Enjoys Negative Attention

I don’t really know how to describe it, but I sort of crave negative attention. Not as in “prefers negative over no attention”, but that I receive some strange gratification over receiving negative attention, even over positive. To clarify it’s nothing sexual, I don’t engage in that sort of behavior, and I still feel unhappy over negative attention- but I enjoy that feeling of unhappiness. I sort of indulge in the feeling that comes during an emotional fallout with someone. In short, I “enjoy unhappiness”. I know that’s unhealthy, but I don’t seem to be fufilled from positive attention only. Why? (From the USA)

I am very glad you sense that this is unhealthy. While I don’t think this description is strong enough to be a general type of masochism (not SMD Sexual Masochism Disorder as you clarified) it does sound like you have a habit of finding or creating situations that generate negativity. You’ve written to us here because it doesn’t feel okay with you. There is a part of yourself watching this behavior and wants to change it. Wanting to change a counterproductive habit is a good thing and this desire is what you’ll want to work with. Tolerating good things in the service of breaking an old habit will require intentional activities. My first recommendation is to pick one day a week and engage in five acts of kindness throughout the day. Keep a journal and write down what you’ve done and how it felt.

On the other days of the week notice acts of kindness around you. Jot these down and your reaction to them. Noticing the good around us is the first step in transforming our inner emotional landscape. At the end of sixty days write us back and let us know your progress!

Wishing you patience and peace,
Dr. Dan
Proof Positive Blog @ PsychCentral

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Enjoys Negative Attention

I don’t really know how to describe it, but I sort of crave negative attention. Not as in “prefers negative over no attention”, but that I receive some strange gratification over receiving negative attention, even over positive. To clarify it’s nothing sexual, I don’t engage in that sort of behavior, and I still feel unhappy over negative attention- but I enjoy that feeling of unhappiness. I sort of indulge in the feeling that comes during an emotional fallout with someone. In short, I “enjoy unhappiness”. I know that’s unhealthy, but I don’t seem to be fufilled from positive attention only. Why? (From the USA)

I am very glad you sense that this is unhealthy. While I don’t think this description is strong enough to be a general type of masochism (not SMD Sexual Masochism Disorder as you clarified) it does sound like you have a habit of finding or creating situations that generate negativity. You’ve written to us here because it doesn’t feel okay with you. There is a part of yourself watching this behavior and wants to change it. Wanting to change a counterproductive habit is a good thing and this desire is what you’ll want to work with. Tolerating good things in the service of breaking an old habit will require intentional activities. My first recommendation is to pick one day a week and engage in five acts of kindness throughout the day. Keep a journal and write down what you’ve done and how it felt.

On the other days of the week notice acts of kindness around you. Jot these down and your reaction to them. Noticing the good around us is the first step in transforming our inner emotional landscape. At the end of sixty days write us back and let us know your progress!

Wishing you patience and peace,
Dr. Dan
Proof Positive Blog @ PsychCentral

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Growing Beyond Labels: We are Not Simply a Disorder

Reliably, about once a month, I come across someone who believes that a person who’s been diagnosed with X, Y, or Z mental disorder has, in effect, a life-crippling disability. Somehow they got a hold of the diagnostic manual of mental disorders or read some symptoms or an article or two online, and suddenly they feel like they know everything about a condition. If a person has a disorder like depression, they believe that they know everything they need to know about that person.

When I was seeing patients back in graduate school, I sometimes looked at some of them that way too. But in the intervening 20+ years, I’ve learned a lot. And one of the biggest lessons I learned is this — a person is not defined by their disorder or diagnostic label.

Human beings are complicated and wonderfully complex organisms. So complicated, in fact, that our basic understanding of the brain’s functions is still at its earliest stages.

We think we might know a person once we hear a label. “Oh, she’s an accountant.” “He went to Harvard.” “Yeah, I know, she has schizophrenia.” As though that label neatly sums up everything there is to know about that individual.

But labels are simply our brain’s way of taking a cognitive shortcut. It helps us process important information, back from the days of fight-or-flight imprinting. Our brain needs to understand — is this new person or situation a risk, and if so, do we need to fight it or flee from it?

So there is a value there. But it’s one we overestimate and hold on to long after its initial usefulness has faded.

Mental Illness & Diagnostic Labels

It’s been my personal belief that diagnoses are important to help inform treatment options, but that a person shouldn’t read too much more into them beyond that. Diagnoses are not written in stone, especially when it comes to mental illness. And while their intent is to capture a constellation of symptoms that seem to be related, its done as much for research purposes and so that professionals can talk to one another with some very broad-stroke understanding of what it is they’re talking about.

For instance, how hard it would be to research the thing we call “depression” if everyone’s definition of it was idiosyncratic or different? Very. So we agree about these basic, broad symptoms to help communicate and be able to research what we believe to be are the same disorders.

For patients, however, I believe that while a diagnostic label can serve as an important identity touchstone, too many embrace it as their core identity. I guess that can be okay for some, but I think a person is so much more richer and complex than a simple diagnostic label. It is, of course, an individual’s choice.

Defined By A Label for Other’s Purposes

Sometimes, however, other people need a person to fit their understanding of a diagnostic label — like autism — in order to keep their own identity and belief system intact. In family systems theory, the person — usually a child — is the “identified patient.” The child is the one with the problem. The parents and siblings are simply the ones who have to deal with it.

But as family systems teaches us, a family environment and their way of interrelating with one another is a very complex thing unto itself. It’s not simply that a child is suffering from ADHD or some other disorder. It’s also that a parent or sibling — usually for secondary gains such as getting their emotional needs met or feeling valued — plays into the child continuing with the problematic behavior.

A friend of mine told me the story of their brother who had a child with Asperger’s syndrome — what is now called the mildest form of autism. For years, my friend’s brother, Max, denied his son, Joey, had a problem, and their relationship progressively worsened as he grew up. Finally when Max sought help for his son’s problems, it was half-hearted and years too late. It’s not that Max wanted his son to suffer, but rather, he thought the only solution to his son’s problems was Max himself (because he apparently had his own mental health concerns).

When the son turned 18, he wanted nothing to do with his father any longer. Now caught up in an ongoing argument about his college education (Max thought Joey would never be able to attend college) after completing his first year at the university, Max still turns to his mild autism diagnosis as an excuse and a reason to help justify his behaviors and attitudes toward Joey.

Clearly Joey has outgrown his father’s expectations — but he hasn’t reset and adjusted his own expectations of what his own son can achieve. All he sees is his son’s limitations, while all that others see in Joey is his potential.

Grow Beyond Labels

If a label works for you, by all means, continue to embrace it. For some, it’s become a part of the individual branding opportunity that has arisen thanks to social media. This is a good thing, as it brings the conversation to where people are and makes it both very real and very personal.

But for others, it may be a good time to think beyond the label. We are more than what others say we are. We are wonderfully complex, wonderfully emotional creatures that, in the end, are more than just the sum of our parts. We are not just a list of symptoms in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

Nor are we simply the sum of our labels.

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Best of Our Blogs: May 31, 2019

I know what it’s like when your world closes up. Anxiety can do that to you. Something happens like a traumatic event and you’re triggered. Maybe you get a panic attack or health scare. Your body will do anything not to go through that again. So you avoid situations. Maybe you don’t go to that same coffee shop or ride small airplanes anymore.

But soon you find yourself not wanting to go out with friends or travel. Staying at home seems to be the only way you can gain some sense of control. But it’s all an illusion.

The trick to getting through any scary experience is to gradually get yourself back up again. The more things you go through, the more confidence you have. The trick is to expand your world even when you’re afraid. The small brave thing could simply be driving to the market or blogging about your experience.

As it is the last day of mental health awareness month, I wanted to share my own story. I suffered from an asthma attack for the first time last year, which made going anywhere seemed like a gigantic feat. But the more hurdles I overcome, the easier it becomes. The key for me is to do something a little scary every day, going out when I don’t feel like it, exercising past my comfort zone, and even speaking my truth.

Life can become so much more complicated when you’re struggling with anything whether it’s physical illness like chronic migraines and autoimmune disease or mental illness like anxiety and depression. All of our energy is spent working through these issues sometimes on a moment to moment basis. It’s not easy. But I believe we’re not alone in our struggles.

In fact, one of our top posts shares how you can transform your experiences from failure to self-growth and mastery by changing your mindset. I hope it helps you feel strong on your own personal journey with mental illness.

Abusive Things Narcissists and Other Abusers Think Are Okay to Do
(Psychology of Self) – It’s the best thing you can do to heal yourself when you’re the victim of any type of violation or abuse.

Mistaken Identity: These People Don’t Have a Personality Disorder
(The Exhausted Woman) – How many of us are guilty of diagnosing our loved ones? If you’re certain they have a personality disorder, read this. The truth may surprise you.

Exploring Where Your Attention Really Goes
(Weightless) – Instead of being unconsciously led by our thoughts, this post shows us how we can bring what we’re paying attention to to light.

Want to Get Better? Learn to Take a Risk
(Leveraging Adversity) – To achieve mastery in life, a change in thinking is required. Read how a shift in your mindset could help you achieve anything successfully.

The Consequences of Helicopter Parenting
(Anger Management) – Your intentions are good. You want your children to listen, behave and be kind to others. But if you’re telling them what to do and reacting out of anger, you’re missing an opportunity to teach them independence and responsibility.

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The 6 Major Persuasion Techniques (M)

These personality types are more easily persuaded than others.

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How to Identify a Misleading Client

“Not everyone who comes to counseling wants to get better.” Amanda, a mental health supervisor, told her intern. “Some are here because of a blown-up relationship, an employer who demands...

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Report: Millennials Experiencing More Depression

A survey by Blue Cross Blue Shield Association shows that millennial Americans are experiencing double-digit increases in eight of 10 health conditions, including behavioral health issues like major depression, substance...

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A Mental Sign Of Vitamin B12 Deficiency

Good sources of vitamin B12 include fish, poultry, eggs and low-fat milk.

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When Is It Love?

From a woman in the UK: Hi, I moved to London from Berlin 9 months ago because I was bored in my old life and like London better than Berlin. In my new job, I’ve been feeling very attracted to a colleague which I told him after 5 months of low-key flirting in the office. We talked a lot that night. He said he doesn’t want a relationship since we’re too different in his opinion (and that’s probably true).

I was hoping he would change his mind and we had a one-night stand even though he tried to talk me out of it first because he knew I feel more and didn’t want to hurt me. After not really talking much in the next two months afterwards (he was reserved) he suddenly started flirting with me again, wanted sex. I had been thinking a lot about him, still being very distracted at work. He wasn’t aware how draining the situation had been for me and after explaining to him how hurt I was and that I can’t sleep with him again I suddenly changed my mind because I see him at work anyway and thought we could then at least enjoy the sex.

It’s been six weeks now that we’ve spent quite a lot of time together, during lunch breaks and especially on weekends. I’ve been going through a rough time (stress at work, with my flatmates and frequently getting ill due to all that stress) and he’s always been there for me, made an effort to see me. He messages me every day and cares a lot about me but sometimes he’s a bit more withdrawn. He said he’s sometimes confused and doesn’t know what he wants but doesn’t want to hurt me.

I realised how deep my feelings are for him, how much I want him to be happy and said to him I love him which he couldn’t return (and I knew that but said it anyway).A few days ago I had lots of stress at work and I became very anxious. My performance is suffering from my thoughts about him so we had a chat and he said he likes me a lot and has some feelings for me plus feels very attracted to me BUT hasn’t fallen in love with me. It doesn’t make sense to me because for me this is all connected. How is that possible?

Thank you for writing. This sounds very painful. But it also sounds to me like he just isn’t into you the way you want him to be. He sounds like a decent guy who has tried to be helpful but who has also been clear from the start that he doesn’t see this relationship going anywhere.

I have a guess that transplanting yourself to a new country and a new job has been more stressful than you want to admit to yourself. You mentioned that you have had some difficulties with flatmates and on the job. Focusing on this relationship does let you distance yourself from the many ways the move has been difficult. Adapting to all the the cultural differences, and being lonely while finding new friends, is challenging to anyone who is starting a new life in a new place.

I think you should take a big step back from this relationship. Accept it for what it is — a good and supportive friendship. Stop having sex with this guy because it confuses you. Instead, do the personal work you need to do to adjust to your new situation.

