[1] Language is a room. Mental health is a room. They are, in many instances, the same room: styled with furniture and picture frames, hand-me-down heirlooms and shelves lined with…
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After feeling anxious for years, first in childhood stomach aches, then in the mid-twenties chest pains, both times with the dread, the worry, the terror, a doctor said to me:…
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In the aftermath of Hurricane Wilma, my best friend and I rode our bikes to CVS, which was closed. We rode to the bank so she could take twenty dollars…
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‘Vaginismus’, now termed ‘Genito-Pelvic Pain or Penetration Disorder’, is the involuntary contraction of the pelvic floor muscles. The tight muscle contractions makes coitus, and gynaecological examinations, difficult or impossible. The cause…
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On April 17th, 2017, the day after Easter, my friend took their father’s gun and went for a walk on the beach in Yachats, Oregon. Friend isn’t the right word.…
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You have to write a book about your family, she said during lunch at the airport chain restaurant where we were waiting out our mutual flight delay. We’d only known…
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By the time my husband and I got to the local urgent care clinic, I had been in a steady state of pain for nearly four hours. I gave a…
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i. Dear Doctor— Each morning I unlatch the window to shout the miser magpies from their perch, the sill dips a bit in the clutch of my palm and I…
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My boyfriend bought the bunnies for me on Easter day of my sophomore year in college. It was the sort of ludicrous, stupid, expensive thing he was always doing for…
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I recently shared an illustration on Facebook from the comic strip Verbal Vomit by the brilliant Hannah Hillam. In the drawing, there are two images—one marked: “Ten Years Ago”…
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I remember when my mother called for me from outside. I was seven years old. I remember her voice had a high pitched strain that I had only recently begun…
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In the first day of the New Year, a rare chill took hold of the desert, shivering cacti sucked into themselves, gunmetal sky swollen with rain. I spent the day horizontal,…
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The written word has a way of reintroducing me to myself – of locating me in my hiding spot, of throwing back the covers. Does it do the same for…