I have tics. Quite a few of them. Eye rolling, neck jerking and twisting, shoulder shrugging, diaphragm muscle tensing-and-releasing, and multiple tics in my legs and feet. My tics happen at various times and during various activities. My leg and feet tics always happen when I’m trying to exercise and when I’m trying to sleep.… Read More Confessions of an Adult with Tics
I have a friend who has depression and anxiety. Despite these diseases making it extremely difficult for her to climb out of bed every day and go to work at a demanding job, she has done just that for years. She is amazing. Just as amazing as a blind man (like Eric Weihenmayer) or a double… Read More In Awe of Those with Mental Illness
When you’re lonely, its like you don’t even exist on this earth with everyone else, its like being a ghost. I guess thats why solitary confinement is the worst punishment in prisons, its the most painful place a person can be in.
If you are feeling lonely, don’t beat yourself up about it. Human interaction is a normal human need. If anxiety is keeping you from getting the amount of human interaction that is good for you, then you are normal for feeling lonely. … Read More Anxiety and Loneliness
The OCD wants me to live in a fire-proof, earthquake-proof, intruder-proof room (with a treadmill so I don’t die of inactivity) and never leave.
But even if that would be a safe life, it would be an empty, unhappy, meaningless life.
I have to be willing to risk my life in order to have a happy and meaningful life. I have to fight to do what feels important and meaningful to me.… Read More Anxiety and Traveling
Several years ago, while I was still in college, I encountered a really difficult situation that felt beyond my capacity to handle. I was in an art class to fulfill the art requirement for the degree, not because I have any artistic talents. One day in class, out of nowhere, the teacher called me up… Read More Mightier than your Mental Illness
The truth is that the nervousness the average person feels about job hunting cannot be compared to the anxiety someone with a mental illness experiences while job hunting. They are as equivalent as your rundown neighborhood baseball diamond is with Yankee Stadium, as a baby chick is with a dinosaur, as an old Geo Metro is with a Ferrari. … Read More Job Searching with a Mental Illness
I have the intelligence, work ethic, conscientiousness, trustworthiness, and dependability that have enabled me to be an above-average student and employee throughout my life. But none of that matters when one of my mental illnesses acts up.… Read More Mental Illness, Unemployment, and Shame
Usually an hour after church you’ll find me on my bed or on the couch either crying or desperately trying all of my different strategies for soothing and coping (meditation, yoga, distraction, service, music, etc) to try to recover from the immense stress and tension I felt at church.
But I wanted to write about today after church, because today was different… Read More The Power of Kindness
…when someone is sharing their testimony or giving a talk or ending a lesson, it has come to be expected that they will use the words “I know” about everything they say. If not, they appear to others to be on shaky ground spiritually. So, you will hear them say “I know God lives. I know Jesus is the Savior. I know this church is true.”
This was problematic for me for the first several decades of my life…… Read More OCD and Religious Certainty
When you see someone you care about seized by symptoms of anxiety or depression, you want to relieve their suffering as quickly as possible. That is totally natural. But sometimes, our efforts to help are actually supporting the illness, not the person we love. This can happen quite easily with OCD. An individual with OCD… Read More Supporting your Loved One vs. Supporting the Illness
Faith, Hope, and OCD 