Cutting and Self-Harm

Posted on August 12, 2016 by JmaC
elf-harm can be a way of coping with problems. It may help you express feelings you can’t put into words, distract you from your life, or release emotional pain. Afterwards, you probably feel better—at least for a little while. But then the painful feelings return, and you feel the urge to hurt yourself again. If you want to stop but don’t know how, remember this: you deserve to feel better, and you can get there without hurting yourself.

Understanding cutting and self-harm

Self-harm is a way of expressing and dealing with deep distress and emotional pain. As counterintuitive as it may sound to those on the outside, hurting yourself can make you feel better. In fact, you may feel like you have no choice. Injuring yourself is the only way you know how to cope with feelings like sadness, self-loathing, emptiness, guilt, and rage.

The problem is that the relief that comes from self-harming doesn’t last very long. It’s like slapping on a Band-Aid when what you really need are stitches. It may temporarily stop the bleeding, but it doesn’t fix the underlying injury. It also creates its own problems.

If you’re like most people who self-injure, you probably try to keep what you’re doing secret. Maybe you feel ashamed or maybe you just think that no one would understand. But hiding who you are and what you feel is a heavy burden. Ultimately, the secrecy and guilt affects your relationships with your friends and family members and the way you feel about yourself. It can make you feel even more lonely, worthless, and trapped.

Myths and facts about cutting and self-harm

Because cutting and other means of self-harm tend to be taboo subjects, the people around you—and possibly even you—may harbor serious misunderstandings about your motivations and state of mind. Don’t let these myths get in the way of getting help or helping someone you care about.

Myth: People who cut and self-injure are trying to get attention.
Fact: The painful truth is that people who self-harm generally harm themselves in secret. They aren’t trying to manipulate others or draw attention to themselves. In fact, shame and fear can make it very difficult to come forward and ask for help.

Myth: People who self-injure are crazy and/or dangerous.
Fact: It is true that many people who self-harm suffer from anxiety, depression, or a previous trauma—just like millions of others in the general population, but that doesn’t make them crazy or dangerous. Self-injury is how they cope. Sticking a label like “crazy” or “dangerous” on a person isn’t accurate or helpful.

Myth: People who self-injure want to die.
Fact: People who self-injure usually do not want to die. When they self-harm, they are not trying to kill themselves—they are trying to cope with their problems and pain. In fact, self-injury may be a way of helping themselves go on living. However, in the long-term, people who self-injure have a much higher risk of suicide, which is why it’s so important to seek help.

Myth: If the wounds aren’t bad, it’s not that serious.
Fact: The severity of a person’s wounds has very little to do with how much he or she may be suffering. Don’t assume that because the wounds or injuries are minor, there’s nothing to worry about.

Signs and symptoms of cutting and self-harm

Self-harm includes anything you do to intentionally injure yourself. Some of the more common ways include:

  • cutting or severely scratching your skin
  • burning or scalding yourself
  • hitting yourself or banging your head
  • punching things or throwing your body against walls and hard objects
  • sticking objects into your skin
  • intentionally preventing wounds from healing
  • swallowing poisonous substances or inappropriate objects

Self-harm can also include less obvious ways of hurting yourself or putting yourself in danger, such as driving recklessly, binge drinking, taking too many drugs, and having unsafe sex.

Warning signs that a family member or friend is cutting or self-injuring

Because clothing can hide physical injuries, and inner turmoil can be covered up by a seemingly calm disposition, self-injury can be hard to detect. However, there are red flags you can look for (but remember—you don’t have to be sure that you know what’s going on in order to reach out to someone you’re worried about):

  • Unexplained wounds or scars from cuts, bruises, or burns, usually on the wrists, arms, thighs, or chest.
  • Blood stains on clothing, towels, or bedding; blood-soaked tissues.
  • Sharp objects or cutting instruments, such as razors, knives, needles, glass shards, or bottle caps, in the person’s belongings.
  • Frequent “accidents.” Someone who self-harms may claim to be clumsy or have many mishaps, in order to explain away injuries.
  • Covering up. A person who self-injures may insist on wearing long sleeves or long pants, even in hot weather.
  • Needing to be alone for long periods of time, especially in the bedroom or bathroom.
  • Isolation and irritability.

