• Hard to Talk About, but Impossible to Ignore

  by D.Z.

  Names have been changed. Before I learned that I have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), I thought the way my mind worked was normal. I bet everyone recites things to themselves before they’re allowed to fall asleep, 7-year-old me thought. I know everyone has to do a series of actions, touching and reciting things before they leave their house, but it is strange that no one talks about it…I thought when I was 10.

• Accepting My Mom’s Limits

  by Anonymous

  When I was 8 years old, I asked my mother why I’d never met her parents. She said, “My dad was a very cruel man, and every night, he would come into my room and do terrible things to me. My mother knew, and she did nothing to help me.”

• I Had to Leave

  by Jorge Alvarez Lizardo

  It was November 2019, an ash-gray morning. The car smelled like gas. I was in a new school for 7th grade, and my mom was driving me there. Neither of us had eaten anything. I could tell she was stressed and angry.

• The Road to Acceptance at 16.5 

  by J.L.

  It’s an early summer day in June, the last day of finals. There’s a funny sort of feeling, when school ends. You stare out the window in class, glimpsing the beautiful promise of the outdoors, inhaling that sweet smell of possibility.