A safe place to talk openly about mental health & illness
Here's what happened in my life over the past week: I've discovered another clue to the genetic picture of my illness. There's a history of mental illness in some of my dad's uncles, but there was none in my parents' generation, and no one but me in my generation. But I've learned that one of… Continue reading Weekend Wrap-Up
I've talked about bullet journalling before, but it's been a while, so I thought I'd talk about it again in a little miniseries over the next couple of weeks. My Journalling History I've journalled off and on for most of my life. When I was going to university, I mostly did themed pages devoted to… Continue reading Bullet Journalling Part I: The Basics
Depression – it's one word to describe so many different things. The many faces of depression means that no one person's experience can ever capture what depression is. It's a simple word for a complex illness, so let's chat a bit about what that complexity can look like. Major depressive episode symptoms The list of… Continue reading The Many Faces of Depression
Today is World Mental Health Day 2021, and this post's title is this year's campaign slogan. Mental health conditions don't get the same attention as physical health conditions, and there has been chronic underinvestment in mental health care for years. That needs to change. According to the World Health Organization: Depression is a leading cause… Continue reading Mental Health Care for All: Let’s Make It a Reality
Casper was continuing to have a hard time without Oreo, so I decided to get her a new friend. The pet store had two young females. I didn't want to a) have to choose, and b) leave one all by her lonesome, so they both came home with me. I usually adopt from a shelter,… Continue reading Weekend Wrap-Up
I'm generally pretty out of the loop when it comes to pop psychology phenomena, so I just stumbled across the term toxic productivity fairly recently. While I hadn't heard the term before, I'm at least with it enough to know that productivity talk is all over the internet. What is toxic productivity? Toxic productivity is… Continue reading Why Is Toxic Productivity a Thing?
Thanks to everyone who responded last week to my post What’s Your Favourite Thing About Blogging? It was definitely a good reminder of what a great thing blogging is. Oreo the guinea pig died this week. She was doing fine, but on Tuesday morning she stopped eating, and then she died that night. She was… Continue reading Weekend Wrap-Up
https://youtu.be/T_xWinz_rIQ?t=644 This may seem like an odd video to share. I stumbled across it on Youtube, having no idea that at 10:44 (where I've cued it to play), it would turn into a mental health video. Former British Army sniper Craig Harrison talks about developing PTSD, and how his dog saved him from killing himself.… Continue reading There’s Nothing Weak About PTSD
The Self-Compassion Workbook for OCD by Kimberley Quinlan looks at how to use self-compassion in conjunction with exposure and response prevention (ERP) to manage OCD. The foreword is written by Jon Hershfield, co-author of The Mindfulness Workbook for OCD, which I've previously reviewed. Like that book's use of mindfulness, this book uses self-compassion as a… Continue reading Book Review: The Self-Compassion Workbook for OCD
It's interesting what you can uncover if you lean into reactions, including triggers that weren't initially obvious. In this post, I'm using trigger in a general sense to refer to one thing bringing up (triggering) something else that's not directly related, rather than talking about trauma triggers that cause re-experiencing. What got me thinking about… Continue reading Leaning into Reactions to Recognize Triggers