psychology – Page 4 – Licensed Mental Health Counselor

Helping Someone Who Has Lost Someone To Suicide

2 Apr 2016by Torey C. Richards, LMHCLeave a Comment

Earlier this week I was called to talk to a juvenile who had witnessed her boyfriend shoot himself the night before. He didn’t make it. She was obviously upset and making her way through the various stages of grief, but what was most pronounced were denial and anger. She is only 15 and he was 18. His life already over. Her life changed forever. As I listened to her talk, first with disbelief, then with anger at herself for not stopping him, then anger at him for leaving her, until she finally broke down in uncontrollable sobbing before returning back to anger and guilt directed towards herself.

Sadly, during my career I have dealt with a lot of death, but suicides always present their own unique set of challenges. People who have lost someone to suicide often not only feel the grief and tremendous loss that comes along with death in general, but they often also feel guilty that someone they knew decided that whatever they were going through was too much to bear.

A couple of years ago in an auditorium filled with crying high school students, teachers, and parents, after a popular student athlete killed himself, what I heard most was people blaming themselves for not recognizing signs that weren’t there. While sometimes suicides come with warnings, often they are very abrupt.

The irrevocable pain the loved ones of someone who committed suicide feel can cause them to become an emotional and mental wreck. Those of us looking in from the outside often want to help, but are unsure how.

You don’t have to be trained as a mental health professional (trust me, often times all the training in the world doesn’t make it easier), but here are some ways you help someone you know who has lost someone to suicide.

Let them come to you.

As part of the Crisis team I had to go to several schools over the course of five years after a student had committed suicide. I would walk into a school I didn’t know and come face to face with distraught students, teachers, and parents I didn’t know. It is scary. The best thing I did was to be there and let those who wanted to talk come to me. If I saw that someone was obviously very upset I would go to them, hand them a tissue, sit next to them, and wait for them to open up to me. It always worked.

As a friend, try to normalize things. Let the moment be as natural as possible. When they are ready, they will talk as long as you are there.

Remember the good times.

This is a lesson I learned from watching other, more seasoned mental health professionals during those crisis moments. While acknowledging the tragedy of what happened is important, it can be just as important and powerful to help them remember the good times they had with the person they lost. While this may seem counter-intuitive, I’ve seen it work miracles in helping someone stop reflecting on death and to start celebrating someone’s life. I’ve seen people go from sobbing to laughing and from being unable to process the tragedy to opening up completely. So, when they are ready, encourage them remember and talk about happy memories about the person.

Ask good questions.

The young lady I spoke to earlier this week said what most people who lost someone to suicide say at some point; “I don’t understand why he did this.” Naturally I wanted to help her process that, but I knew it was more important that I resist that urge and get her to talk about herself.

It’s important to avoid statements like, “I’m sure you did everything you could”, but instead ask questions like, “Tell me what have you been thinking?”, “What was it like the last few times you were together?”, “What did you see?” These questions allow the person to open up as slowly and as much as they want to.

In the case of the young girl I spoke with earlier in the week, the last question was a big one because she had witnessed the suicide and it allowed us to process that entire scene at her own pace.

Be there, be mindful.

When someone experiences such a tragedy, often they are inconsolable. That is one of the few things that bothers me about getting sudden calls to talk to someone when they have just lost a loved one. I know that generally, with everything so raw, there’s not much I can say that is going to make them feel better in that moment.

What I do, and what you can do as well, is just be there. I sit with them and make myself available. I allow them to cry or to say nothing if they don’t want to. As a friend, you can do the same. You can put your arm around them, hug them, or just be there as a source of comfort. That can be more powerful than trying to find the right words to say.

Find the balance between intrusion and distance.

It is common after someone has lost someone that they will want to be alone so that they can figure out their own emotions and thoughts. You can give someone mental space while still remaining physically present.

What that means is, you can be in the same room with the person, but allow them silence if that is what they want. Allow them some space if that is what they need. You can even be in another room and remind them that you are there for them if they need you.

Offer practical help.

