Finding Your Marbles
A Mental Health Survival Guide

Last week I was talking to a friend of mine who was having trouble starting a healing journal. He had kept a journal before, but he was finding it difficult to use a journal as a healing tool.

I believe in the healing power of creative expression, and especially in the power of writing. Writing allows you to have a safe place to explore your own emotions and feelings, and it has an incredible way of helping you connect with your inner self. I think that if you learn to write, and you learn to trust your writing, you will be well along the path to recovery.

In this article, I am going to share some of the things that I did to get started with my healing journal, and I’ll also share some of the tricks I use to “protect” my writing.

Continue reading “How To Start A Healing Journal” »

Because I am “in the business,” I spend a fair amount of time reading self-help blogs and sites. Most of these sites mean well, and their authors sincerely do want to help other people get rich, lose weight, or manage their time. Some, however, are not so good, and can present a real danger to anyone suffering from a mood disorder or mental illness.

In this article, I will talk about self-help websites, how they can benefit you in your recovery, and what pitfalls you should avoid.

Continue reading “How to Avoid the Dangers of Self-Help Websites” »

Recently, Josh over at We Worry: A Blog for the Anxious, recently wrote “Why You Shouldn’t Self-Diagnose,” an article on the risks of self diagnosis.

In his article, Josh talks of the dangers of relying on self-diagnosis, or even worse, the Internet, to diagnose your own medical problems. There are too many variables to consider, and to get a correct diagnosis it is almost always necessary to go to a medical professional.

The same holds true of mental illness. Although the temptation to self-diagnose a mental illness can be overwhelming, and to be honest, there is a certain satisfaction in self-diagnosis, it is very risky to self-diagnose your own mental health.

Continue reading “The Dangers of Self-Diagnosis for Mental Illness” »

“If you have tears, prepare to shed them now.”

William Shakespeare

My son has a great skill. Whenever he gets hurt, he starts crying, and brings the hurt to mummy or daddy to get it checked out. Usually a quick kiss will take care of it, and then he happily goes right back to whatever he was doing.

Crying is our first language. As babies, we cried to let our parents know when we were scared, or hungry, or tired. It was our way of saying, “I need help right now!”

Crying has two purposes: 1) to announce that something hurts, and 2) to release the pain of whatever hurts. I don’t know the psychology behind it, but I do know that after he cries, my son is always in a great mood. Crying is a natural release for him.

Somehow, as we grew into adults, we forgot the secret of crying. We were taught that “crying is for babies” and that it is important to keep our emotions inside. So, instead of learning to release our pain through crying, we are taught to numb it through drugs, self-torture, and silent suffering.

This is what we have lost as adults. We are afraid to cry, and even when we do break down and actually shed some tears, we are overcome with anxiety because we “showed weakness.”

That’s a complete lie. Crying is not a sign of weakness. I don’t look down on my son because he cries when he is hurt. When he cries, it serves as a signal between us that he is hurting, and that’s all. He isn’t weak for asking me for help or comfort.

I can figure out where this went wrong. Adults, particularly men, can’t seem to cry. This is a terrible tragedy. Somehow one of our most valuable and powerful coping skills has been stolen from us.

Continue reading “How To Cry” »

“You have depression.”

I can still hear my doctor’s words. I had been to see him because I knew something was wrong. I was tired, my moods were all over the map and I just couldn’t seem to focus on anything. After asking me a few questions, he gave me a depression screening test, and the results came back; I had “moderate to severe major depressive disorder.”

The words were like lead weights.

“Major Depressive Disorder.”

I felt like a freak.

Being diagnosed with depression was one of the lowest points in my life. My mood and my self-esteem, already low to begin with, sunk even further. The writing was on the wall. No matter what I said, or did, I couldn’t avoid it; I had depression.

It took me over 2 years of going to therapy and taking medication to recover from depression. And along the way, I made a lot of painful mistakes. However, the worst mistake I made was when I treated my diagnosis of depression as a negative label; a label that I was crazy or worse.

If you are reading this article, and you, or someone that you know, has recently been diagnosed with depression, I hope that my words will help convince you. Being diagnosed with depression isn’t the end of the world. In this article, I hope to share with you the advice that I myself should have taken when I got my diagnosis. It would have saved me a lot of pain.

