humanity

Mental health is a fundamental right; the future of humanity depends on it.

I will lie to you, that's the truth.
I sit at a table, the sun long set, the friend across from me with an upside-down bottle in hand, watching the last fated drops fall to his very empty glass. As I drink the last of mine, the all too familiar clinking of a semi-melted ice cube rattling around as its bell tolls the end of our conversation. I look at the bottle and think to myself that I have drunk enough, and it’s best to be wise and get a cab home. A lie if ever I heard one. I’ll have just one more I tell myself. This is a thought I will laugh about come sunrise.
By Leonidas Nikiforuk5 years ago in Psyche
Of Sanitiser and Sanity
It seems like an odd time to count your blessings, when the world is focussed on counting its afflictions, punctuated by 20-second choruses of Happy Birthday To You as we dutifully rinse the plague from our hands. But this has been the year of counter-intuitive, unintended consequences.
By Ian Vince5 years ago in Psyche
FOUR BAD GOOD THINGS!
. FOUR BAD GOOD THINGS! TO BE THANKFUL FOR! . . 1 I am thankful for a brutal genetic father. . Not Mr Lombardi (one of the best men in the world, who I call Dad!)
By Ross E Fortune Lombardi5 years ago in Psyche
There are times when it is good to have a clinical psychopath in your life!
. There are times when it is good to have a clinical psychopath in your life! . OR . (When “Bad” mental health turns “Good”)
By Ross E Fortune Lombardi5 years ago in Psyche
My Experiences With Homelessness
How many of us take small things for granted? How often do we take time to stop and appreciate things like toilet paper? Probably more of us since the pandemic struck, but my point remains intact. Many of us would reason that we don't have time to just sit and think about how good we have it, because we're busy making sure it stays that way. As valid as that is, the fact remains that having small comforts in you life brings you security. The fact that you have a bed means you'll have a comfortable place to sleep, four walls protect you, and if you've paid your bills, you'll be warm and dry.
By David Leeson5 years ago in Psyche
my journey
hi, i’m Joanna. over two years ago, while struggling with bouts of depression and a general discontentment with where i was in life, i decided to start writing poetry again (after many years of not writing anything) i didn’t know exactly what it was that i needed besides a creative outlet, so i told no one about the account and began posting anonymously. sharing my poetry with people in the past always felt a little nerve-wracking, like i was baring my soul. it left me feeling exposed and i wasn’t a fan of that feeling. however, my favorite english teacher and my creative writing professor in college praised me for my ability, and often shared my writing with the class. sometimes it’s nice to have an audience. what would i even call the account? well, i started writing haikus in school, so i dug out an old one from college, the last line being “i just hold the pen” yeah, that will work! i wasn’t aware of what my poetry account would actually take the form of, much more than a creative outlet.
By ijustholdthepen5 years ago in Psyche
She
Not judging a book by its cover, as we are often told is an arduous act as one’s facade can be highly pristine, making transparency through correspondence unattainable. If you looked at this woman who graces you with a smile and the most delightful personality, you wouldn’t see the struggle, grief, and pain that lay beyond her eyes. Some people never escape a life of dismay. They become numb to their perils and accept the hand dealt to them. And some make it through the horror, become more robust, and leave the life of treachery behind them. She was a beautiful rose that grew through the strongest of concrete.
By Diana Doubrava5 years ago in Psyche
Cha Cha Changes
I have decided that I am a mess. It took me a while to realize this. I have been given a lot of labels throughout my life but I think this one fits pretty well. I have a complicated past and an uncertain future. I realize this could be anybody, but I can only account for MY MESS. Maybe you want to hear about it although most people don’t. It’s pretty cringy. It’s extremely messy. I have recently understood that good and bad are relative terms. You may think I’m good, you may think I’m bad, I think I’m definitely both, but I am the only ME that I can be. Let me introduce myself.
By OneMooreCrystal5 years ago in Psyche
The Effects on Children who Witness Verbal Abuse Between Parents
When a child witnesses verbal abuse between the two people they love most in the world, it is devastating, and it affects them deeply. They grow up with the idea this type of love and drama is normal, and the effects can linger long after they become adults and leave their dysfunctional home.
