Living Proof

There's a ton of online gurus for every topic you can imagine. Some have degrees for studying their craft and knowledge, while others can only offer you their experience and research. I find both acceptable when it comes to reading content from either a qualified scholar or from someone who has experience of their own in whatever topic. Take for instance psychology. There are people like me who talk, write and live stream about mental health awareness, anxiety, depression and other related topics, only because I have struggled with it since I was sixteen years old. I cannot give you advice on medications or worse off, diagnose you. I can only tell you my story, and maybe relate to yours. I can tell you what worked for me, and leave it up to you to draw your own conclusions. Qualifying Your Therapist How do you know if someone can truly help you? Say for instance, a self-proclaimed "life coach" approaches you---do you ask for their qualifications and practice? Wha...

It's interesting how others may perceive you. I was told by many of my past therapists that I look so happy and not somebody who suffered with anxiety or depression. One thing about me is: I'm never fake. But one thing people don't know about me is, whenever I'm in a depression, I tend to stay away from people, so they never see that side of me. And I do it for two reasons: for one, I don't want to depress anybody else with my gloom 'n doom attitude, and secondly, I usually view the world on a sour note while I'm depressed. So it's best that I live in my little bubble during that time. I have this wonderful therapist who'll occasionally receive a frantic text from me saying, "I can't take it anymore!" And she knows I don't mean that I'm standing out on some ledge somewhere (which I have thought about in the past), so she'll soothe my anxiety and then make me come into her office or even be gracious enough to do a phone t...

You could have everything in the world you can possibly want: a nice car, good looks, wealth, education and anything else you would desire. The one thing it doesn't guarantee is happiness, contentment, a healthy mind…peace. Sometimes I wonder about some people I come across who seemingly "have it all" - but then think, just by their attitude toward life and people in general, they're not at peace at all. When I look at the videos of Elliot Rodger, here you see this handsome young man, going to college, has a gorgeous BMW and somehow, somewhere, something's lacking. You can hear it - you can feel it - you can sense that something is a bit 'off'. When I first saw his face, I said, "He killed all those kids?" He's gorgeous and probably comes from a well-to-do family. But why would this guy have any problems with girls? Why would girls reject this gorgeous kid? Didn't he have it all? And then I listened. I observed. He's 'off...

Suffering with anxiety disorder isn't easy. There are so many lovely accessories to go with it, like depression, self-medicating and doctors who are too lazy to treat their patients with effective therapy, writing a prescriptions all day and hoping for the best. Like me, not everyone can take antidepressants due to their many side effects. I have to opt for 'talk therapy' and what's perceived as "cognitive behavioral therapy", when it's only some guy who's heard probably 20 people before you whine about similar things just staring at you nodding or asking you, "So how do you feel about that?" I started reading books and articles online. I have learned so much from reading that by now, I should have a fricken degree. I have the type of anxiety whereas if I feel a tinge of pain in my jaw or left arm, I'm off to the hospital getting the works done: EKGs, blood tests, stress tests, you name it. If I experience swelling anywhere (like puffin...

There’s nothing worse than the feeling of anxiety. Whether you’re familiar experiencing anxiety attacks or not, each person has their “own” anxiety that can manifest in different ways. For instance, I experience the “typical symptoms”---shortness of breath, racing heart, and the scariest one, heart palpitations. I get irrational thoughts as though ‘this is it and I’m dying’ type of thinking. I find myself in the emergency room more times than I’d like to admit. “You’re okay, Deb. All the tests were fine.” I get sent home, feeling relieved, and magically, my anxiety, or “thought to be” heart attack subsides. For others, anxiety can be stress headaches, fatigue, tightness in chest and even allergy symptoms. I always thought my partner never got anxiety attacks. How can she not have anxiety working in a high paced male-dominated and competitive environment? Her anxiety outlets are migraines and stomach problems. Although she seems “calm”, her anxiety is a bit different than mine. My fri...

Usually, when somebody has a panic attack, they know where it comes from. Most of the time, they know what initially triggered it.  For someone with anxiety disorder, the response you will usually hear would be, “It just came on out of nowhere.” When you delve deeper, there is usually a trigger inside, hiding for dear life. I have been diagnosed with “anxiety disorder” since I was 16 years old. I have also been diagnosed for PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder). Some mornings, usually mid-morning after having coffee and overanalyzing my life into shreds and pieces, I’ll experience an anxiety attack. My wife will ask, “Well what triggered it? Are you upset? Are you thinking about something?” “No...It just came on all of the sudden.” Days later when I look back on the entire situation, possibly after an emergency room visit for chest pains, I’ll remember what had happened the day before. Did I just block it out, or did I simply shove everything into the “anxiety disorder...

As some of you probably already know, I suffer from panic attacks. I’ve been experiencing these attacks since I was 16 years old. I have a lot of people in my life who make assumptions about why my anxiety disorder developed, but I still have a vague idea “why”, yet I know some things make sense. I’m going to talk about why I “think” I got this disorder, and what I do today to relieve them. At the age of 16, I witnessed a very traumatic event in my life . I didn’t think it affected me all that much, because I handled it so well during the time it happened. What I didn’t know, is how it would affect me later as an adult. Being at that young age, I was still going to high school and trying to be a kid. I was influenced by my peers and found out that my stress levels were higher than the average teen going through trivial stuff. A lot people assume kids that age don’t have any stress. They do …very much so. And, when something traumatic takes place, it’s amazing what the body can do whe...