crumbled away just after arriving.

134 135
 She had been so homesick, then. laughing like children about the earth, She would spend weeks
She would brood stormily and eating only raw plants, the leaving, waiting,
for hours at a time, snapping at Frances or what others offered them. the stranded feeling wondering
when she asked her simple questions, of being here if she would stay well
and refused to cut her hair. It was okay here, to be like that. in this wholly outlandish place. and then find herself
It grew heavy and long, No harm came to those who detached, weeping in the supermarket,
and covered her like a shawl. and they were treated kindly, She had been sick on earth. or in the middle
but that didn’t comfort Frances. of a sentence,
After many days, Her mind had raced suddenly so overtaken
Frances reached She couldn’t sleep at all, and stopped, by an inexplicable grief
the end worrying through the night, throwing her into deep, that she was unable to speak.
of her pacing sinking
rope. and praying depressions Othertimes,
that she hadn’t said the last wrong thing, and then towing her she would spend night
“Why did you come, then?” the thing that had separated back after night,
she had asked, Ann in a hellish tide. baking,
her lip curling, from herself. scrubbing the floors,
“Why didn’t you just stay there?” She would look out
Ann stopped, then. through the high window in the hall,
She stopped eating, balanced on her shifting feet,
she stopped coming in at night. and watch Ann building the garden.

She began to cut her hair short She would hold herself back
each morning and evening, as long as she could,
and took to sleeping in the half built then run out again to try and reach her.
dead garden,
on a bed of moldable yellow stones She had done this dance for months,
she had piled up it seemed,
to sit on earlier that week. although it could sometimes be hard
to tell how long a time it had been.
Frances apologized,
brought her offerings, Ann was only angry for a day.
little petals and tiny cakes,
but Ann wouldn’t look at her. After that,
Frances had been so worried. she felt robotic,
she felt tired,
They had both seen people she felt stoned.
lose touch in here,
destroying their homes, She didn’t want
letting their hair grow long and heavy, to think anymore

136 137
 quitting jobs wrong with her there on Earth, So she worked. but still hoping they might grow.
and lovers, if she had just been a dramatic She built the intricate plants
and writing pages and sensitive child from the stones and crystals of the moon, She worked and worked
and pages of who had selfishly allowed herself spending hours at a time on each petal or and never said a word.
frantic, to fail her family, stem,
illegible her friends, sometimes days. She knew that Frances was waiting,
script. her lovers. pained and frantic for a sign,
She carved and pressed and smudged and thought. but she knew that if she looked up too soon
The moon Some people had come here well She listed the things she knew to be true, she would not know the shape of
had seemed to her and sound of mind, and the things she told herself. her new mind.
like the last reprieve, and they had shifted, She remembered the long nights,
a kind of cure. their minds disorganizing the blood and desperation, She waited with herself,
and their bodies changing rhythm. the dawn of a day that couldn’t possibly be new, watching and holding,
They had said sunny afternoons spent waiting for the day to end. and as the garden grew she came to herself.
that nobody was sick But only well people got lost,
like that and only the sick were found. She counted her fears in long white leaves, She could feel the rhythm
up there in thick roots the colour of the summer lilies and weight of this place now,
something about the weight If she unravelled here, that grew wild on the roads around her her life in the pulsing life
and gravity, like this, mother’s house, of the stones and their light.
the pull and tow everything she had felt in tiny seeds she rolled from broken stems She stood up, and went inside to Frances,
of energy. and known about herself and planted secretly, who was still waiting, quiet in the hall. n
on Earth was untrue. embarrassed at her silly hope,
They didn’t know why,
really, If she lost herself
but when they sent in this place,
the sad and desperate, the self she had created was a lie.
the harrowed and hallucinating,
they became calm and joyful, She recognized those thoughts, though,
some for the first time in their lives. and knew she had to quell them.

She had lived there in the garden, That familiar self doubt
and wondered if they had lied. and the comfortable scorn.

