anxietyaware

[anxietyaware]

Facing Anxiety Before the Out of the Darkness Walk

As this week leads up to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention’s “Out of the Darkness walk��, I am feeling a mix of emotions. I have participated in this walk for at least six years but this year feels very different. In the past few years, I have begun fundraising and posting about the walk months before the event. It is usually at the beginning of the year. However, this time I didn’t…

[anxietyaware]

7 Ways to Support Someone After a Mental Health Crisis

It’s a sad reality in this country that the one place that’s purpose is to provide healing oftentimes creates lasting trauma. The Oxford definition of a Hospital is “an institution providing medical and surgical treatment and nursing care for sick or injured people.”  When people are admitted to normal hospitals it is typically for some sort of physical ailment, disease, or injury. In a lot of…

[anxietyaware]

Suicide Prevention Awareness Month 2024

September is National Suicide Prevention Awareness Month and given my history with this topic, it feels so fitting that my birthday falls right at the start of September. I’ve been hesitant to be open about my struggle with suicidal ideation publicly due to the stigma that still surrounds mental health in this country, Christianity, and the World. Yes, even someone like me who is loud and proud…

[anxietyaware]

When The Other Shoe Drops…

Sighs. That’s the first sign I know things are getting bad again when I catch myself deeply sighing repeatedly throughout each day. It’s not your typical sigh for more air, it’s a deep sigh. The kind where you blow your hair around. I wake up, I sigh. I put my shoes on to go somewhere, and I sigh. I do chores, I sigh. It’s almost involuntary. It’s like when I sigh, I’m exhaling a release of…

[anxietyaware]

Goodbye 2023…

As 2023 comes to a close, I find myself filled with gratitude. Which is Much different than the past couple of years. God truly answered some big prayers for me this year. Prayers that I had been praying for years about and my village had been too. Prayers that in all honesty, I doubted God would show up for. After a long fight with the government, thousands of documents from numerous doctors,…

[anxietyaware]

World Mental Health Day 2023

Three posts in a week? Who am i!? I guess you could say I've been feeling inspired to write lately. I'm not complaining and I hope you aren't either!

Today, October tenth, is World Mental Health Day. While many areas of the world are becoming more open to talking about the impact of mental health, many people, countries, and faiths still don’t believe mental health is real or should be talked about.  I often say that I am so very grateful to have been born when I was and not mere decades before. I know that had I been born decades before and…

[anxietyaware]

Insomnia

I wish more people understood the complexities of living with insomnia and sleep anxiety. It is so much more than what people see on the surface like staying up late, sleeping in, daytime tiredness, and the struggle to be on time for things. According to Cleveland Clinic, “Roughly, 1 in 3 adults worldwide have insomnia symptoms, and about 10% of adults meet the criteria for insomnia disorder,”…

[anxietyaware]

Respite

Respite… “A short period of rest or relief from something difficult or unpleasant” (Oxford Languages). I believe the term respite is a perfect representation of the season I am in right now having been on an upswing in my mental health for the past couple of months. The reason I have decided to use the term “respite” is because, over the past two years of being stuck in this Treatment-Resistant…

[anxietyaware]

The Light at the End of the Tunnel

The Light at the End of the Tunnel

What do you do when the light at the end of the tunnel becomes a train that runs you over? You manage to pick yourself back up, a little broken and wounded, to keep searching in the darkness for the light just hoping this time you’ll see the end of the tunnel. You spot another glimmer of light and stumble towards it, only to be run over again by another train.  This time it takes you a while…

[anxietyaware]

In Honor of World Mental Health Day...Why I Write.

In Honor of World Mental Health Day…Why I Write.

World Mental Health Day is a day recognized by the United Nations to bring awareness to mental health and try to find ways to make mental health care accessible to all (World Mental Health Day 2022). With mental illness affecting approximately one in five adults in the United States, it’s a topic that desperately needs to be discussed (NAMI, Mental health by the numbers 2022). I’m sure many…

[anxietyaware]

Accepting Reality: Life With Treatment-Resistant Depression

Treatment Resistant. It’s a phrase not spoken very often in the realm of mental and physical health but it’s a term that has become ever so profound in my life. According to the mayo clinic website, “with treatment-resistant depression, standard treatments aren’t enough. They may not help much at all, or your symptoms may improve, only to keep coming back”(Mayo Clinic, Treatment-resistant…

[anxietyaware]

One Year of Esketamine Treatment

One Year of Esketamine Treatment

Today marks one year of undergoing Esketamine treatments for my treatment-resistant depression among other anniversaries this week. I’ve been reflecting a lot over the past couple of weeks as these anniversary dates were approaching and the one thing I keep coming back to is just how much I wish I could go back in time to one year ago and give myself a hug. If I could go back in time to Sarah…

[anxietyaware]

Mental Health Awareness Month: Misdiagnosis

Mental Health Awareness Month: Misdiagnosis

This Mental Health Awareness Month, I want to highlight different topics surrounding the mental health field. The first of the series is all about how rampant misdiagnosis is in the mental health system. “Misdiagnosis is an incorrect diagnosis. The objectives of making a diagnosis are to determine the nature of a disease and to select targeted treatment so that the condition takes a favorable…

[anxietyaware]

How Esketamine Saved My Life

Yes, you read that correctly. Esketamine treatments have saved my life not once but at least twice. Before I get into my experience with this drug, I think it’s important to know what exactly it is we are talking about here, as many people simply have never heard of this treatment. I know I hadn’t until it was suddenly on my treatment plan. What is Esketamine? Esketamine, brand name SPRAVATO®,…

[anxietyaware]

How to check in on those who are struggling

How to check in on those who are struggling

“How are you doing?” It’s a question I used to love to ask and loved to be asked in regards to someone I deeply care for. But when life gets hard and you are asked this question, it puts you in a vulnerable position. One where you could either lie and claim that you’re “good” or “okay”, or one where you’re honest and open up in vulnerability. When I started falling into this deep, dark,…

[anxietyaware]

Hello 2022

2022,  It’s nice to meet you… I hope. In case you missed the memo, the year leading into you was extremely rocky, challenging, and full of turmoil, not just in my life but for the world. I’m not going to sugarcoat things and pretend that you will magically hold fixes to our problems but I will say that I sure hope you bring more good than the past two years have brought with them.  I hope that…

[anxietyaware]

Goodbye 2021

Dear 2021, Oh, how I want so badly to tell you off. You brought me so much anguish. You brought me: dread, loneliness, fear, grief, intense depression, disappointments, crisis, suicidality, hospital stays, trauma, deep questioning, doubts, intense treatments, unwanted changes, and so much more messiness. To put it bluntly, you sucked.  I won’t lie and say that going into 2021 I was naive…