Blogs
Have you ever experienced a restlessness that goes beyond restlessness? Perhaps you've felt at times as though you were going to explode out of your own skin. Maybe your anxiety has sometimes completely prevented you from relaxing no matter what you do to bring a sense of tranquillity. When calming activities agitate rather than soothe, do the opposite: take action, repetitively.
Hi, my name is Lauren Hardy and I have a Master of Arts in counseling psychology, with a concentration in mental health. I have worked as a mental health counselor in a variety of different settings providing counseling services to clients of all ages and a wide variety of diagnoses. Additionally, I have over two years of experience in the treatment field as a research analyst at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. With my years of experience in the mental health field and hours I have put in as a researcher, I am able to give insight into the difficulties surrounding psychiatric disorders and the treatment process.
A couple of weeks ago, The Daily Show did a piece about Vietnam vets getting denied benefits from the Veteran’s Administration (VA). As usual, The Daily Show piece was irreverent and fun, but like so many of the show’s pieces, it, unfortunately, contained many truthful elements.
It is true that Vietnam veterans with combat PTSD wrongly get denied benefits and it is a travesty. (See The Daily Show clip, below.)
I hope you'll stop me if you've heard this story before. It might be true, then again it might not be. I am, as you are almost certainly aware, in the habit of making things up.
Like so many people who are creative for a livelihood, there comes a point when I am no longer able to distinguish between what I have made up, what I am claiming to have made up but in fact have not, what I don't know if I’ve made up or not, and what I absolutely know to be true, to the extent it is ever possible to be certain something is true, which it isn't. But enough about my methods.
You probably have someone in mind right now. Learn how to stop attracting mean people into your life and build your self-esteem.
We, as schizophrenics, must band together to form our own culture, art and way of life. We need to be recognized as a people who have a unique perspective to offer this world. Even a disability as debilitating as schizophrenia can have strengths built into its terrible nature. With the advent of medication and advanced treatment we are capable of forming our own ideas, opinion and voice that can strengthen us as a disabled people.
While PTSD recovery spans a slew of areas and requires many choices and actions; I’m always looking for ways to chunk down the work so that it’s more manageable. Recently, I spoke with trauma expert (and survivor of childhood sexual abuse) Bill O’Hanlon about his ideas for three simple ways to help you thrive after trauma.
While you will have your own unique healing timeline, O’Hanlon suggests powerful areas to develop that will both deepen your healing and strengthen your ability to move forward. In sharing the general concepts I’m adding my spin to their definitions so that you can conceptualize the ideas, imagine applying them to your healing process and have some simple steps to get you started.
I’m sick. I’ve been sick for five days. I’ve been sick and really annoyed about being sick for five days. Writers do not get paid for sick days. (And speakers have to cancel talks. Darn it.)
And while I’ve said before that it's unfair that people with bipolar disorder should have to go through normal annoyances like colds and flus, it seems that the universe begs to differ with me on that one. And so some kind of virus I have gotten.
But I think that bipolar interacts with your average bug and you average bug interacts with bipolar disorder, so how do you deal with that?
Last week, I wrote about my experiences with an abusive church. To be honest, I don't know how I survived the mass abandonment that happened when I left. But I do know that it is possible to recover from the pain of religious and spiritual abuse. Here are some steps toward healing.
Advocating for your special needs child is challenging for many reasons. Some of the parents that I work with have great difficulty with stepping out of their comfort zones to get the best services for their children. One parent I worked with in the past was so anxious that she had trouble seeing that she had the power to make decisions for her son’s well-being. So, I thought of tips for parents on how to advocate for their children.
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...