Make friends. Figure out how to get along with your flatmates or make a change in your living situation. Work hard on the job. Get involved in some activity or sport where you will meet people who share your interests. Most important, make yourself available for someone who can return your love as you want and deserve.

I wish you well.
Dr. Marie

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After brief music training 8-10 year old kids show less hyperactivity and better inhibitory control.

Fasano et al. show that only three months of orchestral music training improves inhibitory control and reduces hyperactivity in 8-10 year old children. From the Science Magazine summary of Tamela Hines:

Play your notes and nothing extra. Wait during your measures of rest. Watch the conductor and synchronize with your neighbors. Such attention and sensorimotor skills are key to performing music as part of a group, whether orchestral or choral or a marching band. Not everyone, however, has the time and interest to become a professional musician. Fasano et al. tested the effect of a short orchestral training program, spanning 10 sessions over 3 months, on a group of psychologically normal schoolchildren in Italy. Children in this brief program improved on measures of inhibitory control and hyperactivity. The results suggest new, and fun, ways to help children manage their own hyperactive behaviors.

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Understanding the Emotional Stages of Divorce

Coping with divorce is not easy. A couple in love usually enters marriage with the hope they will be together for the rest of their lives. However, relationship issues such as unfulfilled expectations, betrayal, sexual problems, financial problems, or interpersonal conflicts may derail a marriage if they are not thoroughly resolved. In some cases, marriage mates may see divorce as their path to living happily ever after.

But even if it is the best choice for a happier future, divorce may still have devastating effects on one or both marriage mates. Many divorced partners report going through a series of intense emotions before they were able to overcome their grief and find peace. These emotions include denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Let’s discuss what each of these emotions involves.         

Denial

According to Marriage.com, denial is probably the first of emotional hurdle a person faces when going through a divorce. During this phase, an individual may be unable to accept the reality that his or her relationship may be coming to an end. He or she may be comforted by thoughts that everything will work out in the end and things will go back to how they used to be. At this point it is unlikely that the divorce papers have been signed, especially if the possibility of divorce was raised unexpectedly. Once the initial shock subsides, the dominant emotion often shifts to anger.

Anger

A marriage mate who is facing divorce tends to become much more sensitive during the anger phase. He or she may be irritated by many things that were easily ignored before. Communication with his or her partner often becomes strained and conversations are more likely to degrade into screams, shouting, and cursing. In some cases, anger causes marriage mates to come to blows or direct their rage toward other family members and friends. Individuals who are going through this stage are encouraged to practice breathing exercises and relaxation techniques to help keep their emotions under control.

Bargaining

Marriage mates who are in the bargaining phase spend a lot of their time thinking. They think about their past experiences, what they are going through right now, and what they really want in life. Questions such as “Do I really love this person?” and “Is it better to get a fresh start?” are usually on their mind. The person who wants to leave may wonder if he or she is making a terrible mistake, while the person being left may wonder if there is anything he or she can do to keep the relationship intact. In some cases, the divorce is called off and both parties work together to repair their relationship. Many times though, one or both partners make the decision to follow through with the divorce.

Depression

According to Completecase.com, depression is usually the saddest and hardest stage of the divorce process. This is especially true for a partner who may not have seen it coming at all. A marriage mate who is suddenly confronted with divorce may have to consider a number of major life adjustments. These adjustments may include losing the person you love, losing a large percentage of your finances, losing custody of your children, dealing with social stigma, and finding a new place to live.

Many spouses who face divorce feel overwhelmed by the changes it will bring to their life. In addition to feeling sad, some individuals may become clinically depressed as they withdraw from society and try to figure out what exactly went wrong. A few symptoms of major depression include low energy, low mood, reckless behavior, loss of appetite, sleep issues, and a lack of motivation. These symptoms may last for months or even years. People who are diagnosed with major depression may require assistance from a licensed therapist.

Acceptance

Acceptance is generally the final stage of the divorce process. In this phase, both partners are able to accept the reality that their relationship has come to an end. For partners who were struggling with anger and/or depression, reaching acceptance may bring a sense of relief. Acceptance allows partners to reflect fondly on the food times they spent with each other, without losing sight of the need to make a fresh start. Partners who are able to reach acceptance in the divorce process are often able to look to the future with hope.

Taking Things One Step at a Time

It takes at least two people to form a happy marriage. If one or both partners are no longer interested in remaining faithful and making the marriage work, divorce may be unavoidable. Nevertheless, it is possible to rise from the ashes of a failed marriage and build a successful life in the future. For that to happen though, you will need to successfully navigate the emotional roller coaster of divorce, give yourself sufficient time to heal, and be courageous enough to take one step at a time toward a better life.

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This Personality Trait Is Linked To Good Mental Health (M)

The personality trait associated with less depression and anxiety.

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• Accept Yourself: How to feel a profound sense of warmth and self-compassion
• The Anxiety Plan: 42 Strategies For Worry, Phobias, OCD and Panic
• Spark: 17 Steps That Will Boost Your Motivation For Anything
• Activate: How To Find Joy Again By Changing What You Do

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The Big Five Personality Traits

The Best Ways to Effectively Manage Your Time as a Parent

When you’re a parent, you likely feel all kinds of conflicting pulls—from the small to the significant. Do you take the promotion? Do you accept a job with a long commute? Do you stay home with your kids? Do you clean the house or go to yoga class? Do you take on an extra freelance project? Do you get up early and catch up on laundry, or get more sleep? Do you go out with your spouse, or have a family day?

Of course, this gets more complicated depending on your specific situation—such as if you work from home.

According to professional organizer and time management coach Julie Morgenstern, it makes sense that parents feel these conflicting pulls. Because no one really acknowledges a critical fact, she said: “the years we’re raising our kids happen to be the prime of our own development.”

In other words, she noted, as we’re raising our kids, we’re also building careers, cultivating close relationships with loved ones, and we’re at our “prime for earning capacity.” We’re also discovering who we are, she said.

So if you’re having a hard time managing your time as a parent, it’s absolutely understandable. And you can absolutely manage your time well. It starts with grasping your role as a parent and as a person.

According to  Morgenstern, author of the eye-opening, empowering book Time to Parent: Organizing Your Life to Bring Out the Best in Your Child and You, your “job is really about balancing your time between raising a human and being a human.”

That is, managing our time well means both caring for our kids, and caring for ourselves. This is what contributes to fulfilled kids and fulfilled parents.

Below, you’ll learn more about what this looks like, along with other important strategies and shifts.

Do your PART. Based on scientific research and her own work with parents for over 30 years, Morgenstern created this powerful framework for raising healthy, happy, successful kids:

• Provide for your children, which includes paying for what they need (e.g., food, shelter, health insurance).
• Arrange the logistics of your kids’ lives, such as where they go to school, what they’re having for lunch, what activities they’re participating in, and when they’re seeing the doctor.
• Relate to your kids, which is about getting to know them for the unique individuals they are.
• Teach your kids values and life skills so they can be successful in the world.

Fuel yourSELF. We’re also responsible for our own well-being. According to Morgenstern, this includes:

• Sleep, which for most parents is tough to come by. But “if we’re sleep-deprived, we’re in no position to do our PART, be patient, or be efficient at work.” Prioritize sleep by creating a soothing (and realistic) bedtime routine that includes the same activities every night (e.g., practicing a guided meditation, spraying lavender essential oil on your pillow).
• Exercise can be any movement that makes you feel healthy and good about yourself, and gives you the energy to do your PART.
• Love includes cultivating relationships with adults, such as your spouse and friends.
• Fun includes the activities that help us feel like ourselves. For instance, since her daughter was 3 years old, Morgenstern was a single mom building a thriving business. A former dancer, she reluctantly decided to wedge weekly swing dancing into her already-packed schedule. “Within 2 weeks, it was as though time had expanded. I was so fulfilled. I felt like me again.” This spilled over into her work and her time with her daughter, because she was able to be fully present—and presence stretches time, she said.

Morgenstern suggested thinking of self-care in short bursts: 20 minutes or less, or a few hours a week. For instance, she worked with a mom who previously participated in community theater. Without acting, her client felt like she was losing herself. So, with Morgenstern’s encouragement, she found something she could do: She practiced monologues at home for 20 minutes every night.

(If you’d like to explore your time management strengths and challenges, take Morgenstern’s assessment.)

Know the different developmental stages. That is, plan for your 2-year-old to wake up early, your 4-year-old to have tantrums, your 7-year-old to dawdle, and your teenager to sleep in, said Paige Trevor, a certified parent educator who’s helped thousands of parents deal with common, everyday familial irritations and overwhelm, and foster healthy and mutually respectful relationships with their kids.

“It doesn’t mean we change our lives to indulge in these behaviors; it means we anticipate and plan for them,” said Trevor, who pens the popular blog Nifty Tips.

Shift the mental, logistical load to the whole family. Often, mom is responsible for everything from daily chores to doctor’s appointments to activity schedules. But as Morgenstern said, managing the household is “far more complex and time-consuming set of responsibilities than anyone ever imagined, and absolutely far too much for any one person to do.”   

This belongs to the whole family. Plus, “studies have demonstrated over and over that couples who share housework have more sex,” and “kids who grow up doing chores have the most successful careers.”

To kick-start the conversation with your family, Morgenstern suggested jotting down a different chore that’s involved in running your household on an index card. Put each card by the person who does the task. See who has the most cards, and consider how you can change that.

Set up multi-user systems—versus single-user systems. We tend to set up our households in complex, complicated ways that only one person understands. A multi-user system, Morgenstern said, is “so simple that everyone can follow it,” including a 5-year-old. This can include everything from doing laundry to setting the table.

Add in buffer time. Anything with kids usually takes more time. Which is why Trevor suggested creating buffers, which can look like carving out 45 minutes to get to the doctor, even though you think it’ll take 30 minutes. If you think it’ll take a day to clean, give yourself two days. If your child needs a white shirt and khakis for the piano recital, get it now. Buffer zones, Trevor said, “absorb the drama, emotions, and unpredictability of kids. It’s hard, I understand, but it’s hard to be late, angry and un-prepared also.”

Change how you spend time with your kids. Many of us worry that we’re not spending enough time with our kids (even though we’re spending more time than past generations). But you don’t need to create more time in order for your kids to feel loved and secure; rather you need to change the nature of the time you already spend with them, Morgenstern said.

In her research, she found that “kids thrive on short bursts of truly undivided attention consistently rather than big blocks of undivided time.” That’s 5 to 20 minutes, because “kids have short attention spans.”

Morgenstern encouraged parents to incorporate these bursts of undivided time into the fabric of your days. For instance, instead of rushing your child in the morning and saying “get all this stuff done, and maybe we’ll have time to play a game,” connect first: “How did you sleep? What’s on your plate today? What are you excited about and worried about?” Then you can focus on getting ready.

Do the same when you come home. Instead of telling your family, “Why didn’t anyone start dinner? Why’s the house a mess?” take a few minutes to clear your mind before walking through the door. Then say, “How is everybody? What happened that was interesting and hard? … OK, it’s time to clean up the house and have dinner.”   

Declutter. Too many activities and too much stuff can become massive stressors. And here’s something we regularly forget: “Our kids need a fraction of the objects and activities we have provided for them,” Trevor said. Decluttering “is a great way to maximize our time.”

Trevor suggested starting with the main entrance/exit of your home. There should be two pairs of shoes per person (max), and no just-in-case items. Also, get rid of anything that’s not in season and doesn’t fit. “Remember, like the eyes are a window to your soul, your entry way is the window to your family. Make it peaceful, streamlined, and loving. Do not be defeated when it needs to be re-booted; the re-boot is where the magic is.”

Another option, Trevor said, is to start with yourself: your bag, closet, bedroom, and bathroom. Starting with yourself helps to model what you want more of, and helps you feel less overwhelmed, she said.

Whatever (problematic) patterns your days have taken on, remember it’s never too late to change. Morgenstern worked with a mom of school-aged kids who worried that things would never get better—she’d keep nagging her kids to do chores, and she’d keep doing those chores. With Morgenstern’s coaching, she called a family meeting. Everyone agreed that the tension was impeding their connection and quality time, and she asked her kids for solutions—and they enjoyed creating their own systems and ways to stay accountable.

