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I've found three television shows that help me cope with depression. Television can create a way to escape depression, and oddly enough, I find myself looking for characters going through circumstances similar to mine. (Binge-Watching Television While Coping with Depression may not be such a good idea, though)
Forgiveness in my addiction recovery is important for my emotional and spiritual health. Addiction recovery takes much more than just going through the treatment process to become whole again, but it did provide me with the tools necessary to live a life that is free of alcohol. When I completed treatment four-and-a-half years ago, I had to put those tools to work and still have to remain vigilant to keep my recovery alive and successful. In treatment, I learned about addiction, triggers, relapse prevention, and the need for honesty, acceptance, and gratitude. However, there was another key element that has furthered my addiction recovery progress even more – forgiveness.
I have schizoaffective disorder, which is a combination of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. I also have generalized anxiety disorder (anxiety disorders frequently accompany bipolar disorder). On top of that, I have pre-menstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) which is like the pre-menstrual syndrome (PMS) many women experience but worse. Much, much worse. It is especially bad when you already have a disorder like schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder, a cascade of additional mood swings and depression.
Overcoming a type of anxiety known as the imposter syndrome often seems impossible. The imposter syndrome is a crushing anxiety that can plague high-achieving individuals, making them fear being discovered as a fraud, a phony, a fake, a man or woman undeserving of being where he or she is. This anxiety causes extreme stress and fear of failure. Like all anxiety, the imposter syndrome can be significantly reduced and even completely overcome.
We need to learn how to deal with the urge to binge eat -- even if we haven't binged in years. When the urge to binge arrives, we may feel like our only choice is to give in. Here's the good news, we have a choice. We can choose not to act on binging behaviors. Here are some tips to help deal with the urge to binge eat head on.
It is extremely important to your recovery from a mental illness that you not let mental health stigma stop you from achieving your goals. Inside of you are the abilities and passions that can make you happy if you pursue your goals and not allow mental health stigma to stop you from doing what you want most.
While it’s not categorized as an official anxiety disorder in the DSM-5, the imposter syndrome is a very real, often paralyzing, form of anxiety. It’s not something that’s often discussed, at least not openly. It can’t be. People who experience the imposter syndrome are so anxious, so afraid, of being exposed as incompetent phonies who have no right to be where they are that they are reluctant to disclose having this type of anxiety. If this describes you or someone you know, read boldly on. Recognizing and acknowledging the imposter syndrome is one way you can keep it from pushing you backward.
What are the clues that your child has attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD? To start, HealthyPlace has a quiz you can take (Free Online ADHD Child Quiz). It includes many of the typical signs of ADHD. However, as a parent, I realize you didn't come here to learn how clinicians see the disorder. You want to know how ADHD looks and feels on a daily basis. You want to know if you're overreacting to behaviors or not. You want to know if your child has ADHD.
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.