in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math). More specifically, I have both a bachelors and a masters in physics. Physics is roughly only 20% women nationally, so I'm used to being the only female in a room. Many of the men studying physics today don't see a problem with me being female; however, there is a portion of them that I have to constantly fight — mostly for them to believe that, yes, I do know what I'm talking about....

upset. / The brain is buzzing. / The anxiety is building. / So are the tears. / So are all of my feelings, / All of my fears. / The added stress on top of it all / This ginormous wall / I can’t get past. / I don’t know how. / Please tell me. / I don’t want to feel this way. / I’m tired. / I try to climb the wall / I’m out of breath, panting. / The wall appears impenetrable. / I wish it would just disappear...

mid-twenties. One and a half weeks ago I got the news that I was selected for my dream job. I’ve been working toward this since I was 18. When I got the news, I felt the happiest and healthiest I had felt in a long time. I finally did it. A few days after getting the job news, I found out I was two to three weeks pregnant. I saw everything start to slip through my fingers. Years of hard work disappeared as quickly as water down the drain...

numbness is what’s left after your first sexual assault, swamping over you like dark fog rolls in from the ocean. After your second, the numbness has already taken up space; it’s infected you, and thus you feel as though nothing has changed. It’s familiar. Nothing at all has changed. I have always been vocal about my experiences with mental health. I write poetry and blogs...

about subtlety, about settling in. This is not a story about rage or about force or trauma. This is story about a deep-seededness that becomes impossible to identify until you’re on the other side of it, way over across the way so that you can look at it. Put it in its place. This is my story. I got a real boyfriend my senior year of high school. While I felt that a boyfriend...

year of college I was the girl who didn't date. It wasn't for any weird reason and I didn't bring attention to it. I just didn't date. I flirted and got to know a few guys, but that was it. I think I kissed a boy my first week at school, we hung out for like a month, and then both said "nah, not interested." It wasn't my thing. I had bigger things to achieve and I wanted...

to the feeling of an unwanted guest, shaken to consciousness by alarm and confusion. I knew those hands, those fingers. They high fived me after I told a good joke, they hugged me and made me beam with pride, they held me when I was a newborn. Confused. Terrified. Frozen. Scared. Aroused? No, I didn’t want this. After I fled I was told that I...

negative experiences with men happened at the same house, two years apart. I was working a temporary job away from home. On a day off, all of the employees went to one of the coworker's homes; everyone got drunk. I remember laying on the couch—my head on a male coworkers lap, his hand in my pants. And then I remember throwing up. I never...

he whispered. He let go of my hand and moved it to my stomach. “Are you okay?” I was 14 and watching a movie with friends, sitting next to him. I couldn’t figure out why he was asking me that. But yeah, I was fine, thanks for asking? The movie kept playing and his hand moved lower. “Are you okay?” He wasn’t clear enough and I didn’t understand...

this with a simple statement: the life that I live today was worth the torment of every grueling challenge and experience I have ever had to face. I grew up in a home where no one knew how to express love for one another. My father, an abusive alcoholic, was ever-absent. When he was present, which was seldom, he was vicious. Pair the previous with a...

why I’m nervous to write this. He should be the one embarrassed of how he made me feel. Why am I embarrassed about how I dealt with it? He knew the power he had over me. He chipped away at me. He put me down. Then he said he loved me, so I played along. I pretended to think it was normal because he loved me. After we broke up, I’d never felt so...

in a Christian church. On top of my education being intertwined with the bible and its teachings, I grew up in the humid cathedral that is the south. Even if you weren’t going to church you were somehow inherently Christian, and taught to say ‘bless your heart,’ by the young age of three. As a young woman of this tradition, I was taught to seek...