#counselling
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7 Cups of Tea supports and promotes mental health and wellbeing!
Lots of free resources with great information and supportive focused communities
One of my favourite components is that there’s a personal growth tracker that can help you work towards improved mental, emotional, social and physical health
https://www.7cups.com/12837081
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Shake me up when September ends
“Life is a rollercoaster, you’ve just gotta ride it”: Ronan Keating “schaid” it best while saying pretty much nothing at all, and it’s never been more clear to me than it is now. I won’t bore you with my characteristic “if you’d told me a year ago” blog opener, but I will say that looking back on the past 12 months, I’ve come to realise just how quickly life can change, both for the better and…
Counsel
The truth is the hardest pill in the world to swallow,
but tonight, I make the effort.
I drink from the glass on the table whilst he brands it self-harm.
Says it’s the way
my subconscious mind deals
with the torment of all the ages past and present.
I think of my earlier years, the teenager
who sat in the dark weeping,
tallying every sun as it set on her poor flesh ten, twenty, thirty-fold.
I hug my arms close, feel my spine tense, my neck stiffen. I agree quietly,
nod my head solemnly, suppose he is right - no, hate
that he’s right -
I stare past his face, fix my gaze on an incense stained
spot on the wall a foot above the table,
two away from the frame of the door.
I cannot make eye contact when I next speak.
The silence hangs, a veil between us, whilst
I open my mouth, carefully.
I say,
“It’s my most virtuous sin. My love for almost everyone and everything that isn’t me.”
“Everything else comes first; if someone asks me for help, I want to help.”
“If someone needs me to do something, I want to do it.”
“I want to be the best I can for everyone else. To make their lives easier.”
“I am the supply to every demand, because I like feeling like I’m useful for something.”
“I like feeling like I fulfil a purpose.”
“I suppose it gets to the point where there’s just…”
“There’s just nothing left.”
Something I’ve been thinking about for a long time now–the nature of energy transfer in social transactions twixt individuals. Here I’m working from the premise that most of us are analogous to a “battery with half a charge” and that we can be either enriched (“recharged”) or depleted (“sucked dry”) through our interactions with others, at the two extremes of the spectrum. This chart attempts to define some of these potential interactions across a range of possible outcomes from a “win-win” scenario through “neutral” interactions to a “lose-lose” scenario in which both individuals are depleted and neither benefits.
This chart is necessarily a simplification, and I think it goes without saying that there are many other ways the equation can “balance”–not everybody is “half a battery,” and some people are such an overwhelming reservoir of positive energy that they effortlessly nourish and nurture others without themselves being depleted (in my experience such people are very rare). Conversely, it is almost impossible for two “empty batteries” to replenish each other, and such interactions are unfortunately all too common. I attempted here to illustrate what I see as the most likely scenario, where partially “charged” individuals interact. Any transaction where one or both parties benefit by coming away with a surplus of energy without victimizing or parasitizing each other is a positive outcome in this model.
All credit for this paradigm lies with my old psychiatrist Dr. Donald E. Wilbert, the coolest shrink I ever had. To even further simplify things, he had a beautifully concise equation governing choices in social energy exchange:
positive connection > no connection > negative connection
Seek mutually beneficial relationships, and avoid those that deplete you.
www.flintofts.com/obituary/Donald-E.-Wilbert/Issaquah-Washington/1752659
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Bought this for myself today. I love how it has coloured lights. Might bring it to work as a couple of my clients are interested in using aromatherapy during sessions.
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I had this happen while on vacation. Cab driver. I joked that my drive should be free. They did not like that lol.
my counsellor has asked me some important questions lately
Tumblr helped me a lot as a resource when I couldn’t afford counselling. I want to repay some of that, since I have a sliver of enough privilege to access help now.
(I’ll reconstruct questions/points as best as I can.)
My counsellor’s points for me, a person with childhood, teen, and adult trauma:
- when you look at everything you’ve been through, how do you feel? What words come to mind?
- How did your parents give you a sense of failure?
- what does failure feel like?
- Focus this week on your resilience. Remember, you survived all this.
- “Nobody is a monster.” (re: body image issues and comparison traps.)
- when struggling with a sense of failure [related to my work performance issues], focus on how much you’ve gotten done instead of setting high expectations and focusing on the ones you haven’t met.
-setting smaller goals can also be really useful for this.
- create settings between “failure,” “mild disappointment,” and “satisfaction,” because otherwise, there’s no room to feel excitement over exceeding your own expectations - and nothing between “mild disappointment” and “satisfaction” (previously how I’d feel about achieving an ambitious goal)
- walking back negative self-talk can be very gradual. Start with decreasing negative statements to more neutral statements, and eventually, more positive ones.
