Disorders
Finding Peace in My Bipolar Diagnosis
Every day, I work with young people across the country, helping them to share stories that aren’t always easy to vocalize. They disclose their own battles with mental health, the ways they’ve seen loved ones struggle, and so much more. They sacrifice comfort and privacy to share their story to let others know they are…
Confronting the Winter Blues
As a junior in college, I was fortunate enough to study abroad in Cape Town, South Africa over winter break. Getting out of the northern hemisphere provided me the chance to experience a second summer during January. Spending weeks seeing the sun reflecting off the white-sandy beaches of the Western Cape and feeding the beautiful…
Growing Up with Undiagnosed OCD: How My Diagnosis Changed My Perspective
I want to start by telling you about the bane of my existence in elementary school: card changes. Each day all the cards started on green, but if you did something wrong, the teacher would give you a card change. This meant you had to go in front of the class and change your card…
Why I Will Never Forget My Eating Disorder
It’s been about two years since my five-year battle with anorexia ended. Five years of waking up to the sunrise, praying the day would end sooner. Five years of hating every inch of my reflection. Five years of pure isolation. Five years of counting every scarce calorie I let myself eat. Five years of trying…
Changing Weather, Changing Moods
I’ve always struggled with the changing weather and lack of sunlight brought on by the fall season. As the months move from September to October to November, I find myself staying indoors and in my bed. The times I do leave my room, I am persistent on only wearing black leggings and baggy sweatshirts to…
Walking on Eggshells
Careful Watch your step You may break me. Stop! No sudden movements I’m very fragile. I’m very sensitive. My mother always tells me it’s like walking on eggshells talking to me. She has to be careful what she says and how she says things, or else I get upset and defensive. “Are…
The Good Place: Bringing Light to the Nature of Anxiety
Three seasons of The Good Place later, and I am still as invested as when the series first began. The concepts the show puts in place of heaven and hell, morality and ethical codes, are depicted as traditional concepts and systems that must be reformed. The concept is clever enough, but the characters are what…
I am not the illness – the illness is in me #WorldBipolarDay
Bipolar disorder, also referred to as manic-depression, is a condition in which one swings between extreme highs and lows. It is an illness that consists of both euphoria and debilitating spouts of depression that can make day to day life impossible to manage. The moods are considered outside of the norm. But what is the…
#NEDAwareness Week: 5 Common Misconceptions about Eating Disorders
Are you perplexed by who can get an eating disorder, what causes an eating disorder to develop, and other aspects of this condition? Your confusion is likely due to the plethora of inaccuracies that are spread about eating disorders. In honor of National Eating Disorders Awareness Week, held from February 25th to March 3rd, here…
#NEDAwareness Week: Lessons from Recovery
I stare at the walls of my room, covered in pictures yet somehow appearing blanker than ever before. Nights have always been comforting, a time where I am guaranteed to be alone and can linger aimlessly into nothingness. I am numb. The sound of my stomach growling is a lullaby to my ears, only to…
Active Minds is the nation's premier nonprofit organization promoting mental health for young adults.