It’s no secret that the impact of COVID-19 has been significant, both to societies and individuals. We’ve had to adjust routines and expectations, take on new responsibilities, and manage stress caused by anxiety and isolation. Some people have had to face the death or serious illness of loved ones or manage their own physical symptoms.…
People drink alcohol for many reasons, including consciously or unconsciously trying to address the symptoms of anxiety and depression. It can work temporarily, which is why people continue to do it. Unfortunately, however, it can be counterproductive over time and leave people more anxious and depressed than before they began to drink. Alcohol, Moods…
Getting help with depression starts with identifying it, which isn’t always as easy as it sounds. It’s not always clear when a low mood is a typical sadness or grief and when depression has taken hold. Sometimes depression hides behind other emotions like anger, which makes it harder to identify. These are some signs…
Mental health treatment centers understand the importance of dealing with and healing trauma. Things that happened years or even decades ago can have a continuing influence if they’re not addressed and can keep you from moving forward and meeting your goals. Sometimes it’s easy to connect your current challenges to a past event or ongoing…
Feeling Impulsive? It Could Be Your Mental Health Most of us can remember a time in our lives when we behaved impulsively and faced the consequences as a result. But what happens when impulsive behavior becomes excessive? For many, impulsive behaviors are a symptom of an unmanaged mental health disorder. Isolated incidents of impulsivity…
A key symptom of borderline personality disorder (BPD) is that individuals have trouble managing their emotions effectively. They feel things deeply, and their moods may change rapidly. It differs from other disorders involving unstable moods, such as bipolar disorder, in that mood states in BPD may only last a few days or even just a…
Coping With PTSD Through Self-Harm Self-harm isn’t uncommon, especially among adolescents. The National Center for PTSD notes that an estimated 2-6% of people in the general public have engaged in self-harming behaviors and 13-35% of students. Rates are higher among people with mental health conditions, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Common self-harming behaviors are cutting,…
Why Do We Hurt Ourselves? If you’re watching someone you love live with a pattern of self-injury, it is easy to feel powerless. No one wants to be stuck in this pattern of behavior. It’s not only upsetting to the person harming themselves, but it can also be frightening and traumatic for the people who…
Self-harm, also called self-injury, is the practice of intentionally hurting yourself. Individuals can injure themselves in various ways, including cutting, burning, hitting, piercing and pulling out hair. It’s not uncommon, especially for teens and young adults. A large study by the University of Portland of more than 64,000 U.S. high school students found that almost…
People with bipolar disorder have swings in their moods that are more intense and often more frequent than usual. There are four types of bipolar disorder, and sometimes people mistakenly believe that bipolar disorder 2 is just a milder version of bipolar 1. However, they’re separate conditions with similar but differing diagnostic criteria. The moods…