Category: Guest Stories

Guest posts on addiction, suicide, mental illness

One can never predict the future. Or change the past.

by Liza Sierra

Strong emotional content and suicide method referenced. If you are in crisis, text “help” to 741-741 or call 988

John Michael Carrington, 12/27/1984 – 05/07/2018

At 17, I enjoyed loud music, hanging with friends, and like any other teenager, online chatrooms. One day I got a message from a guy who was 19, single, and from the U.K! I was completely fascinated by him, being that I’m from Texas.

We exchanged pictures, and phone numbers and we both got into so much trouble for running up our parent’s phone bills back then. (Sorry Mom). It was hard … Read more...

Addiction and substance misuse pose a safety risk at work. A personal story.

by Leslie Hanson

“Your mom isn’t answering the phone.  I’m worried about her.  Can you check on her?”  Immediately following this text, my cell phone rang with a familiar phone number. It was my mother’s cousin, Laurie. I knew why she was calling.  Cousin Laurie spoke with my mother daily and routinely called me when she could not be reached.  

Over the years, I came to address these calls with diminished urgency as experience taught me my mother was either ignoring the calls or incapacitated by her addiction to opioids. Cousin Laurie had designated herself as my mother’s keeper … Read more...

Dear mother. You cannot reduce me.

by Jeannette, daughter of a narcissist and a psychologically abusive mother

You may see the title of this and think that it’s an attack…it’s not. It’s an opportunity for us to grow together and teach future generations to break the cycle-the cycle of narcissism. Restore empathy and unconditional love.

I am the child that so desperately wanted and needed your love. I needed you to show me my self-worth, and teach me how to maintain boundaries in order to survive this sometimes cruel and bitter world. You didn’t…

I am able to extend the empathy and unconditional love that … Read more...

THC warning labels where marijuana is legalized can help curb a homeless crisis

by Heidi Anderson-Swan

California’s SB 1097, warns about the mental health risks of high potency THC

Denver on the unofficial stoner holiday April 20, 2021

California’s SB 1097 seeks to mandate warning labels on all marijuana products, with special warnings on high THC content.

The warnings would include the increased risk for mental illness. Recently, Colorado led the nation to become the first state to mandate stronger warnings on the high potency marijuana concentrates to its consumers.

It is a matter of public health, and human decency, that California consumers as well as other citizens of states where marijuana has … Read more...

Reflections of losing my twin brother to overdose

By Jill Cichowicz

When my mom asked me to read the reflection at Scott’s funeral, I thought to myself, “How can I sum up a relationship and a bond that I shared with him for 38 years in 3-5 minutes?”

Reflections from Scott’s Memorial Service

Luckily, you all had the pleasure of knowing Scott as well, he was obnoxiously obsessed with the Chicago Bears, could sell anything to anyone, argue about anything to anyone that would debate him, and had a charming way about him as well as dashing good looks.

They say you get in the biggest fights with … Read more...

Confessions of a stressed-out teacher and what I’m doing about it

4 Tips for Managing Teacher Burnout and Stress

by Tammy Ozolins

Ms. Oz, middle school health and PE teacher

I know other educators can agree with me when I say I surely did not learn how to manage my own mental health as a teacher when I was going to college to prepare myself for education (as far as teaching virtually, and hybrid and in the pandemic). I teach Middle School and I have now been teaching for about 17 years. Last year and this year by far has been the toughest yet.

We always have had duties, but this … Read more...

THC, young minds, and suicide

by Bart Bright

Bart, his wife, his now-deceased son, Kevin

My son, Kevin, died by suicide on August 14, 2018. He was 29.

The last articulate words I heard him speak were, “Cannabis has ruined my life.” He suffered many episodes of Cannabis Induced Psychosis, a diagnosis in the DSM-5. Over the last two years, I have communicated with hundreds of parents whose children have suffered from Cannabis Induced Psychosis.

In Colorado in 2017, marijuana was present in the blood of 32% of suicides, ages 15 to 19 according to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. My friend … Read more...

A life worth living    

by Emily Sherman

I didn’t wake up one morning and decide that life was meaningless. It took years of feeling hopeless.

