I Used to Cut to Communicate. Now I Write
The summer before 7th grade, on a gloomy day in June, my foster mother yelled at me. I can’t even remember why, but I went to my room, upset. I didn’t have much emotional control: I was only 12 and had already gone through too much. My biological mother had horribly mistreated me. I went […]
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I Had My Anxiety Under Control, and then Coronavirus Came
One day last year, during my sophomore year, I was locked in an elevator at school with about 12 people. It was like being in a cage where I did not know if we were going to get out, and I was worried that we might run out of air. Claustrophobia had always made it […]
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Easier to Write it
My big sister and I moved in with my aunt when I was 9, and I was angry. I expressed that by fighting with my sister. But fighting made me depressed. I’d say things to my sister like “I wanna die,” and “I don’t wanna be in this world.” I didn’t tell anyone else how […]
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Bringing Trauma Into View
Tomas Casado-Frankel spoke to Represent about how to safely guide a youth who’s been through trauma toward self-knowledge and self-acceptance. He is a licensed marriage family therapist and a graduate of the child and adolescent psychotherapy training program at the William Alanson White Institute. Represent: What is disassociation? Tomas Casado-Frankel: Dissociation is a mental escape […]
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