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Helping Clinicians Manage Teen Suicide Risk: Q&A with Cynthia R. Pfeffer, MD

CCPR: Thank you, Dr. Pfeffer, for participating in this interview on youth suicide. To start us off, how have clinicians come to understand risk factors for teen suicide? Dr. Pfeffer:...

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Weight Loss: These Foods Burn Belly Fat

How to burn belly fat without eating less.

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Friends Suddenly Hate Me

So I met my best friends in the world when I started college. I finally found a group of people I clicked with and it was all great last year.
This year however, every single one of them has switched on me.
They ignore me when they see me and walk right past me which is immature and hurtful.
The worst part of it is my best friend also hates me now. I met her to reconcile but it led nowhere, and she didn’t really tell me what I did to cause this change.

I’ve reached out to people but I get no response, and my college course is small, so this number of people disliking me is super hard to deal with, and makes college impossible every day
.
Being surrounded by people who don’t like you is in no way fun.

I miss my friends, I know I can’t force friendships, but I feel really alone right now.

The best that you can do is try to ignore them and find other friends. You should try engaging in other activities either at college or in the local surrounding community to keep you busy (when you’re not working on classwork). If you try the latter, you’ll likely meet other people with whom you can spend time.

You might also contact your university counseling center. Counseling could help you with the loneliness and perhaps attend group therapy sessions for support.

Perhaps you didn’t know these “friends” as well as you thought you did. That’s fairly common in these types of settings (school, work, etc.). It takes a long time to truly know someone, to understand the nature of their character and their ability to be a quality friend. Sincere friends wouldn’t “suddenly” hate you and stop talking to you.

Not everyone is who they appear to be. In life, it’s good to know who you can trust and who you cannot. It’s an important lesson to learn. Perhaps you trusted these individuals too easily, when you shouldn’t have done so. Counseling would be a good place to analyze why these friendships didn’t last and help you to choose more wisely in the future. Good luck and please take care.

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Podcast: Being a Professional Musician with Bipolar Disorder

There are a huge number of individuals with mental illnesses who have successful, fulfilling careers, despite the setbacks of their illnesses. In this episode, we’re joined by Erika Nielsen, a professional cellist, who shares the story of her diagnosis, the changes she had to make in her life, what it was like “coming out” as having bipolar disorder, and much more.

 

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About Our Guest

Erika Nielsen is a Canadian cellist, writer, and artist based in Toronto. Erika has a multi-faceted career as a chamber musician, collaborative artist, orchestral player and educator, with a musicianship that spans from Baroque and Classical traditions to contemporary and popular genres. She has performed with artists such as Kanye West and Johnny Reid, and is a graduate of The Glenn Gould School and Queen’s University.

Erika is the author of new bestselling memoir and self-care manual SOUND MIND: My Bipolar Journey from Chaos to Composure (Trigger Publishing, 2019) which is #1 on Amazon in its category. She is also a visual artist; a blog contributor to BPhope.com and Psychology Today, and is also the author of wellness and mental health blog soundmindbook.com. A passionate educator, she maintains a busy private studio and is on faculty at National Music Camp of Canada. Erika lives in Toronto with her husband. You can find her at celloerika.com, and on Instagram and Twitter @celloerika #cellistartistwriter

 

CELLIST SHOW TRANSCRIPT

Editor’s Note: Please be mindful that this transcript has been computer generated and therefore may contain inaccuracies and grammar errors. Thank you.

Narrator 1: Welcome to the Psych Central show, where each episode presents an in-depth look at issues from the field of psychology and mental health –  with host Gabe Howard and co-host Vincent M. Wales.

Gabe Howard: Hello, everyone, and welcome to this week’s episode of the Psych Central Show Podcast. My name is Gabe Howard and I’m here with my fellow host Vincent M. Wales and today Vince and I will be talking to Erika Nielsen who is the author of Sound Mind: My Bipolar Journey from Chaos to Composure. She is a professional cellist and a writer who lives in Toronto which is in Canada. Erika welcome to the show.

Erika Nielsen: Thank you so much Gabe and Vin. It’s such an honor to be here.

Gabe Howard: Well we are glad to have you, thank you.

Vincent M. Wales: We’re glad to have you. So, Erika, first I want to say that, holy cow, I envy you for being a professional musician. That had been a dream of mine is as a young man and didn’t quite hit it.

Erika Nielsen: You know I think that’s like the common story for so many people but you know so, and then some of us we’re able to stick with it and that’s what I do for a living.

Vincent M. Wales: Yeah.

Gabe Howard: Well it’s very cool.

Vincent M. Wales: And so you were in your late 20s when you were diagnosed as bipolar, correct?

Erika Nielsen: So I was diagnosed in my late 20s and it seems to be a pretty common story for those with bipolar disorder to be diagnosed in their late 20s.

Vincent M. Wales: So I assume that by the time you were diagnosed you were well into your musical career? Is that right?

Erika Nielsen: Yes I was. So in Sound Mind, which is a unique book in that it’s both a part memoir and a part self care manual. The first section tells my story about growing up in a musical household, becoming a professional musician, a professional cellist, and along the way I share the symptoms I had that led to my diagnosis of Type 1 bipolar disorder. In the second section of sound mind, I outline all of the habits I had to change, the self care steps and the tools I used to achieve stability.

Gabe Howard: Well that is really very cool. You know obviously we don’t want you to read the book on the show because we only have you know 20 some minutes. But what were some of the symptoms that that led to your diagnosis?

Erika Nielsen: Well a bipolar disorder often first present as major depression in for example teenagers. I think I can look back and even see symptoms within my childhood in terms of not sleeping well, and a kind of aggression that I would that I would hold in. I had tumultuous teen depression. On the outside I was cheerful and bubbly and artistic and outgoing but behind closed doors my self-worth felt like zero. I was very very depressed I felt wretched and worthless and that I didn’t deserve my talent or my privileges. I very sadly culminated in a suicide attempt and I was suicidal for a long time and at the time the people around me, my family, my community, would tell me oh yep you’re perfectly normal. Normal ups and downs, this is what teenagers experience and I believed. But you know I had this haunting suspicion for years I mean a decade leading up to my into my real diagnosis that there was something more going on. I just I just knew in my heart like you know it’s not normal to want to take your own life. It’s not normal to be this depressed. Now I’m telling you the symptoms I noticed when I was growing up were depressive symptoms that’s all I notice. So fast forward for my teen years, throughout my 20s I had always seen a therapist because again I suspected that the symptoms I experienced as a teenager with depression there was something more to it. It wasn’t quite right. So I saw a therapist throughout my 20s thinking I was just taking care of my childhood issues and getting ready for a normal adulthood. And you know and then I got married at age 27 and a month after my wedding I was just totally high as a kite. You know my career was locked in. I was starting a new chapter you know I kept trying to come clean my house and I would, and I decided you know what I am going to find out once and for all what those teen depressions were all about. I’m going to go to the doctor. I’m going to get myself a professional diagnosis and a psychiatric analysis and they’re going to pat me on the back. Tell me what my family and everyone had told me for years that I’m completely normal or I have a very boring condition like mild social anxiety or 21st century syndrome. And I’m going to walk out of there feeling amazing. Well spoiler alert, that’s not what happened when I got that psychiatric assessment.

Gabe Howard: You know it’s interesting what you said that the depression you realized was abnormal but it sounds like you didn’t notice the mania at all and that’s very common. Mania feels good. You know speaking as a fellow person who lives with bipolar disorder it’s like I feel great. Yeah. I’m gonna run to the doctor because I feel great that that doesn’t.

Erika Nielsen: I know I know. Like I had no idea what mania was. I think that’s a really common story. I thought I was just me and what being awesome me was. It meant I felt amazing most the time and I’d like the creative ideas because I’m a musician I’m an artist. I like to write that’s who I am. I don’t really sleep all that well. Closing my eyes and feeling like I’m watching TV channels flicker and with background music that’s what sleeping feels like to me. I don’t know any different and am I hypersexual? Absolutely! I’m there off of this and that guy. And so my symptoms of mania they were presented to me as symptoms and it was complete news to me. It was the shock of my life when the psychiatrist suggested that at least a few periods of my life were actually manic episodes and not just me being me.

Vincent M. Wales: How did you react to that? What did you say to the doctors? No, no, it was just me?

Erika Nielsen: I was in complete disbelief denial without even knowing it. I already had stigma towards mental illness the day that I was diagnosed with a mental illness. My stigma came up. The image that came to mind was vagrant people on the street, teens yelling at each other, homeless people. It was really really I’m ashamed to say what I thought bipolar was and I had to do a lot of research to learn about this condition that I was told I had. It took me a long time to come to terms with what bipolar disorder was and learning about it.

Gabe Howard: It’s a lot to take in for anybody.

Erika Nielsen: All of a sudden I went from being a wildly successful professional cellist and teacher and artist and I thought my life was rocking. I was a newlywed and all of a sudden I became a person with a mental illness. Overnight.

Vincent M. Wales: That has to be shocking. Yes. Getting back to the musical aspect of your life. A lot of creative people, whether it’s in music or writing or what have you, have been known to or at least were believed to have been mentally ill in some capacity. Do you feel there’s any connection with your creativity and your mental illness?

Erika Nielsen: I want to answer that in kind of two ways. As I mentioned before so when I was first diagnosed and learning about mania I assumed that my mania was the essence of what made me who I was as an artist. And that mania was solely responsible for my creative spirit and my flights of ideas. I was resistant to taking medication because I remembered feeling flattened when back in my teens I had taken some SSRI for depression and that made me feel really really flat. And I assumed that that would happen to me again if I treated bipolar disorder. But when I understood the severity of my manic episodes I was more interested in achieving stability. So after a few years of patient trial and error and finding the right medication combination I just discovered, here’s the drum roll, when I am having manic symptoms I feel more creative and like my most amazing self in the spinning wheel of fabulousness that I experience but that isn’t really the case. I think I’m being more creative and expressive. But in reality my thoughts are racing so fast I can’t articulate them well or complete them. I’m too frenetic to complete the task they start and I do not accomplish more. And with very few exceptions I’m not a better version of myself. It just feels that way and I came up with this sentence that I think really sums up mania and the illusion that it is: mania masquerades as creativity in the same way that lust masquerades as true lasting love. It’s the chemical reaction within our brain and it’s a subjective illusion.

Vincent M. Wales: That’s fantastic.

Erika Nielsen: I realized I am just as creative when I am stable because that is who I am. I am a creative artistic colorful person and now that I’ve treated my condition I am able to actually complete the tasks and ideas that I start and I can follow my projects to fruition.

Gabe Howard: And isn’t that really the key? I know what you mean about getting all of those great ideas at 3:00 in the morning about thinking of a billion ways to solve all of my problems, your problems, the world’s problems. I have even thrown in some of Vince’s problems but I have absolutely no ability to take it from idea to fruition. It’s you know let’s talk about being a cellist for a moment. Would you say that it was difficult to practice when you were a manic? Because I imagine I’m just I’m just going by a stereotype here to be a professional cellist you probably practiced hours a day.

Erika Nielsen: Oh yeah absolutely hours a day and no doubt bipolar affected my playing as a musician.

Gabe Howard: Yeah I can’t imagine sitting still for hours a day to accomplish anything during both major depression and or a major hypomanic or manic episode so that in and of itself should prove to all of our listeners that yeah, yeah, mania is not awesome. We’re going to step away to hear from our sponsor and we’ll be right back.

Narrator 2: This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.com, secure, convenient and affordable online counselling. All counselors are licensed, accredited professionals. Anything you share is confidential. Schedule secure video or phone sessions, plus chat and text with your therapist whenever you feel it’s needed. A month of online therapy often costs less than a single traditional face-to-face session. Go to BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral and experience seven days of free therapy to see if online counselling is right for you. BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral.

Vincent M. Wales: Welcome back everyone. We’re here with Erika Nielsen, author of Sound Mind: My Bipolar Journey from Chaos to Composure.

