I started this blog in 2011 (or 2012. It has been so long I can’t remember for sure.) At first I was very active but as the years wore on I got away from posting regularly and reading other blogs as well.
I checked a year or two ago and found that the people I had formed relationships with here on WordPress are not active on their blogs anymore at all. I miss them even though we only conversed via comments on one another’s blogs.
I would like to get back to writing about mental health topics on a regular basis. The thing that makes it difficult is that I don’t want to make it like a diary and tell the details of my personal life, but strictly writing in a research article style doesn’t feel right either. I will have to work on finding a balance between the two.
I also want to form some new blogger relationships which will help me stay connected with the topics I am interested in. So, please give me some good recommendations for mental health WordPress blogs. And if you have one, all the better!
Thanks for being a subscriber to my site, Write into the Light.
Maintaining a Daily Routine with Mental Illness is Difficult
As I was considering what topic to write about this week, my mind was drawing a blank. I felt unmotivated and fatigued, like I didn’t have the energy needed to stick to my routine of posting an article every Monday. I wanted to just forget about it but then I asked myself why it is so hard for me to stick to any kind of routine.
For example, some days I am up and productive but on many others I am laying in bed a lot. I don’t shower each day. I exercise sporadically. I clean my house when the mood strikes me. So I did some research and found that sticking to a routine can be challenging for individuals with mental illness due to several factors:
1. Symptoms: Conditions like depression, anxiety, and bipolar disorder can cause fluctuations in energy, motivation, and mood, making it difficult to maintain consistency.
2. Cognitive Challenges: Disorders such as ADHD and schizophrenia can affect concentration, memory, and organization, complicating routine adherence.
3. Medication Side Effects: Some medications used to treat mental illnesses can cause fatigue, drowsiness, or other side effects that interfere with daily activities.
4. Stress and Overwhelm: Managing symptoms and treatment can be overwhelming, making it hard to focus on a structured routine.
5. Lack of Support: Limited support from family, friends, or healthcare providers can make it harder to stick to routines and manage symptoms effectively.
My research advises that “individualized strategies, professional support, and self-compassion are crucial in developing and maintaining a routine.” That is not so helpful, in my opinion, and I am wondering if you maintain a routine and what helps you do so?
Tips on taking it easy on yourself when working through childhood trauma:
Taking it easy on yourself, especially in the context of working through difficult emotions and experiences, involves practicing self-compassion and self-care. Here are some steps to help you be gentler with yourself:
1. Acknowledge Your Feelings: Recognize and accept your emotions without judgment. Understand that it’s okay to feel what you’re feeling and that your emotions are valid.
2. Practice Self-Compassion: Treat yourself with the same kindness and understanding you would offer to a friend. Remind yourself that everyone struggles and makes mistakes.
3. Set Realistic Expectations: Avoid setting overly high or unrealistic expectations for yourself. Break down tasks into smaller, manageable steps and celebrate your progress, no matter how small.
4. Take Breaks: Allow yourself to take breaks and rest. Rest is crucial for mental and emotional well-being.
5. Engage in Self-Care: Prioritize activities that nourish and rejuvenate you. This can include exercise, healthy eating, hobbies, spending time in nature, or simply relaxing.
6. Limit Self-Criticism: Notice when you’re being self-critical and gently challenge those thoughts. Replace negative self-talk with positive affirmations.
7. Seek Support: Reach out to friends, family, or support groups like ACA. Talking to others who understand your experiences can provide comfort and perspective.
8. Mindfulness and Meditation: Practice mindfulness or meditation to stay present and reduce anxiety. These practices can help you become more aware of your thoughts and feelings without becoming overwhelmed by them.
9. Therapy or Counseling: Consider talking to a therapist or counselor who can provide professional guidance and support.
10. Forgive Yourself: Understand that it’s okay to make mistakes and that forgiveness is a part of healing. Let go of past regrets and focus on your growth and progress.
Remember, healing is a journey, and it’s important to be patient with yourself along the way. Taking it easy on yourself is not about avoiding challenges but about approaching them with kindness and self-understanding.
Epigenetics is a science that studies how our genes can be turned on or off without changing the DNA itself. Think of genes like instructions that tell our body how to work. Epigenetics is like the switch that can turn these instructions on or off. This is important because it helps us understand how experiences, like childhood trauma, can affect us long after they happen.
What is Childhood Trauma?
Childhood trauma refers to scary or hurtful experiences that happen when we are young. This can include things like being abused, seeing violence, losing a loved one, or living through a natural disaster. These experiences can be very upsetting and can have long-lasting effects on our health and well-being.