How does cutting and self-harm help?

In your own words

  • “It expresses emotional pain or feelings that I’m unable to put into words. It puts a punctuation mark on what I’m feeling on the inside!”
  • “It’s a way to have control over my body because I can’t control anything else in my life.”
  • “I usually feel like I have a black hole in the pit of my stomach, at least if I feel pain it’s better than feeling nothing. ”
  • “I feel relieved and less anxious after I cut. The emotional pain slowly slips away into the physical pain.”

It’s important to acknowledge that self-harm helps you—otherwise you wouldn’t do it. Some of the ways cutting and self-harming can help include:

  • Expressing feelings you can’t put into words
  • Releasing the pain and tension you feel inside
  • Helping you feel in control
  • Distracting you from overwhelming emotions or difficult life circumstances
  • Relieving guilt and punishing yourself
  • Making you feel alive, or simply feelsomething, instead of feeling numb

Once you better understand why you self-harm, you can learn ways to stop self-harming, and find resources that can support you through this struggle.

If self-harm helps, why stop?

Although self-harm and cutting can give you temporary relief, it comes at a cost. In the long term, it causes far more problems than it solves.

  • The relief is short lived, and is quickly followed by other feelings like shame and guilt. Meanwhile, it keeps you from learning more effective strategies for feeling better.
  • Keeping the secret of self-harm from friends and family members is difficult and lonely.
  • You can hurt yourself badly, even if you don’t mean to. It’s easy to misjudge the depth of a cut or end up with an infected wound.
  • If you don’t learn other ways to deal with emotional pain, it puts you at risk for bigger problems down the line, including major depression, drug and alcohol addiction, and suicide.
  • Self-harm can become addictive. It may start off as an impulse or something you do to feel more in control, but soon it feels like the cutting or self-harming is controlling you. It often turns into a compulsive behavior that seems impossible to stop.

The bottom line: self-harm and cutting don’t help you with the issues that made you want to hurt yourself in the first place. There are many other ways that the underlying issues that are driving the self harm can be managed.

Help for cutting and self-harm step 1: Confide in someone

If you’re ready to get help for cutting or self-harm, the first step is to confide in another person. It can be scary to talk about the very thing you have worked so hard to hide, but it can also be a huge relief to finally let go of your secret and share what you’re going through.

Deciding whom you can trust with such personal information can be difficult. Choose someone who isn’t going to gossip or try to take control of your recovery. Ask yourself who in your life makes you feel accepted and supported. It could be a friend, teacher, religious leader, counselor, or relative. But you don’t necessarily have to choose someone you are close to.

Eventually, you’ll want to open up to your inner circle of friends and family members, but sometimes it’s easier to start by talking to an adult who you respect—such as a teacher, religious leader, or counselor—who has a little more distance from the situation and won’t find it as difficult to be objective.

Tips for talking about cutting and self-harm

  • Focus on your feelings. Instead of sharing detailed accounts of your self-harm behavior focus on the feelings or situations that lead to it. This can help the person you’re confiding in better understand where you’re coming from. It also helps to let the person know why you’re telling them. Do you want help or advice from them? Do you simply want another person to know so you can let go of the secret?
  • Communicate in whatever way you feel most comfortable. If you’re too nervous to talk in person, consider starting off the conversation with an email or letter (although it’s important to eventually follow-up with a face-to-face conversation). Don’t feel pressured into sharing things you’re not ready to talk about. You don’t have to show the person your injuries or answer any questions you don’t feel comfortable answering.
  • Give the person time to process what you tell them. As difficult as it is for you to open up, it may also be difficult for the person you tell—especially if it’s a close friend or family member. Sometimes, you may not like the way the person reacts. Try to remember that reactions such as shock, anger, and fear come out of concern for you. It may help to print out this article for the people you choose to tell. The better they understand self-harm, the better able they’ll be to support you.

