I thought to myself, either I choose to be a victim and let those feelings rule me or I consciously choose to rule it.

Wherever you live, you are in a community.

Love is something that cannot be confined into a day.

It was January, 2018, before I realised I had social anxiety

...waiting in a castle, for her sword-wielding knight in dress

People say that ‘happiness is the only thing that doubles when you share it.’

Why is it that universities can be very lonely places, where isolation can contribute to adverse mental health outcomes and, very sadly, sometimes to suicides?

I struggled with interpreting the theme of community a bit. Community – to me – involves connecting and feeling involved...

Every time we offer our words and willing ears pick them up, a new one blooms into life...

A place that’s safe, honest and true
Where I can be me and you can be you

Sophie Isaacson on finding a sense of place in a high speed, overwhelming and globalised society.

I was thrown into community living.

Feminist pioneer Talat Yaqoob discusses on empowerment, intersectionality and self-care

The roots of our shamefulness run deep...

Thank fuck for friends
Gin, tears and laughter

Ely Percy captures the feeling of being new to a community in this fictional vignette of a Scottish queer night scene.

It was connecting with strangers that set me off on a mission to talk about depression...

Being part of multiple communities has allowed me to find a space where it feels okay to share

I simply channeled my anxiety and depression into overwork

Growing up, I had to take care of myself and rely on myself and could never rely on anyone else.

A is for anchor. The thin reedy voices of the spares congregation echoed round the empty freezing space of the church.

Ericka Waller pens one of her usual “lists of failures”, but this time adds a second -- of her day’s successes

Guilt has flourished into acceptance and the ability to move on rather than constantly striving then failing to change the past.

He wouldn’t try to fight his way through such a barrier, she knows that.

The end of a relationship is also a new beginning...

I didn't feel the rush of love I'd read about.

I have to turn my social media off at Christmas as everyone shares the mountains of presents they gave or received.

It's hard to know where to begin when it comes to my mental health, which seems strange because it's something I think about every day.

Here's to a generation of women who've come of age believing that our truest selves are counterfactuals

Nobody ever sees you, Dave. Do you ever wish that you knew as little as we do...?

Our culture is completely obsessed with this narrative that "one day" you'll find "the one"

Julie Farrell addresses the sugar-coated stigma and toxic hero-worship of the ‘recovered’...

I love myself, cellulite, resting bitch face and all...

Fearless Volunteers - Writer Gurpreet Sihat shares how volunteering with Fearless has helped her to heal...

My two friends here are powerful and understand what it takes to be a young artist and ...

Watchman: poet Clare O'Brien and artist Lynn Bennett-Mackenzie reflect on place and displacement...

High-profile support for Fearless Femme. Six months since our official launch and my, how we've grown...

‘It’s called the Edge Lords, right?’ ‘No, man,’ I said. ‘It’s all about the Woke Lads now.

The issue was not having a fucking clue what to do next.

You may not have had time to enter this world with your footprints my love,
but you have had a great impact all the same.

In holistic medicine I found answers by tracking my own personal power

Somedays I only put myself first...

Curiosity and desire, Laughter and connection, Feeds that electric spark

A behind-the-scenes look at working in a mental health-focused social enterprise.

If you've ever been curious about our legal structure or funding model, read on!

In a month’s time, I will still be gay.

Bales and dragonflies plus twice-kissed wine

I was told, that I was a bird, with a song too bold, for my own good

I’d walk over if I cut my knee in the playground
Because that’s what I was expected to do

In a bid to rid myself of being a lesbian, I ripped the pages from my diary, tore them up into tiny pieces

Beautiful poetry by Charlotte Underwood, sparked by vivid memories of time with a loved one.

Borderline Personality Disorder is characterised by extreme reactions

Then I realised it’s okay to just be me, to live the life I was already living.

It’s not the kind of love that’s always pretty I’ve wept and fallen to pieces, in fact and will again

So, why does such representation matter?

naked, vulnerable, in your arms
I yearn, to belong

...from my career to my relationships to my queerness – the only way I’m likely to succeed is if I live authentically and strum to my own rhythm.

Sudden anxiety, feeling morbid, awkward, terrified, But determined

“you can’t talk about the movements and important moments in the LGBT community without mentioning Marsha P Johnson.”

Dedicated to, and inspired by the 7 extraordinary girls I spent my adolescence with.

She’s playing me like I played all those other girls before her. I’ve never had to try very hard to win any woman’s affections.

