Blogs
I thought of three reasons why it's hard to have a romantic relationship when you have a mental illness. Three? Perhaps 100 reasons is more realistic. 100 reasons sound about right, but then this post would feel like reading a bad romance novel. That said, I want to focus on the biggest reasons why romantic relationships with mental illness are so difficult and how they connect to the smaller reasons--like a web of very bad dates.
Yeah, okay. It's National Eating Disorders Awareness Week. What's there to be "aware" of? We all know that eating disorders are for vain, pretentious teenage girls. It's just a stage. They'll get over it. And it's not like being "too thin" is going to kill you. That's what everyone believes, right? Everybody has heard of eating disorders at this point, so why are we taking a week to specifically "make people aware"?
The truth is every experience you have - both the bad and the good - impact your brain in important ways by creating a physiological environment as well as neural pathway structures.
You already know how trauma has negatively impacted you and led to uncomfortable and even painful feelings and body experiences. Have you considered the beneficial impact of positive experiences and how they can help you feel better?
After mental illness strikes a family, can a family get happiness back? Can they bond again? These are worrisome concerns because, after all, having a loved one with a serious mental illness like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder can put a lot of stress on family members and change family dynamics.
Therapist Emily Roberts explains the role of self-esteem in the development and treatment of eating disorders. Her insight through work in clinical treatment centers provides expert knowledge on preventing eating disorders and increasing self-esteem.
When we have a past trauma, so many things can trigger an old memory to rise up and take over our emotions. A smell, a shape, a sound, a touch, a person. Anything our senses take in can send us emotionally back to a threatening past trauma.
The suffering of this is intense. It may be a nightmare, a flashback, or an anxiety attack. It can also be incredibly frustrating and disappointing that even though you are presently safe--that you feel the persistent panic as though you are still in constant danger.
The first thing I thought of this morning was killing myself. Literally, as consciousness slowly overtook my brain thoughts of suicide were all that were there.
It’s a bad day.
The majority of survivors begin PTSD recovery in traditional talk therapy. It's a natural place to start. As a society, we're very in tune with 'therapy' and the idea of talking to a professional when something is wrong emotionally and we don't know how to fix it. But is talk therapy really effective in healing PTSD? The answer is, NO. Here's why...
Hiya readers! Mental illness advocacy is important and can take place even in the context of your own family. I recently shared some of my challenges in giving my father the talk about Bob's ADHD diagnosis. It wasn't easy. For a few reasons - the biggest one being that I was afraid of how my father would react. For someone like me who wasn't allowed the freedom to feel all of my feelings (including anger) towards my father, I grew up thinking that I couldn't ever be upset because it was SO scary for me. So you can imagine advocating for my son's mental illness didn't come easy to me.
I grew up thinking that my heart was going to jump out of my chest anytime I thought about asserting myself much less confronting someone. Before having my child, I didn't. I was more passive in showing my feelings. They existed, but in a roundabout way.
It’s been well over 20 years since I last watched the Oscars and I must confess that not watching them this year was particularly enjoyable. My slow ascent out of the damp crypt known as mental illness has instilled a palpable fear of association with the certifiably insane; I know better than most that crazy is contagious.
As a policy I avoid contact with the pathologically angry, the insecure so brittle they might be shattered by a sneer, fear-driven treacherous backstabbers who would sooner eat shattered glass than speak the truth, and reality TV personalities. I avoid them because I don’t want to catch what they have.
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.