mental health awareness

Depression can be mild or intense, and depression can result from a physical, emotional, or environmental dilemma or a combination of of these factors.

I’m doing all I can to learn how to accept my new identity and this new normal because at the end of the day, my antidepressants are keeping me alive.

While money does not prevent depression, it does facilitate the potential for happiness, or at the very least more management of unhappiness.

Can’t calm down, won’t calm down.

I live with bipolar II disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, ADHD, and complex PTSD. I take Effexor, Klonopin, Depakote, and Adderall. I knew I needed to talk to my psychiatrist about what changes I’d need to make before we could try to have a baby. The chances that none of these medications would affect a growing fetus was impossible in my mind. But I never expected what Dr. G told me.

The first time I was inspired to injure myself was when I was thirteen. I had just read Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls, an advice book my mother had hidden on the shelf between some garish ceramic dancing girls, books on cocker spaniels, and her and my father’s decaying wedding cake topper. In the book, a well-meaning psychologist told stories about teenage girls acting out, and self-injury was just one of many ways. I wasn’t the type to climb out the window on a rope made of bed sheets, so self-harm made a lot of sense.

Sending words into the world is a privilege — as well as a heavy responsibility.

This week in Aunt Ginger we're talking about Mental Health Awareness. Ginger offers strategies for mental health self-care.