mental-health

It takes all my strength to do daily tasks. To some people, I__ just a number. I__ a projected food stamps debit card lifetime member. I__ seen as crazy or insane, but it doesn__ matter. I know I am bigger than my suffering.

Attitude Is EverythingWe live in a culture that is blind to betrayal and intolerant of emotional pain. In New Age crowds here on the West Coast, where your attitude is considered the sole determinant of the impact an event has on you, it gets even worse.In these New Thought circles, no matter what happens to you, it is assumed that you have created your own reality. Not only have you chosen the event, no matter how horrible, for your personal growth. You also chose how you interpret what happened__s if there are no interpersonal facts, only interpretations.The upshot of this perspective is that your suffering would vanish if only you adopted a more evolved perspective and stopped feeling aggrieved. I was often kindly reminded (and believed it myself), __here are no victims._ How can you be a victim when you are responsible for your circumstances?When you most need validation and support to get through the worst pain of your life, to be confronted with the well-meaning, but quasi-religious fervor of these insidious half-truths can be deeply demoralizing. This kind of advice feeds guilt and shame, inhibits grieving, encourages grandiosity and can drive you to be alone to shield your vulnerability.

Self Hate: The deadliest 'dis-ease' experienced by wounded souls.

The problem with social media is that it's great for your ego, but terrible for your sanity.

Surely a good therapist should produce a Dorian Gray-style portrait from under the couch so the patient can see the person they really are.

Not every conflict is necessarily neurotic; some amount of conflict is normal and healthy. In a similar sense suffering is not always a pathological phenomenon; rather than being a symptom of neurosis, suffering may well be a human achievement, especially if the suffering grows out of existential frustration... Existential frustration is neither pathological or pathogenic.

A more fundamental problem with labelling human distress and deviance as mental disorder is that it reduces a complex, important, and distinct part of human life to nothing more than a biological illness or defect, not to be processed or understood, or in some cases even embraced, but to be __reated_ and __ured_ by any means possible__ften with drugs that may be doing much more harm than good. This biological reductiveness, along with the stigma that it attracts, shapes the person__ interpretation and experience of his distress or deviance, and, ultimately, his relation to himself, to others, and to the world. Moreover, to call out every difference and deviance as mental disorder is also to circumscribe normality and define sanity, not as tranquillity or possibility, which are the products of the wisdom that is being denied, but as conformity, placidity, and a kind of mediocrity.

That we are bound to the earth does not mean that we cannot grow; on the contrary it is the sine qua non of growth. No noble, well-grown tree ever disowned its dark roots, for it grows not only upward but downward as well.

Honesty can force any dysfunction in your life to the surface. Are you in an abusive relationship? A refusal to lie to others _ How did you get that bruise? _ would oblige you to come to grips with this situation very quickly. Do you have a problem with drugs or alcohol? Lying is the lifeblood of addiction. If we have no recourse to lies, our lives can unravel only so far without others noticing.Telling the truth can also reveal ways in which we want to grow but haven__.

A seed, in order to grow, must first be planted under the best conditions. Be that space or time. I think, therefore, that you have yet to find your perfect conditions.

There is a lot of negativity and bad habits that just need to be cut out of our lives. Sometimes we hold on tightly to the things that are actually causing us a lot of pain. We are our own worst enemy. We cling to all the wrong things. We subconsciously do things that are very bad for us, the worst being that we tell ourselves every day that __e__e not good enough_ and __t__ our fault_. Well cut it out!

Soon, when all is well, you're going to look back on this period of your life and be so glad that you never gave up.

There are few things more destructive than thoughts believed without question.

Watch your thoughts, for they will become the words of people you draw to yourself.

A healthy mind observes and questions itself. This is the path to inner peace and happiness. Don__ believe everything you think.

Mind over matter represents the triumph of will over physical hindrance. Our thoughts are our weapon against the world.

She held the book in her hands, feeling a sense of awe, and lightly ran a finger over its cover as if it contained sacred writings.

...Daisy doesn't even go to his funeral, Nick and Jordan part ways, and Daisy ends up sticking with racist Tom... you can tell Fitzgerald never took the time to look up at clouds during sunset, because there's no silver lining at the end of that book, let me tell you. I do see why Nikki likes the novel, as it's written so well. But her liking it makes me worry now that Nikki really doesn't believe in silver linings, because she says The Great Gatsby is the greatest novel ever written by an American, and yet it ends so sadly. One thing's for sure, Nikki is going to be very proud of me when I tell her I finally read her favorite book. -Silver Linings Playbook, p. 9