Sian Ferguson

For many people — myself included — working from home is a dream. But it’s not all sunshine and daisies. Work is work, and work can be difficult sometimes.

I felt like my body held some kind of magic — magic I always saw in other people, but not in myself. Because despite all the pain I had been through, I was able to use my body for something beautiful.

I’m fifteen. A man has come to our school to tell us girls how to protect ourselves from rape.

Suicidality is a strange thing. Sometimes you think you’ve shaken it off, but it’s actually still there, quietly brewing under the surface until something triggers it.

The inimitable Alice Walker said, “When you are creating beauty around you, you are restoring your own soul.” As someone with multiple mental illnesses, I truly believe that crafting has soul-restoring properties.

Taking care of your mental health is expensive. What happens when you don’t have the means to seek the help you need?

[CN: pregnancy, miscarriage] Plenty of period-positive activists point out that the beauty of menstrual blood is that it’s the only blood that doesn’t arise out of trauma. What we discuss less often is the ability of menstrual blood to induce trauma.

March is always an awful month for me. In Cape Town — my home town — March marks the beginning of autumn. Summer’s exhilarating heat comes to a sobering end. Sweltering afternoons and nights spent around the fire ominously disappear, soon to be replaced by gusts of winds and air so cold it literally hurts your face.

Lesbian, bisexual, pansexual, queer, biromantic, gay – these are all terms which could apply to me. You’ll find though, that people usually only want you to choose one.

My story isn’t meant to hold a mirror to society and say, “You, too, can be strong like me.” It’s meant to hold a mirror to society and say, “You, too, are complicit in rape culture. Let’s work on that.”