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Sharing – 11 Things People Wish They Were Told After Someone Dies
ByMikeM March 12, 2022March 12, 2022 Reading Time: 1 minute

There were also people who simply weren’t there. People we thought we could depend on, and they just didn’t show up. I have always suspected that many of them simply didn’t know what to say, so they stayed away. What they didn’t realize is that I never needed them to say the right thing, I just needed to know they were there. When they weren’t, it just added more grief.

Your words are not what’s important. Your words can’t heal someone grieving. But your presence is everything.

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Sharing – Prison is no place for people with mental illnesses. I know because I was in one
ByMikeM March 10, 2022March 10, 2022 Reading Time: 2 minutes

There is a direct link between the growing prison population and the lack of mental health resources. The only difference is that we can scare people into paying to build more prisons and keep “dangerous people” away from us. It’s much harder to convince people to invest in prevention through mental health treatment, even if that would be much more effective in protecting everyone.

Read More Sharing – Prison is no place for people with mental illnesses. I know because I was in one
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Sharing – People harm themselves to cope with big emotions. You can help them heal.
ByMikeM March 7, 2022March 6, 2022 Reading Time: 1 minute

I appreciate that there is someone researching this, and I am also glad that the subject of the article, artist Donalen Rojas Bowers, is sharing her story as well. It’s not an easy thing to talk about, it’s not an easy thing to learn about, and it’s definitely not an easy thing to find out someone you love is self-harming.

None of that unease should matter when compared to understanding and helping kids and adults who feel the need to self-harm because there have no better options available. The only way we find those is to talk about this.

Read More Sharing – People harm themselves to cope with big emotions. You can help them heal.
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Sharing – When You Have a Lifelong Struggle With PTSD and Depression
ByMikeM March 2, 2022March 2, 2022 Reading Time: 2 minutes

It can be a struggle when so many of our friends and even professionals want to help us overcome abuse to “get back to” ourselves when there is no previous version of ourselves to use as a target. I don’t think this should be the goal anyway. The goal for any child abuse victim should not be to go back to being a younger version of themselves before the abuse, the goal should be to build a life after abuse. I didn’t find much healing in trying to remember my early childhood, but I found a ton of healing in having someone help me design the life I wanted to have as an adult and helping me feel worthy and capable of having that.

Read More Sharing – When You Have a Lifelong Struggle With PTSD and Depression
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Sharing – My Husband Took His Life After Hiding Years of Sexual Abuse
ByMikeM February 28, 2022February 27, 2022 Reading Time: 2 minutes

Lenore’s story is sad and tragic, but her message is important. We lose so many survivors, men, and women, who just never find a way to share their pain and look for help. People who live without hope because they feel shame about something that was never their fault. I encourage you to read what she has to say about her hope in sharing her husband’s story. I also encourage you to consider how many survivors we lose in the same way who we don’t even know were abused as children because they never felt safe enough to tell anyone. I guarantee there are many more people like that than we would like to think about.

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Sharing – Having your pain invalidated is associated with increased shame and, in turn, an increased risk of depression
ByMikeM February 25, 2022February 24, 2022 Reading Time: 1 minute

There’s more at the link, but again I’m going to ask, given the positive impacts of validating someone’s pain and emotions, and the negative impacts of invalidating those same things, why would we do anything else?

Read More Sharing – Having your pain invalidated is associated with increased shame and, in turn, an increased risk of depression