By Liz Fullwood

The mice never developed the words freedom, earnest, envy.

I am a scientist. I am supposed to create change. I hear my family, my mentors raving about my work and how I will bring a better tomorrow. “Make sure you solve Alzheimer's before I'm too old,’ my aunt jests. “I can't wait to see how you revolutionize medicine,” my grandmother coos. Yet, day in and day out, I go into the lab, observe the behavior of my mice, do an analysis, and then go home; Nothing changes. This cycle repeats over and over and over again, but it's not just the 9-5 job that cages me. Culture is claustrophobic; Nothing ever satiates this tasteless haze of desire. Our motives and minds are driven by the undying hunger for achievement and the fruitless life-long pursuit of happiness. Why do we frantically accomplish but listlessly live? We are asked what we want to be, and what goals we want to reach, never considering the alternative; I don't want either. I am an orca at SeaWorld, trained to perform, to please— but even if the hoop changes, it's still the same jump at the end of the day. How long am I expected to perform the act in which I was trained? I am grateful for my privileged experience, and I am still looking for a way out of the enclosure they call the modern lifestyle.

In a way, I am jealous of the enclosure the mice in my research facility dwell in.

The lab mice have food, clean water, housing, toys, trained professionals to look after their health, and a quick and painless death. They are never aware that they could be aware, and they never dream of anything outside their containment. Their suffering is brief, and they have a higher quality of life than most humans. The world is falling apart, and all we are doing is filming it. Both the forest and the tongues of the people are on fire. Children are dying, the rich keep getting richer, and water is not deemed a human right. Currently, my transfeminine, Jewish girlfriend is struggling to find housing due to the current political climate. I work over 50 hours a week to pay for a place to sleep and to put food on the table; It is never enough. I can’t help but wonder if there is more to life than this.

Lab mice may be poked, prodded, and undergo experimentation but they are never expected to be more than what they are.

All I want is to be human. Yet, I can only actively be another cog in the capitalist machine; that is how you survive. In today's society, you can’t have achievement without sacrifice, you can’t have love without grief, and you can’t have pleasure without addiction. So where does one go when chaos is all there is outside? One folds within. My bed is a foam pit and my spirit toddles on a tightrope of dysphemism. All I want is to curl up and dissolve in the innocuous embrace of my lover. I want to exist in each breath we breathe together and be free of my own head space. My psychiatrist deems it depression and writes me a note for happy pills, but that’s not it. I've been to the pits of despair and lived my middle and high school years in a constant state of apathy. This current hopelessness has too much yearning; is this grief? I lay on the navy-blue couch in my 3rd -floor apartment and watch as traffic passes by. The sirens that used to put me on edge are now just dull background noise. I turn on my phone and scroll through Instagram. Terror, death, destruction, cute pets, and the latest pop culture gossip all held on my tiny screen. Everyone has a cause they are fighting for, an opinion that you are not supposed to disagree with. I can't help but wonder if being humane is not the practice of quiet benevolence but rather perfecting the art of scratching a phantom itch. Scientists say creatures are born performing the skill that is essential to survival: giraffes are born walking, sharks are born swimming, and humans are born crying for help.

The mice live in isolation and are never able to form their own mischief.

I have a community. There are people in my life who listen to me, who actively care for me. In this I am blessed. This world may be exhausting, and life may be a sexually transmitted disease that ultimately ends in death, but unlike the mice, I am not alone. I have been able to find people who are now close to kin. They are my motivation each and every day to get out of bed, to work the 9 to 5. I feel like blunt scissors, desperately trying to make a difference but never able to fulfill the one thing I was made to do. Yet, I am held, someone decided to give me a chance and then kept me around. So, thank you, all of you, for showing me love and compassion. Each laugh and every cuddle bring me hope for a better tomorrow. The mice will never understand the bliss of their situation, but they know to be content with their enclosure. So, though it drains me, I will do my best to be content with mine.

Author Statement

I search for understanding how to operate in today's world I found that we have domesticated ourselves.

Photo Credit: Matt Bero

By Annabelle Hatsav

As my phone fell to the ground, my body went with it. Everything went blurry and I couldn’t even understand what was coming out of my mouth. A fire lit inside my chest.

“She’s gone, I’m so sorry Annabelle.” I don’t believe it. I keep asking why, why, why? We were just texting a couple of weeks before this. We had plans, this was not meant to happen. God please tell me this isn’t true. I kept touching the gravelly pavement beneath me to ground myself, to feel that this was all real. I faced dark green bushes trying not to fall forward or draw attention to myself. This is not real, this is not happening. She is not dead, she is not dead.

I heard footsteps approaching me as my tears poured down my face like a faucet. “Are you okay? Do you need some water or anything?” A staff member asked me. “No, I’m fine, thank you.” I lied. Usually, I’m so good at pretending I’m fine, but I don’t think I could have put on a more convincing act.

One of my best friends texted me a message I never saw coming. “I heard what happened to Ava*, I’m so sorry and I’m here for you if you need anything.” I didn’t want to assume the worst. Please don’t tell me she died. Please don’t tell me she killed herself. Please don’t tell me she’s not here anymore.

Don’t jump to conclusions. “Ruby please tell me it’s not true, what did that text mean?”

“I’m so sorry Annabelle, Ava killed herself two weeks ago.”

The worst was true. My body was on fire as I started hyperventilating and sobbing in the driveway of my camp. Feel the ground, feel that you are real. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t do anything but cry.

