I am honored to be included on Stigma Fighters. No matter who we are, we cannot face Mental Illness alone. Sarah Fader and Stigma Fighters are doing important work sharing, discussing and opening the conversation. Say NO to Stigma, YES to empathy, understanding and kindness. The time for positive change is right now. Stigma Fighters : Jacqueline Cioffa It hurts, Ya’ Know by Jacqueline Cioffa The earliest picture I have of me lives in
As I sat across from my mother and really looked at her face and tiny frame, I saw her age, frailty and worry lines for the first time. Her life has not been easy. It has been fucking brutal. She has endured and cared for too many loved ones suffering mental illness. Every decade of her life has been spent caring for a loved one, someone other than herself. Not like
How much money and greed is worth even one life? Shame on you, politicians for not having the decency and moral conscience to fight for gun control, for taking the NRA’s blood money and for not giving a fuck after another mass murder. Yes, I understand that pathetic argument that “guns” do not kill people, but guess what they actually do. Why does anyone need an assault rifle? They don’t
The Unwilling Participant Some idiot had the bright idea to hang a birdcage outside a locked window on a mental ward. It hung from metal steps dangling like a goddamn Snickers bar, only filled with birdseed and shit. The rustic, red paint had chipped away seasons past. Maybe it was part of an arts and crafts afternoon, who the hell knows? I used to stare at it for hours, tapping
She and I were star stuff symbiotic, dear, precious friends, old lovers who finished each other’s sentences. – Jacqueline Cioffa “Her salt mine seas pacified the storms dwelling harmonious in one body. We’d spend a decade exploring, feeling the heat of the sun, flinching in the biting winter freeze, experiencing the mesmerizing, transitory alive moments in color and traversing the vast corners of the earth, boldly as one. We’d
The Coolest Thing About Me I have arrived at the supposed highway, halfway mark. That’s a median guess based on statistics, there are no guarantees. I have learned a few lessons along the way. I am not more of any old thing, prettier, richer, kinder, or smarter. Sure, I was granted a great big superficial life for a brief moment filled with stuff, lots and lots of stuff. All disposable.
I didn’t start out like this. I was a goddess, a fearless warrior eager for the unchartered. I was happy at birth, an easy smiley baby; always trusting, overly naïve. I took for granted that kindness was around me. I grew up, acquired the hate and problems and stuff and distraction. I do not want to live in any old house with four walls, filled with rules and regulations and
Forever Betrothed To The Night By Jacqueline Cioffa The rotten apple bobs atop the pond scum drowning and dunking under the sweet, brown silence of murky still waters. And me, I understand. In tune with the dark, the death concept softens the breath in an instant. My heart does not skip nor quicken under the harsh white rays of a chilled, September sun. It is calmed and quieted, intoxicated by the still-birth possibility. The
You can’t calm the storm, so stop trying. What you can do is calm yourself. The storm will pass. – Timber Hawkeye #DepressionAwarenessWeek
Body temperature. 95 degrees. Chills. Muscle aches. Blurred vision. A sampling of the shiteous Benzo taper tsunami symptoms that are my current mood. I ask my mom if I have a seizure will she take me to the hospital? “Probably not.” Frothing and foaming at the mouth in fetal position? “Nope.” This is not her first carnival ride of crazy. Please excuse me while I go dunk my head in a snow bank to cool