Erika Nielsen: When I was living with untreated bipolar disorder before I knew I had it I suffered from major performance anxiety, destructive and ruminating thoughts, mostly about my worthiness and ability. I was experiencing auditory hallucinations and blacking out. I was experiencing problems focusing, suicidal thoughts, and extreme impatience and irritability. I’d be practicing along intensely focused on what I was doing and there’s a scene in my book where my spouse comes over and he basically whispers I poured your tea and I go What do you what are you doing here? I am pretty much just lose it. This irritability was constant for me and then sleeping poorly made all of the above symptom even worse. And vice versa so I thought all of this was just a part of being a performer and an artist and having an artistic personality or I thought it was a sign that if I got performance anxiety maybe I didn’t deserve to be a musician or maybe I shouldn’t be a musician. I didn’t even realize how exhausting it was to live in my brain until I finally got my diagnosis and found the right treatment. And interestingly, as we know, people with bipolar disorder often also suffer from comorbid disorders like major anxiety or ADHD, and I suffered from both of those. So I was working extremely hard all the time to cope with and hide my symptoms so I’m incredibly relieved that I found an accurate diagnosis and amazingly treating my bipolar also treated the symptoms that affected my playing. And now I can perform better than I ever thought possible. I can perform with more focus and ease than ever and allow my true abilities to shine. I still feel nervousness and excitement when I perform. But now it’s in proportion and manageable and I can sometimes even use it to my advantage. My thoughts are now organized and non-toxic. It’s almost like someone turned the volume dial down 40 percent to a tolerable level. So I’m no longer scattered. I can focus and little things don’t distract or bother me anymore. Gabe, you were talking about you know thinking about the 5 million ways to solve all the world’s problems at 3:00 in the morning and that’s dialing it all down to maybe thinking of three ways to solve the world’s problems and then being able to execute it.

Gabe Howard: Right. Exactly. Exactly. There’s a quote that I really love and it has absolutely nothing to do with bipolar disorder but I’ve applied it because you know that’s what I do. And it’s never let perfection get in the way of progress.

Erika Nielsen: I love that quote again.

Gabe Howard: Yeah. And it’s one of the things that I always had a really really hard time with. Once I got treated, once I found coping mechanisms, and once I got better. Yeah. When I look at them objectively when I look at plans that I have are they perfect? No but they’re in the world. Every article that I have ever written, it’s not perfect. I go back and read them and I find a comma that’s out of place or I’m like you know I wish I would have been a little articulate over here or I read the comments section I was like you’re right, I should just on and on and on and on and on. But because I was able to get treated all of these articles are out in the world to be discussed and to gain value and whatever that value is is up to the reader. And that’s what I’ve learned as well. Before I got treatment they were all in my head just up there.

Erika Nielsen: Yep. Right. Not getting out there and not seeing any readers. That’s Gabe. That’s one of my absolute favorite quotes. I also reframe it to be perfection is the enemy of great.

Gabe Howard: Yes. Yes. I love that. I love that a lot. I want to switch gears for a moment and one of the examples that I always use in every speech that I give about living with bipolar disorder is you know I take medication for bipolar disorder and I tell people that you know it’s there are side effects. There’s most commonly sexual side effects. There’s other types of side effects and I say, you know I had to find the right medication that worked for me and I always say for example one of my medications gives me a slight tremor but hey I’m not a professional musician so I don’t care. Well I’m now talking to somebody who lives with bipolar disorder who is a professional musician. Was this difficult for you? Because a slight tremor is very common in many of the bipolar medications.

Erika Nielsen: That’s a great question, Gabe. As I mentioned it took me two years to find the right medication that works for me. The right cocktail as some people call it. And for some people, they’re still on that path and it’s taken them even longer so it took me two years and I’m not the medication I take is not free of side effects but it has side effects that I can live with as a professional musician. I’m very fortunate that I do not have a tremor and it allows me to get the rest I need. I can sleep sometimes upwards of nine to 10 hours. And as a freelancer I recognize I’m extremely fortunate that I can schedule my activities around my need for the sleep that my medication gives me. I say gives me, I don’t say my medication makes me sleep for too long, my medication gives me the sleep that I need to repair my brain and I recognize that other people have a nine to five job. They need to be up at seven. They need to be in their office by eight thirty. I don’t have to do that so I can. For example, I don’t schedule any private lessons or rehearsals before 10:00 in the morning just so I have time to take my time in the morning and be at my freshest and I often perform late in the concerts that I play. So for example last week I was performing a concert of the music of Prince’s Purple Rain. And this week it was a baroque concert with music for harpsichord and Elton John’s Greatest Hits. Well, all those concerts ran very late so I made sure to not schedule anything first thing in the morning so that I could get the rest that I need to help treat my condition.

Gabe Howard: Very cool.

Vincent M. Wales: Let me just jump back to stigma. You said that when you were diagnosed you just had this automatic stigma that popped up. How did that change and when did it change?

Erika Nielsen: When I was first diagnosed with bipolar disorder I wanted to learn as much as I possibly could about the condition and I recommend this for anyone who is diagnosed with any mental health condition or mental illness. Learn as much as you possibly can about it. It sounds obvious but I think there’s still a lot of people out there that just go to the doctor and seek treatment without really learning about what’s going on for them. I read a kind of how to guide written by doctors and I also read personal accounts, books about people who live with bipolar disorder. One of my favorite is actually a graphic memoir. Its illustrations written by a cartoonist written by Ellen Forney called Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, and Me and reading that book was so monumental in making me feel like I wasn’t alone because I think feeling isolation is really really dangerous and is really really hard.

Gabe Howard: Yeah it feels so lonely.

Erika Nielsen: Yes. So as I mentioned I when I was first slammed with this diagnosis my own stigmas came up around it. And as I learned more about the condition and I learned about famous figures who suffered from it especially other artists and writers and musicians and I learned how common it was so the more knowledge I armed myself with the more my own stigmas melted away and stigma is so tough. My heart is just so full of compassion now for others who have mental health conditions like mine. I saw someone the other week on the subway and he was clearly psychotic. He was having a really rough day and I just I just felt for him. I kind of smiled and nodded and I said I hope you take good care. I know how many of us there are out there. I know stigma is still prevalent. You know while we’re starting to have conversations about depression, anxiety, and self care and it’s becoming conversational I think the two biggies bipolar and schizophrenia a lot of people aren’t ready to touch yet. And I’m hoping to help change that. I also want to talk a little bit about other stigmas towards self care, rest, getting sleep you need. I came from a workaholic environment. And when I was taking a moment of rest or break any moment like that I meant made me feel like I was being lazy and self-indulgent and not productive. And I made myself physically sick with gastric reflux disease and digestive issues and I wreaked havoc on my mental health from being a workaholic. And now that I’ve had to treat my chronic stress and chronic workaholism to treat my bipolar disorder I had to rethink my whole schedule and the whole way I approach my work life and I got to tell you guys, Gabe and Vin, I am so over chronic frantic busyness. And what I’ve discovered is it’s still possible. I have a very full schedule but I’ve put changes in place to make sure I’m not racing from one thing to the next which just exacerbates my condition. There’s also a huge stigma out there against getting adequate sleep and prioritizing sleep. We also all know someone who brags about how little sleep they get. Or they think they can function on just a few hours like sleeping more somehow means you’re not being productive. I completely disagree. I can get so much more done now that I’m fully rested my brain can actually repair and heal itself. So the opposite is absolutely true. The more rested I am the more productive I am in my waking hours.

Gabe Howard: I love that you have just listed like five of the top ten Psych Central Show Podcasts that Vince and I have done. We talk about sleep hygiene all the time we talk about this idea that people have with self care being somehow you know bad sleep being lazy on and on. You just you really covered a lot of myths that the the people who are “mentally healthy” in society just believe and if you’d believe it we’d all should be working 16 hour days getting four hours of sleep a night never doing anything for ourselves and being at somebody else’s beck and call 24/7 all for minimum wage. And that sounds nuts when you say it that way but you’re right people believe these things in the abstract.

Erika Nielsen: Oh I know.

Gabe Howard: It’s fascinating to me so thank you.

Erika Nielsen: It’s totally fascinating to me too. And something really cool is as I have come out with my condition with my book all about it which includes the self care steps that I took towards stability. A lot of friends and family have been reading the book and they’re noticing that the self care steps I took are useful for them or for their friends who have anxiety or for the other friend who has schizophrenia. These self care that we need as people with mental health conditions, everybody can benefit from following them.

Gabe Howard: I know imagine that. Imagine that everybody has a brain that everybody should take care of. Wow. I wonder if other people know about this.

Erika Nielsen: I mean North American workaholism is I think is making us all sick.

Gabe Howard: I completely agree.

Vincent M. Wales: I agree, too. One of the things that you didn’t specifically mention, at least I don’t think you did is that it’s hard to go through this all on your own. We do need a support network so I know you’re married. Tell me about the role your spouse has played in supporting you throughout all this.

Erika Nielsen: I’d love to. I’ve got to say to those who are newly diagnosed I think finding support is essential. Not everybody has a supportive spouse like I do and I’ll get to that in a second. But finding that support network even if and I know many people with an undiagnosed mental health condition may have even pushed away some or all of your close support network. I know I found tremendous peer support in the support groups I joined when I was first diagnosed and I still regularly seek peer support from the Toronto bipolar disorder meetup group. I talk about support groups in my book Sound Mind and something that’s great to remember is that even if I don’t feel like going to my support group, I know that I might be a support for someone else. And we actually need each other. So my spouse is absolutely my rock. He is, you could say opposites attract. You know I’m a bubbly outgoing person and he’s always been kind of quieter and more reserved and we balance each other out that way. I realize how incredibly lucky I am to have a supportive partner when I am experiencing symptoms. He can help me by sort of mirroring back me what it is he is noticing. So if I’m experiencing a mood episode usually I’m pretty good at knowing what’s going on but sometimes he can really see it too and he can relate that to me. I’m noticing that today you’ve repotted all of our plants and you’ve been listening to this Brian Wilson record on repeat about eight times in a row while talking non-stop. Have you noticed that? And I can say, yes I’ve noticed that. And then together we can take action and to treat my symptoms that they come up. He’s supports me and that he’s on board as my team mate and we treat my bipolar as a team and when it’s go time, when I’m really unwell, we’re in it together and I know how lucky I am to have someone who’s willing to do that.

Gabe Howard: That’s great. So tell us where can we find your book.

Erika Nielsen: You can find my book, for American listeners, it’s available on Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble for Canadian listeners it’s on Amazon.ca, Indigo or Chapter.

Gabe Howard: Awesome. Do you have a website that people can find just you personally? I believe you have a blog, yes?

Erika Nielsen: Yes. So my blog is SoundMindBook.com and articles there have also been published for bphope.com and soon will be also published for Psychology Today magazine. And if you want to know a bit more about me as a professional cellist and educator you can check out, one word, CelloErika.com and I can be found under the handle @CelloErika on Instagram and Twitter.

Gabe Howard: Well thank you again Erika for being here and thank you everyone else for tuning in. We really appreciate it. And remember you can get one week of free, convenient, affordable, private online counselling anytime anywhere simply by visiting BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral. We’ll see everybody next week.

Narrator 1: Thank you for listening to the Psych Central Show. Please rate, review, and subscribe on iTunes or wherever you found this podcast. We encourage you to share our show on social media and with friends and family. Previous episodes can be found at PsychCentral.com/show. PsychCentral.com is the internet’s oldest and largest independent mental health website. Psych Central is overseen by Dr. John Grohol, a mental health expert and one of the pioneering leaders in online mental health. Our host, Gabe Howard, is an award-winning writer and speaker who travels nationally. You can find more information on Gabe at GabeHoward.com. Our co-host, Vincent M. Wales, is a trained suicide prevention crisis counselor and author of several award-winning speculative fiction novels. You can learn more about Vincent at VincentMWales.com. If you have feedback about the show, please email talkback@psychcentral.com.

About The Psych Central Show Podcast Hosts

Gabe Howard is an award-winning writer and speaker who lives with bipolar and anxiety disorders. He is also one of the co-hosts of the popular show, A Bipolar, a Schizophrenic, and a Podcast. As a speaker, he travels nationally and is available to make your event stand out. To work with Gabe, please visit his website, gabehoward.com.

 

 

Vincent M. Wales is a former suicide prevention counselor who lives with persistent depressive disorder. He is also the author of several award-winning novels and creator of the costumed hero, Dynamistress. Visit his websites at www.vincentmwales.com and www.dynamistress.com.

 

 

 

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Practicing Hygge: What We Can Learn from the Danish Culture on Mental Health

Do you enjoy making your environment around you cozy? You might already be practicing hygge more than you think. hygge is a concept originated in Danish culture that focuses on living with a sense of comfort, coziness, and peace. It has often been described as creating a warm atmosphere and enjoying the good things that life has to offer with positive energy surrounding you.

