All posts tagged: anxiety

Finding #Fearless: The Epilogue, Part Two

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This is part one of a two part follow up to my series Finding #Fearless. Names and locations have been changed to protect identities.  Epilogue, Part One | Epilogue, Part Two After only seeing my therapist twice in two months, I walked in to my appointment in September feeling different about being there. He asked me, “How are things going, let’s get an update on the past month?” I took a moment, and that’s when I told him: “I don’t know, I just don’t feel like I need to be here today.” That’s actually pretty freaking huge. About a month ago my therapist declared me recovered from emetophobia. It was a very odd transition, because I had literally just started getting back to a normal state of mind. And, not soon after that, I started to have anxiety flare ups again that made me start to question if I could really be recovered. Did he speak too soon, or did I bite the bait too quickly? What if I wasn’t ready to be deemed recovered and …

Finding #Fearless: The Epilogue, Part One

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This is part one of a two part follow up to my series Finding #Fearless. Names and locations have been changed to protect identities.  Epilogue, Part One | Epilogue, Part Two This article does discuss topics that may be triggering to those struggling with depression, suicidal thoughts or self harm. If you ever feel like you need hope in a time of darkness, please call 1-800-273-8255. Usually epilogues find themselves nestled safely at the tail end of any published story that warrants one. They don’t typically surface many months or years down the road, but in the case of my story, the epilogue is a bit fashionably late. When I sat down to begin this site, I opened up the inner workings of my mind, and shared six unique, but intricately intertwined, stories of how #Fearless came to be more than just a webpage, but my way of life. I explored my childhood, my teenage years, my anxiety, my self harm, my sexuality, my fears and my hopes. This carefully crafted journey through my life …

#Fearless’s Simple Steps To Practicing Self-Care

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Self-care is something I have written about thousands of time in the history of #Fearless, and it’s something that I will continue to write about for the rest of time because it’s so freaking important. Not just for people with mental health issues, but for every single human being on the planet. I don’t care if you’re 100% healthy, everyone gets stressed sometimes. Work, life and human responsibilities take a lot out of you. Dedicating 30 minutes, an hour, a day to focusing on what you know you need, versus your responsibilities, really can make a difference. In the past I’ve written about the importance of self-care but I’ve never really given you the key steps to finding what you need to be doing for self-care. I figured, in light of this, why not offer you my tips on how to find the best self-care routine for you! Step One: Assess the mental, physical and emotional state you’re currently in. Before proper self-care can be done, you have to be able to look inside yourself …

#Fearless Family: Navigating Alcoholism’s Aftermath

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By Alexa M. #Fearless Family Writer I am 26 years old, and a full blown millennial. I shared my wedding pictures on Facebook the day I got them, my snapchat is approximately 99% my dog and 1% my anxiety attacks, and I wanted Bernie Sanders to win the election. Part of the territory of being my age (and any age after me, really) is having friends discuss their longing to return back to the “good ol’ days”. You know, the days when their biggest worry was finishing their math homework, or whether that birthday invite was coming in the mail. Not working 40 hours a week or trying to pay the bills on time. After all, “adulting” is hard. But I can’t identify with that. Despite my mortgage, car insurance and student loan payments, I would never wish to go back to my childhood. You see, I’m an adult child of alcoholics. Both of my parents are alcoholic/addicts, and even though they are in recovery now, the events of my childhood still affect me to …

7 Awesome Anxiety Reducing Items (& Alternatives!) To Keep At Your Desk!

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If you’re like me, working a desk job and having anxiety are two inevitabilities of life. I get up, go to work, and sometimes my buddy anxiety is right there with me. Other times, they show up after a stressful day, or right before a deadline. Either way, I’ve just learned that life with anxiety is going to happen, so why not be prepared? This got me thinking about ways I can best equip my desk with items that will help me in the midst of anxiety. While not a comprehensive list, I’ve compiled a list of seven awesome anxiety reducing items to keep at your desk, for your reading pleasure. Essential Oil Defuser: I feel like as an anxiety sufferer, essential oils are just part of my calm down process. I use Eucalyptus and Mint, together usually, to help me relax and get to my “calm place”. This “calm place” is a meditation I do to help me get grounded again during a panic attack, and that meditation is attached to those scents. So, having …

Recovery Is Not Easy

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Recovery is not easy. Anyone who tells you that recovery is easy is a liar, and that’s coming from someone who considers herself an eternal optimist. I’m an advocate for empowering people through lifting them up, showing them the strength they possess to face the upcoming battles of mental health recovery; but sometimes being honest is better than being optimistic. Recovery is not easy, and sometimes it’s downright scary. It’s unnerving, it’s stressful, it’s exhausting. It’s a constant uphill battle, it’s slipping and falling, and having to set boundaries with people that you know aren’t helping you achieve your goal. It’s finding a way to know what you need to be your best self, all while maintaining some sense of normalcy. Recovery is finding the courage to get up and fight the same demons that beat you down yesterday, approaching with a new tactic and still failing. It’s realizing that sometimes to win a war, you have to fight the same battle over and over again, on different days, in different settings. When I started …

#Fearless Family: You Can Love Again After Emotional Abuse

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By Amy C. #Fearless Family Writer Three years ago today, I was in hell. I’d been in a relationship for almost four and a half years, and three and a half of them had been emotionally abusive. I didn’t realise that I had been abused until it was over; sometimes we are too close to ourselves to see what we have become. I had become a grey, drab, genderless thing, constantly unwell and tired and run-down, and trying to weakly shuffle through each day as quietly and unobtrusively as possible. I was a nervous wreck, constantly hyper-vigilant, and hyper-aware that everything I said, everything I did, and sometimes literally every move I made, would be sneered at and ridiculed by the person who would then turn around and say he loved me. I was 29 years old and going to bed at 7:30 p.m. every night through sheer emotional exhaustion, and a desire to avoid my abuser’s notice. He made it clear he was happier when I was not around, anyway, and I was desperately …

#Fearless Family: Recovery Is A Lifelong Journey

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By Cristy Hernandez #Fearless Family Writer “Mental illness is not a choice, but recovery is.” That’s the powerful phrase that I came across a couple of days after I decided to restart therapy this April. These words may seem simple and self-explanatory to most, but to me those words resonated so strongly. Even though I did not understand why that phrase was important at that moment, it remained very present in my mind. Starting therapy again meant I was back in therapy full-time. Full-time meant I was not only in therapy in my literal 1-hour sessions, but in all aspects of my everyday life. I listened to my therapist and applied the skills I had learned with her. I took my medications and stopped fighting my psychiatrist. I took care of myself; my hygiene, my eating and sleeping habits, and I worked on the problems I have that kept me from moving on with my life. Not even a week later? I burned out. I was exhausted. I didn’t leave my room for 2 weeks. I was down …

#Fearless Family: There’s Always Light In The Dark

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The following post contains content that could be triggering to those currently struggling with self harm and/or depression. If you ever in crisis or need hope in a time of darkness, please reach out to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (US) or, for those not in the states, to a Suicide Hotline in the UK. By Ches Powell #Fearless Family Writer It’s easy to say I have an addictive personality. As well as an expressive one. For me it’s natural to slip into dangerous patterns of behaviour. Follow the loop round from a trigger to a full blown breakdown. That’s how I lost six months of my life that I will never get back. It was September. There were leaves still on the trees, although they were starting to fall by then. I was obsessed with some song that I’ve forgotten the name of now. It was one of those songs that pretty much sucked except that one line you really identify with. I don’t even remember the line now, but I remember singing it to myself …