For the sake of your future self (and those around you) — Have you ever noticed how many people are stuck in their pasts? How many people live as though they have a foot in the present and one way back there, years behind them? Particularly when these are negative experiences — being caught in a loop of talking about past positive…

It’s easier to blame the one with the emotional trauma symptoms than tackle societal symptoms of rape culture head-on — When you think of Freud, what’s the first thing you think of? Is it that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, or that he thought all boys wanted to kill their fathers so they could marry their mothers? If you’ve ever read about the history of trauma in Western…

It could have been handled better — “Mr. Morris wants to see Sarah, please” I’d never been pulled out of a lesson before, especially to see the Assistant Head Teacher. My friend stood in the doorway of my I.T. classroom, a mutual friend at her side, and I knew it wasn’t for anything good. My teacher signaled…

Content Warning: It’s super bleak, mentions of all the bad things really Happy International Women’s Day 2023! This year's theme is #EmbraceEquity, so it’s the perfect time to talk about the lack of equality in mental health discussion, treatment, and diagnoses. Statistics — the sad, the bad, the mad Mental…

I would give so much to go back and stop my past self — I’ve been running The Blade & Beyond for 18 months now, and I realized today that I haven’t actually sat down and told my own story of my journey with self-harm and recovery. Other writers are being brave and sharing those, and I reference experiences that I’ve had, but it’s…

The guidelines couldn’t be simpler! — The Blade & Beyond is always open for submissions, but in case you need a prompt or reminder, here it is! We’re looking for good-quality writing about self-harm and recovery. It doesn’t have to be perfect — nothing truly is, and that’s OK! — we’re happy to work with you…

Or, Book Lover Doesn’t Want To Discuss Books — I was happily enjoying my lunch break, eating pasta as I do almost every single shift, and reading a book on my Kindle. It’s an excellent book, Katherine Blakeman’s The Summer We Had, so I was enjoying it a lot; you’d think I want to shout about it (and online…

So well-made and acted that it’s difficult to watch — So many shows and movies are described as ‘hard to watch’, and often that appeals to me, for dramas anyway. It’s a sentiment I rarely agree with, and prior to I Am Ruth the closest to genuinely difficult to watch was Requiem for a Dream. Now I’m confident I could…

Way to prepare yourself for a potentially difficult time of the year — December can be a very mixed time of the year, and you never know if people you know will be all in on the excitement, or praying for it to be over quickly. It can be a difficult time for an assortment of reasons; it might be due to negative…