Continue reading “What to do If You Have Been Diagnosed With Depression” »

“I Have To Tell You Something”

This was how I started. I was sitting in a bar with a friend of mine, and I was about to tell him about my experiences with depression and child abuse. I had already gone “semi-public” with my story, as I had spoken to therapists, the police, my family and a few other people, but this was the first time that I was speaking to a friend about it.

I was scared half to death. Even though I had been through years of therapy, and I had spent hours in police interviews, I was terrified that my friend would not believe me, or that he would laugh at me when I told him about what I had been going through.

But, despite those fears, I told him anyway, and he didn’t laugh at me. I actually don’t remember what he did say, because most of the evening is still a blur, but I do remember that I felt much better after I told him.

After I spoke to my friend, I began to talk to other people about my abuse and struggle with depression, and I found that the more people I told, the less frightening it got. Today, I can talk openly about both subjects with complete strangers, and although I still feel a little twinge of fear now and then, my fears of disclosure are mainly gone.

So how did I get to this point? Let me start 4 years ago, just after my diagnosis with depression.

Continue reading “Disclosure Series Part 2: How I Overcame My Fear of Talking About My Mental Illness” »

Wow do I hear that question a lot.

I think that I can confidently speak for every person who is suffering from a mental illness when I say that disclosure is their single biggest concern. Before I disclosed, I spent a lot of time worrying what my friends and families would think of me if they found out that I suffered from depression. Even now, after I have recovered and I am completely public about my history with mental illness, I sometimes worry if I have done the right thing by disclosing.

Talking about mental illness is very tough, and it is very important to make sure that you are telling people about your mental illness for the right reasons. Disclosing can put you in a very vulnerable position, so if you are not completely comfortable about why you are disclosing, you could be setting yourself up for a painful and damaging experience.

However, there is probably no greater step that you can take in your recovery than disclosing. Telling other people about your mental illness can be a very liberating experience, and it can bring you an incredible amount of support and self-confidence. The important thing is to do it for the right reasons.

Continue reading “Disclosure Series Part 1: Should You Tell People About Your Mental Illness?” »

Therapy is expensive. Really expensive. I used to joke with my therapist that for the amount of money that I spent on therapy I could have gone on a cruise, or at least had a great weekend in Vegas.

One thing to keep in mind when you are trying to figure out how to pay for therapy is that therapy is very important. Your mental health should be one of your top priorities. Therefore, when you are trying to balance your budget, or when you are looking for a way to pay for your therapy, try to keep things in perspective. Think of any money that you spend on therapy not as an expense, but as a necessary and positive investment in your future well-being and good mental health.

Continue reading “What to do When You Can’t Afford Therapy” »

I love meditation.

I started meditating about a year ago, and it has made a huge difference in my peace of mind and my health. I am calmer, more relaxed, and I feel a lot better about myself.

Meditation can also be a great way to manage mental illness. Not only is it relaxing, but meditating also helps you center your thoughts and feelings, which enables to you focus on your healing instead of on your symptoms.

I have tried a bunch of different types of meditation, but the one that works the best for me, and the one that I think has had the biggest positive effect on my mental health, is the ancient“Lectio Divina,” meditation style used by Benedictine monks. It takes a little bit of practice, but it’s easy to learn so you’ll be able to get going very quickly.

Continue reading “How To Meditate Like a Monk” »

Medication can be very expensive, especially medication for mental illness. Lots of expensive research goes into those drugs, and the drug companies charge very high prices to recover their costs.

Since costs can run upwards of $75/month for some medications, this can be a major problem if you are out of money or if you’ve got to take a lot of different medications together. Even worse is when you run out of money in the middle of a medication cycle and you might start missing doses. With some medication, such as SSRIs, missing doses can be very serious so there are some major health implications if you can’t afford meds.

There are a couple of things that you can do to get your medication if you can’t afford to pay for it. Some of them take a bit of work and patience, so it is a good idea to plan ahead and make sure that you always have a good supply. The last thing you want is to be on your last pill when an unexpected bill comes in.

Continue reading “What to do When You Can’t Afford Medication” »