depression – Page 2 – Depression Warrior

MHM #9: Tips for Beating Depression & Anxiety During the COVID-19 Pandemic

04/14/2020 Laura Becker Comments 2 comments

Photo by Alexas Fotos It’s a strange time in this world. And honestly, it’s starting to freak me out a little. Depression and anxiety thrive in times of chaos and disarray. People are hoarding essentials like toilet paper, paper towels, bread, meat – even Cap’n Crunch. Much of the U.S. has been either asked or ordered to stay home to slow the spread of the COVID-19 virus. Here in Michigan, we’ve been stuck inside for three weeks, with at least…

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How to Create a Safety Plan

02/23/2020 Laura Becker Comments 3 comments

Photo by Ryan McGuire What is a safety plan, anyway? A safety plan is a document that lists everything you can think of that will keep you safe from harming yourself or others, or from dipping way down the continuum of depression. I’ve had one for many, many years. I now need to update it because I moved to another state and I need to rebuild my professional support team. Do you have a safety plan? It can be very…

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MHM #6: Low-Effort Self-Care Tips (re-post)

12/26/2019 Laura Becker Comments 2 comments

Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash Every so often, I like to publish a post about general mental health care. With Thanksgiving and Christmas now in the rear-view mirror and a new year bearing down on us, I thought this would be a good time to remind you to pay more attention to your well-being than you usually do. Certainly, the holidays can bring out the best in people – their smile may be a bit brighter, their words a little less sharp,…

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Recovering From Mental Illness

09/24/2019 Laura Becker Comments 3 comments

Photo by Dawid Zawiła on Unsplash Today’s post was written by Warrior Aimee Eddy. You can find her bio at the end of this post. Many people with mental illness feel like they are doomed to live their lives stuck in the midst of the depths of sadness, anguish, and torture of their sickness. It’s also a common misconception in society that people with mental illness can never get better. The truth is that most people who are suffering from a…

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Hope always

What Suicidal People Really Want

09/18/2019 Laura Becker Comments 4 comments

They say that hindsight is 20/20, right? That’s good, because I totally blanked on Suicide Prevention Awareness Week (Sept. 8-14) and World Suicide Prevention Awareness Day (Sept. 10) this year. At least I didn’t miss the entire Suicide Prevention Awareness Month! In hindsight, I realize that I need to be a little more organized when it comes to these things. I haven’t been on the Twitter machine much lately, so I didn’t see the hashtags that are associated with these…

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Depression Has a Mind of Its Own

09/16/2019 Laura Becker Comments 5 comments

Photo by Maksym Kaharlytskyi on Unsplash I feel small today. Small and quiet. My last post, How to Change Destructive Thinking, has a positive twang to it. It’s all about possibility and how we actually do have the ability to challenge our negative thoughts; we just need the tools to do so. That hasn’t changed. It is still true for me, and it is still true for you. I wrote that post two days ago, published it yesterday, and sent it out…

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Catching Depression Early

08/17/2019 Laura Becker Comments 3 comments

Photo by Marija Zaric on Unsplash So, I’m going through something interesting right now. On the one hand, I’ve been experiencing mood swings for the last couple of weeks. I’ve recently had a couple of REALLY bad anxious days. Yesterday was one of them. Luckily, I had a therapy appointment in the morning, so I attempted to work through it with Kim; unfortunately, I felt just as lousy when I left as when I got there. It was out of hand. I realize…

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MHM #7: 12 Fun Ways to Combat Depression and Anxiety

05/16/2019 Laura Becker Comments 4 comments

Welcome to Mental Health Moment (MHM) #7! This post is all about fun (and mostly free) things you can do to combat your depression and anxiety or even keep them at bay. I’ve seen lots of lists of ways to keep yourself busy and distracted, but for the most part, they lack an important ingredient – fun! So I thought I would make up my own list of things you can do fairly easily when you feel depression or anxiety…

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I Was Suicidal as a Teenager

05/08/2019 Laura Becker Comments 0 Comment

As I explained in the previous post, May is Mental Health Awareness Month. Lots of organizations go the extra mile during this time to get the word out about how common mental illness really is – that we all know someone (or several someones) who have mental health diagnoses, even if we don’t realize it. The idea is to reduce the stigma associated with the term “mental illness” and take it for what it is: A medical condition. Our last…

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Teen Suicide – A Very Special Guest Post T/W