She wondered if she was sick again,
if she was the .00001 percent,
a freakish anomaly
in this innocent new world.
She wondered
if there had been nothing
She could see her mind
falling back on cruel thinking,
those self destructive habits
that she had learned to think
when her sickness came,
and clung to when it left.

138 139
SUICIDE
CHARLIE THE SURVIVOR
Bethany Rose Lamont
artwork by Mikael Hattingh
I don’t want my tumblr to be deleted when I
(eventually) kill myself. To ensure this does
not happen I post a tweet that reads: When
I die I want my tumblr to be a UNESCO
world heritage site. That should do the job
nicely. I am not good at doing jobs. I am a
slacker. Like the song Slack Motherfucker.
Like the tall blue bird Mordecai in the
Regular Show. He went to art school too,
you kno. The cartoon bird I mean. And
an unpleasant incarnation of his gum ball
machine boss tells him, “You’re just another
slacker who went to art school to feel like
he accomplished something!” This is not my
psychosis. I have screen shots of the scene.
Proof. I even posted it on my blog saying
“Mordecai is more me than me” if you want
the receipts.
I suppose I am a part of a particular
dashboard of perpetually stoned,
permanently unemployable, working class
girls of colour with my bullshit blogging
and low self esteem selfies. (You could call
that a movement, slackerdom at least has
anti-capitalist intentions, and I am not only
spoonless but hopeless too). I am ridiculous.
And slightly nauseous. When my stomach
disease was bad in January I shit my pants
in a Holocaust memorial service. (I kno!)
And I think maybe I should rewrite The Old
Man and the Sea about my trichotillomania,
with a deeply rooted hair follicle in place of
the big fish.
My tumblr url is bernard-beth after
Bernard Black. I am both dysphoric and
psychotic so fictitious white dudes on TV
140
are an interesting model of myth-making. I
think. I guess. Disassociation can turn even
a muggle like me into an Oscar winner. And
the bonus of never having accomplished
anything is that no one will ask me to
write my memoir as I honestly don’t what
is Netflix and what is irl anymore. The
movie Spring Breakers is on Netflix and it
gave me nightmares and white weaponised
femininity does not float my boat. Me
and Lil talk about the Runaways after the
Huffington Post article on that nasty rapist
man comes out. I love my survivor sisters
more than anything else in the world and I
do not want abuser aesthetics in my house.
But as much as This Bridge Called My Back
is my bible I am interested in occupying
these white guys’ characters. Stealing their
toys, their clothes, their lines. Jackson
Pollock said ‘I am Nature’ and I reply with ‘I
am Jackson Pollock’.
I am also Jesse Pinkman. Because Jesse
survives. And is fictitious. I also survive.
And am ficticuous. However, the Jesse
Pinkman blogging hashtag is less popular
than the Bernard Black blogging one. This
is most likely because it centres around
substance abuse and takes place at 5am. Jesse
is a survivor and Bernard is a survivor. But
Charlie Kelly is the most survivor, the most
me. The dude survived his own abortion.
When I was suicidal the other week I wrote:
“It’s not that I want to die. I want to
go further. Suicide is still a selfhood, the
ultimate in fact. I wish I had never been
conceived. I don’t want to exist even in
idea form. Everyone said I should have
been aborted – the family, the doctors. they
were quite right. They were quite right.
Noun. Noun. Noun.”
141
 So we have the abortion thing in
common. Also his learning difficulties, his
trauma, his cats, the absent fathers and
dodgy literacy skills. His height and high-
pitched voice. His mania. His army jacket
and neurovariance. I also used to clean up
human waste for money. (Though being a
cleaner of colour carried a different context
I suppose). Charlie responds to childhood
abuse not with a TED talk but with a
magical musical written in crayon. I use
crayon in all my artwork. I offered to give
142
one to my mum and she said no thank you.
Suicide attempts are horcruxes –
you lose yourself one try at a time. But
horcruxes are also fragments of the soul.
Containments. Parts lost given back to you
in unexpected packages. Your writing, your
pet, a TV character on a strange sitcom that
is yours too you kno, you just didn’t realise it
before you hit play.
People say I am strong. But I am not
strong. People say I am inspiring. But I am not
inspiring. I am not an MIA gif set. Or a pair
of Frida Kahlo socks. There is a particularly
colonial thumbprint on the caricature of the
strong woman of colour. For I am not strong,
but suicidal. And I do not want my perpetual
debasement to serve as a catalyst to the very
model of white authorship that made me
sick in the first place. I do not want my vomit
chunks used to paint masterpieces. I do not
want that one bit.
Charlie Kelly is not a strong woman
of colour. He eats garbage out of the trash.
Bernard Black is not a strong woman of
colour. He has mushrooms growing out
of his hair. Jesse Pinkman is not a strong
woman of colour. He is well…he is Jesse
Pinkman! Survival is not inspiring, it is
repulsive, and it is always the rats that run
first, the cockroachs that survive. I am a rat.
A cockroach. A parasite. (Parasitic lifestyle
blogging is another hashtag that is dear to
me.) And Charlie crawls around the sewers
of Philadephia with no clothes on. n
143
 Mikael Hattingh

