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    #MentalHealth #Fasting #Day1 #change #Bipolar #personalitydisorder #bipolard

    Hello how is everyone? Good I hope I just wanted to share I've starting a new program today in hopes of getting my health back I suffer from a lot of things and Im starting to think it's cause I'm over weight I'm the biggest I've ever been and I researched fasting and it seem to be a good choice has alot of amazing benefits today is my first day I know it's gonna get hard but I've made a choice so I know I can do it if y'all could send me good vibes is appreciate it thank you hope everyone is doing well 🖤🙃✌🏻 Mindyl

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    I just got approved for a medical leave from work

    I recently started working with a career counselor and her number one recommendation to me was to take a medical leave from work. I have always been a reliable and committed employee and this has been a difficult concept to wrap my mind around. The problem is, by being reliable and committed to work I have absolutely nothing left over for me and my personal life has become a black hole.

    I was so so so anxious about speaking with my doctor about this. I have actually been unofficially boycotting him since last fall (he didn't know that) mainly because I just don't feel heard by him. He also doesn't seem properly equipped to deal with mental health concerns, and in particular completely ignores comments about feeling suicidal.

    But I did it. I booked an appointment with him, I said what I had to say, and I even asked follow up questions (not that he was very helpful with those). He didn't argue or push back, but agreed very easily, which was a surprise. I asked for one month, and he wrote a letter asking for two months.

    I have to tell my boss now and I am so anxious about it. I know this is going to devastate and crush her, especially with the particular projects going on at work right now, but I can't keep destroying myself in order to not destroy her. (I am second in command in our office, so we work together extremely closely.) The leave starts tomorrow, so I have to go in today and wrap things up.

    I have never done anything like this before, but it has been a long, slow decline for the past decade and I have reached a very low point. I don't like the idea of being on a list somewhere as having taken time off for health reasons because I feel like that will be a black mark against me for future employers, even though they are legally not allowed to discriminate against me for this. I feel simultaneously like a failure and like I have been set free. It's going to be a big adjustment.

    #CheckInWithMe #MedicalLeave #Work #Employment #MentalHealth #Depression #Anxiety #Trauma #Undiagnosed #change

    22 reactions 7 comments
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    Any tips for when adjusting to a new dose increase?

    I’m on a pretty low dose of 20mg cipralex but going up to 40mg I think it’s making me extra anxious. Hope it’s okay to talk about meds here.

    Just wanted tips for when it first makes you extra anxious. Or your experience with meds.

    If you feel comfortable sharing if you do take meds what dose you are on or what you find helps you even if you don’t take meds, but you don’t want to share that’s perfectly okay
    Thanks Everyone #meds #Medication #Dose #dosage #heal #Pain #Hope #Advice #yourexperience #coping #Tips #tryingtobehopeful #adjustjng #change

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    Anxiety Talk #LetsTalkAnxiety #mindset #change

    I love the title of this group. But a lesson I am learning since downloading this app is serving my anxious self a notice:
    Let’s talk, Anxiety;
    Anxiety, talk less! Period.

    When this happens, I can handle the day and NOT flip in bed due to excessive thoughts.😁! Good Morning and Good Night to you, #TheMighty , from my neck of the woods.

    #Anxiety #anxiousthoughts #nomore

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    Throwback reflection

    There are times when what has been becomes suddenly much more real then usual.
    Not as a flashback - they're definitely different - but more like a realization that what's in my memories, in my patterns, in my body and mind has really happened, some time ago in my life.

    What surprises me the most is:
    I'm not fine, even though I'm better than in previous months and years, but, the hell, compared to before it's like I'm in Heaven.

    It doesn't bring me the positivity and mood switch I might expect, it weights the same, most of the times, but it surely helps me redimensioning the whole picture.
    I'm grateful, overall, for one thing: now, when I have my crisis, they're still bad and, sometimes, worse than other times years ago, BUT they're crisis: they happen from time to time. (I'm not talking about being on low mood; to me, before, it was much more than that: tentacles slipping out of my head trying to choke me and smash anything inside and around me).
    I can feel my mind clean, and, yup, I'm now crying, all of a sudden.

    I'd never wanna go back to before.

    A week ago I was writing a post I've never shared and, when recalling the bad effects the thing I was talking about had on me, I realized the list was very very long and very very painful and messy.
    What makes it often difficult for me to comprehend my patterns and problems is that I tend to hide them, and then forget about them, over the years.

    Thing is, there has been terror.
    I don't wanna include the details, because I'm aware that for someone they could be not nice.

    I shared this picture (search for Riftress on Pinterest, if you're interest - I really like these works) because it is one of the pics I saved back then.
    Something have sucked up my own self from my life and I think it was the exhaustion from that period.

    Crying helps me too.
    If now I'm crying, it means it really has been hard.
    Since I tend to hide and minimize, since people shared their issues with me and rarely listened to me, always ignored the signals I was pointing out and since things for me often changed - environmentally speaking - I tend to forget.
    To me, now, it feels like I'm based on a void past.
    It doesn't mean I'd wanna linger on it: just that in order to understand why I am the way I am today I need to recall.

    Times like this one, though, makes me wanna go back that before and erase everything. Why it had to be so damageful.
    Again, though, I tend to hide: none really witnessed in person any free expression of my mental state, so, then, it feel more righteous to minimize it. This confuses me.

    Though I think it's not fair to compair: the same trauma can have different outcomes on different people; that's why I think crying is helpful -> it spots out the fact that what I'm feeling and thinking about - recalling - has really been a hardship for me.

    But it seems impossible that all the dark lump has really left. Did it?
    Instead of feeling and expressing itself in dark and full of --- ways*, my mind's just flat. That's the new pattern, I guess.
    I've been backfired.
    * I don't really feel at ease sharing details, again, but I don't know how to express it.

