Resilience: Getting Up When Mental Illness Knocks You Down

Here's what's happening on the HealthyPlace site this week:

• Resilience: Getting Up When Mental Illness Knocks You Down
• What is Resilience?
• Most Popular HealthyPlace Articles Shared by Facebook Fans
• From the HealthyPlace Mental Health Blogs

Resilience: Getting Up When Mental Illness Knocks You Down

Any mental health challenge can bring people down, but resilience lets people get back up. Living with mental illness quite often interferes in people's lives in significant ways (Giving Up When You Have A Mental Illness). In fact, the definition of any mental illness includes criteria specifying that the illness impacts the total person (thoughts, feelings, and behaviors) and is enduring and inflexible. Yet, people experiencing mental illness can and do thrive. The ability to transcend mental health challenges comes, in part, from within the person. It's a character trait called resilience, and it helps people flourish even among difficulties.

What is Resilience?

Resilience is powerful. It allows each and every one of us to get up again and again, any time life—including mental health struggles—knocks us down. What's really great is that, while it's a character trait, resilience is something that people can develop. It's a trait, but it's also a skill. Resilience has a great deal to do with attitude, perspective, and thoughts. It's flexibility, or the ability to switch directions when necessary. It involves creating inner direction and honing a sense of humor. Resiliency also involves self-acceptance rather than self-blame. Resilience is the ability to get up and persevere even when mental health challenges try to keep you down, and that is thriving.

Related Articles Dealing with Resilience and Mental Health

• Adapting to Living with a Psychological Disorder
• Depression and Resilience
• Posttraumatic Growth: 5 Keys to Developing Resilience
• Recovery from PTSD and Resilience
• Stress Resilience Training — Before and After PTSD Recovery
• Children of Parents with Mental Illness Need Resilience

Your Thoughts

Today's Question: When reaching out to help and support others with mental illness, how do you balance supporting them with taking care of yourself? We invite you to participate by commenting and sharing your feelings, experiences and knowledge on the HealthyPlace Facebook page.

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Most Popular HealthyPlace Articles Shared by Facebook Fans

Here are the top 3 mental health articles HealthyPlace Facebook fans are recommending you read:

1. Unlearning Negative Thought Patterns
2. Can A Verbal Abuser Change?
3. Overeating vs. Binge Eating Disorder Symptoms

If you're not already, I hope you'll join us/like us on Facebook too. There are a lot of wonderful, supportive people there.

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From the HealthyPlace Mental Health Blogs

On all our blogs, your comments and observations are welcomed.

• Caffeine’s Effects on Anxiety
• How to Appear Confident and Feel Secure
• Anxiety Symptoms Coming Across as Lying
• Why I Hate Having Bipolar
• My Mental Health Christmas List
• The Courage To Confront Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
• PTSD Recovery: How to Cope With Triggers
• Winter Weather Binge Eating
• Managing Our Anxiety About Terrorist Attacks
• Embracing the Individuality of Alters in DID
• Choosing Abstinence During Bipolar Recovery
• Alcohol Addiction: Is It Innate or a Learned Condition?
• Finding the Right Exercise for Depression
• Schizophrenia and Celebrating the Holidays
• Enjoy a Happy Life After Mental Illness Diagnosis
• Adult Coloring Books Help Relieve Anxiety and Depression
• Decrease Stigma: Social Anxiety Disorder Is Not Shyness

Feel free to share your thoughts and comments at the bottom of any blog post. And visit the mental health blogs homepage for the latest posts.

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