Elis de Guerre

I first went on disability when I lived in Rochester, New York.

After the breathless panting of my previous panic attack had converted over time to lust, I found myself with my new love having sex in the shower. Bent over the rim of the claw-foot bathtub, I felt the past being replaced with the new joys of the present.

Two months ago, I filed for disability for unmedicated bipolar disorder. I had spent weeks dangling from tiring hands over a spiky precipice – or so it seemed. There were days of crying at my desk, days of inexplicable panic attacks in the face of a normal workload.

Raise your hand if you feel like you want to make new friends as an adult, but have no idea how anymore. Oh, good. It’s not just me.

I am nine months into marriage and already have regrets. I do not regret my choice of partner, or our choice to get married, but do regret who I was prior to marriage and what I did (or didn’t do) when I was single.

There's a hot non-bromance brewing between new White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci and Trump's Chief of Staff, Reince Priebus.

Last week, my mother came home from work, found the shower faucet leaking hot water, and told me to "get my head out of my cunt, and start thinking about other things."

I am 27 years old, 10 months into my marriage, and have been separated from my husband for two weeks. Consider this a letter from the trenches of impending divorce.

t interests me that I can immediately think of the gifts of anxiety, panic, and even my spurts of agoraphobia. Being tense in body and mind, living with fear that feels real even though I know intellectually it isn’t, experiencing the migraines, chest pains and choking sensations — these aren’t things that lend themselves to my happiness.
Yet the compulsion to stay at home, brought on by edginess and unease outside, keeps me productive. Anxiety makes me communicative, even if just through electronic means. The worry about judgment pushes me to write better, to edit more thoroughly, to answer the voice in my head saying “You’re not good enough” with a defiant “Then watch me improve.”

Let the #LGBTBabes party rage on, my fellow rainbow darlings. You're beautiful. You're supported. You're loved. And you're perfect just as you are.