Blogs
Jessica Kaley
If you reframe your thoughts, you develop healthy self-esteem because self-esteem is all about the way you look at yourself. So, one of the best tools to practice in this journey is the ability to reframe a negative thought into a positive. one Learning to change your point of view is key in your effort to build strong self-esteem.
Megan Griffith
Limitations in mental health recovery are real; but lately, I've been doing everything in my power to ignore my increasingly obvious limitations. I just don't want to be mentally ill anymore. I want it to go away so I can read and write and be a good wife and mother without a herculean effort. Even though I've been in recovery for years now, part of me still believes that if I just ignore my limitations and shame myself for having them in the first place, I'll be able to just breeze past them. Every time, this leads to a complete meltdown that forces me to honor my limitations, so you'd think I would know better by now, but here I am again, in meltdown mode.
Meagon Nolasco
My name is Meagon Nolasco and I couldn’t be happier to join the HealthyPlace team here at The Life: LGBT Mental Health blog. I identify as a cis-gendered, (woman born a female) lesbian, woman and have been out in our community for just over a decade now. My extensive history with mental health is just as defining to me as my identity and lifestyle.
Natasha Tracy
Do you think you can deal with bipolar disorder alone? Do you think you can keep your bipolar a secret and just do what it requires by yourself? If so, you're not alone. Many people try, sometimes for years, to handle bipolar disorder alone. They do Google searches and online research about bipolar and its treatments and somehow that makes people think they can do it on their own. But I have news for you: you can't deal with bipolar disorder alone.
Martyna Halas
Exercise can be a great way to let go of negative emotions and manage your self-harm urges. In particular, using yoga for self-harm prevention is beneficial as it teaches you to connect with your body and physically accept it with all its imperfections.
Nicola Spendlove
Making healthy boundaries with a mentally ill family member is a key step for your self-care as a supporter. Read on to learn more about the kinds of boundaries I have with my brother, who has chronic depression and anxiety.
George Abitante
How often do you think of anxiety as your friend? This may sound like a strange question, but I believe the way we relate to anxiety plays a significant role in how we experience it. Cultivating a positive relationship with anxiety can be an important part of recovery, but it's also really difficult to do.
Mary-Elizabeth Schurrer
An estimated 9.2 million adults in the U.S. live with more than one form of mental illness, and that statistic does not even count the numerous children and people across the globe who experience this reality also. Two mental health issues that can co-exist with one another are eating disorders and panic attacks, both of which can escape detection or diagnosis. While panic attacks can range in severity and escalate for a number of different reasons, many of the same fears that cause eating disorder behaviors can contribute to panic attacks as well. If your eating disorder often co-exists with panic attacks, coping mechanisms are available to you.
Tanya J. Peterson, MS, NCC
If you live with anxiety, chances are you look for problems. Don't get me wrong. You're most definitely not doing it on purpose. All humans have a built-in negativity bias that causes us to be on alert for danger so we can take action to protect ourselves. Anxiety, in its misguided attempt to keep us safe, usurps that negativity bias and magnifies it, causing us to operate under the assumption that there are problems everywhere.
Mahevash Shaikh
Here is an unpopular opinion: not everyone can turn their passion into a career and that's okay. In fact, not everyone should even try to do that in the first place. But here's the thing: doing meaningful work is indispensable if one wants to keep depression at bay. Even though you are not your job, the work you do does impact the quality of your life. When you do work that matters to you, life with depression becomes easier. This is a personal observation. When I was training to be a software tester, I was miserable. And when I became a writer, I finally felt a sense of satisfaction.
I love the idea of creating new memories by going back to laugh where you may have once experienced pain. This is such a great suggestion. Laughter can truly be very powerful.
Thank you for your comments!
Rizza
Thank you for your comment. I'm sorry you're in a negative place with your spouse but I would like to mention that your spouse is only one person. Many people with bipolar disorder are not like you describe. We are individuals and should be treated as such.
- Natasha Tracy