How Epigenetics Works
Our genes are made of DNA, which has instructions for making proteins that help our body work. Epigenetics involves changes that affect how these instructions are read and used. Here are the main ways this can happen:
1. DNA Methylation: This is like adding a small chemical tag to the DNA. When this tag is added, the gene can be turned off, meaning it won’t make the protein it usually does.
2. Histone Modification: DNA is wrapped around proteins called histones. Changes to these proteins can make the DNA wrap tighter or looser, affecting whether the genes are turned on or off.
These changes can be influenced by our environment, including experiences like trauma.
How Childhood Trauma Affects Genes
When a child goes through trauma, it can cause changes in the way their genes work. These changes can affect how their body and brain respond to stress. For example, if a child is often scared or hurt, their body might start to produce more stress hormones. This can lead to changes in the genes that control stress responses.
One important gene involved in stress is the glucocorticoid receptor gene. This gene helps manage how we respond to stress. When a child experiences trauma, the DNA in this gene can get extra methylation tags, turning the gene off. This can make it harder for the child to handle stress later in life.
Effects of Epigenetic Changes
The changes in gene activity caused by trauma can have many effects on a child’s health and behavior. Here are some examples:
1. Mental Health: Children who experience trauma may be more likely to develop mental health issues like depression, anxiety, and PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder). This is partly because the changes in their stress response genes make it harder for them to cope with stress.
2. Physical Health: These children may also have more physical health problems. For example, they might have higher risks for heart disease or diabetes. This happens because chronic stress can affect many parts of the body.
3. Behavior and Learning: Trauma can also affect a child’s behavior and ability to learn. They might have trouble paying attention in school, controlling their emotions, or getting along with others.
Can Epigenetic Changes Be Reversed?
The good news is that epigenetic changes are not permanent. This means they can be changed back. Scientists are looking for ways to help people who have experienced trauma by reversing these changes.
One way to do this is through therapy. Talking to a therapist can help children and adults cope with their experiences and reduce stress. This can help reduce the harmful effects of trauma on their genes.
Another way is through healthy lifestyle choices. Eating a good diet, getting regular exercise, and having strong social support can all help improve gene activity. For example, certain nutrients, like vitamins and omega-3 fatty acids, can affect DNA methylation and help genes work better.
Future Research
Researchers are still learning about how epigenetics and trauma are connected. They hope to find new treatments that can help people who have experienced trauma. For example, scientists are studying drugs that can remove methylation tags from DNA or change how histones are modified. These drugs could help turn on important genes that have been turned off by trauma.
Conclusion
Epigenetics is a fascinating science that helps us understand how our experiences can change our genes. Childhood trauma can cause epigenetic changes that affect our health and behavior for a long time. But these changes can be reversed, offering hope for healing and recovery. By learning more about epigenetics, scientists are finding new ways to help people overcome the effects of trauma and live healthier, happier lives.
In an attempt to build up the Write into the Light community, I am committing to post a blog every Monday when possible. I want to get back to providing informative and engaging articles on mental health topics.
It has been difficult for me over the last several years because one of my medications has greatly diminished my creative processes. Additionally, I am no longer on another medicine that used to help me focus and concentrate.
Therefore, I have decided to research topics and enlist the help of an AI app to help me create reliable, organized, and detailed content. I want to be completely transparent about this because I want to maintain the trust and faith you have shown me by your support of my writing over the past 13 years.
If you have any questions or requests for specific topics, please let me know in the comments. Thank you so much!
“Borderline personality disorder is a mental illness that severely impacts a person’s ability to manage their emotions. This loss of emotional control can increase impulsivity, affect how a person feels about themselves, and negatively impact their relationships with others.”
– National Institute of Mental Health
Symptoms of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) include the following.
Fear of abandonment
Unstable relationships
Unclear or shifting self-image
Impulsive, self-destructive behaviors
Self-harm
Extreme emotional swings
Chronic feelings of emptiness
Explosive anger
Feeling suspicious or out of touch with reality
I have some of these symptoms but not all of them all of the time. I do fear my significant other leaving me through death. At this point we have enough history together that I don’t believe he will leave me willingly like I used to.
My self-image is in constant flux. I don’t know if I am a good person or a bad person much of the time. I often question my state of mind – whether I am mentally unstable or not, and whether my assessment of reality is true or not. I constantly seek reassurance from my significant other on these matters because I don’t trust my own judgement.
I used to have unstable relationships and impulsive self-destructive behaviors, including self harm, when I was younger. I still have the compulsion to self-harm when I become intensely overwhelmed by my emotions but I rarely give into it as it passes very quickly.