What is so intriguing about practicing hygge, pronounced either “hue-guh” or “hoo-gah,  is that there are actual health benefits to living a hygge-focused lifestyle. Happiness researchers continually find Denmark to have some of the happiest people on Earth, which Danes attribute it to the practice of hygge. Feeling increased happiness could certainly be a perk of practicing hygge, but there may be other emotional, physical and relationship benefits as well.

Emotional Benefits

Hygge decor is intended to promote a sense of calm and peace in the living space. Since we make sense of our experiences and environment through the use of sight, sound, touch, taste and smell, it may come as no surprise that creating a cozy living space would help us feel less anxious and promote a sense of emotional well-being and safety. These feelings of comfort and safety can better allow us, and those sharing the space with us, to let down our guards and be more present and open to connecting with one another. Examples of possible emotional benefits may include:

• Less depression and anxiety
• Increased feelings of self-worth
• Increased optimism
• Stress reduction
• Greater sense of mindfulness
• Improved self-compassion
• Increased practice of gratitude

Physical Benefits

When we feel safe and calm, our body responds accordingly. It is in moments of perceived danger or threat that our bodies naturally go into a response of fight, flight, or freeze. A hygge-style environment promotes an atmosphere of safety and comfort, where our minds and bodies can feel more relaxed. In a space like this, there is much less need for us to scan our environment for physical/mental threats. Examples of possible physical benefits may include:

• Improved sleep
• Weight regulation
• Fewer stress hormone spikes
• Improved practice of self-care
• Reduced need for unhealthy coping behaviors like alcohol or drugs

Social Benefits

When we feel comfortable and emotionally safe, we are more likely to reach out to build and nurture connections with others. In a hygge-centered lifestyle, there is an emphasis on connecting with family, friends and loved ones. Spending time with those who are most important to us creates a sense of belonging and connection that research continuously shows impacts our health and well-being. Examples of possible social benefits may include:

• Focus on togetherness, or “feelings” of togetherness
• Feelings of comfort and safety
• Increased trust 
• Increased intimacy
• New social connections
• Improved existing relationships
• Less reliance on social media

How can we use hygge in our everyday lives? There are many easy ways that we can incorporate elements of hygge into our daily lives and our living spaces. Implementing some of these elements can start bringing you those feelings of peace, connection, and comfort in your home and everyday life.

Lighting/Warmth. Lighting is an essential part of creating a sense of hygge in the living space. The use of warm, soft white light creates an inviting and comfortable space compared to harsh, bright white bulbs or fluorescent lighting. You may want to install a dimmer to have options for lighting the space the way you want.

Texture. Hygge is all about things that feel soft and cozy. You might want to incorporate soft accessories like blankets, throws, pillows, and rugs to create a warm, inviting space. The soft textures are calming and allow us to feel soothed when our anxieties run high. Now that spring/summer is here, think about linen throws or blankets. Soft textures allow others to feel safe in the space as well, while calming fears, and allowing people to open up more with one other. Conversations can subsequently feel calmer and open in this space, rather than feeling rushed or forced.

Decor. Consider using pieces that have special meaning to you such as pictures of family and loved ones. You can place photo albums on the coffee table with pictures of your travels or experiences that you’ve shared with others. Hygge is about warmth and connection, so use decor to draw people in and create good meaningful conversation(s), which in and of itself is a natural stress reliever.

Color. The colors chosen for a living space are a significant part of setting a cozy stage for reflection and peace of mind. Neutral colors are often chosen, particularly whites, soft whites, blushes and soft browns. The use of neutral color palettes actually help to calm your mind, and ease your anxieties, which all fit in with this particular style of living.

Activity. Hygge-style activities typically involve things that help us feel peaceful, cozy and connected with others. Gatherings with friends in the home are a primary activity. Gatherings are focused on the connection built with others, not the presentation. There is no need for a formal black-tie affair. In fact, hygge living would suggest just the opposite. Gatherings should offer a space that is casual, whereby people can feel comfortable and relaxed while connecting with one another in a meaningful way. Consider a game night with friends, having friends or neighbors over for coffee, or hosting a book/movie night.

Hygge is all about building an intuitive space for comfort, peace, and connection. The benefits of implementing some of these elements reach beyond our emotional/mental, physical and social health. Incorporating some of these ideas into your living environment may offer you a space that is relaxing for yourself, inviting to others and great for your mental health and well-being. Whether you are a newbie to this, or have already been incorporating such concepts into your daily life, we all can benefit from a de-stressing and comforting routine to carry us into the warmer months and beyond.

References:

Wiking, Meik. The Little Book of Hygge. Danish Secrets to Happy Living. New York, NY : William Morrow, an imprint of Harper Collins Publishers, 2017.

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Problem with SO’s Past

I’ll try to be as brief as possible. I recently started a new relationship with this girl. Before we started our relationship, she spent a year living the single life – hooking up on tinder, partying, and having a generally good time.

I spent, on the other hand, my previous years as a single without ever hooking up, having one night stands and not even partying that much because of different reasons, probably because I felt insecure about myself and also because of setting-related problem (I come from a small town where this is just not the culture).
She’s gone past all of that – she’s now settling down while I am more than ready to start all of this.
My past GF didn’t like partying, drinking and so on, while my current (when I met her) seemed to be all for it. Now, it’s quite the opposite. Feels like I’m back with my ex, not able to have that kind of fun with my girlfriend. So not only I can’t have this life that she had, but I don’t even have to share it with her. On top of that, and I must say, the hardest part, is that I find myself incredibly uncomfortable now when she talks about her hookups and past partying experiences – I feel jealous because I’ve never experienced this “transgressive” life, and the image of her hooking up randomly with people really disturbs me to a point where these thoughts have become an obsession.

I can’t fall asleep at night because I see her next to me and all I think about is her having intercourse with all of these people. Why do I feel this way? Why does it disturb me so much? I can’t look at her without immediately having images in my head…These thoughts are creating big problems in my daily life with her. I can’t be serene around her. Why am I feeling this way? What can I do?

Thanks (From Germany)

It sounds like the two of you are out of sync. She was winding down and settling in as you were gearing up and branching out. It seems like you met on an overlap. Like two trains going in opposite directions stopping at the same train station on their way.

If you can’t find a way to accept her past and curtail your desires to get in sync with her, this may not be the relationship for you.

As far as her past goes the best lens to view it through is that her past led her to you now. She got that out of her system and is looking to focus her attention on you and evolving the relationship. If this isn’t right for you, you have invested that much time, you’ve learned a lot, and going your separate ways in search of more suitable partners might be warranted. Sometimes the timing between couples aren’t right.

Wishing you patience and peace,
Dr. Dan
Proof Positive Blog @ PsychCentral

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Using ABA Concepts in the Natural Environment – Recommendations for Parents (Part 5)

Looking at how concepts of applied behavior analysis can be used in the natural environment is a beneficial strategy for parents of children with autism spectrum disorder. ABA providers can...

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I’m Having a Hard Time Trusting my Dad

From a young girl in Kazakhstan: I have a lot of trust issues with my dad right now. For the past two years my parents have been fighting. Sometimes it’s petty things like the laundry, and other times it’s about my mom’s work, or me, or something.

Then near the beginning of this school year I found out he had depression and kept on switching medications. This sometimes even happened without consulting a doctor.

However about 2-3 months ago I had a big fight with my dad and for the first time he hurt me. Ever since then I’ve been having a hard time trusting him again. I used love spending time with him but now everything is tense and I feel like I can’t be near him without someone else.

Should I consult someone face to face? Does being overseas affect it? How should I talk to my dad?

I’m so sorry your family is in such turmoil right now. It’s very, very difficult for any kid to be living in a situation like this. It’s hard on you, I know, to feel like there is nothing you can do to fix it. But the best thing you can do is to focus on your own friends and your schooling while your parents figure out whatever they are trying to figure out. Their fight has nothing to do with you.

As for your relationship with your dad: You didn’t say if your father hurt your feelings or physically hurt you. Hurt feelings often happen in any relationship and can be worked on. But no kid deserves to be hit, not matter how depressed the adult is. If that is the case, you do have to talk to your mom or some other adult you trust (like maybe a grandparent or teacher) about what happened so you can be kept safe.

Your father is depressed. If the issue is hurt feelings, I suspect he feels as bad as you do about the change in your relationship with him. If you do feel safe, by all means talk with him about what happened and how it has made you feel. See if the two of you can find a way to move on.

I hope you can talk to your parents about how their fights are affecting you. They may be able to do a better job of shielding you from their issues. If not, a counselor might be a helpful support for you. Unfortunately, I have no information about what kind of help is available to teens in your country. I hope someone at school can give you that information.

I wish you well.
Dr. Marie

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Inside Schizophrenia: What is Schizophrenia?

 

 

What is schizophrenia? From pop culture’s view to Rachel Star Withers, a diagnosed schizophrenic, view of herself to a leading mental health doctor and professor’s view. What are the actual symptoms? What is the difference between a hallucination and delusion? What is it like to experience one? How do you manage it? How is social media changing the way it is viewed? In this first episode of Inside Schizophrenia, Rachel and co-host Gabe Howard with special guest Dr. Ali Mattu explore this often misrepresented mental illness.

Highlights From ‘Schizophrenia’ Episode

[00:40] Would you think I am a schizophrenic?

[04:00] Current media’s portrayal of schizophrenia.

[06:00] What real psychotic are episodes like.

[08:00] Violence in mental disorders.

[11:50] When your child has schizophrenia.

[16:40] Hallucinations vs delusions

[21:22] Fake professionals.

[24:10] Medications and side effects.

[29:40] Importance of support systems.

[31:50] How did you get schizophrenia?

[35:50] Guest Dr. Ali Mattu Interview.

[38:50] What a general treatment plan looks like.

[40:20] How media and social media has changed how we view schizophrenia.

[45:50] What should you do if you think you may have schizophrenia?

Guest for Schizophrenia Episode

Dr. Ali Mattu creates entertaining, empowering, and educational mental health media. He’s a cognitive behavioral therapist who helps kids and adults with anxiety disorders. Through YouTube, Dr. Mattu teaches a global audience on how to use psychological science to achieve their goals.

Dr. Mattu is a licensed clinical psychologist and assistant professor at the Columbia University Irving Medical Center in New York City.

www.youtube.com/ThePsychShow

www.AliMattu.com

Computer Generated Transcript for ‘What is Schizophrenia?’ Episode

Editor’s Note: Please be mindful that this transcript has been computer generated and therefore may contain inaccuracies and grammar errors. Thank you.

Announcer: Welcome to Inside Schizophrenia, a look into better understanding and living well with schizophrenia. Hosted by renowned advocate and influencer Rachel Star Withers and featuring Gabe Howard.

Gabe Howard: Hello, listeners, could a change in your schizophrenia treatment plan make a difference for you? There are options out there you might not know about. Please visit oncemonthlydifference.com to find out more about the benefits of once monthly injections for adults with schizophrenia.

Rachel Star Withers: Hi, I’m your host Rachel Star Withers with my co-host Gabe Howard. So, Gabe, I’m a schizophrenic. Just based on normal pop culture, if you met me for the first time, would you like right away think I was a schizophrenic? A person with schizophrenia?

Gabe Howard: No. I mean like if I just like saw you? Like based on?

Rachel Star Withers: Yeah.

Gabe Howard: What? Like your hairstyle?

Rachel Star Withers: Just the way I was like moving around the way I act?

Gabe Howard: No. I mean to be fair, as a person living in recovery, you would try to just walk in the room and be like, “Hi, I’m Rachel.” But I suppose I might notice if you were symptomatic, to be fair. But in fairness I don’t know that I would know what those symptoms were.

Rachel Star Withers: All right. What, just based off pop culture, movies and things, what do most people think a schizophrenic would look like?

Gabe Howard: A schizophrenic would be like drooling rocking back and forth. There would definitely be like an eerie creepy violence factor, I think. And I think a lot of people would assume that there was like a multiple personality disorder thing going on. I think that’s probably when it comes to pop culture, I think that’s probably the biggest one.

Rachel Star Withers: Most people have no idea I have schizophrenia unless I tell them. We have so many movies and even had you know you can reference One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest from years ago but Shutter Island, Bird Box, that just came out on Netflix you know all of these different things were, yeah, they have people schizophrenia and they are not normal passing people in society. Like it’s somebody that like I’m watching the movie I’m like oh God I don’t wanna be around that person. The actual definition of schizophrenia according to the DSM 5, which is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

Gabe Howard: Isn’t that a mouthful right there?

