Stories about: mental health
Being diagnosed as an autistic person was the best thing that has ever happened to me. It just didn’t feel like it at the time.
As a bit of an oddball child, I didn’t have a lot of friends. I was teased for a sexuality I didn’t yet realise, and for a gender identity I couldn’t yet fathom. It wasn’t until my teens, when I found my fellow queers and self-proclaimed weirdos, that I experienced a sense of community. Again …
During my formative years, my self-esteem and social skills were damaged by pathetically inadequate sex education.
I’d suppressed it for so long, never coming to terms with what had occurred, never acknowledging it.
Nevo Zisin is a Jewish, Queer, non-binary activist, public speaker and writer. In this Archer Asks, they discuss their new book ‘The Pronoun Lowdown’.
Content warning: This article discusses sexual assault, institutionalisation and trauma. I have found the experience of writing and performing my work about my trauma of rape and institutionalisation a healing process. Someone on Facebook, who had not spoken to me for about two years, messaged me out of the blue and said, “I’m trying …
I stopped seeing masturbation as something I needed to get over and done with. I stopped seeing it as something I needed to overcome.
As continuing lockdown conditions in Melbourne and other parts of Victoria impact heavily on marginalised communities, the CEO of drummond street services, Karen Field, spoke to Archer Magazine about the support they provide for those doing it tough. Drummond street are supporting vulnerable communities who are particularly affected by the pandemic, including sex workers, international students, …
I started sugaring for the money. Living out of home and watching your bank account decrease with every bill is a tiring experience, and after a gut-wrenching and generally nauseating break-up, I decided it was time to change that.
As a raging homosexual who is also Hard of Hearing, I’m sorry to tell you that disabled people and queer people have once again been failed by our society.
Growing up in an Islamic household, I had no clue what sexuality entailed. Love wasn’t really about love – it was about making your parents happy. My grandmother’s desire was for my mother to have an arranged marriage, and so my mother dutifully complied. All I knew about love was that it occurred within a …
The portrayal of trans and gender diverse people in mainstream media can be described as woeful at best. The lack of positive representation can lead to feelings of inadequacy, shame and isolation for many. Conscious of the need for people to stand up and make a difference, proud transgender woman and advocate Cassy Judy decided …
Content warning: This article discusses eating disorders. This time last year I was struggling to stand. If you asked what I was having for dinner, it would be something the size of a canapé, except devoid of any excitement (or seasoning even). Forming simple sentences required every ounce of effort imaginable, and still my words …
Content warning: This story contains details of sexual assault. As a young teenager, I knew my queerness. It was as real to me as the floor beneath my feet, and the freckles spotted across my face. I knew who I was despite my homophobic school, despite very few people around me detecting anything about my …
In a hilarious skit about the exclusion of women from barbershops, comedian Geraldine Hickey mocks the idea that women are so threatening to these spaces that they need to be barred from them. Arguing against the notion that barbers should charge women more for haircuts, Hickey quips, “it’s not like you’ve got to cut around …
Sometimes I feel like an intruder in queer spaces. OCD paints you as the liar, but only to yourself.
Navigating thought and space as a disabled queer: Where do the quiet queers go?
When Hannah Gatsby asked ‘Where do the quiet gays go?’, I thought, ‘Finally, someone else feels my pain!’ I had never felt more heard. Between being bisexual, being more disabled by my environment than by the disabilities themselves, and in my existence as a person of colour, my queerness has never been seen as fluorescently bright, …
Human bodies are trouble. They’re frightening and chaotic and often riddled with insurmountable paradox. All at once they are us – the site of our sensations, experiences, identities – not us – governed by unconscious, primordial systems, sometimes fiercely at odds with our desires and internal self-concepts – and perhaps most frighteningly, ours – like …
I hold the thread and pinch one strand free from the four. I pull high and slow the way Mum taught me. This is a lie. I embroider quite well but YouTube was my main teacher. I consider the harshness of the word ‘lie’ as I stitch this thread with others of different colours: hues …
It was a Thursday and I was at work, sitting at my desk in a second-floor open-plan office with no windows. I walked over to the printer, swiped my staff card and waited while the pages of my report assembled themselves into a neat pile. Then it happened again, more powerful than before. Images flashed …
PTSD can erode the relationships around you and it can erode yourself. For me, the safest way to reconnect with my body has been through my own touch.
Each time I hear someone’s story of gaslighting, it’s as if they’re describing my own. Sometimes, those painful memories come flooding back.