After an incredible loss, the person suffering will need help if they realize it or not. After my father died I spent countless days not eating, not showering, and only wanting to sleep. I didn’t even realize I was doing those things, I just remember that my life felt upside down.

Allow the person to go through the natural grief and mourning process, but also offer to help do things to make this time in their lives a little more manageable.

For instance, go grocery shopping for them, pick up the kids, and remind them to eat, to shower, or even ask them how you can be helpful. They may not know that they need help or even have the awareness to be thankful for the help you give them, but trust me, it will help them make it through the darkness.

Allow them to problem solve on their own.

Eventually, the person will ask more of the tough questions about why the person did what they did and what they could have or should have done. Try not to get caught up in problem solving for them, but allow them to work through that themselves. You can be there for them by asking intelligent questions like; “What thoughts did you have when the suicide first happened?” What thoughts do you have now?” But allow them to reflect and figure that out on their own so that they can put it in perspective for themselves.

Suicide is a tragedy and people who have suffered such an extreme lost need good friends to help see them through it.

Popular Psychology

Embracing Your Inner Power

16 Feb 201615 Feb 2016by Torey C. Richards, LMHCLeave a Comment

istock dollar inner child Sometimes you just have one of those days where it seems like the sun isn’t shining on you. In that darkness it’s easy to beat yourself up over the past and become anxious and negative about the future.

I’ve been there. It used to happen to me a lot actually and sometimes it still does. In the past, I dealt with those days the only ways I knew how which were becoming cling, needy, depressed and anxious. All maladaptive coping mechanisms I had picked up sometime during my life.

In return, I found myself trying to control other people and situations. Wanting people to do what I wanted them to do, think what I wanted them to think and feel the way I wanted them to feel. This rarely worked out in my favor. Usually the people I was trying to control either pulled away or responded negatively which in the end only made me feel worse.

Even when I did get what I thought I wanted, I usually still felt empty and overtime I realize the reason I still felt empty was because the real issue was within me and I couldn’t fix that with people or things.

I realized overtime and from doing therapy clients who suffering from anxiety, depression, and anger issues, that people and things do not stop our pain or move us to a better place. Only we can do that for ourselves.

We are the only ones who have the inner-power to end our suffering and angst. Sure sometimes we need the help of our support systems and/or our spiritual beliefs, but all change truly begins within us. That is when we truly heal and move beyond that pain and darkness.

Once we dig into and heal ourselves, peace, love and trust will return to use easier and quicker than we thought. Trust me. I’ve been there time and time again and it never fails. Our past neurotic attempt to bring back balance and peace to our universe happens much more naturally when it comes from within.

We have to deal with our feelings and accept them as ours. We have to stop our need to control. Peace, love and happiness will return. Remember, a bad day is just a bad day and we don’t have to make it last any longer than absolutely necessary.

I’m not saying it’s easy to stop the pain and anxiety when it comes rushing in. Sometimes even for myself today it takes a moment for me to recognize it, stop from going to my default maladaptive coping mechanisms, and reach inside my own inner-power, but I am better at it today than I was yesterday and will be better at it tomorrow than I am today. That’s all I ask of myself and all I ask of you.

We are much more powerful than we believe we are! We can control not only our thoughts and feeling, but our destinies! We have to learn to harness and embrace our inner power.

It doesn’t matter if you have anger issues, depression, low-self-esteem, whatever it is. The faster you realize you have all the control and no need to try to control other people or situations, the faster you will have the strength to overcome any obstacle that’s in your way, even if that obstacle is yourself.

Popular Psychology

10 Black Psychologists Who Greatly Impacted The Field: Francis Cecil Sumner

15 Feb 201615 Feb 2016by Torey C. Richards, LMHCLeave a Comment

download Francis Cecil Sumner (1895-1954) is better known for being the first African American to ever earn a Ph. D in psychology. What is not so widely known is that he was also the first African American to have earned a doctorate from any American University.

