Tag: mental health
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Living Half a Life
Well after I encountered trauma, about the time my children came into my life, I began to have a recurring dream. From the very beginning, the dream would always make it clear to me that my life was blessed. The house in my dream was always perfect on the outside and impeccably decorated within. My…
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Dead Inside
Unless you are the luckiest duck to ever walk this Earth, at some point, life rears its ugly head and backhands you hard enough to make your head spin in a way that forever changes who you are. Trauma. It comes in similar veins, but the details are different for every victim. Perhaps abused or…
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Enemies, Foreign…and Domestic
I took a solemn oath when I enlisted in the Army that I would defend the United States Constitution against enemies both foreign and domestic. During training, I was taught how to fight the enemy. Sadly, nobody took the time back then to prepare me for the battle brought into my life near the end…
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Demystifying PTSD
I’m going to start by saying something controversial that some people will find hard to accept: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) isn’t a lack of faith or a stand-alone mental health issue – it is the side effect of an injury done the psyche, body, soul, and/or moral code of an individual. Symptoms I list…
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A Few of My Favorite Things
I’m a list maker. I find satisfaction in brain-dumping what rolls around in my mind onto a piece of paper so the thoughts upstairs don’t drive me absolutely batty or threaten to instigate a system overload. I love the little dopamine boost I get by checking things off my neat little lists. I even add…
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Journaling for Dummies
Many people say that they keep a diary to write down events that occur and how they feel about things. It’s rare to hear someone state that they keep a journal. Aren’t they one and the same – interchangeable terms? Well, not really… A diary is a book someone keeps to record events in one’s…
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From Drab to Dazzling: Making a Beautiful Life
For as long as I can remember, art has been a central part of my life. It all began with my gorgeous grey-haired grandma (or GGG, as I affectionately call her), who sang opera while dusting family furniture as a child, took a chemistry class in college during WWII to learn how to create beauty…
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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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Friend or Frenemy? – People Who Can Make or Break a Strong Support System
I have had a person cuss me out upon first meeting me…and then become my best friend. I have had many disagreements with close friends (some passive-aggressive and some outright ugly fights)…and yet, the friendships mended and remained strong. And I have met some real duds in my life. These are the people who pretended…
Wisdom from the Trenches 