Blogs
Back in February, I wrote a post called "Are You Sensitizing Your Amygdala?", which was all about how your amygdala (the instinctual threat center of your brain) gets highly sensitized in PTSD and then finds and seeks threat constantly - even when there really isn't anything to feel threatened by. Recent advances in neuroscience have proven that while the amygdala changes to a sort of hyper-function in PTSD, it can change again in recovery.
Have you ever sat in front of the computer screen or pad of paper, wishing the words to magically come forth from your fingertips so you could finally meet your deadline? Do you hope that you won’t have to go through the chaos and stress of it being late or not completed at all? Yet no matter how long you sit there, or stare out the window, or surf the internet or hit your head on the desk…nothing happens. It’s not that you aren’t motivated or that it’s not important to you, but literally it’s like you have no idea of where to start or what words to use…you’re blank.
It seems to make no sense. Why would any individual self-injure? Self-injury is so closely associated with borderline personality disorder (BPD) that some psychiatrists will make that diagnosis automatically if a patient self-injures. But why would someone self-injure? There are three main reasons: to punish themselves, to regulate their emotions, and to express their pain.
I'm Alexa Poe – a 20-something student and mental health advocate, and the author of Colored Blue.
I experienced early onset bipolar II disorder at the age of 12, and was also diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder later. I have traveled a rough and winding road – years of trying dozens of medications and starting college with a mood disorder and severe anxiety. However, I have found effective medications over the course of my treatment, and I have been in therapy for a few years.
I can guide you to overcome self-stigma because I once brutally self-stigmatized. However, now I clearly see that self-stigma hurt me in the past far more than the problems caused when anyone else stigmatized me. Follow this guide to overcoming self-stigma and feel much better about life, your mental illness, and being able to handle it all.
I am a childhood cancer survivor and have an obsession with vintage typewriters. I have a Mini Schnauzer named Sir Theodore Rufus and still walk like a chicken from dancing ballet for seventeen years. I have a Bachelor's Degree in Child and Family Studies and collect crazy-looking journals everywhere I go. I have a liking for tattoos and sometimes wish I was a Broadway star.
Did I mention I was a cutter?
I'm often asked about how to come out to parents and family members about our eating disorder. If you haven't told your parents about having anorexia or bulimia, this week's video may prove to be helpful.
When first diagnosed with a mental illness, our lives--and the lives of those closest to us--change drastically. Immediately. For lack of a better cliche: like night and day; black and white. We know, instinctively, that our lives will never be the same. But if we take positive steps to move forward in mental health recovery, our lives will become more manageable.
I am sitting at an airport waiting for my flight at 7:40pm. It's now 5:35pm and I've already exhausted a ton of boredom-curing strategies. I've listened to music. I've played on the computer. I've played phone games. I've listed to an audiobook. I'm still bored. What can I do?
Bipolar disorder is a scary illness, but sometimes even scarier is the idea of treatment. Logically, going to the doctor, getting a diagnosis and getting help doesn’t sound scary, but if you’re the one faced with psychiatrists, personal, probing questions, destroying what you know and treatments that might make you feel worse before you feel better, you might find the concept daunting.
But what do you do if you’re a loved one of a person with bipolar (or another mental illness) who is refusing treatment?
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...