Francis Cecil Sumner was a pioneer for future Black psychologists. He started the psychology program at Howard University and went on to teach other prominent future Black psychologists such as Kenneth Clark. He was also a pivotal leader in education reform and completed vast amounts of research that counteracted racism and bias in psychological studies of African Americans.

Unfortunately, Francis Cecil Sumner died before seeing the end of segregation, something he fought hard for.

Like many Black psychologists, Francis Cecil also did a lot of research in the areas of discrimination and social injustice, but I believe his greatest contribution to the field was becoming the first African American psychologist and paving the way for myself and those before and after me.

His other contributions include:

1916 As a graduate student at Lincoln University he taught psychology of religion, mysticism, rationalism, experimental psychology, social psychology and intermediate and advanced German.
1920-1921 Took his first teaching position at Wilber force University in Ohio.
1921 (summer) Taught at Southern University in Louisiana.
1921 (fall) Accepted an appointment as instructor of psychology and philosophy in the college department at West Virginia Collegiate Institute (now Virginia State College).
1928 Resigned from West Virginia after becoming restless and assumed the acting chairmanship of the department of psychology at Howard University where he remained until his death in 1954.
1931 Had the opportunity to attend the First International Congress for Religious Psychology held at the University of Vienna. There he presented a paper entitled, “Mental Hygiene and Religion” and met many leaders among European psychologists of religion.
Served as an official abstractor for both the Journal of Social Psychology and the Psychological Bulletin, where he translated more than three thousand articles from German, French, and Spanish.

Popular Psychology

Micropsychosis: Temporarily Losing Your Mind

17 Jan 2016by Torey C. Richards, LMHC1 Comment

loses their minds

Have you ever heard someone say that they “lost their mind”? Perhaps you’ve even witnessed a seemingly normal person “lose it”, such as the JetBlue pilot in 2012 that had to be subdued by passengers because of sudden, erratic behavior during a flight, or when a flight attendant on an American Airlines flight began speaking erratically over the intercom.

There are multiple medical conditions that can trigger psychotic like episodes such as brain tumors, thyroid conditions, fever, infection and substance abuse. There are also multiple psychiatric conditions that can cause a person to have brief psychosis such as bipolar disorder and major depression.

However, there are times when relatively healthy people can for an incredibly short amount of time, lose touch with reality, becoming paranoid, hearing voices, having a sense of depersonalization (a state in which one’s thoughts and feelings seem unreal or not to belong to oneself, or in which one loses all sense of identity) or derealization (a feeling that one’s surroundings are not real).

This condition is called micropsychosis and generally last only a few minutes to a few hours and typically occurs during times of heightened anxiety and/or stress. Afterwards, the person goes back to him or her normal self and may never have an episode again. It’s not to be confused with a brief psychotic episode which by definition last longer, typically one day to a month and is not re-occurring.

Micropsychotic episodes are what I think often happens when someone goes into a rage and is seemingly out of control. Afterwards, many of them can’t remember what happened, or feel as if they were watching themselves do things as if it were a movie.

Whenever someone who has never had a psychotic episode suddenly has one, it usually takes them and everyone by surprise, but in retrospect, there is usually some early symptoms that may have gone unnoticed or ignored. Often times it’s the way someone is dealing (or not dealing) with stress.

While having a micropsychotic episode may actually be quite a normal psychological response under some extreme stressful conditions, there is probably some underlying condition that needs to be investigated, even if it’s just talk therapy to help deal with stress or a visit to a medical doctor to rule out a medical condition.

Below is a video of a character with Borderline Personality Disorder and her Micropsychotic hallucination. A funny title for this video would be, “How To Make Your Hallucinations Disappear”.

Popular Psychology

Sitting Down With A Killer: Impressions On Interviewing A Psychopath

11 Sep 201511 Sep 2015by Torey C. Richards, LMHCLeave a Comment

Today I sat face to with a man who had killed three people and tried to have a fourth person killed, a real psychopath. This wasn’t some disturbed person who lost his mind and killed three people in one violent, rage filled act. This was a man who killed his friends’ girlfriend, then still remained friends with the guy while he grieved over his dead girlfriend. Fast forward three years later, while still friends with the guy, he decides to not only kill him, but also to kill his new girlfriend.