I know this is quite a rummage sale of thoughts and exercises, but hopefully it’ll be useful to someone. I’ll try to post something a bit more coherent next time I have a session.
Don’t think about what can happen in a month. Don’t think about what can happen in a year. Just focus on the 24 hours in front of you and do what you can to get closer to where you want to be.
Chronic Dieting: The Socially Acceptable Eating Disorder
It is so easy these days to hide an eating disorder behind the guise of “healthy living” or a passion for health food and exercise. Actually, most people with eating disorders hide the eating disorders from themselves under the guise of healthy living. Yep! Most people with eating disorders don’t even know they have eating disorders until they are way into the disorder.
Forming a healthy relationship with food is so important and so difficult. If you are interested in reading more about our relationship with eating, The Fat Nutritionist is a great resource.
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When Kids Have to Act Like Parents, It Affects Them for Life
“I spent a lot of time babysitting [my siblings] as a teenager and I think it’s been a challenge for me to separate out feeling like I’m a parent to them.”
This has often caused rifts between the siblings into adulthood, Rosenfeld says. “I’ve always been somebody who thinks it’s my job to offer help, care, and advice even when it’s not asked for.”
How does someone learn that becoming self-reliant is safer than trusting others? Nakazawa believes that in destructive parentification, “you don’t have a reliable adult to turn to.” And if a child’s early experiences at home consisted of making sure everyone else’s needs were met, then the “child doesn’t feel seen.
This sense of responsibility and compulsive caretaking can follow them into future relationships as well. “You tend to project it onto other people in your life,” Rosenfeld says. This isn’t surprising, claims Jenny Macfie, an associate director of clinical training at the University of Tennessee and another prominent parentification researcher, as “adults who report role confusion in their childhoods may have difficulty with their identity development,” and this in turn, can affect a person’s romantic relationships.
We’re only beginning to understand the interplay between sibling dynamics, parental neglect, and health outcomes later in life. We need to see more research on prevention and treatment options.
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HeadsUpGuys run men’s mental health photo campaign for Men’s Health Week
A group based at UBC is showcasing fine art images and concept photography for Men’s Health Week, with the hopes of encouraging men to reach out and fight depression.
Men are less likely to seek help for mental health issues - let’s break that stigma and model how seeking help makes you no less of a person.
If you feel triggered or need to talk, here is the International List of Crisis Centers.
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Notions of willpower are easily stigmatizing: It becomes OK to dismantle social safety nets if poverty is a problem of financial discipline, or if health is one of personal discipline. An extreme example is the punitive approach of our endless drug war, which dismisses substance use problems as primarily the result of individual choices.
Such a fantastic read on a topic that permeates our health and social systems.
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My patient was in pain. I didn’t know whether to believe him
For the first time during his hospital stay, his pain became real to me, and I realized I had wronged my patient by not taking his complaints more seriously. We gave him an opioid for his pain, and, slowly, the pain in his finger improved.
We’re taught in medical school not to undertreat pain, yet we do it too often in our zeal to not promote addiction. But many people who misuse opioids started out seeking pain treatment. We’re not doing enough, but what more can we do?
Don’t get me wrong. We absolutely need to continue to ask questions. We need to be more responsible when we prescribe these powerful drugs. And, yes, we need to remain vigilant for any signs of drug-seeking behavior.
That said, we have to be a little more trusting of our patients when it comes to their pain. Getting better control of their pain may help them recover faster and stay healthier longer.
With the opioid overdose epidemic, there is a palpable resurgence of very conservative pain management. We need to recognize that some people need opioids for pain management. Ultimately, substance use disorders and overdose are largely driven by disconnection, trauma, and stigma surrounding drug use, not the drugs themselves. Let’s evaulate and change the environments within which people are using drugs (i.e. address the social determinants of health, including employment, education, housing, and income). Limiting the conversation to restricting people’s access to medications obstructs a larger conversation on how our environments shape health behaviours.
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Stop Pressuring Me to Take Care of Myself
I think we’ve finally hit on what annoys me most about the commercialization of self-care: the idea that if we just take enough soothing actions then we won’t be tormented by the horror of being alive. This is a fucked-up expectation to set up for any depressed person, not to mention a way to cause further shame when taking these actions doesn’t work. Depression is an illness. No one would tell a person with cancer that if they just “inhale an upbeat smell” or “do a mini de-clutter” they are on the road to complete healing. So let’s maybe let the depression sufferers, and our doctors, address the depression. And the self-care bloggers can stick to $75 cashmere socks.
The realest.