My granny Marian came out as gay in her 50s in rural Scotland. She left her marriage that was crumbling after 25+ years...

like fine wine I had to spit out before I could taste its spice, like briefly helping her dress backstage...

Rational thought stood no chance against the elephants, which multiplied, a herd of hundreds...

J’s that friend, The one you don’t want others to meet, To even glimpse really, But they do, Not often, Not always, But sometimes. 

I didn't realise how lonely I was

Studying when you struggle with mental health problems is sometimes a seemingly impossible task.

It took me a while to realise it; my mother truly is a superwoman....

In early 2014 my heart broke as I watched one of my best friends in the whole world, my Dad, become a stranger...

One of my favourite childhood memories was when I went on holiday...

Violence skimmed across my family like a stone. It never settled for long, but enough to move the surface...

My earliest memory is of my dad lifting me up to peek over the edge of my sister’s cot...

Have a baby they said, you'll glow they said. So I did but I didn't. My glow was more a shade of pond green algae...

In 2007 I gave birth to my daughter. After four months of continual depression I saw a psychiatrist who diagnosed me...

My father drives around in his van with at least two teddy bears, the men at the tip don’t quite know what to think of him...

Did Love fill your obliviated heart, Did you really think that wearing ankle length skirts in Liberty, Would ever truly set you free?

Storm clouds lifting, // Emotions shifting // Searching deeper increasingly braver...

So now I'm finally paying tribute to my one-eyed, no-tailed, four-legged wingman...

Finding out that the man who had raised me wasn't my biological father was the beginning of the new me.

Whenever I have those bad thoughts, // I can always count on you...

You never told me that my body was my own, yet you told me that women died getting the vote...

For as long as I remember, I have seen my mother being brave, outspoken and bold. Until one day, I came across an old picture...

Sexual harassment in schools is commonplace and widespread. The following accounts have been collected from real girls from across the UK.

I’ve been working on my recipe for my own happiness for years now.

In solidarity // We crave equality // Where is the quality // Of our behaviour // No failure // In creating a better world

When I was 5 years old I wanted to be a superhero, // or at least // I wanted to have superpowers // I wanted to fly

This is a rallying call for women and femmes everywhere: talk to your dad about feminism.

I sat, a silent songbird
Languishing in a silver cage
Bound by finely woven wires
Wound from anxiety and depression
Trapping me...

Laying among sunshine and newspapers,
the city bustles around the park’s edge.
I am convinced those around me are faultless, fearless...

If people don’t know what’s going on, anxious friends can end up looking like jerks. I’m a high functioning anxious person and am often able to hide my...

She bursts into bloom
from a wild and furious storm.
Her fire fueled by lightning,
voice powered by thunder
roaring from deep within her belly.

I believe we’ve been taught how to love wrongly. Be it the films where love is proven by punching the new boyfriend in the rain, or the way your friend comforted you...

I have a table for one booked this Valentines day, to celebrate the relationship I have built with myself. My self-love was smelted in the fires of surviving the hardest of times...

Growing up, I wasn’t a very sexual person at all, and the idea of being intimate with someone in any way made me feel sick...

I remember scrolling through Instagram a few years ago as a young, naïve and wholly inexperienced fifteen year old and pausing on a picture of a quote...

Crawling 2 u
Gripped to the floor beneath me
I'm hungry for what we have
But I need it again
Give in to me, no holds barred...

I close my eyes.
I see you, us
What we are and what we could be
And I catch my reflection, smiling.
She's happy.

When I was a wee girl, love was safety and warmth; the strong arms of mum rescuing me from danger, the soft material of dad’s jumper as I snuggled closer...

It’s a funny thing.
When you wet your lips.
And bite down hard.
On the way love has come upon you.
It’s a funny thing ...

A letter to you, I haven't spoken to you since I found out and I hate that you'll think I'm in the wrong for never giving you a chance to explain but I know I'm not...

I don’t need
to enlist photographs
to reassure me of your gaze,
as the penetration
of your eyes
is emblazoned on my face ...

The first moment you see him, you know. The second he steps onto the cinema screen. He’s handsome. He’s sweet. He treats the heroine with unrelenting kindness...

I wasn’t quite expecting to have a baby when I did. It was July, not September. It was too early and everything was going wrong...

They say that when you’re depressed, you lose interest in many things that, once upon a time, made you feel alive...