Playlist by Bethany Rose Lamont, artwork by Mikael Hattingh

144 145
 .
ABLEISM .
.
TH E . B RAI N . IS . TH E . ON LY Rhea Allan, Bethany Rose Lamont Rhea
and Cat Smith Oh I am so into this convo!! I was
thinking about this recently actually...
Bethany
Okay! So y’kno how for our first issue Bethany
PART . OF . YOU R . B ODY . YOU we had that open convo on self-care and Omg yay I knew we’d be in synch on
. how weird and inaccessible it can be? this!!!! Like mental health can totally
And that people seemed to like it?! Well have as much as a physical impact
umm do you think we could unpack some as a mental one (and besides your
disability and mental health feels for our brain is a part of your body after all!)
second issue? Like I think that would be and mentally ill people do of course
.
D ON’T . G ET . SYM PATHY . F OR .
so great and just yes?! experience ableism, particularly those
I’ve just been feeling really of us with especially stigmatised mental
. uncomfortable recently about how health experiences such as psychosis, as
mental health narratives seem to leech the history of institutions for learning
off the language of physical disability difficulties, neurodiversity, physical
AN D . OTH E R . D OD GY . CLI CHÉS: and how unhelpful that feels. Whilst disability and mental illness all intersect.
I understand mental health is difficult Yet I am concerned that in people’s
to express and frustrating to articulate, desire to overturn stigma towards
but using terms such as “crippling” and mental illness and treat it as ‘legitmate’,
“blinding” if you are able-bodied just does the realities of physical disability and
not seem like the best way to go???? As chronic physical illnesses are being
someone dealing with physical stuff as well ignored and co-opoted under the belief .
as mental health things I think language use that mental illness is the only thing that
.
needs to grow for the better! Has anyone else is not treated with ‘respect’, and I think
been thinking about this also?!!! that is very dangerous. In presenting
Like this isn’t just me being nit it as some sort of final frontier, these
AN . OPEN . CONVERSATION . ON picky about the odd tumblr post – every mainstream mental health narratives are .
single book or article I pick up seems to erasing other forms of ableism which are
use one of the tropes, or even worse the growing more and more dire under our
dreaded “you wouldn’t treat someone like current political climate.
cancer like that!!” Which btw feels so
THE . INTERSECTIONS . OF . PHYSICAL MESSED UP, like people with chronic Rhea
illness have this carefree life which is My partner actually brought up
just, no?? Under austerity this shit is something similar to this when it
no joke!!! And idk the whole thing has came to folks using the term “invisible
really been bugging me and like I wanna disability” when it’s used specifically
hear your thoughts!!! to talk about mental illness. It throws
DISABILITY . AND . MENTAL . HEALTH .
.

