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Relationships during mental illness relapse can be critical to recovery. Many people with mental illness isolate and withdraw socially as symptoms of their disease. Though it may feel comforting to disconnect from the world and withdraw into one's own thoughts, reaching out to loved ones is a great way to reap the benefits of your relationships during a mental illness relapse.
Unconditional positive regard reduces anxiety. When we experience anxiety, how can we stop bullying ourselves and give ourselves unconditional positive regard?
Being a people-pleaser is a sign of low self-esteem. If you’re a people-pleaser, you go out of your way to make other people happy. Your choices or actions might be based on what others think, want or expect from you. Your self-worth is probably dependent on the approval from others, and it most likely reflects your personal insecurities. It’s okay to be kind and helpful to others, but to a point. Excessive people-pleasing is unhealthy and it can worsen your self-esteem. The good news is that you can stop being a people-pleaser.
For me, the most helpful framework in understanding borderline personality disorder (BPD) comes out of schema therapy, a borderline personality disorder treatment, which includes a concept known as schema modes. The easiest way to understand schema modes is to think of them as personalities. Different personalities take over to protect the borderline when she is hurt or threatened in some way. Schema modes in borderline personality disorder are a form of maladaptive coping that the person learned in response to childhood trauma, and schema therapy is designed to address these modes.
Phentermine is a binge eating disorder medication as it's an appetite suppressant. It works by stimulating the part of the brain that regulates appetite. With someone that has binge eating disorder, this area of the brain could be going into overdrive and causing binges. The binge eating disorder medication, phentermine, has worked to help me control my binges and stop grazing all day.
Life viewed through a lens of love can lead to blissful living. As I reflect on some of life's journey, I remember painful times during my growing up years. I accepted a truth of myself as viewed through a lens of fear and poison. At that time, I wasn't aware my view was one from fear. I had no idea that a life viewed through the lens of love could be blissful.
Nearly one-third of adult Americans do not drink alcohol at all. Furthermore, another one-third of adult Americans consume less than one alcoholic drink per week. These figures from a Washington Post article astonished me; far more Americans don't drink alcohol or very light drinkers than I had realized.
Doctors are affected by mental illness stigma, and, as mental health consumers, we run into this problem time and time again. I have heard countless horror stories of mental illness stigma affecting doctors and other mental health professionals, who are part of the patient's journey. However, there still remains a number of doctors and medical professionals who stay true to their passion for medicine. Here are some of my best and worst experiences with doctors who are affected by mental illness stigma and the ones who aren't.
There are many good quotes and conversations about the stigma attached to mental illness. We owe it to ourselves to listen to and discuss these quotes as an effort to acknowledge the mental illness stigma. Fighting stigma is one of the steps to recovery from mental illness. So here are three quotes, and some possible discussions to have about mental illness stigma.
Creating alters (alternate personalities) in dissociative identity disorder (DID) is a helpful way to deal with different personalities. I don't know exactly how to tell someone to create an alter, but it seems that when there is a need for one, it will come to be. One such time was with my little girl alter. Her name is Colette, and she is five years old. Colette taught me about creating alters with dissociative identity disorder.
I believe she will only be able to rid herself of her demons, and hopefully her BPD as well, when she's ready to confront the abuse of her father. If she can put the blame where it belongs, she may stop projecting that victim/perpetrator cycle on the present men in her life. These demons are a metaphor for the purgatory she has created for herself. That reality has consequences in the real world, but it need not be real in the tangible sense. Exorcising her demons will require the expenditure of real physical energy and probably the destruction of aspects of her personality. If this ever happens, and it's possible but not probable, then these demons will evaporate. They are only as real as one's personality is real. In short, reality is not the question, it's what you make of the things you feel to be real.