Blogs
I’m Hayes Mitchell, and I am excited to join "The Life: LGBT Mental Health" blog. I’m a mental health writer with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in writing with a minor in psychology. I identify as queer and transgender (trans). I began discovering my identity back in high school. Today I’m 22 and still learning about myself every day. I’ve changed my labels many times over the years. I’ve identified as bisexual, pansexual, asexual, and demisexual. I tend to withhold telling people because when I change my mind, I don’t want them to discredit my past experience. Every one of those identities has been real to me at each point in my life. I believe in gender and sexuality as being a spectrum. Everyone exists somewhere on that spectrum.
Living with verbal abuse can drastically alter your life choices and how you navigate the world. However, it's critical that you break away from being the victim if you are recovering from a verbally abusive past. Dealing with abuse is only part of your story and is not the only way to define you as an individual.
I think I’m on a very good medication cocktail. There are several reasons why, but the funniest one is that when I typed “medication cocktail” into my notes on my phone as a story idea, the predictable word “hour” appeared. I was able to see the humor in that, and when I told my husband, Tom, about it, he said, “Medication happy hour!” and we both laughed. Ain’t love grand?
I’m Rachel Craft, and I’m excited to join the "Coping with Depression" blog at HealthyPlace. I was diagnosed with depression over a decade ago in college. As a type-A perfectionist, I was constantly overwhelmed with stress and never got enough sleep. My habitually low self-esteem took a dive at one point, and I developed an eating disorder and started experimenting with self-harm. It was a terrifying period of my life because I realized I might not survive if I didn’t find help.
Hello, my name is Obsessed with Metrics. I say this with snark, but I also genuinely mean it. A few months ago, when I wrote about my exercise addiction, I briefly touched on how metrics fuel this behavior. I count the number of steps I take. I count the number of miles I run. I count the number of stairs I climb. I count the number of minutes I exercise. I count the number of calories I burn. At times, I feel like a human calculator—ironic, since math has never been my strong suit.
After a year of blogging for HealthyPlace, I must now depart. However, a long goodbye isn't really useful for anyone, including me. So this final post is addressed to you -- the undiagnosed reader who suspects they may have attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and is looking for guidance on how to proceed.
When you struggle with anxiety, it is sometimes inevitable that you will also cope with depression. The constant worry, the feelings of insecurity, the fears, feeling overwhelmed, and most noticeable for me, the feelings of exhaustion from the anxiety -- all of these things can lead to suddenly feeling down. What has concerned me about this in the past has been that if I feel down and continue to feel this way, the depression may become severe to the point that it is difficult to pull myself out. So I've had to be mindful of taking care of myself in order to avoid anxiety becoming depression.
Taking risks has a bad reputation. We advise people against decisions that seem "risky," warn children away from capers that might result in injury, and, as a general rule of thumb, seek certainty at all costs. On the surface, this ethos makes perfect sense. Why take risks when the odds are against you? After all, that's what risk is: a poor probability or an unlikely shot.
The idea of attracting bliss brings many different images to mind. We often associate the word with heightened mental states such as those brought about by meditation and a life of simplicity. At the other end of the spectrum, we might picture a life of complete abundance rooted in physical sensations, wealth, and material possessions.
Verbal abuse can come from individuals of any age, including children. Unfortunately, the understanding that kids can be cruel is too common for many parents. So, why do children resort to verbal abuse to handle difficult situations? The answer could be due to learned behaviors or a developmental phase.
I can relate to all the previous comments, I have spent 90% of my life being lost.
I moved house two years ago after putting off relocating for years mainly because of my poor sense of direction, I was so worried about finding my way around a new town.
I don’t or can’t go anywhere without the sat nav, it sounds ridiculous but sometimes the destination I enter into the sat nav is only 1.5 miles away but I still need it otherwise I would be driving around aimlessly getting nowhere fast. When I arrive at my destination I then spend the whole time worrying about how will I get home.
I can’t recognise roads (they all look the same) or read maps, if I hold a map in my hand I never know if it’s upside down or not. After rotating it 5 times or more it gets thrown to the side crumpled into a ball of frustration. I rely heavily on technology.
I’m no better on foot. I can walk in the wrong direction for 30 minutes before I realise I have gone the wrong way, it’s so embarrassing, I can be walking along quite happy and then suddenly realise i must have taken a wrong turn somewhere, I then stand rigid not knowing which way to turn.
If I am in a restaurant and I need the loo I am not able to find my way back to my table. I have asked the waiter before now to escort me back to where my family are seated. It has nothing to do with having drunk too much wine, although I’m happy for the waiter to think that.
Large hotels are a nightmare for me, with all the corridors carpeted exactly the same and the lifts all looking the same. I can never find my way back to my room from reception (especially if it’s not well signposted) maybe by the end of my 10 day holiday I may have just cracked it but it’s then time to check out.
I don’t have a diagnosis of any kind, do you think I should be tested for ADHD?
Living with anxiety its easy to forget to have courage.