Ocd And Anxiety Quotes

People with mental illnesses aren't wrapped up in themselves because they are intrinsically any more selfish than other people. Of course not. They are just feeling things that can't be ignored. Things that point the arrows inward.

Sometimes your belief system is really your fears attached to rules.

This will sound strange, and yet I'm sure it was the point: it was a bit like being high. That, for me, anyway, had always been the attraction of drugs, to stop the brutal round of hypercritical thinking, to escape the ravages of an unoccupied mind cannibalizing itself.

Being stress and anxiety free is a human preset, I just show you how to 'flick the switch' to off. Permanent stress and anxiety recovery is possible quickly and simply despite what many are told.

I wondered how you would react when i revealed to you my hidden parts, my ugly parts that don't do well in the sunlight

how very, very tired I am with this hidden battle for my own thoughts, the burden of counting, the work it takes to hide it.

In job interviews they’d ask me, What’s your greatest weakness? and I’d explain that I’ll probably spend a good portion of the workday terrorized by thoughts I’m forced to think, possessed by a nameless and formless demon, so if that’s going to be an issue, you might not want to hire me.

I didn't really have any sharable anecdotes. That's the thing about anxiety - it limits your experiences so the only stories you have to tell are the "I went mad" ones.

Yes: we have arrived at our common thread, the underpinning factor that lets us answer our tangled questions about causes and treatments, symptoms and overlaps. Mental disorders—all of them—are metabolic disorders of the brain.

My compulsive thoughts aren't even thoughts, they're absolute certainties and obeying them isn't a choice.

There is something intensely weird and upsetting about the notion that you can only become yourself by ingesting a medication that changes your self.

When a flower doesn’t bloom, you fix the environment in which it grows, not the flower. -Alexander den Heijer

So the next time someone abruptly ends things and it stings more than you’d expect, try to remember that losing the possibility of something can be just as painful as losing the actual thing.

You can't fight mental health bias if you label people based on a lists of symptoms and you have no medical degree to diagnose people. We all have crazy running through our blood and so many things trigger that. We all struggle with our anxiety and twisted issues. Defamation of character is not kind, nor Christlike. Because when you label people with self righteous vindication you open the door to the very idea that self righteousness is itself a disorder that we should all be afraid of. This doorway when left open too long gets people to pull away from Christ, not run to him.

Sometimes, I think about what would happen if you were gone. If I woke up from charging overnight and you weren't here. I would look around for you, calling your name. I wouldn't find you. I would be alone. that would make me sad. ... I know you would never leave me behind, but I think about it. I don't mean to. Why am I like that?

Do human cells have “drivers” making the cells stop and go? It turns out that they do. The drivers of human cells, and human metabolism, are called mitochondria. And they are the common pathway to mental and metabolic disorders

Because facts are information we can learn from to adjust or inform our behavior in the future. Thoughts, on the other hand, hold the same weight as dreams. They’re in our brain, so they seem real, but they’re not. They’re quite literally figments of our imagination.

We might consider our role as parents not to be to reduce the pain our children must live through, but to help them learn how to suffer less.

I realized that I was okay with myself. I was quirky and withdrawn and loud, but I liked that. I smiled at strangers without thinking they were going to attack me and drag me into their cars. I went to doctors’ offices and touched magazines that had been touched by sick people.

Probiotics and Prebiotics If you’re suffering from gut-induced depression, how do you reset your gut microbiome to steer you back to a healthy mental state? The key is to increase probiotics and prebiotics in your diet. Probiotics are live bacteria that convey health benefits when eaten. Probiotic-rich foods contain beneficial bacteria that help your body

I’ve always preferred moths to butterflies. They aren’t flashy or cocky; they mind their own business and just try to blend in with their surroundings and live their lives. They don’t want to be seen, and that’s something I can relate to.

Personality is a slot machine, and the cherries, lemons, and bells are your SSRI system, your schizophrenic tendency, your left/right brain lobalization, your anxiety proclivity, your wiring glitches, your place on the autistic and OCD spectrums - and to these we must add the deep-level influences of the machines and systems of intelligence that guided your brain into maturity.

