Child Abuse and Mental Health Survivors Information - Issue #84
Substack now with Notes
Yes, it’s true. Substack released that little Notes feature that has Elon in such a tizzy. It looks and feels like Twitter, but it’s just a part of the overall Substack platform, so who knows if it’ll take off among users who aren’t necessarily interested in creating a newsletter.
Plus, I can embed Notes into the newsletter, so bonus!
I look forward to experimenting with what else I can do with Notes and seeing how other Substack users use it. I’m not ready to declare it a Twitter replacement, but it’ll be a new toy to play with. You all know I love that.
New from the Blogs
Friendships Matter Much More that the Value We Place on Them
It's worth considering your friends and recognizing that we need all kinds of friends. We need loose connections, and we need tight connections. We need long-term friends, and we need friends for a season of our lives.
In short, we need each other. I'm afraid this is something that has gotten lost in our culture. It's certainly gotten lost in our priorities, and I consider myself as guilty as anyone.
On a similar note - Opinion: Humans need to belong. What happens when we don’t?
The question is, when we know what the science says about the importance of friendship and connection, what are we going to do about it? Will we reach out to our current friends and make the effort to make new ones, or will we play it safe and forego all of the benefits? I know which one of those choices I’ve been making, and I am starting to realize how much I’ve damaged myself because of it. That needs to change.
On another topic -
Sharing - Why Do We Downplay Our Accomplishments?
This is a problem. When we can't see our accomplishments, the only thing left is seeing our failures. We get a warped sense of ourselves when we only see our failures. We carry that warped sense of ourselves into the world and interact with others based on a mindset that sees only failure. That impacts our relationships and work, becoming just another failure point.
Shared From Elsewhere
This headline made me chuckle because it’s true. - It Always Comes Back To Boundaries
To Promote Mental Health, We Must Teach It - Luke argues for treating mental health issues with education about how to be mentally healthy instead of treating it like a disease. It’s an interesting idea, and whether you agree or not, it’s clear that we need new ideas.
Let’s talk about stress:
Sadly, we are still talking about this:
Sexual Abuse and Victim Blaming Culture
And we should talk more about this after all the community trauma we’ve been living with:
From the Archives
When All Else Is Lost, The Future Still Remains
As long as you are alive, there is hope. Hope in a better tomorrow, hope for healing, hope for happiness. I don’t care how horrific the abuse was, if you’re alive today, there is hope, because the future hasn’t been written yet, it is up to you.
Sharing – Ideas to Self-Soothe When Trauma Makes You Feel Unloved
Remind people in your life that you appreciate them and care about them. In personal and professional relationships, just say thank you in meaningful ways. You never know who saves those messages to get them through the days they don’t feel good enough.
I save them.
Quick Thought #11 – We’re All On the Roller-coaster
We are all doing what we can. Your desire to do something productive today, and then spend Sunday in bed, is actually understandable. Your inability to focus to get anything productive done? Also understandable. Like all those cars on the coaster, we are all going up and down and all around, and we all do it at different times, in different ways on our own versions of The Beast. (Classic coaster in Ohio reference)