Sharing – Your Guide to Reentering Society Post-Vaccine
If I’m being honest with myself, I need this. I’m probably dealing right now with a level of social anxiety that is far and above anything I’ve ever dealt with before.
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Shared Links (weekly) Feb. 21, 2021
The Confess Project: How barber shops support mental health
‘Why Does Being Told to Stay Positive Piss Me Off So Much?’
Changing the Conversation About Suicide in the Black Community
It’s Not Just You: The Pandemic Has Made Social Anxiety So Much Worse
How to Create an Antidepressant Home
Boys, too, are victims of sexual violence
The Power Of A Good Friendship
Victims and survivors of sexual abuse being reminded they are not alone
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Sharing – Life With Anxiety & Depression: It’s Time We Stopped Suffering In Silence
Similar to Clint, when I wrote about not being OK a few weeks back, I also got quite a few private messages from friends and professional contacts who are silently also not OK. But they weren’t ready to talk about it publicly and I understand that. We’ve made it entirely too difficult for most people to talk about it publicly, because we immediately start to treat someone differently when we learn that they are now, or have in the past, been dealing with mental health issues. Unfortunately, that reaction that many have to hearing someone talk about it, is because we are so uncomfortable and unfamiliar with the idea of someone talking about it. And, so the circle just keeps repeating.
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Sharing – Happy childhood? That’s no guarantee for good mental health
This study out of Australia confirms something I’ve written about many times in regards to things like the ACE (Adverse Childhood Experiences) study: While the study reaffirmed that people who had adverse and unpredictable early life experiences had elevated symptoms of poor mental health (including depression and paranoia), it also found that children who grew…
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Sharing – Common Mental Health Advice We Should Actually Ignore Right Now
For example, I’m not anxious JUST because my brain is working overtime, or because I find myself focusing on the negative. I’m also anxious because over 400,000 people in the US have died from COVID-19 and a large number of people in my local area feel no need to change their behavior in acknowledgement of that fact.
You know what that is? That is reality, and there’s no amount of “good vibes” that is going to make that reality not a reality. It’s totally normal to feel anxious about that, and telling me to “think positive”, or get more sleep, or exercise, isn’t going to change that.
We all live in a very uncertain, and difficult, reality right now. The answer to social injustice and racism, again, is not just thinking positively about it. It’s having difficult, often painful, conversations about the topic. It’s about listening to other people’s experiences and working hard to understand the world differently than we did yesterday.
That too, is a source of anxiety.
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Sharing – Trying to Stay Optimistic Is Doing More Harm Than Good
We talk often about how to support someone who is struggling, and in those conversations, we talk about spending less time worrying about what to say, and more time just being present. On the other hand, there are absolutely things you should not say, and if you find yourself starting sentences with “At least”, I want you to reconsider.
