Links (weekly)
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
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Link – Is the News Ruining Your Life?
For many of us, this is an ongoing issue, but it seems to have only gotten worse. For most of the issues that are reported on there is very little, if anything, that you can do to affect them. So, it is probably a good idea to start evaluating the real value knowing about…
Sharing – Understanding the ways children cope with threats
Again, another reminder that if you simply froze in response to abuse as a child, instead of trying to get away, or fighting, that’s actually pretty normal, and beyond your control: The stress response is a survival response. It is an innate biological response to threat or perceived threat. It prepares the body to fight…
Sharing – Depression Without Sadness: What to Know
Numb is exactly the word I would use to describe what I felt. I didn’t look sad, and I didn’t cry. I didn’t talk about my negative emotions. I simply felt nothing. I had lost the ability to feel sad, happy, hopeful, angry, etc. Nothing made any difference, and nothing mattered.
Often we describe depression as sadness, and our media depictions are of people looking and acting sad. We can’t forget that there are also times when depression doesn’t look like that, it might look like numbness, and it might look like anger and irritation.
Sharing – 15 Spooky-Good Ways To Spread Kindness This Halloween
Tomorrow is a good day to be playful, be part of your community, interact with strangers, dress up, and be silly. I’d argue it’s the perfect day for it, because it’s not only socially acceptable, but expected!
Sharing – How To Support Your Depressed Friend When You’re Depressed Too
As you know, I’ve been quick to share links and even write about what your depressed friends need, and how to help people struggling with their own mental health. What I’ve come to realize more and more is that I am also struggling, and failing at being a very good friend for many of these same reasons. I’m burned out, I’m tired, I have little mental energy beyond just getting through each workday, and taking care of myself, for reaching out, chatting, or virtually meeting up with people.
In short, I am experiencing exactly what Annie is talking about. I want to reach out and be supportive to my friends, but I haven’t recognized my own struggles. No, I don’t believe I am depressed in a major way, but I’m definitely suffering from anxiety, stress, and it’s exhausting me.
That makes it hard to be the supportive one in any relationship, even though I want to be.
To combat that, I’m going to be reviewing this article a few times, and thinking about how I might still be supportive, and how maybe people in my life be supportive of each other.
We Know Fight or Flight, but What If There Is Another Common Response to Trauma?
That’s the theory, called polyvagal theory, put forth in this Guardian article by Stephen Porges. I think this is something we need to consider: Can you explain polyvagal theory in layperson’s terms? Polyvagal theory articulates three different branches of the autonomic nervous system that evolved from very primitive vertebrates to mammals. And it’s quite interesting how the…