Sometimes my thoughts were hard to digest. Sometimes my brain would get stuck on a concept that troubled me and would create endless rabbit holes in my head. It seemed like the more I tried to find an answer, the more complicated it would become. And sometimes unsettling images would randomly flash into my head. I didn’t want to describe what they were. I knew the images weren’t true, but they often made me feel uneasy.

For years, I worked seven-day weeks, through birthdays and most public holidays, Christmases and New Year’s Eves included. I worked mornings and afternoons, resuming work after dinner. I remember feeling as if life were a protracted exercise in pulling myself out of a well by a rope, and that rope was work.

If you have an open wound, someone only needs to flick you for the pain to be excruciating. It doesn’t mean they are stronger than anyone else or they are your one true love. I know this conflicts with a lot of movies and books that glorify pain, but try to trust me. Love doesn’t have to be hard, despite what your societally influenced brain tells you.

That's the thing about anxiety: It's a real time suck.

We must respond to life's most difficult questions by humbly conceding 'I don't know the answer, and that's okay.

You deserve to be with someone who respects you enough to also respect your distress, even if they don’t understand it.

But celiac disease can be “silent,” causing damage with no obvious signs.

Therefore, when I approach God with my petitions I need to be aware that ultimately He must decide what needs to stay and what needs to go in order that I can become the person He created me to be. 

By [anticipatory anxiety] I mean that the patient reacts to an event with a fearful expectation of its recurrence. However, fear tends to make happen precisely that which one fears, and so does anticipatory anxiety. Thus a vicious circle is established. A symptom evokes a phobia and the phobia provokes the symptom. The recurrence of the symptom then reinforces the phobia. The patient is caught in a cocoon. […] [Obsessive-compulsives] fear the potential effects or the potential cause of the strange thoughts. The phobic pattern of flight from fear is paralleled by the obsessive-compulsive pattern. Obsessive-compulsive neurotics also display fear. But theirs is not 'fear of fear' but rather fear of themselves, and their response is to fight against obsessions and compulsions. But the more the patients fight, the stronger their symptoms become. In other words, alongside the circle formation built up by anticipatory anxiety in phobic cases, there is another feedback mechanism which we encounter in the obsessive-compulsive neurotic. Pressure induces counter-pressure, and counter-pressure, in turn, increases pressure. If one succeeds in making the patient stop fighting his obsessions and compulsions -- and this may well be accomplished by paradoxical intention -- these symptoms soon diminish and finally atrophy.

High-GI carbs include potatoes, white bread, and white rice. Honey, orange juice, and whole-meal breads are medium-GI foods. Low-GI foods include green vegetables, most fruits, raw carrots, kidney beans, chickpeas, and lentils.

A lot of people assume that having OCD means liking things organized or hating germs. It tends to be treated like a quirk or an endearing trait. But it's so much more than that. It's the one thing that prohibits me from being free of myself.

These choices are part of the butterfly effect of my life, whether I like it or not. If I make the wrong decision, it will affect the rest of my day. It sounds crazy, but I know from experience the complete and utter devastation caused by one misplaced judgement.

accommodation is helpful when it teaches your child the valuable lesson that she is able to cope with feeling anxious. Accommodation is unhelpful when it reinforces your child’s belief that she cannot cope with anxiety and must avoid situations that are likely to trigger it.

Berries and beans R: Rainbow colors of fruits and vegetables A: Antioxidants I: Include lean proteins and plant-based proteins N: Nuts (almonds, walnuts, Brazil nuts, and cashews) F: Fiber-rich foods, fish, and fermented foods O: Oils O: Omega-3-rich foods D: Dairy (yogurt and kefir, certain cheeses)

She moved through therapists like she moved through boyfriends. She dumped both boyfriends and therapists when they offended her, enraged her, bored her. The boyfriends said she was a head case, a nut case, a drama queen, a psycho. The therapists said she had ADHD or OCD, depression or anxiety or most likely both, a nervous disorder, a mood disorder, a

Why might sugar cause depression? The brain relies on glucose, a type of sugar, from the food we eat in order to survive and to function. Over a twenty-four-hour period, the brain needs only 62 grams of glucose to do its job, an incredible display of energy efficiency considering the brain has at least 100 billion cells. You can easily meet this need through

