Running through life with PTSD

By Taylor Sexton • Contributing writer | I was 5 years old when I watched my father’s fist fly into the wall next to my mother’s head. I remember how the little bear figurines on the wall crashed to the floor with the shelf that held them. I remember picking up the broken pieces from the white carpet with my mother and staring into her pained, tear-stained face.

It’s one of the earliest memories I have, but I only just recently remembered it. It was locked away deep within my subconscious, so imagine my surprise when the scene popped back up 13 years later in the form of nightmares, haunting me night after night. 

Macon amends contract for jail medical services

Macon County commissioners approved two amended contracts that will hopefully keep costs down at the detention center. 

Setting boundaries to lead a happier life

An interview with therapist Arika Morrison 

Haywood Commissioners decry cuts to mental health funding

The need for mental health, substance use disorder and intellectual/developmental disabilities resources in North Carolina is growing, but funding is not. In fact, another massive cut is on the horizon, and Haywood’s government and non-profit communities aren’t happy about it. 

WNC to lose $9 million in mental health funding

The North Carolina General Assembly has proposed cutting millions of dollars in mental health funding in the recommended 2019-20 budget despite ongoing efforts to fight the opioid crisis and improve these services in rural Western North Carolina. 

Indian Health Service examines issues at Unity Healing Center

The Unity Healing Center in Cherokee has become the subject of intense focus from the U.S. Indian Health Service’s regional office in Nashville following a June report from The Wall Street Journal alleging that suspected sexual abuse at the facility resulted in a suicide attempt by one of the teenaged residents — but no report to law enforcement. 

Forced to Fight: Addicts long for life beyond heroin

Editor’s note: Names have been changed to protect the identity of those interviewed for this story. 

Five miles down an Appalachian dirt road 45 minutes from nowhere is where Daphne Laurel was raised, right in the heart of the sparsely populated mountainous region hit hardest by the ongoing opioid crisis. 

KARE child advocacy center helps the county’s most vulnerable

Just off Waynesville’s North Main Street, in one of the town’s most blighted areas, on top of a small hill sits a little green house that many people drive by each day, without noticing it at all. 

Major expansion set to open at Pathways

As homelessness continues to rise in Western North Carolina, Haywood County’s innovative and effective adult shelter is about to cut the ribbon on a brand new dorm designed to be a place of refuge for a critically underserved population. 

Searching for answers: Mass shootings linked to multiple factors

A senseless tragedy. Those words are repeated over and over again in the aftermath of mass shootings in the United States.

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