Sharing – Why Healing from Trauma Can Get Harder As We Age

Sharing – Why Healing from Trauma Can Get Harder As We Age

ByMikeM Reading Time: 2 minutes

As I’ve said before, we were too busy simply surviving the abuse to learn the things we were supposed to learn as children, so we often start out behind in various ways.

Of course, in order to learn those things we need to do the work as an adult, to first unlearn the things we learned, and then learn the things we didn’t learn to start with. This is, perhaps, one of the real tragedies of so many survivors not even telling anyone, let alone starting this work, for decades.

That’s so many more years of doing the things we need to unlearn, and undoing that is just going to be more difficult the longer this has been true for us. So, what can we do?

Sharing – Why Leisure Is Never a Waste of Time

Sharing – Why Leisure Is Never a Waste of Time

ByMikeM Reading Time: 1 minute

I know it’s become cliché to talk about depression and anxiety as part of the response to COVID19, but that really ignores the fact that the rates were going up even before the pandemic. Why? I think our cultish belief in productivity, and “hustling” is a big part of that. If you can’t ever rest, and take a break from your to-do list, you’re going to struggle.

Sharing – 5 Crucial Mental Health Tips for Bloggers

Sharing – 5 Crucial Mental Health Tips for Bloggers

ByMikeM Reading Time: 3 minutes

Whenever anyone asks me about blogging, especially about child abuse and mental health, I tell them that they need to decide two things, and always stick to them.

1. Decide what you will share about your own story, and what is off the table. Don’t share so much of yourself that you wind up becoming overwhelmed and find yourself dealing with the fallout. Remember, once you share it, you no longer control how other people respond. If you’re not ready for that, there’s no shame in it. Just know before you start.

2. The second one, is to decide what you’re willing and able, to give to your readers. This is the hardest one, as the article below mentions:

Sharing – What Is the Best Way to Deliver a Thank-You?

Sharing – What Is the Best Way to Deliver a Thank-You?

ByMikeM Reading Time: 1 minute

I’d rephrase their language a bit. Instead of waiting for the “best” time to say thank you in the best way, it’s far more important to just say it however you can. I would much rather get a quick text expressing gratitude than potentially not get anything because so much time has passed.

I don’t think I’m alone in that.

So worry less about “how”, and just make sure that you actually say thank you! 

Sharing – How To Identify Grooming Predatory Behavior & Stop It
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Sharing – How To Identify Grooming Predatory Behavior & Stop It

ByMikeM Reading Time: 2 minutes

That’s our blind spot. We’re so busy looking for creepy, anti-social, stereotypes that we miss the charming abusers right in our midst, and we miss all the signs and hints that our kids might be dropping because we just didn’t stop to consider that adult to be dangerous. We just assumed they were safe, and our kids would somehow know better anyway.

Clearly, that strategy isn’t working.

Sharing – How Mental Health Advocacy Helps Me Bridge Gaps

Sharing – How Mental Health Advocacy Helps Me Bridge Gaps

ByMikeM Reading Time: 2 minutes

How often do I see people talking about “wanting to be an advocate” and waiting for someone to invite them to be some sort of official spokesperson as if that is what makes one an advocate. It’s not. Advocates see holes and fill them. Sometimes that’s volunteering to work with kids, sometimes it’s telling your story, and sometimes it’s just seeing the people around you dealing with child abuse or mental health and letting them know they aren’t alone.

Sharing – Smashing Stigmas: From The Perspective of a Partner

Sharing – Smashing Stigmas: From The Perspective of a Partner

ByMikeM Reading Time: 2 minutes

Depression tells you that you are alone. Knowing that there are other people, lots of other people, also dealing with it helps. It also helps to have a constant reminder that someone is on your side in this and looking for ways to remind you that you are not alone. If someone close to you is dealing with depression, and feeling alone, the best thing you can do is just be in their corner, helping them find help and connecting them with other people who can be part of their support network.

That’s how we fight back against something telling us we are alone.

Sharing – Why telehealth for mental health care is working

Sharing – Why telehealth for mental health care is working

ByMikeM Reading Time: 1 minute

It’s all about flexibility. As the article below points out, online appointments don’t work for everyone. They do require a stable and fast internet connection for video, and not everyone has that.

On the other hand, they also point out that not everyone has transportation to a therapist’s office, time away from work to regular travel to appointments, or the ability to get the whole family, for example, transportation to the same location.

For those folks, the switch to Telehealth that the pandemic thrust upon all of us is proving to be a godsend because they have something that was inaccessible to them previously. Even as others need a place to meet with a therapist, or simply connect better in person.

Sharing – Toxic Positivity: Harmful or Helpful

Sharing – Toxic Positivity: Harmful or Helpful

ByMikeM Reading Time: 2 minutes

It’s the insistence that everyone around you also is positive all the time, demanding “Good Vibes Only” as the article points out, that worries me. Because people in real pain, social issues that cause real harm, etc. are not good vibes. When a team was winning gold medals, no one wanted to do more than focus on that success, and repeated stories of abuse went ignored. Is our constant need for positivity forcing us to ignore racism, homelessness, abuse, and many other social issues that we need to do more than give passing support to on social media?

Maybe most importantly, are there people in our lives right now hurting, who desperately need our support, who we are ignoring because they bring us down?