View Single Post
Old 05-26-2017, 11:07 AM   #8
Spenner
Forum User
Retired Staff
 
Spenner's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Canada
Age: 31
Posts: 2,396
Send a message via MSN to Spenner Send a message via Skype™ to Spenner
Default Re: Mental illness thread

Depression was a crippling disorder for a long time for me-- I've recently floated into the territory of bipolar type II and I have some underlying conditions like depersonalization and generalized anxiety that have stuck with me, and have become an unavoidable aspect of life.

Coping took a long time, but I dedicated most of my life to self study, and trying to better understand my mind and behaviour as a whole. A lot of drug abuse took me a step lower in reaching that understanding, but I've been better for quite awhile in that department. And now with no withdrawal effects, or lingering PTSD (for the most part-- I had a really bad acid trip before I stopped indulging in psychedelics for awhile, just now getting over it really. I still start up into panic mode if I depersonalize a little bit but I have methods for keeping myself grounded), I can finally see things more clearly, and learn when I'm being irrational, and keep reminding myself of what's what.

In any mental illness, solid reminders and moderating your thoughts to weed out the unnecessary/harmful ones is essential. It takes a long time to study and understand what those are on an individual level, but if something like a mood swing or anxiety episode is triggering and you sense a pattern, take notes. It's time to reprogram certain cognitive fixations away from necessity.

If anyone is seeking advice or needs whether its with direct mental health issues, thoughts of harm, or substance abuse problems, here are a few links you can pick at:


- Information on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy [CBT]
- Acceptance and Commitment Training [ACT]
- Meditation basics
- Mindfulness basics
- Lucid dreaming [also a huge community aimed to help people sleep better]
- The human brain [learning some basics on how it works]
- /r/Depression, /r/SuicideWatch, /r/Anxiety, /r/Bipolar
- RecoverYourLife [support network for self harm and mental illness with live chat]
- List of resources used related to SuicideWatch
- Tripsit.me [For live support on substance abuse and addiction and harm reduction/prevention]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Shadow_God_10 View Post
ADHD and General Anxiety Disorder.

I like the concept of this thread, as I have an older brother who suffers from depression due to the fact that he has a speech impediment and was made fun of for a lot of his life. I've been his only source of social interaction for the last decade or so because he doesn't like talking to people.

Any ideas for me to help him out?
What are some of his interests? The most beneficial thing he can be doing is interacting with groups of likeminded people both online and in person once he gets more comfortable. A skill or interest that he can pair up with people to explore makes it possible to see that communication challenges needn't be a barrier, and it's a great way to learn how to develop a style of communicating to get clear messages across with or without speech problems. Certainly doing nothing and being isolated is just going to make him think more and more that certain networks of people won't be accepting of him, but really do encourage him to try at it. Seeing himself move up the group's hierarchy of importance because of his contributions is a fantastic confidence boost.

That, and just finding activities that don't even need to reference vocalizations at all. Kungfu was a great thing to learn and practice in my younger years, but anything related is also effective at increasing confidence and self worth.
__________________


Last edited by Spenner; 05-26-2017 at 11:12 AM..
Spenner is offline   Reply With Quote