Rachel Star Withers: Right? But it sounds really really official. So it’s like oh.

Gabe Howard: It is official. I mean it is how they diagnose all mental illnesses all all mental health problems really.

Rachel Star Withers: Yeah but it’s like hey I can I believe this.

Gabe Howard: You should. It’s science, Rachel.

Rachel Star Withers: Yes, well, it defines schizophrenia as characterized by delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech and behavior, and other symptoms that cause social or occupational dysfunction. And I really like that they put occupational in there to say like yeah having trouble working. Like I just like that and I like they include all these people can work but they’re probably gonna have some trouble.

Gabe Howard: I know that you’re going to break down the symptoms because you are just crazy organized. But before we do that, I want to ask you a couple of personal questions.

Rachel Star Withers: Okay.

Gabe Howard: So just answer like from Rachel Star Wither’s perspective. When you see these movies, you know you are a person living with schizophrenia, you’ve been diagnosed. And how long have you been diagnosed?

Rachel Star Withers: Officially diagnosed at around age 21. But I have had it since I was a little kid.

Gabe Howard: Right right. But you realize that in order to get a timeframe, I’m now going to have to ask you how old you are.

Rachel Star Withers: Like 22?

Gabe Howard: You’re like 22? So you’ve had schizophrenia for a year?

Rachel Star Withers: I have now. I’m about to be 34.

Gabe Howard: So you’ve been living with schizophrenia obviously your whole life but you’ve been diagnosed for well over a decade, and you’ve been managing this illness and you lead a full and good life. I’m not trying to put words in your mouth.

Rachel Star Withers: I just yeah.

Gabe Howard: Your life is relatively normal.

Rachel Star Withers: I mean I think it’s beyond normal. I do a lot of really cool stuff..

Gabe Howard: That is true. But schizophrenia is not holding you back from doing those cool stuff is really that the point. Your life is yours to make of it what you want.

Rachel Star Withers: Absolutely.

Gabe Howard: When you see these portrayals you know because you’re just you’re just watching Netflix. The whole country is talking about a movie on Netflix. You think to yourself hey that sounds like a movie that I want to talk about too with the rest of the country. You sit down you watch it. The character who is schizophrenic shows up on the screen and you’re thinking go.

Rachel Star Withers: Unfortunately I like mentally flip out. If you’re watching something with me and this comes up and I was really looking forward to that. I’m a huge Sandra Bullock fan so I’m like yes I am all into this. And then the minute they come up about the mental institution escaping I was like, “What?” Like it’s ruined, the rest of whatever I’m watching is ruined. I’ve already started tweeting angrily like, “Hell, no.” Like I just went off the rails. There’s a movie it was a terrible movie as a horror movie about stalking. But in the movie they never say she has schizophrenia, but it quickly shows the stalker’s pills that she takes. And one of the meds I recognized was an antipsychotic and I immediately in the theater like my mom was like Rachel calm down now.

Gabe Howard: So and that’s not because this isn’t triggering you because you have schizophrenia. It’s bothering you because of the misinformation that is out there in society and because of the judgment that now gets put on to you. And you know that the community of people living with schizophrenia now you have to be the ambassador to correct all of this misinformation.

Rachel Star Withers: And especially when you’re talking you know today you have Netflix, Hulu, things come out and like everybody watches them at the same time everybody’s talking about it. So you’re suddenly thrown into yeah everyone’s talking about bird box and you know at that moment everybody has seen that portrayal. Everybody you know has sat there and watched this schizophrenic you know come out and they’re scary. They’re terrifying and they’re all talking about it and yeah it’s a little unnerving when you think.

Gabe Howard: Let’s go all the way back to before Rachel start Withers was diagnosed.

Rachel Star Withers: Ok.

Gabe Howard: You know like you said you’ve had schizophrenia your whole life you had the symptoms of it etc. And you were diagnosed at 21 and I’m going to assume that things got a lot better then. You started getting treatment you started getting care. Your life started to improve.

Rachel Star Withers: Ish. It does take a long time to kind of find a treatment that works for you.

Gabe Howard: So all the way back at the beginning you are Rachel. Start with is untreated person with schizophrenia but you don’t know you have schizophrenia. Are movies portraying untreated schizophrenia correctly? Or are they just completely off base? Did you behave that way before you were diagnosed?

Rachel Star Withers: I never behaved as a killer. All these different things that you see have I had like very bad psychotic breakdowns where I probably was like mentally out of it for a few days? Absolutely. But usually with schizophrenia you don’t tend to act outward, you act inward. You retreat inside of yourself. So I wasn’t running around attacking people you know being just a scared psycho person like running around with knives. It was I was in my room and I kept feeling that my arm got lost in the sheets. So I’m looking for it. I didn’t recognize people’s faces. I was scared it was just you know I usually like three days of being terrified and slowly I’ll come out of it. But you watch something like Shutter Island and you’re like oh wow this guy is so like cool and psycho at the same time. But clearly his whole world is made up.

Gabe Howard: Right.

Rachel Star Withers: I don’t function like that. I’m not I’m just in my room with my puppy dog.

Gabe Howard: We do want to be fair that some tiny minority of people with schizophrenia do become outwardly violent and many times to be completely fair it’s not their intention to be violent they feel that the person in their house is a threat to them so they’re defending themselves. Now we don’t care you know why if they if somebody hurt somebody we obviously want to put a stop to that. Do you think that could be curbed with more education, more treatment options, more understanding?

Rachel Star Withers: Yes. And I think anybody can become violent in different situations. But in the mental disorder realm and in across the board of mental disorders not just schizophrenia. Yeah. You’re more likely to actually lash out and you might not understand you might not even realize your lashing out. My grandfather had Alzheimer’s and he would start swinging at me and my little brother but he had no clue who we were. We were just mean people trying to help him to the bathroom, but he didn’t understand that. And it’s the exact same way with schizophrenia. If I am yeah mentally gone I might not understand who you are and what you’re trying to do to me even if you’re totally trying to help. And if you are a loved one realize you’re getting in that situation you do need to get help because at that point you’re not taking care of you. You cannot take care of yourself and whoever is currently with you can’t take care of you either. If you’ve become violent towards them I still feel that’s where hospitalization comes in and you might need to get inpatient treatment.

Gabe Howard: I’m really glad that you said that because there is this idea. That people who are advocating on behalf of people with schizophrenia are saying no no no there’s never violence there’s never violence and that’s not what we’re saying. We just want to make sure that people understand why the violence occurs what the motivation is for the violence potentially and how you can help the person because you know we hear from family members caregivers friends all the time when these episodes occur to their loved ones with schizophrenia they’re not themselves and what they want are treatment options and help so that you can become who they love again and who they know because schizophrenia takes that all the way. Do you feel that that’s true.?

Rachel Star Withers: I do.

Gabe Howard: Do you consider yourself to be yourself if you were in the midst of a schizophrenic episode, or would you just be sick?

Rachel Star Withers: The way I describe it is like I’m still there but I’m very very far away watching. Part of me kind of knows what’s going on but I don’t always like I’m not able to necessarily control what’s happening. I’m watching it like is that my mom? Is this happening? You know just kind of in this daze situation. And when I was a teenager and we didn’t know what was going on I was more, I wouldn’t say violent, but I was deathly more aggressive with my dad because he didn’t understand what was happening so he would push back. You know, get up in my face, like will you calm down and that of course led to me trying to push him and run off but I was never trying to like hurt him. It was just I didn’t understand what is going on in my head and I was his first child and he had a daughter that was acting bizarre. And he didn’t know how to deal with that.

Gabe Howard: To talk about your family for a moment, were they scared at your behavior? I don’t mean scared like scared for their own safety just, were they worried? I mean how did, how has your family reacted to your diagnosis, to your treatment, and are they your caregivers? I mean how do you feel about you know just sort of this whole thing and you can pick any age you want. I know that you’ve been you know how did you feel about it in the beginning? How do you feel about it today? I mean it so it’s kind of a long answer.

Rachel Star Withers: Oh I’m growing up likes I said, I was undiagnosed as a child, as a teenager and my parents, we lived in the country. This is all pre internet. So really all you have at that point is the movies you’ve seen and some cool VHS tapes. You know we were very like secluded and I was their first child. So they always look back now and like wow she had a lot of people she was talking to as a child. What’s the difference between that and let’s say imaginary friends? They didn’t know like where was the line of what’s normal just being an adorable little weird kid? And then what’s something where, OK, this has gone too far? So they didn’t get me help as a kid or teenager but they also kind of didn’t realize that I was different than anybody else. Same thing with me. I thought everybody was like me. I thought everybody saw monsters all the time. No you don’t? My bad. But when I got diagnosed at age 21, I actually I sat them down and I was so scared to tell them. But they took it. And over the next few months they actually like researched it and were out trying to learn more like what exactly is this and a whole lot of dots started connecting when they looked back at pretty much how my life had been. And they’re absolutely amazing. I had like the coolest wonderful most amazing family in the world. I always stress that because they put up with so much with me.

Gabe Howard: And they helped you right? I mean you consider that and I’m just asking on behalf I know that you do not speak for all people with schizophrenia everywhere. So I’m just I’m just asking for in your situation. Do you feel that part of your recovery and part of your wellness is because of the hard work determination love and support of your family?

Rachel Star Withers: Absolutely. My parents especially, my dad, he adores me I’m like one of those little daddy’s girl situations. If it was up to him, me and my brother would live with them forever. Like when you get married and have kids but we’re all going to live in a giant house together. Like that’s my dad’s dream. So yeah we’re very like close knit family. And I understand most people do not have that luxury. And it is a luxury even if you have great parents they might not put up with all the stuff I’ve done, but they’ve always been there. And when I did have psychotic episodes, as they learned through the years, they learned how to pretty much jump in there and help me. And it was Rachel, what do you need us to do? All right. And my dad every day he checks on me. He makes sure that I’m eating. If he hasn’t seen me and it’s like two o’clock in the afternoon he’s going to come down, and he’ll usually bring me some food, check on me make sure that I’m fully aware and that’s really awesome. Most of times I’m perfectly fine. But yeah sometimes he comes down there and I’ve been awake for three days and I’m kind of talking to myself and weird.

Gabe Howard: In future episodes of inside schizophrenia we’re really going to delve into the relationship between people with schizophrenia and their support system whether it’s just you know their friend, their family, their wives, or in the cases of caregivers or even medical care. So I just wanted to touch it on a little bit and I know that we’ll explore this further in the future. So thank you so much for providing just a small insight into your life, Rachel.

Rachel Star Withers: You’re welcome.

Gabe Howard: Rachel, later on in the show we’re going to talk to a doctor, a clinical psychologist, a professor at Columbia University.  He knows I guess as much as any medical person can know about schizophrenia and he’s really going to delve into what is schizophrenia from the medical perspective. But before we get there we want to talk about what is schizophrenia from your perspective and you know that’s sort of a balancing act because obviously you’ve been on the Internet. We know you’ve been on the Internet. You’ve read a lot about the illness. You are a mental health advocate. So you’ve answered a lot of questions, you’ve talked to a lot of people, and you are a professional in your own way and in your own right. But of course you’re also a person living with schizophrenia. So we just want the audience to understand that all of this stuff that we’re going to talk about right now, the symptoms of schizophrenia, you’re going to answer from Rachel Star Withers’ perspective, a content expert and a person living with schizophrenia. And then later in the show we’ll ask a doctor and see how you know those two things compare and contrast so that hopefully the audience can get a more broad view of what schizophrenia is exactly because hey listen you don’t need to listen to an entire podcast to learn what schizophrenia is. You can just google it and it’ll give you like what like a 20 word answer. But we want to go a little deeper.

Rachel Star Withers: Yes. Or just pull it up on YouTube and hopefully you find me.

Gabe Howard: At Rachel Star Live, correct?

Rachel Star Withers: Yes it is.

Gabe Howard: You should check her out. She is very very awesome. All right. So let’s delve into hallucinations and delusions. I think that when people do think of schizophrenia they really do think of like these hallucinations first.

