Tag: depression
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Avoidance Creates Anxiety
It started out relatively small. For reasons related to trauma, I have harbored a deep-seated distaste for country music and a hatred of Valentine’s Day, both of which have taken ownership of significant chunks of my life. How did something so little grow to consume such a big portion of my life? Easy…the answer is…
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Self-Discipline ≠ Punishment
Years ago, I horribly injured my foot hiking a local trail. This was a hike I had hiked countless times without issue. And yet, I headed up that slope without stretching and came home barely able to walk. If I had any commonsense, I would have gone to a doctor and taken appropriate measures to…
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It’s the Least Wonderful Time of the Year
Dreadful January. After all the cheery decorations get packed away, the friends and relatives end the revelry and return to their respective homes, and we all stop eating special foods to celebrate every single holiday, we are faced with a sobering reality. With its bills piling up and short daylight hours, January strips us of…
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Now You See It. Now You Don’t.
With so many speaking up about mental health struggles, the world is trying to raise awareness and fight the stigma. This blog joins a cacophony of voices that speak candidly about depression, anxiety, post traumatic stress disorder, and other mental health struggles. As the conversation unfolds, as we continue to call attention to this very…
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Change the Narrative • Save a Life
One of the most difficult (and depressing) things I faced as someone struggling with clinical depression was the stigma surrounding reaching out for help when help was most needed. It boggles my mind how often people question whether a diagnosis of clinical depression is legitimate and whether or not medication is necessary. It blows my…
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Drowning in Sorrow
There is a part in a book by Lewis Carroll called “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” where the main character, Alice, is so distraught, she begins to cry. Her adventures have been too taxing, too bizarre, too isolating, too frightful, too difficult to bear that the tears well up in her eyes and spill over, splashing…
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Mind the Gap
It is most likely that you didn’t notice because people think of us far less often than we fear they do, but I have been silent here for a few weeks. I was blogging weekly, all written and scheduled in advance, and then I took it all down because the last thing I want to…
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My Ever-Expanding Bucket List
I took my place on center stage in front of the director and briefly introduced myself. He asked me why I was auditioning for the theatrical production and my response startled him: auditioning for a play was on my Bucket List. In case you’ve been living under a rock forever and don’t know, the term…
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Chasing Dopamine
It all started innocently enough – the crazy antics, the silly mannerisms, the hair-brained schemes – but what began as an overabundance of youthful energy became a lifestyle and here I am: a woman in her mid-*coughcough*-rties who is a crazy mishmash of organized spontaneity and anxious exuberance for life. Somewhere between paying a taxi…
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Truth Bomb
I have a birth defect that tries to kill me every so often. All last year, I dealt with serious health issues. I couldn’t eat and then I had to make a radical change to my diet that I later found out needs to be permanent. I am learning to manage a condition for as…
Wisdom from the Trenches 