Talking about self-harm can be very stressful and bring up a lot of emotions. Don’t be discouraged if the situation feels worse for a short time right after sharing your secret. It’s uncomfortable to confront and change long-standing habits. But once you get past these initial challenges, you’ll start to feel better.

Need help for self-harm?

If you’re not sure where to turn, call the S.A.F.E. Alternatives information line in the U.S. at (800) 366-8288 for referrals and support for cutting and self-harm. For helplines in other countries, see Resources and References below.

In the middle of a crisis?

If you’re feeling suicidal and need help right now, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline in the U.S. at (800) 273-8255. For a suicide helpline outside the U.S., visit Befrienders Worldwide.

Help for cutting and self-harm step 2: Figure out why you cut

Understanding why you cut or self-harm is a vital first step toward your recovery. If you can figure out what function your self-injury serves, you can learn other ways to get those needs met—which in turn can reduce your desire to hurt yourself.

Identify your self-harm triggers

Remember, self-harm is most often a way of dealing with emotional pain. What feelings make you want to cut or hurt yourself? Sadness? Anger? Shame? Loneliness? Guilt? Emptiness?

Once you learn to recognize the feelings that trigger your need to self-injure, you can start developing healthier alternatives.

Get in touch with your feelings

If you’re having a hard time pinpointing the feelings that trigger your urge to cut, you may need to work on your emotional awareness. Emotional awareness means knowing what you are feeling and why. It’s the ability to identify and express what you are feeling from moment to moment and to understand the connection between your feelings and your actions. Feelings are important pieces of information that our bodies give to us, but they do not have to result in actions like cutting or other self-harming.

The idea of paying attention to your feelings—rather than numbing them or releasing them through self-harm—may sound frightening to you. You may be afraid that you’ll get overwhelmed or be stuck with the pain. But the truth is that emotions quickly come and go if you let them. If you don’t try to fight, judge, or beat yourself up over the feeling, you’ll find that it soon fades, replaced by another emotion. It’s only when you obsess over the feeling that it persists.

Help for cutting and self-harm step 3: Find new coping techniques

Self-harm is your way of dealing with feelings and difficult situations. So if you’re going to stop, you need to have alternative ways of coping in place so you can respond differently when you start to feel like cutting or hurting yourself.

If you cut to express pain and intense emotions

  • Paint, draw, or scribble on a big piece of paper with red ink or paint
  • Express your feelings in a journal
  • Compose a poem or song to say what you feel
  • Write down any negative feelings and then rip the paper up
  • Listen to music that expresses what you’re feeling

If you cut to calm and soothe yourself

  • Take a bath or hot shower
  • Pet or cuddle with a dog or cat
  • Wrap yourself in a warm blanket
  • Massage your neck, hands, and feet
  • Listen to calming music

If you cut because you feel disconnected and numb

  • Call a friend (you don’t have to talk about self-harm)
  • Take a cold shower
  • Hold an ice cube in the crook of your arm or leg
  • Chew something with a very strong taste, like chili peppers, peppermint, or a grapefruit peel
  • Go online to a self-help website, chat room, or message board

If you cut to release tension or vent anger

  • Exercise vigorously—run, dance, jump rope, or hit a punching bag
  • Punch a cushion or mattress or scream into your pillow
  • Squeeze a stress ball or squish Play-Doh or clay
  • Rip something up (sheets of paper, a magazine)
  • Make some noise (play an instrument, bang on pots and pans)

Substitutes for the cutting sensation

  • Use a red felt tip pen to mark where you might usually cut
  • Rub ice across your skin where you might usually cut
  • Put rubber bands on wrists, arms, or legs, and snap them instead of cutting or hitting

Source: The Mental Health Foundation, UK

Professional treatment for cutting and self-harm

You may also need the help and support of a trained professional as you work to overcome the self-harm habit, so consider talking to a therapist. A therapist can help you develop new coping techniques and strategies to stop self-harming, while also helping you get to the root of why you cut or hurt yourself.

Remember, self-harm doesn’t occur in a vacuum. It exists in real life. It’s an outward expression of inner pain—pain that often has its roots in early life. There is often a connection between self-harm andchildhood trauma.

