Building mental wellness on a foundation of strength
In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychology-related terms. This week's term is self-verification theory. Self-verification theory comes from social psychology, and it says that we want other people to see us the way we see ourselves. That might seem self-obvious, but what's interesting is that this applies even when… Continue reading What Is… Self-Verification Theory
Here are a few things you may or may not already know about me. My first guinea pig Ghanoush and her sister Baba were my very first guinea pigs. I got them from a pet store, since I was too clueless at that point to think of going to an animal shelter. The pet store… Continue reading A Few Random Things About Me
In this edition of This Was Me, we'll look back at times in my 30s when I was unwell, although you wouldn't know it just from looking at the picture. This photo was taken in December 2011, only a week or two after being discharged from a 2-month hospital stay. I was better in a… Continue reading This Was Me: The Things That Photos Hide
I did my first big international trip (aside from a high school exchange trip to Japan) when I was 22, and that was when the travel bug firmly took root. From then on, each year I would take all my vacation time together in one block and do an international trip, other than the years… Continue reading This Was Me: My Travelling 20s
Peopled seemed to like the This Was Me post that covered my younger years, and this post will look back at my high school years. I wasn't a huge fan of that time in my life. Nothing bad happened; I just felt like I had very different interests from the vast majority of my peers, and… Continue reading This Was Me: The High School Years
I've written about this before in more general terms (What Does the Self Consist of?), but in this post I'll try to get a little more specific. I think a major part of the foundation of who we are is the sum of our life experiences. No one else has had the exact same combination… Continue reading What Is It That Makes You, You?
Failure isn't fun. There's just no two ways about that. But what does that failure mean? I think that, particularly when mental illness is involved, it's easy to leap from "I failed at [X]" to "I'm a failure." But taking a step back, they're not really the same thing. Fear of failure Fear of failure… Continue reading Are You a Failure at a Task, or as a Person?
What is it that makes you, you? Is there even a self? Buddhism A fundamental concept in Buddhism is non-self. The word Anatta is used for the principle that "there is in humans no permanent, underlying substance that can be called the soul" (Wikipedia). The belief that there is a self is viewed as a… Continue reading What Does the Self Consist of?
I got the idea for this post from a recent post by Kacha at Food.for.thoughts about social media and depression, and I think it's a relevant question for anyone who shares parts of themselves on the internet – how genuine are you online? Layers of communication In-person communication typically involves three levels: verbal, paraverbal (tone… Continue reading How Genuine Are You Online?
I ask this question in this post's title because I know for some people their illness struck at a relatively young age, or there were always hints of what was to come even if the full-blown illness didn't hit until later. It wasn't like that for me. My first episode of depression didn't start until… Continue reading Were You Always Depressed or Anxious?