Questions were popping into my head as I sat there. How long was she feeling that way? Should I have reached out more? Should I have made more of an effort?

Somehow it felt like my fault. When people talk about suicide loss they often talk about survivor’s guilt. It’s not the feeling that it should have been you, it’s the feeling that you could have done more to help. That it’s your fault until proven that it's not. Every interaction I had with Ava was rushing through my head and I was feeling the survivor's guilt heavily. I told my mom about it and she didn’t know what to say. I told my brother Matan about it and he was speechless. I told my therapist, and she assured me, it was not my fault. How could I believe her? The feelings pounded through my body every time I thought about her, which was every day for weeks.

I didn’t know what to do with myself, but I knew that I couldn’t be alone. All my friends were in a meeting on the other side of the camp, which I was late for. There was no way in hell I would go to that meeting. But I headed there anyway.

I dragged my feet through the freshly cut grass passing by a gathering of staff members. Don’t look at me. I couldn’t stop the tears, I knew I would eventually get dehydrated then my body would really start shutting down. One of my campers walked past me and saw my red puffy face so she asked if I was okay. I gave the classic answer: “Yes I’m fine, don’t worry about me.” And continued on my track to find a friend, anyone really. My friend Adam was playing basketball when I saw him. I knew he would come running to support me. He wrapped his arms around me and said, “Where do you want to go?”

We headed into the woods to a dock overlooking a lake,  a beautiful place where a lot of counselors would come to think. On the way there he held me as I was shaking and couldn’t stop. We hobbled so much shit in our path. He tried to make me laugh, I did, but I couldn’t stop my mind from racing. I watched the water ripple as I talked in my shaky voice. My head started to hurt as the water left my eyes so willingly.

Ava, my friend from middle school and high school, was two years younger than me. In middle school, we did crew backstage for the plays together. I was the stage manager and she was a perfect crew member. I was her mentor, I answered all of her questions and helped her with everything. I remember feeling so valued by her. She made me realize how much I could give to others, and how much she could give. Ava called me freckle. She said it was because I had six freckles (she counted), and I loved it. When I left to go to Paris for my freshman year of high school, she was worried we wouldn’t keep in touch. She said she would miss me a lot, and I told her I would too. We kept in touch and when I came back, I was so excited to see her again, and I would always answer her questions.

When she entered high school, I wanted to still be a good influence and mentor, but also her cool older friend at the same time. I tried my best and always made time for her, then I graduated.

I felt that I didn’t keep in touch enough after I graduated. I felt guilty for not texting her as much. We texted once in a while, and I always kept up with her on social media. But it wasn’t the same. A month before I left for camp, she texted me saying she was going to Wheaton College in the fall and that we should hang out. I suggested we hang out in New York before the fall because I missed her. She said she missed me too. I will always miss her.

Those texts ran through my mind for the next few weeks. I thought about how I could have asked her how she was feeling, we could have called. I should have done more, I should have asked more questions…I should have connected with her more. All the what-ifs were circling my brain and making me spin into a guilty state of mind. I had to remember, this was not my fault. How could I have known she was depressed?

I didn’t bottle it up this time, but I did keep it from my friends for a week. Being at camp and receiving this news was so conflicting because of the high-stress environment where I had to be responsible with a positive face on all the time. I couldn’t afford to mourn.

It was like I was floating above my body and observing what was going on below. The camp counselor in me wanted to keep it together so badly, but I had my moments. Thank God my co-counselor was one of my best friends and understood that I needed time for myself. But I didn’t tell my other friends until they asked me what was going on.

It was the worst, yet the best place to be to mourn. I knew I had so much love and support around me, but I just couldn’t ask for it.

I wrote in my journal after Ava died. I wrote letters to her asking her why she did it, begging her to forgive me. For what? I’m not sure. I messaged her on Instagram telling her I missed her. I spoke to her ghost trying to find some peace. I found out the funeral was recorded on YouTube, I never watched it, I’m not sure that I ever will.

Why’d you do it? I asked her over and over again in my moments of being alone. Please tell me why. Send me a sign. Anything.

Thinking about Ava made me think about how happy she was with me. She left my high school after I graduated to go to a different school. I wonder if that’s when she started having suicidal thoughts. Or maybe it happened before that. It’s so incredibly hard thinking about all the things she’s going to miss out on. Fuck my school for not doing enough. I had to direct my anger somewhere, so I chose my high school instead of myself.

I found out about the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention in 10th grade and how they host walks to raise money for suicide prevention all over the country each year. I loved the idea of seeing people who had similar experiences and feeling a sense of community, rather than feeling alone. The first year I went on the walk it was beautiful, I cried the whole time around hundreds of people wearing t-shirts with family members that died on them and crying with their friend’s arm in arm. I have participated every year since, and I never plan to stop. Ava made me want to fight even more for the discussion on mental health, and how anyone can prevent suicide.

I will never be the same. I call into question my own actions to my friends. Am I being a good friend? Thinking about each time I hear the news it never gets easier. My body catches on fire each time and I gasp for air reaching for something that slipped away moments before. I remind myself each day how lucky I am to have the support I need, and how I wish Ava had the support she needed. I can’t turn back time. I can go back to the moment of me sitting on the pavement in disbelief that she was no longer on this Earth.

I will miss her every day. I will never stop fighting for suicide prevention because it’s a part of me, my story, and so many others too.

Rest In Peace, Ava.

*A pseudonym was used to protect the privacy of the family.