Self-harm may be your way of coping with feelings related to past abuse, flashbacks, negative feelings about your body, or other traumatic memories. This may be the case even if you’re not consciously aware of the connection.

Finding the right therapist

Finding the right therapist may take some time. It’s very important that the therapist you choose has experience treating both trauma and self-injury. But the quality of the relationship with your therapist is equally important. Trust your instincts. If you don’t feel safe, respected, or understood, find another therapist.

There should be a sense of trust and warmth between you and your therapist. This therapist should be someone who accepts self-harm without condoning it, and who is willing to help you work toward stopping it at your own pace. You should feel at ease with him or her, even while talking through your most personal issues.

Helping a friend or family member who cuts or self-harms

Perhaps you’ve noticed suspicious injuries on someone close to you, or that person has admitted to you that he or she is cutting. Whatever the case may be, you may be feeling unsure of yourself. What should you say? How can you help?

  • Deal with your own feelings. You may feel shocked, confused, or even disgusted by self-harming behaviors—and guilty about admitting these feelings. Acknowledging your feelings is an important first step toward helping your loved one.
  • Learn about the problem. The best way to overcome any discomfort or distaste you feel about self-harm is by learning about it. Understanding why your friend or family member is self-injuring can help you see the world from his or her eyes.
  • Don’t judge. Avoid judgmental comments and criticism—they’ll only make things worse. The first two tips will go a long way in helping you with this. Remember, the self-harming person already feels ashamed and alone.
  • Offer support, not ultimatums. It’s only natural to want to help, but threats, punishments, and ultimatums are counterproductive. Express your concern and let the person know that you’re available whenever he or she wants to talk or needs support.
  • Encourage communication. Encourage your loved one to express whatever he or she is feeling, even if it’s something you might be uncomfortable with. If the person hasn’t told you about the self-harm, bring up the subject in a caring, non-confrontational way: “I’ve noticed injuries on your body, and I want to understand what you’re going through.”

If the self-harmer is a family member, especially if it is your child, prepare yourself to address difficulties in the family. This is not about blame, but rather about learning ways of dealing with problems and communicating better that can help the whole family.

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Improving Mental and Emotional Health

Posted on August 10, 2016 by JmaC

The Help Guide Way to Mental and Emotional Well-Being….

People who are emotionally healthy are in control of their emotions and their behavior. They are able to handle life’s challenges, build strong relationships, and recover from setbacks. But just as it requires effort to build or maintain physical health, so it is with mental and emotional health. Improving your emotional health can be a rewarding experience, benefiting all aspects of your life, including boosting your mood, building resilience, and adding to your overall enjoyment of life.

What is mental health or emotional health?

Mental or emotional health refers to your overall psychological well-being. It includes the way you feel about yourself, the quality of your relationships, your ability to manage feelings and deal with difficulties, and how much meaning and joy you derive from life.

Good mental health isn’t just the absence of mental health problems such as depression or anxiety. Rather, it’s the presence of positive characteristics, such as being able to cope with life’s challenges, handle stress, build strong relationships, and recover from setbacks.

Mental and emotional health problems often arise when your nervous system has been compromised by overwhelming amounts of stress. The body’s natural and most efficient method of coping with stress and rebalancing the nervous system is via face-to-face social contact with a trusted person. This is why mental and emotional health is so closely linked with social health: helping yourself involves reaching out to others.

Why are we reluctant to address our mental health needs?

Anyone can suffer from mental or emotional health problems—and over a lifetime most of us will. This year alone, about one in five of us will suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder. And mood disorders, such as depression and bipolar disorder, are one of the most common causes of hospitalization in the U.S.

Despite how common mental health problems are, many of us make no effort to improve our situation. We ignore the emotional messages that tell us something is wrong and try toughing it out by distracting ourselves or self-medicating with alcohol, drugs, and other destructive behaviors. We bottle things up in the hope that others don’t notice. But our emotional issues always affect those around us, especially when we erupt in rage or despair at the sense of hopelessness and helplessness we feel.

Our reluctance to address our mental health needs stems from a variety of reasons.

