If you're wondering what it's like living with bipolar disorder, or a serious mental illness,  here is one of the most illuminating lines on the subject that I've come across: "It explores the difference between a sick brain and a mind left trying to cope with it." It was written by Natasha Tracy, describing the focus of her new Breaking Bipolar blog on HealthyPlace.com.

HealthyPlace has the largest narcissism site on the internet: Malignant Self-Love: Narcissism Revisited. Thousands of people visit every month. I mention this because we are constantly flooded with emails from victims of narcissists, mostly women, who are emotionally beat up and mentally dragged down after being in a relationship with a narcissist.  While reading through these emails, I've often wondered what attracted these women to men with narcissistic personality disorder and led them to stay; even at huge emotional and financial costs.  Those who were lucky enough to escape are still reeling, trying to delve through the aftermath. For answers to "why?," we are turning to this week's guest, Sandra Brown, MA.

Sexual abuse--whether by a loved relative or a violent rape by a stranger—is an attack on a person’s sexuality (The Damage Caused By Sexual Abuse). It’s no wonder that many survivors of incest, rape, and molestation report that they suffer from problems with sexual relating and intimacy.

When a parent dies by suicide, children are left with lots of questions. The stigma associated with suicide commonly causes survivors to hide the truth and suppress their anguish. Suicide often becomes a secret that the surviving parent and other family members don't talk about. And when children don’t have answers to their questions, they tend to come up with their own, which can be incorrect and scary!

For most Americans, our experience of someone living with Schizophrenia comes via seeing some street person who appears "out of their mind" or watching tv news and finding out a person with schizophrenia has killed someone or wrecked havoc (Schizophrenics Find Stigma Is Even Worse Than the Disease).  That's why it was amazing to watch our interview with this week's guest, Kristin Bell, who sat there calmly sharing her story like anyone else.

Susan Inman's daughter suffered from severe psychosis and was later diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder. Susan discusses the toll Molly's severe mental illness took on her and her family, finding the right treatment for psychosis, and the tools she used to save her daughter's sanity as well as manage her own. Watch the interview with Susan Inman at Schizoaffective Disorder in the Family: Saving My Daughter's Sanity.

Eating With Your Anorexic author and HealthyPlace blogger, Laura Collins, has a bold message for parents of children and teens with eating disorders - "It's not your fault!" A lot of the information on the causes of eating disorders points the finger at parents.  Parents, says Collins, are blamed by many researchers and treatment professionals as playing some role in the causes of eating disorders in their children. She wants more evidence-based research into the causes of eating disorders as well as eating disorders treatment recommendations.

Raising a child is hard enough. Having a child with an addiction can be a living hell; a nightmare of constant heartache and worry. This week, on the HealthyPlace Mental Health TV Show, we're focusing on parents of addicts - what they do right, wrong, and how to draw the line in helping an addicted child (teen or adult).

A common problem every parent faces is how to assess and deal with behavior problems in children.  Unfortunately, kids don't come with a manual and most of us learn parenting skills from our own parents and how they raised us.  Sometimes, that's not enough when you're dealing with a child who presents special parenting challenges.

I first noticed depression symptoms in the spring of 1990. At the time, I was a part-time college professor, with three healthy children, a loving husband, a beautiful home, and money in the bank when clinical depression (aka major depression) grabbed me and brought me to my knees. When I was finally diagnosed with clinical depression, I asked how can I be depressed? We knew about situational depression, but very little about clinical depression.