Shaka:

“I felt the growing urge to, to really creatively depict the earth as the animal kingdom it once was, but I wanted to take it to a new level by putting all kinds of wild animals from every stage of Earth's history, from the beginning of time to the present day in the same time and place. And I was like an uphill battle trying to reassure myself that since I'm writing it, I don't have to use logic. I don't have to rely on making it realistic. I just want to do it for myself, to feel better and to hone my creative skills. So right now, one of the main challenges is trying to remind myself that it's okay to use my imagination and that I don't have to set my stories in the real world….I figured it would be a perfect way to start just writing for therapy… I felt it in my gut that I not only wanted to envision myself as the protagonist for one thing, but I also have felt the need in my gut to depict my favorite Spanish singer, Selena as my character's love interest.

Derek:

“I was up in the morning and then I looked through the window at some leaves. And I saw, I saw this old man's face in the leaves. And it gave me some kind of message. But other than doing therapy with my brother that night, we were talking about the universe. And then I remember I talked to my mom about all these incredible things I had been through and who, and what I might be that has to do with this stuff. And she was amazed. Like you never forget this look on people's faces when you tell them something unbelievable about life. And they see it's true, it's this look on people….I told her what I learned and, you know, she was just amazed by it. And then I went in my room after that experience and I was just thinking about what colors mean about the universe, what it means. It has a very deep interpretation what colors mean, but yeah, I went through a lot of intense stuff in front of me. And that's probably where it all started”

“I believe there are infinite parallel universes. And what happens in each parallel universe is that the closest to us, they do something slightly different in every circumstance than we do. They do something slightly different in the next one, slightly different, slightly different, slightly different….It's confusing. It's really confusing. I just see that we can make other choices and sometimes we're so on the brink of making another choice, that the reality of that choice has to go somewhere. It's got to exist somewhere because we were so close to it. It almost happened. But then I believe it did happen somewhere else.”

“I'm supposed to be making good things happen. I believe that's my mission is to create this big impact on humanity. And I know it's hard to believe when you hear incredible things. So you have to try to find an explanation that seems the simplest like that he's mentally ill or something, but it's just honestly, not that you know….What started all my mental health issues was I was taking a vitamin, and I used to be addicted to amphetamine and I would take Adderall and Ritalin and stuff. And that's what started everything, all the philosophizing. But it also started my depression and anxiety.”

Aleeyah:

“I hung myself. And I did it and my sister cut me down. But it was everything, everything, just all at once hit me. Cause I was, I was just in my pain, nauseous, thinking about everything that's been going on from January to November. And I'm like this is just too much. Like it was just too much for me to handle, you know, sometimes you can just shake things off and keep, keep moving. I couldn't, it's hard. So I hung myself and then I woke up here and I'm thankful for that, honestly, because if I did die, my mom probably would have, I don't even know…I love my mom. She's like my best friend. And I love her more because she's been here to support me through this whole thing. So it's like, if I did die, she would have been hurt. Like I'm the baby…

Aleeyah’s recent rap: Intoxicated LUCID SOUNDS
“I love the life I'm living
1.2 Pursuing every mission
Asking god for forgiveness
Cause he's my only witness
The money got me sinning
Was hungy, now I'm winning
X2

Where the fuck was you
When I was on a fucking money move
I feel like I got nothing else to lose
You couldn’t even walk up in my shoes.”

Kisslyn:

“My thoughts were really destructive… I didn't have anywhere to go….I was actively suicidal and I didn't trust myself. I didn't want to hurt my parents, my family, my sister, my oldest sister, especially, I didn't want to hurt her. So I decided to go to the hospital where it would be safer for me....Because I had a lot of trauma life, a lot of bad things, just a series of unfortunate events and it just led up to not talking about it. And in my country [Grenada], there's such a stigma on mental illnesses and stuff like that. So people don't talk about it.”

