Before diving in, I’d like to explain my word choice. Instead of “Mental Illness,” I will refer to it as “Mental Health Challenges.” I don’t like to use terms like “illness,” “issues”, or “problems.” The reason being is, unlike physical ailments, mental health plays a...
Mood swings during stressful times are natural, but those living with a mood disorder like bipolar (BP) or personality disorder like borderline (BPD) have extreme, erratic, and sometimes irrational changes in their mental state. A lot of symptoms overlap, but these...
It's all too easy to feel alone and helpless when living with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). This condition, which affects 1 in 10 women of childbearing age, disrupts your hormone and metabolism systems, and the symptoms include increasing your amount of body hair,...
*Trigger warning: Self-harm and suicide attempts As a child, I remember being happy, I remember feeling safe, but after my parent's divorce, I remember feeling so much anguish and pain. For me, self-injury was activated by my parent’s divorce. I was 11 years old when...
Depression is a common and often debilitating mood disorder that affects millions. It is a significant global public health problem, and in the United States, 8.4% of adults and 17% of adolescents had at least one major depressive episode in 2020, with many of these...
At the age of 26, Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin, Napoleon Bonaparte conquered Italy, and Ken Kesy published One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. At 27, I, Kellie Wood, cannot figure out the child safety lock on my bottle of CVS brand mouthwash. ...
Feelings of stress can lead us to counterproductive activities that may do more bad than good in the long term. One such activity is stress eating. In a study on stress and eating behaviors published in Health Psychology Review, researchers found that...
What if I told you, anxiety was an epidemic. In fact, according to NAMI, “Anxiety disorders are the most common mental health concern in the United States. Over 40 million adults in the U.S. (19.1%) have an anxiety disorder.” Most people are treated with Cognitive...
With the holidays now at an end and the slow monotony of daily routine creeping back, we may all harbor bittersweet memories of what it felt like to finally have a break and be around loved ones. Bittersweet as the break may have acted both as a reunification with...
“Self Love” has become one of the catchiest concepts being thrown around in Western society, a terminology seemingly present now everywhere we look; on billboards, all across our social media feeds, in meditation practices and therapy practices. It is now a popular...