Mental Health Topics

Starting in the mid-20th century, father figures in pop culture, especially those portrayed on TV, have been characterized with negative attributes. Don’t be mistaken; there’s comedic gold to be mined from the blunders of characters like Bernie McCullough in “The Bernie Mac Show,” Hank Hill in “King of The Hill,”…

Weddings came back with a vengeance this summer, and let’s be honest: It had been kind of nice to see people elope for a while. So cheap. So quiet. So little pressure on friends and family. You could just send a gift instead of making small talk with strangers and…

Does everyone in your workplace get along well… or is there an undercurrent of negativity—or even jealousy? Jealousy can be a difficult and destructive emotion – and it can wreak havoc in the workplace. It’s technically distinct from envy: Jealousy usually involves feeling like a rival to someone else, but…

I’m stuck in four lanes of traffic for the next two miles. It’s late July in Texas, and not a single car is moving. It’s 93 degrees outside, plus 70% humidity to top things off. Sweating, frustrated,  and frankly quite angry, I lean into my car horn, uttering a few…

I can specifically recall eating shrimp-fried rice for the first time (it’s still my favorite food) at seven years old. I was blown away by the fact that food could taste that amazing. On the other end of the spectrum, I can remember my first solo camping trip in Bridger…

We’ve all felt a little out of place before: Plenty of life events and transitions can leave us feeling uncomfortable and unprepared. Even when we’ve done the hard work and our efforts have been recognized, there are sometimes lingering feelings of inadequacy, an undercurrent that whispers, “You’re a fraud.” For…

When we think about or discuss mental health topics such as depression, our minds tend to zero in on what the individual with the mental health condition is going through. But what about those closest to them—like their children? As a mental health condition that can leave sufferers feeling distant…

When even the word “Olympian” means god-like, it’s hard to ignore the superhuman connotations behind the Olympics. And when we think about the great Olympians of our time like Michael Phelps or Simone Biles, we usually think about the ways in which their physical gifts and strength set them above…

One foggy April morning in 1672, a woodsman stumbled upon a gruesome scene in the woods just outside the French village of Barfleur. The woodsman was already familiar with Madame Perrault’s forest cottage. Madame Perrault was an ailing, elderly woman, so the woodsman often stopped by with bread and soup…

Even if you can’t relate to the sports fanatics who paint their teams’ colors on their bellies and go on week-long alcohol benders when their teams lose, you can still identify with the tragedy writ large on 7-year-old Prince George’s babyish features when England lost to Italy in the Euro…

We’ve all seen the articles about smartphone addiction and how being glued to an iPhone screen for hours a day can cause sleep deprivation, depression, and FOMO. But this blog is about a more analog phenomenon, one that dates back to Alexander Graham Bell in 1876, the voice call. Terrifying. …

Perhaps the key statistic behind the Great Resignation of 2021 is that 20% of workers have now met their colleagues’ dogs, cats, and/or human offspring online. What does this say about the post-pandemic workplace? It says that after enduring the disruptions of Covid-19, people are more likely to feel like…