Child Abuse and Mental Health Survivors Information - Issue #129
How do your hobbies help with your mental health?
I’ve mentioned that my hobbies, photography, and writing on my blog, are a huge part of my balance. Having an activity that gets me outside looking for lovely images, or thinking about how to communicate ideas to people is beneficial for my hobbies.
I’m not the only one - Improving Mental Health With Hobbies
Thank you for reading the Child Abuse and Mental Health Survivors newsletter. Each week, I share new blog posts and other resources that aim to help survivors of childhood abuse and those who are struggling with mental health issues feel less alone as we discuss the issues surrounding our issues.
For more information about me and why this newsletter exists visit the website - Child Abuse Survivor.
There are two important things mentioned in the article that I would like for you to think about going into the weekend.
One, having hobbies is dependent on having the time for hobbies. If your work drains all of your time and energy, this is going to prevent you from developing hobbies, and we already know how bad that is for your mental health.
The second thing was to do what you enjoy, and what makes you happy. I like writing and taking photos. You might enjoy quilting. You don’t have to be good at it, and it shouldn’t stress you out trying to be good at it. You can just enjoy it for its own sake.
What hobbies bring you that kind of enjoyment?
New from the Blogs
Can You Give Eight Minutes to a Loved One in Need?
According to this clip, that's all the time it takes to help someone in pain feel good. Eight minutes. But that's eight minutes where you simply hold space for them, not eight minutes of you speaking or trying to "fix" them. Eight minutes of simply being with them in their pain.
Sharing - How to Develop a Strong Sense of Self
Who are you? As I often say, when you're too busy trying to survive the chaos of an abusive childhood, you don't get the guidance that would help figure this out. So we exist in these relationships with family, friends, and romantic partners, and we don't know who we are outside of how they see us.
Shared from Elsewhere
I will share this without comment - 10 Ways the American Hustle Culture is Ruining Lives.
One of the reasons we are struggling to deal with the youth mental health crisis is that we can’t even agree on what is causing it. Older people think young people aren’t resilient and spend too much time on social media, younger people don’t think social media is much of a problem. - Youth mental health in decline: Generations differ on causes of apparent crisis, survey finds.
We’re all going to need this - Staying Informed and Nurturing Mental Health: A Guide for the 2024 Election.
More book and newsletter links:
10 Best Stress Management Books Of 2024 Recommended By Counselors
7 Books for Healing Trauma and Recovering from a Painful Past
Introducing Well Actually, the Guardian’s weekly wellness newsletter
15 Best Mental Health Books For Children (Psychologist Approved)
From the Archives
How People Talking About It Helped Me
It’s a hard thing to talk about, and I can only imagine how little any of them wanted to admit to any weakness or need of support, yet by doing just that, they have shone a light into something many people are going to have to deal with themselves.
They have proven to me that this is normal and that we can get through this. Simply by talking about how they have.
There’s A Lot of Mental Health Data Out There, But Do We Understand It?
We see that people who do “X” seem to be less depressed on average than people who do “Y”, and we immediately see headlines touting “X” as a cure for depression, and “Y” as the explanation for depression, when in fact, there’s no prove of either of those things. The correlation may just be random and coincidental, or it might be true, but only in .05% of cases.
Memory Getting Worse, Struggling to Make Decisions? It Could be Stress
As we navigate the ever-increasingly stressful world, it’s quite possible that we will also be struggling with our memories and making poor decisions because of stress’s effect on our brains.
Great.
Thanks for reading. If you find this newsletter informative and helpful to you, spread the word. That’s the best way you can say thank you for the effort I put in each week.