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Anxiety can negate your appetite. Anxiety and eating disorders often co-occur—that's hardly a shock to those who live with the harsh realities and ramifications of both illnesses. As the National Institute of Mental Health reveals, 65.1 percent of those with binge eating disorder, 47.9 percent with anorexia, and 80.6 percent with bulimia meet the diagnostic criteria for anxiety.
I sometimes wonder if I would face the same stigma for dating men a couple of decades younger than me if the genders were reversed. It isn't that unusual to hear about men in their 40s dating women in their 20s. However, when a woman in her 40s dates a man in his 20s, the main assumption I've encountered is that she must be a "sugar mommy." It's almost as if it's unimaginable that a young man would be sexually or romantically interested in an older woman for any other reason.
For citizens living in the northern hemisphere, the days are getting shorter. Shorter winter days can affect your mood, especially if you deal with mental health issues like attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
In "Dating Like a 'Cougar' Is Leaving Me Lonely," I discussed my mixed feelings about continuing to identify as a cougar. I was worried that the term might be too small of a box to fit myself into. Having thought about it more, I now see the term more like a shoe that fits. It might be a tight fit, but it still fits.
I'm sad all the time. I'm miserable. I'm caught in a well of darkness and depression -- all the time. Now, not everyone who is depressed experiences this. Some people who are depressed experience persistent sadness bouts, yes, but they aren't necessarily constant. Depression can also be characterized by diminished interest or pleasure instead of a depressed mood. In other words, being sad all the time is not required for a diagnosis of major depressive disorder; but it sure seems to be required by my major depressive disorder (that occurs because of bipolar disorder). And the trouble with all of this is that being sad all the time is just too heavy a burden to bear.
I'm writing this just a few minutes removed from a morning run, which I hated almost every second. I'm not like the runners you see in the movies who gracefully jog with their camera-ready smiles; my face is usually fixed in a mask of focused despair, disguising not at all how distasteful I find the whole situation. This run was no different—my feet hurt, my heart pounded quicker than it wanted to, and my respiration struggled to keep pace. In short, the run absolutely, unmistakably, irrevocably sucked. It was exactly what I'd hoped for. I was hoping to increase my distress tolerance.
Being the victim of verbal abuse can create vulnerabilities in several areas of life. I know that I still experience negative feelings of vulnerability even though I am no longer in an abusive situation. Thankfully, I am learning how to properly be vulnerable without making myself a target for further abuse.
If you hurt yourself when you fail at something, know you're not alone. Other people, myself included, have struggled with this urge—and have since found better ways to cope.
Terminal uniqueness is a concept I first learned about in eating disorder residential treatment. At the time, my restless, irritable teenage brain had no interest in the phrase. But over the years since, I've come to realize that terminal uniqueness is a common barrier to eating disorder recovery. In fact, it's not a unique or rare phenomenon at all—ironically enough. So what does terminal uniqueness mean, and how can it affect recovery? Let's unpack this further.
This week, "Snap Out of It!" talks to lawyer Julia Stephanides. She schools us on the rights people with mental illness have at work and how you can use those rights to better navigate working with a mental illness.

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Sean Gunderson
Wonderful! Thanks for turning to my blog for learning more about cultivating self-esteem
Sean Gunderson
Wonderful! Thanks for turning to my blog for learning more about cultivating self-esteem
Sean Gunderson
Yes! Thanks so much for reading and benefitting from my essays.
Warwick lindsay
I had anxiety and depression for 30 years and the way I’ve controlled it was to firstly like myself which I never realised I needed, the hardest part was to forgive and forget what I thought were bad things about me from my past. When really I needed to realise that any faults, stuff ups etc are not a real problems to worry about and at the end of the day they are one thing and one thing only to be thought of as: LIFE LESSONS because if you don’t do stupid things you never learn.

No one is perfect so stop trying to be, another one is if you hold anger against your parents, other family members, friends etc for a past issue that happened your need to regardless of what it is, you need to forgive them for it and in saying that you don’t go looking for an apology from them because you might not get it you forgive them within yourself because that’s the result you need.

You need to learn to laugh at yourself with any fault you believe you have because once again at the end of the day they are worthless things to hold over yourself.

Picture yourself as a old person not far from your time in this life/world to live and truly think about this
- have you wasted the one life we get worrying about pointless things that happened and enjoy this experience of life.

Go through you individual anxiety fueled mental battles and forgive yourself or others and forget about that problem forever because they really only are: LIFE LESSONS to remind yourself to not do that again.

And got rid of all those problems, i no longer have what I called my Anxiety Alarm Clock every time my head hit my pillow to go to sleep at night.

I also reminded myself that anxiety and depression owned half my life and I WAS GOING TO OWN THE NEXT HALF.

If you start to feel a panic attack coming and this took time to get it to work, slow your breathing right down and same amount of time breathing in then out keeping the same pace, if you drift off back into worthless thoughts go back to breathing slowly in and out, it about changing your triggers.
Sandy
I just broke up with someone I cared deeply for . I couldn't take another " did you hear what I just asked you?"
And the day he snapped his fingers to get my. attention was the day I k ew I had to end it.