Happy Girl Winter: How to Overcome Seasonal Depressive Disorder
‘Detachment and Healing Cannot Coexist’: Reflecting on Trauma Responses After Assault
Things have happened to my body, but not to me. My body has been hurt, but I have not. My body has suffered, but I have not. Except obviously this is not true. It can’t be. And obviously, it does not help. It’s so incomplete. It attempts to eliminate so much mental pain and yet, in skating over such fundamental and heartbreaking truths, it only exacerbates it…
‘Fight, Flight, Fawn’: How Growing Up with Domestic Violence Shaped My Responses as an Adult
One would think that our lives were back to ‘normal’ and on the up. It was only later in life that the cracks began to show in my psyche; I was prone to anxiety (both a low-level strum inside my chest and, rarely, full-blown panic attacks). Now in my late 30s, and after many therapy sessions, it is clear to me that there is still a residual effect from the events that I witnessed…
‘Loneliness is the Ebb and Flow of an Unsettled Tide’: PTSD and its Repercussions on Relationships
Symptoms of the disorder include distressing dreams, flashbacks, hypervigilance, negative beliefs about oneself, reckless behaviour, persistent negative emotional state and dissociation, to name a few. See, my loneliness doesn’t relate to anyone in my social circle; that’s the challenging part to understand. It relates to my trauma. I can be surrounded by people that love me and still feel detached and misunderstood by every single one of them…