Nervous About A-Camp? Let’s Do Some Grounding
What I’m getting at here is that staying grounded (even though it sounds like an oxymoron) gives you the ability to move.
mental health
5 Years Sober (Or, the Meanest Lesbian I Know Punched Me in the Face)
“I knew that somewhere along the way, I stopped being sober for her and had started doing it for me — and that realization hit me harder than my own fist.”
Sad Enough Songs: On Julien Baker and Depression
Depression is not forever because it always ends, and depression is forever because it always comes back. It won’t work if I only want to stay on the days when my brain breaks through the muck. Turn Out The Lights is a meditation on wanting to stay on the very worst days.
5 Ways To Fight Back Against Seasonal Affective Disorder
I’ve been dealing with SAD all my adult life, and especially since I moved to the northeast where daylight lasts about as long as my lunch break from November to March. I’ve learned a lot about coping, and about making things easier on myself by noticing and addressing my symptoms before I’m in the midst of a full-blown depressive spiral. SAD isn’t fixable for me, but here’s how I’ve learned to fight back against it.
Autostraddle Roundtable: All About Our Mental Health
A lot of the requests from readers for advice and for personal writing are about mental health, so today we thought we’d share with you about our brain situations, what helps, what doesn’t, and what we’re still working on.
“Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice” Joins a Growing List of Video Games That Explore Mental Illness
Nothing is straightforward about Senua’s journey.
You Need Help: Your Friend Needs a Therapist, You Don’t Want It to Be You
You’re tired of feeling like your friend’s therapist; how do you opt out of that without just avoiding them forever?
All the Small Things: 5 Simple Self-Care Methods For Your Daily Routine
Sometimes getting out of bed and onto the couch is the biggest thing you will achieve in day, and that is okay.
Thank you, Chester Bennington: The Queer Strength I Found in Linkin Park
“Chester Bennington’s anger was so present and so empathic. It told me it was okay that I had it too— that I wasn’t alone, that my feelings were normal. It replaced my fear, and it helped me survive.”
Beyond Self-Care Bubble Baths: A Vision for Community Care
If I and other people with certain disabilities are going to survive, we need care — and not from ourselves. Because when it gets really bad for me, self-care is literally impossible. In those moments, I need community care.
Y’All Need Help #6: You Can Still Trust Yourself
Realizing you’re bisexual after you’re married to a dude, coming to terms with this awful therapist, and never ever ever U-Hauling again. It’s time for some good old fashioned advice!
FRIDAY OPEN THREAD: What Creative Pursuit Keeps You Sane?
So, about that time I was having a mental break.
I Never Meant for My Hair to Be the Way Back to the Lighthouse
“I thought changing something on the outside would change the wrecked ruin of me on the inside. I thought somehow the inside would get a memo from my outside and get into shape. It didn’t, but my hair is the first way I was able to gain autonomy over my body.”
Queer Crip Love Fest: Insider/Outsider
“I feel affinity for parts of Asian communities, neuerodivergent communities, queer communities and kink communities. I don’t really feel completely invested in one place. It’s always been like that.”
We Are One In the Same: Experts Explain What Self-Care and Community Care Really Look Like
We all know self-care is important, but what does that actually mean? I talked to four experts in mental and social health care to find out more about the nuts and bolts of what self-care and community care look like for queer communities.
Feelings Rookie: Hopping Off the Plane at L.A.X. With a Dream and a Cardigan
Fitting into Los Angeles wasn’t going to happen for me. Or so I thought, until I stopped trying.
We’ll Have Sex Again, I Promise
The joke was that we had to have sex before the election, because if Donald Trump won, I never wanted to be touched again. It was a joke. A joke.
Feelings Rookie: How Teri Polo Made Me Cry in 4.5 Minutes
“Four-and-a-half minutes was all it took to throw me back into this huge river of feeling, and it was exhilarating and rewarding and made me feel light and warm in a place that had been cold and damp for a long time.”
Feelings Rookie: How to Apologize
“Even if I didn’t think I was hurting her feelings, she’s telling me I was. So what is my end game with my current strategy – make her feel badly for bringing up an emotional issue that she’s uncomfortable with? Make her feel like dirt for being honest with her own feelings?”
Sara Quin, Ruby Tandoh and Others Share Their Mental Health Stories in “Do What You Want” Zine
“With a strong intersectional focus, this is a zine about mental health for all people, in all walks of life. We believe that mental health care and support should be a right for all.”