Finally arrested for the murders, from behind bars he tries to elicit the help of another inmate to kill a key witness to the last two murders. This man has no remorse. No real feelings. He’s currently facing two life sentences with yet more charges coming. He is barely 30 and will spend the rest of his life in prison.

Sitting across from me in a big empty room, un-handcuffed, unshackled and unguarded (the nearest officer is two flights of stairs below), this man who is covered in multiple tattoos, some gang related, one reading, American Nightmare, has a very cold disposition. It’s in his frozen eyes and the way he talks as if he couldn’t care less about anything or anyone in the world that reminds me that I am in the room with a man who pretty much has nothing to lose.

I can’t explain the feeling. It’s not fear I feel when he tells me I am asking too many dumb questions, or when he leans in with an attitude of authority as if he were the one in charge of this interview. It’s not even nervousness that I feel, but an awareness that I am in the room with a three time killer, who wouldn’t hesitate to make it four, or five. It’s like being in a room where a poisonous snake is being kept. You’re not necessarily always checking to make sure it’s still there, but you’re always aware of it and its potential to get loose. As he stated, “My life is over, although I am still alive. I’ve had many family and friends die in prison. There is nothing you can say to me.”

And he was right. There wasn’t anything I could say to him to make him “feel better”. Often times I get called to speak to inmates who get sentenced to long sentences including life. Most of them are already mentally prepared for it, or at least think they are. Very few show any real emotions. Even fewer show any real remorse. A handful become suicidal. A very few even attempt suicide.

This guy’s advice to me when talking to inmates facing lengthy sentences was pretty spot on; “Don’t talk too much, just listen. Don’t ask too many questions. Don’t ask, ‘is there anything I can do for you?’”

In the real world, only 1% of the population meets criteria to qualify as true psychopaths, but in jails and prisons, that number jumps to 15%. I’ve talked to multiple killers before, some who have killed on accident, who killed on purpose, who killed out of anger, who killed out of greed, who killed out of jealous, who killed out of impulse and some who killed for apparently no reason at all, but none were as electrifying or showed such lack of empathy as this guy.

Here was a guy who killed his friend’s girlfriend, then stayed friends with the guy only to kill him and his new girlfriend three years later. The lack of empathy, manipulation and callousness it took to look his friend in the face day in and day out, knowing that he was the one that killed his last girlfriend is frightening.

During the hour I spent talking with this guy today I learned more about dealing with psychopaths than I could have by reading a 300 page book or taking a 9 week college course . It’s terribly fascinating.

Popular Psychology

Five Ways To Combat Worrying

13 Aug 201513 Aug 2015by Torey C. Richards, LMHCLeave a Comment

“Worry is the direct descendant of the need to be in control. We cannot see everything. We do not know everything. It’s impossible for us to control everything…” –Iyanla Vanzant

Worrying is a natural part of life. Occasional worrying is actually a good coping skill that helps us plan ahead. However, worrying too much can become counterproductive, distracting and damaging to our mental and physical state.

Most of the things we worry about aren’t likely to happen in the first place, yet we waste vast amounts of emotional energy on them.

1 out of 10 people worry excessively. Extreme worrying can be a symptom of a mental health issue such as depression or generalized anxiety disorder. Some people who worry constantly and their worrying derails their lives may have a chemical imbalance and need medication, therapy or both.

For many of us, we worry because we want to control a situation, person or outcome that we usually don’t have that much control over. Worrying a lot usually means that you are trying really hard to control something, yet worrying usually doesn’t do anything to help or change the situation, it just causes us more emotional anguish.