About the Author

Annabelle is a third-year student at Northeastern University studying English and Communication studies. She loves writing non-fiction and poetry, and in her free time she enjoys baking, reading, and spending time with her cat.

By Emily Cheng

The air in my parents’ restaurant is hot and greasy and always loud, but that is how they know it is good. I first stepped into the restaurant when I was ten and didn’t know anything. My parents were owners of a Chinese restaurant, and I didn’t even know what a wok was. They brought me in to “work” when they couldn’t find a grandparent or uncle to watch over me. I would sit by my mother and do the simplest tasks, packing white and brown rice into Chinese takeout containers. With every container I finished, she would tell me “not enough, more, more.” Then, she would take the container out of my hands, scoop triple the amount I had filled, and pack it with the rice bursting out of the paper box. She would always give more rice than I thought we could afford.

 When it was not so busy, I eyed the chefs who held large metal woks and tossed food with them like it was nothing. I would learn that these woks were the key to a real Chinese restaurant. They needed special care—constantly seasoned in oil and heat to produce wok hei, the breath of the wok. Over the shouting of my mother and chefs in the kitchen was the sound of oil sputtering and popping at the addition of washed green scallions. I had convinced myself that this was the wok breathing life into food. And in this same way, the woks’ air would season the whole kitchen—its staff, the walls of the restaurant, and the greasy floors—imbuing itself into everything. 

***

In mid-October, my father called to tell me that they have decided to sell the restaurant and have found a buyer. They’ve spoken about it a few times, but it was something so distant it didn’t seem real. “I just wanted to let you know.” So simple, unsentimental.

I didn’t have enough time to think of an answer for him, so I only began to process after he hung up. Did we have enough money to live? It was the most obvious question, and I hope they had thought this through. How much was the restaurant? But more accurately, how can you assign a price to this? Overnight, everyone had seemingly become hard and unemotional when all I could do was feel. Feel for all the stories unaccounted for.

***

My father remembers his childhood at the restaurant as the worst time in his life. It is a Chinese tradition that the oldest son is the one who will suffer the most. He was the one to care for his younger siblings and the only sibling expected to help in the restaurant, tasked to hold the family together while his parents worked in the kitchen downstairs. 

After high school, he would return to the restaurant and help my grandmother take orders at the front. My grandmother, overwhelmed with stress and responsibilities, would verbally lash out at him in front of customers and the entire kitchen staff. Good for nothing! Stupid! Worse than garbage! Words to that effect. Words my father could not believe a parent could say to their child. 

When my grandparents retired, they urged him to take it over; they saw it as the greatest gift they could pass down. And as the oldest son, my father could not refuse. Traumatized by his childhood, my father spent nearly the next 40 years working at the restaurant. He has worked through countless invoices and business statements until he physically could not handle seeing numbers anymore. He started taking medication to help him through this, but eventually it stopped helping. At his lowest point, he stood at the top of the third floor of the restaurant office and attempted.

I remember my father before this time. He would come home and play with us and smile. He was so happy to just be with us, in the moment, alive. He has never been like that since. He had survived, but some part of him had died in the restaurant many years ago.\

***

Now, he’s cleaning up the mess from the past 50 years. He has been moving out his sister’s old books and his parent’s picture frames. As much as the restaurant has hurt him, his texts to our family group chat read a bittersweet. “Today I realized Cleaning out 30 years worth of stuff is quite exhausting.” 

The second floor of the restaurant is an office that looks more like a dump. It is a collection of everything discarded, but not thrown away. My father sends us a picture he’s found of him and my grandfather in the clutter of that office. It’s him as a kid. My grandfather has on a yellow polo, one arm wrapped around my father, wearing a matching polo in white. I don’t recognize my grandfather in this picture, but they’re both smiling. And for some reason, I find myself zooming on the icee my father is holding because seeing him as a kid brings out something so sad in me that I don’t want to feel it. All I can see now are his tiny fingers gripping onto a paper cup.

***

My mother has no fears. While my father works in accounting, my mother works in the kitchen, in the fire. She comes home with cuts and blisters. I’ll ask if she’s ok, if it’s painful, if she can still go back to work. She won’t give it the slightest attention. “It’s not anything.” Her hands are not rough, but strong, necessary to push woks, withstand burns, and raise children.

She was like this even before I was born. When my mother was pregnant with my older brother, she continued to work in the restaurant. She called orders and cooked and sweated in the humid New York summer air. 

For one order, it required lobster which they had not prepared that day. My mother, big-bellied but still strong, walked downstairs to the restaurant’s inventory to start preparing the ingredients. On the way, a coworker bumped into her, and she fell one flight of stairs down to the bottom. My mother was rushed to the hospital by my father who had already started grieving. When she was told she and the baby were fine, she had taken that day off, then returned to the restaurant the day after.         

She kept working all the way to August, until the moment before her water broke.

***

My mother has spoken with the Chinese man buying our restaurant and his lawyer. She’s been managing stipulations, lawyers, contracts, and all the things that she does not understand. And she feels herself getting older and smaller, fading into a shadow of her past self.

“You are in such a good place. To have perfect American English.” I can type these words, understand the nuances of English words, and find beauty in the language. But when she tries to negotiate with the lawyer, she gets pulled aside and her English is called “childish”—like she is playing games by changing her mind, but it is only that she is unable to explain her thoughts in American words. She tells me this is what happens when you are bad at English. 

