You should read the whole article, Dr. Jeglic does a good job describing the issue, what we do know about female perpetrators and what we don’t know. Mostly we don’t know because of this: “When most people envision a sex offender, they do not picture a woman. While the majority of sex offenders are indeed…
On one hand, I think we could eliminate a lot of the stigma around depression, anxiety, PTSD and ADHD if we understood them to be fairly common, and normal responses to abnormal events.
On the other though, I’m concerned that trying to explain away something that can be as debilitating as depression can be could lead to an increase in people not taking it seriously. Which could lead to people not getting help as needed for it, and being blamed for not just dealing with it, etc.
I also worry that if we define mental health conditions very strictly, we’ll be increasing the stigma of those with other disorders like bipolar, or schizophrenia.
One of the lessons that should be required learning for many of us, is that even with family, we get to set boundaries. We get to decide how much, or how little, we interact with other human beings. Also, what I decide is the way I want to set my boundaries, doesn’t mean yours need to be the same. As Carly lays out in the article below, there are quite a few things to consider, but it is your decision, and you should always put your own mental health first.
I love this whole article from Terry because this was the one concept that kind of put me over the hump in therapy: “We find our voice and suddenly realize: we get to be whoever we decide we want to be.” When my therapist first asked me that question, “what do you want your life…
This is, undoubtedly true for women, but I would add that for men, we have been taught that achievement and professional success matter, not self-care, and thus the lessons in the article are equally true. A lot of women feel guilty about a self-care plan — we have been taught to put others first. But,…
This study is a little limited, in that they only surveyed women, and admit that it is a correlation study, meaning they didn’t attempt to determine if this was a cause and effect relationship, but I have talked to enough survivors of abuse to feel like this is pretty common. “In other words, participants who…