Here are five tips to help combat worrying:

Allow yourself to worry in small increments: I’ve told clients who worry a lot to designate one part of their day as their worry time, that way their worrying doesn’t build up nor do they worry throughout the entire day.
Try to problem solve: Worrying is a poor attempt to solve a problem. It simply doesn’t work. Instead of wasting the energy on worrying, try to think of solutions to the problem you are worrying about.
Learn to deal with uncertainty: Uncertainty is just a part of life, sometimes random things just happen, but many of us are unwilling to except that. We have to know and/or be in control of things that we simply can’t be. The faster we learn to deal with uncertainty, the easier it will be to stop worrying and the easier it will be to actually deal with the unexpected.
Stay in the present: When we worry, we aren’t actually enjoying what’s going on around us now. We are so far into the “what ifs” of the future, that we are missing out on the great possibilities of right now. You can acknowledge your worries, but that doesn’t mean you have to allow them to pull you in. Meditation and mindfulness activities can help ease some of the stress from worrying and bring you back to the present.
Get out of your head: You may find that putting what you’re worrying about down on paper helps release some of its power over you. Some people keep a worry journal next to their bed so that if their worries keep them up at night they can just jot them down on paper and “release” them. Guatemalan worry dolls, for example, are dolls based on a legend where children in Guatemala make dolls to tell their worries to and the doll “takes” their worry away.

“I have spent most of my life worrying about things that have never happened.” -Mark Twain

Popular Psychology

Who And Where You Are Today Is Right Where You Are Supposed To Be

28 Jul 201529 Jul 2015by Torey C. Richards, LMHCLeave a Comment

Many of us spend a whole lot of time not being happy with ourselves and our current situations. We we always think there is somewhere else we should be at this point in our lives and would have a lot less stress if we learned to embrace who we are and where we are right now. We would have a lot less stress also if we learned to let go instead of trying to control situations and other people.

How much of our energy is spent beating up on ourselves or trying to make an outcome turnout in our favor or stop someone from doing something that really isn’t in our control?

I have to admit that during certain parts of my life I wasted a lot of energy trying to control the future, trying to control other people’s behaviors and even emotions. I went to great lengths to keep people from getting mad, to keep people from leaving or to get people to be who I wanted them to be. It was exhausting and robbing me of my sanity, but during those times, I thought it was keeping me sane. I thought it was keeping my world balanced, but in reality it was destroying certain parts of myself and my life.

A lot of the desire to control outcomes and people come from us not trusting that things will eventually workout in our favor. Some people will call it not having faith in God or the Universe, therefore we try to take control over things that are really out of control. I’m not talking about sitting back and not taking action in your life and just hoping things will happen by happenstance, but I am talking about not worrying excessively over whether you’re going to get the job you interviewed for when you’ve already interviewed and given it your all. I am talking about not worrying whether or not your friend will be mad when you let her know you can’t lend her $20 because you barely have $20 yourself.

We all have our own way of trying to keep our world in balance, especially when we don’t trust that things will be okay no matter what and that the Universe, for the most part, is working for our good. What we have to learn, what I am still learning, is that life is good right now. That everything that is happening right now is just the way it is supposed to be. That where I am right now is where I am supposed to be. I am not behind, I am not trying to play catch up to this other me that is living a better life, and I have not missed out on some magical opportunity that will never come back. I am exactly where I am supposed to be right now.

Realizing that and letting go of trying to control every little thing frees us from our past. Who we were back then and what we did back then was just fine for back then. Who we are at this moment is also just fine for right now. Once we stop trying to control circumstances and people, once we stop beating up on ourselves for not being better, we will realize how much control we actually have over ourselves, our thoughts, our emotions and our present moment. We all want to be better, to be happy, to grow, but sometimes we have to enjoy life as it is today and just be and realize that where we are and who we are right now is good enough for today.

Popular Psychology

We All Need To Practice Emotional First Aid

14 Jul 201514 Jul 2015by Torey C. Richards, LMHCLeave a Comment

As a mental health professional, I have found myself spending a lot of time trying to convince people that they need to take care of themselves mentally and emotionally. Meaning, I run into people who are working two jobs, taking care of their family and everyone else around them, but are letting themselves go mentally and are getting sicker and sicker over time.

Or, I meet someone who is obviously not dealing with various issues in their lives, probably hoping that ignoring them will make them go away, but all the while they are growing emotionally unhealthy.

