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Donovan Pierce was twenty-six the first time his mother Eileen sat in a Sacramento courtroom and listened to the words “incompetent to stand trial” being spoken about her son. The petty theft charge that had brought him into the criminal system was almost beside the point — Donovan had been hearing voices for two years, … Read more
Maya, a 34-year-old graphic designer in Portland, Oregon, sat in her therapist’s office holding a wedding invitation she had not opened. Her younger sister was getting married in Charleston in six months, and Maya already knew she would not attend. The decision had taken three years of family estrangement therapy to reach. Her father, a … Read more
The Screen Between You and Your Therapist Two years ago, the idea of having a therapy session from your living room felt strange to most Americans. Today, millions of people cannot imagine going back. The pandemic forced a massive experiment in mental health care delivery, and the results surprised even the skeptics. For many conditions, telehealth works … Read more
Priya Ramanathan made twenty-three phone calls in two weeks. The 34-year-old graphic designer in Sacramento had just been diagnosed with PTSD after a traumatic motor vehicle accident, and her trauma therapist’s intake coordinator had told her to find an EMDR-certified clinician on her Blue Shield HMO. Twenty-three calls — twenty-three voicemails, full inboxes, “not accepting … Read more
Priya was thirty-four, an associate at a corporate law firm in Houston, when she had what she was certain was a heart attack on a Wednesday afternoon at 4:18pm. She was in her office reviewing a draft contract when her chest tightened, her hands started tingling, her vision narrowed at the edges, and her heart … Read more
The Wrong Therapist Can Make Things Worse You finally did it. After weeks of putting it off, you searched for mental health providers near meand booked an appointment. You sat in the waiting room. You filled out the intake forms. You sat across from a stranger and told them things you have never told anyone. And … Read more
Marcus was twenty-eight, an investment associate in Chicago, when he collapsed on a Friday night at a friend’s loft party in River North. He had been doing lines off and on for eighteen months, mostly weekends, never thinking of himself as having a problem. Around 2am he stood up to refill a drink, said he … Read more
Daniel Park did not call himself depressed. He called himself tired. The 29-year-old second-generation Korean-American software engineer in Seattle had been working through chronic neck pain, headaches, and a stomach that kept rejecting food for almost a year. His mother brought him soup and herbal teas. His father suggested he sleep more. His primary care … Read more
Priya Ramaswamy, a thirty-four-year-old graphic designer in Minneapolis, came home from a five-day inpatient stay with two pages of discharge paperwork and a recommendation that she enrol in either “the day hospital program at the medical centre” or “a PHP through her insurance network.” She spent most of an afternoon trying to figure out which … Read more
The Three AM Question It is three in the morning. You cannot sleep. Your chest feels tight. Your thoughts are spiraling. The anxiety that has been building for weeks has finally become unbearable. Or maybe it is not anxiety at all. Maybe the depression has shifted into something darker, something that makes you wonder whether … Read more