Kelly Burch

No having a community rally in support, like it is supposed to during a crisis, can make a family in mental health crisis feel shamed and stigmatized.

Issues like climate change, energy poverty and social justice causes that intersect with environmentalism can be sometimes feel daunting. However, there are plenty of ways you can make a small difference today. Here are a few.

Parenting a toddler is invigorating, exhausting, dirty, and intense. But since I want my daughter to have cousins (or at least pseudo-cousins) one day, I can’t always share the truth about my tiny tyrant on social media, for fear that my friends and siblings would never reproduce. And because, sometimes, you just want to project the image that you're calm, cool, and collected.

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“Then why are you so worried about the scale?” Why was I? I had finally let go of the scale as an indicator of my own health, but my inability to do the same when it came to my daughter was bringing up the same old feelings of inadequacy and frustration.

By introducing my father’s illness as a fact during a time when his mental health had no negative effects on my life, my parents enabled me to live without stigma, which in turn empowered me to advocate for my father’s treatment when his health took a turn for the worse my freshmen year of college.

Last week, as the U.S.

Posting about my miscarriage on Facebook was the most cathartic thing I could have done for myself. It allowed me to validate my feelings.

Last week, I did something reckless. I went out for Mexican food, and drank a margarita. The server didn’t ask for my ID, and she didn’t even ask for proof that my ovaries were on lock down.

A family's day of celebration became a nation's day of mourning.