Do you have an addiction disorder in addition to borderline personality disorder? If so, you're not alone. The good news is you can fight back! Knowing warning signs of relapse is key to preventing it.

Easing anxiety with pets is animal therapy at its most natural--there's no need to be a professional to benefit from pets. Animals give us mental peace. Watch.

That which doesn’t kill us only makes us stronger. We’ve all heard the cliché. That may ring true for some, but not for me. My depression has been raging these past few weeks, putting me through a hellacious test. Only it hasn’t made me stronger. It’s made me weaker. It’s made me tired. And it’s frustrated me to no end.

What is the definition of abuse? What counts as domestic violence? People search for versions of those questions thousands of times each month. Are there really so many people who do not know any definition of abuse? I don't think so. I think victims continue searching for the definition of abuse because they want to believe their loved one does not abuse them. Victims would rather believe that they, in fact, are as crazy as their abusive relationship makes them feel. They want the definition of abuse to be something other than what they read on that last website.

When the Disney Corporation, icon of social conservatism, first actively began pursuing gay tourists, many consumers were shocked. However, hospitality industry insiders were not; they understood that, like other American businesses, Disney places profit over prejudice ten times out of ten. So, much to the consternation of Grumpy, Doc, Goofy, Minnie and Snow White, wonderlands of all things Mickey were suddenly gay-friendly and in no time at all the music of cash registers began wafting breezily through the sheets of fiberglass snow falling gently on plastic hills and valleys. Disney Corp. even bundled special events, tours, and vacations specifically for this demographic. For mentally ill Americans like me, it was a bittersweet moment. On the one hand, we were delighted to see members of a beleaguered minority group finally welcomed into the inner sanctum of what passes for culture in this country. But, on the other hand, we felt our own exclusion even more painfully. When – we wondered – when would our day come?

I met a beautiful young creature. I then flirted with said creature, as is my habit. Eventually, she asked me a question about local politics. A perfection reasonable question, one assumes. There was just one problem, I don’t know anything about local politics. This is because I refuse to watch the news as I find it depressing and I told her so. She said she understood. Then we planned to go out to a movie. She asked me to pick the film. I picked one of the action-suspense genre as then there was no chance of me becoming emotionally activated by a stupid movie. Nope, no romantic movies on a date with me. And then we discussed the showing to see. I have to see the early show because I turn into a pumpkin at 9:00 PM. And really, I prefer to see matinees because they disrupt my sleep cycle less which disrupts my bipolar less. Poor girl, she had no idea what her flirtation had waded her into.

The news is exciting: a research study has found that cognitive improvements are possible for those with schizophrenia - and that the results can stick. And even better: these results can be achieved with the help of a program to teach social and cognitive skills with the use of computer games. A reporter called me yesterday for a comment before she finished her article, and it certainly got me to reflect on my my son Ben, and how he is - slowly - beginning to show more signs of "growing up." One of the very first "aha moments" for me, when I finally began to learn about schizophrenia and its symptoms, came with the information that it is a "double-edged sword" of positive (added to personality) and negative (taken away from personality). I also learned, in NAMI's Family-to-Family course, about the concept of being "frozen in time" for many affected by mental illness. 

First diagnosed with mental illness, many of of us feel a little--a lot--angry and confused. We might wonder what we did wrong to deserve a diagnosis that carries stigma and no absolute cure. Perhaps we feel we will never recover from mental illness, it will follow us through life, biting at our ankles like a dog we wouldn't mind kicking. And that's normal, that's human, there is not a person on this earth that---I will take the liberty to assume---does not have a hard time accepting the diagnosis. At first. All this aside, putting your mental illness, the diagnosis of it, in perspective is important. Stigma & Mental Illness Mental Illness carries stigma.

Yes, control issues can cause anxiety, but it is much more complicated than that. Anxiety has us feel like we are “out of control.” This is one of its biggest tricks it has to stay in power over us. It is important for us to see how it makes us feel “out of control,” because once it is visible we can do something about it. 

Yesterday morning, Bob said something I've never heard him say before: "I need to see my doctor." (He was referring to his psychiatrist.) I asked why, and his answer was clear: "Because I can't sleep." I felt awful for him, he looked almost near tears. He's not the only one. Every morning, as we inch closer to Spring, I find it more difficult to get to sleep (and stay asleep), and more difficult to awake and rise in the morning (What Is Seasonal Affective Disorder [SAD]?).