-
How Marijuana Saved My Life & Enhance Your Life: The Podcast
I know I have shared bits and pieces here about my medicinal use of marijuana for mental health, but now you can have some more details of my story and how marijuana really did save my life. Last January, I had written an article on Medium titled How Marijuana Saved My Life. It offers a detailed account of my personal experience with psychiatric medications to treat Bipolar Disorder and how they were nearly killing me. Over a decade ago, I made the transition off of these medications and started using marijuana in their place, essentially saving me from the miserable side effects and terrible quality of life that came with…
-
The Boredom is Killing Me & #SpreadTheKindness Link Up #196
I have completely lost my mojo in all things life recently. Seriously, I am the most unmotivated I have ever felt in my entire life. This pandemic has wreaked havoc on my mental health to the point that I literally cannot see past right now. Maybe that’s a good thing. It forces me to live in the moment, every single moment, because I can’t see past the now anymore. But the right now, in this very moment, all the moments are just the same…mundane and boring. That is not to say that I am unhappy. Not at all. I am an optimist by nature and can always find the good…
-
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…
-
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…
-
How to Gain More Insight into Your Life
We spend a lot of our time coping with the world around us. Indeed, much of what we do is reactionary as we are simply responding to the external forces that impact us. However, while this is sometimes unavoidable, if you approach the world in reactionary mode for too long, you may quickly find yourself swept up in a whirlwind of a life that does not make you altogether happy. It is difficult to find our truest happiness when we allow the outside world to dictate our lives rather than creating the story we actually want. One of the best ways to shape the life that you want is to…
-
4 Ways Meditation Can Improve Your Life
People are always looking for small changes that they can make in their lives in order to make a positive change to their health. Dedicating a bit of time to meditation every day or even just once a week can be a very beneficial method for affecting the desired changes. If you have never practiced meditation before, it is a technique that you need to try and then slowly turn it into a lifestyle habit. It can help you to be more in the present and become more aware of your surroundings and yourself. There are many different ways that you can meditate, you just have to find the one…
-
Nothing but a Whole Lot of Something & Link Up On the Edge #181
Lately, I have been really wracking my brain to find my writing angle. I know there is something big inside of me that needs to get. Something powerful that will help others in their own struggles. I know that I have the nerve to address the uncomfortable topics in life. I know that I have the capacity to articulate the things that people may need to hear. I know that some of the darkest places inside of me are the places that resonate with even the most distant strangers. And I know in my heart that it is important for me to share. My problem is finding exactly what it…
-
How Did You Love? & #SpreadTheKindness Link Up #158
I made a new friend last week. We have connected on a level that I never really thought was a possibility. There is a space in my mind that has seemed completely unrelatable for basically the entirety of my life. I try to describe what happens in that space. I write about it frequently. Many of you have probably read some of it when I share glimpses of what goes on inside my bipolar brain. For a long time, I assumed that anyone with Bipolar Disorder could relate completely, but what I did not account for was that no bipolar brain is exactly the same. There is so much personality…
-
Why Getting Dressed Up is Important to Me & Link Up On the Edge #175
There are so many times, like multiple times a day, that I wonder if this blogging thing is really just frivolous and vain, pointless and silly. That old arch-nemesis of mine, Imposter Syndrome, sneaks in when I least suspect her and brings mental turmoil and overwhelming amounts of self-doubt with her and drops them proudly at my feet like a cat with a fresh kill so very excited for the hideous gifts she presents to me. What am I to do with such presents? First and foremost, I stand there in shock that she would bring me these things yet again. Especially since I have made it abundantly clear that…
-
6 Habits to Avoid to Maintain Good Mental Health
Where our bodies are concerned, there are certain habits that we know can be harmful to us. For example, we understand the negative effects of consuming too much junk food. We know that overeating and lack of exercise can cause obesity which then leads to all other sorts of physical health issues. We know that smoking cigarettes can cause cancer. We know that not getting an appropriate amount of sleep can lead to exhaustion and a break down of our immunities. However, in matters of the mind and mental health, we seem to be lacking some of the same knowledge. But just as we all have a state of physical…