Blogs
Building strong self-esteem is easier when you take the time to build a set of life goals that define your personal vision of success. Goals provide us with direction and help clarify the changes we need to make in our journey to healthy self-esteem.
I spoke a little bit in my last video post about how my family all had different ways of supporting my mentally ill brother when he was first diagnosed with anxiety and depression. What started as a reason to argue has turned into one of our greatest strengths as a family – how lucky are we to have so many different types of support to offer our loved one and each other?
If you're anything like me, family might be a touchy subject for you or possibly even an addiction trigger depending on your family's level of dysfunction. Childhood trauma, emotional gaslighting, and psychological abuse are all possible factors when determining a family's dysfunctional nature. For some individuals who endure these experiences as an adolescent, it can possibly lead to a life of addiction, mental health concerns, or for some a life of crime and incarceration. In my experience, the difficulties I have faced with my dysfunctional family certainly impacted the probability of my addiction and mental health diagnosis; and even many years later, I've learned that my family can be a huge trigger for me.
Taking a vacation when you have schizoaffective disorder and there’s a pandemic going on can be very tricky. But I went for a weekend getaway to Door County in northern Wisconsin with my mom a couple of weeks ago--our annual mother-daughter trip--and we had a very good time.
Anxiety has many nasty effects, one of which can be making us too nice or too passive. I'm guilty of this. While I do consider myself to be genuinely kind and considerate, I often take this characteristic a bit too far, putting my own thoughts and emotions aside and even altering my actions for the sake of others. If you find yourself doing much more giving and very little "taking," read on for a look at how anxiety can make us too passive and a few tips on how to begin the process of picking yourself up off the doorstep of life.
As a kid, anytime I watched TV, read a book, or engaged in an activity where I had to sit for long periods, I would rock back and forth (a self-stimulating behavior). To my parents, watching me rock backward and bang the back of my head up against the couch was not odd since my brother was also a "headbanger" as they would jokingly call it. Recently, I learned that my means of self-soothing as a child is called stimming—and there's a connection between self-stimulatory behavior and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
Dealing with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) at work can be stressful. Navigating flashbacks, panic attacks, and hypervigilance is difficult in any setting, but managing these symptoms in a workplace can feel impossible. When you're constantly worrying about judgment from your coworkers and peers, it can be hard to focus on the job at hand.
Most of us are well aware of the importance of a strong work ethic to succeed in one's professional life, but the idea of a healthy rest ethic isn't well known. In fact, thanks to today's hustle culture which demands that we work as much as possible, we are acutely overworked across generations. Irrespective of what certain people in positions of power want us to believe, overworking, also known as hustling, is bad for the mind and body.
You're going to need to talk to people about your bipolar disorder. It doesn't matter what stage of the illness you are in -- just after diagnosis, deep into treatment or in remission -- you need other people to know about your mental illness. So let's talk about why you need to talk to people about your bipolar and how to do it.
It’s the middle of the summertime, and every day is hot and humid. I hate this time of year; I find this kind of weather so anxiety-provoking and draining.