Category: Personal Stories

My Anxiety Story

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By Gina Van Thomme

This story was originally posted on Gina’s personal blog. You can read it here.

When I was five, I came to the realization that I was going to die and there was nothing I could do about it.

This profound realization resulted in night terrors, which essentially meant that one second I’d be laying in bed thinking about five-year-old things like Arthur and Furbies and the next, I’d be panicking over questions such as “How am I supposed to spend an eternity in heaven when I can’t even sit through an hour of church?”

Photo by Andrew Neel

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I Blamed My Sister for My Miscarriage

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By Catcall Contributor

Some summer day when I was sixteen, I woke up with blood underneath me.

In the bathroom, I fingered a loose thread on my pajama shorts before pushing them to my ankles. I thought about weighing myself and about the clear fluid that had been running down my legs for some days. I thought about my boyfriend.

Then I saw the tiny gray-white thing, almost pearlescent. It was no bigger than a blueberry and possessed black dots one could only think of as eyes. There was emptiness burning up from my belly. I stopped thinking, and here, I can clearly mark the point at which my memories of adolescence change shape; time bent forward in a drunken, shallow arc, spilling onto the ground and across the walls as it reached forward. How long was it before I woke up, pushed away my blankets, swung my feet over the side of the bed, and found that the situation needed someone to blame? A month, maybe two. It was still hot outside.

Photo by Claudia Soraya

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Where Did You Learn to Speak to Women Like That?

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By Lisa Marchand

There are many things I love about being a woman. In fact, many days I’m grateful to live in this day and age as a female. But there are some days, ones that still come too often, where I wonder how progression still feels so stagnated. Days where I cannot comprehend the disrespect we face on the streets.

Several weeks ago I left the bus shaking, immediately dialing my father to tearfully thank him for being the man that he is. Shortly after, I called my mom to tell her what happened. What I experienced churned up feelings inside of me that meant—although grown up and on my own—I still needed my parents to process the mysteries of the world.

Photo by Louis Blythe

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Taylor and Jordan: A Love Story, Minus the Pronouns

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By Jenny Doocy

Taylor Johnson parked the rusted old pickup truck in front of a suburban mansion, two houses down from the intended destination, and sent a short text that simply read here. Being chivalrous and walking up to the door, at the risk of being seen in this part of town, was not an option. In other situations a quick honk would have sufficed, but seeing as neither of them wanted to draw attention to their meeting—that is, any more attention than a beat up truck in this neighborhood would cause—a text message seemed the way to go.

Taylor waited for Jordan Smith, releasing nervous energy by drumming two long, slender fingers against the steering wheel, body moving to the rhythm of the music coming from the old radio, sneakers tapping against the pedals to match the beat of the fingers.

Photo by Steve Halama

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If you have to tell yourself something isn’t “that bad,” then it really is worse than you think

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By Catcall Contributor

I couldn’t help it; I fell in love.

And when I fell in love, there was a part of me that became him. I didn’t think of it as a bad thing, after all if I’m spending all my time with someone and talking to them every day, it would be hard not to mesh into a single being, to some extent. He was older, successful, and absolutely beautiful. He always said he hated being the center of attention, but I think he knew that’s where he thrived. He was a natural born leader and made everyone look up to him with the highest regards. He truly seemed like a great man.

But things aren’t always what they seem. I got to know him better and he told me about his troubled past full of being adopted, bullied, anger management classes, manipulative relationships, and lies. He told me that he would never do anything to hurt me because he knew what it was like to be hurt—but then the lies started.

Photo by Luis Galvez

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