Mental Health in the Deodorant Aisle

Eric Boyd
5 min readAug 18, 2021

It’s like a radio stuck between stations. Static and half-thoughts. I’m nervous all of the time. I can’t stop picking and chewing at my skin. Yesterday I hung something on a wall and spent hours thinking about the fact that I didn’t center it properly. I try to unwind with video games. Listen to music. Drink tea. Take everything from fish oil and vitamins to ayurvedic herbal supplements. None of this is helping, is it?

Eric Boyd

Work in Joyland, Guernica, and The Offing. Winner of a PEN Prison Writing Award. Working on a novel. // linktr.ee/ericboyd