Blogs
With use of e-cigarettes and vaping on the rise, many people are beginning to wonder, just how safe are e-cigarettes and vaping? I recently attended a lecture by three professors at Portland State University that addressed the science of e-cigarettes. The neuroscience presented was complex but at least one point was clear--vaping and other forms of electronic nicotine delivery are not harmless.
There is a difference between a mood disorder in a teenager and teenage moodiness. My teenage son, Bob, lives with bipolar disorder, the monster of all mood disorders in teens. We recently discussed the difference between mood disorders and moodiness because Bob is recovering from an episode of bipolar depression.
Dissociation is an anxiety symptom that is part of dissociative identity disorder (DID). Sometimes dissociation is not splitting between personalities, but only losing touch with reality for a time. Many people who suffer from DID also experience other mental illnesses, or mental illness symptoms. One that I have noticed is anxiety. Dissociation and anxiety symptoms sometimes causes my panic attacks.
My depression goes hand-in-hand with anxiety, which leaves me feeling paralyzed with fear. For years I hid from life, until I started using my feelings of anxiety and the hopelessness of depression to convince me that I had nothing else to lose. I learned to make my own luck to defeat depression-related anxiety.
A reader wanted to know about my recovery from gastric sleeve surgery for binge eating disorder. Here is a quick post about my recovery and the immediate diet following it. It wasn't easy, to say the least, but by following doctor's orders and taking it easy, I had a complication-free road to recovery and a great start to my new life as a sleever. Stay tuned for more of my experience with gastric sleeve surgery recovery and how it helped me with my binge eating disorder.
Many people claim that marijuana is not addictive and steadfastly promise that their recreational marijuana use does not harm anyone. Results from a recent lab study may shed new insight on the effects of marijuana that has, until now, been unexplored. This study indicates the offspring of recreational marijuana users may be more susceptible to heroin addiction than children of non-marijuana users. In other words, recreational marijuana use may correlate to heroin addiction.
I had been in outpatient therapy for six months. I was seeing a dietitian. I was made to attend an eating disorder support group. Even given all those interventions, if you asked me, I didn’t have an eating disorder. I was a healthy eater who maybe had a few “funny” things around food. It's hard to tell the difference between a diet and an eating disorder for some.
When someone lives with anxiety, it can seem that life is anxiety. It often feels that anxiety is the rule and that there are no exceptions to anxiety. It can be overbearing and consume our entire being, creating anxious thoughts and anxious emotions and restricting what we do. While this feels very real, the truth is that anxiety is not always as strong as it wants us to believe. There are exceptions to anxiety, times when our anxiety isn't as intense as it usually is.
Anxiety triggers are pesky things and they can be difficult to avoid. As a person living with an anxiety disorder, I don’t intentionally put myself in a position to trigger an anxiety or panic attack. Some triggers are easy to avoid. If snakes trigger anxiety, a pet boa constrictor isn’t for you. But what about happy memories? Is it possible for a happy memory to trigger anxiety?
I was in college when Columbine happened and the university grew concerned that one of their students with mental illness might decide to copycat the shooting. So they treated me to a no-knock, no-warrant search of my dorm room out of concern I might become violent--even though I had no history of violence and no warning signs. The director of the counseling center, my therapist and even the dean said I was no threat, and I was allowed to graduate, even though I was kicked out of the dorm. The university was worried about me--or more accurately, about my conduct--because I was a mental health consumer. But are people with mental illness more violent than people without mental illness?
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...