When someone says, “you’re so brave” (as they do all the time) all I hear is that to them, my life is pitiful, and I feel diminished and reduced to my diagnosis. It makes me think of an after school special on “never giving up” (remember those cheesy posters from the eighties and nineties with a cat hanging on a rope? Yeah, that.)
It’s a new year. We are celebrating our stories, and our lived and living experience by showcasing our most engaging posts of 2022.
Working as a registered nurse in geriatric nursing care for nearly 40 years, I’ve been implementing different strategies into my practice. Among my top priorities has been identifying and implementing activities for delaying cognitive decline. When I became a director of nursing care, I started incorporating them into our training sessions with nurses so that they could learn how to help seniors on their way to mental well-being. Now, I will gladly share these beneficial practices with you.
Years ago, when my depression was quite bad, I had wished for simplicity in some of my weekly errands that would allow me the least amount of human interaction. Get in, get out, and get home. This was long before I saw my first self-checkout machine, when I, like everyone else, no matter how we were feeling, had to engage in polite conversation with a complete stranger. Those interactions on difficult days often made me anxious.
Even children can struggle with mental health challenges. But how do you explain mental health to children in an age-appropriate way? It’s got to be engaging, it’s got to be fun, and it’s got to be relevant. My 10-year-old son gets a lot of mental health messaging from me, his “StigmaCrusher” mom, but I’m “just his mom” so I lean on the power of media.
This blog post discusses trauma and eating disorders. Does the festive winter holiday season give you the warm fuzzies? “It’s the most wonderful time of
Distress, anxiety, and anger are just some of the psychological impacts of the climate crisis on the well-being of children and young people worldwide. A recent study, the largest of its kind — asked 10,000 young people in 10 countries how they felt about climate change and government responses to it.
Not having all the answers when supporting a friend experiencing a mental health difficulty is not necessarily a bad thing. Resist the urge to fix.
It’s Movember, the month when we focus on men’s mental health and raise awareness and improve mental and physical health outcomes for men around the world. Some show their support with symbolic moustaches, while others lend their voice to the overdue conversation about men’s mental health.