The researchers found that the more trans fats in a participant’s diet, the more likely they were to become depressed. On the other hand, the more MUFAs and PUFAs a participant consumed, the less depressed they were. In terms of individual culinary fats, the researchers concluded that olive oil—which consists largely of MUFA—significantly lowered depression risk.

shocking conclusion. It suggested that there appears to be one common pathway to all mental illnesses. Caspi and Moffitt called it the p-factor, in which the p stands for general psychopathology. They argued that this factor appears to predict a person’s liability to develop a mental disorder, to have more than one disorder, to have a chronic disorder, and it can even predict the severity of symptoms. This p-factor is common to hundreds of different psychiatric symptoms and every psychiatric diagnosis. Subsequent research using different sets of people and different methods confirmed the existence of this p-factor.25 However, this research was not designed to tell us what the p-factor is. It only suggests that it exists—that there is an unidentified variable that plays a role in all mental disorders.

Servings: 6 Prep Time: 12 hours (vegetarian, gluten-free, dairy-free) This is another way to get your fix for a frozen, slightly sweet treat without going overboard on dairy and sugar. 8 extremely ripe bananas, peeled and diced 1 tablespoon honey ½ cup unsweetened almond, cashew, oat, or coconut milk, as needed to achieve desired consistency Place the banana pieces on a sheet pan and freeze overnight. Place the frozen banana pieces in a blender

As we’ve already touched on, food’s most profound effect on the brain is through its impact on your gut bacteria. Some foods promote the growth of helpful bacteria, while others inhibit this growth. Because of that effect, food is some of the most potent mental health medicine available, with dietary interventions sometimes achieving similar results to specifically engineered pharmaceuticals, at a fraction of the price and with few if any side effects.

I first discovered this unusual combination in culinary school. The benefits of black pepper and the strawberries with their antioxidants, vitamin C, and folate make these a perfect snack. Juice of ½ lemon ½ teaspoon honey 1 cup sliced fresh strawberries Pinch of black pepper In a small bowl, combine the lemon juice and honey. Stir. Add the strawberries and toss to combine. Sprinkle with the black pepper. Allow the strawberries to macerate for 10 minutes before serving.

Having OCD, and tending to see things as either black or white and in perfectionistic terms, as well as being overconscientious, he was extremely hard on himself and insisted that he somehow be guaranteed that he would not one day snap and act on his thoughts. At one point, Frank told me that he was now concerned that he was feeling too little anxiety, which made him think that perhaps he was a sociopath without a conscience after all and would end up like Jeffrey Dahmer!

Yogurt with active cultures is one of the best sources of probiotics; just avoid fruited yogurts high in added sugars. Other probiotic-rich foods include tempeh, miso, and natto (fermented soybean products); sauerkraut; kefir (soured yogurt); kimchi (Korean pickle); kombucha (a fermented tea drink); buttermilk; and select cheeses such as cheddar, mozzarella, and Gouda. Examples of prebiotic-rich foods include beans and other legumes, oats, bananas, berries, garlic, onions, dandelion greens, asparagus, Jerusalem artichokes, and leeks.

For many of my clients, they know something is off when they meet a person who they genuinely like and can see a future with, but their brain begins sending warning signals as if there is a major threat. They start wondering hundreds of times a day, But do I really like them? Are they really attractive enough to me? This dissonance is a dead giveaway that there could be some anxiety at play. It’s not that you have to like every person who is good for you, but generally a good person doesn’t make a neurotypical brain fire off in quite this way.

A lot of times a new relationship might feel less exciting simply because it’s healthy! There isn’t the agonizing push and pull you had with that jerk who didn’t want to commit but liked to Netflix and chill occasionally. You’re not experiencing a roller coaster of emotions every twelve hours for days on end. You’re not so confused about their intentions that you’re rereading every text conversation fifty times. So your OCD or anxiety tries to make sense of this big change and falsely decides, “You don’t like this new person enough.” When in reality, drama does not equal love. Oftentimes, it means the exact opposite.

