schizophrenia
Schizophrenia 101; look beyond the pop culture portrayals and learn the reality behind this oft-stigmatized mental illness.
The Call You Don’t Remember Making. AI-Generated.
The phone rang at 3:11 a.m. Not a notification. Not an alarm. A real call. Omar stared at the screen through half-closed eyes. Unknown Number. He almost ignored it—almost—but something about the timing felt deliberate, like the call had waited for him to wake up before ringing.
By shakir hamidabout 14 hours ago in Psyche
Essence, Embodiment, and Relational Reality
The Failure of Reduction and the Need for Synthesis There is a persistent failure in many modern attempts to explain what a human being is. Some frameworks reduce the person entirely to matter, insisting that identity, consciousness, morality, and meaning are nothing more than emergent properties of physical processes. Other frameworks move in the opposite direction, detaching spirit from reason and grounding belief in intuition alone, often at the cost of coherence or accountability. Both approaches fail because both misunderstand essence. One denies that essence exists at all. The other treats it as something vague and undefinable.
By Peter Thwing - Host of the FST Podcast6 days ago in Psyche
The House That Waited. AI-Generated.
The house appeared on the road one evening without warning. Kareem was certain of it because he drove that road every day. Same turns. Same cracked asphalt. Same dead tree leaning toward the street like it was tired of standing. There had never been a house there before.
By shakir hamid6 days ago in Psyche
Resistance Is Not the Enemy
Iron sharpens iron. Brakes save lives. Friction preserves form. Modern culture treats resistance as failure. Anything that slows momentum is framed as obstruction, anything that introduces friction is assumed to be opposition, and anything that interrupts progress is labeled a setback. But this instinct misunderstands how both physical systems and human growth actually work. Resistance is not inherently hostile. In many cases, it is the only thing preventing collapse.
By Peter Thwing - Host of the FST Podcast7 days ago in Psyche
The Refiner’s Fire Is Not the Whetstone
There is a difference between being sharpened and being transformed, and confusing the two leads to frustration when growth does not feel productive. Sharpening implies refinement of existing form. Fire implies change in composition. Both processes are uncomfortable, but they operate on different levels and for different purposes. When people expect sharpening and receive fire instead, they often assume something has gone wrong, when in reality something deeper is taking place.
By Peter Thwing - Host of the FST Podcast7 days ago in Psyche
You Are Not Empty, You Are Overloaded
You are not empty. You are not broken. You are not dull. - You are overloaded. - People often describe certain mental states as “having nothing in their head,” but that description is almost always inaccurate. What feels like emptiness is usually saturation. The mind has not stopped producing content. It has lost spare capacity. The system is busy allocating energy toward coping, regulating, or enduring, and there is little left over for reflection, synthesis, or creativity. This distinction matters, because mistaking overload for emptiness leads people to judge themselves harshly for conditions that are largely structural and biological.
By Peter Thwing - Host of the FST Podcast7 days ago in Psyche
Situational Depression: Causes, Symptoms, Recovery, and How to Heal After Life’s Challenges
Life does not always go as planned. Unexpected events such as academic failure, job loss, relationship breakdowns, or family conflicts can deeply affect emotional stability.
By Daily Motivation28 days ago in Psyche
The Night I Understood Football
I didn’t go to the game expecting hope. It was a cold November Thursday. My brother had just lost his job. My nephew hadn’t spoken in days after a school incident. The world felt heavy, and the last thing I wanted was to watch a mismatch—our hometown team facing a dynasty that hadn’t lost in months.
By KAMRAN AHMADabout a month ago in Psyche
In Case of Emergency . Content Warning.
Fran was 45, a single mom of 3 and exhausted. It seemed like every time she would try to find a way to get out of some shit, well ya know the saying, “if it ain’t one thing it’s another.” She was working double overtime at the hospital, braiding hair out her kitchen, delivery driving and selling feet pics online. To anybody else that would seem like a hustlers mentality, but in all actuality, this was Fran pushing herself way past the limits of being a hustler, she felt like a slave to her own circumstances. Tommy was a great husband, at first. He was always working and helping with the kids, and then one day he just…didn’t. He didn’t go to work, he didn’t help with the kids, he just left. Now granted everything wasn’t all sunshine and roses, but he’ll whose relationship is? And it wasn’t her fault. That last baby, Fran told Tommy, I see things getting a little more difficult coming soon, I can’t be on my feet all the time like I was with last pregnancy, I have to take a maternity leave. He acted like he was ok with that, but his actions proved otherwise. Legally they are still married, but he’s been gone for 3 years, Fran started out being worried and concerned and heartbroken. She posted missing signs everywhere in the neighborhood. She rallied up friends and family member and neighbors and started a search party after the police wouldnt help. Saying that “Tommy is a grown man, maybe he just needed sometime alone..”. They never found not one clue to lead to his whereabouts , alive or dead. Now she was sitting at the kitchen table, looking over bills, thinking to herself, “I hope the motherfucker is dead..at least we’d get some insurance money.” She chuckled to herself a little bit, but then, that thought really started to run around in her head. “If he is dead, wouldn’t you have been notified by now? That motherfucker ain’t dead, he’s laid up with some hooker with no kids…but he loves the kids. Wouldn’t he come back for the kids? Why would he just leave and not even say anything? We could’ve talked about it, we could’ve worked it out…unless..” Her swirled with thoughts, good and bad. She sat there staring off into space..Fran’s chest tightened. Her eyes drifted to the junk drawer—past the rubber bands, the takeout menus, the old hospital badge she hadn’t worn since the night everything went sideways. The night Tommy showed up at her job unannounced. The night security escorted someone out in handcuffs, and she signed paperwork she never read because she was eight months pregnant, swollen, exhausted, and just wanted to go home.
By Crystal Caneabout a month ago in Psyche
