Feature Story:

"Listen Lucy:  I never really had it easy, the first thing that went wrong was when my biological father and my mom divorced, I was three and didn't understand it at that time.  

I then lived with my mom and saw my father on the weekends, he once promised me he'd always tell me the truth no matter what. I come to find, when I was twelve, that my father was an alcoholic, a gambler, and had emotionally abused my mom. Not only that but he was racist and possibly homophobic, considering I'm big on equality and I recently found out at the time I was pansexual and had a crush on my best friend of the same gender, and my step dad who was a better father than him was African American, I was very angry at this side of him. Though the part i hated the most? The lying to me, and the abuse of my mom, even after they separated. He called my stepdad the "n word" and called my mom a "welfare bum" while he was drunk. I also found he was usually hungover while I was at his house. One time, he forgot to pick me up, so my mom took me to work with her, and I was behind her desk, crying my eyes out, asking why my daddy didn't love me anymore. I was about, 5 or 7 at the time.

When I was 11-12, I was constantly bullied. I ended up really depressed, I started having nightmares, which lead to images, which lead to seeing things, shadows move, figures in the windows. I got insomnia and paranoia, I felt I HAD to stay up with a weapon in my hand, pacing around my room all night because I felt if I didn't, something would break into the house and kill my parents. I never thought of suicide, but I once saw terrible images of my own suicide in different ways, It horrified me so badly that I broke down crying for an hour. After that point I got scared of myself, what if I hurt someone? What if I killed somebody? I was scared of everything and everyone, I pushed people away, never left my room.

None of my teachers noticed my changes, but my mom heard my pacing and it worried her, I would pace so loudly that I'm sure anyone in the house could hear me. That's when my mom took me to a therapist, though, they switched me around so much that I never got one for more than a month. It was horrible because at that point I was a complete mess and couldn't leave the house without sticking practically to my mom's hip, it was because I was so terrified of the world around me and everything in it, I shut myself out for a long time. After that I got a different therapist entirely, that's when I learned I had depression, panic attack disorder, anxiety disorder, trust issues, abandonment issues and a lot more. I felt like for once in my life I was getting some answers.

Nowadays I'm on anxiety meds and something for my hallucinations, my nightmares have stopped and my father is out of my life. It's better now but I still have a lot of problems and can still barely function in society. I'm trying to get better but it seems like every time I get someone in my life who I want to stay they leave, they come into my life, help me, start fading from the relationship, pretty much kick my heart, then leave."

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meet jordan

Meet Jordan Corcoran, Listen Lucy Founder, and learn about her journey through the creation of Listen, Lucy to be an outlet where people can let go of what is holding them down.