Ghosts Within: Journeying Through PTSD is written by former war zone journalist Garry Leech. It covers his journey with post-traumatic stress disorder in response to the horrors his work exposed him to. The book describes some of the traumatic events the author experienced. This took a few forms: as descriptions of flashbacks, as part of […]
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Living alone, I have to do all my own grocery shopping. It’s been that way for years, so no big deal, right? Well, what used to be a simple task has become a bit more of a production with mental illness tagging along. It turns out grocery shopping with mental illness isn’t a great combination.
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I was reading an article on Medium recently entitled Please Don’t Email Me About Suicide. The author was saying that when she has written before about suicide, she got emails from readers who were suicidal. I agreed with some, but not all, of what she said, so I thought I would unpack it a bit.
What if a Stranger Online Tells You They’re Suicidal? Read More »
I got thinking about this recently after talking with a blogger friend who has the amazing ability to optimistically see the silver lining in almost any dark cloud, and I very much do not. It makes me wonder, though, whether that makes me a pessimist, or am I just a realist? To start off, it’s
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In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychological terms. This week’s term is exposure and response prevention. Exposure and response prevention (ERP) is a type of cognitive behavioural therapy used to treat obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). It’s similar to prolonged exposure therapy, which is used in anxiety disorders and PTSD,
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Written Off: Mental Health Stigma and the Loss of Human Potential by Philip T. Yanos wasn’t available from the local public library, so I got a copy from the nearby university library. That difference in availability gives some indication of the nature of the book. I didn’t think it was overly textbookish, but at the
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In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychological terms. This week, we’ll look at the difference between a personality trait and a disorder. Personality traits Wikipedia defines personality traits as “habitual patterns of behaviour, thought, and emotion” that are mostly stable across time and context. Some traits fall on a continuum,
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I recently saw a tweet about the issue of cell phones on psych wards, and it stirred up a strong reaction for me. A man was writing about how he’d been advocating for his child to be able to have their cell phone on the psych ward, but this was flatly denied due to their
Cell Phones on Psych Wards—Yea or Nay? Read More »
In Own It: Make Your Anxiety Work For You, Caroline Foran aims to help you change your relationship with anxiety so that rather than trying to avoid it you can own it. The book isn’t preachy at all, and feels like a chat with a good friend. The author takes a no-bullshit tone, and assures
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We’ve all heard that money can’t buy happiness. But is there some sort of relationship between money and happiness? And if so, what does that look like, and can money facilitate happiness? Meeting basic needs Clearly, it takes money to meet our most basic needs like food and shelter. When those basic needs are on
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