It is common for people who have anxiety to engage in self-injury as a coping mechanism, to help reduce the symptoms of anxiety and induce feelings of numbness, or even euphoria. In this video blog, I explain why self-injury seems to calm anxiety in some people -- and why, ultimately; it is an unhealthy coping mechanism that should be replaced by healthy ones.

Are you having problems making friends since leaving your abusive relationship? You aren't alone in being alone. Abuse survivors make it out of their abusive relationships often to find they have no friends, or at least no one they can trust to be a friend. And after so much time in an abusive relationship, the effects of the emotional abuse can leaving you feeling like you're not worthy of a friend. Despite the problems, you can make good friends after an abusive relationship and create a life you want to live.

Its 6:59 on Thursday morning. I've been drinking coffee and procrastinating online for an hour; the radio is always on and I don't usually hear it. I just like background noise. That's the hyperactive part of me. More than one thing always needs to be happening. It's pretty irritating.

It’s no secret that those of us in LGBT relationships tend to have strong emotional attachments with our partners, particularly long-term partners. While this can be a wonderful experience in a relationship with healthy boundaries between “self” and “other”, strong emotional attachments can become maddening when codependency is an issue. Anyone who has spent any time in the LGBT community may have heard comments like: “Lesbians never break up.” and “Gay men never let go.” While this has been a widely accepted idea often used to stereotype our relationships as dysfunctional, research is showing that there is some truth to these statements. Specifically; that women in same-sex relationships tend to remain connected and intertwined in each others lives long after break-up.

Many people make New Year’s resolutions. I don’t endorse this practice, personally, mostly because I think people are quite unrealistic when they do it. They don’t make goals that make sense and they then place far too much pressure on themselves to turn the goals into a reality. And possibly, if you’re bipolar, it might be even worse. You might have had the best of intentions when making a resolution like to quit smoking, take your medications as prescribed or create a set bedtime, but by now, you’ve probably noticed that you haven’t quite stuck to your resolution. And if you’re like many bipolars, you’re probably not feeling too good about that.

If you've ever attempted recovery from your eating disorder-- especially if you've been in a eating disorder treatment center -- you've likely heard this refrain at least once: Secrets keep you sick. It's true. Secrets keep us sick. Eating disorders thrive on secrets. How else could you get by for so long with binging and purging, with eating less than X calories a day, with exercising for hours on end, with spending hundreds of dollars a month on binges? It's not likely that you're broadcasting these things (I certainly didn't) or someone would hold you accountable.

Defining healthy self-esteem and simple tools to achieve healthy self-esteem.

Dear Fear, You are not dear, Fear. I am not sorry to say that this relationship is over! I have panicked enough! And I am done with you. Done. Done. Done. Done. I am tired of you, anxiety. I will no longer let you stop me from being who I can be. Hold me back from my full potential. No more will I allow myself to listen to your lies, anxiety, telling me that I can't handle life, that I have to stay home, seclude myself, and miss out on the fun. I have had it with your warnings that "something bad will happen" or that "I would embarrass myself" or "it will be awful."

"I live in such a fog!", Ophelia said to me last week. "I can't see my way out of it." Boy, do I remember that feeling! Ophelia lives overseas and we work on her PTSD recovery via Skype. She's terrifically motivated, open to trying new approaches and honest about her healing experience. The PTSD fog, I've learned, is universal. I myself waded through it for decades until is was so thick I felt its swirl around me was more real than the world in which everyone else lived.

Homework was a touchy subject with Bob, pre-ADHD and treatment. Bob hated it and so did I. I dreaded coming home to help Bob with his homework. I knew a battle would come because Bob never wanted to do his homework. It was boring to him.