Kisslyn’s Anime Character:

“Her name is Anna. And back in the medieval times, her dad was a really rich businessman who sacrificed things and people for his businesses to thrive. And so one day she and her sister were walking. And they saw this girl tied up and stuff and they didn't know what was happening. So they went and tried to help her and save her and when they saved her, they went back to investigate and they ended up mistaking and sacrificing her instead. But when you sacrifice a non-Virgin, you get a succubus or incubus. So she's a succubus. And she ended up getting this personality off the demon and she has to feed off of peoples lust for her and other things for her to stay young and beautiful….She's not really a shape shifter, but, um, her power basically is like how you view her.”

Jaice:

“The earliest memories that I do have. I always wondered why I had this image. I was like 15. Everything broke loose when I was 15… like when I was a freshman in high school. My mother died there. So like, the image was that. It's miserable. It's like of my mother, like lying, like lying on the ground, the kitchen floor….Yeah. With a purple blanket on top of her. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Blankets blood-soaked…..why do I have that image? I don't know. I have that like, kinda telling me that it wasn't. Yeah. It wasn't an image. It was a memory. And that was her suicide attempt.”

“I would actually like run around or jog around or walk around the front of the cemetery and yeah, like it was a nice park…..at the same time was feeling extremely suicidal, like, yeah. I just wanted to come here and like lay down and that will be the way to go. Like, I mean, how fitting, like I swear, I'm already there. But I mean, realistically thinking about it now, it would be very inconvenient. It would cause a lot of inconvenience for the people who work here because you know…but for me, just like lying, you know, in the greens and like yeah. Drinking and eating my favorite food before. Yeah. Before I die. Yeah. So to me, I was like, I’ll stay living here and it was sort of comforting….I'm not sure if the word relief would be enough to justify this on the night that I decided that I wanted to die….I felt like I was awash with happiness and like this cathartic, overwhelming, like happiness spread all over my body. And I was just very content. Yeah. Like no more, no more having to struggle through life. No one has struggled through this. No more having to seek meaning fruitlessly when I know that there isn't any such thing. Yeah, it was perfect.”

Hektar:

“My family…most of them died at mental institutions and penitentiaries in jails fighting for that money. You know, it was a lot of money. It was drug money….Tar baby means black tar. My family, my entire family made me tar baby. I'm the only one named tar baby. It means black tar. It means heroin-addicted baby. And they got black tar on the streets, all the black tar on the streets there. When they're sold on the streets, that's my family's heroin. They're sold on the streets and that's our drugs. And those drugs are our drug money. So that drug money goes to me when they died. They left me that money…..I was born addicted to tar black tar heroin from my mother and my father.

“I became a leader of the Latin Kings and the Latin Queens, I'm considered both, I'm considered a Latin King and a Latin queen….My mother was a well-known actress. I'm not going to tell you her name she's dead. She was murdered, but she made many, many movies. And my father, he was a well-known baseball. He played for the Yankees, but I, um, made a name for myself as a poet. And really poets don't make no money, but I'm better known with the name tar baby.”

One is poem is entitled:

“Without the children.” Without the children. There wouldn't be any laughter without the children. There wouldn't be any happiness without the children. There wouldn't be any civilization without the children. 

Another one is entitled. “Why was I born?”:

“All of you were born to try. All of you were born to cry. All of you were born to die. That is why you were born.”

Carolyn:

“It was destructive because he used to be emotionally abusive. And when I say emotionally abusive, he was very calculating of what he did. He was very vindictive. He had this very, like, demonic side. But at the same time he could be loving and caring and make me feel like I’m his daughter, make me feel like he accepts me. So I was very confused as a child. Like does he hate me? Does he love me? But I see more hate. So, he hates me, he doesn’t love me. And so, with that said, he would calculate how he would treat me and what he would do to emotionally abuse me. So there’s one instance where... my brother used to come home, and he would feed him. He would not give me food. He would have me watch my brother eat at the table and not give anything to me and have me watch my brother eat. So many nights he used to starve me. I would ask him, ‘Can I please get some food?’” I got very depressed. I was in so much pain….I cope through my cutting. It released me. Because I’m going through pain, I need to feel the pain and make it release. That’s why I cut. I don’t know what to do in that moment. I wanna scream, I wanna shout, I wanna kill that person, I wanna stab that person, I can’t do that. So I have to do it to myself. And the thing is, when I get triggered, or something happens, I have to destroy something. If it’s not myself, it’s something like a teddy bear or throwing a glass. Something has to be destroyed. And that’s how I cope.” 

