• Sharing – Depression Without Sadness: What to Know

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 1 minute

    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 – Acknowledging Limits – Helping Others

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 2 minutes

    One of the things I immediately recommend to anyone asking about starting a blog like mine is to set your boundaries. If you don’t, you’ll burn out and be gone within 6 months. Decide what you will say, what you won’t, and how much time you’ll dedicate to writing for the blog and interacting with people online. Because if you don’t you’ll find yourself unable to cope and you’ll bail on it.

    I’d say the same thing about anything. Yes, be with someone who needs support, but set your boundaries around it, and make sure you are still taking care of your own life. Because the only thing worse than someone not sitting and listening to a friend or loved one when they are struggling, is having some do it for a while, and then disappear. That doesn’t do anyone any good. We all need you to be well just as much as we need you to stick with relationships when someone is dealing with healing, or mental health issues.

    Set your boundaries, and be willing to stick to them, lovingly. As Liz says in her piece, it’s not about you doing everything, it’s about you pointing them to a whole host of options for support. That is what being a good support system is all about.

  • Links I’m Sharing (weekly)

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 1 minute

    Be Positive! 5 Good News Websites for Uplifting & Inspirational Stories 10 Quarantine Activities That Don’t Involve Watching the News Calming podcasts that help reduce anxiety and stress – Haven’t heard of these before, might be worth checking out. COVID-19: The Reason You’re Exhausted Is ‘Moral Fatigue’ Why It’s So Hard to Build Healthy Relationships…

  • Link – Online course focuses on child sex abuse prevention

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 1 minute

    I thought this might be of interest to some of you. “A Ronkonkoma-based nonprofit on Monday announced that the group has launched a free online course that seeks to teach adults how to detect, report and, hopefully, prevent child sexual abuse.” As stated in the article, you do have to register with them, providing name,…

  • Link – Talking about mental illness is no substitute for offering real help

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 1 minute

    Rachel is correct, talking about it should lessen the stigma around mental health issues, but we have not reached the next level yet, where people can talk about it without suffering social and professional consequences. For all the great work of celebrities, there’s also a sense in the room that the life of a famous…

  • Link – Older People Surviving Child Sexual Abuse

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 1 minute

    “You may be a survivor of child sexual abuse who is now in your late thirties, forties, fifties or beyond, and you may be finding that your feelings around what you experienced are worse than they have ever been, or at any rate worse that they’ve been for a long time. You may be confused as to why this…