Honestly, I feel a bit like a fake lately. Here I am sharing tips and skills, and I’m barely holding it together. At least, from my view I’m barely holding it together. A friend recently said, “You’re holding yourself to some crazy standards thinking that you aren’t enough.” Well, perhaps. I hold myself to the… Read More Freeform Friday: Taking my own advice
I’ve been dropping ideas about self-care every weekend, but what about a plan? Do you have a list of “go to” self-care practices? If not, what should you do to build one?
While stimulation play has been recognized to help with ADD/ADHD and even with those who are on the autism spectrum, it’s also a great help in reducing stress and anxiety in neuro-typicals (those of us without those particular problems). The reason it works for anxiety is, in the simplest terms, it gives the brain something… Read More Top Skills Thursday: “Stimming”
You’ve worked with your therapist to isolate the thoughts and emotions that are kicking you around in your life. You’ve probably spent a few sessions discussing how you feel, what brings on certain thoughts, and beginning to understand how those drive your actions. Stress about paying bills? Let’s just stack those bills off to the… Read More Therapy Tuesday: CBT – Choosing an action
Sometimes, when I look around at my life and my current state of mind I get frustrated, but also encouraged. That sense of encouragement is really important right now, as I fight the depression. It’s all about knowing that while I feel like a ship left behind on a dried up lake… I know that… Read More Freeform Friday: Looking at reality
Now that you’ve worked with your therapist to identify the thoughts you find yourself struggling with, you’ll move forward to identifying the emotions you feel with those thoughts. Using the example I started last week, a fear of public speaking, we’ll look at how this step works.
In a CBT session the focus is on a target area. How a patient thinks, feels, and reacts to a situation or thought is causing problems in their life. There may be multiple target areas, but usually only one is addressed in each session. The first step in CBT is to address core beliefs about… Read More Therapy Tuesday: CBT – Core Beliefs
I’ve had a frustrating realization, and I decided to share it with everyone here. My reason for it isn’t to garner sympathy, but to show how I use the skills I write about. This post may be long, and I’ll put a TRIGGER WARNING here that I’m going to be discussing the ways depression and… Read More Freeform Friday: My battle with depression
It’s such an obvious thing, isn’t it? If you’re having trouble with anxiety or depression, find a therapist. Don’t ask me why, even for those of us who have successfully used therapists in the past, it’s not the first thing we think of. What I’ve learned is that it’s sometimes quite a bit harder than… Read More Top Skills Thursday: Find a therapist
I had a very rough weekend. I’m going to talk about it for two reasons. One, it may help someone to know how I handle the really huge anxiety attacks. Two, I often feel like a fake, writing about how to handle anxiety, depression, and PTSD when I still struggle so hard with them. Yes,… Read More Top Skills Thursday: Triggered and Fighting
Kambry Ellis 