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Five symptoms of anxiety and depression include feelings of worthlessness, intense fear, rumination, thoughts of suicide, and guilt. I have experienced all of these symptoms. This has led me to miss out on opportunities that could have helped me improve my self-esteem, reach my goals, and find fulfillment. Last week, I decided to change that by volunteering for the Crisis Text Line. (Note: This post contains a trigger warning.)
Having faced gambling addiction, the silent adversary that stealthily infiltrates lives and wreaks havoc on a person’s financial, mental, and emotional wellbeing, I am proud to be standing on the side of gambling addiction recovery because so many others don’t make it out. As I share my story of recovery and hope, I recognize how fortunate I am to be here and hope to help others stand on this side of gambling addiction recovery.
I have an eating disorder voice that needs to be turned off. I first began the work to heal from an eating disorder in 2010, and it's been a passion of mine ever since. But despite all those years of hard-fought experience in the eating disorder recovery trenches, I am still learning how to turn off the eating disorder voice in my head. This voice was a staunch, relentless companion for most of my adolescence. At times, I could not even separate my own inner voice from the eating disorder beliefs, anxieties, and compulsions always shouting at me.
You can learn how to support an employee with depression or bipolar. Employers play a big role in their employees' lives. Most people work 40-hour weeks and eight-hour days. This is a lot of time spent working, so it's important that those hours are supportive of each employee's wellbeing. I have had some bad experiences with prior workplaces and also some exceptional experiences. People with bipolar disorder or depression can be brilliant, hard-working, passionate employees, just like anyone else, and with a little extra help and accommodation, they can be very successful.
Have you tried to fix someone's mental illness? When we see others struggling with mental illness, we often get the urge to help. But for most of us, we aren’t equipped to treat their disease—and trying to can negatively impact our mental health. Sometimes we have to let go and accept that we can’t fix someone else’s mental illness.
Schizophrenia and routines are good partners. As someone with schizophrenia and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), my mind can often feel chaotic. I might simultaneously experience olfactory hallucinations (smells), paranoia, and cycling thoughts about worst-case scenarios or other symptoms. These symptoms leave little space in my brain for health and wellbeing. That is why when I am at home, I follow a routine to add order and a sense of safety. Routines can give us a feeling that we have something we can count on when we have schizophrenia. They can also offer structure that can help with feeling out of control.
A friendship recession is a real thing. When was the last time you hung out with your friends? Or when have you had a real heart-to-heart conversation? If you cannot recall the date, you, like countless others, may have been hit by the friendship recession. 
While I know it's tempting, don't try to be your own psychiatrist. Trying to be the psychiatrist is a mistake. Psychiatrists train for 10 years to decide how to help you. Do you have 10 years of training? These people treat others like you every single day and thus have years of clinical experience under their belt. Do you treat others and have years of clinical experience under your belt? For most of us, the answers are "no" and "no." When you try to be the psychiatrist, you hobble your own treatment. And the trust is, I see people doing it all the time.
I want to share what it's like to have borderline personality disorder (BPD) and experience severe emotional triggers in the middle of interactions. Borderline personality disorder triggers are no small thing.
I have battled grief in relation to my posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). I've spent years mourning the life I had before my trauma, as well as the life I feel I could have had if that traumatic event had never happened in the first place. Posttraumatic stress disorder has amplified my experience of grief.

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Dan R
I feel like I need to apologize to everyone. I should not posted all that about my ab/dl lifestyle. In no way do I want to turn this into an ab/dl discussion group. I just posted about that because I thought it might be relevant to the topic of discussion but I probably shouldn’t have posted all that about it. I really don’t know why I have those feelings so strongly about ab/dl stuff but when I regress those are just the thoughts and feelings I have. They say that being bipolar; you always have that feeling that you have done something wrong and I feel like I need to apologize.
Natasha Tracy
Hi Thalia,

I can't tell anyone what to do with their bipolar. One thing I can tell you, though, is the more episodes you have and the worse they are, the harder they become to treat. Your prognosis gets worse. The idea is to keep a person at baseline on medication so that doesn't happen.

Here is one study that talks about that: https://scielo.isciii.es/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0213-61632006000100003

Here is another: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4733595/

Best of luck. I hope you stay at baseline.

-- Natasha Tracy
Sarah
Hi, I'm just wondering... Did your husband know about your mental health and the challenges that do happen sometimes daily in every day life? Was he interested in learning more about it at all or did he just say basically that it's ok, he can handle it and he doesn't judge? I've been married for over 21 years now, and really hope to find answers to a lot of questions I wish someone would have asked me...
T S
I'm a single mother three children ages 20, 18 and 14. My daughter the oldest, moved in with my sister when she was 15 because of his appointments Etc and behavior was already just all about him. He is the youngest one 14 now. My 18-year-old son moved out and moved in with his girlfriend 2 years ago because of the same thing. I am a single mother, there's no one that wants to deal with him and his outwards he's been having them since he's about three and of course they've gotten worse and worse over the years. None of my family will help me I have lost pretty much all my friends now. I can't work because you can only leave so many times to pick up your kid before you get fired. I've lost everything because I can't support us anymore. He has like 4 hours of school a week and for the library if that, Forever on services and other things have done no good he is been seeing doctors and in the services since he was in preschool now he refuses to go and he's too big for me to make him. So now he's not on any meds anymore and I am under constant barragement and I have talked to every school every therapist I have made phone calls I have called every mental health place in a 1500 mile radius and no one seems to ever be able to do anything. I've always been open about it and asked anyone I met or seen anyone if they remotely had any idea or name and places anything that could help no matter how much would give me anything. I have did all the things have been supposed to do all these years and then nothing works after a few years and I kind of give up and then I somehow try again and I'm at the end of my rope I don't even know where my rope is anymore. It's caused us to be homeless no no vehicles and he doesn't seem to care he's not suicidal so the acute care places won't take him anymore. When we were going all the time he was in the wraparound program and seeing therapist no home-based person all these things and that kept saying he needed to be in a residential and I've had four psychiatrists tell me that he was going to run me into the ground if something wasn't done. Yet, here we are nothing was done and now I have nothing he has nothing everyone has failed him and in turn me. My other kids won't even talk to me because that's all I talk about they want to talk about happy stuff but that's my life is I don't know what to do anymore. I called DCs on myself once, but apparently, you have to be on drugs for them to help. Trust me they we're incredibly surprised when I passed the test and they even asked me to take another one at the office the next day which I did. They think that I passed it somehow because I look terrible. I explained to them that's what has happened to me I've slowly deteriorated into whatever this is I am now. I need help. Last time I brought into the ER, which has been a while because previously mentioned reasons, I was told that the places didn't want to take him because he wasn't suicidal and I and cried and told them what about me what about me I'm suicidal please help me. They called security and gave me his release papers and had us escorted out. So no help there either. I've done this to the school his therapist psychiatrist pretty much anybody that will listen. This is the first time I've done this though. I don't know what to do anymore I guess I'm just
Neo
This issue is that this is basically just saying to change your perspective on things, but it doesn't say how. I literally cry when I answer a question wrong, even if it's something we're actively learning. I can't just unlearn it like that. How??