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Happy Holidays? 6 Ways to Get There
Though the next gadget or experience may bring fleeting pleasure, research shows that genuine happiness is about how we feel inside. To really enjoy the holidays, try these simple, research-based practices that will help keep you in a healthy state of mind.
My love for evidence-based decision-making obviously extends into the holidays. It’s no surprise that priming ourselves for good experiences, savouring happy moments, taking breaks, practicing gratitude, being generous, and connecting with our inner child all help make our holidays happier.
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Brené Brown on Vulnerability, Human Connection, and the Difference Between Empathy and Sympathy
We all need a reminder now and again on how to be present with other people.
![Pokémon Go Is Having an Effect on Players’ Mental Health“[H]onestly Pokemon go is probab](https://64.media.tumblr.com/c0438e81e2c4c4ef4905c63e931619fb/tumblr_oa6mox77nr1qmbaulo1_1280.png "Pokémon Go Is Having an Effect on Players’ Mental Health“[H]onestly Pokemon go is probab")
Pokémon Go Is Having an Effect on Players’ Mental Health
“[H]onestly Pokemon go is probably going to help a lot with people who have depression,” wrote Tumblr user The Awesome Adventurer. “[B]ecause rather than laying in bed all day we are getting up and going outside and actually enjoying ourselves.”
This is awesome! To echo Brute Reason, it doesn’t matter whether or not people are intrinsically motivated to head outside, it’s great that people are finding a reason to get outside.
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A title ?
I guess it’s funny to me that whenever I started this tumblr page I must have been at least 18 and apparently thought naming it after a line from one of my favourite movies would be cool or edgy maybe . A line from a movie that now seems to me more serious than cool and more close to home than the edgy feel I’d been going for. What’s your diag-nonsense then?
I had thought about not writing this at all and after all what good does it do to dwell on your issues . Maybe this has been my problem all along and infact according to my counsellor perhaps is the same for many people in the West of Scotland . This inability to accept that dwelling on your own thoughts and feeling is not weakness . Beating yourself up for being unable to cope does not make you shit at life .Sharing your most mental thoughts with another can actually be refreshing even if its just to know you arent alone . Its funny to think how readily we read instructions for everything else but when it comes to our own brains - brains that are more complex than your tv or computer we are so ready to just handle them on our own with no guidance and shrug off all the issues.
I recently found myself at a music festival , a music festival that I had been excited for , a music festival that would not be something out of the ordinary for me “normal me ” to attend . Yet we got there and I felt sick, sick to my stomach and I was scared so so scared . I didnt understand why and so like most people when we don’t understand or can’t explain something rationally I shrugged it off and pushed it to one side . Making excuses like I’ve been in the sun too long or I’ve drank too much . Later that evening the feeling grew and I made my partner take me to the medical tent all the while feeling embarrassed and like I was ruining the weekend for other people . It’s there that after many checks I was told that my heart rate was possibly a little high but otherwise I was fine . How do you sit there and tell a medical professional , no I’m not fine and I can’t tell you how far from fine I feel and I think I’m going to die. Well the answer is you don’t, at least not in my case anyway . No I hopped off the bed and thanked him for his time and embarrassingly went back to my partner having to tell him it was nothing and return to our friends . Everyday for the rest of that festival I didn’t drink because I needed to feel in control of whatever this was my body was doing and so I got up and put on a brave face and did my best to go have fun . Every night though after the last band I’d feel so so tired more tired than I’ve ever felt before and I couldn’t stay awake and party with my friends. I Didn’t realise how exhausting it is to pretend you are okay all the time . This was just the beginning for me .
Right at the end of this festival I finally decided to try tell my partner what was going on as ridiculous as the sensible part of my brain thought that was going to sound . I did my best to explain the need to be sober to be in control just incase I got unwell or the overwhelming sense of dread that made no sense to me . I’ve been in large crowds before and I love music and I’m not unwell so what could this be . My partner was great I can’t fault him he comforted me and promised me as soon as we got home I could see a doctor and we would figure this all out .
