READER INTERVIEW :: HOW DEPRESSION HAS CHANGED MY LIFE
We chat with reader Sarah Trezise, who tells how depression has changed her life, and why she couldn’t be happier since swapping a high pressure job things to work from home. Whilst she goes without things she used to have, she doesn’t miss her old life one little bit. Because for her, that sinking, dreaded, dark, ugly feeling of depression isn’t worth the biggest pay package in the country.
DO YOU SUFFER WITH SEASONAL AFFECTIVE DISORDER (SAD)?
SAD creeps up on Michaela every damn year. You’d think, after many major depressive episodes, she’d see it coming. Nope. She forgets every year, until her brain starts whispering in her ear. You’re shit. You’re Rubbish. And slowly drains her of the smallest desire to achieve anything, to focus, resulting in nightly manic brain frenzies and a general, inexplicable feeling of the shittings.
READER INTERVIEW :: I HAVE GENERALISED ANXIETY DISORDER
Do you have an anxiety disorder? A reader opens up to us about her anxiety and how it affects her life, her coping mechanisms, experience with medication, how she feels it’s percepted in society and what help she would like to see more of to support people suffering with it.
POSITIVE STRESS MANAGEMENT & GRATITUDE :: PART 2
Practicing positive scanning will reinforce and strengthen our neural pathways for success and happiness, and help us to keep going in the face of adversity. In part 2 of this series, stress therapist Chris G’Froerer discusses how positive scanning and gratitude can overcome stress and anxiety.
POSITIVE STRESS MANAGEMENT & GRATITUDE :: PART 1
Stress in our modern world has become a global epidemic and exacts an extreme psychological, emotional and physical price. Stress Therapist Chris G’Froerer discusses the causes of anxiety, how our brain doesn’t know the difference between reality and imagination and why negative scanning is a greased skid to anxiety and depression.
DISCOVERING THE JOY OF DAILY RITUALS TO STAY CENTRED
At the start of this year I told you to raise your middle finger to new years resolutions. Actually, I think I told you to tell them to go and get fucked. Anyway, the point being, this year instead of making futile promises again, I decided to create a theme. ’2013. A Luxurious Journey.’ Did you create a theme for your year? Are you feeling connected or disconnected from it?
ARE YOU PLANNING A WEDDING & GETTING LOST IN THE DETAILS?
From “I’m never getting married” to having a ring slipped on her finger while rocking haphazardly on a rowboat in eastern Europe, Kylie Triggell found herself knee deep in wedding planning and lost in the details. Now she’s thrown her lists in the bin, determined to joyously revel in the lead up to her wedding.
COPING WITH CHRONIC FATIGUE :: THE RELAPSE
As someone who suffered with chronic fatigue for nearly a decade, I know how downright devastating it is when you’ve started to recover, and all of a sudden fatigue barges in again uninvited, like a bunch of teenagers gate crashing a party with a six pack of Bacardi Breezers.
THE MAKEUP OF MADNESS :: HOW MAKEUP HELPS HER MENTAL HEALTH
It’s about erasing the physical indicators of her madness, the sweaty hair from nightmare soaked sleep & the puffiness from the pills she takes to make sure she gets any sleep at all. The soothing morning ritual of applying makeup abates the voices of depression and anxiety telling her what’s wrong with her and her life.
HORMONAL HELEN :: PMT & DEPRESSION, ANXIETY & ISOLATION
For a week and a half every month, Michaela becomes that anxious, horrible, aggressive person she was when her old friends depression and anxiety used to drop by. She gets PMT so badly she becomes someone else. Hormone Helen. And it steals from her what she needs most. Connectedness. Et tu?
ANTI DEPRESSANTS. THE MAGIC PILL & FALSE REALITY?
Do we live in a society where it is not okay to be down? Where there is no excuse for sadness as the cash hungry medical industry continues to push through new miracle pills to cure every possible season of emotions? How do we learn to cope with our emotions if the people we go to for help only offer a band-aid fix?
AVOID DIFFICULT PEOPLE
We spend far too much time trying to appease, befriend, understand, or otherwise deal with difficult people long after it’s obvious they will not change. My advice? Don’t. Sweetly, but swiftly, cut them off at the knees.
NEVER MISTAKE MOTION FOR ACTION
Sandi Sieger has been following her gut feeling over the past few months and it has lead to some discoveries and realisations. As well as some of the most relaxing and fulfilling moments of her life. Not the ways to make each moment count, but rather the ways to save and cherish more moments.
READER STORY: DEPRESSION & MY CHEATING EX
A reader shares her story about how a bad relationship and friendships led her to spiral into depression and a suicide attempt. People think she is too strong to be this weak, but she reminds us that it can happen to even the strongest of us, because depression doesn’t discriminate between the two.
WIN: $1000 WESTFIELD VOUCHER CARE OF CHA-CHING
Gaynor Alder always finds a I-can’t live-if-I-don’t-own-that-Oroton-handbag scenario to be seduced by, which ultimately means doing a quick mental rearrangement of her budget to justify said purchase, inevitably forgetting about important bills to pay and other non such like her rent. Et tu?
