What is it that lies behind the voices, the odd beliefs and strange behavior of paranoid schizophrenia? Most mental disorders are easier to visualize and understand, but this particular one has a pervasive aura of mystery. Though schizophrenia is a disease of the brain there are certain patterns of thinking that are prevalent in the majority of patients. I remember these and why I believed them.

I struggled not to cry as each picture, depicting life and love and happiness, flashed on the screen during Thursday night's National Eating Disorders Awareness (NEDA) Week presentation. I thought about all the people I know who are struggling with an eating disorder; the friends who have made it through recovery and the two people who recently lost their lives to their eating disorders. Then I thought about myself and all the years I was being a slave to the scale, to weight and calories and inches, watching as I was diminished by anorexia until I almost died from it. And I wondered why I wasted all those years, but then I remembered that no one chosen to have an eating disorder; that these illnesses are, in fact, addictive coping mechanisms that run deeper than disordered relationships with food. However, knowing that doesn't make it any less painful.

There's a common misconception that eating disorders are only about being thin. This is both incorrect and harmful to those struggling with eating disorders. I talk about why in this eating disorder video.

Are you planning to leave an abusive relationship? All plans involve future events (that's why they're plans and not actions). If so, it's time to check your thinking. Are you "planning to leave, but...", or do you have a realistic plan that will get you out of the relationship once and for all?

One of the biggest myths (tricks) of the Anxiety is that it makes you think you are out of control. Anxiety loves to make people feel that they are out of control. Believing this is one of the biggest problems for anxious people.  If they knew they had control, they would not be anxious.  For family members, friends, and mental health professionals, it is important that we deconstruct the belief that the anxious person is "out of control" and help him or her see what control they have, thus helping the anxiety decrease.

Abusers capably convince their victims that they will change. The convincing begins after an abusive episode that the abuser feels completely alienates him or her from you, the victim. The abuser wants to get back in control of you. Usually, after a panicky promise such as that, you will see a change in your abuser's behavior. The change may be so pronounced that you believe that it is the end of the cycle of abuse instead of the honeymoon period you've experienced so many times before. But what if the you are wrong? The next abusive episode will hurt so much more because you believed the promise. Is there a way to prove your abusive partner can change?

I have said it again and again, what goes up, must come down and it usually does so with a resounding thud. A crater. An impact that puts you lower in the ground than before you started. In other words, a depression. And that’s the problem with hypomania. For many people the hypomania itself really isn’t a huge deal (although for some hypomania in and of itself is damaging) but the period afterwards is devastating. It’s the hypomania hangover.

When you are first diagnosed with a mental illness, you are presented with the following information: you will probably have to take psychiatric medication for the rest of your life. For the rest of your life! That's tough to hear and to understand.

For many years I had wrongly believed that I was a bad person for having Schizoaffective disorder. Many people around me believed likewise. It was not until years later through treatment that I realized Schizoaffective disorder is something that I have, and not something that I am. This is probably why Schizophrenia and Schizoaffective disorder can be treated better than many other mental illnesses, and will be even more treatable in the future.

It’s been said that Hollywood is the one place in the world where they really do believe practice makes perfect – because, it churns out the same exhausted retreads year in and year out. Indeed, it’s axiomatic in Hollywood that an original idea isn’t merely unwelcome, it’s a career killer. For decades, members of the mental health community, especially those who labor every day under the burden of mental illness, have looked to the west in hopes of seeing films that address psychological and emotional issues with courage, insight, and creativity. To their horror, only clowns, boiled eggs, and serial killers riding tricycles looked back.