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Courage and confidence are emboldened by alcohol because it lowers inhibitions, thereby reducing the sense of fear--but you can find courage and confidence without alcohol. A common misconception is that courage is the absence of fear. However, courage is actually defined by taking action in spite of your fears. When regaining control of your life in early sobriety, developing courage and confidence is difficult if you have always relied on alcohol. For anyone adjusting to sobriety, here are a few suggestions to find courage and confidence without alcohol.
When mental health issues strike, it's common for some people to notice changes in themselves from who they once were, but you can improve your mental health by contributing. You may have been a social butterfly before, the life of the party, or you may have always gone out of your way to help others. One thing is for sure -- when you fall into a deep depression or find yourself anxious all the time, not only can you change as a person, but it's almost impossible to take the focus off yourself and how bad you feel. What can you do to take some of your control back? What I want to share in this video could potentially be the starting point for pulling yourself out of your anxiety and/or depression. Here I talk about contributing to help improve your mental health.
I really love to talk about binge eating disorder support systems in my articles (A Support Network Is Vital For Eating Disorder Recovery). But what is a binge eating disorder support system and how can you form and maintain one? Unfortunately, there are no easy answers for these questions. However, I have a few tips to help you along your journey.
If you are living with anxiety, chances are you scoff at the idea of anxiety and character strengths. A particularly nasty effect of anxiety is self-doubt and sometimes self-hatred (Anxiety and Negative Thoughts: How To Get Rid of Them). Having any type of anxiety disorder often, over time, leads people to to believe that anxiety defines who they are. That's an understandable thought given how overpowering anxiety can be, but it's a faulty one. People living with anxiety have many character strengths that truly are part of who they are.
Trusting and expressing your opinions as a person with anxiety can be tough. Plummeting self-esteem caused by an anxiety disorder can sometimes lead to us conforming a little more rigidly than we would like to. Growing up, I was too awkwardly self aware to express a single opinion that might have rubbed slightly against the grain. Anxiety robs you of that luxuriant arrogance of youth and continually makes you question the validity of your opinions (Anxiety And Self-Doubt). My problems in trusting and expressing my opinions due to anxiety affect every aspect of my life.
Dissociative identity disorder (DID) is often misdiagnosed, but the right diagnosis is essential for anyone experiencing a mental illness. Treatment plans, therapeutic interventions, and psychiatric medication choices rely heavily on a person's diagnosis. But what happens when the diagnosis is wrong?
When defining borderline personality disorder (BPD), most resources will present you with the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) criteria, but I wish to reframe the borderline personality disorder diagnosis. Not only is the DSM flat-out wrong about certain aspects of BPD (such as its understanding of people with BPD as lacking empathy), but it reduces a complex experience of being human to a diagnosis packed with bias. Let's reframe borderline personality disorder and think about the diagnosis differently.
Last time I talked about why it’s so hard to plan ahead and stick to plans with bipolar disorder. Today’s article is devoted to tips that may help with planning and bipolar disorder.
Antipsychiatry stigma can affect people with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder. And having schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder is hard enough without having people tell you that you shouldn’t be taking your medications. Antipsychiatry and stigma is rampant and dangerous not to mention it's rude to question one's choice of treatment for an illness. Unfortunately, antipsychiatry is a stigma that everyone with schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, and other mental illnesses runs into at some point.
It’s important to do the things you’re not comfortable with to build self-esteem. That means stepping outside of your comfort zone and challenging yourself. Naturally, you may resist doing this because it might make you anxious, fearful or just plain uncomfortable. Stepping outside of your comfort zone does take effort and it might seem easier to do nothing. However, sticking to what you’re familiar with can keep you stuck and it can damage your self-esteem. In order to create change, you need to challenge your negative feelings and do it anyway. Do the things that you’re not comfortable with and build your self-esteem.
Where do we go from here? Most of the family thinks just to let her hit bottom and then if she reaches out to help any we can. Some want to just keep paying her bills and just let her sit in the house with no responsibilities. Never been on medication and impossible to get to her when she refuses to talk to ANYONE.
Help.
On the day we agreed to videochat to make things less awkward IRL she woke up with a migraine so we rescheduled to the day after, I made sure to assure her that it was okay and to take her time. Later that day, in the late evening we had a nice chat but suddenly she stopped replying, even though nothing had happened. The day after I texted her good morning and said I hope she was feeling a little better. she wouldn't open my texts.
A couple days after I sent her a longer text saying that even though I had only known her for a short time I care a lot for her and would like to know how she are doing, telling her I'm there for her, assuring her I'm not going anywhere even though things might not be very easy. She wouldn't open it.
A week later I sent a text saying not to feel bad about not answering and that I will be there when she is able to answer again. It's been two weeks since this and she still hasn't opened my texts. She hasn't been active at all.
I don't know what else I can do. I assumed she might have fallen into a depression. I have tried to just not think about it anymore, and I haven't that much but when I do it sort of kills me inside...