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An emotional wall divides Jackie’s existence. It’s built from the life she lived before her husband’s death and the one she’s lived after it. Howard died of a massive stroke just ninety days after the couple retired to Portugal. Hopelessly lost and broken, Jackie returned...

“I don’t understand why I’m feeling so jealous,” Nick said, raising his hands and then dropping them in his lap. “Tammy has been in my writing group for years. We’ve supported each other through all the ups and downs of trying to get published, but ever since I found out...

One of my dad’s favorite sayings was, “Talking about your problems only makes them worse.”—a bury-your-head-in-the-sand philosophy I unwittingly hauled into all my adult relationships. Seething with unspoken resentments and just-under-the-surface anger, I wallowed in...

I was surprised by the result when I typed this question into my search bar. The number one thing people search for when it comes to loneliness is the haunting lyrics of Justin Bieber’s 2021 hit, “Lonely.” At first glance, this shatteringly introspective look at a pop...

I was reminded of the vice grip social media has on my identity when I submitted the manuscript of a grief memoir I penned a couple of years ago to yet another small publisher. I was asked to list the handles for my “X” (formerly Twitter) and Instagram accounts and provide...

Monica and Jim have been together for many years and love each other deeply, yet each feels the other isn’t meeting their emotional needs. Monica accuses Jim of being emotionally unavailable just when she needs reassurance that he will always be there. Jim responds by...

“I left my phone in the car,” Henry told his wife, Sharon. “I’m going to go down to the garage and look for it. It should only take me a minute.” “Okay,” Sharon replied, putting the lunch dishes in the dishwasher. A second later, she heard the front door close and didn’t...

I was standing in the checkout line at the grocery store when I asked the woman behind the cash register a question that had been kicking around in my head for weeks. “Is it ever going to be the same? Is it ever going to be like it was?”  She shook her head. Her iron-gray...

Ever wake up at 4:00 am feeling overwhelmed by some new responsibility at work and think, “I’m a total fraud. And what’s more, if my boss knew how incapable and talentless I really am, I’d be out of a job in five minutes flat? If so, you’re not alone. Imposter Syndrome,...

She was dusting in the living room when Heather heard a loud crash followed by a string of curses coming from the bathroom. With the certainty gleaned from years of being a care provider, she knew that her husband Max had fallen in the shower. Panic ate at her insides as...

I’ve always been a control freak. Ever since I was a kid, I had to be in charge. When my brother, sisters, and I played “school,” I was the teacher. If we put on an impromptu play for our parents and the neighbors we managed to drag in, I was the director. When I grew up...

The holidays are nothing if not complex. As the season begins, we have visions of apple cider-wafted family gatherings where everyone gets along, wandering through a holiday market shopping for the perfect gift, or spending a lazy afternoon sipping hot cocoa before a...

Growing up disabled and queer, I spent my entire life feeling like I was on the outside looking in. Whether it was thinking I didn’t fit in or being sure that everybody but me had a date on Saturday night, otherness stuck to me like glue, and it felt as if I’d never shake...

“I didn’t know I was being gaslit until years after it happened,” Heath told his therapist. “When I used to tell my husband that something he said hurt me, he’d say that it was “just a joke” and that I was “being too sensitive.”  “And how did you feel when he said that?”...

“I feel so guilty whenever I think about the days just before my husband died,” Susan said, wiping away a tear with the tissue her therapist handed her.   “What do you feel guilty about?”  “We had a big fight. He wanted to go to Disney World for two weeks, and I said we...

I used to work out three to four times a week. Now, I don’t. I bend over backwards, coming up with irrational reasons not to engage in this behavior despite knowing that regular exercise helps me remain in good health and keeps me looking my best—a circumstance that...

The number one thing couples fight about is money. If you’re wondering why, theories abound. But whether one person has a more relaxed attitude towards money matters than the other or a couple disagrees on how their dollars should be spent, their approach to shared finance...

Sometimes, it feels like we live in a dystopian world—as if there’s nothing we can depend on. While the pandemic recedes, political views divide us; war rages across the globe, college campuses are hotbeds of unrest, and democracy appears to hang by a thread. No matter...

One of the first things I talked to my therapist about was the anxiety I was feeling about my upcoming wedding. I worried that my family and friends wouldn’t make their flights. I worried that they wouldn’t find anything to do in the city. I worried that they wouldn’t have...

I sat in the quiet of my therapist’s office and wondered if I finally had the strength to let it go.  As for forgiveness, that was a pipe dream. I’d been hanging on to the same pain for over a decade, but I couldn’t allow myself to feel the hurt. It was so much easier to...

I listened to Billie Eilish’s Grammy and Academy Award-winning juggernaut, “What Was I Made For?” the other day and thought about body image. As a gay man with a disability, my journey to accepting the way I occupy space in the world has been a long and sometimes painful...

My husband gave me a coffee mug that got me thinking about the importance of affirmation. It’s nothing fancy as coffee mugs go, but the rainbow of words on the outside inevitably gives me a lift. It says, “You are brave, bold, kind, courageous, proud, fierce, strong,...

I resisted therapy for decades. It wasn’t as if I didn’t have problems, but like a lot of people, I thought I was doing just fine without help. I could always come up with an excuse to avoid being in therapy. I told myself it was because I didn’t have the time or the...