Blogs
Building strong self-esteem requires us to make sure we're not masking our true emotions from ourselves. A natural extension of that is to feel strong enough to express your feelings to others. That doesn't mean we have to act out on negative feelings by doing things that could hurt ourselves or others. It means that we are not wrong to experience the gamut of emotions. We can work on being honest about how we feel to build self-esteem.
It's scary to arrive at a crossroads between the familiar identity of an eating disorder and the unknown quantity of healing. You have a choice to either remain in the destructive yet comfortable patterns of your illness or to embark on a new path that is rife with challenges but leads to freedom on the other side. This decision is yours alone to make, but if you choose to brave that road to health and wholeness, the question then becomes: How do you face down fears in eating disorder recovery?
Let's face it: there are a lot of aspects of mental illness that can be traumatic, but what about when we don't even have the mental illness we think we have? I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder six years ago, found out that diagnosis was incorrect two years ago, and now a huge part of my recovery is dealing with the fallout and trauma of that misdiagnosis.
Dissociative identity disorder (DID) comes with a wide range of symptoms, one of which is dissociation, but how do you know you aren’t just daydreaming? This is something that many people misunderstand when it comes to DID, and it can be the difference between receiving a diagnosis and continuing on with life without treatment.
The time has come for me to move on from the "Binge Eating Recovery" blog here at Healthy Place. Sharing my recovery process here has been an interesting experience, and I hope you gained insights and tools that help you on your binge eating recovery journey. Here are some parting thoughts I wanted to share with you.
Dating someone with an eating disorder can be challenging. I know every single one of my past relationships was affected by my eating disorder, and while there are undeniably things I could have done differently, there are also things I wish I'd been able to articulate to my exes to make the relationship easier.
As an anxious person, I have found that decision-making can be very challenging for someone who struggles with anxiety. As a matter of fact, decision-making can seem like such a daunting task, regardless of how major or minor the decision may be.
Like mental health in general, self-harm is surrounded by harmful stereotypes that perpetuate the feelings of fear, guilt, and shame. We can only bust these self-harm myths by educating one another and by spreading awareness about self-injury.
Although mental health stigma and its impacts are often compartmentalized into specific moments or situations, the fear of mental health stigma has an impact on day-to-day life. It affects the way we carry ourselves and the way we navigate our days, and recognizing this can help garner a better understanding of stigma's impact.
I have bipolar disorder, but I'm not a bipolar survivor. I am a psych patient, but I'm not a psych patient survivor. Which is to say that I am surviving a life as both, but I don't feel the need to take the word "survivor" as my own. I find tacking the word "survivor" after everything unnecessary and clunky. It strikes me as being a cry for external validation that I just don't require. I'm not a "bipolar survivor" or "psych patient survivor" and that's okay.
Yes! Anxiety can very much be like a guide, and the bumps on a freeway is a great metaphor! I love this insight.