I talk about a lot of sad things related to binge eating disorder on my blog, but this post is about a binge eating recovery victory. I turn 30 on September fifth, and I want to wear a dress for my birthday dinner. But not just any dress. A dress I've been waiting to wear for 6 years. And on September fifth, I'm going to wear it.

School anxiety in parents who don't go to school might seem like an odd concept. Children, adolescents, and young adults, who do go to school can absolutely experience school anxiety and stress. Sure, parents can experience anxiety, and they can worry about their kids. But school anxiety in parents? The writing on the marker board clearly states yes. Parents can have school anxiety, too. 

“Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.” When supermodel Kate Moss told the fashion magazine WWD Beauty Biz that this seven-word statement was one of her mottos, the resultant publicity introduced many people to the controversial concept of thinspiration. A portmanteau of the words thin and inspiration, thinspiration (or its shortened version, thinspo) refers to the use of photographs and quotes as a means of encouraging people to lose dangerous amounts of weight. (The Alluring Lies of Pro-Anorexia)

Do you use disablist language without realizing it? The language we use when discussing mental health matters because language can stigmatize people with mental illness. Words have the power to make someone feel included or excluded. Choice of language in a conversation about mental health can impact how accepted (or unaccepted) a person living with a mental illness feels. Let's explore disablist language and eliminate it from our vocabularies.

We see signs of how the mental health system suffers, but too often, the mental health system fails with lethal results. We all know that the mental health system fails, but have we ever thought of the results of that failure? In the case of Jamycheal Mitchell, another #BlackLivesMatter death no one is talking about, a $5 theft and subsequent jail stay proved fatal. Once again, the mental health system fails with lethal results.

I recently realized how the power of gratitude can help in times of anger, anxiety and fear. Negative emotions can overwhelm us and spread like fire. But the power of gratitude works like a fire extinguisher when it comes to negative emotions.

  Sleep disturbances are very common in combat posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In fact, two types of sleep disturbances -- nightmares and insomnia -- are actually diagnostic criteria for PTSD. We’re not sure why PTSD affects sleep so profoundly but research is getting closer to finding out. But can sleep disturbances in combat PTSD be treated and if so, how?

Video games can help reduce the stigma of mental illness as popular video games fictionalize real life scenarios for entertainment. Video games that fictionalize the state of the world are often irresponsible and damaging, likely due to the portrayal of the video game’s interactive characters. Role-playing type games hold immense power by influencing our lives, but often negatively demonstrate the stigma of mental illness. However, the game genre is an ideal place to work on improving mental health education by, instead, reducing the stigma linked to mental illness, and this is an opportunity to contribute to positively shaping the perceptions and attitudes of our population, especially our youth. Video games can help reduce mental illness stigma.

There are three alternatives to self-injury that I have found helpful. Some of them are well known, while one is new to me (by which I mean I learned it two days ago). Self-injury borders on being an addiction, and sometimes we can feel obligated to self-injure. However, we need to remember that there are at least three alternatives to self-injury.

Knowing when to get rid of social media relationships is tricky. We all know them - the person in our Twitter or Facebook feed that we don't see eye-to-eye with. Or the friend from highschool that, for some reason, annoys you with the endless pictures they post of their dog. Having so many social media relationships in so many places can stir lots of emotions, some of them good and others bad (Is Social Networking Increasing Your Relationship Anxiety?). But there are times and situations which signal you must get rid of social media relationships.