Category: Z CREATIVE CORNER

The studio rests six stories high. On top of an old steam heater a fan drones in an open window. Clyde sleeps on a black futon that sits on the floor. He sleeps under a thick Central American bed cover his ex-girlfriend gave him. It took a semester in the dorms, but he’d finally he […]

I have come to believe that one can learn more about on the ground social realities from personal stories than the news media or researched academic books. In fact, one could take this argument farther and suggest sometimes true reality may be more hidden in fiction or comedic insights than it is in the cultural […]

Maintaining a sense of community support is precious when you struggle a history of exile. In my life words like “schizophrenia” and “anorexia” mixed with periods of institutional incarceration have resulted in alienation, trauma, and exile. It’s been twenty years since my most recent incarceration for “schizophrenia” and it remains very hard to find community […]

I unlock the door to the institution’s finest office. A doctor’s name is inscribed on a linoleum slide that changes every few years. I press the darkened door smudge on the off-white paint job that dominates the unit. The door swings open. I invite Eugene’s cousin in. Eugene’s cousin sits in the cushioned seat that […]

Many of us who face a sense of ostracism from our family and community of origin end up feeling like aliens. In the United States there are many divided people who might have this sense of alienation. Now while I see sprinklings of Black Lives Matter signs throughout my neighborhood, you might think I feel […]

The peer movement and Wellness Recovery Action Planning helped revolutionize my approach to therapy and being a real person. In some ways I am grateful but still there are ways I am dissatisfied with the way too many peers perpetuate neocolonialism in the system. I always struggled with the way the peer movement’s best practice, […]

It will be my first EMDR training with a master trainer. I receive a message on my Facebook Messenger account. Someone I friended from Los Gatos California asks if I want to be rich and famous? I can join the illuminati, there are twenty available slots. Do I want to apply? I have heard many […]

When I took the job at the Housing Authority facility dubbed the “Hotel of Horrors” in the local media, I thought I was on a mission from god.  The weekend before I started the job, I took a spiritual retreat with the Quaker community I frequented. Out on an island on the Puget Sound, in […]

Tin Man thinks of the ancestral quilt that hangs in his wife’s suburban guest room. His auntie gave him the quilt because he was named after his great grandfather whose name is stitched in the quilt. Nevertheless, Tin Man considers himself the black sheep of his family. Tin Man is the oldest cousin among nine […]

Watching Buzzards Swirl: It has been my honor and privilege to work for fifteen years on an urban inner-city psychiatric unit that is currently being targeted for closure by a hospital system that is facing a budget crisis. There is a proposal on the table to merge our program with its suburban counterpart, taking away […]

In summing up my experience with psychotherapy, the last lesson is one I am still working through. It is a lesson I am learning as I am seeking trauma treatment for feeling numb and frozen when I am not at work. This involves rebuilding trust in psychotherapy. It involves building into psychotherapy a significant peer […]

Although it may seem like binging and purging down a sink in a roach infested apartment is a likely a low point for a Where’s Waldo person born to such mainstream, Caucizoidal privilege, it wasn’t really that dire. Indeed, it would take me seven years for a catastrophic incident to happened. Then, I would find […]

I went through five years of treatment for the treatment of anorexia that added to the negative transference I have for psychotherapy. This included three therapeutic relationships, three hospitalizations, and three therapeutic trends that were utilized back in the early nineties. I participated in mandatory family therapy, behavioral inpatient eating disorder therapy, and addressing the […]

Some might point out that my experiences in therapy couldn’t have been so bad if I chose to go into therapy as a profession. Others might say it was my own damn fault I got hooked on the practice! Still others might point out that I have been privileged with the best help that money […]

I grew up in the mental health system when Prozac was the new craze. Prozac was the second drug I took and within three years there was the new field of psychopharmacology. By that time, getting the right combo became quite the rave. What that meant there was little to no exploration of the role […]

It offered stillness To a world That was so active Twirling tearfully Like numb-chucking Buzzards overwhelming Peripheral horizons; Its peace prevailed In the dim after hours: Dish rack in disciplined order, scant suds Loitering around the drain, counter Clear except for an occasional dish rag Somehow charismatic in its grunge. A few hours earlier Rustle […]

Twenty years ago, I experienced what might be termed a break from reality while I was working as a mental health worker. I worked in a last resort section 8 housing project that was rife with crime. It was called “The Hotel of Horrors” in an article in the local media. For six months, I […]

You might think you know Where he comes from By noting the precision Of his feet as they Rest in sandals. Atop the spattered glass concrete. Looking at the charisma Buzzing within his disposition, You might imagine his room— The bed sheets and blankets Sucking on the mattress, The ugly, throw rug Nestling into the […]

What was emerging now was different than anything I had experienced prior. I had just gotten support from relationships I had built over the past year at the Quaker meeting-for-worship. Maybe my situation at work had been getting whispered about among my friends. Maybe my spirit was exuding a sense of desperation. Either way, I’d […]

Warning: Graphic Content “I have heard real stories,” said my female therapist, “of men doing graphic and horrible things to women. I don’t think based on what you just told me, there is any justification for any accusation whatsoever. I think you have been saying a lot of hurtful things.” I figured my mother who […]