"If two people come together," my mother began, "who've never had any power except by the way of abuse, it's going to be bad. Both of us had power exerted over us as children. I eventually learned that as an adult, I was still doing the dance, seeking out abusive relationships. That doesn't mean it was my fault. But I… » 3/01/15 3:13pm Yesterday 3:13pm

Saturday night, after reading Times columnist Charles Blow's account of his son's detainment at gunpoint by Yale campus police, I was transported back to my own run-in with UCLA campus police in 2009. It was a typically relaxed Sunday evening, and I was headed home from the library. As I passed Ackerman Student Union… » 1/27/15 4:49pm 1/27/15 4:49pm

A pregnant woman I didn't know struck up a conversation with me at a party recently. We chatted amicably about the weather (bad), the Golden Globes (fine) and the food at the party (great) before the conversation turned—inevitably, it felt—towards birth (hers). She told me she was nervous but excited, that she could… » 1/23/15 11:50am 1/23/15 11:50am

Editor's note: A few weeks ago, we were approached by a prolific Thought Catalog essayist who writes under the byline "Anne Gus." As it turned out, Anne is a young Swedish man whose real first name is Jakob (he wouldn't give out his last name). » 10/07/14 2:59pm 10/07/14 2:59pm

The first one that arrived was for Kevin, a teenage boy from Port Arthur, Texas: » 10/02/14 4:37pm 10/02/14 4:37pm

Amid the police terror that has swept the nation these last few months, there has been a missing facet from the conversation: the fact that women are brutalized by cops just as severely as men. For every John Crawford and Ezell Ford there is an Ersula Ore or a Marlene Pinnock (you can view the footage of Pinnock's… » 9/16/14 4:59pm 9/16/14 4:59pm

It's a Thursday night in August, just past 10 p.m., and my mother is texting me. This might seem like a harmless nuisance except my mother is not supposed to text me. Two years ago I asked her to give me space and not reach out. She responded with an "ok" and proceeded to respect my wishes for 13 days. Nobody's mother… » 9/09/14 3:13pm 9/09/14 3:13pm

My eyelashes are mascara-less stumps and I’ve been commando in the same stained, hot pink sweats for 36 hours, but I don’t care. It’s 2011, and my mom and I are at my grandmother’s house in Michigan hoping for some rest after a hellish year spent cycling through chemo, radiation, and surgeries. » 11/23/13 3:14pm 11/23/13 3:14pm