Growing up, I was in countless hospitals, treatment centers, and group homes

I could not stay in the community for longer than three months. I became institutionalized and was in the mindset that life was nothing but white walls, a mattress, and forcible injections. My life felt as though it was not worth living.

I had the diagnosis of Borderline personality disorder and receiving the diagnosis made me feel validated, but also like I was untreatable. My suicidal thoughts … Read more...

Transforming pain after your child dies

by Tamara Harvey Braswell

When my 19-year-old son Logan died in a car crash more than five years ago, I soon became engulfed in a new relationship called Grief.  I capitalize the word because I consider Grief more than a word.  Grief is a gut puncher, water-filled lungs, blinding head banging pain that holds a person hostage.

That’s how Grief feels at first.  I am talking about traumatic Grief – the kind of Grief that drowns a parent in sorrow and despair when he or she loses a child, whether the death be from a sudden cause, such as an … Read more...

Confessions of a chronic suicidal thinker

by Heather Pate

Heather Pate is on the right

I struggled with Self-Injury and Suicidal Ideation (aka Suicidal Thinking) from the ages of 15-18. I would call myself a Chronic Suicidal Thinker. I spent a lot of time coming up with plans. There was a lot going on at home and had some stuff I was struggling with from earlier in my life. I thought what I was struggling with was something I did wrong. I didn’t want to get in more trouble.  

My family

See, my father blamed and shamed me about something earlier in life, and now looking … Read more...

Learning From Loss

by Dave Maddox

Chris and Dave from left to right

When my friend Chris ended his life in 2021, like all his family and friends, I was stunned. He was the last guy I would have thought could have done this. Upbeat, optimistic, with a ridiculous sense of humor, time spent with Chris always left me worn out from laughing. It also always left me feeling better about myself. That was his special gift: he was genuinely interested in everyone he met and could make everyone he knew feel smarter, stronger, braver, and better looking.

Our friendship was forged years … Read more...

Pain medication leads to an endless cycle of family pain

by Cathy Jo Harper

Jason Brooks Harper

When Jason was 16 years old, he had a car wreck. Six weeks of physical therapy was followed with a new wonder drug for pain, Vicodin…..and a lifetime addiction to opioids.

Through relapses, college, rehab, counseling, the Marines, my life was filled with anxiety over how to help, anger at the situation, and fear; I was losing my son, my firstborn. How would I survive? How would his siblings survive without their big brother, their confidante, and at times their enemy?

Addiction and/or mental illness soon becomes a game the whole family gets … Read more...

Young Adults, I have been in your shoes

By Tammy Ozolins, Middle School Teacher

It is such a cliché I know; your world feels like it is crashing down, you have no energy. You even feel like your world is getting darker and darker and all you want is to see a little glimmer of hope. Your days are long, and you are tired of it all. The walls are closing in on you and you cannot breathe.

Does this sound familiar at all?

That is exactly how I felt when I was at my lowest point of depression (I manage and cope with Bipolar Disorder-which was not … Read more...

We didn’t know…a poem about surviving the suicide of a sibling

by Tammy New Hallstein

Tammy New Hallstein and her brother, Ryland New Jr.

We didn’t know that you were drowning in emotional distress

We didn’t know that you decided that the way to save yourself was to end your life

We didn’t know that we could cry in our sleep; that we could cry so many tears for so long

We didn’t know that the last time we saw you, heard your voice, or shared a conversation, a phone call, or text with you, that it would be the final time

We didn’t know that it was possible to feel … Read more...

Lost and found journal entry from after my daughter’s suicide

Maggie Moyler

by Charlotte Moyler

November 16, 2021 

While straightening up my office, I ran across a ratty-looking notebook. It had no real meaning and I almost tossed it. I am quick to get rid of things. A quick glance through it, made me sit down and read. Unusual entries gave greater meaning as I look back over the years since losing Maggie to suicide. 

Here is my long-forgotten journal entry… 

April 7, 2014 

I have a story to tell but I don’t want to tell it. It is a very sad story full of great pain and suffering. … Read more...