Supporting Our Valued Adolescents: A place to learn, share your strength, be positive, and grow.
One of the biggest news stories this week centered around Olympian gymnast Simone Biles’ decision to withdraw from the competition, citing her mental health. She opened up about the pressure that she was facing, especially as the top performer in her sport.
Most people think of self-care as an ongoing process of maintaining one’s living space, hygiene, and ensuring that basic needs are being met. It’s not always easy or fun, but it’s an essential component to being well. While these activities can seem easy to manage for most, for those dealing with mental illnesses such as depression, anxiety, or other conditions, these tasks require a greater deal of time and effort and may not be as often maintained.
A common mindset among those who are diagnosed with mental illnesses is wondering if it’s something that they brought onto themselves. There may be guilt associated with it, like the person thinking they did something wrong or ashamed that they didn’t handle past situations well enough.
In a world of such immediate communication through smartphones and the Internet, it is important to recognize the importance of words and how they can be used both positively and negatively.
Growing up, I always struggled with making acquaintances, let alone friends. I would get nervous and start panicking at the thought of looking like a fool or doing something embarrassing. Through some hard work of getting more used to talking to people at school and work (exposure therapy anyone?), I eventually got over the fear but the lingering effects are still there. In short, I don’t really have any friends besides two or three people I still speak to from my undergrad days that ended almost two years ago. Due to the recent end of the pandemic restrictions, I decided that this was going to change. I was tired of always feeling alone and having no lasting social friendships.
My anxiety starts to get bad when I feel like I don’t have control over the things around me. I like to know what’s going on around me and what is going to happen in the future. I think this is why my planner is so important to me. By filling out my planner I create the structure I need to keep anxiety under control.
We live in a go go go society. We always feel like we should be doing something, whether it’s completing the next project on our to-do list, doing some sort of self-improvement, or keeping our social battery charged (yes, even for introverts).
Trauma is debilitating. It can make you feel hopeless, alone, and at the very least, it hurts. Everyone has different sources for their trauma (and all of them painful in their own way), and everyone has their own ways of talking, or choosing not to, talk about their trauma.
The blog post includes a discussion around death and family. Please read with caution if these items trigger or upset you.
This has been a topic I’ve wanted to write about for a very long time if I can be honest. The main reason that this topic is so important to me is because this is the root of all the stress, anxiety, and mental health issues…myself. Now everyone has their own culprits or reasons as to what triggers their own mental health issues, although in my case, and maybe even yours, is that I cause myself such extreme amounts of unneeded and unnecessary stress that it sparks my mental health issues I face and experience.
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