Happy Girl Winter: How to Overcome Seasonal Depressive Disorder
Dance, Artform, Sport: A Brief History of Pole Dancing and How it Helped My Mental Health
Reactions when revealing that you are a pole dancer vary. There are people who fully respect and genuinely support you in your endeavours and others who outright judge and reject you based solely on this one fact. Then, there’s everyone in between. It’s difficult to decipher when people are hiding their disgust underneath a mask of friendliness or if people who aren’t outwardly disparaging you simply have a false understanding of what pole dancing is…
Same Face, Different Brain: Learning to Live with Chronic Pain and Ableism After a Brain Injury
Things have gotten better, but the pain has never truly gone away. And I have had to spend all seven years defending my injury. Defending its existence. To doctors. To strangers. To family. To friends. It never mattered that I had documentation. That anyone who truly knew me could see the change in me, even if they could not describe it. It never mattered; they could not see it…
The Trivialisation of Mentally Ill Celebrities by the Media
Tabloids continued to conjure up salacious rumours and post personal reports on the stars’ lives. TV shows, magazines and social commentators would make light of the ongoing trauma of these women and brutally mock them. Instead of acknowledging that these women were being taken advantage of at the expense of their sanity, the media proceeded to harass them with their trademark joviality…
‘Madness’, Medical Misogyny and Misdiagnoses: The Woes of the Chronically Ill Woman
I would smile and nod along with whatever they said without ever asking questions. I didn’t understand what my mother had been trying to teach me. I let a lot of professionals tell me I was perfectly healthy even though I was struggling because I trusted them to know my body best. I got used to thinking, ‘that’s weird’, and going about my day in situations where most people would rush to a walk-in clinic…
A Love Letter to the Strong Women in My Life
I’ve become a strong woman throughout the years, and God it’s hard and painful. Sometimes I wish I didn’t know the right thing to do because then I wouldn’t have to choose. But I’ve never felt alone: I am strong, and I’ll always carry some of your strength with me…
Ten Subtle Signs You’re Improving on Your Self-Love Journey
During my ongoing self-love journey, I have come to realise that I produced plenty of results that I had minimised and overlooked, which I am anxious to share with those who may be doing the same thing. Here are ten subtle signs you’re improving on your self-love journey to remind you that even small steps take you closer to your destination…
‘As a Woman, Taking Care of Myself was the Least Productive Thing I Could Do’: Learning Slow Living
Last year, I was ordered off work by my physician to rest. I was advised to relax. For many of us that sounds ideal, and we instantly picture a spa robe and cucumber slices. This was not the case. While speaking to a therapist, I told her I found it a near-impossible challenge to relax. I felt lost, lazy, and like I was failing for not doing enough in my day. She told me what I was feeling was the dreaded G-word: guilt…
More Than a Tick-the-Box Process: Five Things I Learned Through Grief
I refuse to be another voice in the void sharing the five stages of ‘normal’ grief to try and console people who have had their lives flipped upside down. Instead, I want to suggest five life lessons that grief has provided, a solace that makes them mean something rather than diluting them down into a tick-the-box process…
‘More Painful Than Childbirth’: Suffering from Cluster Headaches
The excruciating pain began to take over my life. I was having a number of attacks in a day, which in itself was exhausting, but what I also struggled with was the impact on my mental health. Trying to explain to people that I felt unwell yet again and the suddenness of an attack was terrible, and the pain would heighten very fast…
A History of Anxiety Attacks and How I’ve Gotten Through Them
I recall how my breathing changed, making it hard to tell my mom what had happened. I sat shaking, trying to calm myself down, not knowing what was wrong with me. Now, I know I experienced my first anxiety attack that day. But at that point, I didn’t know anxiety was something I struggled with…
Raising a Child in Uncertain Times: Modern Motherhood in a Pandemic
The reality of my new responsibilities set in. Unfortunately, my partner’s employment had also been restricted during much of the pandemic and at the time of our baby’s birth he could not afford to take any time off, nor did he have the capability to work from home like so many other parents. Due to social distancing, my family was unable to help me care for the baby…
How Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder is Both My Enemy and Friend in My Writing Process
The word OCD creates numerous images in our minds. Most of the time, those images are related to cleaning excessively or the order in which we prefer to do things. Those elements, of course, can be something that someone who was diagnosed with OCD can struggle with. However, this disorder can mean so many other different things – and for each individual, there is a distinctive experience…
Representation in Mental Health Matters: A Queer Black Muslim Woman’s Guide to Therapy
It is easier for some to blame my parents for the environment I grew up in without seeing how Western colonialism, slavery and racism perpetuated the generational trauma that has haunted my family, that the world’s Islamophobia and thereby the pressure to be perfect the entire course of my life was what broke the camel’s back. These are the things that I struggle to articulate when tasked with explaining to those who ask why I need to talk specifically to a queer black professional…
What TV Doesn’t Tell You About Anti-Depressants
For most people this will be the only exposure they get to this type of medication. It means that people like me, who rely on this medication to function, feel the need to hide that part of themselves because they don’t want to be perceived as unstable. It also means that people who really need this type of treatment may be reluctant to take it as they see it as belonging to a special group of ‘crazy’ people…
The Gendered Expectations and Politics of Care Giving
Only recently have I come to realise that emotional labour and the physical aspects of my caring have become deeply intertwined with my gendered experience. I grew up in a house of mostly women, and I grew up where adults required care…
Why Aren’t Menstrual Pain and Mental Health Seen as a Valid Reason to Miss Work?
We wouldn’t think twice about missing work and events in general when it comes to the flu or other physical discomfort, so why do we overextend ourselves when it comes to our periods? People who menstruate deserve and quite simply should take time off when they are on their periods as they are a normal and natural thing we cannot control. The shame around periods just pressures us into pushing through the day rather than resting…
Parenting in a Pandemic: Lessons from a Teen Mom
When the Coronavirus pandemic hit, I wasn’t prepared for the truest reality of being a single mom. I’d never had to rely on myself so fully before, neither as a parent nor as a young woman. Suddenly, I couldn’t call on my family for physical support. My daughter couldn’t visit her grandparents because the risk of feeding COVID to their vulnerabilities was simply too great…
Lost in Translation: How Language Around Women’s Pain Creates The Pain Gap
How can such different language be used to describe identical pain? As a scientist by training, I turned to recent research for answers. The critical problem appeared to be simple and, unfortunately, unsurprising. While kidney stones can affect everyone, ovarian cysts only affect people with wombs…
Growing Pains: My Experience of an Ovarian Cyst and Being Ignored by Doctors
The sharp stabbing feeling had been a bursting ovarian cyst. My body had been telling me that something was wrong. When the doctor told me why I had been in pain, I felt relief wash over me. Not at the diagnosis itself (that part was quite concerning), but at the fact that I had been right. My pain was real and had actually meant something…
Make the Music Stop: What it Feels Like to Live with Borderline Personality Disorder
Borderline Personality Disorder is like a never-ending battle with your brain. I have constant feelings that are excruciating and full of hopelessness. But I feel completely empty, void of all feeling, at the same time. Where’s the balance? Please. Make the music stop…