• Home
    • About Luna Luna
    • EDITORIAL TEAM
    • Archive
    • Foster Youth
    • Legal Stuff
    • Mental Health
  • Read
    • Light: Poems, Prose, Essay & Idea
    • Dark: Magical Living & Shadow Spaces
  • Submit
  • Community
  • Light Magic
Menu

luna luna

  • Home
  • About
    • About Luna Luna
    • EDITORIAL TEAM
    • Archive
    • Foster Youth
    • Legal Stuff
    • Mental Health
  • Read
  • Light + Dark
    • Light: Poems, Prose, Essay & Idea
    • Dark: Magical Living & Shadow Spaces
  • Submit
  • Community
  • Light Magic
recent grimoire entries
Poetry Weekly: Alina Pleskova, Marwa Helal, June Jordan
Feb 19, 2019
Poetry Weekly: Alina Pleskova, Marwa Helal, June Jordan
Feb 19, 2019
Feb 19, 2019
20 Free and Magical Ways to Engage in Self-Care
Feb 15, 2019
20 Free and Magical Ways to Engage in Self-Care
Feb 15, 2019
Feb 15, 2019
11 Valentine's Day dates for badass witches
Feb 14, 2019
11 Valentine's Day dates for badass witches
Feb 14, 2019
Feb 14, 2019
Survival and Truth: How Tori Amos' Under The Pink Changed My Life
Feb 8, 2019
Survival and Truth: How Tori Amos' Under The Pink Changed My Life
Feb 8, 2019
Feb 8, 2019
Poetry Weekly: Monica Youn, Traci Brimhall, Rosebud Ben-Oni
Feb 6, 2019
Poetry Weekly: Monica Youn, Traci Brimhall, Rosebud Ben-Oni
Feb 6, 2019
Feb 6, 2019
How Do We Name Ourselves?
Feb 4, 2019
How Do We Name Ourselves?
Feb 4, 2019
Feb 4, 2019
Your February 2019 Horoscopes Are Here
Feb 1, 2019
Your February 2019 Horoscopes Are Here
Feb 1, 2019
Feb 1, 2019
Kristine Esser Slentz on Polyamory & Being Raised as a Jehovah's Witness
Jan 30, 2019
Kristine Esser Slentz on Polyamory & Being Raised as a Jehovah's Witness
Jan 30, 2019
Jan 30, 2019
Poetry by Brandon Amico
Jan 29, 2019
Poetry by Brandon Amico
Jan 29, 2019
Jan 29, 2019
A Grimoire For Self-Love: A Peek At Light Magic for Dark Times
Jan 28, 2019
A Grimoire For Self-Love: A Peek At Light Magic for Dark Times
Jan 28, 2019
Jan 28, 2019
5 Books I Had No Idea Existed and Must Find at Once
Jan 28, 2019
5 Books I Had No Idea Existed and Must Find at Once
Jan 28, 2019
Jan 28, 2019
Vi Khi Nao Reviews Diana Hamilton's God Was Right
Jan 25, 2019
Vi Khi Nao Reviews Diana Hamilton's God Was Right
Jan 25, 2019
Jan 25, 2019
Poetry Weekly: Omotara James, John Murillo, E. Kristin Anderson
Jan 25, 2019
Poetry Weekly: Omotara James, John Murillo, E. Kristin Anderson
Jan 25, 2019
Jan 25, 2019
Brandon Amico on Why He Doesn't Want to Be Unreachable
Jan 24, 2019
