9 Ways To Get Through A Bad Bout Of Anxiety
After a while, you get good at riding the waves. If you live with chronic anxiety, you’re not alone. An estimated 40 million adults suffer from some type of anxiety, according to the Anxiety and...
View ArticleWhy My Ex-Husband And I Still Hang Out
Call me crazy, but I think our new relationship might just last a lifetime. It’s the end of summer, and I’m sitting in the hammock in my backyard. The kids are downstairs watching a movie, and I’m...
View ArticleMy Mother Is Alive And I Mourn Her Every Day
I haven’t spoken to my mother for eight years. My mother lives somewhere in western Texas — I think. Maybe east of El Paso a bit? When I sat down to write this, I pulled up a map of Texas. I’ve only...
View Article13 Ways To Know If Your Friends Are Actually Real Friends
Half of your ‘friends’ might not even like you. The other day on my Facebook feed, one of my friends posted a status update asking if we were really her friends. She’d linked to an article from the New...
View ArticleWhen I Was 18, My Parents Arranged My Marriage
Like many women, I’m no stranger to gender discrimination. My parents moved to Australia when I was just one year old. From the very beginning, I saw my mum and dad work together in the household, in...
View ArticleCalling Me Fat Isn’t An Insult, It’s A Compliment
C’mon, it’s not even a creative insult. It almost always happens like this. I’m walking down the street and some guy honks his horn or shouts out of the side of his car. Or maybe he’s walking down the...
View ArticleThis is The Kind Of Woman I Know I Want To Be
Who is the woman I want to become? The older I become, the more I realize that I’m truly sculpting into the person I am supposed to be. I’ve broken free from stereotypes and have broken the mold of a...
View ArticleI Feel Like I Owe My Black Daughter An Apology
I get teary-eyed at the thought of explaining racism to her. It’s strange to think that at the end of the year I will be the mother of a daughter. I still feel weird when I say it out loud. It isn’t...
View ArticleWhy I Feel Like A Total Fake (And How I Deal With It)
After all, no-one else has a clue what they’re doing, either. Something weird has been happening recently. First, a friend asked if I could give her any advice about breaking into the writing business....
View ArticleHere’s What You Need To Know About Borderline Personality Disorder
From someone who lives with it. So you’ve seen Single White Female, Fatal Attraction and Girl, Interrupted and you think you’re totally clued in on what BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder) is all...
View ArticleWhy I Must Commit To Self-Compassion
I worry that granting myself grace will make me feel, or become, selfish. I don’t remember the exact words, but I will never forget how I felt as I wrote them. My pen sliced the page as a butcher’s...
View ArticleMy Hardest Breakup Was With A Tree
I’m learning to accept that I can’t have them as close as I’d like. I just broke my own record for the longest and toughest breakup of my life. Eleven months, fourteen days. They were like no man I’d...
View ArticleIt Took Me 31 Years To Get Over A Comment About My Body
Content Warning: Child sexual abuse and sexual assault. When I was five, I owned a bright yellow bathing suit; which was just fine and dandy for mucking about in our backyard paddle pool that mum had...
View ArticleHow I Recovered From Being In An Abusive Relationship
The viciousness of other humans can result in so many broken souls, but it doesn’t always have to be this way. Anyone that has ever been in an abusive relationship can tell you that the effects of...
View Article6 Scientifically Proven Ways To Avoid Having A Nervous Breakdown This Christmas
Between family fueding, crowds, and overpriced everything, it doesn’t always feel like “the most wonderful time of year”. In spite of all the festive advertising campaigns designed to pull at your...
View ArticleWhy I Compulsively Lied To My Therapist
If therapy meant talking about my feelings, that meant I had no other choice except to dress up the truth. I was one of those kids that incessantly lied through her teeth and was remarkably talented at...
View ArticleWhat I Learned About Feminism While Working At A ‘Breastaurant’
The notion seemed genius: women profiting from their own objectification. I stood smiling while twirling a hula hoop around my bare waist. It was the middle of February and far too cold for the low-cut...
View ArticleWhen Getting Out Of Bed Feels Like Climbing A Mountain
This was not how today was supposed to unfold. My toe caught the butt of a rock and sent me careening to the ground. I skidded across the forest floor, leaving bits of my flesh embedded in the soil....
View ArticleIt Took Me Years To Realize I Deserve Good Things
Sometimes we have to hit rock bottom before we realize how far we’ve fallen. I hate the word normal. There’s no such thing. Or rather, what’s normal to me will be abnormal to someone else. Remember...
View ArticleThis Is The One Thing Holding You Back, According To Your Zodiac
It’s an insecurity you’re probably not even aware of. If you say you don’t have any insecurities, we call BS. Even the happiest, prettiest, most successful people have insecurities that bubble up to...
View Article