Stress and anxiety can feel like permanent features of modern life. They are not. This piece explains why they persist and how therapy creates lasting change.
What is the difference between mindfulness and meditation?
Potential signs of mental health problems
How Can Therapy Help With Bereavement..... by Dafina Ganeva
We all at some point in our life experience bereavement. Losing someone very close to us can make us feel the greatest emotional pain ever. Ripped from inside, empty, deeply depressed, sad, angry, desperate, losing all hope, joy and meaning in life and all that and the same time. It can make life extremely difficult for a long period of time. Simple every day tasks may feel impossible to accomplish for a while. And even though all that is very normal it might feel to us at the time as if we are the only ones who have ever been there and as if it will never get better.
Losing my father when I was 13 years old was one of the most difficult things that ever happened to me. Therapy wasn’t popular back then and there and the adults around me were keener to help with my physical needs but didn’t know what to do with my emotions. So I had to carry that unresolved grief with me for the next 10 years of my life. Unable to speak about my father without bursting into tears or re-living the trauma of his death again and again.
Getting the support we need during that extremely difficult time in our life can have an enormous effect on our future mental health. It is very important to allow ourselves to grieve and go through the grieving process in our own pace. Therapy can help with that by providing the space for us to do that. Talking about the loss, crying, exploring our feelings of anger or guilt in a safe environment can be life-saving.
As a bereavement counsellor I have heard so many heartbreaking stories. Losing a baby, a child, a parent, a sibling, a friend, a suppose and sometimes more than one at the same time. All very different stories. All very sad. All unique. And yet people always say to me the same things. ‘No one wants to listen about it anymore.’ ‘I don’t want to upset people with my sadness.’ ‘I need to be strong for the ones who need me.’ ‘Life has no meaning.’ ‘It is so unfair.’ ‘How can I carry on?’
And they all do. They carry on. Some of them even stronger than before. As we don’t get over grief and grief doesn’t disappear. We learn how to live with it. It becomes part of who we are and then we grow around it.
Social Media and Indications of Depression in Teens...
The significant characteristic of a major depressive episode is a period of at least two weeks during which there is either depressed or loss of interest or pleasure all activities. For children, expect to see irritability rather than depression other signs of depression to watch for:
Loss of interest in normal daily activities
Irritable and moody
Reduced self-care
Substantial weight loss or weight gain
Moods of hopelessness
Insomnia or sleeps too much
Fatigue and loss of energy
Expressing feelings of worthlessness
Unwarranted guilt
Difficulty concentrating
Difficulty making choices
Complaints of headaches, stomach aches
Social isolation
Suicidal thoughts, actions, or plans.
Royal Society for Public Health in the UK surveyed 1500 young people, ages 14 to 24, to define the effects of social media use on problems such as anxiety, depression, self-esteem, and body image. They Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and SnapChat all had negative effects on mental health