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Mic Check? Mic Check! Amplifying Our Voices, Kirsty Nicole Bocado

The Vermont Connection

Content Warning: discrimination, suicidal ideation, violence

When I write about mental illness, I use the terms: disability, identity, and relationship. However, no word captures what mental illness means to me. Mental illness is somehow both a part of me and a separate, intangible entity. Every day is an exhausting struggle to live with and understand it, and during my first year of graduate school, I experienced covert ableism. This harm caused a long and tedious recovery process on top of ongoing unlearning and healing. Through recovery, I adopted the practice of “embracing the whole” of emotions, feelings, symptoms, and triggers. …