I got this question over on the EHAB Tumblr: Can I ask why it’s not good to define yourself based on your mental illness? I mean I understand that I am complex and interesting beyond my depression, but sometimes I…
Overcoming stigma when blogging about health and illness.
I recently gave a keynote presentation at Diabetes Linkup, a conference for Type 2 Diabetes bloggers, on the topic of overcoming stigma to connect with peers online. I was sharing lessons learned from the past four years of sharing about my…
Mental Illness Recovery Q&A with The Mighty
For OCD Week, I joined The Mighty for a live Q&A on their Facebook page all about my journey with recovery from mental illness. I usually keep my videos focused on mental health and where I’m going now, so I…
Mental Illness is Like Drowning (video)
When I say that mental illness is like drowning and building better mental health is like learning how to swim, I’m not suggesting that mental illnesses aren’t real biological experiences. Drowning is a very biological experience. If we took some…
Do you know how to get to a healthy place you’ve never been?
You’re an expert in where you are now. But if you want to move to a place you’ve never been, it helps to speak with people who understand that new place. They understand the culture and the language of living…
Is OCD Chronic? (video)
OCD isn’t chronic. But mental health is, just like physical health. If you don’t take care of your physical health, it’s entirely normal to experience consequences from that. Mental health is no different.
OCD FAQ: What’s the best natural supplement to cure OCD? (video)
I often get asked what supplements I took or what medications I took to recover from OCD and all of the things that went along with that. But I didn’t take any supplements or any medications. So this is how…
Get proactive with mental health issues before…
Often we don’t pay attention to a mental illness until we’ve fed it and fed it and it’s grown so large that it fills up every room we walk into and we’re always standing in a stinking pile of…
Is your employee quiet? No, just anxious.
That ad pictured above for the book, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, suggests that avoiding people is just part of being quiet. Actually, crossing the road because you don’t want to make small…
Avoiding Anxiety Triggers (video)
When it comes to avoiding anxiety triggers, approach them in the same way you would if you had a physical injury: understand what’s causing the pain and stop that, do specific exercises to recover from the injury, and then gradually…
What causes OCD? (video)
When it comes to the question of what causes Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, the simple answer is that the causes are complex. But what I really want to emphasize when it comes to any anxiety disorder, is that it really doesn’t…
Getting back to normal after mental illness. (video)
I often hear people talking about “normal” and wanting things to be the way they used to be before they got diagnosed with a mental illness. But normal and the way things used to be is what led to the…