In some societies, mental and emotional issues are seen as less legitimate than physical issues. They’re seen as a sign of weakness or somehow as being your own fault.
Some people mistakenly see mental health problems as something you should know how to “snap out of.” Men especially, would often rather bottle up their feelings than seek help.
Many people think that if they do seek help, the only treatment options available are medication (which comes with unwanted side effects) or therapy (which can be lengthy and expensive). The truth is that, whatever your issues, there are things you can do to improve the way you feel and experience greater mental and emotional well-being. And you can start doing them today!
The role of resilience in mental and emotional health

Being emotionally and mentally healthy doesn’t mean never going through bad times or experiencing emotional problems. But just as physically healthy people are better able to bounce back from illness or injury, people with good emotional health are better able to bounce back from adversity, trauma, and stress. This ability is called resilience.

People who are emotionally and mentally resilient have the tools for coping with difficult situations and maintaining a positive outlook. They remain focused, flexible, and creative in bad times as well as good. While some people learn these skills in infancy, depending on the quality of the relationship with their primary caretaker, they can also be learned at any time later in life.

Improving mental and emotional health tip

1: Connect face-to-face with others

One of the key factors in improving mental and emotional health and building resilience is having supportive people around that you can talk to on a daily basis. Humans are social creatures with an overriding emotional need for relationships and positive connections to others. We’re not meant to survive, let alone thrive, in isolation.

Face-to-face social interaction with someone who cares about you is the most effective way to calm your nervous system and relieve stress. Interacting with another person can quickly put the brakes on defensive stress responses like “fight-or-flight.” It also releases hormones that reduce stress, so you’ll feel better even if you’re unable to alter the stressful situation itself.
The key is to find a supportive relationship with someone who is a “good listener”—someone you can regularly talk to in person, who will listen to you without a pre-existing agenda for how you should think or feel. A good listener will listen to the feelings behind your words, and won’t interrupt, judge, or criticize you.

Reaching out is not a sign of weakness and it won’t mean you’re a burden to others. The truth is that most people are flattered if you trust them enough to confide in them.

If you don’t feel that you have anyone to turn to, there are good ways to build new friendships and improve your support network.

Strategies for connecting to others:

Get out from behind your TV or computer screen. Screens have their place but communication is a largely nonverbal experience that requires you to be in direct contact with other people, so don’t neglect your real-world relationships in favor of virtual interaction.
Be a joiner. Join networking, social, or special interest groups that meet on a regular basis. These groups offer wonderful opportunities for meeting people with common interests.

Improving mental and emotional health tip

2: Get moving

Ladies working out:

The mind and the body are intrinsically linked. When you improve your physical health, you’ll automatically experience greater mental and emotional well-being. Exercise not only strengthens your heart and lungs, for example, it also releases endorphins, powerful chemicals that lift your mood and provide added energy.

Regular exercise can have a positive impact on mental and emotional health problems such as depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety, trauma, and ADHD.
Exercise also relieves stress, improves memory, and helps you to sleep better.
You don’t have to be a fitness fanatic to reap the benefits. Even modest amounts of exercise can make a big difference to your mental and emotional health.
Exercise is something you can engage in right now to boost your energy and outlook and help you regain a sense of control.

Tips for starting an exercise routine:

Aim for 30 minutes of activity on most days or if it’s easier, three 10-minute sessions can be just as, or even more effective.
Try rhythmic exercise that engages both your arms and legs, such as walking, running, swimming, weight training, martial arts, or dancing.
Add a mindfulness element to your workouts. Instead of focusing on your thoughts, focus on how your body feels as you move—how your feet hit the ground, for example, the rhythm of your breathing, or the feeling of wind on your skin.

Improving mental and emotional health tip

3: Manage stress

Many of us spend so much of our daily lives feeling stressed, we’re no longer even aware of it. Being stressed feels normal. But when stress becomes overwhelming, it can damage your mood, trigger or aggravate mental and physical health problems, and affect your quality of life.