Rachel Star Withers: Yeah. I think those are the ones that get like most confused. What’s the difference between a hallucination and a delusion? And honestly I didn’t know for a long time. Ironically, when they sit you down and tell you you have schizophrenia, they don’t break this stuff up like they don’t say hey this is what you’re having. This is what you need to expect. It’s just let me pop this label on you and here are some meds. And for my caregivers out there, my loved ones, research. It will help you so much. Research because then when stuff happens you’re not terrified you’re like oh OK I read about this. So when you have hallucinations, those are things that you see, hear, feel, smell, that are not really there. That maybe the people around you would not be experiencing, whereas a delusion is a belief not based in reality. It could be everything from the government’s after me to just thinking that your friends are talking about you or being like slightly paranoid.

Gabe Howard: So a good analogy for hallucination versus a delusion is a hallucination is, you see Santa Claus under the table. A delusion is, you believe Santa Claus is under the table. But you don’t have any visual or auditory proof.

Rachel Star Withers: Correct.

Gabe Howard: And that also there’s different types of hallucinations right. I mean you said there’s seeing hearing and smelling. But you don’t have to have all three?

Rachel Star Withers: Right.

Gabe Howard: You can just hear voices or you could just see things or you can just smell things or you can have any combination thereof, right?

Rachel Star Withers: Yes.

Gabe Howard: Now you personally, what type of hallucinations and or delusions do you have?

Rachel Star Withers: My most common hallucinations, I have a lot of visual ones and it’s mostly shadowy figures like I can’t really tell you like if you asked me a draw it, I can’t. They’re just like kind of black monster like things and they’ll usually just hang out in the corner of a room. Mine rarely like movies like you know animatronics or something everyone’s like well, do that crawl? Mine are just going to stand there and stare at me and sometimes like they’ll jump forward but they don’t do anything they don’t try and touch me and I see like faces and things a lot. I have to be real careful with them. I avoid mirrors because when I look in the mirror suddenly my eyes move around or my nose. I become very kind of like a gargoyle. So I just avoid a mirror as best I can. And when I’m out in public sometimes I like randomly look at a stranger and their face is messed up in my mind I’m like OK are they? Is it really messed up or am I hallucinating this? And either way it doesn’t matter. It’s kind of how I deal with that stuff as well unless I you know really this is a matter of the strangers face is like that or not. So I’m able to go about my day when it comes to audio hallucinations and kind of back where you’re talking about schizophrenics need different types of care at times. I’m very lucky that I’ve never experienced the kind of audio hallucinations of like a voice that’s constantly hollering at me telling me things or harassing me. Whereas a lot of people unfortunately do. And that makes life very difficult. Mine have always been like ticking or clicking sounds and I hear my name being called a lot but I’m nothing like yeah a constant voice that I can really make out. Sometimes it sounds like there’s a radio left on and I’m like in another room in the house so I hear like garbled like there’s people talking but I can’t tell you what they’re talking about.

Gabe Howard: And as you said with auditory hallucinations it can it can really just run the spectrum. You know some people might hear compliments all day. You know you’re beautiful, I love you, you can do it. And other people might hear you know horrible insults all day, you’re garbage. Kill yourself and on and on and on. You know this is why it’s very important to understand that not every single person with schizophrenia is the same. And the example that we always use for this is we know millions of people with jobs but we understand that not everybody who has a job has the exact same responsibility or lifestyle or salary or benefits. So we understand that there’s a difference and even within the same classifications of jobs not every podcast makes the same amount of money for example not every actor makes the same amount of money not every doctor makes the same amount of money or experiences the same level of success or failure. So we try to get that out there a lot because I know that you’ve described before that people were like Oh well I met Rachel Star Withers who has schizophrenia and now I completely understand schizophrenia based on a five minute conversation or a half an hour speech or you know a 45 minute podcast. So it’s important to understand that your results may vary and your loved ones results may vary.

Rachel Star Withers: Yes just like an exercise tape or diet.

Gabe Howard: You’re just like an exercise tape?

Rachel Star Withers: And that’s something actually very common with me is people will email me and they’ll be like No my so-and-so had schizophrenia, or I saw a movie on schizophrenia, or I took one psychology class in college so I know about schizophrenia and you are not one because you can talk. Schizophrenics can’t talk, they can’t hold any sort of job. They’re pretty much in the corner drooling on themselves and that’s probably at least three times a week I get an email like that of someone saying no schizophrenics are not able to make a video, they’re not able to talk as clear as you do. You don’t have it. They’re never doctors that say this.

Gabe Howard: Well and there are no doctors that have seen you. There’s a phrase for this. It’s called an armchair psychologist. It’s where somebody observes you on television or in public and decides that they can diagnose you with a mental health issue or a mental illness or in your case undiagnose you. And this is not how mental illness is diagnosed and even though we know that our loved ones you like you said that your family is very very engaged. They’re still not qualified to diagnose you based on observation and the fact that they don’t have medical degrees. But again it’s important that they talk with you, that they ask you questions, that they observe for long periods of time in unedited ways. You know that’s the fascinating part that we see a lot of people who are diagnosing celebrities. This is edited tape. It’s not reality. Maybe it’s a publicity stunt. Maybe it’s on purpose. Maybe it was a bad day. Maybe it was fueled by drugs or alcohol. Maybe the person had been up for four days. Maybe the person is legitimately suffering from schizophrenia but you can’t rule those out because you saw them on the news.

Rachel Star Withers: Correct. And you can kind of like yes if you only saw me in the middle of a really bad episode and I’m thinking that I’ve lost an arm and I’m searching my bed for my missing arm and you’re like you clearly have two arms you’re using your second arm to look for this missing one. It’s like you cannot reason with me. And if that’s all you saw, then yeah, Rachel needs to be in an inpatient hospital 24/7. But let’s say two days later I’m perfectly fine. I understand the appendages that I have are in place and I’m able to like have great conversations with you.

Gabe Howard: One of the things that we talked about at the top of the show was would I think that you had schizophrenia if you just walked into a room and of course the answer is no. And then later on you touched on people think that schizophrenia is rocking back and forth. They think it’s drooling on themselves. They think that it’s being unable to talk. And one of the things that I want to talk about a little bit is that some of those characteristics aren’t symptoms of schizophrenia, they’re side effects of treatments. And this is in no way discouraging people from getting treatment. It’s just sort of showing how you know sometimes things enter the pop culture and they’re misunderstood. The example that we always use for that is that cancer doesn’t cause baldness. The treatment for cancer causes baldness, and in fact one treatment for one type of cancer causes baldness. How do you feel about having that? I mean how do you feel about just all of that because there’s just a lot of misinformation there now?

Rachel Star Withers: Absolutely. I always tell people that the medication sometimes is way worse than schizophrenia. If you meet me in real life I tend to shake a lot. Like my hands are always trembling. Sometimes I’ll get to the point like I can’t hold a fork or something. To me it doesn’t bother me. Luckily I’m not a brain surgeon. That would probably affect that but I chose to softball at home with entertainment. But that has nothing to do with my schizophrenia. It’s actually tardive dyskinesia, a side effect from being on so many antipsychotics over the years and it’s just this fun little thing. I tell people I’m just kind of dancing I feel my own little earthquake going on but yeah nothing to do with schizophrenia. So if you met me then you meet someone else you would be like well how come this person doesn’t shake? I thought all schizophrenics were like constantly shaking.

Gabe Howard: And research into the medications have developed safer medications that don’t cause tardive dyskinesia. There’s also medications that treat tardive dyskinesia now which is a real benefit. And of course research is always ongoing. But I want to touch on one of the things that you said there where you’re not a brain surgeon and you feel that it’s worth it. You would rather be in full control of your life that yeah you’re shaking, you’re dancing and you know I liked how you put it there but it does fit into your life. Is this common for people with schizophrenia or mental illness where they sort of have to make a compromise with their medications or their treatments and how do you feel about that?

Rachel Star Withers: Absolutely correct. You have to make a compromise. A lot of people message I’m scared such and such will happen. It might. But if me taking this medication makes it so I can get up every day and work and have a social life then I personally I don’t mind shaking a little bit. The worst thing that happens is I’m out to eat at a restaurant and you can visibly see me struggling. But, I’m able to be out at that restaurant. I’m able to be out with friends, I’m able to have a social life. You have to weigh the pros and cons when it comes to medication and side effects. At the end of the day everybody whether you have a mental disorder or not you just want to be able to have a life. People think that you know recovery when you’re talking about a mental disorder is you’re just great and you have absolutely no symptoms and you’re like everybody else. And that’s not it. Recovery is being able to live a normal life, not be a celebrity but be able to work, have friends, family. That’s what recovery is to most people.

Gabe Howard: And it’s fair to say that most of life is a tradeoff. For example most of us give our time to a job so that we can get money to do the things that we enjoy. So we’ve made a trade. We’ve traded time for money. You know other things like that we could buy a big expensive house but maybe we can’t travel. We can buy an expensive car but then we eat at McDonald’s or so on and so forth. Most people don’t get 100 percent of what they want. Do you feel that that’s an equivalent analogy for this, or is it not that simple? How do you feel about it?

Rachel Star Withers: Whenever you’re trying out different medications sometimes it’s gonna take a little bit to figure out what’s going to work for you. And it will change over time; a certain dosage might have kept you solid. Being able to work 40 hours a week for years and then one day that just doesn’t work anymore and you have to change dosages or change medications. When I look back across my life there were times that I was working like 60 hours a week and going to school full time and I look back now and think why how did I do either of those things? Much less at the same time? But also during those times that’s usually when I was the most out of my mind, the sickest, most depressed, because that took such a toll on my brain. And now I’m much much more happier. Can I work 40 hours a week? No no no no. And I can’t go to school full time. I do online classes which works a lot better for me and a part of it has to do with medication treating me. I’d say my quality of life has went up so much and while I can’t do those things I used to do in the past. I’m much more happier. I’m a lot more upbeat. You probably if you met me in my mid 20s to now my mid 30s I’m a completely different person.

Gabe Howard: We’ve talked a lot about how you treat schizophrenia. In your words, what do you understand that the treatment for schizophrenia is for everyone? Again fully acknowledging that you’re not a doctor. We’ll ask our doctor this question when he comes up later.

Rachel Star Withers: I think it’s safe to say across the board therapy, coping skills, kind of learning how to do things differently in life. I might not be able to do a job exactly like somebody else but I can find ways to get it done. And medication and having this like a support system. We’ve heard I mentioned that I have an incredible family support system. And if you’re out there like well I don’t have a support system. My family isn’t like yours, you’re going to have to make your own support system whether it is friends whether it’s your doctor your therapist whether you’re able to join a peer support group. There’s lots of different support groups for schizophrenia and even caretakers of people with mental disorders and just being able to be around other people going through what you’re going through, able to like share ideas on how to deal with things is really awesome.

Gabe Howard: Peer run support groups really I think don’t get enough attention. So I’m really glad that you brought it up. But there’s just a wealth in sitting in a room with people who have similar experience and we’ve done this in this country since its inception. Sales people exchange leads and information with other sales people, mommy groups are a huge thing for new mothers where they talk to other mothers to get hints and tips on everything. You know there’s even sewing circles so that everybody can sit around and sew. Doctors teach other doctors. So I really always like to give like a great plug to joining a peer support group for people with schizophrenia or just people with mental illness in general because there really is a wealth of knowledge to get there and I always tell people look at it like a buffet take what you want and leave the rest. You don’t need to be mad at the salad just load up on mashed potatoes.

Rachel Star Withers: And there’s something, even though I have an incredible family support system, none of them have schizophrenia. So when I’m able to talk to other schizophrenics like just sit down and hang out it’s like the biggest weight off of my shoulders because I can say things and we completely get each other. It’s not like weird. It’s not like I’m trying to tell you my hallucination and you’re like OK Rachel and I’m not worrying them because they’ve done the exact same thing, they’ve been through the things that I have. And it’s cool just to be able to talk kind of without a filter to somebody who’s going through or has been through your same situation.

Gabe Howard: I could not agree more. And for our listeners to know that is exactly how Gabe and Rachel became friends.

Rachel Star Withers: It is.

Gabe Howard: It is. Rachel, how did you get schizophrenia?

Rachel Star Withers: A common misconception is people be like oh wow something horrible must have happened to you as a child to cause all this. No. I’ve had schizophrenia as long as I can remember. I grew up hallucinating. I pretty much popped out like a little crazy baby just like scream and probably thinking I had like five moms in the room. I don’t know I can’t remember back that far but probably.