For so long, I’ve been trying to learn Mandarin, but even with Sunday Chinese school, textbooks, and living in a Mandarin-speaking family, my fluency is still that of an elementary school student. Sometimes, I think about all the stories my mom wants to tell me but can’t. All the words that she knows in her perfect Chinese, the three dialects—Mandarin, Cantonese, and Fuzhounese—she’s fluent in. 

I know she is not a shadow of who she was. She is only waiting in the shadows, holding onto the words she knows. She is biding her time, planning her moves, and learning her options in an American world. And when she’s ready, she’ll strike. 

***

I am angry at myself for wanting to hold onto the restaurant. For even feeling sentimental towards leaving it behind. It has been the source of my parents’ despair for decades. I should really be celebrating, cheering, and jumping at the idea of it never being in our lives again. Leave it somewhere far, far away. For too long it has been a mass, growing and growing, becoming unbearable and draining my parents. Cut out a pound of the flesh that feeds on the pain of good people. Cut out this tumor.

But as much as it has hurt, it has supported three generations of my family. It is my grandparents’ true first-born, and my parents’ entire lives. As I’m going back home to see the restaurant for the last time, I am going to indulge in the gluttony, filling myself with the pain, hurt, love, death, and ends of my moments being there. It’s like I’m gripping onto a broken wok, seeing all of its scratches and imperfections, and trying to learn to let it go. I know using it will break it—the shards recutting the wounds of my family. 

So once more. Before I go, I’ll oil it one last time, give it heat, give it breath, give back all it has given to us. In return, we’ll slowly learn to move on and learn to feel the way it has breathed into our family new life.

About the Author

Emily is a student, writer, and her own personal chef, honed from her experiences at her parents’ restaurant. In her free time, she is an avid puzzler and admirer of her dog, Truffle.

By Ashley Brown

Held down. I remember light and I remember terror. My heart races. Stabbing searing pain three times. Three permanent tattoos across my hips. “To make sure we line you up for radiation correctly every time.” I stare at the ceiling, following the circle of light that changes colors. Changes colors just like my skin, now thin, brown, and brittle. On the ceiling, there is a circle that is a rainbow. Real rainbows are circles anyways. They burn the cancer from my body, just my skin is in the way. Every Friday, I sit in the car on the drive and then they burn me. Until my skin breaks and until I move through the degrees, end on third-degree burns. I wake up in the night and scream. A resident sees the burns and they change colors too, now a pale white. “We need to burn all of the cancer. We must continue.” They give me drugs now to numb me so that they can burn me. I drift away on morphine. They burn me and I burn.

I wore my first sports bra when I was six: it held my catheter, the tube stemming from my chest, in place. “This will prevent it from getting tugged by anything.” I dream of my sisters playing with me again and suddenly they grab the tube and pull. They pull and I unravel. I unravel, a spool of yarn untethered with each tug as my organs are pulled outside of my body. I still dream it.

I am at a sleepover and we want to watch a movie. I am 9 but the movie is rated PG-13. I ask to call my mom to get her permission. My friend laughs at me, but I don’t understand. There are rules. Don’t scratch your burns. Don’t play with your catheter. Rules are important. Knowing rules and following them mean I get rewarded. “If someone gives you anything but Tylenol, what do you tell them?” “I can’t have that. It is an NSAID, those are too hard on my kidneys.” I am very smart, very responsible for following rules. I hide my tears as we begin to watch the movie.

I am the new kid in a small school where everyone has known each other since kindergarten. They ask if I am in the wrong classroom. I look too young to be in 5th grade. At my new ice-skating rink, there is the group of big girls and the group of little girls. I am seen as too young, too bad of a skater, to be invited with the rest of the little girls. Besides, to get close to them, I would need to do synchro with them. You are not allowed to wear gloves for synchro and my circulation is too bad. My hands will turn translucent and then blue again. In every group number at our yearly Nutcracker, I am too young for someone to start a conversation with, too introverted to reach out myself. I am content with my own company at least. It does not matter that I actually am older than them. In high school, I get louder though. I beat others to the punchline. “I know, I look like a child. Maybe when I graduate high school, I will look 14! But hey, that’s cancer for you.” When I first get my driver’s license, I drop off my sister at rock climbing and go to pick up Taco Bell for her. At the drive through, the cashier sees me pull up and begins to laugh. “Are you old enough to be driving without an adult in the passenger seat?” I ascent wearily. She laughs more and tells her friend to come over here and see the youngest looking 16-year-old that he will ever see. I turn red.   

For the first five years after treatment, that is when cancer is most likely to recur. My body was a ticking time bomb. Every abnormal pain is the beginning of terror. Does this stomachache mean I have cancer in my stomach? Every year, I get strep throat and the lymph nodes around my throat swell into imaginary tumors. Any moment, my body could betray me, leave me without treatment options. “We can’t give you chemo again. There is a maximum dosage and you already received it.” I am told the next best thing we can do is find it early though, if it does recur. So, they hold me down again. They do CT scans, MRIs. All donut-shaped tubes, but at least these machines don’t burn me. They pronate my legs so that my toes touch and heels sit apart and then they tape me still. My heart pounds, tells me to run so that they can’t hurt me again. I focus on what I read about how kidneys work while they scan me. The doctors are always more comfortable when I want to learn more. It is something to talk about, something other than the silence, the small talk. I pass the five-year mark. Then they focus on the long-term effects of the cancer, of the chemo. They check my heart. Social workers ask how I am doing in school. I tell them I want to be a pediatric oncologist, or later a cancer researcher. They tell me what a good thing it is. I see them relax. I am saying the right things, I am telling the good story, the right one, the one they want to hear.