“I can’t describe how much of an angel she is. Like from the heavens so high, she makes me forget that I ever wanted to die. But wait, I must say this. She’s oh so beautiful, words can’t describe. She’s like a lilly flower that keeps it’s beauty even when it dies. The way that she thinks is so insane, because she’s such a genius. Magna cum laude, yes I tell you the truth. Never failed a class in her life because guess what? She has that type of blues. Blue is her favorite color. Can’t you see? Because when it’s dark at night, the starts in the sky are oh so bright. Her wishing it could always be night, to have that one very prince be her knight.”

discussing her paintings (shown below)
“It’s simple but yet it has such a great meaning, such a deep meaning to it. Now, this is me, and this is all the pain I’m experiencing, and this is the other me where it’s all sadness, that’s all I feel, it’s all the negative. And the negative is just taking over me. So it’s like, I have no break, ‘cuz I have two sides to me. I’m literally fighting with myself. My mind is my worst enemy. I feel like I’m in shackles. Like, I feel like the enemy is within me and I can’t fight her. I’m fighting a battle I can’t win, so I have to learn how to cope with it. So. That’s what that represents.”

Shane:

“Here’s the thing. You show symptoms, right? You show symptoms or signs of certain things. There could’ve been triggers. Like, maybe drug abuse or... other things, y’know? Maybe like, PTSD, or like re-occurring, like some kind of brain damage, that triggered a manic episode, right? And then you lose control. Maybe like you did too much drugs, or something. You lost that kind of like - that understanding about the fabric of reality, you know? And you lost yourself. And you lost control. You ended up upstairs, right? They offer you like an aftercare program. To kind of like check up on you to make sure you don’t slip back into that kind of haze, that kind of confusion, you know? So, you freak out. For me, it was... smoke some weed, right? Go through a lot of like, stress and emotion, right? Then it’s like, you’re... you’re dealing in your high state, you know? You come down from your high state, and it’s like you slip into like a manic episode. So you don’t know if it was the weed, you don’t know if it was the altering your mental state, you don’t know if you’re just born this way, but now you’re bipolar too. Okay? Now. Here’s the thing with the aftercare. You come to the aftercare now, it’s like, group time! Let’s all talk! Like... it’s kind of like this sheep-herding kind of thing. Where... how far gone are you? How far gone are you? How far gone are you? I trust you to go home and come back here, but... they keep you it like a fetal mental state. Right? Where... take your medicine, and eventually you’ll be okay. Stop talking that nonsense about hearin’ voices…but, I hear... but, continue talking about voices because, you know, like obviously the medication’s not working and you should be here for another two months. Right? Now. How that pertains to me is that, I refuse to take the medication.

“You know? I came out the hospital, was discharged, and was like you know what, this medication thing is just not for me. Like I’m not dealing with this medication thing. ‘Cus, altering your brain chemistry sends false signals to your mind. You know? Like, it’s like... a false signal! If I feel upset, if I’m upset by something, right? But I have lithium at a therapeutic level, quote unquote, runnin’ through my veins, right? Does that... does that, does that not mean... does that not mean that I can’t feel that anger? That - that that anger... like something just happened, someone just came in and spilled my coffee and then flipped the table. Right? But during a lithium, therapeutic state.... like your reaction time is delayed. How you would normally react is delayed, because like, lofty state lofty state. You know? So why would I reject my emotion? Because of like, a hypomania? Or like a manic state? Like, oh no, you drank too much coffee too much caffeine! You’re hyper! Look at you talkin’ about angels and demons again! You know?”

“What if that’s part of my quirky personality? Like what if that’s just part of my personality? Like what if I like robots? What if I like fantasy art? What if I like sci fi? You know? What does what I’m saying to you have anything to do with what the fuck I’m doing? You know? But that’s not to reject a manic state. Like I did go upstairs, I was buggin’ out. There was a time period in which I completely lost myself. But in that time period of me completely losin’ myself, what does that have to do with the personality in which I am?”