While social interaction and exercise are excellent ways to relieve stress, it’s not always realistic to have a friend close by to lean on when you feel stressed or to be able to go out for a run. These other stress management strategies can help you bring things back into balance:

Engage your senses. Does listening to an uplifting song make you feel calm? Or smelling ground coffee? Or maybe petting an animal works quickly to make you feel centered? Everyone responds to sensory input a little differently, so experiment to find what works best for you.
Use relaxation techniques to relieve stress. Techniques such as mindfulness meditation, deep breathing, or progressive muscle relaxation can put the brakes on stress and bring your mind and body back into a state of balance.

Manage your emotions. Understanding and accepting emotions—especially those unpleasant ones many of us try to ignore—can make a huge difference in your ability to manage stress and balance your moods. See HelpGuide’s Emotional Intelligence Toolkit.

Improving mental and emotional health tip

4: Let your diet support your brain

Ladies working out:

What you eat—and even more importantly, what you don’t eat—has a direct impact on the way you feel. Wholesome meals give you more energy and help you look better, resulting in a boost to your self-esteem, while unhealthy food can take a toll on your brain and mood.

Our bodies often respond differently to different foods, depending on genetics and other health factors, so experiment to learn how the food you include in—or cut from—your diet affects the way you feel. In general, instead of obsessing over specific foods or nutrients, focus more on your overall eating pattern.

Foods that Adversely Affect Mood:

Caffeine
Alcohol
Trans fats or anything with “partially hydrogenated” oil
Foods with high levels of chemical preservatives or hormones
Sugary snacks
Refined carbs (such as white rice or white flour)
Fried food
Foods that Boost Mood
Fatty fish rich in Omega-3s such as salmon, herring, mackerel, anchovies, sardines, tuna
Nuts such as walnuts, almonds, cashews, peanuts
Avocados
Flaxseed
Beans
Leafy greens such as spinach, kale, Brussels sprouts
Fresh fruit such as blueberries

Improving mental and emotional health tip

5:Find happiness through giving:

As explained earlier, there is an undisputed connection between social relationships and greater mental and emotional health, including lower stress and improved resilience, mood, and self-esteem. Now researchers are discovering that the greatest benefit of social connection stems from the act of giving to others. By measuring hormones and brain activity when people are being helpful to others, researchers have discovered that being generous delivers immense pleasure. Just as we’re hard-wired to be social, we’re also hard-wired to give to others.

This indicates that you have more control over your emotional health and happiness than you may have imagined. Supporting others is a learned skill that, with practice, can develop over time. Helping others is something you can learn to take pleasure in doing:

Spend time with people who matter to you. Build relationships where you offer support to other people—and they’re able to offer support to you.
Volunteer. The meaning and purpose derived from helping others can enrich and expand your life—and make you happier.
For some, supporting others may not be instinctive and, at first, may even seem unrewarding. But like any learned behavior, it can be developed. Start small, dedicating only small amounts of time and energy to helping others. When your efforts are rewarded with pleasure, you’ll likely want to be more generous.
Improving mental and emotional health tip 6: Invest in self-care

The activities you engage in, and the daily choices you make, affect the way you feel and how much you’re able to help yourself. These choices, in turn, affect those around you. Investing in self-care is as much about caring for others as it is for yourself. Only when you feel healthy and happy can you be your smartest, most creative, and most caring self.

Activities to pursue:

Get enough rest. To have good mental and emotional health, it’s important to get enough sleep. Most people need seven to eight hours of sleep each night.
Get a dose of sunlight. Sunlight lifts your mood, so try to get at least 10 to 15 minutes per day, or use a lightbox in winter.
Enjoy the beauty of nature or art. Simply walking through a garden can lower blood pressure and reduce stress. The same goes for strolling through a park or an art gallery, hiking, or sitting on a beach.