Am I healthy? Am I sick? I am healthy enough to the sight that any physical failing must be a moral one. I am healed, but I hurt. My kidneys grew with me during puberty, scarred and disfigured as they are, so I will not need another kidney until I grow old. Regular menstrual cycles, no matter how physically painful, mean that I am fertile, at least for now. But why would I want my own kids anyways? With my biology, I offer a 50% chance of damnation. My heart passes my yearly screening exams though and my liver continues unscathed. “You are doing so well.” They tell me that every year I go to my annual Long-Term Cancer Survivor Clinic appointments. How can I disappoint them? The doctors and nurses and social workers did so much to make my treatment manageable. To distract me from the horrors of it.

But that is not fair to me. 

Just because I have good grades, just because I am involved in extracurriculars, just because I have a long-term relationship does not mean that I am healed. It does not mean that my cancer basically never happened, just an unfortunate start.

Cancer is not my origin story either. In the pursuit of telling a good, satisfying, palpable story, I did not get the freedom to explore multiple visions of my own future. There was one path and it stretched on for years, a funnel into the perfect ending to my cancer story. Instead of exploring my interests, I obsessed over cancer and was lauded for my work ethic. No one thought to suggest that this might be a coping mechanism to understand my trauma. Even when I disliked every job related to cancer that I tried. I liked cancer most when I was learning about it, analyzing it at a higher level and connecting it to myself. But how could I tell people I did not see myself in a cancer career anymore? Because I only ever was interested in understanding it to understand myself? Because of trauma? But I am healed, that is the way this story is supposed to go. It is not like I do not have the talent. In fact, I would be wasting it if I do not stay in science or in medicine. It does not matter that I grew a distaste for so many other parts of it. Deviations are unimaginable.

But it is imaginable. Kids with cancer can grow up. It is not our duty to make others comfortable with that idea. I do not owe anyone a tidy ending. My ability to heal from my cancer was delayed, not hastened by the story of the long-term cancer survivor. I am not healed! I am tired of pretending that I am. But I will make up for the lost time, now that I can understand that I still bear wounds from my trauma, now that I understand that my story and my trauma did not end when I “beat” cancer. I am freeing myself from the shackles of other’s expectations. I feel the catharsis that I never found in the last 15 years of my life. I can begin to reintegrate cancer into my life story, but finally on my own terms.

About the Author

Ashley Brown is a senior at Northeastern University with a double major in Biochemistry and Health Humanities with a minor in history. She is currently applying to master’s in history programs where she plans to study historical cases of health inequities.

By Alexandria Raspanti

Women learn from a young age that their bodies are not inherently theirs. I was not an exception. I grew to understand that I live in a system where autonomy is earned. I was born to be sexualized, my breasts grew to grab, my clothes made to take off, body made to be used. I had a concrete understanding at age 13 that sex was a pivotal part of being desired as a woman. I sat in my bedroom watching the show The Girls Next Door and pushing my boobs up in the mirror. I daydreamed about looking like one of Hugh Hefner’s girlfriends. Tiny waist, pouty lips, bouncy hair, and big boobs. I thought that life would be easy for girls that look like that.

I met Aaron when I was 14. After one month of dating, grade 9 began. He decided that we were ready to have sex. I agreed that that weekend we would. We lay in bed and I knew that all I needed to do was get through this and wait for it to be over. It would not last forever. However, when the time came, the nerves interfered. I did not have sex that night, but he did. He left my house, went to a party, and had sex with another girl. I could never make that mistake again. I learned that my reservations make me replaceable. I was grateful to Aaron for not forcing me to have sex with him and finding someone else instead. I felt bad for wasting his time.

At the age of 15, I was in a turbulent relationship with an addict. I never experimented with drugs, but I was an expert on them. Day by day I cared for him, I stayed up at night checking his pulse, dipping his feet in cold water, wiping blood off of his face. I thought that mothering him would make him less inclined to hurt me. I don’t remember many of these events anymore, but my friends remember my recountings of them. By the time he left for good, I was 18 and he was gone, along with my childhood. He broke up with me when he was done with me. Psychopaths follow a specific routine in their romantic relationships: seduce, love bomb, bond, trauma bond, entrap, use up, and discard. Loving someone who could care less if you were breathing is an incredibly embarrassing and degrading experience. I wish I could say this is where everything changed, but it didn’t, not for a few years.

Older men have always found a liking for me, although it dramatically declined when I turned 18 and the thrill of an underage girl didn’t exist for them anymore. I was 19 and working at a hair salon, and I asked my boss if we could talk about my schedule. He said he would pick me up at 7 p.m. to talk about it over dinner. When I searched up the restaurant and saw the four dollar signs, I figured I should wear a skirt. “I love that you wore a skirt for me,” he said while I got into his car. He didn’t speak to me about my schedule that night. He told me about his ex-wife, his kids, and the nanny he cheated on his wife with. He told me that I was young and had never experienced a real man. When he dropped me off, he said “You’re not even going to invite me in? How rude.” Worried about my job, I responded, “Oh, would you like to come in?” We were in the elevator as I texted my roommate, “We’re coming up, be in the kitchen so I’m not alone with him,” and she responded, “Lexi, I just left the house.” We went into my living room where he climbed on top of me and started kissing me. He was 43 years old. I can’t even try to describe the feeling I had in my throat as I felt his tongue in my mouth. After a few minutes, I said that I had to wake up early tomorrow and that he should go. Reluctantly, he left. The next day at work he called me into his office saying he had my new schedule, and I walked into a pitch-black room. He said, “I just wanted to get some time with you.” I quit a few days later.

