Mental Health &
Psychology Blogs

Love will keep us together?

There’s an old song called, “Love will keep us together.” Ah, If only that were true. It takes a lot more than just love and passion to keep people together, and this is especially true when ethical veganism suddenly becomes part of the relationship dynamic.

What a Difference a Pause Makes

When you have ADHD, you may feel you are at the mercy of your attention span. You may find yourself haphazardly jumping from one thought, idea, task, activity, project, or plan to...

Craft as Self-Care: Crochet Each Day Keeps the Doctor Away

Crochet is a form of self-care for me. It helps me prevent, minimize, and/or manage the symptoms of depression.Poem: The Difference Every summer when I was growing up we would go to visit my grandmother, the only truly religious woman in our family. She had a poem by Grace L. Naessens hanging in her bathroom...

10 Creative Prompts to Play With When You’re Feeling Anxious

Art is a powerful way to navigate anxiety. This is true whether we're painting, writing stories, or creating collages. Art helps us express ourselves. It helps us to better understand and communicate contradictory emotions and nebulous fears. It gives our anxiety a path to move through.

Today I Love Festivals

Reusable coffee cups rule!Today I love festivals, and I especially love my own Summerfolk Folk Festival. I love that, even though I love it so much, it is the last day of the festival and tomorrow we begin tearing it down again...

5 Helpful Guidelines For Talking About Childhood Emotional Neglect With Your Spouse

When you bring up Childhood Emotional Neglect to your partner, it’s the opposite of rejection. Instead, it’s an invitation to come closer.Right now, today, all across the world,...

How Intentional Action Changes Brain Chemistry

In her book Habits of a Happy Brain, Loretta Graziano Breuning advocates for a way to stimulate...

Today I Love Interviewing Musicians

Hanging out back stage ...Today I love interviewing musicians and talking to them about the connections that they have with the people like me who get to hear their work and their stories and their interpretations of the world as they see it. I love that I get to...

Lust Part 2: Heating it Up

Linda: For some of us, our work is cooling lust down. For others of us, it’s bringing lust up from the depths of the shadow, to rejoice in it. For those of us,...

Caring for Yourself Every Day

Pay attention to how you're feeling as your eyes blink open.

Itch, Itch, Itch

The thought that life could be better is woven indelibly into our hearts and our brains. - Paul SimonMy blood is alive with many voices telling me that I am made of longing. - Rainer Maria RilkeLast night my husband and I went out for Indian food at our local favorite place. I was super, very,...

To Procrastinate or not to Procrastinate: a Student Dilemma

It’s the beginning of the fall semester at school. During my first class in World History, the professor hands out the course syllabus on which appears that most daunting of assignments, a RESEARCH PAPER . . . a 15-page typed RESEARCH PAPER. . . formatted in MLA style . . . with a minimum of five academic references (no blog posts or Wikipedia...

Will Your Poor Relationship with Your Brother (or Sister) Sabotage Your Love Life?

I have to admit I've had many issues with siblings, including not speaking to them for years. I was very ashamed, as it appeared that other people have Fun with Dick and Jane lives with their own brothers and sisters. It just seemed easier not to try. After all, they're only relatives.As...

Sitting Still in School

Writing my last post about back-to-school ADHD resolutions got me thinking about some of the different ways my symptoms showed up in classroom environments.

Before and After: Unfair Comparisons

Hidden disabilities can really mess with your self-image. Assuming you haven’t had your condition all your life, do you think of yourself as “less” than you were before?I used to do the Seattle to Portland ride, with my first finish in 2005 and then the following year I got lost and ended up riding my record...

Neurodiversity and Fight-or-flight Response: Being Regulated, Not Cured, and Fighting for the Light

Since beginning to see my occupational therapist a little over one year ago, I’ve learned ways to regulate my nervous system. But that doesn’t mean I’m no longer triggered. That I no longer have hard days. That I’m cured.

The Pregnant Therapist: Dreams, Reactions

In our book A Womb of Her Own (Routledge, 2017) author Meredith Darcy writes as follows about her patient as her own pregancny progressed:Abby was angry: she was experiencing real feelings towards...

What We Told Our Daughter About Suicide

There were cops combing the neighborhood and all the kids were rushed inside. We had to tell her something.

The ‘Jeffrey Epsteins’ Who Wear Crosses and Clerical Collars

Jeffrey Epstein, with his ever present little pædo smile, was a horrible person but his victims were spared one thing: he didn't abuse, groom and rape them with a Bible in his hand. He considered it though. James Stewart writes in the New York Times that Epstein was seriously considering becoming a minister to earn trust and maintain secrecy in 2018....

On With The Show

Some of the less necessary construction at the festival ...It's that time of the year again. It's the third weekend in August, and that's when my life gets a lot weird.The big deal is that I'm involved in a folk festival called Summerfolk in my little city of Owen Sound, Ontario,...