Blogs
No one is in a great mood all of the time. Sometimes people simply feel okay. If your friend with depression has engaged in self-destructive behaviors in the past, you might think that he or she is currently not okay and needs help. While this might be true for some people, it is not the case for everyone. To learn about how to respond to your friend's feelings and when to show concern, read this article.
In many of my posts, I discuss challenges or problems involving anxiety that can at least be ameliorated through specific changes you can make in your life. Today, however, I wanted to talk about a less concrete change that I believe can also be valuable when dealing with anxiety. I believe that adjusting one's perspective is equally (if not more) important to one's mental health, and so today I wanted to share my thoughts on the ever-changing nature of anxiety. I think a lot of people just want their anxiety to go away, and feel that their lives will be better once that happens. This in itself is perhaps not the healthiest perspective about anxiety, but it also assumes that there is a single "problem" with anxiety, and that addressing it will remove anxiety from one's life completely.
I'm a huge supporter of ending the stigma surrounding all mental illnesses, which is why I support talking to your kids about eating disorder recovery. This said, as a mother of four children under nine years of age and someone who has been in recovery for a while now, there are two things I think everyone should consider before talking to their children.
An addiction to food is likely one of the most acceptable forms of addiction in our society, but does food addiction always imply the diagnosis of an eating disorder? Honestly, it depends on who you ask. Click and read more.
My schizoaffective anxiety sometimes makes me afraid to do pretty much anything. So, I often do things even though I’m afraid because, if I didn’t do them, I couldn’t function. But since, as I’ve said, I’m anxious about doing so many things, I have to work up a lot of courage to accomplish tasks other people do without a second thought.
An anxiety journal is a powerful mental health tool. Keeping a journal can help you reduce anxiety and move forward freely into your quality life. Beyond that, an anxiety journal can empower you to know what that quality life will be like and how to create it.
I am currently using opposite action to save my social life. Learn how opposite action, a dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) skill, is helping me.
There is a vicious, rampant correlation between eating disorders and bullying—the epidemic is real, and children of all ages can be vulnerable to the mental and physical ramifications. In the United States alone, 65% of those with eating disorders have reported that incidents of bullying caused their behaviors to manifest. Learn more...
My name is Kim Berkley, and I'm the new author of Speaking Out About Self-Injury. I’m looking forward to putting my writing skills to particularly good use here where I hope my words will bring some measure of comfort and clarity to those struggling with self-harm.
I've found hope is harmful. I know, the reflex is to disagree with this, but, at least in my case, hope is harmful. I recently found a bit of hope of ending a profound, debilitating depression. I knew feeling that hope was a mistake, but some part of my brain refused to listen to that. And sure enough, it turned out that hope was harmful.
Remember that, no matter how alone you may feel at any time, there are resources out there that can help. (You can find quite a few on this page: https://www.healthyplace.com/abuse/self-injury/self-injury-homepage)
This blog, hopefully, will be one of those resources for you, but there are others out there too; you're not alone.
When I find a little bit of hope and it is dashed as quickly as it came, it can take weeks of being so low.
I found myself never believing in hope.
Then I realised I was truly hopeless. But I felt that I was better off without it?
I was completely miserable.
A human without hope is nothing I thought.
Now I have a direction. Some support. It's very slow, and hard to allow hope but I find if I do not project too far ahead, a little bit of direction goes a very long way.
It would be remiss of me to not mention Natasha and her insights remind me that I'm not alone, and that I once functioned very well regardless of bipolar.
I do have a little hope that I will find a better routine and lifestyle, and I'm working on it.
Thanks Natasha for helping to open the conversation so that more will understand the complexities of this illness.