Chronic trauma (according to the meaning I propose) that occurs early in life has profound effects on personality development and can lead to the development of dissociative identity disorder (DID), other dissociative disorders personality disorders,...

But that is what these people do – the Steves of this world – they all try and make something out of nothing. and they all do it for themselves.

Most of the kids had been so mentally screwed by their parents they needed more than twelve weeks of wilderness. They needed reincarnation. To die and just come back as a grasshopper, as a fucking...

I’m so NUMB. I just don’t care, it seems-but I must do. This is all going to sound totally incoherent. I’m that bunged up, but totally empty. I think my worries about who I am...

Steve [sports psychiatrist] had already taught me to try and stop worrying so much about pleasing everyone. We knew that this was one of my most draining flaws and he again used three groups to...

Even you, the professional helper, often mistaken for the enlightened Guru or Staretz, can become lost in your thoughts that you must be competent without fault. You may become enthralled with your identity as a...

If your love for another person doesn’t include loving yourself then your love is incomplete.

When sleep came, I would dream bad dreams. Not the baby and the big man with a cigarette-lighter dream. Another dream. The castle dream. A little girl of about six who looks -like me, but...

Have you ever suddenly realized it’s someone else’s mood swing and you’re just along for the ride?

Cheryl was aided in her search by the Internet. Each time she remembered a name that seemed to be important in her life, she tried to look up that person on the World Wide Web....

Some seek the comfort of their therapist’s office, other head to the corner pub and dive into a pint, but I chose running as my therapy.

…Daisy doesn’t even go to his funeral, Nick and Jordan part ways, and Daisy ends up sticking with racist Tom… you can tell Fitzgerald never took the time to look up at clouds during sunset,...

I remember a scared, young girl hiding in the guise of arrogance and rebellion. I remember feeling lost in a world where everyone else seemed to have it all figured out. I remember the tears...

All mental unhappiness is the avoidance of legitimate suffering.

But no matter how much evil I see, I think it’s important for everyone to understand that there is much more light than darkness.

Surely a good therapist should produce a Dorian Gray-style portrait from under the couch so the patient can see the person they really are.

You cannot make yourself have a flashback, nor will you have one unless you are emotionally ready to remember something. Once remembered, the memory can help you to face more of the truth. You can...

The word is dissociate. There is no ‘a’ before the invariably say dis-a-ssociate, which, if you’re suffering Disso-ciative Identity Disorder/Multiple Personality Disorder, can be irritating. People then want to know how many personalities I have...

Real optimism is not the pep talk you give yourself. It is earned through the labor involved in emotional housekeeping.

As a therapist, I have many avenues in which to learn about DID, but I hear exactly the opposite from clients and others who are struggling to understand their own existence. When I talk to...

You want to be happy? You want to be well? Then put your boots on.

What good is your reality, when justice fails and dishonesty is glossed over and the ones who keep faith suffer …. What good is your reality then?”” …. I never promised you a rose garden....

What happens is my mind starts to go in circles, thinking and thinking, and then I can’t sleep. And once a couple of days go by, if you haven’t slept, you start to get sick....

Do all kids have to worry about their parents’ mental health? The way society is set up, parents are supposed to be the grown-up ones and look after the kids, but a lot of times...

there are no victims.” How can you be a victim when you are responsible for your circumstances?When you most need validation and support to get through the worst pain of your life, to be confronted...

We have a mental health system that is dominated by political and hidden forces that keep us stagnated and unable to see real, lasting change.

Why do I take a blade and slash my arms? Why do I drink myself into a stupor? Why do I swallow bottles of pills and end up in A&E having my stomach pumped? Am...

I, myself, spent 9 years in an insane asylum and never had any suicidal tendencies, but I know that every conversation I had with a psychiatrist during the morning visit made me long to hang...

What’s more insane? Hearing imaginary voices? Or not hearing the real ones?

Mental illness People assume you aren’t sick unless they see the sickness on your skin like scars forming a map of all the ways you’re hurting. My heart is a prison of Have you tried?s...

Dissociation is the common response of children to repetitive, overwhelming trauma and holds the untenable knowledge out of awareness. The losses and the emotions engendered by the assaults on soul and body cannot, however be...

And that will be on my medical records for ever.Everyone will always know I’m a nutter. Behavioural problems. I’m just a bloody label…A label written on a white board in a single room without a...

The vision I see in the mirror is me, who I am, supposedly, but that vision does not express the way my mind works or the way I feel inside. A realization creeps over me,...

Because minds do blow and hearts do break. Those are not just sayings. And wolves and roaches are not the only creatures that chew off their legs to get out of traps—human beings do that,...

I think more people would stay active in church, if they didn’t get so offended by the actions of members. Sometimes, you have to view places of worship as free mental health clinics, in order...

Why did I allow the abuse to continue? Even as a teenager?I didn’t. Something that had been plaguing me for years now made sense. It was like the answer to a terrible secret. The thing...

What’s the difference between sanity and madness anyway? We all play headgames with ourselves. We all have baggage. We all cope somehow. I’m not sure if I’m mad or sane. I mean, I hold my...

There were other strange signals and signs. Another day, suddenly felt an almost overwhelming urge to travel to Balitmore. I wanted to ‘kidnap’ a helicoper fly it there if I didn’t drive the there’, she...

If you find the dividing line between fairy tales and reality, let me know. In my mind, the two run together, even though the intersections aren’t always obvious. The girl sitting quietly in class or...

According to Hoge and colleagues (2007), the key to reducing stigma is to present mental health care as a routine aspect of health care, similar to getting a check up or an X-ray. Soldiers need...

The sight of somebody meditating needs to become commonplace.

Every sea to scare the sailor, I have sailed.

I think I just said it, but I think it’s worth repeating. They gave me hope that there is good in the world out there. There really is. It really does exist. Regardless of how...

I get up and pace the room, as if I can leave my guilt behind me. But it tracks me as I walk, an ugly shadow made by myself.

With emotional abuse, the insults, insinuations, criticism, and accusations slowly eat away at the victim’s self-esteem until he or she is incapable of judging a situation realistically. He or she may begin to believe that...

PART 2 I felt doomed to death,But in a flash, Before I could reduce my thoughts To an emotion, I felt a mass leave my body:Departing. Then my mind becomes anonymous As is each night....

It struck Hsing suddenly that Masada didn’t even understand the nature of his own genius. To him the patterns of thought and motive that he sensed in the virus were self-explanatory, and those who could...

DID is about survival! As more people begin to appreciate this concept, individuals with DID will start to feel less as though they have to hide in shame. DID develops as a response to extreme...

This will sound strange, and yet I’m sure it was the point: it was a bit like being high. That, for me, anyway, had always been the attraction of drugs, to stop the brutal round...

Sometimes the world is so much sicker than the inmates of its institutions.