Brandon Amico on Why He Doesn't Want to Be Unreachable
Jan 24, 2019
Jan 24, 2019
How To Become A Freelance Writer: On Starting Out, Discipline & Ritual
Jan 23, 2019
How To Become A Freelance Writer: On Starting Out, Discipline & Ritual
Jan 23, 2019
Jan 23, 2019
Bewitched: When The Velvet Underground Cast an Identity Spell on Me
Jan 23, 2019
Bewitched: When The Velvet Underground Cast an Identity Spell on Me
Jan 23, 2019
Jan 23, 2019
DIY Gift Ideas for The Magical, the Dreamy, and the Crafty
Jan 22, 2019
DIY Gift Ideas for The Magical, the Dreamy, and the Crafty
Jan 22, 2019
Jan 22, 2019
Review of Christine Stoddard's 'Water for the Cactus Woman'
Jan 22, 2019
Review of Christine Stoddard's 'Water for the Cactus Woman'
Jan 22, 2019
Jan 22, 2019
Poetry Weekly: Vanessa AngΓ©lica Villarreal, Jessica Morey-Collins, Justin Karcher
Jan 18, 2019
Poetry Weekly: Vanessa AngΓ©lica Villarreal, Jessica Morey-Collins, Justin Karcher
Jan 18, 2019
Jan 18, 2019
June Gehringer Tells Us What She's Afraid Of
Jan 16, 2019
June Gehringer Tells Us What She's Afraid Of
Jan 16, 2019
Jan 16, 2019
5 Film & TV Inspired Nightgowns You Need
Jan 15, 2019
5 Film & TV Inspired Nightgowns You Need
Jan 15, 2019
Jan 15, 2019
Music Friyay: Stevie Nicks, Sun Ra, Hamilton Leithauser
Jan 11, 2019
Music Friyay: Stevie Nicks, Sun Ra, Hamilton Leithauser
Jan 11, 2019
Jan 11, 2019
Poetry by Fatima-Ayan Malika Hirsi
Jan 10, 2019
Poetry by Fatima-Ayan Malika Hirsi
Jan 10, 2019
Jan 10, 2019
Poetry Weekly: Kay Ulanday Barrett, Devin Kelly, Elizabeth Metzger
Jan 9, 2019
Poetry Weekly: Kay Ulanday Barrett, Devin Kelly, Elizabeth Metzger
Jan 9, 2019
Jan 9, 2019
Poetry by Karina Bush
Jan 8, 2019
Poetry by Karina Bush
Jan 8, 2019
Jan 8, 2019
Hillary Leftwich on Happiness & Why It's Important to Love Childhood Films
Jan 7, 2019
Hillary Leftwich on Happiness & Why It's Important to Love Childhood Films
Jan 7, 2019
Jan 7, 2019
This Moon Playlist Is Everything You Need
Jan 4, 2019
This Moon Playlist Is Everything You Need
Jan 4, 2019
Jan 4, 2019
Poetry Weekly: Chloe N. Clark, Faylita Hicks, Saretta Morgan
Jan 3, 2019
Poetry Weekly: Chloe N. Clark, Faylita Hicks, Saretta Morgan
Jan 3, 2019
Jan 3, 2019
Jordan Rothacker On the Apocalypse, Jared Kushner, and Daily Rituals
Jan 2, 2019
Jordan Rothacker On the Apocalypse, Jared Kushner, and Daily Rituals
Jan 2, 2019
Jan 2, 2019
Your January 2019 horoscopes are here
Jan 1, 2019
Your January 2019 horoscopes are here
Jan 1, 2019
Jan 1, 2019
Aela Labbe

