Blogs
This is a vulnerable admission for me to write, but my 15-year battle with an eating disorder has made an impact on my sexual desire. There—I confessed it openly. I pushed back against the shame, embarrassment, and insecurity that too often silences me on this particular issue.
It’s the time of year when seasonal affective disorder (SAD) and schizoaffective disorder really affect me. It’s late winter, the sparkle of the holidays has faded, and my SAD revs into high gear. This is an extension of the depression I experience with my schizoaffective disorder. Here’s how SAD and schizoaffective disorder have been affecting me this year.
Are you a recovering addict who needs tips for vacationing? I recently had the pleasure of joining my husband on his work trip to Las Vegas, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't have concerns about visiting Sin City as a recovering addict.
Perhaps you've heard of 2019 n-CoV, a new strain of coronavirus that is causing high anxiety worldwide. It's part of a family of viruses that includes germs responsible for the common cold as well as much more serious viral infections like severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS-CoV) and has been causing many people to become ill very quickly.1 Reports of "coronavirus" have caused health anxiety to flare, and many people are worried and fearful about what might happen because of it. If you are experiencing coronavirus anxiety, there are things you can do to stay calm, avoid panic, and reduce health anxiety.
I’m Jessica Kaley, and I’ll be sharing my thoughts on the "Building Self-Esteem" blog. I aim to answer questions like why self-esteem is important to our happiness and success, and how we can improve old pictures of ourselves that we still carry from the past.
If there’s one thing that can make anyone feel anxious, it’s the prospect of failure. The reasons are, admittedly, self-evident: if you really care about something, whether it’s a personal project, goal, relationship, or what have you, then you’re going to want it to succeed. But, of course, failure is part of life, so it is best to be ready to confront fear and anxiety when it inevitably happens to you.
Feeling overwhelmed, exhausted, and disillusioned at work? You may have burned out - or you may have a case of depression. It is easy to confuse one for the other because depression and burnout have a lot of symptoms in common. However, having experienced both, I can vouch for the fact that they are not one and the same thing.
The Internet both helped and hurt my mental health. I truly believe the internet has done wonderful things for those with mental illness in our day and age. Before the internet, if you had a relatively rare mental illness, you might have felt completely alone or at fault for your situation. Those feelings persist today, but I think the internet has played a huge role in decreasing those feelings.
In the healthcare setting where I work, we employ a model of transactional stress. I have found this theory to be extremely helpful in how I support my brother, Josh,* through his depression and anxiety. Here’s a reflection on my experience.
Bipolar has a definite effect on one's career. Bipolar can alter a career, derail a career or even, in some cases (like mine), create a career. I have yet to meet a person whose career has not been affected by his or her bipolar disorder.
I believe she will only be able to rid herself of her demons, and hopefully her BPD as well, when she's ready to confront the abuse of her father. If she can put the blame where it belongs, she may stop projecting that victim/perpetrator cycle on the present men in her life. These demons are a metaphor for the purgatory she has created for herself. That reality has consequences in the real world, but it need not be real in the tangible sense. Exorcising her demons will require the expenditure of real physical energy and probably the destruction of aspects of her personality. If this ever happens, and it's possible but not probable, then these demons will evaporate. They are only as real as one's personality is real. In short, reality is not the question, it's what you make of the things you feel to be real.