Bethany Orr's Film Underscores the Results of Isolation Combined with a Distorted Point of View
Anxiety, Bowen Systems Theory, Depression, Mental Health, Mental Health Movie Spotlight, Mental Illness, Personality Disorder
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Anxiety Lives in the Space Between Who We Are and Who We Want People to See
If the Gap Between Who We Are and Who We Want People to See Is Wide, Anxiety Has Room to Breed
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The Affair “Bubble” Is A Place of Deception and Delusion
When relationship crises strike, some people sneak away into a secret fantasy world that is all sty;e, and no substance.
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The Little Known OCD Subtype that Could Kill
Obsession with thoughts of one's own death does not always constitute suicidality.
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Telling Loved Ones to Fight Through Anxiety or Depression Adds Injury to Insult
Anxiety and Depression are Disorders that When Exacerbated By Guilt, Shame, and Isolation, Can Result in Self-Harm or Suicide
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Caring For a Caregiver
When I was 9 years old, my grandfather suffered a debilitating stroke from which he would never recover. As is often the case in families, my mother, the oldest of three children, assumed responsibility for his care while he lay in an infantile state two floors above mine. Everyday before dawn, she bathed, fed, and medicated him while my grandmother watched her daughter assume a role she never should have played. After the early morning shift, she resumed her role as married mother of three before tending to my grandfather’s nightly needs before finally sleeping for a few hours before the cycle repeated. My mother was no longer afforded a…
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How Antisocial Media Happens
Ellen Page's Accusation Against Chris Pratt Creates a Divisive Antisocial Media
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How Twitter Became a Responsibility
As I type this sentence, I’m thinking about a Canadian woman named Jody, whose Twitter handle is @onelastkick71. Because I have not seen a “tweet” from her in 24 hours, I am wondering if she is still alive, and fearing she is not. Through my social media connection with Jody, I’ve sensed anguish in her tweets, the most recent of which read, “pray for me not to wake up tomorrow.” I hate that she’s in this pain. I hate my feelings of helplessness, and I hate that I have no idea if she’s taking a social media break, or if she is gone. At some point, Twitter got serious, and I…
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Healing My Relationship with Time
As my 50th birthday storms toward me, reflection on my historical relationship with time reveals Borderline Personality traits; I had a knack for pushing time away, and crying when I felt it abandoned me. Because I demand a certain amount of control in my relationships, and time is reluctant to be controlled, we often grappled. Time went undefeated. Conversations with other people, both personally and professionally, have taught me this relationship style with time is common. Many people seem to wish time away, then wonder where it has gone. Death denial is an adaptive defense mechanism we use to shield us from morbid preoccupation with mortality, but there comes a point when…
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How Infidelity Transforms Death Anxiety Into Death Denial
Many of us are in a life stage characterized more by “lasts” than “firsts.” We are working at our last jobs before retirement, occupy the last homes in which we will ever live, and might be in the last romantic relationships of our lives. It’s not so much that there are no remaining “firsts”, but there is little thrill in first social security check, or first colonoscopy. When we sense Winter is coming, and Spring has passed, awareness of mortality triggers anxiety we didn’t experience in our youth. As we age, awareness of death increases in many ways, most powerful being the death of our parents who we once perceived as immortal. Aging also…