05/01/2019 Laura Becker Comments 2 comments

May is Mental Health Month in the U.S. It is the time of year mental health agencies, organizations, and individuals across the country fight the stigma surrounding mental illness even harder than they usually do. You are undoubtedly aware that teen suicide (and suicide in general) is a big problem here, with death by suicide being the second-leading cause of death in the U.S. for children ages 10-14 and ages 15-24, behind only unintentional injury. In 2017 alone, more than…

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MHM #6: 11 Low-Effort Self-Care Tips to Help You Feel Less Depressed

04/04/2019 Laura Becker Comments 5 comments

Photo by Milada Vigerova on Unsplash Every so often, I like to publish a post about general mental health care. So today, I bring you Mental Health Moment (MHM) #6. I’ve been feeling a bit run-down lately. I know a lot of it is because of the stress I’ve been under recently, but the other part of the equation is that my last round of TMS was in November. The effects of the TMS usually start subsiding after about five or six months,…

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Going Back to Work

03/09/2019 Laura Becker Comments 2 comments

Photo by Helloquence on Unsplash I started a temp job this week. If you’ve been following my journey, you know that I hadn’t been able to work since I had ECT in 2005 until last spring, when I found a temporary (seasonal) part-time job. Well, it’s that season again, so I’m doing the same kind of work as I did last spring – scoring questions from standardized tests taken by students in grades 1-12. That’s a good thing, because I really liked…

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My Year in Review – Plus, What’s Up For 2019

01/06/2019 Laura Becker Comments 0 Comment

So, I haven’t written much in the last two months, and I wanted to let you know that I’m okay. Exhaustion has crept back into my daily life, which means that I’m too tired to write (I often go take a nap instead). Hell, sometimes, I’m too tired to feed the cats! (But I do – no cat goes hungry in this household.) Despite some rough patches, 2018 was a pretty decent year. Even Christmas wasn’t too stressful this year,…

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TMS: Week Three

10/22/2018 Laura Becker Comments 0 Comment

So, I just started week three of TMS today, and I have to say – I feel great! How often do you say that? “I feel great!” If you’re anything like me, it’s not very often. But I’m here to say that it is possible, even if you don’t think so yet. “SIGNIFICANTLY BETTER” I started feeling better after only four sessions; I had number 15 this morning. Last week, I felt pretty good, but today I’m noticing an even…

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An Update

09/30/2018 Laura Becker Comments 0 Comment

I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t always know what I’m feeling. And, as well-versed as I am with depression in general and my own experiences with it in particular, it can still sometimes sneak up on me. Well, it did. IT’S BAA-AAACK I noticed it four days ago, after my experience at the hospital. The day after, I felt okay for a while, but then I started feeling depressed. It wasn’t terrible, it wasn’t the most depressed…

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My Trip to the Hospital T/W: Suicide

09/28/2018 Laura Becker Comments 4 comments

Photo by Oliver Roos on Unsplash Well. The last 72 hours have been very interesting. If you read my last post, you know that I’ve been exhausted. And that can be a dangerous time for anyone dealing with a mental illness. Even though I write about depression, anxiety, and addiction (as well as life in general), and I sometimes have my shit together, I am not immune to emotional relapses. Nor am I immune to overwhelm, stress, or crises. In the last…

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Mental Health Moment (MHM) #4: 20 Unscientific Signs Depression is on Its Way (or Already Here)

08/01/2018 Laura Becker Comments 5 comments

**In honor of my 52nd post, I thought I would change things up a bit. I had intended this to be a funny-in-an-ironic-sort-of-way post, but I guess I’m not in that kind of mood today. Regardless, I hope you enjoy it. Maybe you can relate?** You Know You’re Depressed When… There are literally billions of web pages and you aren’t interested in any of them. Every little thing gets on your last nerve. Sleep comes when (and if) it…

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Depression and Intrusive Thoughts

07/27/2018 Laura Becker Comments 0 Comment

**T/W – SUICIDAL THOUGHTS** (T/W = Trigger Warning) Well, it’s been about two weeks now, and I’m still feeling depressed. Actually, it’s getting noticeably worse. My fears that it won’t go away on its own (even after discontinuing the Wellbutrin), I’ll have to quit tutoring, and have to do TMS again are all looming on the horizon. Not to mention all the related issues. I have little interest in doing anything; my ability to focus and concentrate have gone…

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