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Silver Linings aren't always visible right away, and sometimes we never find them. In our family, the silver lining of new friendship emerged this week from an awful event a few weeks ago. On his way to an "anonymous" meeting he has attended for almost eight years without incident, my son Ben became the victim of a crime. He was thrown to the ground, threatened with what the mugger said was a knife (we'll never know, nor do I want to), and robbed. The kids (two of them, he says) took his keys, his backpack with all his belongings, his cash, and his feeling of safety. Ben will never go to that meeting again, because the neighborhood now holds these terrifying memories .
The silver lining? Well, in finding a new meeting to attend, Ben has finally met some young people his own age who also have had issues with mental health.
Is your anxiety worse in the morning? Do you think, 'why can't I just get out bed'?
I'm rarely on speaking terms with breakfast. The thought of getting up, a whole new day, it can be paralyzing. I'm told it isn't this way for everyone. Nor does a cup of coffee fix it, would that it could. If you have an anxiety disorder, or experience panic, it's not uncommon to find mornings particularly tough.
(continued from Part 1)
I spent Tuesday afternoon with a delightful group of first-graders, at a school more like Bob's--middle-class, mostly native English-speakers. This class had only one Bob--a little girl I'll call "Bonnie"--but that wasn't the only contrast from Tuesday.
Surviving ED really is the fulfillment of a dream: to reach out to other people who have eating disorders, and to offer them both honesty and hope and perhaps help them feel just a little bit less alone in their own journeys of recovery.
Surviving ED is one-year old this week. The road of recovery has been long and winding, with many twists and turns, lapses and relapses, and picking myself up to try just one more time. The journey of recovery sometimes feels endless and tiring, and I know that it is hard to not want to give up.
However, at the end is freedom from anorexia and ultimately, a full and healthy life.
Since my bipolar diagnosis, I’ve spent a lot of time worrying about romantic relationships: how to find one, how to act right when I'm in one, how to pick the right one. I've dedicated tons of blog air time to dating and to family because those relationships are my triggers. But I've neglected to address a very important person in many of our lives, an important relationship for people with mental illness: the therapeutic relationship.
Anyone can experience Schizophrenia
I believe there is a self destruct button within each and every mind. For some, this button is easier to press than others, but given just the right conditions even the most humane, sane person can experience madness. There are many types of madness, most of which are described in detail on this website, however the type of madness my blog deals with, schizophrenia, is a true escape from our world into an imagined one. It is considered by many to be the most debilitating and severe mental illness, because
You can’t put a price on good mental health. I might go broke, but that’s better than the misery of full-blown depression.
Last week I wrote about how fighting bipolar disorder is like fighting an invisible enemy. And I suggested that creating an internal visual of an "enemy" was a helpful way of differentiating the sick person from the illness itself.
I think stigma is similar. We can let stigma, or thoughts thereof, get into our heads. We can start to believe the ignorant judgements of others and we can let stigma bring us down.
But we don't have to. We can fight.
And while stigma is often something one feels, sometimes it is something one can see too. Like in print. Like in The Daily Athenaeum piece on depression that I wrote about on Monday.
It was chock-a-block with ideas of stigma. But I chose not to believe it and instead I chose to fight.
When you are diagnosed with a mental illness, your first reaction is probably fear. Those who love you also might feel fear. After all, mental illness is stigmatized, and certainly not something anyone wants to live with. But we can, and we do. Successfully.
Defining Fear
When in recovery from an addiction, feelings and emotions can often be overwhelming. it is common to want to run from feelings, and numb out from tough emotions. In early recovery and sobriety, it is important to learn healthy coping skills and learn how to feel all feelings, process the emotions, and learn from the experience. Here are 5 ways to approach triggering emotions in sobriety.
My point being, I'm right there with you. I hate the rollercoaster. I just want to live life without being in a state of constant fight or flight mode, only for his character to change and de-escalate and I fall for the person I fell for all over again.
Exhausting is a horrible word. The understatement of all understatements, if you will.
I wish there were better support groups for this kind of mental health condition.