Documenting Experiences
with Mental Illness
& Neuro-Divergence
Life Lessons From Funerals: Learning Contentment
I’ll never forget that he said Mrs. Taylor’s greatest quality was that she knew she had purpose and carried herself with the confidence of someone who knew that she added value to every encounter she had, every room she stepped in and any situation she made better just by being present.
Radically Accepting Life- One Day at a Time
After reading the book Positive Intelligence by Shirzad Chamine, I’ve learned the DBT skill of radical acceptance to lessen my suicidal thoughts.
How to Crush Your Goals- Despite Depression
I was beginning to struggle with being productive. My goals for the year were not going as smoothly as I had envisioned. I was locked in my own world, willing the year to end fast because I felt I needed a new start. But I realised I didn’t have to wait for the year to end, so I started immediately.
My 20 Somethings Didn’t Kill Me
When I was once again in the depths of agony last September, I carted myself off to the hospital because I absolutely had to make it to my 30th birthday.
How Vipassana Meditation Helped me to Manage Psychosis
Meditation, exercise and self acceptance helped me to cope with my depression and psychosis. Vipassana helped me learn that my body is important, my mind is important, and my sensations are acceptable. I realised hallucinations might occur, but I have to accept it.
Underdiagnosed and Overstressed
Gender plays a huge role in the diagnosis and support of neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism and ADHD. Current research suggests that the prevalence of ADHD in young AMAB individuals is 2–2.5 times higher than its prevalence in young AFAB individuals. People socialized as women are also taught to suppress “undesirable” behavior to a greater degree. Institutions need to do better in representing all genders in their research.
Stuck In A Daydream: Learning To Battle Dissociation With Presence
Life gains meaning through the connections we have to our identity, our relationships and the world around us. What is life without being present and feeling? As someone who struggles with a dissociation disorder, I’ve experienced moments of feeling as if I’m floating through life and often feel out of touch and detached to my reality and identity.
That Strange Sadness: The Morning After a Suicide Attempt
Waking up from a suicide attempt is a peculiar feeling and is one that ultimately only 6% of people will ever experience. My attempt was not a cry for help. I don’t believe that such things exist. A person who attempts might regret the decision instantly but in the second that they actually make it, they mean it.
Living in the Aftermath of Suicide
Losing someone you love to suicide changes you, and you look back at every conversation you’ve had with that person and see everything as a sign and wonder how you could have missed them.
How Daily Dance Breaks Soothe My Sexual Anxiety
Rachel Harmon talks about how her daily dance breaks helped her to get in tune with her body and ease her sexual anxiety.
My Journey Through Perinatal Depression
If I could describe my pregnancy and the early years of motherhood in one word, it would be grief.
6 Methods to Help Navigate Grief
Grief is a powerful and complex emotion that can affect our mental health in many ways. It is a normal response to loss, but the process of coping with grief is different for everyone. Today we will explore the ways in which grief affects our mental health
How to Combat Catastrophic Thinking
Here are some ways I combat catastrophic thinking.
Money and Mental Health
It can be hard to follow sage advice about money when wrestling with your mental health. Now that I have a full-time job I am trying my best to manage my money better, though budgeting is still extraordinarily hard. Here are some tips to manage your money if you are prone to falling prey to your impulses:
The Souls of Black Folks (Are Tired)
Object Constancy — and 8 Ways to Improve It
Object constancy— what it is and how we can improve it.
Diagnoses
In this age of social media there are so many people who are sharing their symptoms online bringing awareness to mental illnesses and neurodivergences alike. It can be helpful to have so much of this content floating around the internet because people who may have once been uncertain or even clueless can identify with what they’ve seen and experienced and begin to question what they know of themselves and if they should seek more resources.
Looking on the Bright Side (Helps You Not Me)
It is our nature to want to soften the blow of things that make our loved ones sad. It is uncomfortable to see the people we cherish go through something hard- regardless of how “big” or “small” it seems to us. It is also one of the most painful ways to respond to someone who is deeply hurting. I would like to use this space to explain why.
Feeling Grief
The words “RESISTANCE of the heart against business as usual” instantly spoke to me of grief. Grief will stop you in your tracks as the world keeps moving around you because it is your heart resisting going about business as usual. The unfairness of it will strike you: my world has been irreversibly altered and nobody else even noticed!
