• Sharing – Generosity and Happiness

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 2 minutes

    As the post below goes on to explain, it’s not just being generous financially that has this effect on us, it can also be giving time by volunteering, or helping out someone who can use it, cooking a meal for them, helping them clean, etc. All of these ways of giving to another human being helps that person, and it helps us. It’s good for us.

    The other thing I’d like for many survivors to consider is finding a way to be generous during the holidays especially when you are struggling with the holidays to start with. Yes, I’ve seen many, many folks already starting to dread the holidays. They are estranged from their families, expect to spend the holidays alone, etc. It sucks, I won’t lie about that. But, consider finding a way to be generous, as a way to make the holidays a bit less lonely. Volunteer at a soup kitchen, or another place that may be serving holiday meals. Hop online and offer to chat with other folks in a similar situation over the holidays, make plans to get outside of your own situation, and find a way to give to someone else, even if it’s nothing more than time.

    That might be the better option for the holidays compared to just waiting for them to be over if you can find a way to do it.

  • Sharing – Others Have it Worse

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 2 minutes

    I think there maybe a couple of reasons why we fall into this. Al mentions one of the big ones, this becomes a way to avoid really facing our own issues. Since our issues are “not as bad” as someone else we can point to, this becomes our excuse to simply accept them instead of trying to work on ourselves and do the hard work of healing. Similarly, I also think this is an example where so many of us don’t see ourselves as worthy of getting better. Our issues aren’t as bad, so we don’t really deserve to get treatment, or get support, or even admit that we need it. The truth, though, is that everyone is worth being supported and getting help when necessary. There is no one in this world who has never needed any support, no matter what kinds of trauma and struggles they are having, or how bad someone else might have it.

  • Sharing – Don’t Just Post About Supporting Those With Depression, Support Them

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 2 minutes

    John ends his post with an important message, one that I echo for sure because his story is something I’ve heard too many times. He talks about “reaching out” to people only to be dismissed. Being told “Oh you’re strong, you’ll get through this”, or that it’s not that serious, and then the struggle to reach out to a hotline or for professional help and be met with some short term strategies, and lack of available resources, etc. is how you “support” depression without really supporting the person in front of you dealing with depression.

    Just the other day I saw someone close to me talking about spending 45 minutes just trying to figure out how to set up an appointment with a therapist through the app her insurance has set up for her through her employer, before finally giving up.

    This is why we need reminders like this for the people we know, and why we need to remind the entire mental health care industry of this as well.

  • Sharing – Aly Raisman Talks Healing from Triggering Senate Testimony

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 2 minutes

    This makes complete sense, but I fear it’s something we don’t remember when it comes to our own healing. We kind of forget that there are ups and downs, and we also tend to forget just how much energy and effort is involved in talking about it anywhere, let alone in front of a Senate Committee and national audience, and how that’s going to impact us for a time.

    What Aly, and the other gymnasts, did that day in the hearing is brave, but we’d do well to also recognize how much energy that took as well, and the need to recover from that energy expenditure, because we should also be applying that to ourselves, and our own healing.

  • Sharing – Feel Emotions—Don’t Fight or Feed Them

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 1 minute

    You know, many of us are guilty of this. We like to suggest that people feel their emotions, but we never really define what that means. I enjoyed the article below because it talks specifically about what it’s not, fighting not to feel them, or feeding them so much that they swallow us whole.

  • Sharing – Other People Don’t Think You’re a Mess

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 3 minutes

    The key is to have some compassion for yourself, similar to the compassion you might have for someone else in a vulnerable situation. When you can do that, suddenly what the other person does isn’t as important, you’ve given yourself grace, and acceptance.

    As childhood abuse survivors, of course, this is tricky. Self-compassion is not generally one of our strengths. How could it be? All our lives we’ve been told that bad things happen either to bad people, or for a reason, and we’ve had something horrible happen to us, so we must be broken in some way to have had that experience. Didn’t we all think that way at one point or another? How could we not?