I have a bedroom confession to make.

In my condo I have a queen size bed fully equipped with a mattress, box spring, and oak frame. It’s the most comfortable bed I’ve ever slept in.

And sometimes I don’t use it.

No, it’s not because I’m too lazy to wash the sheets, or because I fall asleep on the living room couch, or because I find my way into someone else’s bed after a night at the bar. It’s because I occasionally sleep on the floor.

You heard me right: at least one night per week I purposefully get my beauty rest on the ground next to my bed. I’m talking full-on, back-against-the-carpet snoozing.

Why would I, a grown man with a fully-furnished apartment and spacious bed, choose to sleep on the floor from time to time? (more…)

I’m not a psychologist.

I’ll repeat: I am not a psychologist. I took five psychology courses during undergrad: intro, social, abnormal, personality, and developmental. Almost enough for a minor, but not enough to change my amateur status. I passed, for the most part, with middling grades in all of the courses except for one (I aced developmental, which I can only attribute to my girlfriend’s insistence that I’m still mentally thirteen years old).

I don’t understand depression, either.

I’m part of the lucky ninety-something percent: the ones who haven’t found themselves on the short end of a diagnosis.

I don’t – perhaps can’t – understand the struggle of those in the remaining fraction of the populace, because my brain allows me to experience the world “normally” according to the American Psychiatric Association. I can sympathize with their suffering, but that’s all I can do; I can’t live in their world, and I can’t will myself into depression any more than they can will themselves out. (more…)

“Look me in the eye”, he screams. “Look at me!”. I shudder, gazing at my untied shoelaces. I can’t look up. I can’t look you in the eye. But why? What’s stopping me? Guilt? Shame? Embarrassment? Vulnerability? The man staring back continues to berate me, taunt me, challenge me in ways that make me want to shatter the mirror in front of me. It isn’t just others I fear, it’s myself. 

What am I afraid of?

Depression won’t reveal the answer, as much as I wish it would. Anxiety refuses to reason with my rational mind. Those of you shaking your heads know those days when you can’t get out of bed, when putting your feet on the floor seems akin to walking across hot coals. These are the days when I can’t seem to muster enough courage to look myself in the eye. But even if I can, I don’t really feel like I’m looking at myself. It’s as if I’m looking at a stranger, a stranger with lifelessness in his eyes. This is not a stranger I particularly want to be friends with, but we’re connected at the hip. This is my darker half, but that does not mean it has to stay that way. No sir. (more…)