Traveling can be nerve-wracking when you live with bipolar disorder. I have always enjoyed spontaneous adventures to far away places ever since I was a kid. However, after my diagnosis of bipolar 2 disorder, it was important I stay at home for an extended period. Some nine years later, I realize how important it is to challenge ourselves and get outside our comfort zone regularly. So I thought I would share some of the benefits of traveling when you live with bipolar disorder.

A child's meltdown happens when he goes into survival mode. He can't control himself, and you as the parent may be the only source of safety and emotional regulation. We can teach our children a lot, then, by learning to recognize the stages of our child's meltdown and how to intervene.

Anxiety in the summer heat affects some people just as others might feel more anxious during the winter months. From my experience with anxiety, I have learned the importance of using mindfulness for anxiety and establishing healthy boundaries, and I use those skills to handle anxiety in the summer, too. To learn about my struggles with anxiety in heat and how I cope, read this article.

Are you in a romantic relationship with someone with borderline personality disorder (BPD)? I want to acknowledge that handling conflict within relationships where one person may have borderline personality disorder can be a sensitive topic for many, especially when talking about romantic relationships. It’s a challenging topic for those living with the diagnosis and those in close proximity to us. For me, making relationships work with borderline personality disorder is not about blaming and pointing the finger. It’s about both parties learning to relate to one another in a way that is healthy, reciprocal, and loving. Today I’ll share a few suggestions in thinking about the conflict you may be having with your loved one with borderline and some tips in the video below for handling conflict within the context of BPD (Borderline Rage: What I Wish People Knew About BPD and Anger). I share just from my personal experience and what has worked for me. 

I’m TJ DeSalvo, and I couldn’t be happier to be the newest writer of Anxiety-Schmanxiety Blog. To begin, a little about myself: I’ve been diagnosed with both generalized anxiety disorder and social anxiety disorder. I’m also on the autism spectrum, which, if you know anything about, causes you to become overwhelmed very easily, and this obviously doesn’t do any favors to someone with anxiety.

Expressing ourselves through poetry helps depression, and, at the same time, it can help eradicate the stigma surrounding depression. Many of us find that it is easier to express our feelings, experiences, and struggles through creative expression than it is to express these things through dialogue or even direct writing. Also, writers have a way of conveying messages through poems that people are able to understand; through poetry, the reader often feels empathy for the writer. 

You need to set boundaries in relationships-all relationships-and when mental illness is added to the mix, personal boundaries become even more necessary. The boundaries in relationships that include a person with mental illness are both for the person dealing with the illness and those dealing with him/her. But what do those look like, and how can we enforce boundaries in relationships that are so complex?

Do we need to remember and process all traumatic memories in order to heal from dissociative identity disorder (DID)?  When it comes to the complicated disorder of DID, there frequently are more questions than there are answers, and the explanation of the above question is no less difficult.  Before I provide an answer, it is important to understand the way our emotional traumatic memories work and what it actually means to process and heal from them.