Category: Self help
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I Work On My Life 66 Days At a Time
A Structure for DIY Therapy During the time when I was organizing the first of my successful efforts to heal (vs. the decades-long failed patterns), my goal-setting challenges modeled from The One Thing book turned into more of an organized effort. I decided beginning in July of 2020 to start one of these 66-day challenges… Read more
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Is It Really Narcissist vs. Codependent?
For those who are making a sincere effort to heal from CPTSD, especially for those raised in dysfunctional families, it’s important to understand types of toxic relationship dynamics. One of the most common–more than a category than a type–is often referred to as the “narcissist/codependent” relationship. The narcissist in this scenario is seen as the… Read more
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ADHD Hacks for Actually Using a Planner
“Have you tried using a planner?” This question must be one of the top pet peeves of the ADHDer. As if the real problem is that we just haven’t tried the most obvious solutions in the world. Many ADHDers have collections of unused planners sitting neglected on a shelf, bearing silent testimony to the wild… Read more
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Personalized New Year Rituals
I’ve developed my own traditions over the years. My personal rituals have made New Year’s Day my favorite holiday. These traditions are inspiring and give me that “fresh start” feeling, but also help me continue my healing work from CPTSD, and to build on prior successes. Here’s a quick take on a ritual that takes… Read more
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Getting Sober. How Did that Huge Thing Become So Little?
Of all the steps that I’ve taken, including: journaling, meditation, impulsively signing on for a couple of creative projects, learning about trauma, etc., one of the biggest steps was cutting alcohol out of my diet and out of my life. Preparing to get sober Getting sober was another big step I took over the summer… Read more
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Journaling For Mental Health
I’ve been outlining the various steps I took starting in late 2019 and going into 2020 to try to emerge from a state of mental illness and misery. Although they seem random and unrelated, these steps led me, for the first time in my life, to a period of continual improvement out of the state… Read more
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Hiking For (Mental) Health
In other posts, I’ve described the first effective steps that I took that let to sustained improvements in my mental health. These included creative projects, self-improvement tips, and meditation. The first hike The next “little” thing I did, that ended up being huge for me, was to start more physical activity. In particular, physical activity… Read more
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Mindfulness Meditation: the Thin End of the Wedge
I’ve already described how, during 2019 and 2020, I had started to break down what I’d always thought of merely as intense anxiety, and define what was really a cluster of debilitating symptoms that added up to feeling unbearable tension. In another post, I described a few, perhaps odd and shaky, but effective early steps… Read more
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Another Symptom and a Little More Early Recovery
In a previous post, I outlined a list of some “symptoms” that I started to be able to identify, out of the fog of anxiety and confusion that’s plagued me for most of my life. Spinning In Circles One other symptom that I began to notice (these symptoms didn’t just start recently, but I just… Read more
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The “Pre-Recovery” Phase: You Have to Slow Down Before You Can Turn Around
You can be so sick for so long that you have no idea how far down you’ve really fallen. That’s partly what happened to me. I didn’t realize how bad I really was. Being unwell is a terrible vicious cycle. All your energy goes into bearing the burden, and it’s easy to lose sight of… Read more