Child Abuse and Mental Health Survivors Information - Issue #51
New From the Blogs
Sharing - Create Your Mental Health Crisis Plan For A Better Recovery Response — www.childabusesurvivor.net As the article below points out, you create a plan so that everyone involved knows what to do in a crisis. Because when you're in a mental health crisis, that is not the time to develop a cohesive plan and make the best decisions. Do that ahead of time. Share the plan. Identify the people you trust to act on your behalf, and let the plan be your guide in what to do. It is in everyone's best interest.
Sharing - Subtle ways to ask someone twice if they're fine — www.childabusesurvivor.net I like the suggestions. I've used some of them, including "Are you sure" and sharing my struggles. It depends on the situation and the relationship I have with the person. A good friend, my spouse, someone I feel comfortable with already? I'm making sure they are OK when I suspect they might not be. Someone I work with or don't have that kind of relationship with, and maybe I share a bit about my struggles or offer to listen if they need someone to talk to. Any of the suggestions can work or not work. The important thing is that maybe that extra question lets someone know they are not alone, which can make all the difference.
Linked: Mental Health Challenges are Common – and Talking about them at Work Should be Too — www.mikemcbrideonline.com As I read about various companies and hear stories from a variety of peers, it becomes obvious that there might be two mindsets when it comes to managing people. One says these are human beings and should be treated as such. The other says these are labor costs and anything I can do to get more productivity from these "tools" for less money is good for my business. Those might seem like extremes, and they are. I'll have more to say about these extremes in a later blog post, but if you fall on the side of seeing your people as people, take a look at the suggestions. I truly believe that even in a company that does want to recognize the importance of mental health and support employees, it is still really difficult to talk about. It shouldn't be that difficult. Consider how we can make it more acceptable and comfortable for everyone to prioritize their mental health.
Shared from Elsewhere
How to support someone with a mental health problem | Mental Health Foundation — www.mentalhealth.org.uk We all go through tough times and people help us through them. Other times we have been worried about other people’s mental health.
Comedian Elyse Myers Is on a Mission To Make Talking About Mental Health as Normal as Talking About the Weather — www.wellandgood.com Meet Well+Good Changemaker Elyse Myers, a comedian and content creator who's de-stigmatizing mental health for her five million followers.
What to Remember When You're Coping With Your Grief (or Someone Else's) — themighty.com Mighty contributor Charles Mickles shares what he wants people coping with grief or supporting grieving loved ones to know.
COVID-19 linked with a higher rate of psychiatric and brain disorders up to two years after infection — www.psypost.org The risks of being diagnosed with some disorders, such as psychosis, seizures or epilepsy, brain fog and dementia, though mostly still low, remained elevated throughout the two years after COVID infection. ...
Mental Health Expert Yohnit Spruch Talks About The Power Of Support Groups And Therapy - Exclusive — www.healthdigest.com Yohnit Spruch, head of emotional health at Circles, explained the healing power of support groups and how they compare to individual therapy sessions.
From the Archives
Mental Health Double Whammy - Losing Sleep Makes us Less Social — www.childabusesurvivor.net The news out of Berkeley isn’t good for anyone who suffers from insomnia as a result of anxiety, manic episodes, or depression. Turns out that being sleep deprived, even a little bit, makes us less likely to be social, and also less socially acceptable to others. Notably, researchers found that brain scans of sleep-deprived people...
Reading - Surviving Child Sexual Abuse By Helping Others — www.childabusesurvivor.net In my humble opinion, being able to use a profoundly negative experience like child abuse as a way to help others dealing with the same trauma is a great way of moving past the victim mentality. As you may know, my day job is in training, so you probably won’t be surprised that I see...
How We Talk to Ourselves Matters — www.childabusesurvivor.net As you read the rest of the article you'll see how self-distancing conversations look a lot more like those conversations with friends I referenced earlier. Getting away from all of the "I" and "me" and fairly judging the situation quietly and calmly as if it was happening to someone else can put it into a perspective that we sometimes lose when we are thinking of ourselves, especially those of us who struggle with self-blame. Of course, then that self-blame turns to rumination which feeds into depression, and round and round we go. There is a better way, and the examples given can help if we are willing to practice them. Especially the idea of reminding ourselves that we've already been through tougher, and more stressful situations and come out the other side.
Link - The Power of Talking — www.childabusesurvivor.net I love the fact that this article not only lists this great reasons why talking can be helpful, but also reminds us that we need to think about who we talk to. Reasons to Talk It gives us a sense of “doing” something. By talking, we are doing something active not passive and we are...