Blog
-
I recently received a text citing a friend doing something that was hard for him, and struggling with it. “It’s ok, though,” said the text, “he’s powering through it.” “Blech,” I thought to myself. Then I typed “Is that really actually good, though?”. And then I deleted it, because nobody was asking for my opinion and it wasn’t time to…
-
There is a unique grief to the end of my thirties. In many ways, this decade has been liberating and exciting. Like many people of my generation, I’ve finally hit a stride in my career that includes feeling both competent and skilled and fairly compensated for my work. I live in a home with someone I love that is…
-
I have a new favorite show. It’s called Modern Love, it’s on Amazon, and it’s based on the Modern Love column from the New York Times. It’s moving and it’s lovely. In one episode, Anne Hathaway plays a woman with bipolar disorder navigating relationships and work as best she can while swinging between her extreme mood states. As she…
-
I kill all things green. This is my truth around gardening and, though I’m deeply unhappy about it, it’s factual. If you give me a plant I will kill it. Consider yourself warned- please don’t gift me plantlife. That said, my mother-in-law is here this weekend, replete with her very green thumb, and she’s graciously offered to help me figure…
-
As I continue to work in the therapeutic space of disordered eating and eating issues, I remain skeptical of the emphasis on the eating behaviors themselves. What I’ve found, time and again, is that eating issues are largely couched in a number of emotionally-rooted issues, including anxiety, concerns about control, phobias and fears, low or externally-based self-esteem and self-worth, and…
-
One of my friends tells her story of growing up with a mother with “issues” rather matter-of-factly, but the details are pretty grim to listen to. “She would stop talking to me for no reason, for days at a time, and put a gift on my bed when she decided she was done being mad at me. We never talked…
-
Happy day to all of us working to reduce the stigma of mental health diagnoses, and to all of us diagnosed. We are the dreamers, the storytellers, the artists, the empaths, the healers, the warriors, the advocates, and the visionaries of the world. Be bold, be loud, and remain open – there is still so much work to do !
-
When individuals begin to see me for therapy, it is very often because they have gotten fed up with some part of themselves that they feel needs changing, fixing, or altogether eradicating. They’ll introduce this part of themselves to me as their “stupid anxiety” or “annoying depression” or “ridiculous obsession with eating,” etcetera. They judge themselves mercilessly for whatever their…
-
Last week was Weight Stigma Awareness week, initiated by the National Eating Disorder Association in 2011 as a means of bringing attention to the impact that weight stigma has on disordered eating, mental health, and healthcare for those with eating disorders or individuals living in larger bodies. It’s an important week for the eating disorder community, and I want my…
-
As clinicians, we are built from the ground up to disregard ourselves. This begins in our training process, when we are instructed on how to listen well to someone. It is made clear that we are ears, not mouths. We’re warned not to bring too much of ourselves into session with us, so as to keep a trained and steady…