There may come a time when someone with a mental illness — like depression, anxiety, or PTSD — needs your help. While mental health conditions require proper treatment from a mental health professional like a counselor or psychiatrist, you can provide help in the form of comfort, reassurance, and support. Are…
Q: My ex girlfriend and I were kind of dating and then she met someone else that she started having feelings for. She told me this morning that she wants to pursue things with him. I am feeling very sad, desperate and don’t know what to do. I also just…
The idea of brainwashing had a viral moment in the 1950s when the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) decided to wage psychological warfare against Communism. Project MKUltra secretly experimented with “mind control” techniques, dosing people with lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) without their consent. In fact, at one point the CIA…
When I was a freshman in high school, I got the call I’d been dreading for 10 years. My best friend’s mother had passed away. She managed to beat breast cancer but mysterious complications ultimately took her life. Initially, I felt shocked. Then, I felt nothing. I was numb. I…
Grief is a normal human response to the pain of losing someone. It can be brutal, anguished, disorienting, maddening, enraging, and lonely. But ultimately, people do emerge from grief. They may feel forever changed; however, they do find meaning in their lives again. Those difficult feelings eventually make way for…
It’s pretty hard to imagine two topics more stigmatized than race and mental illness. For many of us, both subjects can often feel too complex or touchy to talk about. But the truth is that mental health and race are intertwined, whether we like to think about them that way…
The experience of being pregnant can be transformative for your body, mind, and spirit. Physically, you might feel different as you deal with morning sickness, tender breasts, and fatigue. Emotionally, you may start to see your surroundings through the eyes of your future child. Your relationship with your partner might…
Child therapists know that children grieve differently from adults, and they also understand how a child’s unique grieving process might be overlooked in the midst of significant loss. Children who experience the death of someone close to them are often surrounded by adult suffering. They might not want to burden…
Dealing with stress, anxiety, and other mental health challenges can feel overwhelming. And the thought of talking to someone — especially your mom, dad, or another primary caregiver — about those challenges can feel overwhelming, too. But in most cases, opening up about how you’re feeling and what you’re experiencing…
Nothing prepares us for the devastating loss of a loved one – whether it was clear that their time was coming to an end or it was a complete shock. The grief that comes with the death of a friend or family member is overwhelming. And it doesn’t go away…
The sweet, charming, handsome ex-Marine you’ve been emailing and texting with for eight months has a family emergency and can’t make his flight to meet you for the first time. You’re crushed. You’d let yourself fall hard for this guy, and now it might be another few months before you…
Shame: There is something wrong with me as a person. Guilt: I’m a person who may have done something wrong. What is the thing that causes you to lay awake at night; the thing that causes you shame? I promise that you’re not damaged beyond repair. You’re not unlovable. You’re…