Tag Archives: anxiety

The Aftermath of the Coronavirus on Mental Health

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There are many factors related to the coronavirus pandemic affecting the mental health of people, with social isolation and fear of the virus being at the top of the list. Based on other pandemics and natural disasters, as many as 50% of people may experience anxiety, depression, and some post-traumatic stress symptoms.

If those without mental illness are having a difficult time right now, you can bet those of us with mental illness, particularly anxiety, mood disorders, substance abuse, and obsessional or phobic disorders are having an exacerbation of symptoms due to the current situation.

If you begin to feel anxious, irritable, worried, or are unable to concentrate or sleep, or find yourself abusing drugs or alcohol, you may want to reach out to your healthcare professional. If you’re questioning whether you should reach out or not, go ahead and reach out. It’s better to be safe than sorry.

If you do not have a healthcare professional, call a hotline or a supportive friend to help you find one. Mental health issues are treatable and do not last forever. You can and will get better if you seek the help you need.

So tell me, how are you doing? I’m hanging in there. Where’s your head right now? Are you having an exacerbation of symptoms? What are you going through? As always, comments are open for questions and for sharing your experience.

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How to Know if You Have Depression and What to Do About It

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How do you know if you are depressed besides the fact that you feel depressed? I’m talking “clinical depression.” The kind for which you need to seek professional help. The kind that if you let it go you may end up hurting yourself.

The kind that leaves you laying in bed most of the day wondering what the point of life is and how the hell you’re going to make it through another never ending insufferable day. A day that was just like yesterday; that will be just like tomorrow. One running into another like one long slow song playing in slow motion through quick sand under water on repeat.

According to the medical people there are several symptoms you need to have almost every day for two consecutive weeks to meet the criteria of being depressed. These include:

  • “Fatigue or loss of energy almost every day
  • Feelings of worthlessness or guilt almost every day
  • Impaired concentration, indecisiveness
  • Insomnia or hypersomnia (excessive sleeping) almost every day
  • Markedly diminished interest or pleasure in almost all activities nearly every day (called anhedonia, this symptom can be indicated by reports from significant others)
  • Restlessness or feeling slowed down
  • Recurring thoughts of death or suicide
  • Significant weight loss or gain (a change of more than 5% of body weight in a month)” (source WedMD)

If you have any of these symptoms please talk to your doctor about it. Depression is treatable. Many people take medication for it and many do not. Some go to therapy. Often people do both. You and your doctor will decide what the best course of action is for you.

Personally, I do both. I figure hit it with all we’ve got. What have I got to lose except some nasty symptoms that lead me to thinking about my own death. I can’t have that. I have a family. A life. A purpose for being here. We all do. You do!

Get the help you need if you think you have depression. You deserve it.

10 Ways to Lower Stress

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With the holidays bearing down on us I thought this would be a good time to talk about things we could do to lower our stress levels. Here are just several ideas.

  1. Breathe deeply
  2. Exercise
  3. Go for a walk
  4. Smell pleasant aromas
  5. Close your eyes and think of a happy moment
  6. Rub fingers together to take attention away from a negative thought
  7. Be in nature
  8. Call a drama-free person
  9. Drink chamomile tea
  10. Be grateful for life

What are some more ways you use to lower your stress?

Resource: no longer available

8 Warning Signs You are Mentally and Emotionally Exhausted

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We all have rough days where we are tired, irritable, or anxious. Maybe we didn’t sleep well the night before or we have a big test coming up or deadline at work. Maybe the kids are acting up and your husband forgot your birthday.

Things happen that make us feel bad for a little while, but when these negative emotions last for more than a few weeks or more, you may want to consider talking to your doctor or a professional counselor about it.

