There is not always a choice. We tell it to our friends, our children, our Christian brothers & sisters: “You always have a choice.” It’s a disciplinary strategy, a way to keep us from making excuses, a way to take responsibility. But it’s not true. There is not always a choice. For me, there was […]

There are moments that I don’t know why I am where I am. I don’t know why I’m at this school so far from my family, taking classes that often feel irrelevant; working towards a major I’m no longer certain of and a future I don’t know how to bring into existence. Moment by moment […]

There is a reason why I don’t talk about God very much when I talk about mental illness. I think it’s because I’ve felt its sting myself. On hard days—days where panic rose in surges like a loose wire inside my chest, where I felt as though something inside my head had caved in and […]

To the girl who faces mental illness every day: You are not alone. I have been in your shoes. I have walked this road my whole life, and I have fought that battle to get out of bed in the morning, to stand through the trembling anxiety, to keep breathing when depression wanted to strangle […]

This post originally appeared on TWLOHA’s blog. (View it here.) Dear friend, I know how you’re feeling. I know the exhaustion that stretches across your skin and the emptiness returning to your chest after a long year. It has been a long one. You’ve survived so much. I know you want to huddle in bed right […]