. .
146 . 147
 . .
. .
. .
.
physically disabled people under the bus
and implies that visibility is a good and
desirable thing!
And yeahhhhh it’s a really freaky pattern,
. when folks who aren’t physically disabled say
mental illness is the final frontier.… As if the
experiences of ableism for physically disabled
people are suddenly over!?
Bethany
Omg yes I kno right?! And anything
that presents visibility as a privileged
. state is such a red flag to me?! We see
this dangerous idea repeated in so many
groups like white assigned female at birth
people complaining about not being
visible but not understanding the reality
. of tranmisogyny, particularly in relation to
trans women of colour, non-black people
talking about black visibility, whilst not
. understanding the horrific nature of anti-
blackness; it comes up everywhere! And
in each case we can see that this forced
visibility, which you can’t opt out of, is so
violent and has real consequences, like it
costs people their lives.
. This is of course not to say that
mentally ill people who are not
physically disabled also have some
super easy life, or that discrimination
and employment issues and stigma
are not real (because they very much
are), but I think it would be better for
everyone if we were more mindful of
the nuances of different forms ableism
and disability and not operate under the
presumption that other forms of hateful
. discrimination towards questions of
physical disability aren’t also happening
because they totally are.
Cat
This is a really interesting conversation!
I think there are a few threads here that
Beth and Rhea have brought up. The
first being the language thing, “crippling
depression” etc. I think this mainly stems
from ignorance and the ways ableist
language is so normalised that it doesn’t
even occur to people that it’s wrong to
use. If you think of the phrase “crippling
depression” for example, what this really
means is “debilitating depression”, but
language concerning disability is so
often used to mean anything particularly
.
bad, which… y’know, is a bit shit.
Now, I’d expect this from mainstream
publications who, quite frankly don’t
have a clue how to write about any
type of disability, whether it’s physical,
psychological etc, but when you see
it used, like you pointed out Beth, in
publications concerning mental health
then we have a real problem.
This brings me to your other point
Beth, about how physically disabled
people are seemingly thrown under
the bus to make points about mental
health i.e. “you’d never tell a person with
a physical impairment/chronic illness
that they just need to pull themselves
together!” Except they are, constantly.
When you’re disabled (whatever your
impairment is), you are expected to strive
to achieve this goal of aligning yourself
with non-disabled ideals, otherwise you
. .
. . . .
are a failure. I mean, think of the popular
. phrase, “the only disability in life is a bad
attitude”, and how it places the emphasis
on the individual.
What I think this comes from, and
. the simplistic “makes you think”-ness
of these sorts of attitudes is that often,
where mental illness elicits fear and
suspicion, we’re supposed to feel sorry
for physically disabled people, I mean
I (as a wheelchair-user) constantly face
this sort of patronising attitude from
. people. So it’s a simplistic way of going,
.
“Hey! You should feel bad for these
poor people too, just like you do with
people with cancer!” which ultimately
ignores the violence and prejudice you
experience with a physical impairment
Bethany
. Yes, yes, yes to all of this!
And this isn’t the odd blog post or
magazine article; in so many cases these
narratives are front and centre in mental
. health advocacy and I find it so disturbing!
Also I think what you are saying
on normalised ableism and ignorance
. is revealing of the positions of privilege
these individuals are coming from,
which unintentionally undermines
their argument by reminding us of
. the continued degradation of physical
disability by those from a variety of
.
experiences (neurotypical or otherwise).
Like for me, I have had severe mental
health struggles since junior school but
my experiences with being outside of
. allistic and able-bodied ideas preceded
.
.
that (in short I was getting bullied/
feeling like a weirdo already haha).
I also think this notion of physical
disability vs. mental illness is unhelpful
as it erases the very real, very dire,
struggles physically disabled folks
face as a result of these particular .
forms of ableism; the consequences
of which include domestic violence,
unemployment, street harassment,
rape and childhood sexual abuse
which (due to the extreme trauma
of such circumstances) affect mental
health dramatically. So to speak of
mental health in a way that co-opts
.
or undermines physical disability is to
ironically erase the reality of mental
health struggles for the very people they
claim to speak for.
I also find it ironic that often when
the issue of physical disability is raised .
that it is seen as “political correctness
gone too far”, as if it is a simple nit-
picking attitude. Once again disability
and chronic illness simultaneously
operates as the ‘worst’ and a ‘non-issue’.
And yes I totally agree and in co-
.
opting these narratives and using physical
disability as the ultimate ‘bad thing’,
it casts physical disability as a hopeless
tragic state, you know, like the classic
Ian Dury lyrics:
“So place your hard-earned peanuts
in my tin. And thank the Creator you’re .
not in the state I’m in.”
It presents physical disability as
an intrinsically terrible state of being
like “oh there’s no question about