Aela Labbe

On Accepting That I Will Never 'Recover,' But Can Cope with My Mental Illnesses

May 26, 2016

BY KIT MEAD

The pills will keep me safe, it's implied. They don't stop the lights from dancing off the coffee at 10 pm and shining into my eyes as I get a little help to keep the sleep away. It's not what they were prescribed for anyway: No one thought I wasn't just a depressed person.

Everything hinged on doctor's words. Since I was 8, there have been diagnoses, misdiagnoses, prognoses. I had no words to protest the tests and I threw everything you could at the psychiatrist--he added a diagnosis to his list and I listed sideways under their weighted ballast--my hands calloused from constant stress biting. They pulled me aside while the other kids stared and grabbed my hands at school. I didn't know then, but I am autistic, and developmentally disabled people's hands are off limits. They fretted over the rawness but couldn't find any wounds.

Anxiety was one of my first friends and neighbors. The pills will keep me safe since age 8, it's implied. There's always an array of rainbow pills to protect me from life's spills. They don't stop my thoughts from speeding faster than a derailing train and railing on about the need to write my memoir, and fix the mental health care system or--stop me from writing three blog posts and pitching five different stories to different publications. It's not what they were prescribed for anyway: No one thought I was this.

They were prescribed for the sleepless nights spent staring up at the ceiling and plotting a million ways to die. The racing thoughts came later, spilling over into my interactions, bouncing up and smiling like never before, spinning on my heel as fast as a quarter on the table to go write five different research projects.

The dosages went higher and higher trying to solve the readily apparent depression that masked the other episodes until I fell down and sprawled out on a bench in the student cafe, the words slurring over themselves and everything blurred. I thought I was making perfect sense but no one understood--I almost lost consciousness several times. They misdiagnosed me with epilepsy when it was the medications. I almost failed all my classes because no one knew what was happening, and no one suggested a medical leave. What is the price of trying to be functional?

It's so easy to look angry, sarcastic, or dismissive when my face has been twitching and grimacing since I was 16. No one gave me a name for it until recently. It's focalized dystonia from the anti-psychotic that serves as a supplement for depression, currently.

What is the price of being semi-functional, of being able to string words together on the page? These pills don't even keep me safe. I was in the hospital this past January, the knives in the kitchen looming ominously in my head. They don't control the racing thoughts and the speeding derailing train wreck that is sometimes my mind. The system works about as well as the Washington Metro.

What if I had the right diagnosis? Then what?

What if I told a story about more than access to care, though? What if I told a story about something I'll never recover from, only learn coping skills and manage on occasion? What if I told a story that doesn't fit these narratives of recovery and treatment being the only thing people with mental illness need? What if I challenged the concept of awareness that focuses on access to treatment as the sole axis for advocacy? The concept of awareness that mentions mass shooters as what we might become without treatment in the same breath as wanting to end stigma?

I may be working to manage my brain's ups and downs. But treatment is not for everyone. And indeed the phrase β€œtreatment” often involves coercive or involuntary aspects, such as institutionalization and forced medication.

What if I told you I am never going to recover? Would you still think I am your model person with mental illness holding down a job and being in therapy and on pills? What if I told you that the recovery model does more harm than good by teaching people to chase the sometimes impossible? That it encourages us to be as little of an inconvenience as possible?

I have to be one of these people who does things like fight the Murphy Bill and against coercive treatment. I have to be one of those people who rejects the recovery model as the only model we must abide by. There are people who are more visibly marked as having mental health needs. They end up incarcerated in prison, homeless, in hospitals repeatedly, or dead from encounters with law enforcement officers.

They are used as scapegoats for your rights-restricting legislation. They don't fit the recovery model in a very visible way. Society sees fit to then discard their voices as β€œtoo mentally ill” and declares the best solution more hospital beds.

What if I told a story about something I'll never recover from, and it's okay with me to learn to cope? What if I challenged the concept of awareness?



Kit Mead is a blogger on mental health and disability. They are autistic as well as having ADHD and identify as disabled, and have multiple mental illnesses. A person whose gender is undefined and vague, as well as identifying as queer more generally, Kit's work has appeared in QDA: A Queer Disability Anthology. It has also appeared in Aurora Arts and Literary Magazine at Agnes Scott College.

In Confession Tags disability, queer, confessions
← How To Make Chakra CandlesWhy Are We So Intrigued By Beautiful Drowning Women? A Look at Natalie Wood’s Hysterical Glamour →
Tweet us!
Join our coven.
Follow our Instagram
  • Poetry & Prose
  • Lifestyle
  • Art
  • Music
  • Personal Essay
  • Pop Culture
  • Self Portrait
  • Interviews
  • Beauty
  • Social Issues
  • Wellness
  • Wild Words
  • Politics
  • Video Reading Series
  • Place
  • NYC
  • Flash Contest
  • Confession
  • Occult
  • Books
  • Halloween
  • Sex
LIGHT MAGIC FOR DARK TIMES  CAN BE ORDERED HERE

