Coping and Thriving

If you live with a mental illness such as schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder, or depression, these six tips can help you maintain good mental health and progress in your recovery process.   It is my hope that writing about my experiences will open conversations about illnesses like ...

Mental health treatment is important to help you live a better life. Whether you struggle with mental illness or not, we all have mental health issues now and then that we need help with. Unfortunately, professional treatments like therapy and medication can be expensive and difficult to access. If ...

When your child receives an ADHD diagnosis, it's normal to feel a little overwhelmed. You've noticed that your child was in need of a little extra support, and you've probably wondered a couple of times a day how best to help them. However, receiving a diagnosis does not mean understanding your ...

If you struggle with social anxiety, developing these three communication skills can help you navigate both everyday and challenging conversations and situations with greater ease. Here's the problem I have with most books on communication and social skills. They give good advice. But…. When you ...

For those who like to plan, it can be frustrating having a loved one who drops out of events at the last minute, even when you know they are struggling with chronic illness symptoms. It makes it difficult to arrange spending time together and can also have financial implications – something we’re ...

I know it is hard to see all the diet and supposed "fitness" ads on TV, streaming, radio, and social media. The not-so-subtle message is that your body is bad, disgusting, unacceptable, showing its age, not worthy of love or care, substandard, not white enough, and so on. It is also telling you ...

Your phone is ringing, you feel your stomach drop to your feet. Anxiety shoots through your body, you hurry to silence the ringer. Whew! Crisis averted. This is what phone anxiety with ADHD can feel like.  Do you find yourself avoiding important phone calls because you dread phone calls? You're ...

An inner child is considered the representation of yourself in your childhood years. While some people can recall their childhood as a happy time in their life, there are others like me who aren't so lucky due to abuse, neglect, or other emotional pain. As a result, the inner child can seem very ...

It is hard to imagine how far I have come in the second half of my life. I am 50 now, and from the age of 25 to this point in time, I have become a completely different person. At 25, living with a severe mental illness, I rented a series of tiny apartments, drinking too much coffee and smoking far ...

If you know anything about call center work, you would know it is probably the worst place to work for someone living with bipolar disorder. As an employee who is not in a management position, your day consists of answering back-to-back phone calls, many from angry customers. If you add to that the ...

Mindfulness is the practice of noticing present-moment experiences with curiosity and a lack of judgment. A person who has, knows, or lives with someone with a chronic medical condition understands the intense desire for finding some relief from the strain, mentally and physically. Between ...

It was a flashbulb moment for me. A phone call. Etched into my memory forever. Mother’s Day 2022 and my birthday. I couldn’t go home to celebrate. My mom would have breakfast with my dad and three siblings at a nice restaurant. Missing the day was sad and she had been dropping hints that I should ...