“Addictions happen. You pick up cigarettes. You pick up smokin’ weed. You pick up goin’ to parties. You live a bohemian lifestyle of painting and drawing and talking bullshit and kinda like, living on the edge of your seat kinda like Basquiat, you know? It’s like, was homeless, took a sleep in Tompkins park. You know? Like, boom, one of those kinda lifestyles. ‘Cus you’re not taking life too seriously, and then you hit 26, and it - it’s like, you survived the overdoses. You survived the overdoses, you survived the keg stand, you survive the, the “Yo I’m gonna drink all twenty four of these fuckin’ cans!” (Laughs) You know? You survive the PBR’s all the way to the IPA’s, you survive all that shit. And then it comes down to it, like... you know bodies hurt. You know? Like wakin’ up in the morning and feelin’ like an old man, like, (makes crackling noises) ugh this fuckin’ Newport. Wakin’ up like that, it doesn’t just burn out ‘cus you’re young. It’s not, you’re young, ooh! Burnout! It’s - those decision you made at 23 are now gonna compile themselves into conditions at 40 and 50. How well prepared am I to deal with my groggy ass? At 50? I’m 26 and I feel like an old man. I feel like wakin’ up is like ohhh shit, here we go again. You know? If I don’t have any money, where will I be wakin’ up? Next year? The year after that? In a shelter?”

Stephanie:

“Yeah like the tone of your thoughts. Like I feel like, like I be havin’ thoughts that be screamin’ at me, like... like it’s my voice in my head, but I’m like, it’s like somebody else is screaming at me, that’s what it feels like, like my brain is a different person…..Like, I tried to hang myself one time. And before I did that, the voice was screaming at me like, do it do it do it do it! But it’s in my head. And it feels like it’s a separate person in my head, but it’s my voice. But it’s yelling at me. See it’s like, my thoughts are like louder, and a little angry. But it’s in my head, I’m not hearing voices, I know it’s my voice….I started panicking. And it was just like, I started having a lot of thoughts of killin’ myself. And then the thoughts were just super loud and just like - go do it, go kill yourself go kill yourself, and just wouldn’t go away, but the thought was just - it was so loud, it was just gettin’ annoying, that’s why I went and I tried to go hang myself. Gotta just listen to it, I’m just like okay already I’ll do it. It just felt like it was screaming at me.”

“I find myself sometimes talkin’ to myself. Like I’m talkin’ back to the voice, and it’s like “do it” and I’m like “I’m not gonna do it.” It’s crazy. It’s thoughts, I know it’s thoughts, it’s not voices, it’s thoughts, but - it’s like your thought has a - like your thought is a separate person, which is so weird. That’s what it feels like though. It feels like another person.” 

Talitha:

“I... never really had any episodes like I did prior to what happened. I was going to work on the train, and, I get these like, ups and downs sort of things that happen where I feel very empty inside, or very just, emotionless almost. My... racing thoughts of just whatever’s in my head, sort of thing. So I was on the train going to work, I was at a job in Coney Island, and I got off the train and I felt like I had to leave, like I had to go somewhere but I didn’t have any plan, sort of thing. It wasn’t very... it didn’t make sense at the time but, during that moment it felt like I was doing, like, something that I had to do, I had to leave, I had to get out, sort of feeling. So I went on a shopping spree buying like, camping gear and a lot of things, planning to just disappear. So. I did that, and I got on a Peter Pan bus to the only place that I knew had some sort of like, nature aspect to it, which is close to Mount Holyoke. So I took the bus there, I set up like a camping site, I was planning to stay there. For no real reason, I didn’t know what I was doing there, or really like... what plan I had. And I still had that mentality... that empty feeling. So it felt fine at the time, like, what I was doing. And I spent the night there by myself. And in the morning around like 1 o’clock the police found me. And they... told me a lot of people were looking for me, ‘cuz people thought I had disappeared. They thought I was kidnapped or something. So they like, so they called all my friends, my family, asking like, where I could possibly be. Um. They were looking all around campus and around the wooded areas and everything. So they found me. And I kind of panicked. I don’t know why I felt like I was being found out, someone like... I just felt like I had to get out of that situation. So. I went and I got, um... razors from a store nearby. I left my camping stuff behind….. So that’s where I did this ‘cus I figured, like... in my head, it seemed that would be a good place to be alone, and... like, no one would find me, like in public, so I was in like, the mud, it was raining, I had mud all in my cuts, I was there for like two hours and nothing was like, happening? [coughs] And I was just lying in dirt. And then, that’s when, I don’t know what happened, I started feeling frustrated almost. Like that nothing was happening for two hours, like I could see all the blood but, I don’t know. At some point I was so upset that nothing was happening like I cut my leg here, open, I was trying to like, cut other parts to see if more blood would come out. 

