stigma
People with mental illness represent one of the most deeply stigmatized groups in our culture. Learn more about it here.
When Reflection Feels Like Accomplishment
There is a subtle experience many people recognize but struggle to name: the feeling of having done something meaningful without having actually changed anything. It often follows long periods of thinking, talking, organizing, or refining ideas. The mind feels clearer. Tension feels reduced. There is a sense of closure or completion. And yet, when examined closely, nothing in the external world has moved. No decision has been enacted. No behavior has shifted. No responsibility has been embodied. What changed was internal orientation, not external reality.
By Peter Thwing - Host of the FST Podcast25 days ago in Psyche
Boys Don't Read?
It's very clear that by this stage of the post-modern world we have entered the post-literate stage. A few years' back people were using the phrase 'post-truth' to describe the presidency and its lies and later on, the term post-capitalist popped up. But what does the term 'post-literate' actually mean and why are we getting it all wrong?
By Annie Kapur25 days ago in Psyche
Meeting My Dead Best Friend Twice: . AI-Generated.
I was twenty when the world cracked in half. My mom died suddenly that spring, leaving me reeling and raw. Then, just months later, Jimmy told me over a nice casual lunch on Broadway in Vancouver— plates filled with burgers & fries, the sharp tang of ketchup mixing with the faint diner coffee bitterness—that the spots on his arms weren’t an injury. They were the first signs of something the doctors were just starting to name AIDS. He was scared, but still grinning like the slutty optimist he was, his voice low over the clatter of dishes. “California,” he said. “They need fresh faces. Mature ones.” He practiced saying James instead of Jimmy, rolling the name around like it might armor him against whatever came next. I laughed, called him a goober, and hugged him so hard the waitress looked away; my cheek pressed against his warm shoulder.
By Thaidal Zoner27 days ago in Psyche
Lifelines
I’m not afraid of the darkness. It’s been home for so much of my lifetime. I’ve known the darkness for far longer than I’ve known the light. But you, my friend, were the light. It’s why we all had you on a pedestal. You were someone, something none of us had thought we could ever be. Your death marks, not the end, but in fact a new beginning. That singular light in one individual is gone but you shared your light with so many of us that it will never truly be gone. You were a lifeline that kept me hanging on desperately when all seemed without hope. In a dark place, you reached out to me and offered friendship, a hand. I was standing there on the brink of oblivion, apathy dripping from my fingertips and you approached in quiet confidence and struck a note that awakened my soul, and every time over the next 16 years that I found myself ready to dive into the darkness and disappear—that same note would reverberate in the depths resonating me back into this sphere we call “reality” and would hand me that lifeline all over again. Their presence may be fleeting at times but lifelines leave ripples which will ever remain true. When you reached out a hand to me as I began to collapse into the oblivion, you stopped me and without even knowing it, you provided me with a safe place. That memory has been a companion through some very dark times in my life. The vibrations in my soul gave me purpose and helped keep me from letting go.
By Sarah Lynn Jones29 days ago in Psyche
Tragedy in Rhode Island: When Violence Shattered an Ordinary Day
The gunshots in Rhode Island did not begin when the weapon fired. They began much earlier, in a mind that slowly shifted from frustration to fixation, from anger to action. By the time the trigger was pulled, something inside the shooter had already hardened.
By Aarsh Malik29 days ago in Psyche
How Tarot Truly Changed My Life. Content Warning.
How Tarot Truly Changed My Life: Tarot consists of specific cards containing spiritual symbols and a particular energy that can only be read by someone with high energy or high vibrations. Therefore, you shouldn't listen to just any reader, as some readers use it solely for financial gain. Instead, focus your energy on someone whose spirit you feel connected to.
By Ashrakat Elnagyabout a month ago in Psyche
When Thinking Feels Like Action
There is a particular satisfaction that comes from understanding something clearly after wrestling with it for a long time. The mind settles. Tension releases. Pieces line up. In that moment, it can feel as though real movement has occurred, as though something meaningful has been accomplished. That feeling is not imagined. Cognitive resolution is a real event. The danger appears when that internal resolution is quietly mistaken for external change, and thinking begins to substitute for action rather than prepare the way for it.
By Peter Thwing - Host of the FST Podcastabout a month ago in Psyche
