You are currently browsing stories tagged with “mental illness.”
Couchsurfing Collage by the author To protect the privacy of the individuals depicted, some names and identifying details have been changed. --------------------------- Spring 2025 Your whole life story is in that backpack and you hand it to me one page at a time. Your toxicology report, your birth certificate, psych evaluation, social security card. The gray elastic band of your [...]
In the beginning, there was a man who preached on the streets of my Upper West Side, Manhattan neighborhood. He was a Black man—actually, coffee-bronze would be a better description of his color. When I first became aware of him, he appeared to be in his early sixties, though he might have been a little older. It was hard to [...]
Kate and Harold Shapinsky A little boy sits on the wood floor. In a small room with a rocking horse in the corner. A stuffed teddy bear is on his pillow. There is a small soft blanket, the one he holds at night, in a chair. The smell of the room is comforting. Twenty years later, standing in the middle [...]
