anxiety
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This Free Black Mental Health App Was Created Two Years Ago. It's Especially Relevant Right Now for Our Community
Jasmin Pierre isn’t shy when it comes to discussing her mental health journey with others. “I’m really not afraid to put it all out there. Like, people know that I’ve been suicidal. People know that I’ve been in a mental institution,” said the 31-year-old mental health advocate and app creator. By being so open about…
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Anxiety Is for Girls, Gays, Wimps, and White People
The second biggest lie that I allow people who’ve read my book, and who’ve heard me speak about my book, to believe is that I’m brave. “How did you find the courage,” they ask, during Q&As at independent bookstores, and through emails and (now) Zoom talks, “to be so forthcoming and vulnerable about your neuroses…
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On Loneliness at 3 A.M. in Lagos
It was 3 a.m. in Onikan, a suburb of Lagos. The street below her window was uncharacteristically quiet. In the distance, she could hear the faint thump of a bass-line and the strained, faint chorus of afrobeat. She listened for the shrieks of laughter and enjoyment coming from the building down the road. In the…
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Play The Healing Game
Prior to COVID, I’d have all of these speaking gigs and book events all across the country; shit was sweet. You know, way back when getting bipped-up—that’s how you say haircut in Baldamore—was normal and I used to order a clean one against-the-grain, leaving-just-enough-hair-to-brush type of fade before every event. And then a few hours…
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'Quiet Storm': A 2-Week Series About Mental Health on VSB
Like many folks who haven’t seen the hit stage play Hamilton in person, I relished the opportunity to watch it on Disney+ when it released on July 3, 2020. Even if you don’t care for musicals—or the subject matter of this particular musical—it’s impressive in its expanse and each of the stars of the show…
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To Navigate Your Mental Wellbeing, You Need to Use Your Body
During a pandemic, your body is the biggest thing there is. I live in New York, a city where, under pre-pandemic circumstances, you can feel everything and nothing at once. But since the first coronavirus case was confirmed here, my life, like the lives of many others, has been contained, no longer ping-ponging from one…
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On Riding the Waves of Grief
“In a split second, I felt like I was drowning.” text In the summer of 2011, I took my very first out-of-country trip to Cancun, Mexico with my family. I relished in the warm wetness of the Caribbean Sea, as the saltiness tickled the space between my toes. 2011 was also rather significant for me…
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These Therapist-Approved Tips Can Help Manage Your Anxiety Around the Coronavirus
“There is the temptation to kind of busy ourselves right now because we have all this free time, so to speak, which is not free time, you know. And so for people who are feeling pressure to kind of be extra creative right now or, you know, do some great work right now, I want…
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Bill Clinton: Monica Lewinsky Affair Was to Manage My Anxiety
Everyone has anxieties. Some of us have to take medicine and others, like former President Bill Clinton, have an affair with their intern. In a new four-hour documentary set to stream on Hulu starting Friday, titled Hillary, Clinton claims that his tryst with Lewinsky during his time in office was one of the “things I…
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This Is Us: Sterling K. Brown Gives Us a Peek Behind the 'Clouds' of Randall Pearson's Anxiety
Just when I thought This Is Us had completely wrecked me, its beautiful emotional terror has found another hidden ventricle in my heart. As soon as I saw the title of Episode 415, “Clouds,” I knew I was about to be treated to my favorite Joni Mitchell song, “Both Sides Now” (fun fact: I actually…