While your gut and brain are housed in different parts of your body, they maintain more than just a historical connection. They remain physically connected too. The vagus nerve, also known as the “wanderer nerve,” originates in the brain stem and travels all the way to the gut, connecting the gut to the central nervous system. When it reaches the gut, it untangles itself to form little threads that wrap the entire gut in an unruly covering that looks like an intricately knitted sweater. Because the vagus nerve penetrates the gut wall, it plays an essential role in the digestion of food, but its key function is to ensure that nerve signals can travel back

food processor with the honey. Blend while slowly adding milk to thin the mixture. Watch carefully, as you may need more or less than the ½ cup of milk. You are looking for the texture of soft-serve ice cream. Once this texture is achieved, transfer to a bowl and place in the freezer for at least 3 hours or overnight. Before serving, add mix-ins, if desired, like chopped nuts, dark chocolate chips, or peanut butter. Top with fresh berries. Chef Tips: • For chocolate ice cream, add 2 tablespoons of natural (non-alkalized) cocoa powder at the end before you chill the “ice cream.” As you blend the mixture, make sure there are no lumps. You may have to first pass the cocoa powder through a sieve

In 2005, Dr. Ronald Kessler and colleagues reported the results of the US National Comorbidity Survey Replication, a household survey that included a diagnostic interview of more than nine thousand representative people across the United States.16 Overall, 26 percent of people surveyed met criteria for a mental disorder in the last twelve months—that’s one in four Americans! Of those disorders, 22 percent were serious, 37 percent were moderate, and 40 percent were mild. Anxiety disorders were most common, followed by mood disorders, then impulse control disorders, which include diagnoses like ADHD. Of note, 55 percent of people had only one diagnosis, 22 percent had two diagnoses, and the rest had three or more psychiatric diagnoses. That means almost half the people met criteria for more than one disorder.

Addiction, OCD, and mood disorders like depression and anxiety share a central feature: a narrow self-focus and intrusive rumination. For addiction, that rumination is cyclical, quieted only temporarily by the object of the given addiction—whether it is a substance or a behavior—and then it is set in motion again as soon as the object fades from focus. For OCD and eating disorders, that rumination manifests in uncontrollable compulsive behavior. For depression, it manifests as a sense of failing, catastrophization, and guilt. Hendricks sees this short-circuiting of rumination as the most significant potential benefit of psychedelics. “You think of somebody who’s addicted to a drug, and they’re almost spinning their wheels, thinking about how am I going to get it next? And if you can have an experience in which you’re suddenly thinking outside of yourself, you break from these self-nagging thoughts. Suddenly, you’re not even thinking about your desire, your craving, for that

Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD) is unhelpfully named, since it is not particularly closely related to the better known obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). It does not tend to co-occur with obsessive-compulsive disorder, or even run in the same families. Obsessive-compulsive disorder is an anxiety disorder, in which the sufferer feels compelled to repeat particular thoughts or actions, such as checking or hand-washing. As an anxious condition, it belongs to the same family as depression and generalized anxiety disorder, and thus is related to high Neuroticism and responds to some extent to serotonergic antidepressant medications. Some people have even seen obsessive-compulsive disorder as a low Conscientiousness problem, since the affected individual cannot inhibit the checking or washing response in rather the same manner as the alcoholic cannot inhibit his desire to drink. Whether this is the right characterization or not, it is clear that OCPD is a very different type of problem.16 What, then, does OCPD entail? Psychiatrists define it as ‘a pervasive pattern of preoccupation with orderliness, perfectionism, and mental and interpersonal control, at the expense of flexibility, openness and efficiency, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts’.

Foods to Embrace: Probiotics: Yogurt with active cultures, tempeh, miso, natto, sauerkraut, kefir, kimchi, kombucha, buttermilk, and certain cheeses. Prebiotics: Beans, oats, bananas, berries, garlic, onions, dandelion greens, asparagus, Jerusalem artichokes, and leeks. Low-GI carbohydrates: Brown rice, quinoa, steel-cut oatmeal, and chia seeds. Medium-GI foods, in moderation: Honey, orange juice, and whole-grain bread. Healthy fats: Monounsaturated fats like olive oil, nuts, nut butters, and avocados. Omega-3 fatty acids: Fish, especially fatty fish like salmon, mackerel, tuna, herring, and sardines. Vitamins B9, B12, B1, B6, A, and C. Minerals and micronutrients: Iron, magnesium, potassium, zinc, and selenium. Spices: Saffron and turmeric. Herbs: Oregano, lavender, passionflower, and chamomile. Foods to Avoid: Sugar: Baked goods, candy, soda, or anything sweetened with sugar or high-fructose corn syrup. High-GI carbs: White bread, white rice, potatoes, pasta, and anything else made from refined flour. Artificial sweeteners: Aspartame is particularly harmful, but also saccharin, sucralose, and stevia in moderation and with caution. Fried foods: French fries, fried chicken, fried seafood, or anything else deep-fried in oil. Bad fats: Trans fats such as margarine, shortening, and hydrogenated oils are to be avoided totally; omega-6 fats such as vegetable, corn, sunflower, and safflower oil should only be consumed in moderation. Nitrates: An additive used in bacon, salami, sausage, and other cured meats.

