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Katherine Stone suffered from postpartum OCD after the birth of her first child. With treatment, she made a full recovery and decided to provide pregnant women and new mothers with support and help for postpartum depression and anxiety through her blog, Postpartum Progress. Today, it's the most widely read blog on perinatal mental illness.
You may have heard of the five "survival roles" often taken on by alcoholic families--Chief Enabler, Hero, Scapegoat, Lost Child, and Mascot. Sharon Wegsheider-Cruse is credited with identifying these roles within families living with chemical dependency in 1976. I learned these roles in high school when I attended a meeting for children of alcoholics to support a friend. Imagine my confusion when, in the course of the meeting, I began to recognize at least a few of the characters within my own family, even though none of us were chemically dependent. (The survival roles have since been applied to the broader scope of "dysfunctional" families.) A family is a single, cohesive unit (no matter how loudly some members may protest to the contrary). When part of the family doesn't function as it should, the other parts adapt in an effort to retain or regain that function as a unit. Every member contributes in some way. Unfortunately, even the youngest members of a family take on roles when the need is sensed.
The area of diet and mental illness is a contentious one. I suspect that’s for several reasons: 1. Many alternative practitioners make their living telling people what to eat and they want to believe this will help. 2. Individuals want to believe the treatment is simple, drug-free and something they can control. 3. The placebo effect leads to dramatic anecdotes. Here's what we know about diet and bipolar disorder.
Angela McClanahan discusses the state of life with Bob, and reacts to a recent comment.
When it comes to understanding Dissociative Identity Disorder, most people get too hung up on the concept of the alternate identity. Identity alteration is widely and mistakenly accepted as the essence of what DID is. And so the two most popular theories about the development of Dissociative Identity Disorder revolve around the existence of alters: the Broken Vase Theory, and the Multiple Vase Theory. Neither are satisfactory explanations for how DID develops and ultimately both theories' inaccuracies stem from the same error: the assumption that early childhood identity is cohesive and intact when in fact it is anything but.
At one job, my boss manipulated and controlled her employees. She tried to win over her employees by becoming overly familiar with us and then using the information to manipulate our actions, even play one employee off another. She obviously manipulated my supervisor, Dean, and after becoming his friend, I found she abused him in hidden ways, too. The signs of workplace abuse made it obvious I needed a new job (Dealing With Verbal Abuse At Work).
It's tempting to think that because we read a list of symptoms for a mental illness, we can diagnose ourselves. We might think that taking a self-test online indicates the presence of an illness, or lack thereof. These things, however, are simply not the case.
Productivity Habits for the Bipolar or Depressed Individual (Part 1) Many people don't make the best use of their time. If possible, avoid meetings that you are a fly on the wall, having little input. Are the projects you are currently working on more important than this meeting? Can you get the minutes or highlights of the meeting? Most business meetings take twice as long to complete than what is required to get through the materials needed. If you are curious on how much a meeting costs, for every $10,000 of salary, each hour is worth typically $5.95; a salary of $50,000 is worth $29.75 times each person in the meeting. Six people with all the same salary of $50,000 makes each hour worth or costs the company $178.50 per hour. This only includes the meeting time; preparation, photocopying and power point presentations are additional.
If I'd had to win the job of mother to my son on a Survivor-style reality game show, I would have been voted off within the first 6 months. As it is, I've lasted almost 13 years and done okay for the most part. But much of that success has to do with the fact that my child is physically and mentally healthy. In other words, he's not that difficult to parent. Children with autism have special limitations and needs that are bound to make parenting an autistic child an exponentially greater challenge than parenting already is.
Did you read my last post (about keeping your head in the heat of the moment) and feel like telling me to shove it? Yeah...me too.

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Hilary
Hi,

So sorry to hear this Christine.

You are welcome to email me. Anytime.
I am sorry you are struggling in such a hard situation. It's not an easy thing to go through when you love someone and they are your adult or young child. as well. I
Its v hard to talk about too.
I hope you and yr daughter are setting some boundaries that suit your situation (safety wise ) soon ...you would or are doing the right thing to set boundaries. together in writing, maybe even legally would be good.

Enforced living arrangements by a real estate agent or court is sometimes best in the end if all else fails, even though its v hard- or a group home while you think on what to do might be good -easier said than done...
All the best to you, yr daughter and yr family
Hilary
I understand and I am so sorry for your and your son's pain. I get it totally but not many do ... if you need to chat do write back to me . Keep going in the meantime by taking one day at a time and looking after you too x
William
thank you for making the effort to write about this with such honesty and insight . You may be ill but you sound more genuine and likeable than most of the superficial actors we meet everyday . I too have a similar ongoing battle involving much suffering despite perhaps appearing to others as "normal ". I am 60 in 2 weeks and poor mental health ..particularly depression and anxiety took away my ability to lead a normal life no matter how hard I tried . I became an alcoholic for perhaps 30 yrs ..trying to self medicate the feelings away . That almost killed me 7 years ago ..the last time I had a drink . I have no means of escape now but for several decades have believed buddhism offers great healing for us folk . Compassion , wisdom , peace and of course ..living life in the present moment , moment by moment ,..... ...all the things I have yearned for all my life . Good luck and much love from Devon in the UK .
Danielle
I just got into it with a stranger who was driving and didn't slow down like he was supposed to even though I was a pedestrian already in the crosswalk. He was turning into the plaza as I was using the crosswalk and we both hesitated but the default rule is to wait for pedestrians. But after all, he continued rolling passed me as I was half way thru the cross walk when he said out his window "pay attention ..blah blah". thats all I heard because before I knew it, I was shouting back at this car "no you pay attention, you're supposed to slow down for pedestrians" he was still driving but he stopped and put his car in reverse and started to "follow" me to argue. I was just going to my own car not too far into the parking lot. He stops and looks at me while I'm arguing back and they starts to insult my appearance. I was just running errands so I was in some flare yoga pants and a hoodie. My hair was poofy because I had just gotten it freshly colored that morning and it had been blow dried. I wasn't wearing makeup, so apparently he thought I looked like I was "on drugs" he asked me several times if I was high and I said what are you talking about and then he started laughing and calling me a tweaker or junkie. I was so insulted. I'm a woman, he was a man and just because I didn't dress for his gaze (the male gaze) while running errands, he concluded I looked so bad that I was on drugs? I'm so embarrassed and annoyed that this happened. All because he didn't want to slow down for a pedestrian in the cross walk? I can't help but feel like this is some kind of karma from the universe because I do admit that sometimes I am not the most patient or nice person out in public, but I never throw personal insults at people. If I am complaining or verbalizing my displeasure, it is directed at the situation itself rather than personal insults at the participating parties. For example, all I rebuttled back to him was that he needed to be the one to pay attention and later I told him he was very rude for saying I looked like a tweaker. He even pulled out his phone like he was going to start recording the altercation but I drove off hopefully not giving him enough time to make a decent video. I could have insulted him back, but he went straight for personal attacks and it hurt my feelings. I should not have to be insulted just for running errands while not being all done up.
Mags
Curious where this has ended up? As i am in this situation right now