***TRIGGER WARNING***

This article will tackle active and passive suicide and may not be suitable for sensitive audiences.

While suicide is a taboo subject among many in our community, one cannot conquer an enemy that they do not see. Only by bringing suicide to the forefront and opening a dialogue about it can we offer hope to those who are feeling suicidal and to those who have tried to die by suicide.

In the first article about self-harm, we tackled the subject with as much kindness as the topic would allow. Self-harm is a sensitive subject that had to be…

• **Trigger Warning This article contains information that may upset sensitive readers. The following article about self-harming and should not be read by those who find this subject upsetting.***

Harming oneself is an all-too-common symptom of a larger mental health problem that can lead to dying prematurely by suicide if left untreated. Hurting one’s own body may seem extreme, but to those who do it, self-harm seems to be the only recourse they have.

In this article, we shall begin a series on self-harm and examine the signs that you or someone you care about are self-harming and what to do…

Thank you for this sobering and honest article. We need to all learn from the human shadow of death.

Dealing with loss and change cannot be avoided; they are inevitable parts of life. Everyone experiences setbacks, with some being minor and others being highly traumatic and life-altering.

Resilience is what helps people through challenges through psychological strength, the ability to cope, and the capability to bounce back afterward. This piece will discuss what is necessary to build resilience into your life.

What are the Characteristics of a Resilient Person?

People utilize many different coping skills to deal with stress and trauma. They range from dissociating away from the event to literally forgetting the trauma and leaving it behind them like a cat they do not want.

However…

“The oak fought the wind and was broken, the willow bent when it must and survived.” ~ Robert Jordan

Resiliency, to summarize, is the ability to bounce back from difficult circumstances. People living with mental health challenges often have high resilience to the opposition because they have grown resilient through trial by fire.

This piece will focus on what is going on in the brain with resiliency and perhaps a few suggestions on how we can help our brains form it.

The Different Aspects of Building Resiliency

First, let us discuss what scientists believe are the building blocks of resilience. In one paper written in 2013…

Much research has been done on the topic of this series of posts in February 2021. Scientists want to understand how people who go through sometimes horrific events often overcome adversity and seem to thrive afterward.

In this first part of the series, we’ll discuss what resiliency is and answer some common questions about this interesting topic.

What is Resiliency?

Everyone experiences traumatic events, yet some people seem to encounter more than their fair share of events that change their lives forever. …

Emotional flashbacks are a common symptom for people living with the diagnosis of dissociative identity disorder. Because of this fact, I thought it vital to delve into how to overcome them.

Emotional flashbacks take a horrendous toll on those who experience them. To feel like you are in danger with all the emotions that accompany it, fear, anxiety, startle, and a myriad of other feelings without understanding where they are coming from is both frightening and debilitating.

This piece will examine emotional flashbacks and methods to defeat them.

CPTSD and Emotional Flashbacks

Complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD) afflicts many people who were traumatized in…

One of the most egregious behaviors a parent or other caregiver can do to a child is to abandon them, allowing them to suffer alone. The damages done to the child when grown are significant and should not be ignored.

In this article, we shall examine together what childhood abandonment is, how it affects adults, and ways to mitigate the power it has over our lives.

What is Abandonment?

All children are entirely dependent upon parents or caregivers for their safety in their environment. …