Overwhelmed: A Collection of Short Stories Illustrating Diverse Mental Health Struggles

For these four pieces, I decided to explore different mental health struggles through both nonfiction and fiction. In order to do this, I explored different styles in each one. In Panic Atta-, I told the story in chronological order of my earlier panic attacks by noting the dates that I experienced them. In Dr . Dooley, I wrote the story, which is the beginning of my memoir that I’m working on, in second person because by using second person, my readers will feel as if they’re the main character and I think that’s important for Dr . Dooley. For Finally Seeing Clearly, I drew from my experience of emotional abuse and put that into Adiana’s character. Additionally, I wrote Finally Seeing Clearly in two different perspectives because I think when writing about abuse that it’s important to see other people’s perspectives, especially, from friends. I can personally relate to each of these stories, whether that be a nonfiction piece that happened to me or a fiction piece in which part of the story is true for me. Last summer, I was introduced to writing nonfiction and fell in love with the genre–I’m grateful to be able to share some of my writing.