Magical thinking is harmless unless it becomes a liability. Dreaming of meeting that special person gives me hope, but imagining the person I just met at the coffee shop is my soulmate because she likes the same obscure bands as me is problematic. Yes, it means I met someone with whom I share an interest. […]
The trauma is not what happens to you; the trauma is what happens inside you….The loss of self is the essence of trauma. The real purpose of addiction treatment, mental health treatment, any kind of healing, is reconnection (with one’s authentic self). ~ Gabor Maté, “How Childhood Trauma Leads to Addiction.” YouTube video: link Both […]
A good friend of mine recently posed this question to me in an email: Sometimes you can be around people and continue to feel alone, like nobody understands. So hopefully that doesn’t happen to you. If it does, what does that mean? Mis-perception? I ask this question honestly because trauma can do weirdness to perception. […]
Suffering. We all experience it as a fact of human existence. But what happens to us when we begin to define ourselves by our suffering? Some say that suffering is a choice. For those who actually suffer from mental health challenges, it does not appear to be or feel like any sort of choice. It […]
I believe my mental health journey began at around the same time in life when human children become self-conscious (4-5 years old). For it was during this period that I was hit by a car while riding my tricycle on the normally quiet residential street in front of my childhood home. My actual memory of […]
The Peace of Wild Things 