We’re in the decade after I learned to arrange flowers in a vase.

The latest chapter closes with these words of prose,

Since my diagnosis occurred & my desire to challenge you arose.

Life’s changes have caused many a happy, sad or funny face,

Though sometime after marriage they picked up the pace.

I couldn’t compute them before the next came,

But I considered all as blessings and gifts just the same.

You know about which I speak from your life, or the news,

But none of us can judge until we walk in another’s shoes.

Most were not heavy enough to make me crumble,

But the speed is what shocked me, and made my mind jumble.

The result is depression; might take 3 years to heal,

But I plan to be at my best when newborn cries peal.

I owe it to you, the kids, and the new in-laws-to-be,

To be open about this so all see me for me.

So, how will I heal happily without a care?

Daily I trust God by wallowing in prayer.

Grace, nature, and a counselor – referred to as “Ted”,

Along with a small dose of RX, each night before bed.

Here’s where your effort is crucial to me,

Before your life’s shocks bring you as low as can be,

Find a professional to listen, and explain heartily,

So, the rest of your life has a chance to be vice free.

Share this with your loved ones, and non-gossiping “else”,

So, they can be prepared when they need to help themselves.

I hope my story can help even one,

Since my support of this cause has just begun!

By Niama Williams

Writing keeps me sane and breathing calmly. Without poetry I would stumble at understanding and comprehending my world. The difficult things don’t make sense if I cannot think about them and then sit down and write what God says about them and sends over the transom. For me, poetry and prose are about listening; picking up the pen, or sending out a message, “I want to write about x” and waiting for God to send the words. When He does, whatever I am struggling with begins to make sense and ceases to terrify or humiliate. That is something for which I thank the heavens daily, and the angels routinely.

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Challenge me

Challenge me to change my thinking
Inspire me with your words
Open my mind to new wonders
Excite my learning excite my knowledge

Challenge me to speak my words
My words speak the trurh
Challenge me to not become afraid
My words may conflict with your words
Remind me it’s okay to disagree

Challenge me to grow and let go
Excite me to want to become independent
Excite me to want to speak my words
Excite me to change my thinking

Challenge me to expand my life
Teach me assertiveness
So I can be on my own one day
Teach me to become uncomfortable
So I can get out of my small box
Teach me patience
It doesn’t happen overnight

Challenge me to live a full life
Challenge me to be the best I can be
In which all these things will make my life empowered!

In adolescence my thought process was often marked by the instinct to rationalize and interpret to the point of deconstructing every event, piece of literature or sentence spoken to me, always with the intent of grasping any hidden meaning that could have come out of it. Every possible rational or otherwise conclusion was taken into consideration.

 This often led to an indulgence of my own fantastical beliefs and fantasies in themselves, and the creation of conversations plus events dwelled upon in secret.

I will proceed further in the description of a childhood habit of mind: to take a story – a movie – a novel – to re-create it and make it my own.

To the observer it looked as such: a repetitive motion, bouncing to and fro, back and forth, on the balls of my feet, “waving my hands,” and staring fixedly at an image (such as the cover of a book or film). In later years I used music as the basis or the ‘inspiration’ for my imagination.

This was harmless for the most part, but as a child I would often lose myself in public in this respect and was poked fun of for it by no fault of the observers. But when brought to my attention that it was not appropriate to continue on I proceeded in secret; closing the door to my bedroom and going on for hours per day. I would do it almost unconsciously though I was in control, as an outlet for my active imagination, and later in life played over scenarios from my otherwise productive day and put the twist on it in regard to how I really wished these situations to be, and to imagine the future for myself.

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Hi, my name is Emilia and I have schizophrenia. I was diagnosed in 1997 with acute psychosis. I started taking anti-psychotics at that time and a few years later, I was feeling much better. I met with my psychiatrist on a regular basis and that helped a lot. I managed to finish my studies in arts & literature, and published a few poems. There is hope! No matter how hard things might look, there is always a light at the end of the tunnel. Keep on following your doctor’s advices and take your medications. It’s very important. And most important: have faith in life and try to be optimistic. 

I am not alone because of my relationship with a higher power, my family, my colleagues and the comfort of literature, music and nature.

I was diagnosed 15 years ago at the age of 42 with bipolar disorder by New England Medical Center Psychiatry department in Boston. Upon hearing my diagnosis my mother cried. I think my twin brother and father breathed a sigh of relief because upon recognition of my condition recovery could start.

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“I’m just so lonely!”.

