God’s angels held back the car as Rose intentionally ran in front of it. I grabbed my little girl, held her, and began weeping. Why would a child try to kill herself? Why does God allow such brokenness? The air froze in my lungs as Rose told the doctor that she wanted to die and […]
I fight against harm perpetrated both by the myth of the Strong Black Woman and the stigma my culture attaches to mental illness every day. Since 1619, America nurtures me to mute my emotions, my pain, and my fear.
I’ve had my share of youthful indiscretions. (Mom, please exit here and look at some of my baby pictures instead.) Not least among these was that time in college when my roommate Marie and I finished finals early. The cumulative stress from the completed semester was palpable. So we let loose like any other restless […]
I remember three holes in the wooden post of my childhood bunk bed. One contained the bolt that connected the frame together and the other two were empty. They were meant for adjusting the height of the lower bunk, but we never did. The empty holes were insignificant to the rest of the room, unimportant […]
It’s the most popular toy of 2017. Fidget spinners are being compared to Furbies, Tickle Me Elmo, even the hula hoop. If you’re a parent and your child hasn’t yet asked for one…just wait. A few days ago, my dad e-mailed me an article about the current phenomenon that is the fidget spinner. “I see […]
My sister and sat in a dark theatre waiting for the movie Silver Linings Playbook to begin. I knew from watching the previews that the movie was about mental illness, but that’s all I knew. I found myself squirming: How would this movie impact my sister and I? Silver Linings Playbook is the story of […]
“Oh, how much sadness and sorrow and suffering there is in the world, both in the open and in secret.” – Vincent van Gogh Who can discover their own worth when time and sickness have worked so hard to convince them it is a myth? *** I sing a solo when I am […]
What Mental Illness Is Empty. Sometimes I just feel empty. My body is heavy with exhaustion so that my arm flops down to the table. It’s not even that I’m sad. Just, empty. Void of emotion. And honestly, I don’t care. Yeah, that’s depression. Tight. Often I feel tight. All my muscles are tense and […]
Dear Brother, I miss you. I really do. I know you are not far and I can see you whenever I want, but it’s not the same. You’re not the same. I’m not the same. Mental illness has changed everything. It came in quiet, a current we didn’t even feel sweeping us out. We kept […]
Like a newborn baby, skin so soft, eyes so wide open or in precious slumber, hair silky from a fresh bath, swaddled in cotton–I awoke to life, to a New Day. It was just after three days unable to breathe, unable to do for myself. I was in a cocoon of unknown. Hope is a […]
Dear Portia, How do you deal with toxic or mentally ill people who have harmful behaviors and stay sane? You have no choice but to deal with them—they’re your family or your boss. How do you get them to seek the help they need? Or, to understand they have an issue? JP Dear JP, I […]
I have never been a very good runner. In the short time that I tried to run, I was pathetically slow, did not have very good form, and managed to injure my ankle. That is mainly the reason why I find the Bible’s beautiful running metaphors to be about as effective as the ones about […]
This essay is an excerpt from the anthology Soul Bare: Stories of Redemption published by Inter Varsity Press in August 2016. In 1977, my mother left my brothers and me with sitters to go looking for an apartment and didn’t return for days. When she finally did, after what most people considered a “lost weekend,” my […]