Gabe Howard: I don’t think any of us remember our literal birthday.

Rachel Star Withers: So maybe that causes are still unknown. Research is ongoing and hopefully medical science will nail that down one day for us.

Gabe Howard: And we’ve come a long way. I mean considering how we treated mental illness at the turn of the century to where we are today, is a world of difference.

Rachel Star Withers: Absolutely. Just to think that maybe if I was born one hundred years ago I would have just been locked up right away whether it was like talking locked up in jail a lot of times just for protecting other people or just put into different hospitals. And that was back when you could be you know put in mental hospitals. It was really anything. Anything weird that you did was like, ehhh.

Gabe Howard: You are right. The treatment of mental illness in this country does have a very traumatic history. You know for the longest time any husband could commit their wife to an asylum because she was hysterical or because she was acting erratic or because she wouldn’t cook and clean. And these were considered mental illnesses. So I do understand why people are leery of mental health diagnosis in that I understand why they’re scared to be diagnosed themselves or why they might resist treatment if they believe the things like in the movies that you talked about or if you just look at the history of our country and I want to say that we’ve evolved and I do believe that we have it. But I want to be clear that that evolution needs to be ongoing. As a person living with schizophrenia, how does the past impact your present decisions and your look toward the future?

Rachel Star Withers: Even just in my past of when I first started getting treatment in my 20s to now. Things have evolved so much like medications alone have become much safer and have less side effects same with different therapies that I’ve been through. They do differently that they found hey this is going to cause a lot less trauma. It’s just amazing even for me to see in ten years what’s evolved and to think OK well when I’m in my mid 40s what’s my treatment going to be like? Then I’m excited. Who knows, I might be wearing this cool little like google glass thing on my head that like fixes my thoughts. That sounds neat. Let’s do that. But I don’t know. It for me it’s very hopeful to see that. Yeah how far we have come as a society. And that’s awesome.

Gabe Howard: Thank you so much, Rachel. You know we’ve talked a lot about schizophrenia and what it is, we’ve broken it down. But the running theme is that most people still misunderstand schizophrenia and they still regard people with schizophrenia as crazy and scary. We know how you feel about it. We know that you wanted to change and that you want people to be better educated and that’s why you’re doing this podcast and that’s why you live so openly. Do you have any closing thoughts for anybody listening to this podcast that may believe that or know somebody who believes that?

Rachel Star Withers: When I was first diagnosed at around 21 that was a hard blow for me because I thought exactly as all of these bad examples we’ve been giving. I was that person I was like Oh no no I’m gonna become a serial killer. Oh no no I don’t want to be associated with this horrible thing and I don’t want anyone else to know because they’re going to think I’m dangerous. I was scared out of my mind. As I’ve grown up and I’ve learned, my personal definition of schizophrenia is it’s just your brain working differently than the norm, and that’s okay. Gabe, tell us about our sponsor.

Gabe Howard: It can sometimes feel like another schizophrenia episode is just around the corner. In fact, a recent study found that patients had an average of nine episodes in less than six years. However, there’s a treatment plan option that can help delay another episode. A once monthly injection for adults with schizophrenia. If delaying another episode sounds like it could make a difference for you or your loved one, learn more about treating schizophrenia with once monthly injections at oncemonthlydifference.com. That’s oncemonthlydifference.com.

Rachel Star Withers: Thank you, Gabe, for that information. And let’s jump back into talking about schizophrenia. We’re here with our guests now Dr. Ali Mattu. He is a clinical psychologist and assistant professor with the psychiatry department at Columbia University. He is also the host of The Psych Show on YouTube. Hello, Dr. Ali.

Dr. Ali Mattu: Hi, Rachel, it’s so good to be on the show here with you.

Rachel Star Withers: Yes, great to speak to you again. So from a doctor, and a medical perspective, what is schizophrenia?

Dr. Ali Mattu: Well it’s a psychiatric condition, a mental illness. And there’s two main problems associated with schizophrenia. One are the collection of symptoms that we call positive symptoms. These are things that most people don’t experience. So things like problems and how you’re perceiving the world around you. You might be seeing things that other people might not see, you might be hearing things that other people might not hear. And then also problems related to beliefs or ideas of what’s happening to you, what’s happening in the world around you. So those are some of the positive symptoms of schizophrenia, things that are being added to someone that might not otherwise experience. And then there’s this whole category of negative symptoms where things are being taken away. So for example the way you experience emotions might be flattened, you might not experience emotions as intensely. You might be losing connection with important people. You might be starting to experience depression, things like that. So it’s a very diverse condition. There’s a lot of different symptoms associated with it and people experience these symptoms in different degrees at different times throughout their lifetime experiencing this problem.

Gabe Howard: Thank you so much for that answer. Again, from a medical perspective, what symptoms do you see is the most debilitating just in a general sense?

Dr. Ali Mattu: It’s a really good question. I think I would say the loss of support that can happen with schizophrenia and what there’s two things we know here one is when people are experiencing a lot of conflict in their homes or if they are losing connection with family members, with friends, that often makes all of those symptoms worse. And when people are able to get that support it really helps all those symptoms to get better. So I think for everyone, no matter what age they are, no matter where they are in their journey with schizophrenia, if you lose that connection, if you become isolated, if you’re experiencing a lot of rejection, that just makes all of this even more difficult.

Rachel Star Withers: You were just talking about how diverse schizophrenia can be.

Dr. Ali Mattu: Yeah.

Rachel Star Withers: What would a general treatment plan look like for most schizophrenics?

Dr. Ali Mattu: The treatment of choice for schizophrenia is a medication intervention. So there are a number of different medications that can be helpful for someone who might be experiencing schizophrenia. And one of the challenges is finding the one that works for you right now that can be a journey in itself but usually you’re going to have a psychiatrist someone who has a medical degree and expertise in mental illness. Is there going to be the ones who are going to be working with someone one on one to identify what might be the best medication for you and then you’re probably going to be working with another mental health professional. It could be a psychologist, someone like me, someone who has a doctorate in psychology, or it could also be a social worker, a counselor, a different type therapist but someone who’s going to be helping you with the other category of problems that come along with schizophrenia. So while medications will help you to become less confused and become or bring a little bit more clarity to how you’re seeing things around you, you still need other skills and to help you learn how to cope with your emotions, how to better connect with other people, how to deal with some of the challenges that can come along with schizophrenia, and also to talk about your experience with this and your experience with the medications and all of that sort of stuff. So usually it’s going to be a combination of psychiatry as well as some other type of mental health support.

Gabe Howard: To change gears just for a moment you know your YouTube show you know generates questions and you answer them and it’s a very very cool thing that you do. And we like that because we think that schizophrenia and other mental disorders are so incredibly misunderstood. So how have you seen social media and YouTube or maybe just the internet affect the way schizophrenia is perceived in either a good or a bad way?

Dr. Ali Mattu: I think it’s been a complete dramatic shift and it’s a part of a larger shift that’s happening in the world of mental health right now. But I think it’s so pronounced for schizophrenia. So for a long long time schizophrenia, the representations of it in media have really been extreme, stereotypical, and often I think bad representations of schizophrenia. And what we’re starting to see now, and, Rachel, you’ve been a part of this and I thank you so much for the voice you’ve had here in shaping this discussion, is we’re beginning to see a range of experiences where we’re seeing people share their stories of how they were diagnosed, of what their life is like how they coped with schizophrenia, and it’s not guided by people in Hollywood who might have a stereotype idea of what schizophrenia is like but it’s a more authentic story in it. I think as I was saying earlier it’s such a diverse problem, and we’re seeing more of that diversity of experience on social media, on blogs, on YouTube. And that for me has been incredibly exciting and it’s helped me to learn more about what schizophrenia is like. It’s been one of the most exciting developments in my career.

Rachel Star Withers: And I like how you said that. I never thought of it that way that yes, suddenly we’re able to see so many other examples of people living with different mental disorders and how yet absolutely diverse it really can be.

Dr. Ali Mattu: I see that for anxiety, I see that for depression, bipolar depression, eating disorders. We’re actually starting to talk about this stuff. It’s not just us consuming media that people create but we’re having conversations now about so much stuff in mental health.

Gabe Howard: One of the things that’s great to see of course are our conversations but there is always some criticism that the conversations that are taking place by influencers, people like Rachel, that maybe these conversations aren’t the best because they’re potentially, going to be very clear on the word potentially, but they could be it could be misinformation, they could be light on facts, you could hear the wrong information, or shift in the wrong direction and that can put somebody who is vulnerable in harm’s way. From your perspective, how do you sort of tease all that out as a provider? I mean and as somebody who uses the Internet to start these conversations?

Dr. Ali Mattu: That’s why I started my YouTube channel actually. A patient of mine came in and said hey this video has been really helpful to me. And we watched it together and I was like this video is full of B.S. I can’t believe we’re watching this one. And that’s what got me interested in sharing more of what I know online. It’s a big challenge. Historically people like me people who have a lot of professional training, we haven’t been trained and don’t have experience in sharing information with the public in a way that the public will want to understand and platforms like YouTube are really struggling with this. How do you filter out what’s accurate versus what’s entertaining? And on podcasts platforms, it’s hard to find and figure out who knows what they’re talking about and who sounds like they know what they’re talking about. So in one way I think this is one of the big challenges we’re all struggling with. How do you figure out what’s accurate and not in the age of the Internet? I think the best way to do this is what’s happening right now is us having conversations where it is professionals and advocates and people who have experienced this. People who have no experience with this and us coming together and having these conversations. This is how I think we move move things forward. And that’s always been my favorite experience as a psychologist is when I’m able to sit down with someone who also is an advocate for this issue who understands it in a way that I never will. And we can work together to push things forward. That’s how we change things.

Gabe Howard: Very cool thank you.

Rachel Star Withers: So what should a person do if they think they might have schizophrenia? Whether it’s listening to this podcast or different problems they’ve been having? What’s the first thing they should do?

Dr. Ali Mattu: First thing is to talk to a doctor, talk to a medical professional because there are effective treatments and it’s never too late and it’s never too early to get that evaluated to some degree and I think this is something a lot of people don’t understand is a lot of what we’re talking about is on a spectrum of what is common and what is uncommon. So every now and then when I’m at home and the lights are off and I’m home alone and I hear a sound I’ll start to wonder what was that? And this is something that’s just built into our psychology. It’s how we work. And every now and then when I’m struggling emotionally and I’m really stressed and I’m thinking about things that I’m worried about maybe my worries get out of hand and I start to believe things that are pretty far away from what is actually happening. That’s pretty common. But what we’re talking about on this podcast is a more uncommon version of these symptoms that might be causing you a lot of problems in your life.  But for a lot of you who might not be sure is what am I guess what I’m experiencing is this one of the more common things that everyone goes through or is this less common. A medical professional, a mental health professional will help you to figure that out and it’s never too late and it’s never too early. One of the things we know about treating schizophrenia is the sooner you can catch it and the sooner you can get effective treatment the better off it’s going to be in the long term. So if you have any doubts and I know this is a hard thing to talk about, find a medical professional that you feel comfortable with and talk to them and they’ll help you to figure that out.

Gabe Howard: Thank you so much.

Rachel Star Withers: Yeah. That was absolutely awesome. Thank you so much, Dr. Ali Mattu, we absolutely loved having you on here.

Dr. Ali Mattu: Oh thanks for having me. I’ve been looking forward to this conversation all week long and it’s been a pleasure.

Rachel Star Withers: If you would like to learn more about Dr. Ali Mattu, you can check out his YouTube show at YouTube.com/ThePsychShow. Thank you so much for listening to Inside Schizophrenia with your hosts Rachel and Gabe. The official Web site of Inside Schizophrenia is PsychCentral.com/IS. Please like, share, send this to all of your friends, and subscribe if you haven’t yet. Help us get the word out there so people actually start to see schizophrenia how it really is.

Inside Schizophrenia is presented by PsychCentral.com, America’s largest and longest operating independent mental health website. Your host, Rachel Star Withers, can be found online at RachelStarLive.com. Co-host Gabe Howard can be found online at GabeHoward.com. For questions, or to provide feedback, please email talkback@PsychCentral.com. The official web site for Inside Schizophrenia is PsychCentral.com/IS. Thank you for listening and please share widely.

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