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Agoraphobia: An Old Familiar Fear & Link Up On the Edge #200
Three months spent in lockdown has triggered an old familiar fear. If you have never experienced agoraphobia, I am going to try my best to explain it from my own personal experience. But first, I want to share a bit of background. I speak often about my life with Bipolar Disorder. I sometimes hint at incidents of anxiety and have even briefly mentioned some obsessive-compulsive behaviors that once tormented me. But I have never talked about agoraphobia because I really had forgotten about it. And now those old uncomfortable fears are sneaking back into my life. “Agoraphobia is an anxiety disorder characterized by symptoms of anxiety in situations where the person perceives their environment to…
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You Are Not Alone & Link Up On the Edge #197
Many of you already know that one of the fundamental goals of my blog is to raise awareness about mental health and to do my part in eliminating the stigma that accompanies life with a mental illness. I have written extensively about my own personal journey with Bipolar Disorder and how difficult it can be navigate through life and maintain a sense of normalcy. I have also shared a variety of different coping mechanisms that have helped me throughout the past few decades. If you are interested in reading more about my personal mental health journey, you can find all of those articles under my Mental Health category. I haven’t…
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Explaining a Soldier’s Suicide
If you read yesterday’s Sunday Morning Quarterback, you know that my husband recently lost a good friend and co-worker to suicide. My husband is a man of a few words…especially when it comes to things that are very emotionally heavy. The Army and multiple deployments spent on the front lines taught him that. So I am so very proud of him for touching on the subject in his weekly post. But I believe it warrants a deeper conversation, a conversation that is obviously important to me as I frequently discuss issues of mental health in my blog space. If you are struggling with mental health issues of your own or…
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Shelbee Says…”Forgive yourself.”
If you type in a simple Google search forgiveness quotes, you will find a plethora of profound and valuable statements from a vast array of wise individuals throughout the history of mankind. Forgiveness seems to be one of those virtues that allows us to let go of the wrongs that have been done to us or by us in order to move forward through the journey of our lives. Some wrongs may have been intentional with malicious purpose, some may merely be mistakes due to lack of insight, and some may be so incredibly minor as to have not much bearing at all on the grand scheme things, yet we…
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Finding Gems in the Rubble & Link Up On the Edge #107
I know I have been sharing a lot recently about my Bipolar journey and I apologize if the topic is becoming redundant. You see, writing about it is the healthiest way I have learned to cope with it. Writing has been my main source of therapy since the very beginning. It allows for a process of purging. All of the destructive thoughts and internal demons get expelled by memorializing them into actual words. It’s a paradox of sorts…giving them life is the only way I can destroy them. I used to only write about it in my private journals, feeling like it was just too dark and fucked up to…
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Shelbee Says… “Trust the process.”: 8 Steps for Managing Bipolar Mood Swings
On Friday, I wrote about the battlefield that is Bipolar Disorder and I discussed how I have developed a great capacity for managing the mood swings when they start. Often when I share my story, I am met with the question of how I manage my Bipolar Disorder so effectively without medication. Every time I am asked this question, I am left without an adequate answer. All I can ever come up with is, “I don’t know. I just do it.” However, I am fully aware that this answer helps absolutely no one. So I decided it was time to sit down and really think about how I navigate my…
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A Bipolar Battlefield & Link Up On the Edge #106
Life inside of a Bipolar brain is tricky to say the least…even after you have reached a point of mostly understanding it all. You see, the last week as been a rough one for me…mentally and emotionally. I can’t really pin point the reason. That is the mystery of Bipolar Disorder. Why and when and how it operates the way it does. I have talked a lot about how I have come through this disorder to the other side and what brilliance and happiness I have found by coming through it. Actually, the good life lies not in coming through it, but in working through it. If you need help…
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Shelbee Asked…”How Can I Manage My PMDD?”
I am a woman who has suffered from moderate PMS symptoms since the onset of my first menstrual cycle at 12 years old. However, in the past year, I have noticed an increase in the severity of my symptoms. Oftentimes, in the days leading up to my period, I end up losing days of productivity due to the extreme fatigue, debilitating cramps, and various other symptoms that sometimes feel like the onset of the flu. Rage and depression take over my mood all too frequently during these few days. To say it is frustrating is an understatement. It is an absolute interruption to my life. Knowing that I cannot possibly…
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Shelbee Says…”It is up to you how you respond to your fear.”
There is a common misconception among people that asking for help indicates an inherent weakness of sorts. Weakness in spirit. Weakness in soul. Weakness in initiative. Weakness is self-sufficinecy. But it takes a certain amount of courage to seek help from others. We come into this world completely dependent on other people for survival. Dainty, fragile newborns are weak in every aspect of the word. They depend on other humans to provide the basic necessities for survival. Without someone else to feed them and nurture them, none would survive. Yet they are resilient, hardy, and tenacious at the same time. Very early on in their young lives, we begin to…
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Shelbee Says…“Self-care is never selfish.”
My personal mental health journey through Bipolar Disorder was a long and arduous one. Because I navigated it primarily alone and without a road map, the lessons I have learned have become sacred to me. And while my lessons may not be the magical solution for everyone, they are certainly worth sharing in the event that they could possibly help someone. And one fundamental principle that I have learned to live by is that self-care is of the utmost importance. This is true for everyone, but it carries crucial significance for people with mental illness. Through decades of self-evaluation and introspection, years of therapy, and thousands of pages of reading…