I wake up to greet my old friend, Anxiety.
How will I battle his belittlement and negativity today?
“Distressing but not dangerous,” I tell myself, “strive to be average.
Do the things you fear to do and wear the mask of security.
Endorse for every effort, then keep moving forward.”
Margie Nairn wrote this story based on the tools taught by Recovery International.
Marian fumed at Todd for knocking over her juice. A storm marched in above them at school. Marian remembered a joke, and the cloud disappeared.
“Mommy! I can control the weather with my mind,” Marian said.
After extensive psychiatric evaluation, Marian was given medication.
The weather has never been nicer.
Anthony is a writer who loves his family. He works with numbers by day and words by night (or early morning). He is obsessed with his bloodhound, wife, and daughter, and has a love affair with Indian food.
Overweight girls don’t have many dates
My mother told me when I was 15
You might never get married
The diet doctor prescribed appetite-controlling pills
When I was still so hungry
Mother said, “Eat some lettuce”
I knew lettuce wouldn’t fill the emptiness in my stomach,
or in my heart.
Miriam Stein is a social worker, writer, and the author of Make Your Voice Matter With Lawmakers: No Experience Necessary. See more at makeyourvoicematter.com.
Davie survived the Middle East conflicts, where he witnessed the atrocities he thought he had handled.
Returning home, full in body but mentally adrift, he found an unscalable wall around all he had loved. He drifted, with doorways becoming his refuge. He froze to death last winter.
Lest we forget.
Gordon Lysen is a fledgling writer.
Hiding
Fear,
Depression: Sadness.
Pain,
Struggle: Symptoms.
Hiding; to function,
work.
Conflicting: thoughts=
you=
delusions=
you.
Where does the illness end
and I begin?
Tell me!
Mr./Mrs. Society?!
Where do I begin,
and the illness end?
Blocking.
Blocking, medicating a piece.
A piece of the whole.
Of me.
Hiding.
Nineteen-fifties medical protocol was shock treatment.
Mother’s psychiatrist put her in the hospital for her “breakdown.” She crocheted socks in the bleak ward.
She couldn’t remember much after her release.
She was never crazy, simply lonely for my wayward father.
He didn’t believe in psychological hocus-pocus.
He left us anyway.
Leslie Sittner has been writing prose and poetry for the last two years hoping to avoid the psych ward. With print stories in the Apple Tree and online work in Silver Birch Press, 101Words, and 50 Word Challenge, she has so far avoided admission.
“Please! Tell me!”
“It’ll be disturbing…”
“Look, I got you out of that place, hid you here, all to find out what you know about me. Not knowing is driving me crazy.”
“John… You’re the one hiding, inside yet another of your scenarios. You’ve lived in this facility twelve years.”
Jennifer L Freed has fun trying to meet the challenge of 50- and 100-word stories. Her poetry and flash have appeared in various on-line and print journals (including 50-Word Stories). Find more at jfreed.weebly.com.
She had tiptoed through life, always on the periphery of happiness, teetering precariously. The decision brought her peace.
It was not impulsive, but rather long contemplated. It quelled the voices.
She slid over the bridge railings, and as her body slammed into the water, the motorists continued busily on above.
Alison is an executive in a mental health agency. She knows that fostering hope is the most important element of treatment, and she witnesses recovery daily. The trauma of completed suicide continuously haunts her. This is her fourth 50-word story.
They tried to take away my best friend, but I wouldn’t let them, so they locked me in a white room made of pillows.
They thought my best friend was making me “mentally unhealthy”, but this room is making me mentally diseased.
At least I have her: she is me.
Catelin Churchill is a strange girl currently living in a strange world.
Rabbits jump around the green grass, soaking up warmth, delighting you. Daffodils are up; robins have returned. You survey this dazzling day with bright eyes.
Without warning, you retreat into your world. “When will it stop snowing?” you wonder out loud. “It’s so cold!”
The Alzheimer’s again… We miss you.
Deborah Davis is a former equities trader. She lives in Richland, Michigan, and enjoys fellowship and encouragement from her kindred spirits in the Richland Writers’ Circle.