So now I’m a few months on and my final diagnosis seems to be generalised anxiety disorder specifically health anxiety based . Now before I go into my healing process I want to say how hard it is for me to write that diagnosis . I am not someone that exactly believes in “anxiety” or maybe I should say I didn’t believe . My own father has suffered from depression for many years and I viewed it as an excuse for his bad behaviours and his tendency to mess life up for himself . I was that person moaning about all those people sharing anxiety posts on Facebook and complaining about how badly it messes with their lives . I thought anxiety was just something everyone had at some point and surely if you wanted to overcome it well then you could. I’d complain often about people not helping themselves but continuing to post these cries for attention . How wrong I have been . I think possibly I knew at that festival what it was I was experiencing but it felt like there is a stigma attached to saying I’m having an anxiety attack or I think I have anxiety . One that made me feel embarrassed that this could be happening to me . I don’t worry about all these things that I’m worrying about , normal me doesn’t burst into tears everytime I get a twinge in my head, old me didn’t wear a fitbit to track my heart rate and call the doctor everytime I noticed an anomaly. I think it took a long time for me to process that all those versions are the same me . Where am I now ? After a few months of some highs and extreme lows and plenty of tears I found the strength to admit I needed more help to conquer this. I signed up to counselling sessions through occupational health and began seeing a wonderful woman Maragaret . As you can imagine I went to my session a sceptic or at least doubting that talking about it more was going to solve it but alas you cant moan about others not helping themselves if you aren’t willing to do it yourself . My first session I have to admit I mostly cried , I couldn’t tell whether they were sad or happy tears but there was relief there . Just relief to speak about it , relief to finally admit this is real and to finally stop playing it down for the sake of people around me . We established straight away that I am not alone and what I was going through is not unusual . We also talked about loss and I couldn’t understand why loss related to my situation as I had automatically assumed that loss refereed only to losing a person . Maragaret was quick to tell me I had lost a person , id lost me or at least the me I was familiar with the me that ended up with a kidney infection because I couldn’t be bothered going to the doctors when I was in pain and not this new me that poked and prodded herself so much it was no wonder I was worried about that weird red mark on my wrist or that tender feeling near my knee . In the past few months I had been to the hospital convinced I was having a heart attack, the doctors because I was so sure I had a blood clot in my leg and then received a referral for the headache clinic because I was so sure I had braintumours . Now writing this I know it’s total nonsense what person in their right mind does those things. Well apparently I did … Some days it got so bad I thought I might just go to A&E and stand and shout till they gave me all the scans and tests that I thought were going to finally put my mind at ease but of course it doesn’t work like that. So loss I had infact lost myself.
I was given a task to write down things the little evil person on my shoulder might say to me and I did and when I read it back they were awful . It was then ten times worse when Margaret read them out , like really how can you help yourself when those are the ways you put yourself down all the time . So compassion, compassion was a lesson to learn for me . A way to make myself take time out in an anxiety fueled situation and compassionately talk myself down and give rational , sensible advice that didn’t involve just yelling things at myself for not working how I think I should . For not being good enough to go out and enjoy something that should be happy without ruining it all being a panicked mess. So my method as awfully simple as it seems is when the closing black walls start moving their way in I breath and I count and I remind myself that this, this is nothing and that I am 26 and I have already made it through so many things . I am strong and healthy and I have so much to see and I am going to live for this moment right here because as wise Margaret told me “if you have one foot in the past and one in the future you are effectively pissing in the here and now ” .
Be understanding also , I watched a mindfullness seminar recently I believe it might have been on tedtalks . A suggested method from the speaker was to give your brain a name , you know like an old friend . So when your brain starts running off on it’s crazy train pulling out every bad thought and possibility of the day you can answer it . Sensible you can tell Brenda , you know what Brenda I’ve heard what you had to say but I don’t think I’m gonna take that road today . I know it sounds ridiculous but it made me laugh and I liked it and those are small things to live for .
I know this has been a long post but I think I wanted to write about how something that I didn’t believe was real happened to me . I wanted the chance to take back all those negative non believing vibes I’d put out and be upfront and honest about my experience. Life isn’t Instagram perfect and sometimes I think we forget that. I am not healed and I am far from finished my journey but I am happy and well and alive and that right now is more than I’ve felt in months. I wanted to remind anyone going through anything at all that’s it’s alright and it does get better. I wanted to remind myself so I can read back how horrible it was but not to dwell on the bad just to remind myself of how good it feels to have anxiety free days and of how good it feels to know it’s not something to be embarrassed about and I did something about it and I’ll continue doing things about it so that I can live always in the here and now. So don’t forget compassion and understanding and remember to laugh at yourself in between. It’s alright to be a bit crazy
So it’s been a while since I wrote a blog post, but last week was Time To Talk Day~ a day that encourages opening up and talking to someone about your mental health! Most of you that know me know how important I believe this is and I wanted to do something to start the conversation ❤️ even though I think mental health conversation is more prominent in our every day lives, it doesn’t make it any easier to come out and talk about it ~ sometimes you won’t want to or sometimes you won’t even know what’s wrong. So this is my experience with talking about mental health, and I want you to know if you ever ever ever need anyone to listen to you, I’m here to listen ❤️