LIGHT MAGIC FOR DARK TIMES
CAN BE ORDERED HERE

Featured
Letters to the Dead: Shadow Writing for Grief & Release
Feb 8, 2019
Letters to the Dead: Shadow Writing for Grief & Release
Feb 8, 2019
Feb 8, 2019
How to Add Magic to Your Every Day Wellness Routine
Feb 5, 2019
How to Add Magic to Your Every Day Wellness Routine
Feb 5, 2019
Feb 5, 2019
Ritual: Writing Letters To Your Self β€” On Anais Nin, Journaling, and Healing
Jan 31, 2019
Ritual: Writing Letters To Your Self β€” On Anais Nin, Journaling, and Healing
Jan 31, 2019
Jan 31, 2019
How Rituals Can Help You Gain Confidence
Jan 17, 2019
How Rituals Can Help You Gain Confidence
Jan 17, 2019
Jan 17, 2019
SEXTING GHOSTS
marvel and moon candles
Tweets by @LunaLunaMag
TONIGHT, Feb. 13, Brooklyn/NYC: join @attheinkwell + Luna Luna for a reading on Self-Love.
.
Readings by @lisamariebasile @joannacvalente  @stephanie.athena  @erinkhar cbwilhelm @lifestudies + hosted by @anditalarico!
.
When: 7-9 p.m. WORD Bookstore, 126 Franklin Street, Brooklyn A sampling of a few of the poets who will be reading at the FEB. 13 event at @wordbookstores for @attheinkwell: @lifestudies + @joannacvalente + @lisamariebasile + @anditalarico (our lovely host) πŸ–€Mark your calendars! February 13, 7pm, Word in Brooklyn Want to get into the writing life? @lisamariebasile wrote a guide to starting your freelance life. All about working from home, money & logistics, ritual and mindfulness, finding clients, developing a portfolio, and negotiating your rates. πŸ™ŒπŸ½ Visit lunalunamagazine.com to read! Our very own @joannacvalente has some images up over at @yespoetry from their #Survivor photo series. (There are more at Luna Luna, too!). πŸ–€ We’re about 200 followers away from 10,000 (!!!!) over on twitter πŸ™ŒπŸΎ Pop over and follow us if you haven’t yet (we’re VERY active there, always having conversations and sharing work and engaging with all of you!) β€” were going to do a giveaway at 10,000. Thank you for the love, it means the world to us πŸŽ‰ LINK IN BIO! WANT TO CONJURE LIZZIE BORDEN? Of course you do. Preorder Lizzie, Speak by our phenom editor & poet @kaileytedesco via the lovely @whitestagpublishing. πŸ‘» The Luna Luna crew! Stay tuned for a reading announcement in February here in NYC. πŸ’œπŸ–€πŸ˜ˆ HAPPY NEW YEARS, friends and readers! πŸ™ŒπŸ½ The lovely @joannacvalente posted your January 2019 horoscopes today. Head over to lunalunamagazine.com to check it out. We have good vibes about this year + we hope you had a beautiful celebration!
.
PS, as Joanna says: β€œA lunar eclipse will occur on January 20 during a full Leo moon is going to be emotionally intense. It will stir up feelings about belonging, identity, and love. It might not be an easy moon, but it will  help you shed any unnecessary habits and relationships. Get rid of what doesn’t serve you.” Start thinking about ways you can release those things or people β€” and what you’d like to focus on instead. πŸ’œπŸ™ŒπŸ½πŸŽ‰

Dark: Magical Living & Shadow Spaces RSS
Light: Poems, Prose, Essay & Idea RSS

powered by TinyLetter

  • Books
  • Confession
  • Halloween
  • Occult
  • Sex
  • Art
  • Beauty
  • Interviews
  • Lifestyle
  • Music
  • NYC
  • Personal Essay
  • Poetry & Prose
  • Politics
  • Pop Culture
  • Social Issues

COPYRIGHT LUNA LUNA MAGAZINE 2018