I have extreme emotional swings often within the same day and sometimes within the same hour! I don’t usually understand why this is happening or where the trigger is coming from. Although mindfulness helps me realize that it almost always has something to do with my thoughts – the story I am telling myself about events happening outside of me and within.
I do have chronic feelings of emptiness, often feeling like I have no purpose in life; constantly fighting feelings of loneliness and boredom.
I have problems with explosive anger when I feel like people have been unfair or unjust with myself or others. I have learned to curtail my anger in most other situations but those in which I become judgemental and intolerant my rage can be destructive to myself and my significant other who has to bear the brunt of my complaining and lamenting.
I am suspicious and question people’s motives ALL. OF. THE. TIME. I take things personally and tend to put myself at the center of the universe which makes everyone’s actions about ME instead of what they truly are which is about themselves and what they are dealing with or bringing to the situation based on their own beliefs, values, and histories. This is something that pains me most days and it is quite the hard habit to break.
I practice mindfulness, including in meditation; I pray to my higher self which helps me gain insight into my feelings and behaviors. I do movement therapy including stretching, yoga poses, and Tai chi. I deal with this mental illness along with several others in addition to chronic pain, so I suppose I am doing fairly well in spite of these things. I am always looking to do better, however, so if you have any suggestions please leave them in the comments and tell me if you relate to anything I said in this article. Thank you.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy’s (DBT) premise is that two seemingly opposite things can be true at the same time. For example, my parents did the best they knew how when raising me and they negatively affected my emotional development.
DBT trains the mind to think with a good balance between reason and emotion, calling this the “wise mind.” It also can keep you out of all or nothing or black and white thinking. There are many shades of grey with everything in life.
There are four main tenets of DBT. They are Distress Tolerance, Mindfulness, Emotional Regulation, and Interpersonal Skills.
Distress Tolerance and Radical Acceptance
Distress Tolerance includes an idea called “Radical Acceptance” where you fully acknowledge the present moment reality. This does not equal condonement. Radical acceptance places you in a position of being able to make a plan to elicit changes in your life because you cannot change anything if you aren’t fully engaged in the acceptance of what currently is.
Distress Tolerance skills include distraction and self-soothing. Distract by engaging in pleasurable, non-destructive activities, focusing on helping others, doing chores, counting breaths or anything you can see, or distract by removing yourself from the situation.
Self-soothe any of your senses: smell, sight, sound, taste and touch. Use any input that makes you feel good that is non-destructive and not harmful to you or anyone else.
R.E.S.T.
Above all, make sure to use the “Rest” technique in any situation that is upsetting to you at the start. Relax (R), Evaluate the facts (E), Set an intention (S), Take action (T). The intention and take action steps could include some ideas from the distress tolerance skills.
Serotonin is a neurotransmitter in the brain that is related to depression. It is thought that those with depression are lacking in serotonin. Some antidepressant medications block the reuptake of serotonin leaving more available for use by the brain, thereby decreasing depression symptoms or so the theory goes.
Besides medication, which has been proven in clinical trials to have a significant effect on depression symptoms, there are anecdotal treatments some people say increase serotonin in the brain. These “treatments” aren’t always backed by scientific studies and should be discussed with your doctor before being tried especially if they involve any sort of supplement or exercise, but most appear relatively harmless and may even be helpful in relieving some depression symptoms in some people. These serotonin-producing ideas include the following:
Get more tryptophans from foods like lean meats, eggs, and dairy.
Get a massage.
Boost your vitamin B.
Soak up the sunshine or use a light therapy box.
Add more magnesium to your diet with dark, leafy veges, fish, bananas, and beans.
Be more positive, practice gratitude.
Reduce sugar intake.
Meditate.
Increase exercise.
Increase vitamin C.
Practice self care to reduce stress.
Keep a journal or practice some form a regular writing.
Don’t try to make all the changes at once, if it seems overwhelming. Tackle one or two items a month. Eventually you will get to feeling better and better and before you know it all of these things will become second nature, if you tackle them like a marathon not a sprint.
Play the long game. These changes are lifetime goals. You have all the time in the world to reach them, but start making them one or two at a time. You can do it and will be glad you did as you begin to feel better and better little by little until it adds up to be quite a lot!
It took me over ten years to get to some real solid stability in my bipolar depression. I did it by addimg a lot of coping skills and healthy habits to my life year after year. Trauma work in therapy and constant medication management was a huge part of it, too, but the anecdotal cures were essential and still are. They may be for you, too.
As always, comments are open for any questions you may have for me and for any shares you have regarding your experiences. Thanks for reading.
Write into the Light 