Child Abuse and Mental Health Survivors Information - Issue #76
One of those weeks
It’s not been a great week for me. I’ve been struggling a bit with stress and anxiety. Most of it is work related, and it’ll pass one way or another, but it makes just getting through every day a struggle. I know I’m not at my best and somehow knowing that makes me feel more anxious about how much I’m letting people down. I’m trying to keep this message in mind, that even on bad days, we all have worth and we are valuable.
I hope you’ll keep it in mind too as you get into your weekend.
Here’s what I’m reading, writing, and sharing this week:
New From the Blogs
Does this mean that somehow air pollution is sneaking into our brains and causing depression? We don't know that. That's not what the studies looked for. What they are finding is that people who live in areas with higher air pollution seem to be diagnosed more often in their later years with depression than people who don't.
There are other considerations, though, like the fact that areas with higher air pollution are less expensive and tend to have a lot of poor and lower-income residents, who are more likely to have poorer health outcomes in general because of a lack of money and the stress of living in near-poverty.
The people who work in these ERs do incredible work to stabilize them in the short term, but without long-term care, we will continue to lose people to mental health struggles and suicide.
Can you Spot Mental Health Misinformation? - It’s becoming more and more imperative that we can spot it when we see it.
Shared From Elsewhere
Mental health: it's not always good to talk - There are times when talking is not safe, or even possible.
Teen girls and LGBTQ+ youth plagued by violence and trauma, survey says - The recently reported statistics are shocking and sad.
We Deserve to Seek Help Without Stigma
We deserve to seek help without stigma from those tasked with caring for us. Our experiences are real, and our pain is too. We are hurting humans, and we are still worthy of love.
What Everyone Gets Wrong About Suicide: An Open Letter From A Survivor
Mike Vent was 10 years old when he wanted the sadness and pain to stop. There are many people who would argue we shouldn’t be having conversations about prevention and mental health with children that young. I don’t agree.
For your reference:
Books for Bad Mental Health Days
Could a ‘Happiness Class’ Help Ease the Student Mental Health Crisis?
Therapy by AI holds promise and challenges
From the Archives
Finding Balance and Diversity in our Social Media Use
Let me be honest for a minute. While acknowledging the importance of survivors stories, and the pain of those dealing with depression and other issues, I must also acknowledge my own limits. If that was what I spent my time reading every single time I logged into the internet, I’d start avoiding it. Reading those stories, seeing their pain, is hard on me. It’s hard on anyone. If I’m going to have an active online presence around those topics, I’m also going to need some boundaries around how much time I spend there. I’m going to need to just go do some fun stuff online to balance that out.
Dealing with Stress – Everyone’s Different
My point here is that as you wander around the internet reading about mental health, depression, anxiety and so on, you’ll see lots of ideas and “solutions”. Most of them are written by well-meaning people who have found things that worked for them, including me! But it’s also to remember that not everything that works for other people, will work for you. That’s OK. That’s not a failure in healing, that’s simply you being you.