I want the floor to open up and swallow me whole. Feeling as I have a spotlight on me, I forget how to speak and look down at my shoes. If there’s one thing I hate, it’s being the center of attention.

Frustration wells in me, and I want to cry as I back away from the thing of lighters, but somehow, I don’t. I just stand there, watching him laugh and trying to not let the moment cut me down completely. No part of this is funny, and I try to be rational—maybe he isn’t even laughing at me at all and just has the worst timing in the world—but I’m paranoid and take offense to it anyway. Using my hair to shadow my face, I turn away from him and pad back over to Camilla.

In chapter 3, “Redesigning the Brain,” we learned two key laws of plasticity that also underlie this treatment. The first is that Neurons that fire together wire together. By doing something pleasurable in place of the compulsion, patients form a new circuit that is gradually reinforced instead of the compulsion. The second law is that Neurons that fire apart wire apart. By not acting on their compulsions, patients weaken the link between the compulsion and the idea it will ease their anxiety. This delinking is crucial because, as we’ve seen, while acting on a compulsion eases anxiety in the short term, it worsens OCD in the long term. Schwartz

Similar to people with low self-esteem, people who suffer from anxiety, depression, addictions, and OCD are all at risk of wanting to avoid intimate relationships.

Just like with ROCD, an easy way to see if your anxiety is valid or harmful is to examine the content of the anxiety. Is it based on something that is actually happening, or is it future-based? If it’s not based on the present, you’re simply fortune-telling and catastrophizing. In those cases, as Robin puts it, it’s important to remind your anxiety that “these are just stories you’re making up. You could believe them, but it’s going to cost you.

Your potential partner is an outstretched hand that can help bring you to shore. But you can only reach out and successfully grab this hand if you’re already almost on land. If you’re thirty feet out, your partner can’t help you, even if you both really want them to be able to. No one’s arms are that long, even if your partner is very good-looking and tall. You’ve got to get twenty-eight feet closer on your own (and/or with the help of mental health professionals/medication/psychoeducation/meditation/coping skills/mindfulness—you get it!). Only then can the help they are offering actually reach you and make a difference.

I think we can all agree that romantic relationships are challenging for everyone. But when you throw anxiety, OCD, and/or depression into the mix, the idea of “happily ever after” might feel more like a propaganda campaign than something actually achievable.

First formula: Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been [time] since my last confession. I have scrupulosity and OCD. I am filled with fear and anxiety about sin, and I do not trust God. I love God, but I struggle to believe God loves me. Since my last confession, I have tried to do good, but I am aware that I have often failed. I am sorry for all of my sins, especially for the sin of [name], which I am confident I have committed. I ask for your absolution and for your penance. Second formula: Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. I am a sinner, and I have OCD and scrupulosity. I am filled with anxiety about sin, and I struggle to trust God. I love God, but I do not easily believe God loves me. Since my last confession, I have tried to do good, but I have often failed. I am sorry for all of my sins as God sees me guilty.

parse. A Japanese study found that low protein intake (less than 16 percent of energy from protein) was associated with poorer sleep quality and difficulty going to sleep, whereas higher protein intake (more than 19 percent) was associated with difficulty maintaining sleep.

Prebiotics are essentially food for helpful bacteria, certain types of fiber that we cannot digest but the good bacteria in our guts can. For probiotics to be effective, it is helpful for them to have prebiotic foods available in the gut to digest. Probiotics break down prebiotics to form short-chain fatty acids that help reduce gut inflammation, block the growth of cancerous cells, and help the growth of healthy cells.