Engage in meaningful work. Do things that challenge your creativity and make you feel productive, whether or not you get paid for it—things like gardening, drawing, playing an instrument, or building something.
Get a pet. Yes, pets are a responsibility, but caring for one makes you feel needed and loved. Animals can also get you out of the house for exercise and expose you to new people and places.
Have fun. Do things for no other reason than that it feels good to do them. Go to a funny movie, take a walk on the beach, read a good book, or talk to a friend. Fun and play is not an indulgence but a necessity for emotional and mental health.
Activities to limit or avoid

Avoid cigarettes and other drugs. These stimulants unnaturally make you feel good in the short term, but have long-term negative consequences for mood and emotional health.
Limit screen time. We all love our smartphones and devices but spending too much time staring at a screen denies you the face-to-face interactions that can meaningfully connect you to others.
Avoid isolation. Living alone or a limited social circle due to relocation, aging, or decreased mobility can lead to isolation and an increased risk of depression. Whatever your situation, try to schedule regular social activities with friends, neighbors, colleagues, or family members who are upbeat, positive, and interested in you.
Risk factors for mental and emotional problems

Your mental and emotional health is shaped by your experiences, especially those in early childhood. Genetic and biological factors also play a role, but these too can be changed by experience.

Risk factors that can compromise mental and emotional health:

Poor connection or attachment to your primary caretaker early in life. Feeling lonely, isolated, unsafe, confused, or abused as an infant or young child.
Traumas or serious losses, especially early in life. Death of a parent or other traumatic experiences such as war or hospitalization.
Learned helplessness. Negative experiences that lead to a belief that you’re helpless and that you have little control over the situations in your life.
Illness, especially when it’s chronic, disabling, or isolates you from others.
Side effects of medications, especially in older people who may be taking a variety of medications.
Substance abuse. Alcohol and drug abuse can both cause mental health problems and make preexisting mental or emotional problems worse.
Whatever factors have shaped your mental and emotional health, it’s never too late to make changes that will counteract any risk factors and improve your psychological well-being.

When to seek professional help for mental and emotional problems:

If you’ve made consistent efforts to improve your mental and emotional health and still don’t feel good, then it’s time to seek professional help. Input from a knowledgeable, caring professional can often motivate us to do things for ourselves that we’re unable to do on our own.

Red flag feelings and behaviors that may require immediate attention:

Inability to sleep
Feeling down, hopeless, or helpless most of the time
Concentration problems that interfere with work or home life
Using nicotine, food, drugs, or alcohol to cope with difficult emotions
Negative or self-destructive thoughts or fears that you can’t control
Thoughts of death or suicide

If you identify with any of these red flag symptoms, make an appointment with a mental health professional.

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Anxiety Causes

Posted on August 10, 2016 by JmaC

Anxiety disorder can be caused by different factors. The causes of this disorder various from one person to another. Factors that triggers anxiety is also different from individual to individual, however, there are factors that are capable of causing fear attacks. Such factors include hereditary tendencies, personality, traumatic experiences, and medical predicaments. These factors can multiply or enhance anxiety circumstances.

Anxiety is a mental health disorder that can be caused by hereditary tendencies. Some people inherited anxiety from their parents or family members. Also, the surroundings or settings where people grow up are also one of the causes of anxiety disorder. This cause of anxiety is backed up with research and so it is authentic and correct. It is discovered that siblings from parents who has this disorder also have it too. Some of the anxieties are learnt during the developmental stages in life, which is in childhood years. However, this can be treated perfectly, so there is no room for fear.

Personality is another cause of anxiety. These are of different types of personalities. Some of them have a greater risk of getting anxious than others. Example of this is low self –reassurance. Individuals with low self-reassurance get more anxious than other people with high or average self-reassurance. Stress is another cause of this disorder. This is seen in people that are hardworking. They tend to have anxiety attacks when work is not done and so they struggle to do it. Uncompromising workers can also have this disorder in that, they tend to work towards perfection and when this is not done, they can have anxiety disorder. Personality problems can be solved by giving more room for things to be done and not been rigid. Sufferers should learn to be flexible with work and schedules; nothing should be cast in concrete.

Traumatic experiences can also cause anxiety attacks. This is especially true in adults who were sexually abused when they were growing up. This attack becomes more visible when they are adult, because they still remember and carry along such terrible experiences. By doing this, it becomes difficult for them to handle life’s challenges. The good news is that therapy has been provided to help people in this circumstance.