.
. . . . . .
148 . . . . 149
. .

. .
.
how absolutely awful you feel when
you encounter these sorts of people!”
or whatever whilst simultaneously
suggesting that such lives are free from
any kind of institutional oppression,
every day foolishness or general bigotry
which is just WOW – so much wrong
with that!
Rhea
Oh god this conversation is so wonderful.
Like, I definitely agree that physical
. disabilities are used as this benchmark of,
“boy, doesn’t that sure suck?”
This kinda suddenly made me think
about how it’s used as disability porn
here in the U.S. Military. Like, some
serious guilt trippy shit of showing
images of amputees and going, “This
is what we did for you!!” Like, disabled
folks used as a way to glorify U.S.
imperialism, but also having the worst
veteran services.
. knowing I would not hear them,
But simultaneously with all of this,
physically disabled folks are still the
butt of most jokes in media, “oops! The
person in a wheelchair fell down!” Or
some nastiness like that. It’s always
so slapstick too, which I don’t really
have any thoughts on, just noticed. It’s
really cartoony in a way? Hmmm...
. Bethany
. Oh my gosh yes that is a perfect
example! I think such cartoony attitudes
of disability as intrinsically ‘out there’
feeds into that physical disability as the
.
150 . .
.
. .
. .
.
benchmark-of-suckiness attitude. And
yes, that imperial military model totally
exists over here in the UK also! I think
such contradictory attitudes of disability .
can be traced back to World War One
(certainly before also, but World War
One was certainly the biggest-scale AUTO-POLTERGEIST
example of the complexities of how the
Maria Cohut
able-bodied public imagination grapples
with such concepts!) And of course
World War One was also a critical point . I watched from beyond myself,
as if confined to the skin only
for mental health (in terms of notions of
of my own body, compelled to haunt myself.
‘shell shock’, trauma and PTSD) which
of course overlapped with physical . I saw the perfect symmetry
disability also.
of my faults, and saw
And that’s such a good example of
that all was well.
how these things *do* overlap, both in
terms of general experiences and also
From the mirror, I reached towards
discrimination (veterans struggling to
my loneliness and wrapped it
find employment due to the stigma
in self-forgiveness.
of PTSD and so on), but how in that
overlap individuals should recognise
I sung prayers to myself,
differences and specific oppressions and .
stigmas to build solidarity, rather than to
but even so, even so…
co-opt or erase. n
. With fists invisible, too weak to echo,
I knocked at the gates of my eyes
and pushed to be let in. n
.
. . .
. . 151
 CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

We would be honoured to include your work in

Issue Three of Doll Hospital!

We are looking for all kinds of submissions from comic art to

collages to background patterns, short stories to poetry.
In short, all mediums, genres and styles are welcome!

You can find out more about us at our website:

www.dollhospitaljournal.com

And you can send us submissions

and enquiries via email to:
dollhospitaljournal@gmail.com

Hope to hear from you soon!!

152 153
154 155
 Doll Hospital is an art and literature
print journal on mental health.

We believe print is the best medium

for this project - a refuge from toxic
comment sections and constant link skipping.
Something tangible to slip in your
book bag and read on the bus.

Something still, something quiet.

Something just for you.

Artwork by Alyssa Nassner