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As a teenager, I struggled to accept my learning disability diagnosis. I didn't want to be thought of as slower than my peers. I wanted to be seen as intelligent. In my early 20s, I felt the same way about my anxiety and depression diagnoses. I wanted to be in control of my emotions by simply getting over my depression. But now, I realize that accepting my mental illness diagnoses was crucial for improvement. Here are four ways I learned to accept my mental health conditions.
With the rise of "main character energy" in the post-pandemic, there's been a lot of buzz over the past few years over the notion of "romanticizing your life." In short, this idea urges you to fall in love with your own existence the same way you might fall in love with another person. A simple Google search yields list upon list of ways you can do this. This content is fun and zesty but ultimately flawed. Approaching your romance with yourself with dos and don'ts is as effective as wooing a crush by giving them a handbook. True romance is spontaneous and melting, not structured and task-oriented. If you're interested in romanticizing your life, there's a simpler way.
Bullying and negative feedback can be devastating to your self-esteem and massively contribute to feelings of being powerless, unworthy, and alone. Overcoming these things is an essential part of your self-esteem journey. In this article, I walk you through strategies to overcome bullying and negative feedback to build your self-esteem.
Last week, I wrote about feeling embarrassed to talk about my eating disorder in face-to-face conversations. This week, I remembered why I experienced that level of embarrassment. I was raised in a climate of body shaming, forced to interact with relatives who see no issue with fatphobic comments and behaviors. I have family members who are insensitive to recovery from my eating disorder (ED).
Healing from a verbally abusive situation will be a unique journey for everyone. One person's strategies may not be successful for someone else. Finding the right tools to deal with the side effects of abuse can be challenging. Thankfully, I have several methods to help combat my self-doubt and reinforce my worth, including strategies like daily affirmations for verbal abuse.
For depression sufferers, it can feel like our minds filter out positive emotions and turn our thoughts into a vortex of negativity. Seeing the pain and suffering caused by natural disasters often exacerbates depression.
It is common to have more than one mental illness at a time. Most people I know (from support groups) have multiple diagnoses. I have both paranoid schizophrenia and generalized anxiety disorder. I know people with schizoaffective disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). I also know of people with bipolar disorder and eating disorders. It is not rare to have a personality disorder along with schizophrenia, bipolar, or another diagnosis. People call it a dual diagnosis if someone has a substance abuse disorder and a mental illness.
If you are active on social media, you have probably heard this relationship advice: "If he wanted to, he would." Although it is valid in some cases, it is also ableist. Read on to know more. 
Insomnia is common in bipolar disorder. Sleep changes (which can be insomnia or hypersomnia [oversleeping]) are noted in the symptoms of major depressive disorder, which is part of bipolar disorder. In fact, I would wager that without medication, every person with bipolar disorder would have sleep problems. In my case, I have insomnia with my bipolar disorder and have had it for three years. But last night, I was lucky. Last night I managed to sleep almost eight hours (interrupted, but still). So, why don't I feel any better?
I think about diagnosis a lot—mostly because I live with undiagnosed mental illnesses. Even as a child, I never received any diagnosis for the struggles I faced, and, as an adult, all my diagnoses are self-diagnosed. I know there’s a lot of stigma attached to self-diagnosis, but I want to discuss self-diagnosis, being undiagnosed with mental illness, and their roles in recovery.

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Natasha Tracy
Hi Rebecca,

Thank you for your comment. You're right; what I stated was an opinion. There is no way to know that number with any accuracy.

And, in case you were wondering, I actually do have bipolar disorder and have been writing about it for 20 years.

Thanks.

-- Natasha Tracy
Rebecca
I don't think it's very ethical to say something like "this is true for 99.9 percent of people" in this blog post. There is no citation here and that is not an accurate statistic. If your goal is to provide information to help people, lying to them isn't the way to go. Do better. -someone who actually has a background in psychology and behavioral health, and living with bipolar disorder.
Brandi P.
I am 19 and babysit for a bedwetting 15 year old girl.She too wears cloth diapers and rubberpants to bed everynight.She has about 5 dozen pairs of adult size rubberpants and the majority of them are in pink,yellow,blue,white and babyprints.She likes the babyprint kind the best! When i have to babysit her,i have to put the diapers and rubberpants on her before bedtime and she takes a pair of her babyprint rubberpants out of her drawer and lays them beside her diapers.The rubberpants fit her blousy over her diapers and with the babyprint rubberpants on she looks like a baby!She just recieved her Sacrement of Confirmation[9thgrade] this past sunday,June 4th and had to wear a white ankle length dress and veil with white knee hi stockings and white shoes..I went to her party and she lifted up her dress and showed me the pair of her babyprint rubberpants she had on under her dress and told me she wanted to wear them.So to answer your question,i do feel that babyprint rubberpants are appropriate for girls 13 to 15 to wear over their bedwetting diapers!
Deidre Lombard
I find that when people upset me and I start crying I become so ill. For weeks after I am so anxious and fall into a pit of depression which I cant get out. I feel like this right now. What I do is put people out of my life who upset me. My daughter tells me I am alienating people that I love as a coping mechanism. I just cant allow people to upset me as I become very ill. I feel like this for weeks. I cant understand why crying makes me feel ill for so long.
Donna
First, thank you for your balanced reasoning. Most articles, especially by mental health professionals, urge reunification, often citing the distress that must be endured by all parties. I was diagnosed with more than one serious mental illness in my late 30s even though they began at age 8. As a result of all those decades of dealing with MI alone, the symptoms naturally only became more entrenched and I became more dissociated and emotionally dysregulated. My family chose denial as a coping mechanism, and toxic positivity, and religious escapism -- they still do. My parents are now dead and I have a brother and sister who are still alive. We are in our 60s and 70s. I am 65 and 3 yrs ago chose total estrangement from my siblings because it was much more distressful to stay in contact with them than to be alone. I can't say I am happy that I'm alone, but I have much greater peace of mind now that we are not seeing each other regularly. My brother is simply emotionally distant and doesn't want to know anything, and my sister insists I am well and am choosing to hurt her. But I am not responsible for their wellness, I am responsible for my own. I freely admit: I am avoidant, depressed, anxious, and suffer from PTSD from an abusive marriage I ended years ago.. Plus the aftermath of a life with schizophrenia and possible elements of bipolar disorder. I owe it to myself to take the best possible care of myself and to enjoy the 4th quarter of my life as I see fit, not remain attached to family members simply because we are related by blood. It is unfortunate, yes, but necessary. I tried other measures before choosing estrangement and the results were not acceptable. Thank you again for addressing this matter with compassion.