Here are eight warning signs you may be mentally and emotionally exhausted:

  1. You are easily irritated. Everything gets on your nerves and just kind of bugs the heck out of you.
  2. You have no motivation to do anything even the things you usually love doing.
  3. You are having anxiety or panic attacks, which include racing heart, rapid breathing, feeling like you’re going to pass out or die, or even less intense – just worrying incessantly about the same things over and over again and are unable to make yourself stop.
  4. You are having trouble sleeping. You either can’t fall asleep, can’t sleep through the night, and/or wake up early in the morning before you have to get up.
  5. You have little patience and lose your temper easily with family, friends and coworkers.
  6. You start crying out of nowhere. Sitting at your desk, taking a shower, driving in the car just minding your own business and all of the sudden you burst into tears.
  7. You feel detached from reality, meaning that you go through your day without really feeling a part of anything or connected to anyone. You feel numb like you are experiencing the world through a fog.
  8. You feel empty. Although at times you feel strong emotions of anger, sadness, and fear, much of the time you actually feel void of any emotion. You feel like an empty vessel floundering in a vast sea of nothingness.

If you can relate to any of these signs, remember that you don’t have to go through this alone. I have been through all eight of these symptoms at one time or another. For me, talking to my doctor about them is the best way to ensure the symptoms do not get out of hand to the point of becoming dangerous to my well-being. I’d be happy to answer any questions you may have regarding mental health, depression, bipolar, borderline personality disorder, and anxiety. Contact me via my Facebook page.

Reference: The Minds Journal

What About Counseling Works?

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Have you ever been to counseling? Did it help? I have been many times and it has helped many times and other times it has not.

I don’t know if it is where I was at or where the counselor was at, but the times it didn’t work were in particular with this one therapist who didn’t seem too confident in herself. Quite frankly, she looked like a deer in headlights which surprised me because she was an older lady so I assumed she had years of experience, but who knows, maybe she was a recent graduate.

On the other hand, I was pretty sick at the time. My symptoms were out of control with much hypomania and anxiety going on, so many of her tactics flew in one ear and right out the other. It was probably more of a “it’s me not you” thing going on.

The times that therapy works, however, oh those glorious times…like today. I went in there wound tight as a watch and left walking a little taller, out into a world that seemed a lot brighter than when I went in.

My good therapist, rephrasing my feelings back to me, validating my emotions, asking insightful questions and providing practical and logical feedback. What a grand lady!

Tell me, has counseling ever helped you?

Mental Health Blogging is Cool

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I have been blogging here for eight years now. I have written a lot of posts I am proud of and some that are so-so like the medical research ones.  I say the are so-so because they are kind of fillers for the times I was taking a break from writing anything of personal substance because I became super paranoid that people in my real life were reading my blog and I didn’t feel like I could be as candid as a result.

My two most popular posts year after year are How to Deal With Complex PTSD Triggers and Are People with Bipolar Disorder Lazy?

My highest traffic years brought over 11,000 views and 9,200 unique visitors, which I know many people see in a month’s time, but for me this was good.

My subscriber count is just shy of 800 people. I have super slacked off on reaching out to other bloggers over the last few years and I took a year off from Facebook which hurt my page engagement, of course.

I’ve been back on Facebook for about six months now and things are finally starting to pick back up. It’s nice to finally know my messages of encouragement and hope are reaching more people again.

I’m fairly active on Twitter where people are really encouraging and friendly. I always enjoy sharing there.

I hope you find my blog useful and share its posts on social media and say, hi, and follow me on social media, too. I love to connect with other people and share ideas and thoughts.

Is Mental Illness Real?

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Mental illness is “any of a broad range of medical conditions (such as major depression, schizophrenia, obsessive compulsive disorder, or panic disorder) that are marked primarily by sufficient disorganization of personality, mind, or emotions to impair normal psychological functioning and cause marked distress or disability and that are typically associated with a disruption in normal thinking, feeling, mood, behavior, interpersonal interactions, or daily functioning.*”

I listened to a talk today by a behaviorist who proprosed that mental illness is not a medical condition but rather a dysfunction of our subconscious programming mostly likely which occurred during childhood. He stated that in order to change our moods and negative behaviors, such as anxiety attacks, depression, anger, lack of motivation, sadness, etc. , we don’t need medication or therapy. What we need is to change our subconscious programming, which will in turn improve our state of being and positively affect everything in our life.

He said we must also develop an attitude of acceptance (versus resistance.) The more you resist something the stronger it becomes. Accepting doesn’t mean you don’t try and change things that need changing. It just means you aren’t resisting it as it is in the moment you are in.

