I was on the phone with my mom yesterday when I brought up one of my cousins and how she too struggles with severe anxiety. Hers is so severe that she has had to drive herself to the ER because of panic attacks. Then, my mom mentioned two other cousins who struggle with anxiety. My mom and I joked about how so many of us had anxiety and said that if she had mentioned having a headache or being nervous about something, she would be told, “You’re too young to have headaches or be nervous.” [...]

Why is getting out of bed so hard right now? I feel like I have run a marathon every night instead of sleeping, cleaning my house has become this momentous task that I can never complete, and everyday activities are overwhelmingly hard. I often find myself recently feeling alone, anxious, scared and sometimes numb.nPsychological and emotional trauma is a product of extremely stressful events that destroy your sense of security, leaving you feeling helpless and vulnerable in an unsafe world. Psyc [...]

Adversity is something we’re guaranteed to encounter periodically, and there’s no getting around that. We’re all prone to encountering various challenges, stresses and frustrations. I learned these lessons after the shock and awe of my schizophrenia diagnosis and its initial impact — or rather, disturbance — in my life.nAs tempting as it can be to run away at the first sign of adversity, it’s better to get into the habit of tackling it head-on. For many reasons, but above all, for  [...]

“What’s a piece of advice you would give to your younger self?”nIt’s a popular question I get whenever I talk to speech language pathology (SLP) students. I think it’s also a good question to ask if you truly want to know someone. One piece of advice I would tell my 18-year-old self is to disclose the fact you are a person who stutters (PWS) as soon as possible. Eighteen-year-old me would’ve looked at 27-year-old me and said, “Yeah … no. Why would I do that?” However, it would [...]

I admit it, I’m one of those people who was late to the Billie Eilish party. I had never even heard any of her songs until the 2020 Grammys, when she swept nearly every category she was nominated in, garnering her a total of five awards and catapulting her to international stardom. After that, I purchased her album and was impressed with her unique style, raw expression of emotion and the uninhibited look she presented to the world. I liked her but wouldn’t have called myself a huge fan. nA [...]