a constant

excerpt from WHAT ITS LIKE TO HAVE SEVERE ANXIETY

Jacklyn Krol

You cant wrap your mind around severe anxiety unless youve been through it. I wish people would take it more seriously. But explaining something you feel is hard. How do you capture the real essence of whats going through your mind and body? Feeling an [anxiety] attack is one of the strangest sensations Ive ever felt. You literally feel like your body is going to simultaneously collapse and explode. I experience weakness, stomach sickness, dizziness, tremors, breathing difculty, heart palpitations, and fear that it can and most likely will get worse. My attacks come randomly, usually with no trigger. Whats bad about my anxiety is the fact that seizures, breathing problems, and heart problems have started to coincide with them, adding a level of fear you couldnt imagine.

Still, even though my anxiety disorder is very real, and not just misplaced fear, I wont let it dene who I am.

excerpt from I AM NOT SOME BROKEN THING

Michael Hedrick

In my seven years of living with schizophrenia, one thing that keeps coming up, the thing I spend my time trying to rationalize away is

For a long time I tried ghting against the delusions of criticism by acting the way I thought I was supposed to act. I maintained a script of verbal and non-verbal communication that I thought would dispel the things they were making fun of me about. For some unknown reason though, the fakery was obvious no matter how hard I tried to act the right way which lent even more credibility to the rumors and accusations I thought I could hear them saying right outside of earshot or the laughter behind my back. Call it a serious ego trip when you perceive that the entire world is watching you and worse, making fun of you. I believed it though.

Schizophrenia is not a death sentence if you dont let it become one. Im a living testament to that.

excerpt from WHAT ITS LIKE TO BE MANIC

Gaby Dunn

I think: I have to write this essay or read this book or clean my drawers out or oh god, what if I wrote a musical? What if I started a Tumblr with pictures of dolphins in sunglasses? Why dont I have an article up on McSweeneys? I could do that! Why dont I have a new show at the comedy theater? I could make that happen! I should do it right now. At 1 a.m. on a Tuesday. I should go to grad school for biology! I should apply to be a Fulbright scholar! I should move to Beijing! Let me Google all those things. Then its three hours later and Ive learned a few phrases in Mandarin and looked up good science graduate programs and bought a book on eBay about musical writing and none of this is actually useful. Ive just made myself crazy with expectations and self-imposed musts.

When I am manic, I am also a irt. I see everyone as a potential sexual partner. I wrap my self-worth in whether or not I can get someone to irt back. I put all my (literal) eggs into getting someones (anyones) attention. When I am manic, I want to be wanted. In college, I was put on medication for this condition that made me have a hysterical, tearful panic attack on an airplane. That is also part of being manic. Theres the downside. The swing back. The pendulum coming back around to immense sadness and lack of hope. Ive laid under my covers for four days in the dark, until my mom sent my ex to come drag me out of bed. Ive hidden out in my brothers suburban house for a week, a weird ghost in pajamas lurking his hallways, unresponsive. Im PRODUCTIVE and then I am numb.

If I could choose not to be manic, would I?

excerpt from DEPRESSION DOESNT CARE WHAT YOUR LIFE LOOKS LIKE ON PAPER

Angele Maraj

I hated feeling sorry for myself. As far as logic could tell me, I had no reason to feel sorry for myself. I was smart; I was talented; I was successful and had friends. My parents may have had their own issues, but I knew they loved me with all their hearts. I was not a victim of any abuse, I had not really been bullied and I had an ostensibly bright future ahead of meif I could manage to make it that far. When I thought about life, when I wrote it down on paper, I liked it. I wanted more of it. But see, thats the thing depression doesnt care what life looks like on paper. It doesnt give a damn about what you tell yourself about how great life is and could be.

The thing is, it doesnt get better; rather, if youre resourceful and determined and lucky, you get better at handling it.

And that is something that took me a long time to understand and an even longer time to talk about.

Mental illness is a very powerful thing. If it is with you it is probably going to be there until the day you die. I am trying so hard to break mine, but it is not easy. It is my toughest ght ever. Frank Bruno

ARTICLES
Krol, Jacklyn. What Its Like to Have Severe Anxiety. ThoughtCatalog.com. N.p., 14 Jan. 2014. Web. Hendrick, Michael. I Am Not Some Broken Thing. ThoughtCatalog.com. N.p., 10 May 2013. Web. Dunn, Gaby. What Its Like to Be Manic. ThoughtCatalog.com. N.p., 7 Aug. 2012. Web. Maraj, Angele. Depression Doesnt Care About What Your Life Looks Like on Paper. ThoughtCatalog.com. N.p., 12 Feb. 2014. Web.

PHOTOS
All photos from ickr.com Cover: P9050039 by rakewellcharlie; Anxiety: Anxiety by mathewchrisodoulou; Schizophrenia: Full body view of young woman with long hair sleeping in bed by marlene_ ford_photography; Manic: ; Depression: Depression by RebeccaLynnPhotography8