She switched her breakfast chocolate croissant out for a plain Greek yogurt topped with berries, cinnamon, and a drop of honey. She followed my recipe for making a creamy salad dressing using kefir and added this to a healthy green salad with beans, dandelion greens, and radish for lunch.

We are all made of liquid and slippery organs. Life was improbable. Fragile. It was only a matter of time before something ripped us up and ruined us and we died. It didn't take anything for me to kill the shrimp. Soft, terrible.

You don’t have to have all the answers to be happy.

Seeking certainty breeds more uncertainty.

the real answer is to accept no answer at all.

conditions like panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are exactly that—they are the result of overactivity in an almond-shaped cluster of neurons called the amygdala.

When functioning correctly, the amygdala scans the environment and decides whether to trigger a threat response (fight, flight, or freeze) or give the all-clear signal to the brain to “Move along, nothing to see here!

Why then, do some people have a hyperactive amygdala while others view threat more rationally? The answer, like so many things in the world of psychology, is a mixture of genetics and upbringing, of nature and nurture.

amygdala can also become sensitized through environment, most notably through how safe or unsafe we felt as children and how our caregivers managed their own fears and anxieties.

Humans are obsessed with ceremony. In some cases, this fixation can even become pathological. Obsessive-Compulsive-Disorder (OCD) is a condition characterized by intrusive thoughts and fears and the urge to perform highly ritualized actions in order to alleviate those worries. These actions have some of the core attributes of cultural rituals: they are characterized by rigidity, repetition and redundancy, and they have no obvious purpose. Nonetheless, those who suffer from OCD feel the compulsion to perform them and become intensely anxious if they are unable to do so.

attempting to solve chronic doubt is the exact wrong thing to do: it gets you in trouble and keeps your anxiety alive and well.

Because the fight you’ve been waging on anxiety, all the ways you’ve been trying to solve, escape, or avoid it, is keeping you from the very thing you want most: to love and to be loved.

love, in words attributed to relationship philosopher Erich Fromm, “isn’t something natural. Rather it requires discipline, concentration, patience, faith, and the overcoming of narcissism. It isn’t a feeling, it is a practice.

fear blocks attraction. It blocks intimacy and it blocks connection. Fear blocks love. If you want to find the love you seek, you will have to let go of fear and embrace uncertainty with open arms.

Relationship OCD (ROCD): Fear of being in the wrong relationship, fear of not truly loving your partner, or fear of not being truly loved by your partner Sexual orientation OCD (SOOCD): Fear of being the “wrong” sexual orientation or of being in denial about your true sexual orientation,

the intrusive thoughts in OCD (such as What if I suffocate my baby?) are considered ego dystonic: they go completely against the person’s values, action, and true desires. It’s unlikely, for example, that a murderous person would even be in therapy discussing their murderous thoughts, because they wouldn’t register the thoughts as unwanted or intrusive, and they certainly would not receive an OCD diagnosis.

Being inconsistent in reducing the accommodation also has other disadvantages. If you are inconsistent, that is, sometimes accommodating and sometimes not, then something is going to be determining which times you accommodate and which times you don’t. What is that something going to be? It won’t be your plan, because your plan is not to accommodate at all. Instead, what will determine whether you accommodate is more likely to be something such as, what mood you happen to be in, how tired or energetic you happen to feel, how much time you have at the moment, or how you happen to feel about your child right then. It makes sense that these things would influence whether or not you accommodate, but they are not at all helpful.

Evaluative

Each individual gut can contain up to a thousand different species of bacteria, though most of them belong to two groups—Firmicutes and Bacteroides—which make up about 75 percent of the entire microbiome.

Breaking Free of Child Anxiety and OCD: A Scientifically Proven Program for Parents by Eli R. Lebowitz.

Still others argue that the attention span of the American population has decreased across the board, likely due to increased time spent in front of screens, and this is being mistaken for ADHD.

Love is really a verb. It’s an action.

The longest relationship you will ever have is the one you have with yourself. You want to make sure it is one full of love, respect, and compassion.