    I still have issues to work on, sometimes - often - I just can take my mind anymore, I often have no energy to live my life, but sure it changed. Time heals.
    And I've understood myself and other people better, in the meanwhile, which has been another fundamental turning point.
    And I can't express how grateful I am whenever I get to become more aware then before. I love understanding.
    So - I still can change and for the better.
    There's and I have hope in it.

    #Reflection #throwback #Trauma #Crisis #time #Understanding #past #Memory #Pain #cry #Life #mind #pattern #backfired #Healing #Awareness #HealingProcess #exhaustion #Monster #illness #MentalHealth #growing #growth #Present #Hope #change #Grief #Energy

    20 reactions 5 comments
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    Morning Anxiety? 🤔 💡 Guilt Relief! 🤩 #change #mindset #Guilt #Anxiety #ChildhoodAnxiety

    I woke early this morning with my companion called anxiety. This time, I watched a short video about overcoming guilt: I have not intentionally made the choice to do something wrong, especially not at 5:30AM. The judgement is now an acquittal! Sentence released!👏👏👏

    So, I sat still in the quietness and whispered, “No! I did not choose or make a conscious choice to do this or that intentionally,” as I spoke out the memories I wrestled with by blaming myself and issuing a judgment against myself. Yes, as I type this message, it sounds like I have been the judge and jury in the courtroom of my mind, for far too long.

    The understanding of self-care is possibly just starting to break through the thick clouds of guilt fueled judgment I have grown accustomed to living under. An hour latter, I had a glimpse and a released form of happiness.

    #conquer #mindset

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    2022

    I’m proud of myself for sticking with the gym this year, even though I’ve had times where I went a week or two without going. I didn’t lose all my progress like I thought. My mental state was much better when I was sticking with it regularly. Even when I didn’t want to go, I still went, no matter my emotional state. Staying consistent with things has been my biggest struggle & while it’s not perfect, I’ve been more consistent than in the past. I hope this inspires someone to choose yourself & don’t allow the battle within to steal your dreams. 🫶🏻 #MentalHealth #Fitness #ChronicDepression #Anxiety #Singlemom #change

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    The Time it Takes to Heal and Why to Resist Counting

    There are times when mental illness is inexplicably and irreversibly triggered, feeling out of the blue and bringing on the question of, “why is this happening?” Hospitalizations or acts of deliriously erratic behaviour, unlike the person you have known before. It feels sudden, shocking, and destabilizing. It might change how you see yourself or others, it might just be paramount in a series of upcoming challenges.

    I am not an expert on the cause, here. I don’t know if any of this is truly out of the blue, because science has acknowledged several potential triggering factors that could clarify how we arrive at these moments. For me, what happened felt like the longest slow burn in history. There was a suddenness to the escalation of my condition, but thinking back shows me tremendous kindling. There were a million hints of varying sizes, but I didn’t see them. Nobody did. (As an aside: just because we don’t see it, doesn’t mean it isn’t there!)

    In all those years I learned things that had the duality of being helpful and hurtful. I was excellent at being alone and independent, but also unwilling to give other people a chance. My fight or flight mode had me surviving many painful things, though it disrupted my ability to be present in normal circumstances.

    What I have started to realize is that it took me many years to get here. Many years of defence mechanisms and resistance, insecurities and pain. Those things don’t leave overnight. They don’t scurry away after a week of therapy– in fact, I think it is fair to say that the true time it takes to deeply heal can rival the time it takes to make these things. Not always. But often.

    That’s a scary thought, to be held to the past and the things that hinder my healing for so long. To have this idea that it could take quite some time when I really feel I need to see results now. But what do we get if we take this observation and look at it from a perspective of self-compassion?

    We get the recognition that change is scary but valuable. We get to see that it is okay to take time, we can give ourselves permission to recover without assigning deadlines. Without telling ourselves that we should be here or there. We could instead make room for what we want to practice or learn. No should have, not resenting ourselves for what we needed to survive.

    I’m tired of trying to grow all the time, trying to create the kind of life that I want. That is half of what is inside of me. But I’m also surprised by how much I have seized and changed and there is more of me here than ever before. I am early in addressing all these things, but I see myself growing with clarity.

    Don’t get me wrong, sometimes I do need to let myself feel frustrated and resentful. I have to keep processing the pain as I go. But I can make the choice to invite in the idea that even if things move slowly, they are moving to change my life and I can see it.

    Here's to the possibility of trying, even if our inner voices are not always on our side. Even if it feels like the clock is ticking. We can let ourselves try.

    #Bipolar #Therapy #MoodDisorder #Anxiety #Healing #Selfcompassion #mindset #change

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    A want to move on..

    My last post about being rooted in the past, is still speaking to me. For some reason I feel a drive to move from my current town and home that I’ve known for 36 years! It won’t be easy, moving all our possessions and uprooting to the East Coast of the U.S. I’ve lived in the East though, for 19 years of my life. I’m quite certain I could do it again. My husband says he’s ok with it. He’s someone who grew up in California. Really, he vacillates on moving..I dislike the changes that have happened in our neighborhood..More ADU’s more traffic, people not taking care of property, people infringing on our property..I know there would be a whole set of new things to get use to in a new place, but Hopefully, overall it would be a change for the better. I’d like to be closer to my children (-even though one has written us off!) I’m just antsy for a new start, a new beginning, some where else..I could do this! My husband, not really. He’s too rigid in his ways, even though he’d move for me, he just can’t step outside the box or color outside the lines…#PTSD #change #Comfort married to a non-practicing alcoholic still causes #confrontation #freedom need a #New way, a new place to call #home I just feel I need this before I’m too old…

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