For example, I am trying to lose weight by changing my eating habits. I am accepting where I am now with my weight by not beating myself up about how far I have yet to go and by saying to myself that it is what it is and I accept what is without judgement, while still making changes. If I was resistant to my weight as it is now, I would be filled with frustration and self-loathing and would probably give up on my goals fairly quickly. In fact, I have done this many times in the past.

He didn’t really explain how to change the subconscious programming except to plug his own life coaching services for further help in this area. I think his ideas on acceptance are very useful and beneficial to everyday living. I highly recommend living life in a state of peaceful acceptance.

I felt very discouraged by his claim that people don’t need medication or therapy to eliminate stress, anxiety, depression, and other mental conditions in their life. He even said migraines could be eliminated immediately using the above techniques.

It scares me to think that people are advising others to go without treatments that could potentially save their lives. One thing does not work for everyone. So, please if you are reading this, be open to all possibilities when it come to mental illness treatment, because mental illness IS REAL and it may take all types of treatments to address it.

*”Mental Illness.” Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 15 May 2018.

When Panic Attacks Here is What You Can Do

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Symptoms of a panic attack include:

  • Racing heart
  • Shallow, rapid breaths
  • Tunnel vision
  • Sweaty palms
  • Feeling faint
  • Nausea, vomiting
  • Fear of going crazy
  • Crying
  • Shaking, tremors
  • Irritability
  • Increased sensitivity to sound, lights, touch
  • Inability to focus or concentrate

There is usually a precipitating factor or something that has caused or is causing the panic attack to occur. Or fear about future events or a future incident can incite an attack. 

One way of dealing with it is to distract yourself from thinking about said event by reading a book, watching a show or playing a game. Draw, paint, listen to music or go for a relaxing walk. Find something to distract youself from your anxiety producing thoughts. 

Another way to cope is to take a short nap. Sometimes your brain just needs a break and it is okay to give it one. Just make sure not to overdo this one as it can become chronic and unhealthy. 

Talk to a trusted friend or professional to get the thoughts and feelings out of your head. Releasing them decreases the power they have over you. Also, problem solving ways to reduce anxiety is way more successful when you work on it with someone else. Keeping it to yourself only intensifies it. Trying to figure it out on your own only makes the anxiety worse. 

When possible don’t.do.anything.  Panic attacks are the body’s response to overstimulation. Resting in a quiet calming room may help tremendously. Experiment with what works best for you and take the time and breaks you need to let your system return to normal. 

Panic attacks are scary. Uncomfortable at best. Not your fault. Be kind to yourself when they come. Get through them the best you can and move on. Talk to a healthcare professional if they become chronic or significantly interrupt your life or cause you serious adverse effects.  There is medication and other treatment options that can help. You are not alone. 

Is a Daily Routine or An Unstructured Lifestyle Better for Our Mental Health?

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When I was first diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder my life was in complete chaos. I had a job that didn’t have set hours, with responsibilities and a caseload that changed on a daily basis. Plus, I had three small children with a husband who worked varying hours, including nights and weekends. My days were anything but routine.

Fast forward five years later, and I am a stay-at-home mom with a set routine of getting up at the same time every morning to get the kids off to school, work on house chores during the day as my illness allows me, rest in the afternoon, be there for the kids when they get home from school and in the evening for school and sport events. I also take my medications on a routine schedule and go to bed around the same time every night.

Researchers have demonstrated that routines can help those with bipolar disorder by balancing their sleep/wake cycles. Routines can also help those with anxiety by making daily activities more manageable and predictable. Routines help us get more stuff done by keeping us on task, thus providing more time for rest and relaxation, which is also good for mental health. And routines give us a sense of control over our lives since we get to choose what we include in them.

I do find that as my illness symptoms creep back into my life, there is sometimes the need for flexibility in my routine. For example, when I am fatigued from depression, I may spend more time in bed and less time on chores.

However, after a few days or a week, my routine usually kicks back in and I am at least doing a little bit each day. While I might not feel motivated to engage in my routine, my routine motivates me to get things done, because it is what I am used to doing. It doesn’t feel right to not do it.

What about you?  Are routines good for your mental health or do you prefer an unstructured lifestyle?