Blogs
During the holiday season, one of the most talked-about topics is holiday shopping. Many people who struggle with anxiety find it to be overwhelming. Before I started my holiday shopping, I feared that some people would not like my gifts. I also worried about how much money I would spend. Now that I have finished shopping for two people, I do not feel as anxious. Here are some tips that helped me start my holiday shopping.
"Surviving Mental Health Stigma Blog" — that’s the name of this blog full of tips and advice to get through moments of stigma, overcome it, and so on. Often, that’s how I approach writing for this blog: what tips can I share? What have I gone through that might be useful to others? But then it struck me. Dealing with mental health stigma can quite literally be an act of survival. It’s not hyperbole. It’s not dramatics. Mental health stigma could literally lead to someone dying. I’ll elaborate. (Note: this post contains a content warning.)
I find pain destroys my ability to think. I find that once pain reaches a certain level, I can no long formulate rational thoughts, and all I can think about is the pain. I short, pain kills my brain. This feels like a curse for someone who uses her brain for a living. However, pain's penchant for affecting one's ability to think is hardly limited to me.
Sometimes, even when you are no longer the victim of verbal abuse, the lasting effects can hinder your mental health. Finding ways to deal with the possible symptoms of verbal abuse like anxiety and depression are critical for your path to healing if these symptoms prevent you from living a full and happy life. Box breathing may be able to help.
A self-harm tracker can be a useful tool in helping you begin the recovery process and maintain a self-harm sober streak over the long term. Let's take a look at how you can use a self-harm tracker in your own recovery journey and what information you might want to include in your own version.
When you are depressed, it might feel like a waste of time, money, and energy to go on a vacation. You are probably going to be depressed wherever you go because traveling is not going to cure you of depression. And in case you can't or don't want to travel, relaxing at home is unlikely to make your depression go away either. This begs the question: should you even take time off from work in the first place?
In many cases, eating disorder behaviors can be fueled by cognitive distortions. These irrational thought patterns could influence you to latch onto a negative and inaccurate view of yourself, a situation, a relationship, or life as a whole. But cognitive distortions only have power if you allow them to take root, which means that you can learn to spot cognitive distortions—and ultimately combat them—in eating disorder recovery.
Bipolar is usually medicated to a manageable level. In other words, people with bipolar disorder who are on medication are not "back to normal," rather, they still exhibit some bipolar traits but at a manageable amount. This is completely different from what I was told for years after diagnosis, and it's also different from what people see in the media. People seem to think that a pill will make the person back to who they were before the bipolar disorder. I'm sorry to say, this just isn't true for the vast majority of us.
Among tinsel and twinkling lights and cheer, it’s not something people want to hear, but it’s true: the holidays negatively impact my mental health. Whereas others find cheer in the music and gift-wrapping, I find discomfort, anxiety, and darkness. The even more difficult thing is there’s really no safe, stigma-free space to talk about it.
Thanksgiving is not my favorite holiday—not even close, in fact. As someone who was raised in a large, boisterous, Italian American family, I understand the importance of seasonal traditions, quality time with loved ones, and communal expressions of gratitude. But as someone who is also in eating disorder (ED) recovery, the overt emphasis on food this time of year can still cause ripples of anxiety to surface. So, as another holiday season rounds the corner, I want to share with you a list of ED recovery affirmations to remember on Thanksgiving. I often repeat them to myself when I feel overwhelmed or anxious during the festivities, and I hope these affirmations calm and re-center you as well.
So I drank more because I was furious. And around 1am Sunday morning, I went to the washroom and fell back against the toilet tank and broke the tank. Water spilled out and seaped through to our ceiling below, causing some water damage. And a little dripped to our neighbors place below us.
I am taking ownership and doing everything to fix it, and have decided to stop drinking completely. But it is important for your significant other to be supportive as well. We talked about everything the next day calmly, but he stills rubs it in my face. I am well aware of what I did and feel bad about it, since it also happened in front of my aunt, who is like a mother to me. I know I did a bad thing, but I don't believe in making someone feel worse than they already do. Show support for those you love and help them through the situation. We feel bad enough as it is.