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It's hard to deny exercise's many positive effects on the body, and going outdoors and getting into nature is a great way to refresh your mind. Combining the two and heading outside to go hiking could be the perfect solution if you want to improve your physical and mental fitness together at the same time.
Self-care is beyond a popular buzzword; it is an essential practice that needs to be treated as more than just a trend. Self-care must be part of that process as we learn how to be kinder to ourselves and ultimately love who we are. In fact, self-care has taught me so much.
A few weeks ago, I told my therapist that I would not have been able to get sober without using cannabis. She chuckled, gave me a funny look, and asked if I thought cannabis use equaled sobriety. Caught off guard, I couldn't help but wonder if she had a point. Were my years of sobriety erased? Did I need to go back to day one? Can I use cannabis and still call myself sober? 
I have nonbinary gender insecurity. In America, there are two genders. There are two sexes. It is not common knowledge that sex and gender are different and that there are multiple sexes. When I applied for jobs, I was asked about my gender and given two options: male or female. I didn't even have the option I needed to answer an optional question. I wasn't sure if they meant to ask about my sex or my gender. I was forced to choose or decline.
I have a tool in my toolbox for schizoaffective disorder that I haven’t written about before. The tool is earplugs.
Every individual will have a unique experience with verbal abuse recovery. Each situation is different, resulting in a personalized journey for healing that requires changing tools and strategies. However, navigating which methods to use during your recovery process can be overwhelming. It can help to have various coping strategies in abuse recovery.
An area of my anxiety that has been difficult to overcome has been productivity anxiety. Since I was young, I've held myself to high standards that I've found unreachable. When I was younger, these standards meant getting good grades and succeeding in school. As I got older, these standards extended to every other area of life. The problem with constantly chasing standards like this is that they get bigger, higher, and seemingly less realistic, to the point that trying to get there becomes a source of stress and anxiety. In my experience, this has looked like the need to be constantly productive. But the anxiety I experience about productivity means it always feels like what I do is never enough.
I tend to be much more transparent and vulnerable online than I am in daily face-to-face interactions. When someone I know in real life inquires about my fitness or nutrition habits (because, to the surprise of no one, this is a body-conscious culture), I notice my cheeks start to flush, and I choose the vaguest answer possible. That reaction strikes me as curious, though. Why am I still embarrassed about my eating disorder after all these years?
Dating and depression don't mix very well. When you feel terrible about yourself because of depression, it's not the best time to meet new people and try to develop healthy connections. But if your depression is longstanding, does that mean you shouldn't date? Can you successfully date while depressed?
Generally speaking, I'm not a very good liar, but I am excellent at lying to myself. I count myself amongst the majority in this department. Most people value honesty and seek to use it in their relations with others, but when it comes to themselves, they may be so adept at deception that they don't even know they're doing it. But self-honesty and not lying to yourself matters.

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Comments

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.