Depression has made me want to shrink myself, hide away, avoid all of the phone calls, emails, and text messages. Depression has robbed my creativity, my motivation, my confidence and strength. But I can’t hide. The stigma surrounding mental illness is begging me to be brave. Stigma harms the 1 in 5 Americans affected byContinue reading “Let’s End the Stigma”
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In working toward finding mental health stability while simultaneously facing the highs and unrelenting lows of life, the creativity and motivation to write can be hard to access. I find great joy in writing, yet the apathy of mild depression stagnates my motivation to seek out joyful activities, as binge watching TV on the couchContinue reading “Back to the Roots: Mental Illness Superpowers”
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I woke up this morning with a heart full of gratitude. Last week in my dialectic behavior therapy (DBT) group, I shared that I was feeling more and more confident with coping with crises and significant mood swings, but am really struggling with managing the “daily grind.” I come home from work and I amContinue reading “A Heart Full of Gratitude”
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I just had a miscarriage. It still feels like I’m talking about someone else’s life when I say it. I’ll never be able to erase the memory of walking to the bathroom in the middle of my work day, just like any other day, then looking down and seeing blood. I proceed to take allContinue reading “Building Resilience One Day at a Time”
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With the uncertainty of when the COVID-19 crisis in our country will resolve, making plans is difficult. My husband, friends, and I have canceled an international trip twice, for which we spent months planning—something I’m sure many can relate to. The evenings and weekends are blank squares on the calendar, except for an occasional hikeContinue reading “Shifting a Depressed Brain Toward Gratitude”
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It’s exhausting to care so deeply for others, to give so much of yourself day in and day out, and to constantly put yourself into the shoes of the suffering so that you can truly empathize with their experience. This is what I do as an occupational therapist. I work with children and their familiesContinue reading “Mental Illness in the Workplace”
As my physical anxiety symptoms make their unwelcome return, I have been reflecting on the last few weeks. What were the triggers? Why is anxiety increasing instead of improving? Well I think there is one obvious trigger—the stress and uncertainty of the election. Add to that continued worry and difficulty with my fertility journey, andContinue reading “Willfulness: Personal Enemy Number One”
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“Imagine all of the things you would do if you didn’t believe the negative thoughts you have about yourself.” A rush of emotion–shame and sadness that lie dormant deep inside me made their way to the surface as large, sopping tears filled my eyes. I was in my dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) group and IContinue reading “You Are Not Your Thoughts”
Therapy has changed my life by helping me transform rigid thought patterns I didn’t even know I had to more fluid and flexible ones. When I first started, I was able to acknowledge that the world existed in shades of gray, yet I forced myself into a life of black and white, rigid and unforgiving,Continue reading “My Dialectical Life”
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Perfect—a word that carries a weight too heavy to sustain. Perfect is a crutch I have used for much of my life. Imperfect and broken on the inside, I dared not expose the bruises to the outside world. I feared rejection, embarrassment, isolation, and shame. What I didn’t realize is that by denying myself theContinue reading “Finding Beauty in Imperfection”
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Mental Illness is My Superpower