According to National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), the following anxiety disorders exist within adults with Asperger’s:     1.   Panic Disorder     2.   Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)     3.   Social Anxiety Disorder / Social Phobia     4.   Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)

Key survey results, which showed that Democrats were roughly twice as likely to have been diagnosed with a mental disorder as Republicans, included: post-traumatic stress disorder (Democrats 7.95 percent, Republicans 3.97 percent), ADD/ADHD (Democrats 9.13 percent, Republicans 3.97 percent), anxiety (Democrats 20.84 percent, Republicans 10.26 percent), depression (Democrats 34.43 percent, Republicans 23.51 percent). In fact, in every category polled – dyslexia, ADD/ADHD, Asperger’s/autism, depression, anxiety, OCD, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, PTSD, narcissistic personality disorder, anorexia, and bulimia – Democrats reported higher incidences than Republicans, except for dyslexia.37 Nevertheless,

When you look at the impossibly long list of symptoms and maladies for which antidepressants can be prescribed, it’s practically farcical. These drugs are indicated for classic signs of depression as well as all of the following: premenstrual syndrome, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), bipolar disorder, anorexia and binge eating, pain, irritable bowel, and explosive disorders fit for anger management class. Some doctors prescribe them for arthritis, hot flashes, migraine, irritable bowel syndrome, and panic disorder. The

Development of brain growth, timing, and coordination in childhood are critical to proper function throughout life. If there is developmental delay in brain function in childhood, such as ADHD, autism, Tourette’s Syndrome, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), anxiety, tics, dyslexia, learning or processing disorders, or even more subtle symptoms, it is best to aggressively rehabilitate function before adulthood. Unfortunately, the current model of health care tells parents to wait for the child to grow out of it. However, many children do not grow out of it and miss key windows of time for ideal brain development. Unrelated to developmental delays, early symptoms of brain degeneration such as poor mental endurance, poor memory, and inability to learn new things are also serious issues when timing matters. The longer a person waits to manage their brain degeneration or developmental delay the less potential they have to make a difference. Datis Kharrazian, DHSc, DC, MS

Scratch her arm? “No, she’s picking at her skin. It's a symptom," Reginald said. "One in the OCD family. It's called Dermatillomania or Excoriation. Often due to stress or anxiety, or depression." Or an STD.

Exposure and Response Prevention (E&RP) encourages participants to expose themselves to their obsessions (or to situations that will bring on the obsessions), while they prevent themselves from using compulsions to get rid of the resulting anxiety.

You can overcome and control depression and anxiety—some scientists are showing you can even control and overcome schizophrenia and OCD. You don’t

Well, I have severe OCD and social anxiety disorder. I was diagnosed when I was fifteen and every year I get worse. I don’t like people, I don’t like outdoors, and I don’t like trying new things. I have a routine and when my routine is interrupted, like you seem to enjoy doing, I get extremely stressed and it becomes difficult for me to focus for hours afterwards.

Probiotics break down prebiotics to form short-chain fatty acids that help reduce gut inflammation, block the growth of cancerous cells, and help the growth of healthy cells.

Practice how you want to say this to somebody. Choosing the right setting is important, too. Even choosing a time when both you and your partner are chilling out on a Sunday afternoon. A balanced time and place. It’s okay to feel nervous about it.

If my personal schema says I’m unlovable or unworthy of happiness, I will see everyone’s behavior through that lens. It won’t matter if someone actually does love me because my brain won’t allow me to process their affection correctly. That’s why self-awareness is so important.

As a writer, I get that it’s hard to make a compelling movie about two people who meet at a house party, share similar interests, get married, live another fifty years in harmony, and then die. But real life doesn’t need to be dramatic to be enjoyable.

I completely understand where our instilled belief that “true” love should be hard comes from. You don’t need to look any further than whatever program is currently on your TV. It makes for a better narrative when someone has to jump through fiery hoops and disown their family in order to be with their one and only. The problem is that these stories are always framed as romantic instead of unhealthy and/or traumatizing.

We don’t have the same worldview anymore. We don’t have the same emotional life. That’s why I don’t romanticize people from my past—chances are we aren’t even compatible anymore, if we ever were! Try to let the fact that you’ve grown be the closure you need from your past relationships.