What the Therapist Said

i unloaded the dishwasher that morning and then i went to therapy and unloaded on this new doctor and she said, perhaps, maybe, possibly my post-partum depression was because i just missed having attention because all the babies i had lost apparently hadn’t given me enough unwanted side-show-status-attention i wondered Read more

Amanda Linsmeier

Amanda Linsmeier is the author of Ditch Flowers and Beach Glass & Other Broken Things. Her writing has been featured in Portage Magazine, Literary Mama, and Brain, Child Magazine. Besides writing Women’s Fiction, she loves reading and writing fables, fairy tales, and fantasy, and sometimes she pretends her Hogwarts letter is still coming. When she’s not writing, she works part-time at her local library and brings home more books than she has time to read. Amanda lives in the countryside, surrounded by trees, with her family, two dogs, and two half-wild cats. For her, writing is the best kind of magic, and her work is heavily influenced by mysterious women, nature, and beautiful images and fueled with lots of iced coffee and background music. She’s the kind of monster who dog-ears book pages, and she has read her favorite book, Beauty by Robin McKinley, probably a hundred times. She loves pizza, tattoos, shopping, and pretty much anything French.

You’re Skinny You Don’t Have Problems

The delusions that make up a life. How did we get here in the first place? How do we go from being children, filled with joyous reckless abandon to adults full of fear and every other godforsaken ill word on the planet? Jealousy, greed, lust, anger, prejudice, hate, blah blah Read more

Jacqueline Cioffa

A retired, international model, and celebrity makeup artist. Co-Author of Model Citi Zen, the guide. Founder of http://modelcitizenmakeup.blogspot.com/. Author of numerous prose pieces in various literary magazines. Most recently published in Little Episodes Brainstorms the anthology, among esteemed artists Sadie Frost, Melvin Burgess and Todd Swift.

On Letting Oneself Be Taken Care Of

As the eldest in a large family, I grew up taking care of others. Watching my younger siblings, I learned to develop a sixth sense; I reserved a part of my attention to wander on that periphery where something might flare up among any one of them, at any time. Read more

Adrienne Pine

Adrienne Pine's creative nonfiction has been published in The Write Place at the Write Time, Tale of Four Cities, The Yale Journal of Humanities in Medicine, and other venues.

Daybreak

These words won’t come easy to me Even though they’re all I see I’m frightened and all alone in my head Chained like a prisoner to my own bed I struggle with each and every line I can’t possibly keep up with time When will my strength return? When will Read more

Rebecca Lombardo

My name is Rebecca Lombardo. I'm 44 years old and I've been happily married for 15 years. At age 19 I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and I've struggled with mental illness ever since. Since I was in elementary school I wanted to be a writer, but unfortunately my mental illness made it difficult for me for many years. I've recently published a memoir and have begun writing poetry again.

Why I Rarely Tell People I Have a Mental Illness

Why is it that every organ in your body can get sick and you get sympathy except the brain? ―Ruby Wax Subtitle: It would be so much easier to disclose I have a blood disorder. Which I actually do. But unlike a bipolar disorder, it’s not so much of a conversation Read more

Dori Owen

Dori Owen is a storyteller, writing from small town Arizona, after living a few decades in California as an LA Wild Child, with a brief stop in Reno. She settled into grownup life as a project manager, collecting an MBA and a few husbands along the way. She is a shown artist and her favorite pastime is upcycling old furniture and decor she finds from thrift stores. She lives with the cat who came to visit but stayed. The love of her life is her grown son who lives in Portland, Oregon. Her essays and poems have been published in RAW&UNFILTERED VOL I, StigmaFighters Vol 2, and Love Notes From Humanity. Her blogs have been featured on The Lithium Chronicles, Open Thought Vortex, Sudden Denouement, and The Mighty.

Thunderstorm

The clouds wrestles, vibrations felt inside your existence, lighting cracks illuminating the sky Clouds finally giving in, releasing the mass tears from heaven. Evidence left on the window, droplets dwindling down the glass pane. Her force is felt, you witness her magnificent breakdown, as the pure blue summer sky turns Read more

Natasha Alexander

Writer, always Wife and Mother first. Perfect is overrated, I am flawed and yet loved. Now that I don’t chase perfection, I can chase my dreams. I have completed a "Write a Novel" course in 2015 through S.A. Writers’ College and passed with a distinction. I also completed the Copy-Editing and Proof-reading course through them in March 2016. My first Manuscript of 60 000 words has been written and currently seeking a publisher. I have been writing poetry since I was 14 and the reason/inspiration behind all my writing is a stand against women abuse. It is a cause that I hold close to heart. Something that started as an outlet for feelings too ghastly to speak about has turned into my passion.

Seeking Full-Time Depression

I am seeking a confidant, a loser like me. My pre-requisites are simple. I desire a lack of ambition. I am looking for self-loathing. This depressant-applicant should come pre-equipped with a heart that is worn and long faded away like a hundred shipwrecks. His or her life shall be in Read more

Richard DeFino

Ricky De Fino grew up in New York City and currently resides in Buffalo NY. When he isn’t writing about his anxiety and his crazy Bronx upbringing, he enjoys watching countless hours of television with his wife Andrea, cat Bebe and dog Zeke. Two years sober, good coffee and veganism keeps him sane. His work can be found in Two Cities Review, tNY Press, Purple Pig Lit, Dialougal and Cycatrix Press.

After Death of Birth

I found my death when I gave a life, but life played a trick on me. She brought back my ghost to live in a body that talks and thinks, of skeletons that breathe; a body that can not make sense of what I say, then collapses in the exhaustion, Read more

Kundai Muringi

Kundai Muringi is a Zimbabwean, who loves nature, words, and soul. Her heart is in humanitarian work, having previously worked with female domestic violence survivors. Currently, she is volunteering with a support group for perinatal mental health, in Port Elizabeth- South Africa, raising awareness about conditions that are still terribly sidelined. She enjoys spending time with her amazing husband and their three beautiful children. Kundai best expresses her creative thoughts and ardent views in poetry.