songs about struggling with mental illness
A handful of days ago, I wrote about revisiting some of my favorite music and paying closer attention to the lyrics that have stayed with me over the years. In that post, I shared a…
Category: mental health_illness
What are the benefits of forgiveness?
As this question notes, withholding forgiveness can function as a kind of self-harm. I just finished reading, The How of Happiness, by Sonja Lyubomirsky. In it, she points to a substantial body of research showing that…
losing my prior identity; finding my new self
Six and a half years ago, I experienced a severe episode of Depression and Anxiety. Since then, much of my emotional energy has been spent trying to claw my way back to the person I…
To err is human. To beat oneself up is Michael.
Low self-esteem paired with anxiety is a miserable combination. Because of those anxiety-shaped thought patterns, I frequently call myself stupid—out loud at home and under my breath in public. I blow my mistakes out of…
Yesterday, I almost fell into a black hole.
In astronomy, a black hole is a place where gravity becomes so overwhelming that nothing escapes—not matter, not light. Space and time collapse into one another. Lately, I've come to think that's one of the…
My mental health meds have stopped working.
The mental health medication cocktail I've relied on for the past several years to keep me “normal” has stopped working. That sucks. But I also know this is often part of life for people who…
Deepening Anxiety
I hate it when anxiety freezes my mind. It's as though my brain transforms from a functioning—sometimes even joyful—organ into a block of concrete: frozen, immobilized, locked in a hyper-defensive posture, preparing for an attack…