Finding Your Marbles
A Mental Health Survival Guide

For me, one of the worst aspects of depression was how much it affected my ability to make decisions. I’m a “take charge” kind of guy, and I felt absolutely helpless when I was so paralyzed by my depression that I couldn’t even make simple decisions. And tough decisions? Forget it!

Last summer I was reading “What Color is Your Parachute” by Richard Bolles, and I found a great decision making tool. With a bit of tinkering, I have come up with my own version of the tool, and now I use it all the time to help me make tough decisions. I wish I had it 5 years ago when I was still depressed.

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I am one of those lucky people who suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder, also known as “SAD.” It starts every December; my energy levels drop, my moods change, and I start to have trouble sleeping. Fortunately, I have a couple of ways that I deal with SAD so that it has a minimal impact on my life.

According to the Mood Disorders Society of Canada, nobody really knows what causes SAD. It is thought that the condition is brought on by the body’s response to shorter days and colder temperatures in winter. In general, sufferers report lower energy levels, depressed mood, and, strangely, a huge craving for carbohydrates. (it is this craving that differentiates SAD from depression)

There are lots of treatments available for SAD, such as light boxes, medication and therapy, and they are all worth a try. However, most of the treatments focus on the symptoms and not the underlying condition. To effectively manage SAD, you need make some changes to your lifestyle and habits such as managing your sleeping patterns and habits.

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I used to be terrible at crisis management. When anything bad happened that was outside my control, I would always come apart at the seams. I would start to panic, and I would end up making a huge mess of things and getting myself more depressed and anxious.

At an old job I had, one of my projects was to write up a crisis management plan. When I was finished this project, I began to wonder if I could apply the same skills and techniques that I used at work to my personal life to see if I could do a better job at crisis management. After some experiments and fine tuning, I developed a five-part personal crisis management system. By applying this system, I was eventually able to manage my anxiety during a crisis. I wasn’t as unprepared when things went wrong, and I was able to quickly calm myself down and get the crisis under control.

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Trent over at The Simple Dollar wrote this great article about how to cook family meals when you are exhausted or stressed out. It’s a great (and short) article with lots of good advice. Also make sure you check the comments for more good cooking solutions.

Continue reading “Link: How to Cook for a Family When You are Stressed Out” »

This article over at Getting Green shows you how to tell you if are getting bad financial advice. It does this by giving you a list of questions that you should ask yourself when someone is telling you how to manage your money.

It’s a great article, and the only thing I would add is that it is always good to get a second opinion on financial advice. Also, if you are currently in therapy, it never hurts to check with your therapist before you make any major financial decisions.

Continue reading “Link: How to Identify Bad Financial Advice” »

Friday is my favorite day of the week. I always make Friday my “do nothing much day.” Even if I have a ton of work to do, I try to plan my time and workload so that I don’t have much to do on Fridays, or, if I can’t avoid working, I try to find some way to take a 1 - 2 hour break during the day (usually at lunch) so I can go and relax.

I started doing this years ago when I realised that I was not taking any time for myself. My weeks were always busy, and on the weekends I was so tied up in social stuff and housework that I was never taking time for myself. So I decided to take Fridays as “my” day to just relax and treat myself. It was one of the smartest things I’ve done.

Continue reading “TGIF! - How to Reward Yourself” »

Ok, don’t get me wrong. I love parties. They are loads of fun and they are a great way to meet people. However, I admit that I struggled with the title of this article because I didn’t want to make it sound like I thought of parties as something that had to be “survived.” (my original title was “How to Have Fun at a Party” but I hated that one even more.)

However, for someone with anxiety, parties can be pretty scary, but it doesn’t have to be that way. People with anxiety can enjoy parties as much as anyone else! The trick is to develop some skills to manage your anxiety so you can go and have a good time. So, please forgive me for the crappy title, and let’s talk about parties.

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Here’s a neat little trick I learned back when I was doing Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) for depression. CBT is a type of therapy that works on “inappropriate thinking,” I.E., it is based on the theory that mood disorders can be caused by, or at least worsened by, inappropriate emotional responses to events. Or, in other words, when you are depressed, you are getting upset when you probably shouldn’t be. It’s pretty cool and it’s easy to learn, but it takes a bit of practice.

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“He’s only big because of his bounces”
– Winnie the Pooh

Courage is one of those things that everyone tries to understand, but that nobody really gets. When most people talk about courage, what they really mean is “fearlessness.” The two concepts couldn’t be more different.

Children are taught that having courage means being fearless. Courage is “ignoring your fear and standing up to danger, no matter how scared you are.” In other words, kids are taught to be Tigger. Brave kids aren’t afraid of anything, and kids who show fear are weak. Sound familiar?

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