Eventually, I stumbled across a YouTube video on relationships with psychopaths. My eyes were glued to the screen, clinging to every word as she flawlessly described my first love. My breaths becoming heavier as she explained the hows and the whys. The questions I had asked repeatedly in my head for years. She talked about how they choose their victims, and patterns in their mannerisms. I truly UNDERSTOOD for the first time that it was not my fault. In that moment, I felt my soul clinging to my body for the first time, its hands grasping at the insides of my skin, holding me with pinching fingers in a silent promise to never let go. It was in that moment that I let go of my responsibility to men and took on a new responsibility. Myself. 

I found a lot of my power through learning. I came into college majoring in psychology with an interest in behavioral neuroscience as well as a minor in women, gender, and sexuality studies. I hoped to one day focus on the neurological underpinnings of psychopathy. My mission was to uncover irrefutable proof that abusive behaviors are unrelated to the victims themselves. Unfortunately, awareness alone cannot shield you from the harm inflicted upon you; it merely has the power to shape your responses.

I no longer fear people. I am not scared because everything that I would be scared of has already happened to me. There is a certain comfort in the aftermath of abuse – a comfort that stems from knowing that there is nothing you can’t get through. Abuse doesn't simply vanish; it lingers, leaving its mark. I deal with obsessive guilt, replaying daily scenarios in my mind, and endlessly questioning what I could have done differently to the point where I could barely leave my home out of fear that I would make a mistake. Yes, lessons were learned and at one point I would have said I was grateful for my experiences, but now, I do not. I believe that the growth I've achieved could have been attained on my own, without the help of my abusers. I now stand, not as a product of my abusers' influence, but as a testament to my own strength and resilience.

About the Author

Alexandria is a fifth-year psychology student at Northeastern University with minors in English and women, gender, and sexuality studies. After college, she aspires to go to law school and seeks to use writing as a powerful tool for advocacy and change.

By Ella

The luminous natural light shining into my all-white shower illuminates a heavenly gaze onto my bleeding, blistered body. I wouldn’t consider myself particularly religious, but today I'm certain there's a divine presence holding me upright as I feebly fight for stability. Today my open wounds leave a sea of crimson dancing down the drain, my neck frozen straight to combat the blaring whiplash. 

Today I believe in God.

Earlier, a pouring shower of glass had left me concussed and upside down. It was a tranquil roller-coaster ride, a seemingly peaceful experience as my body ascended and accepted the force. Constantly burdened by an intrusive inner monologue, I was surprisingly soothed by the sharp dissociation. It was a near-death car crash, but somehow one of the most relaxing experiences of my life.   

My life had been spared by a 1999 tow truck housing an unbelievably rare interior design that ultimately guarded my life. The sight of the truck alone was enough to send people at the scene into hysterics. I gather when a car looks like that, you are supposed to die. The eccentric EMT called it a miracle. God called it a favor. I call it my most bittersweet memory. 

Vacantly wiping the blood away, I am surreally empty as I shower. This is new for me, the chronic overthinker staring into the distance with sullen eyes. I hyper-fixate on the ceiling as I shower, void of meaning. Without any medication in my system, my dazed reflection acts as the most potent narcotic.

It's bewildering how fast life ebbs and flows. Just a month earlier, the suffocatingly humid air of Miami smelled like success and teen spirit. Up until a few days before, my mother had ardently refused to let me go, exclaiming how ridiculous and unsafe it was. We were 17. I agreed, even then. But I craved it, longing for the exhilaration of me and my friends dancing in the sun and acting older than we actually were. It all seemed so grand.

Suddenly, my friends were discussing reservations at trendy restaurants without a mention of going anywhere other than Miami. That must be why my mother caved on her own accord, quietly pulling up the airfare for that weekend while weakly uttering “I don’t want you to miss out”. Quickly, all my savings were down the drain, and I was packing my yellow polka-dot bikini in a small, battered carry-on.

On our first night there, we shuffled back to our hotel rooms eager to prolong the night. We energetically jumped on the massive white bed in our way-too-short dresses. My head hit the ceiling, and I rolled around laughing as background music roared on. It felt like a scene from an unrealistic teen drama, and I joyfully thanked my lucky stars I had made it. 

After everyone went back to their room, I got in bed eager to doze off. It was close to 2 AM, and I stared vacantly into the darkness to calm my body. My inner monologue flowed relentlessly, only exciting my nerves to stay up. There was a creeping void inside my stomach that only seemed to grow as it got later and later. My strange uneasiness was only fueled as I began to fixate on time, physically feeling as if I was going to run out of seconds. Or out of air, as my chest tightened and the butterflies in my stomach sharpened their wings. I felt viciously hot as every manual breath stung my diaphragm. The heaviness weighing on me forced me to take large gulps, choking to find whatever air was left in my lungs. Laying immobile, I silently prayed for my well-being. 

My breath finally came back after what felt like hours, and I looked at the time. It was 4:37 AM. I then laid awake all night in an anxious, stomach-severing, pit of nerves. Finally, when the sun rose, I got out of bed nonchalantly to put on sunscreen and my yellow polka-dot bikini. I had just had my first panic attack (and certainly not my last) in a beautiful hotel room overlooking the beach. Yawning profusely from my lack of sleep, I didn’t tell anyone about my nightmare of a night. I assured myself nothing was wrong while consciously sequestering any sentiments of anxiety. Miami was picture-perfect, and I tried to be as well. 

