Author: Cozy Huggins

Disclaimer: When it comes to mental health and mental illness, I believe it is critical to talk about these things, how they affect us and about how our loved ones can support us. Talking, writing, music etc. helps us become louder than silence. Mental illness affects everyone differently, but this is my story. Finally, may September, which is Suicide Prevention Awareness Month, serve as a reminde...

It’s 4:51 a.m. (to be precise), and I can’t sleep. Underneath a mound of blankets and facing away from the sounds of 1300 East, I feel relatively content. The faces of my family, friends and attractive German soccer players stare down at me from photos plastered on my uncomfortably white wall. It’s like they’re all asking me, ‘What are you so afraid of?’Well, photographs, if you mus...

It wasn’t my parents I feared most but rather the things I knew they couldn’t protect me from. They never asked me to define myself in any certain way and never pushed it to happen sooner than I was ready. But even their unconditional love couldn’t prepare me. Back then, what lined my nightmares (and gym class) was isolation. What lined my day-to-day stagnation of survival was the intentions ...

Heyo, It’s me—your friendly neighborhood residential adviser (RA). You might know me from the first floor meeting, where I awkwardly talked about policies loudly in your face, or perhaps from those passive aggressive signs about keeping the microwave clean. I didn’t become an RA just for the monetary benefits. Although that was a large motivator, it’s not what made me stick around. Belie...

Holden smiled at me when I got to Shaw and hovered slightly behind while I selected nourishment. I’d appreciated that he was so quick to answer my text about needing an eating buddy, but desired some alone time while picking the tools of my soon to come surrender.It was a bad day, I could tell, spurned by a lack of sleep and inactivity after my grandma passed away. I was operating in a haze, dedic...

Dear first-year Cozy, This next year will be a big one. You will meet new friends and come to value their understandings of what it means to indeed Be a Human. You’ll begin to understand more and more how identity shapes who you are and the perspectives you have.You’ll learn that accepting yourself is not an overnight, click-of-a-heel adventure, but something you have to fight for. Sometimes ...

I am angry. That I have to write this in the first place. That it took me this long to be angry. That every time I meet someone I fall into the habit of prematurely wagering if I’ll have to hide to avoid a preconceived notion of judgment. I have not yet landed on a metaphor fitting of how to describe what it is to be in the closet to straight people, the closest I’ve come is imaging sitting still ...