Therapy is one of the best ways to actively make progress toward recovery from mental illness, but, unfortunately, therapy can be difficult to access when you can't afford it. Even with insurance, sessions can cost upwards of $100. Even if you only go to therapy every other week, that's still $200 per month, which is roughly the same cost as a car payment. Many of us need that money for our actual car payment, and so we end up missing out on therapy we really need.

How is perfectionism related to anxiety? If you cope with chronic anxiety, do you find that you often have fears of failure and inadequacy? Do you find that you often feel as though what you do is not good enough and that you are constantly trying to live up to certain standards?

A misconception bred by mental health stigma is your mental illness is your entire identity. It can even go as far as suggesting there is no separating you from it. While mental illness and mental health struggles are a part of who we are, they don't completely make up our identity.

Regardless of whether you have a mood disorder, knowing your personality traits can help you improve mental health conditions. Personality trait awareness can help those with mood disorders learn how to manage their symptoms. It can also help supporters learn how to effectively advocate for their loved ones. Read this article to learn how to identify and use personality traits for mental health benefits.

I am not a fan of diet culture. I abhor the idea that thinness is the ultimate ideal, and that all people, particularly women, should strive to be skinny above all else. Yet, here I am, dieting because of weight gained from taking antipsychotic medication for my schizoaffective disorder.

After achieving sobriety from my addiction, processing the trauma took countless hours in therapy sessions. Over time, I began to see so many clear connections between my trauma and my addiction. For years I dissociated from many of my difficult memories and experiences and often I was able to numb out using various addictive behaviors or substances, like sex, food, and, occasionally, alcohol. These methods worked for a time, but eventually, nothing was strong enough to silence the chaos that lived inside of me.

That someone who self-harms must be unhappy is an easy assumption to make, but the truth is more complicated than that. While self-harm and mood disorders do often go hand-in-hand, self-harm is not intrinsically linked to mood. Not everyone who is unhappy self-harms, after all, and not everyone who self-harms does so exclusively when they are suffering. So why do people self-harm even when they're happy—or at least appear to be so?

You can beat anxiety long-time no matter how strong it is or how much it is interfering in the quality life you want to live. While there are things you can do to feel better immediately when anxiety strikes, such as practicing mindfulness in the moment, visualizing something calming, deep breathing, using movement like yoga, brisk walking, or other exercises and more, there are other strategies you can adopt as part of your regular perspective and behavior to beat anxiety long-term. The following three strategies are effective ways to lower your anxiety and keep it out of your way for life.

Having a relationship with a person with borderline personality disorder (BPD) tends to be thought of as a tumultuous endeavor. In my opinion, there continues to be an immense stigma and misunderstanding around mental illnesses in our society. However, when it comes to personality disorders, such as borderline personality disorder, this stigma can be much more intense. Sadly, I have seen how the chronicity of personality disorders has led to a resistance to treat, even among mental health professionals. Yet, those diagnosed with personality disorders have the capacity to create a life worth living and are worthy of all available and effective treatment. I currently work with individuals diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and have found therapeutic interventions to be very rewarding, especially when it comes to interpersonal effectiveness and relationships.

I had no intention of being someone who unrolls a mat in a candlelit room and chants, "Namaste," with my palms entwined at heart's center, but this is me nonetheless—yoga is now part of my eating disorder recovery, and I am thankful for the conduit of healing it's become. I have a long, complicated—and, at times, unhealthy—relationship with exercise. I am also an intense, feisty, and energetic person by nature which means that my workouts often match this intensity, but one exercise that I never imagined I would feel such a profound, almost sacred connection to is yoga.