Blogs
Cheryl Wozny
It can be hard to talk about a situation that involves verbal abuse. Many victims can be hesitant to share their verbal abuse stories, especially when they are afraid of backlash or gaslighting from others. This reluctance is a barrier that can keep individuals from leaving abuse, healing, and moving forward.
Tanya J. Peterson, MS, NCC, DAIS
An anxiety-flare up is an unexpected return of anxiety after you thought you had worked through it. Despite how it may feel, it's not a sign that you're doomed to a life of high anxiety. When you gain a broader perspective on what an anxiety flare-up is, you can take steps to handle it and move forward again.
TJ DeSalvo
I don’t know how many people feel limited by anxiety, but if I were to make a bet, I would say that quite a few people are impacted by the limitations of anxiety, so I figured a post is recommended. When I am anxious, I find that there are certain things that I am unable to do because they are too mentally taxing. I’m not talking about things that I’m uncomfortable doing anyway – these are things that I love doing, things that I would ordinarily spend a lot of time doing if I wasn’t anxious.
Annabelle Clawson
Hard conversations are, well, hard. Maybe you are waiting for another person to initiate; perhaps you don't want to ruin your relationship. You might convince yourself that there's nothing to talk about, that issues will magically melt away soon enough. Most of the time, unfortunately, this isn't true--most of the time, you need to have a difficult conversation.
Martyna Halas
This post is not necessarily about wrist scars, as self-harm can come in many forms. This is just a reflection on my personal experiences with self-injury in the wrist and forearm area, as that's where I used to hurt myself. I feel most people react to scars similarly, especially if their reaction comes from ignorance or fear rather than love. Therefore, this might be helpful if you know someone who self-harms, and you wonder how to behave around them.
Kate Beveridge
It can be easy to fall into a victim mentality with borderline personality disorder (BPD). You can often feel like your brain is working against you and making life unnecessarily hard. However, treating yourself as a victim can be detrimental and prevent you from recovering and moving on from traumatic events.
Laura A. Barton
I feel as though people like to think about incidents of mental health stigma as little pockets in time, but really it lives beyond the moment it happens. It's not compartmentalized or filed away. We know stigma can have negative impacts on a person, but understanding the depth of those impacts starts with understanding how long that moment of stigma can exist for a person.
Jennifer Lear
The "Iceberg Theory" is a frequently cited model of behavior which states that a person's behavior can only be properly understood in the context of the factors that caused it. What a person does is "the tip of the iceberg"-- what we don't see are the emotional, social, cultural, and other factors that lie "beneath the surface" to cause that behavior.
Elizabeth Caudy
A blessing was recently bestowed upon my family--my brother, Billy, and his life partner, Sandy, had a baby girl whom I adore. Even though they live in California and I live in Illinois, and even though I haven’t yet met Baby, watching videos of her has quickly become one of my coping skills for my schizoaffective anxiety.
Kim Berkley
Hurting yourself to get out of work or school can seem like a tempting option—maybe even your only option—when you're overwhelmed and feeling trapped. But it's ultimately a solution that causes more problems than it solves.
It's important to include your son in the process of finding a mentor. In fact, gently encouraging him to identify people he respects and helping him brainstorm ways to approach them will show him that you believe in his ability to advocate for himself and take the action steps he needs to take to move forward. Anxiety, of course, does make this very difficult because he may not be comfortable with it. Start small and let him get used to the idea of having a mentor. He might start by thinking of something that is important to him, like a goal he has or something he wants to do more of but can't because of anxiety. Then, he can list pros and cons of having a mentor to help him move toward what is important to him. When he sees for himself how a mentor can help him, he may be more willing to (but still anxious about) identifying someone to work with. You could help him develop ways to approach the person on the top of his list (it's always wise to have several possibilities because someone might not be able to do it). Working with a therapist might also help your son develop confidence and tools for reaching out to a mentor. It might take some time, but the process itself is an important part of working through anxiety.