Choosing to enter a residential treatment program for mental health issues or drug and alcohol abuse is a major decision and, for many, a step in the right direction for a better life. However, once the program is completed, it can leave you wondering what’s next.

Learn how to break free from negative thinking patterns that contribute to low self-esteem. This quick video teaches you how to build more positive experiences into each day.

If there were one message I would want to beat into the collective conscious of our culture, it would be this: You can have an eating disorder at any weight, shape, or size. It seems that no matter how many eating disorder awareness weeks we have, we continue to have this idea of eating disorders that is dominated by Karen Carpenter, Mary-Kate Olsen, and a handful of other famous anorexics. Strangely, this belief seems to go both ways. If you are very thin, you must have an eating disorder, right?

Things like depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are insidious. We work hard, sometimes for years, to take away their power so they no longer control our lives. And we do it! We’re going along, innocently living our lives, anxiety and such at a tolerable level, when, bam - these beasts spring up and give chase. When this happened to me recently, it took me a while, but I finally realized what was happening.

When should the symptom-induced guilt and shame end and responsibility in mental illness begin? Chris T. (actual person, name changed) has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. One of the ways his bipolar manifests is hypersexuality. This symptom drives Chris to act out sexually. He's a married man and over the years has had two extramarital relationships. He has come perilously close on more than one occasion to losing his entire family. Chris feels guilt and shame. He doesn't deny responsibility in his mental illness, but his wife is torn apart because of his actions.

On 9/11 I was living on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. I was already deep into years of my posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) struggle. At the time of the attacks I was “sleeping late” due to my all-night insomnia. What woke me that morning was the enormous number of sirens careening down Broadway just outside my window. I lived one block from a firehouse and the amount of activity from their garage and on the street was deafening. I sprang out of bed with my heart pounding. I’d been sensitizing my amygdala for years, so it took very little for me to have an exaggerated startle response and a quick emotional reaction when things out of the ordinary occurred. I turned on the radio and then the TV and watched as the drama unfolded. New York is a tough city, but that day, a new type of survivorship had just begun.

Three times a week, I go to Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meetings and say "My name is Becky, and I'm an alcoholic." I've been doing this for a little more than a year now, and the further along I get in sobriety, the more I learn. There are many myths about alcoholism, some of which I'm still learning to accept as myths. But recognizing these myths as such is crucial to recovery from addiction.

Today is the anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombings and there are many stories going around right now about the resilience and the success of the people who had to survive that experience. And that’s great. Spreading a positive mental health message through the media is something that I welcome considering it’s so often the negative that gets promoted. But a reader of mine emailed me today and asked, “Aren't there any people who aren't doing well?” I want to reassure this reader that absolutely, there are people hurting today – anniversaries can be very hard for people and some people are suffering today because of the tragic events of the Boston Marathon bombings.

Stress is common for any parent, especially when parenting a child with mental illness. But did you know that stress affects kids, too? According to BrownieLocks.com, April 16th is National Stress Awareness Day. The Center for Disease Control states that "stress is a condition that is often characterized by symptoms of physical or emotional tension. It is a reaction to a situation where a person feels threatened or anxious. Stress can be positive (e.g., preparing for a wedding) or negative (e.g., dealing with a natural disaster)." Kids experience stress due to school, home and other on-going events. But, in my work I have found that kids with mental illness are very sensitive to stress. Even the positive stress that most kids deal with at home or in school. Here are some tips to help you to parent a child with a mental illness dealing with stress.

Having a loved one enter a rehab program for their drug or alcohol addiction can be a difficult time for everyone involved. As a family member, you are likely facing a number of different emotions and may be struggling with some concerns about how effective the addiction treatment program is going to be for your loved one. Additionally, some rehab programs will not allow your loved one to have contact with the outside world during the initial stages of the program. This can be especially hard for family members, however it is essential to helping your loved one or family member concentrate all of his or her energy on getting sober with as few distractions as possible.