That’s the thing. I... in a way saved myself. I limped to someone’s, um... there’s like houses in the back of some wooded area, behind the cemetery, and after like two hours when nothing was happening and i cut my leg and nothing was happening, I just limped mindlessly, it wasn’t like I was trying to save... it didn’t feel like I was trying to save myself, it was more just like, the frustration, I was just done. And then I just limped to someone’s house.”

“I didn’t feel anything. I wasn’t even crying or anything during that entire period. I was just... I felt like, I was the only person around, and then when people would like, intrude, then that’s when I would start to panic almost. But I felt like I had to leave. I wrote something to my parents before I went and did this. And then I sent it in the mail, basically saying like that I’m leaving, that I love them. But I still feel like, when I explain it, it feels more like a story than it does like an actual event in my life. Because I try to think back like, why I would want to do something like that, like what could be the cause. But I really can’t, like personally I can’t find reason like, I was going to work, I was going to school, I was going into my senior year, I was happy.”

Marsha:

“I grew up in foster care. And, I’ve been on medication all my life. My mother is bipolar schizophrenic. And... I didn’t know this when I was growin’ up ‘cuz I had never met her, or my father. And, as I got older, I think I met my mom about sixteen, when I was sixteen, I went looking for her. And then I found out why we ended up in foster care.”

“I only remember livin’ with my aunt when we were like, little little kids. But, after that we went through foster care. I was abused and molested - I been runnin’ away since I was thirteen years old, so I’ve really been like taking care of myself all of my life. And the only person I really ever had is my twin sister. And, we were separated at eleven.”

“I hear voices. It wasn’t always like that. It got worse as I got older. And I think a lot of times, a lot of the stuff I went through had a lot to do with, um, my illness becoming worse. And then I don’t know, one day I had got into a car accident. And I got into the car accident cuz I was trying to get away from the person I was in the car with. And he was real abusive, and I was just at that point like I was just ready to go. So, at that time, it was like - either you lettin’ me go or we both gonna die, and I grabbed the steering wheel. And, I ended up goin’ through the windshield, and I started having seizures. And, after that like, I don’t know, I guess - I started hearing the voices, I guess more so, I don’t know if it was a coping thing. But they never turned off after that. So it’s like, when i’m angry I hear them, when I’m sittin’ by myself I hear them. You know. Like they taunt me a lot. And I try not to get into my own head. The only thing that really helps is if I listen to music. So I wear my headphones a lot. So I can listen to my music. And then, I have a real bad anger problem. I have a real bad anger problem.”

“Sometimes they’re angry. It’s not like a female or a male, it’s just like, voices. Sometimes like, it depends on my mood. Like if I’m feelin’ really really sad, I’ll start feelin’, gettin’ suicidal thoughts. But, I’m not suicidal. I never wanted to hurt myself. I think the only time I ever tried to hurt myself was in that car. But, other than that - I normally turn it outward cuz I’m angry at the voices for trying to tell me to kill myself. So I turn it on other people. And I hurt people. I - most of my charges are violent charges, and real brutal violent charges. I tend to black out when I get real angry. And, and I don’t... it’s almost like... an outer experience? Like I can see myself? But, I can’t really stop myself.”