Those were the words I clearly understood from the old gentleman who helped me carry my son’s belongings to a group home. They were words of pain, words of strength, words that bonded me to a stranger and broke my heart in the space a few seconds.
Two days earlier, I had anxiously driven past the location of a group home, here in Mobile, to check the place out. It appeared to be a very clean and neat home in a west Mobile location. Relief flooded over me as I inspected the home from a distance. This was to be the new temporary home for my son who copes with paranoid schizophrenia. My fears of the unknown were somewhat relieved when I saw a well kept home, with a basketball goal on the side of the yard.
Little did I know, this place would also become a window into a world I didn’t know existed. My son would arrive at this group home the following day. I called the telephone number of the home and a kind voice answered. I explained who I was and gave the woman a brief description of my son. I asked for the house rules and learned I could bring some of his personal items over the following day. I arrived at the home with a car full of things I thought would comfort my son

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Hi, I’m Jamie. I’m male, white, 36 years old, and single. I got my BA in English from Kenyon College, my MA in English from Saint Louis University, and I was, in 2013, three years into getting my PhD in English from the same place. I like dogs, fantasy literature, role-playing games, alternative music, and a variety of other things that most people would probably describe as ‘nerdy’ or ‘geeky.’

I also tried to kill myself in January of 2013. It’s not a new thing for me, sadly; I tried once before in 2007, using much the same method, overdose. I have suffered from depression, diagnosed, I believe, as Severe Clinical Depression, since I was about 20 – making that 16 years, at this point. Almost half my life. I’ve been on a lot of different medications, and tried a number of different treatments – talk therapy, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), electro-convulsive therapy (ECT, more commonly known as electro-shock therapy), and even surgical implantation of a vagal nerve stimulation (VNS) device. People around me have seen varying degrees of effectiveness in these therapies, but personally, I’ve always had kind of a hard time telling whether I was better or worse – the improvements tended to be too minor and incremental for me to notice on a day-to-day basis.

But back to my suicide attempt in January. After I survived, I was in a hospital for observation for a few days – to make sure I hadn’t done any lasting damage with the sleeping medication, even if it was over-the-counter and relatively ineffective, as well as figuring out if the medications I had already been on – mostly lithium – had caused damage to my kidneys. Then I was sent to the attached ‘acute care facility’ for 5 more days. ‘Acute care facility’ is what they call the portion of the hospital where they keep all the recently hospitalized mentally ill patients for observation until they can determine whether they are still a danger to themselves or others. This means that someone like me, for example, who suffers from depression, can, and most likely will be, staying in close quarters with people who have much more unfortunate, aggressive, and pervasive problems. Anyone who has been untreated for long periods of time, or who has just manifested symptoms of mental illness, whatever it is, from acute anxiety to total inability to control one’s anger (I don’t know the clinical terms, sadly), is placed here for at least a short period. It’s not a fun place to be; I was there long enough for the doctors to determine I wasn’t going to attempt suicide again right away, and to start ECT again, for a course of 6 treatments. While I was there, my family was looking up more intensive ways to help, because clearly what had come before hadn’t helped as much as they had hoped.

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I enjoy writing outlets. It gives me a place to put my thoughts. At this moment, I find myself here as a result of searching for proof that I could live in remission and that I could accomplish my long term academic goals, wishing I could have things despite the overwhelming primary literature that has accumulated against it. It becomes very physically taxing and emotionally brutal to read primary literature and find oneself overwhelmed by the data. Yet, there is always the (growing) percentage of those who beat the odds. Plus, there is always new research.

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Hello, my name Daniel and I struggle with Schizophrenia. It really all started with me being to scared to get near under my bed, in which I would jump to my bed from as far from my bed as I could, occasionally making me hit my arm or knee of the bed frame. Next, I’d look up to a figure staring at me or going to another room and someone is staring at something. Finally, the delusions were the worst part. I’d think if the full moon was full, I would be unsafe, I thought my limbs were turning purple or that someone was after me. My friends would tell me nobody is where I’m saying one of my hallucinations would be or would say that the moon or something would hurt me. I didn’t believe I had Schizophrenia or any other mental illness but finally, I believed my friends after the first psychotic episode. I was stressed over school and decided to go on a walk and sit down for a while. I constantly got worried someone was behind me and would look behind me often. Finally, i looked behind me and a figure was staring at me and started walking towards me. I kept saying, ”Please leave me alone,” or “Please dont hurt me.”

Anyway, now I’m with friends that help me through it and understand.