anxiety

I’m sure the Pokemon Go phenomenon will fade before long, but for the moment, it’s just dumb FUN that might even be good for you. The game cannot fix and should not distract us from the shit-fucking terrible goddamn week we’ve had in the world, but it can remind us that we all need to practice self-care, whatever package it comes in.

I was paying a price for how I was parenting my children. Even before this study was released — confirming that more empathetic parents can suffer health issues — I knew it to be true because I felt it, I was living it, every day.

Suicidality is a strange thing. Sometimes you think you’ve shaken it off, but it’s actually still there, quietly brewing under the surface until something triggers it.

The inimitable Alice Walker said, “When you are creating beauty around you, you are restoring your own soul.” As someone with multiple mental illnesses, I truly believe that crafting has soul-restoring properties.

Most nights I rely on trashy reality TV to unjumble my thoughts and get centered. To some, that logic is a little fuzzy, but to me, focusing on someone else’s preventable drama seems far preferable to obsessing over my own.

“She just grabbed the bacon off my plate! She didn’t ask, she didn’t even say anything, she just assumed it was OK and took it!”
“It’s just bacon —”
“It’s NOT about the Bacon, Donald. It’s about the principle.”

Take everything personally and think the worst of any situation? Overwhelmed with your job or at school? Say self-deprecating things about yourself, or think the same of other people? If you can relate to any of this, it’s a sure sign you need to take better care of yourself, because happiness and healing truly comes from within.

Prescribe, refer, repeat — that was the drill for several years. It wasn’t until I started to explore the impact of childhood adversity that I saw the big picture, and it began to make sense.