So you’ve booked an online therapeutic art session. Great! Art as therapy can be a fun and expansive way to explore your psyche, heal neglected wounds, and understand what makes you tick. But if you’re new to this practice, a quick Google search might provide more questions than answers, especially…

Capitalism makes mental health care look like a grift. Here’s my reality. — I ruptured one of my lungs last week. Good times! At 33 years old, it’s a privilege to say I’ve never been injured in any significant way before now, and even now it’s has hardly been show-stopping; two light workouts in the gym instead of my regular five, with no…

Polyamory has a lot of love to give…but as usual, trauma survivors need to be more careful than most. — As I’m walking down the street in East Portland, I pass by a woman in her early twenties who says to her friend, exasperated, “Why is everybody in this city poly?” A couple of times a year I’ll get lonely (or bored) and open an account on a dating app…

Autistics feel just as hard, if not harder, than neurotypicals. Society is just ill-equipped to see “alternative” methods of grieving as valid. — One winter morning in 2006, when I was 15 years old, my mom left the house for her office job like normal. Enduring a persistent and growing headache, she decided instead to take a detour to the hospital for a check-up. She never returned. Following the scariest phone call of…

Trust me; that closure you want isn’t worth it. — Narcissism has been a hot topic for years now, and for good reason. To put it simply, narcs are a nuisance — physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. They’ll threaten to take everything you care about, destroy your self-esteem, turn your closest friends against you, and manage to dole out absolute…

Say it with me, guys: manic pixie dream girls aren’t real. — It is time, once again, to talk about the manic pixie dream girl (MPDG) — the Hollywood trope of a blue-haired young woman with zero regard for social mores, a free spirit who sets her inner life aside as she gleefully encourages a sullen main character to stop sulking, chase…

I never signed up to be female validation on demand. — Lately, my neighbor, who is usually pretty chill, has been asking me out to random events on a moment’s notice. Am I coming to the apartment mixer? Am I free in an hour for drinks? …

It is damn near impossible to find books about autism that are written by people who are actually autistic, much less one written by a woman. There are precious few societies, if any at all, that are built with neurodivergent people in mind. We’re expected to dance the dance of…

There aren’t enough hours in the day to properly grieve for our losses. — In the early days of lockdown, in the face of incredible uncertainty, many of us tried to put on a brave face and make the most of our time indoors. Making bread! Learning at-home workouts! Going to stupid daily walks for our stupid mental health! We stayed optimistic, knowing in…