It reminds me of when a parent would bring a child in to see me for therapy and it would become apparent pretty quickly that it’s the parent that needs therapy, not the the child. Many times the parent would like at me as if I was crazy. They couldn’t see that their own neurotic behavior, substance abuse or even past childhood issues are creating the “problem” they are prescribing to their child.

It’s easy to tell when someone is physically not doing well, but it’s not always easy to tell when someone isn’t mentally doing well, especially when it comes to everyday things like anxiety, depression and self-esteem. Things we all deal with from time to time.

I have a sister who at one point was working a very demanding job, raising a challenging teenager on her own, volunteering her sparse free time to multiple organizations and if that wasn’t enough, she was trying to help every friend that called and needed something from her.

On the outside she looked ambitious, energetic, like a true type A-personality. On the inside she was feeling overwhelmed, flustered and fragile.

One night, while having dinner with our family which should have been relaxing, seemingly out of the blue she had what some would call a nervous breakdown. She started crying, hyperventilating and felt as though she was going to lose control of her mind. I could look at her and tell she was having a classic panic attack, but she was too far gone to hear me and was convinced she needed medical attention.

Soon afterwards she was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder and was told to cut back on the million and one things she did in her day to day life to take care of other people and to start taking care of her own mental health, something many of us don’t do enough of.

Sometimes I even catch myself too caught up in work, life and everything else and before I realize it I am dealing with some type of anxiety, insecurity or dysthmia. I have to slow down, stop myself and figure out a) where is it coming from and b) how do I take care of it. Often times for me the solution is simple awareness and acknowledgement that something is bothering me. Other times it takes journaling, reading something inspirational or processing my feelings with someone I trust. I’m usually that person for everyone, but sometimes I need someone to be that person for me.

It doesn’t always have to be something major and it doesn’t always take a therapist, but sometimes it does. Sometimes it’s simple mindfulness, meditation, or getting out and having some fun, but many of us have no real idea of what it means to administer emotional first aid to ourselves which is why I included this Ted Talk by Guy Winch: Why We All Need To Practice Emotional First Aid

Popular Psychology

Drawing From Emotional Pain: One Artist’s Struggle With Mental Illness

1 Jun 20151 Jun 2015by Torey C. Richards, LMHC2 Comments

In psychology there has long thought to be a link between mental illness and creativity. While disorders like depression tend to affect many people, creative types such as writers, musicians, inventors and dancers seem to get hit twice as hard.

I will follow this post with a discussion on mental illness and creativity later, but today I would like to share something special.

One of my favorite artists, Destiny Blue recently shared with her fans her struggle with anxiety and depression. Her story was touching and powerful. The fact that she shared it on her birthday, May 22nd made it even more special as she was giving such a great gift to so many other people. She wanted her story shared and with her permission, I am thankful that she is allowing me to share it here in hopes that it will help others who think they are suffering alone or are ashamed of their illness. We both hope it will inspire others to reach out and seek help.

Destiny Blue

Hi I’m Blue, and I struggle with mental illness.

Some of you will dismiss me, some of you will be scared of me, some of you will blame me, but a surprising amount of you will understand me, because 1 in 4 people experience mental health issues. Considering so many people experience it, we hear so little about it; it’s the family secret you can’t tell anyone, the fake smile so know one knows, the calling in sick but blaming food poisoning. It’s hard for me to write about, but I write this hoping it makes it easier for the next person to speak about it.

I am going to tell you my story, of my path with mental illness. I don’t know if it has a happy ending yet…

It began with a tough situation at home, which triggered the anxiety. It’s hard to explain the exact feeling. It’s kind of like where you’re leaning back on your chair, and go that bit too far and you just about to fall back. That sudden jolt of panic inside your chest, that half second spike that makes you fling your hands forward and grab the desk infront of you to steady yourself. That ‘oh shit’ moment. It’s that. Only it didn’t last for half a second, for even a minute, it lasted years. I thought I’d just have to live with it until the situations improved, but even when it did anxiety still clung to me like a scarf of live electricity. That feeling could come when I was alone in a room, sitting comfortably, with nothing to do and a clear day ahead. The world would spin and tumble, and I’d want to put my hands out to grab the desk and steady myself, but there was nothing there. Nothing to grab onto. Over and over.

