If you're trying to help people with mental health issues and/or individuals who are making a lot of mistakes in life and are headed in the wrong direction, you have to accept certain things.
One thing is that you can't change people.
Once an individual is around eleven or twelve years old, his/her basic value system is already set. You can't change them.
That's not to say that teens and adults can't be helped. But they're the way they are unless they choose to change and become
Psychiatric medications have come a long way over the years. These pills have helped lots of people overcome serious mental health issues. For many, they couldn't have overcome mental illness without psychiatric medications, myself included.
Unfortunately, psychiatric medications (as well as all medications, for that matter), come with potential side effects, some quite serious. These meds have their trade-offs.
And some people are afraid to take medication because of it.
To everyone from the United States who's on this site, I just wanted to say that I hope that you enjoyed this year's Thanksgiving. I hope the weather didn't make things real difficult for you.
I had a good Thanksgiving. Some family members and I went out to eat at a hotel in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. The meal was great and it was lots of fun.
Working with those with mental illness has it's rewards. Many individuals with this terrible illness can be helped and will listen to good advice they're given by people who care about them, such as friends, family, and therapists.
However, with some folks with mental health issues, even the greatest and most helpful advice falls on deaf ears. It doesn't matter what you tell them. They don't listen to good advice and just do whatever they want instead.
Some people have to hit r
When I was a teenager, I generally came across as a happy person.
But one high school student who I knew didn't like me because he was jealous of me. He believed that my quality of life was better than his was at the time. And I think that he thought that I was a happier person in life than him.
Little did he know that, back then, I was dealing with severe depression much of the time. My life wasn't so rosy back then.
Just because someone appears to be happy, like I usually did
One of the most common forms of psychotherapy, called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, focuses on replacing irrational beliefs with more rational beliefs for those in therapy with mental illness. For example, those with clinical depression have lots of negative irrational beliefs. And people with bipolar disorder who are in a manic phase often have grandiose beliefs and goals that aren't realistic.
However, one person I know feels that saying that those with mental illness have a lot of irra
Between 1990 and 2003, my pet was a little bird, a cockatiel. His name was Luke. He was so tiny!
He enjoyed copying songs and words. He'd copy numerous songs, and he'd copy my mother when she said, "Mike?" He would say, "Hello," "Hey!" and "Pretty Boy." He also copied me coughing, sneezing, chewing gum, laughing, and more.
The odd thing is how could that little tiny brain of his be able to remember all those songs, noises, and words?
The stigma against mental illness in America isn't as bad as it used to be. But it still exists. That's why many with mental health issues don't want others to know they have this terrible illness.
If you're disabled with mental illness and can only work part time at a paying job because of it, and you're looking for part time work and you're at a job interview, if the individual interviewing you wonders why you don't work full time at a job, I think it's okay to tell the person that you'
I have a long history of mental illness in the form of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and bipolar disorder. I've been a patient in mental hospitals more than once over the years as a result.
The last time that I was in the hospital, back in 2011, my parents came to visit me like they often did when I was in one of those facilities.
I told them that it must be hard to have their own son in a mental institution once again.
However, they disagreed with me. They responded by sa
When I was in college, during one class that I was a student in, the instructor got on the subject of psychosis (which is when someone is out of touch with reality).
I asked her that if a person claims that he/she is being stalked by someone or that the government is after them, how do shrinks know if what the individual is saying is true or not?
She said therapists and psychiatrists can usually tell because if someone really does have one or more persons that's going after them,
It's an unfortunate fact that lots of people have had something traumatic happen to them, or a series of traumatic events in their past, such as sexual abuse, physical assault, and other forms of trauma.
And while it's good that many trauma victims seek a therapist to try to overcome what happened to them and one day be able to move on with their lives, what if you don't want to tell anyone about what happened to you? Or what if you don't want anybody to know that you've experienced any tr
I've been a fan of the NFL's New England Patriots for a long time, even before they became a dynasty.
However, I don't take being a fan too seriously. If the Patriots win games and championships, then that's good for me.
But if they lose a big game or have a bad season, it's not going to ruin my life. That's because I don't think of it as the end of the world like some sports fans seem to believe.
I mean, when the Pats won the six Super Bowls that they won, I was glad they were
I think that in American society, their's a misconception about defining the word 'hero.'
To me, a hero isn't a famous sports athlete.
Instead, a hero is someone who risks his or her life to save others, such as firefighters, many police officers, and just the everyday person who risks it all to save the lives of others. They're the true heroes of our world.
On Christmas day, is their ever snow on the ground where you live, and if so, how often is their snow on the ground during Christmas?
Where I live in the the foothills of southern Maine, United States, the vast majority of Christmas' are white Christmas.'
Last year's Christmas, we only had a few inches of snow on the ground here. But at least it was a white Christmas.
I have family who lives in Rhode Island. And they haven't had a white Christmas in years.
Years ago, a friend of mine knew a person who had been through trauma. He told me that he wanted to give this individual some advice so this person could be helped and could learn how to cope.
I told him that could be a bad idea. The thing is, if a trauma survivor has a lot of anger inside because of what happened to him/her and isn't on psychiatric medication that works well to help them, the therapy can actually make the anger worse.
Besides, my friend wasn't a trained psychotherap
Mental illness is a terrible disease. It affects the lives of those with depression, bi polar disorder, OCD, and more in a profound way.
But their are lots of ways to overcome this illness. For example, their are hundreds of different forms of psychotherapy, anywhere from Freudian psychoanalysis to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT).
Years ago, when I was battling issues with depression and anxiety, I asked my therapist at the time if she thought it was a bad idea for me to drink alcohol.
This counselor was a psychologist, not a psychiatrist. So she wasn't a medical professional.
She said that I would have to ask my psychiatrist if it would interact with the psychiatric medications that I was on at the time.
But she went on to say that either way it would likely be a bad idea for me to drink because alcohol i
I've seen many medical doctors in my time. And I've noticed that none of them would tell me what the potential side effects of a medication they had just prescribed me could be unless I asked them.
But I worked with one psychiatrist who, even when I asked him about it when he'd prescribe me medication, wouldn't tell me what the potential side effects were.
It's impossible for any psychiatrist to be able to remember every p
Years ago, Aaron Beck invented Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). This form of psychotherapy was invented because he noticed that those with mental illness have a lot of irrational beliefs, which are part of why some have mental health issues. Depressed people have beliefs which are too negative. Those with bipolar disorder, when they're manic, often have beliefs and goals that are too grandiose. Folks with clinical anxiety typically have beliefs which cause them to over-worry about situati
