Amanda Nicholson grew up struggling to understand why it was so hard for her to socialize with her peers. In adulthood, she’s learned a new way to think about her introversion: social energy is a finite resource, not a wellspring.
Starting mainstream schooling later in life, Jonathan Riley had trouble making friends, speaking publicly, and reading at grade level. All of this piled on with depression meant they had a lot of work ahead of them.
Alicia McClendon has been parsing out the word “forgiveness” for some time now. Can you forgive your own mother for causing you childhood trauma? And what does it mean to forgive while still holding on to your truth?
Cheyenne Ruiz spent much of her adolescence fighting panic attacks, working through depression, and pretending hallucinations weren’t happening. One hallucination pushed her to take recovery into her own hands.
When her uncle called trying to give a cryptic goodbye, Thaís Freita noticed suicide warning signs and saved a life.
Aneta Dabrowska felt the ups and downs of bipolar type II as a teenager, but no one around her knew how to react. When she entered adulthood, Aneta set on a journey to understand her illness on her own terms.
Isaac Nunoofio felt treating his depression was a hopeless cause, and then he found singing.
After a brain surgery left him with anxiety, weight gain, and depressive symptoms, Jakob
Waldron found out what real friends looked like.
by Rachael Lamb
Rachael grew up with a feeling that she was different from others. She experienced anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder symptoms and had regular meltdowns. Eventually these things turned into a problem with substance abuse. Her inability to adapt to change and childhood anxiety created a barrier, how Rachael’s diagnosis of Asperger’s Syndrome in adulthood helped her to understand her past and gain a newfound stability. Once, Rachael could understand what was going in her mind, she was able to take back control of her life. Read more about Rachael’s story!
by Jerzy Jung
I wrote a song called “Everything Will Kill You” inspired by all the times that I’ve fearfully prepared myself for tragedies that have never actually happened.