By The Writer Chick5 years ago in Psyche
My Own Demise
My dry mouth ajar, lips cracking open and bleeding with my dry tongue screaming at the sky. The wind eats my ragged plea to not be heard by anyone. I fall to the ground and rain starts to speckle my skin feeling cold followed by a warm gust of wind. I can see the swirling funnel in the distance heading my direction but I cannot bring myself to unfold my legs and stand to save myself. I just sat there in a crumpled pile unable to make sense of what was happening anymore. How did I get here after all I have done and strived to avoid this and yet here I am in the exact place and situation I thought I could escape. I always knew my life was going to end prematurely, I had planned on it actually to escape the pain of existence. To avoid my eyes that have always looked longingly into themselves in their reflection in the mirror pleading with themselves to stop resisting the inevitable. Being stubborn has always been a trait that roared louder in my Leo blood than any other. I naively and idealistically thought I could change my fate and set to worm at doing so without a plan or means to carry out the non existent plan. Years passed and life, despite minor struggles and ignoring indiscretions and disrespect suffered at others hands, I ignorantly tricked myself into believing that I could just shove all that down inside and pretend it didn’t happen or make excuses for a reason behind why it happened and explained it away and accepted the abuse as warranted. My eyes never met another person’s, my voice no louder than a whisper, trying to shrink my fat body maybe melt myself like ice or out run my skin and just be pure wind into as tiny a position as was possible hoping no one would notice the elephant in the room or apologize for the space I took up. Walking around apologizing for existing and smiling and making it into a game I played to see how long I could play before my character expired. As the winds increase and my crumpled body remains firmly planted to the ground in direct line with the funnel I felt myself lift from the ground being dragged into the funnel and to my demise my ragged cry still going unheard forever. Before there was nothing left of me my final thought haunted me no one will notice any way because you never mattered. Why try when the funnel is actually you dragging yourself into chaos and undermining all the precious efforts taken in vain. I am my own worst enemy because I never mattered to me either. There’s a part of me that cries out to save myself but deep inside I know that no one values me therefore there is nothing worth saving anymore. I believe that once you have settled for broken it is too difficult to see anything other than all my shattered pieces scattered all across the floor and I have nothing left to attempt to even cheaply fashion it together. I lost my grandmother and grandfather two years ago and she always prayed for me which made me feel like I meant something to her and she would always say she knows I do not believe her but she loved me. During her last week on this earth she was very confused and in and out of reality. She thought I was there to help her like a therapist and she shared to me the therapist that she always worries about her granddaughter or me but she doesn’t know this and proceeds to tell me that she just feels so bad for her because she is so heavy and people do not accept her and what a tragedy that she is so heavy she would be so pretty if she would just lose some weight. I became extremely upset and told my mother and aunt what had happened and that I wanted to leave and they stated she was so confused she did t even know she was talking to me and she wasn’t being mean or trying to hurt me because she didn’t know. This hurt me even more. I have never in my life been touched by a person that actually cared about me or accepted me. I was also not allowed to make sound when I cried because it annoyed my father and least of all was I allowed to have any aversive feelings about how I was treated because after all I was heavy and do not meet acceptable standards. I learned to just be quiet and when I cried tears would just stream down my face but my mouth stayed closed and all that surrounded me was silence. There were times my father would not allow me to eat dinner stating I had probably eaten enough throughout the day to sustain my current heaviness and did not need any more food and there were times that I had not eaten all day but would be denied food due to being overweight. My mother would yell across the room at a party to question whether or not I wanted to actually eat another cookie that I had in my hand because after all I had already had one. I at one point spent two years working out and eating healthy and lost 150 pounds and everyone was so proud of me except me. When I looked at myself I didn’t recognize myself. I felt bigger then than I had when I weighed 150 pounds more. I felt unsafe and lost in a unfamiliar foreign body. Then guys started showing me attention and it was unwanted but none the less I got it and I knew if anything happened I could not protect myself. All I had ever tried to do was to keep people su attention off of me so I could be safe but fat or thin I received attention that I did not want. Being fat made me more of a target for people’s eyes filled with disdain and disgust when looking at me. I could not hide what I was and people could not hide their judgment nor did they try. I worked in a psychiatric unit and patients would call me the four hundred pound tattooed freak. One woman told me I was beautiful and that she wrote a poem about me and proceeded to sing it to me all night as I was placed outside her door to watch another patient and she referred to me in her symphony as the beautiful sumo wrestler, so majestic. Despite my efforts I find myself stuck between continuing to earn my life no matter the hit, punch, nasty word or look, the unwanted touching, being ostracized and not accepted because I believe or believed I had so much to give and was much more capable than the life I was leading and just finally giving in to popular opinion. I find myself thinking maybe I am not more capable of anything other than where I am at and what if my life just proceeds to get worse. Then why did I fight so hard to save and claim a life that is tanking so quickly and is so out of control that it is beyond saving? To keep living alone, lonely and worthless. Why fight the inevitable plus I am just tired so unbelievably tired of always and I do mean always having to prove that I am worthy of being in the world. I wish oh do I wish that things could have been different that maybe I was a diamond in the rough and I got kicked into the river and the water could wear me down to make me smooth, acceptable and just like everyone else but all I continue to feel is jagged, rough edges and I keep cutting myself on them.
By Nat Roxxx5 years ago in Psyche
The Man, the Myth, and the Madness
I sat on the edge of a sheer cliff, where no one’s sight penetrated the darkness of that pit met its ground. Wound tighter than and coiled steel spring, I gripped the dark earth with all my might, and leaned over the edge, undeterred from my desire to know that final destination, because it was my fault. I had always been my fault, or at least that was what I had been told. Over, and over a voice taunted me with my fate. I was fated to fail.
By John Michael Poling5 years ago in Psyche
Our Life and Times
A few days ago it was raining, cold and windy. The whistling of the winds reminded me of the book/movie Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. It is based on a wild, passionate story of intense love between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, a boy adopted by Catherine's father.
By She Writes5 years ago in Psyche