Medical predicament has been known to be one of the causes of anxiety. Medical condition such as high blood pressure, diabetes, cancer has a way of increasing the sufferer’s anxiety levels. This is because of the seriousness of the condition in question especially in a case where there is no medically known solution to the condition.

From the causes mentioned above, it can be seen that anxiety is a mental disorder that can be caused by many factors such as hereditary tendencies, personality, traumatic experiences and medical predicament. However, hope is not lost for those suffering from this attack. Help can be received through therapy and the readiness of the sufferers to help themselves in getting back their lives.

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Anti social personality disorder

Posted on August 10, 2016 by JmaC
Antisocial personality disorders occur in children and grown up adults. Children who have this disorder demonstrate violent behavior towards people and animals. It is usual for such children to injure animals like cats. They go against rules, are fraudulent and are thieves who steal other people’s things. They lack respect for other people especially the elderly ones. In adults, it is characterized by manipulation of other people by the patient to collect money by any means from such people. They are also into illegal deals and when apprehended shows little or no sign of remorse for their actions.

The causes of antisocial personality disorder are yet to be established. But there are many theories on ground concerning this disorder which are not proven to be correct. Some people said it is connected with smoking or drinking of a pregnant woman. Some link the cause to hereditary link, that is, if the father or mother has antisocial personality disorder, the children too will also have it, but like earlier stated, it is not proven.

One of the theories established that antisocial personality disorder is caused by an extra Y-chromosome. But there is no correlation between this theory and the people diagnosed with the disorder. This is because many of this people don’t even possess this extra chromosome.

Other causes of antisocial personality disorder may be connected with dysfunctional family where the father and mother are not in unity or may not even be staying together as husband and wife; it may also result from inadequate parenting and lack of discipline in the upbringing of children.

The causes of antisocial personality disorder can also be related to traumatic abuse when children are growing up. Though, not all the children who grew up with this experience may be said to have antisocial personality disorder. Nonetheless, a large percentage of children who grew up with traumatic abuse like sexual abuse, emotional abuse are said to be antisocial.

Children also emulate their parent’s character. This can be said to be another cause of antisocial personality disorder. This is possible when the parents, either the father or the mother is antisocial, such children may grow up to want to be like their mother or father. This is due to the fact that parenting has a serious role to play in the upbringing of children. Children who are not properly brought up by their parent cause problem for the society and the nation at large. These are children who grow up to have antisocial personality disorder.

People known with this disorder engage in sexual promiscuity having several partners. They find it hard to stay with one partner throughout their lifetime. They keep on marrying and divorcing. This disorder may also manifest itself in gambling addiction and some characteristics of narcissistic personality disorder.

Antisocial personality disorder occurs in levels, it can be mild of severe. However, it is discovered that 3% of males and 1% of female have severe antisocial personality disorders in the western society.

Identifying the causes of antisocial personality disorders will go along way to help in diagnosing and treating the disorder.

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Self Help

Posted on August 10, 2016 by JmaC

DOING DIFFERENTLY

Changing what we normally do can greatly affect they way we feel and think. 

When you look at your ‘Vicious Cycle’ form where you wrote down your thoughts, feelings (emotions and physical sensations) and behaviours, notice particularly what you wrote for ‘behaviours’.  Very often we react automatically, without considering our actions or the consequences of them.

  • What helped you cope and get through it?
  • What didn’t I do or what did I avoid doing?
  • What automatic reactions did I have?
  • What would other people have seen me doing?
  • What were the consequences of what I did?  What happened later because of it?  Did it affect the way I felt later?

Now ask yourself, what could I have done differently? 

  • What would someone else have done in that situation?  (it might help to think about particular people that you know, and what they might have done differently)
  • Have there been times in the past when I would have done something else?
  • If I had paused, and taken a breath, what would I have done?

Write down several options that you might have done differently if it had occurred to you, then ask yourself:

  • If I had tried that, how would the situation have been different?
  • How would it have affected what I felt?
  • How would it have affected what I thought?
  • Would it have been more helpful or effective for me, another person or for the situation?
  • What would the consequences have been of doing something differently?

Learn to face your fears by using graded exposure to overcome avoidance.

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