Similar Posts
Sharing – I wrote a memoir about abuse. That doesn’t mean you’re entitled to every detail
Every survivor has the freedom to choose how, when, and in what detail, they want to share their story. You can ask for more, but you also have to respect the survivor’s choice to not answer. They don’t owe you that. The only time it’s really even appropriate to press for details if you’re a criminal prosecutor trying to help the survivor bring the abuser to justice.
Outside of that very specific situation? No, we don’t owe you anything. You can support a survivor without knowing all the details. In fact, respecting their boundaries around what they decide to share, is one great way to support them in their healing. They’ve already had too many people not respect their boundaries.
Link – Friends can be Key in Coping with Mental Health Challenges
Yes, you can help people recover, just by being a good friend. “In a study published in Psychiatry Research in May 2017 researchers followed a group of more than 175 people who had experienced an episode of psychosis for two years and compared those who recovered and those who did not. More frequent social interaction…
Link – Researcher: Mental health issues often progress after brain injury
This is important research, not just to help us understand what happens during relatively mild brain injuries, but to eventually find better ways to treat the mental health issues when it’s being caused by some sort of physical injury to the brain and not responding to typical treatments like talk therapy, etc. ““The study has…
Shared Links (weekly) Nov. 23, 2025
For more like this, subscribe to the newsletter and get everything I’ve been sharing in your email.
How We Talk to Ourselves Matters
As you read the rest of the article you’ll see how self-distancing conversations look a lot more like those conversations with friends I referenced earlier. Getting away from all of the “I” and “me” and fairly judging the situation quietly and calmly as if it was happening to someone else can put it into a perspective that we sometimes lose when we are thinking of ourselves, especially those of us who struggle with self-blame. Of course, then that self-blame turns to rumination which feeds into depression, and round and round we go.
There is a better way, and the examples given can help if we are willing to practice them. Especially the idea of reminding ourselves that we’ve already been through tougher, and more stressful situations and come out the other side.
