Once upon a time, there was me. I was a drunk. I wanted to die. I couldn’t handle the way I was living anymore. So I went into a recovery house. I failed. I went to another one. Three years into sobriety I had a mental breakdown. Things have been fucked ever since. But through it all I’ve also had this eating disorder, see. So it’s not enough to try to get my life back from mental illness. I’ve got an eating disorder too.
fear Archive
04 Mar 2013
DBT Skills: Emotion Regulation
This is the final installment of the DBT Skills series. I want to say a special thank you to Breyonne for her hard work in writing this series – I know it will be useful for so many of our readers!
When I first heard the words ‘emotion regulation’, the first thing I thought was, Oh great. Another therapist trying to tell me that feelings are just feelings, they can’t hurt me, they can’t kill me, blah blah yadda yadda. And I’ve been to enough therapy, enough counseling, enough self-help meetings to know this, even if only theoretically. So I wasn’t prepared to learn a whole lot from this module. I couldn’t have been further from the truth.
30 Jan 2013
Needles, Fear, and T
Trigger Warning: for those afraid of needles.
I have a fear of needles.
It is a pretty common fear. It kind of makes sense. I mean, needles do hurt, often just a tiny bit and but sometimes quite a lot, depending on what they’re doing. Plus, they invade some of the most private parts of our bodies and remove parts of us or put new things inside of us. It’s creepy. And people don’t always ask permission before they put needles inside us (although they almost always should). Needles can help us, but they can also harm us and/or reveal things about us that we may not wholly want to know. Needles can be violating.
10 Jan 2013
Naming Names – Putting Agoraphobia Into Words
I still don’t know how to talk about agoraphobia. I’ve been trying to figure out how to explain it to people since I was 16 years old, but I’ve been largely unsuccessful at putting it into words. I’ve mostly just stayed quiet about it and used vague “anxiety” euphemisms to describe why I can’t hang out / go to work / go to class / go grocery shopping / whatever, and have also spent a lot of time struggling to come up with “legitimate” ways to account for what I do with my time while NOT doing these things, especially since spending [lots of] time alone or in my “safe zones” is actually super positive for me. For almost 20 years, I’ve had no concept of how to talk about this enormous part of me that has both limited me in humongous ways and also shaped me into the wonderful weirdo that the people close to me know and love.
09 Jan 2013
Go Back to Sleep
These are my nightmares.
I have them a few times a week. Sometimes every night.
Sometimes they are just feelings. No dreams. Just waking feelings of fear.
I did not know nightmares were abnormal for adults until I started reading about it. Apparently a very small percentage (under 3%) of adults report more than 2 nightmares per week, or even year. Maybe that’s wrong. It is from wikipedia. But now it makes sense when I have told people about these, how no one seems to share the experience.
08 Jan 2013
Are You Afraid of Me?
Do I scare you? Does the way I talk worry you?
I’m not talking about intimidation. I’m tall, and I’ve always been told I’m stronger than I realize – usually just after hurting someone without realizing it, but that’s not what I mean.
13 Nov 2012
Group Therapy – Panic and Anxiety, Session 2
This is the second of an 8 week series reviewing panic and anxiety from a group therapy point of view. It is based on the group therapy services available through Langley Memorial Hospital. Feel free to follow along and answer the questions posted in each section.
Session 2: Don’t Fight Panic
Did You Know:
- Resisting or fighting initial panic symptoms is likely to make them worse.
28 Sep 2012
DBT Skills: Interpersonal Effectiveness
I have to admit that social interaction and communication are not my strongest points. This is a relatively new development for me, or so I thought. I used to think I was great at using my voice, at standing up for myself, at being in social situations. Today there are a number of barriers that prevent me from being effective in interpersonal communication. One of them is mental and emotional health issues. It’s really hard for me to connect with others when I don’t feel so great myself. Another is acute hearing loss, in both ears, coupled with tinnitus. And finally – and probably the most overwhelming for me, especially when it comes to asking for what I need and speaking up for myself, or saying no when being asked for something – I was raised in an environment that didn’t really encourage me to use my voice under any circumstances. In fact, it was preferred if I was invisible, or at least that’s how I translated it.
11 Sep 2012
My Coming Out of the Dreaded Closet
I would like to welcome the newest member of our writing team, Chandler. In his first post with us, he tells his coming out story. Thanks for sharing with us, Cascadia!
When I was a young boy, I had the life of many. I played with toys, I broke stuff, I tried to fix stuff, I even stuck a knife into an electrical socket! All boys do this when they are young, they are adventurous and playful. Ages 0-9 were pretty normal or what one would call normal. At age 10 I knew something was up. I felt this weird attraction toward other boys of my same age. I didn’t know what it was so I shrugged it off. I went through all of my pre-teen and teen years knowing something wasn’t right with me. The boys in school turned me on. I hit puberty and all hell broke loose with me. There was a boy in my class, whose name was Brandon. I couldn’t stop looking at him! He made me feel weird inside.
28 Aug 2012
My Partner With Borderline Personality Disorder (Hanners)
It is my pleasure to introduce the newest series, “My Partner With…” to QueerMentalHealth.org. Relationships can be a challenge for anyone, though they can be especially difficult when they are impacted by mental health issues. It is my hope that we can help others understand how to approach a partner’s mental health concerns. I’m starting this series off by talking about the issues that come up for myself and my partner, who has Borderline Personality Disorder.
If you were to get all your information about Borderline Personality Disorder by going to online support groups for partners of people with this condition, you would learn the following:
- Borderlines are always abusive
- Borderlines are always in denial
- Borderlines never take responsibility for their actions
- Borderlines will love you one minute, and hate you the next
- Relationships with borderlines are notoriously unstable