Gifts I Would Love to Receive As Someone Living With Anxiety and Depression

Gifts I Would Love to Receive As Someone Living With Anxiety and Depression

Although I am extremely fortunate in my life right now with how my family understands my mental health challenges, my prior family would shame me for being “needy” or “too sensitive" making it important that I made my self-care inconspicuous. That’s why I wanted to offer a list of gifts that are incredible on their own, but great discrete mental health helpers too.

Read More

4 Tips to Help You Fall Asleep

4 Tips to Help You Fall Asleep

Having chronic, diagnosed depression and anxiety means sleep is often an elusive concept. It also means that’s it’s incredibly crucial I get my full rest, otherwise the exhaustion makes it a lot harder to tackle the following day’s intrusive thoughts.Here’s the list of best practices I have collected over the past ten years that have helped me cope. I hope something in the following list resonates and perhaps even helps.

Read More

How to Finally 'Take The Leap' In Three Steps

How to Finally 'Take The Leap' In Three Steps

Before I broke up my goals, I was facing a roaring river, attempting to run across without drowning or getting hurt. With each goal, it was as if I set a stone. Once I jumped onto that stone, I placed another one before stepping forward. And so on, until I was on a path, with so much determination, that there was no way I was returning to the same shore. Even if I am not sure what is on the other shore, I knew I wanted to start moving towards it.

Read More

Anxiety Relief Kit Part IV

Anxiety Relief Kit Part IV

We've reached the end of 2017 the Anxiety Relief series (for now). Anxiety sucks when I am trying to walk outside and enjoy a nice, summer day. Or when I am in the checkout lane trying to leave a store. But it’s more frustrating when I’m in a crowded subway or about to enter a job interview. On days when my brain chemistry is all out of whack, anxiety doesn’t care what I’m doing. It just sucks.

Image by: VIKTOR HANACEK for picjumbo

Read More

Anxiety Relief Kit Part II

Anxiety Relief Kit Part II

All it takes is being around too many people and, in the words of the wise Jack Sparrow, “we have our heading.” And it’s direction is down.

To cope, I have subconsciously been collecting an Anti-Anxiety Kit: a combination of things and ideas that help soothe the bad moments and distract my mind from itself. In case it helps someone else, I wanted to share it here. Considering we have Christmas just around the corner, it seems timely!

Read More