And so, through anxiety’s hot trickery depressions cold crept in, it sat at the back of my mind and laughed at me. “Why are you even trying? It’s useless anyway” and when you’re fighting a non-existent force from a chair you’re not even really sitting on it’s hard to argue with that. And this feeling spread.

It wasn’t that I couldn’t feel happy, and it wasn’t total sadness per-se, I did feel sad, but the harshness of depression is that it makes the process of living excruciating. It’s like walking through thick treacle, every movement pushed against and held back by sticky tar. Suffocating and exhausting. Even when there’s no energy left you still have to walk. This same tar is in your brain, slowing your thoughts, numbing your feelings, even when there’s no energy left, you can never stop thinking. Then everything feels overwhelming. Even the small things, one task in particular for me, washing my clothes, was a mountain, even to think about it required so much energy, I could wash my clothes, but then I’d have to pick up the dirty clothes, taken them to the washer, open the washer, put the clothes in the washer, close the door, open the detergent bottle, put the detergent in. It was just too much. So the clothes sat there. And you know it’s absurd, everyone else can do it no trouble, so, I thought, maybe I’m just lazy, I should push on, I’m a strong person, so I pushed. Now you can push yourself do enough to look like your functioning normally, but it doesn’t get rid of the tar, the sticky molasses in your veins, on the outside I was normal enough, inside I was decaying. My mind was ablaze trying to grab a desk and my soul was swallowed in the bitter treacle. The worst thing, was that I never felt at peace, however still I sat, however beautiful the morning, however hard it was searched for, no peace arrived. It was torture, and my own mind was the torturer.

I didn’t -want- to kill myself, that’s messy, and probably involved going out of the house, a body, sad friends. I just wanted to be dead. My brain fantasized about it. That sweet release of deep restful unexistence, it seemed so much better than existing like this. If only, I thought, there weren’t people who loved me. It’s a sick twisted logic you don’t have control over; to you it all makes sense. I didn’t even know I was depressed, I thought what I was feeling was justified, life -was- meaningless, I -would- be better off dead. It had been a slow decline into darkness, the light wasn’t just switched off, I had no ‘oh shit it’s dark’ moment, I didn’t even realise I couldn’t see properly, my eyes had adjusted to the dark as the light faded, my mind replacing reality with it’s own twisted night vision, of strange shadows and dark half logic.

Yeah, I won’t go out today, no I don’t need to do my essay yet, it can wait, they probably don’t want to hang around with me anyway, It’s not worth it, I’m not worth it, I’m worthless.

So I hurt myself. Mostly to feel better, or to feel something, I’m not sure, but it proved a point. When I saw what I had done to my own skin, I had a thought: “This is what sick people do” The thought turned over a few times in my head and twisted into a lump in my throat “Am -I- sick?” That was the first time I really realised. Despite crippling depression, despite feeling suicidal, being unable to properly care for myself, I had barely thought I was ill, I’d just thought I was lazy, or sad, or worthless. But I looked at the blood, and the damage I’d done, and knew I needed help.

So I went to the doctor, and yes, I was sick, and the slow process began. Full of relapse and recovery. It’s not over, and it may never be for me, it’s more complicated than I can say here. But now I can recognise the signs and know what to look out for and I have learned how to manage my condition. I took a break at the start of this year, and didn’t do any conventions, just focused on getting better and giving myself a steady foundation to stand on for the rest of this year. At the moment I am doing well, and I appreciate the peace in my head so much more now I’ve known such darkness. But life is worth living, and I try and do it with vitatily.