Later that month, my body felt uneasy during the most celebratory of times. When I blew out my candles on my 18th birthday cake, my dad reminded me to “make a wish!” Every year I wished for the happiness and health of me and my loved ones, taking a moment to relish the warmth of those around me. But this year, my mood regressed sourly as I thought about the ways happiness and especially health can regress. An intrusive chain of thoughts urged me to think about growing older and the possibility of death waiting mercilessly around the corner. 

As I eat my chocolate cake, that familiar pit-like sensation returns to my stomach. I try to push it to the deepest parts of my being, wondering if it's inherently selfish to ruin your own happiness. 

It was in these moments that I always seemed to think of God the most, specifically when I needed something. I was the equivalent of that friend who only comes around when she has a bad breakup, forgetting about you when there's a new swooning love interest. I now think I was rather human, which doesn’t equate to a “get out of jail free card” but is certainly worth something.  

A month later, my parents prayed when I was in the hospital. I wonder if the people on the street had also prayed when they saw the utter collapse of the 1999 pickup truck. Even if they were selfless in their desires, they still wanted something. It's rather ironic. When my cuts sting in the shower, I do not feel the sentiment of needing anything. I grasp desperately for emotion or even words, without tangibly holding anything. 

And there it is. A subtle juxtaposition to all that I have ever known; a dissonance in the looming anxiety that had gradually piled up. Like a weatherman, I had lived life constantly dreading the storm, overanalyzing every mere drizzle of rain. But now it had rained and poured, and I was burnt out from caring at all. 

My minimal stability is jolted by a robust tap on the shower curtain. In my drowsy state, I cannot comprehend why my kitten is staring into my shower with bright blue eyes. My cat enhances my sense of disbelief, perching herself on the shower ledge and focusing her gaze on me. 

All of a sudden, I can't look away from the disturbing pool of blood juxtaposing the beautiful white marble shower. I realize the severity of the situation, the bitter truth separating before and after. I realize I'm in the after, because my body is gashed and there's broken glass everywhere. 

Upon seeing my kitten in the shower there's a silent catharsis. The shower covers the sounds as I begin to cry, naked and exposed. As cold tears pour, I mourn all the moments I shed away in worry. As if accepting my survival could take back all my previous doubts, I feel somber clarity. The anxiety reaching its peak throughout the last few months suddenly halts, seeming trivial now in the scope of things. 

I ask myself what it was all for, the stream of constant anxiety that has progressively plagued me. Now the coin had flipped, and my worst anxieties had come true. What now? Will my fear of everything rise like the tide, or will it flow back and retreat? 

 I’m not sure who I am with a constant rain cloud hanging over me. Maybe I'm lucky enough to have things worth missing, desires worth yearning for. I suddenly noticed my cat’s brown fur was soaked from the shower’s stream. She stays put, a strange phenomenon for felines who are typically hydrophobic. Somehow this validates that there's a plan for me, more life left ahead.

I think about God and all those times I anxiously craved something beyond minor. It's funny now as I delicately extract glass shards out of my hair. I wonder how many people prayed in the hospital at the same time as my parents. I wonder if those prayers were more genuine, more emotionally volatile than the ones in church.  

I implore myself to be better than I have been as the cold water sinks deeper into my open cuts. I reminisce on everything I'm grateful for, everything that has continuously gone right when I worried it wouldn't. At this very moment, I don’t feel like I need anything, for I am overcome by gratitude. I simply put my face under the cold tap to reinvigorate my feeling of being alive.   

Then, I put my hands together because this seems like a good time to pray. 

 About the Author

Ella is a third-year student at Northeastern University, studying psychology and behavioral neuroscience. In her free time, she is a part of numerous research groups on campus and loves creative writing and fictional storytelling.

Photo credit: Joy Stamp

Annie Robinson, a Health Story Collaborative team member and a recent graduate of Columbia University's Narrative Medicine program, curates the podcast "Inside Stories", a forum for medical students to share their stories of medical training. Read about this project here: 

On a warm June afternoon, clustered around picnic tables, cradled in the mountains of the Berkshires in western Massachusetts, eight medical students from around the world began telling one another their stories. They were among approximately 40 students invited to participate in a weeklong intensive program run by AMSA for medical students interested in integrative medicine called LEAPS. As a graduate student of Narrative Medicine at Columbia University, I was asked to help facilitate the program.

Over iced tea and dark chocolate, they spoke of heartbreak and grief and divorce, of exam-stress and isolation and fear. They also shared brilliant visions of innovative approaches to medical care, and their aspirations to foster intimate relationships with their fellow medical students, their families and friends, and their patients. I listened with rapt attention as they described how, from personal struggles, conviction and vision were born for their careers as caregivers. I shivered, on that muggy summer day, knowing I was in the presence of my tribe. 

I was raised to revere the power of storytelling, which has been a critical component in how I have navigated my way through the world. It proved particularly useful when I entered the healthcare system in my early adolescence. I have spent over half of my life now as a patient, grappling with illnesses and issues of embodiment. In large part, it has been by speaking my struggles aloud that I have been able to heal. Telling my stories has allowed me to harness the power of the dark times to create connections and attain insight. 

