Mental Health Tips from the Inside

In case you’re caught up with other things, just a reminder.

Having multiple mental illnesses means dealing with them separately and all together. It means making sure you follow doctor’s orders and take medications as prescribed. Having several different mental illnesses means many things. Each of these considerations is important to your well-being and stability.

In case you’re unfamiliar with mental illness, here are a few examples of common conditions and how they operate.

bipolar disorder

This condition is tricky, as it operates from contrasting mood-enhancing sub-conditions — this includes mania and depression. What makes bipolar disorder so difficult, however, is not the difficulties of these contrasting experiences, but rather the duration of each.

Some diagnoses of bipolar disorder are easy to understand and navigate, as the contrasts are generally predictable. But with other types of bipolar disorder, the two states of being are unpredictable, coming and going randomly, or even in rapid succession.

Anxiety disorder

With this frustrating and often overwhelming condition, daily life can almost be intolerable. One form of anxiety disorder, such as social anxiety disorder can greatly decrease chances of success in career situations, social situations, and even within the home.

Even with medication, anxiety and social anxiety are often muted and not entirely treated — this is no reflection of medical treatment. Although with proper medication adjustments, this can be improved. Anxiety often presents panic episodes, often called panic attacks. These episodes have a full range of varying symptoms, including, but not an exhaustive list of:

>Increased heart rate, dissociation, hyperventilation, inability to speak, shaking, crying, time displacement, and more.

PTSD

Post-traumatic stress disorder is often treated similarly to an anxiety disorder, but with targeted treatment according to each case. And it is a type of anxiety disorder, but more targeted toward elimination or the healing of traumatic triggers, each treatment is different. Medications can vary as well.

With PTSD, the origin of the anxiety is based on past trauma that altered the fight or flight reaction, increasing feelings of panic resulting from sounds or sights attributed to negative experiences.

Psychosis

The mechanics of psychosis can operate alone or in conjunction with other disorders. For instance, bipolar disorder can be labeled as ‘bipolar disorder with psychotic tendencies’. In this case, the parent disorder is bipolar mania and depression while the tendencies, or random happenings, are the psychotic episodes.

The psychosis isn’t frequent and can be random. In most cases, the psychosis is more subtle than with other disorders. This too can be treated with medication as well. When experiencing psychotic episodes, they can be both positive and negative images.

Personal testimonial about these conditions

As for myself, I suffer from these conditions. This is the primary reason for the article. I am prescribed medications for these conditions, but I also have natural ways of maintaining the severity of the overflow.

Most of the time, I question myself as follows:

“What am I feeling?”

“Do the images in front of me seem logical?”

“Where am I?”

Along with questions, there are grounding techniques that seem to work well in some of the more severe episodes. For instance, I use mantras, take naps when I need them, and avoid certain caffeinated foods, especially when already anxious. I do not partake in social activities that I feel are detrimental to my health, no excuses.

And most importantly, and it’s the main reason for this piece, I advocate for others, I educate those who do not understand, and I daily strive to kill the stigma of mental illness.

I hope this helps.