Depression is so disgusting because it erodes the you-ness of you, the qualities you like in yourself are taken over, even the things you enjoy doing you have to do in the tar. It is not your fault, though it can feel like it is, and others may think it is. I hate that some people think it shows weakness. It shows no more weakness than walking up a mountain with a broken leg shows weakness. Your brain’s broken and you must get on -despite- that, doing the washing can be a huge victory, higher than climbing a mountain with a broken leg, and a lot more sensible. People congratulate me for creating a piece of art, or running my own business. No one congratulated me when I did my washing. But really, in my darkest time, it was one of my greatest achievements. And, on some future day where I’m feeling bad, putting another load of washing on will be a big achievement again.

I juts wanted to let you guys know that you were a small light in the huge darkness. Thank you so much for all your comments and notes, I treasure each one of you. Thank you for always being there for me. It’s a wonderful feeling to know I can reach out and so many people would grab my hand to help. I know many of you are suffering with the same thing I did. Please reach out, and for those of you willing to, please offer a hand to someone when they reach out, they probably need it more than you know, they might even need it more than they know.

It’s my birthday, and if I have a birthday wish, it’s for this message to be shared.

Peace, love, and mental well-being,

Blue x

Popular Psychology

I AM: The Shortest Sentence In The Written Word, The Two Most Powerful Words In The Universe

29 May 201529 May 2015by Torey C. Richards, LMHCLeave a Comment

The other day I came across this picture on Facebook and it immediately reminded me of a book I read called I AM: Discovering The Power of Who You Really Are. It’s still today one of my favorite books because it helped me realize how powerful those two words truly are.

The reason those two words, I AM, are so powerful is because those are the words that help us create our world, our realities. We are always saying to ourselves, largely subconsciously, I AM. It can be as simple as, “I AM bored” or as self-destructive as, “I AM nothing”.

What happens is that whatever we say we are, we will subconsciously start creating experiences for ourselves to confirm what we think we are. It’s the way we stay somewhat sane and try to keep our world in balance.

If we subconsciously or consciously say and believe, “I AM a loser”, we will continuously put ourselves in situations to lose. We will not try hard to win even if we are lying to ourselves that we are. We are expecting to lose and so it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Even if we somehow win, that will not be enough to change our thoughts of I AM a loser, we will just chalk it up to luck or even say, “I should have loss” or “It doesn’t matter that I won, I AM still a loser”.

When we say those words, I AM, we are defining ourselves, how we view the universe, how we experience our experiences and our state of mind. We control all of that. No outside forces, no other person. Even someone in prison has power in choosing how he defines his I AM, his experience.

Our internal dialogue is very powerful, that’s why it is important for us to take control of it and redirect it, especially when it’s being self-destructive or not pushing us in a positive direction.

Those words, I AM are with us every second of the day. They are so powerful and help us create so much of our emotions, our reality and our experiences that they help us create matter! They help us create matter because they help us decide what matters in our lives.

Sometimes when I am working with people that are extremely emotionally charged about something, I’ll stop and ask them, why does it matter? Often times they will stop crying or yelling and look at me with a puzzled look on their face. Then I’ll tell them that it only matters because they are making it matter and if they decide that it no longer matters, it won’t. I could almost see the burden being lifted from them as they realize that they have the power to let go of whatever emotions they had been holding on to (sometimes for years) because they decided to no longer make it matter.

Of course it’s not always that simple, but a surprisingly amount of the time it is.

So many people are in various degrees of emotional pain right now because they have no real control over their I AM. Who they are, their emotions and who they tell themselves they are on a subconscious level, is heavily influenced by other people and the ups and downs of daily life. If they only knew how powerful they truly were they could bring an end to much of the angst, depression and anger.

The Basics

We create our reality.
Fear tends to bring about the very thing that is feared.
Faith (not necessarily religion) tends to bring about powerful outcomes.
People tend to be products of their environments (but this doesn’t mean we can’t or shouldn’t change).
You cannot go back in the past and change anything you did (so don’t keep beating yourself up over it).
Failure does not define who you are. You do.
You create and experience your life. No one can live your life for you or is responsible for how your life turns out.
You are the exclusive author of your story. You are the creator of this experience called life.
You and only you can choose your interpretation of and reactions to your life experiences. You control your emotions.
You are making it all what it is.