As I sat there at LEAPS, witnessing medical students experiencing what I myself had experienced time and again–that relationships and wisdom come from baring one’s soul – I began to envision a way to enable more students to engage in this powerful narrative process. The seeds for my oral narratives podcast project Inside Stories: Medical Student Experiences were planted. I wanted to hear more student stories about the path to medicine, about struggles and triumphs, roadblocks and dreams. Through sharing over the course of that week, the students gained clarity and catharsis, and many remain in touch to this day. 

Inside Stories emerged from those conversations with LEAPS students. The idea was to develop a podcast platform that would enable medical students anywhere to both voice and listen to stories about medical student experience. Inside Stories’ mission is “to provide a means of personal healing, self-realization and empowerment through the sharing and receiving of personal stories, as well as to cultivate community among students in the often isolating medical school environment.” The interview process involves recording stories from current medical students, remotely or in-person. Recruitment has been done via word-of-mouth, social media platforms, and at medical humanities conferences. Student participants comprise a diverse demographic of men and women from all four years of medical school, of various races and nationalities, interested in medical fields ranging from OB/GYN to pediatrics to gastroenterology and many more. 

The topics addressed are vast. Hannah spoke about the challenges of navigating in medical school while being a mother. Petra reflected on how her spiritual path informs the challenges being a medical student. Katie discussed the encouragement she gained from finding her mentor. Leah shared how writing poetry aided her personal healing. Samar described how self-care practices helped her get through school. Angie talked about how her Syrian heritage drove her motivation to become a physician. Hieu shared his experiences as a community health worker in Uganda propelled his motivation to combat structural violence. Carlton described his motivation to pursue medicine in the South: to offer the African-American community a provider with whom they can identify.

To date, over 40 students have participated in the project. One participant reflected: “At first I was intimidated at the prospect of sharing my deepest feelings to a public audience, especially because I had never verbalized these feelings and in general I am a very private person. Ultimately, I'm glad I committed myself to this project and am proud to have my message out in the open.” Another described how sharing felt validating: “It made it seem real - everything that I had been through.”

I hope that by listening to the accounts of the courageous, insightful students whose stories constitute this project, others will follow suit and be inspired to share the personal stories at the heart of their journeys through the world of medicine.

If you or someone you know might be interested in telling their story about their experience in medical school, or if you have further questions about Inside Stories, please contact Annie and visit their website and on Twitter @Inside_Stories.

Originally published on the blog "The Doctor is Listening" on September 14, 2014

Sometimes it feels as if the path to becoming a practicing physician is a path of deferral. As a premedical student and sophomore in college, I have seen my peers engage in a variety of activities that are required for medical school but are not directly applicable to life as a physician. My colleagues have reviewed physics for the MCAT (Medical College Admissions Test), studied the nuances of organic chemistry, and adopted leadership roles by managing large organizations and events.

As a premedical student myself, I am often tempted to think of life as a physician as the final attainment of a routine that matters. Finally, instead of focusing on how to fulfill particular requirements and prepare for a standardized examination, a physician can find treatments for patients and help make scientific breakthroughs. Instead of being attuned to the competitive nature of an application process, a physician is able to reflect on how to best relate to their patients with care and empathy and how to best work with other members of their health care team.

However, when I ask physicians for advice or insight, they often describe how the practice of medicine is not as ideal as premedical students might project it to be, and has its challenges just as the premedical experience has challenges. For instance, an emphasis on efficiency makes it difficult for physicians and other health care professionals to adequately spend time listening to their patients. The commercialization of the medical field can also make work difficult, and even disillusioning, for physicians.

Understanding these realities provides a new perspective for premedical students: an awareness that the practice of medicine is imperfect. Students should expect to be faced with imperfections, such as timing constraints and a frustrating inability to listen fully to patients, during their later years as a physician. Armed with this knowledge and perspective, premedical students know more about what they can expect, and perhaps even change, in the field of medicine.

They can also face the path to medical school with a fresh perspective. Because I have realized that the practice of medicine, like the premedical experience, contains elements that do not directly relate to becoming a better physician, I am less frustrated by the process. Instead, I am more focused on how to make my premedical experience translate into a learning experience that will help me become a more engaged physician.

More deeply, health care professionals' efforts to fill in the gaps of modern medical practice inspire me and resonate with my idealistic impulse to contribute to the medical field. I hope to be involved with medicine because I hope to help others restore their health, whether they are struggling physically, emotionally, or spiritually. Although a major component of doing this as a physician is of course providing medicine, I am also interested in less traditional ways that health care providers can facilitate emotional healing.

Health Story Collaborative is one such example. By providing a space for patients to share their stories with others, Health Story Collaborative creates a sense of community. Patients who are hesitant or unable to leave their homes to attend a support group can still participate. Moreover, some patients may prefer the opportunity for privacy while bringing up uncomfortable or distressing topics with others. Health Story Collaborative also provides more opportunity than a support group for less spontaneous conversation that can more accurately reflect the nuances of a patient's experience. Patients spend time discussing and crafting their narrative with a physician, and the final written or audio transcript can capture more of their experience than quickly delivered thoughts.

Efforts such as Health Story Collaborative provide patients with emotional comfort, and also broaden the practice of medicine. By facilitating such efforts, physicians can do more for their patients and feel less constrained by the medical field's commercialization and haste. They can more deeply understand the patient experience, and become more empathetic and better prepared to provide advice that is relevant to specific challenges that patients face. This inspires me as a premedical student and indicates that the practice of medicine is more meaningful and more involved than I could have expected.