Category: anxiety

The Language of Survival: On Mental Illness, Resilience, and First Love

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I’ve always believed that the most courageous stories are not about rescue, but about return—how we come back to ourselves after the mind has turned against us. When I write about mental illness, I don’t write from a distance. I write from the thin edge of it—from the quiet hours where thought unravels and the only lifeline is language. Each of my novels—Secret Whispers, Déjà Vu, and Of Laughter & Heartbreak—was born out of that liminal space between fear and faith, between survival and surrender.

These books aren’t companions by chronology, but by spirit. Each follows a young woman whose inner world threatens to eclipse the outer one, and each discovers that love—whether romantic, platonic, or self-forged—is the most powerful form of recovery we have.

1. The Mind as Haunted House: Secret Whispers

When I wrote Secret Whispers, I began with an image: a house stitched together by secrets, its silence louder than any scream. Inside it lives Adria—a painter, sister, caretaker, and reluctant witness to her own unraveling.

Schizophrenia shadows her family line, coiling like a whispered curse. Her brother’s breakdown has already split the household in half. Her mother holds everything together with brittle faith. And Adria, caught between caretaking and collapse, begins to hear the same whispers that once took him away.

I wanted to write honestly about what it means to live with a mind you can’t fully trust—the terror of not knowing whether what you see is symptom or sight. But I also wanted to write about love: the improbable, incandescent kind that dares to root itself in fractured soil.

In Secret Whispers, love doesn’t save Adria. It steadies her. The boy who sees her—awkward, hopeful, honest—doesn’t fix her illness; he becomes a mirror in which she can see more than diagnosis. Their love flickers like a candle in a draft, fragile yet real, proof that connection is possible even when perception splinters.

Adria’s resilience isn’t loud. It’s made of small gestures: washing a brush, opening a window, whispering not today when the shadows come. Recovery, I learned while writing her, is not a staircase but a spiral—you circle the same fears until you finally face them without flinching.

2. Déjà Vu: The Loops of the Bipolar Mind

If Secret Whispers was about hearing too much, Déjà Vu was about feeling too much—about living inside a mind where memory and mania blur.

Ivy Lancaster is eighteen, brilliant, impulsive, and newly diagnosed with bipolar disorder. She experiences life in echoes: every stranger’s face feels familiar, every nightmare seems rehearsed, every choice loops back like a record caught on its scratch.

The first time I wrote Ivy walking through the parking lot at dawn, barefoot and disoriented, I felt the pulse of the entire novel—this young woman spinning in the orbit of her own brain, terrified of herself yet desperate to be believed.

Déjà Vu is not just a psychological thriller; it’s an emotional x-ray of bipolarity. Mania is painted not as glamour but as velocity—the thrill that burns. Depression is written not as stillness but as suffocation. Yet in between, there’s the quiet miracle of awareness.

And there is love. Love arrives in Ivy’s world not as romance, but as recognition: people who refuse to define her by her disorder, who remind her that she exists beyond chemical imbalance. Love, in this book, is accountability—the friend who says take your meds, the parent who whispers you are more than your mind, the stranger who looks her in the eye when she feels invisible.

Resilience here is not recovery in the clinical sense. It’s survival as rebellion. It’s Ivy saying, I may live inside loops, but I can still choose where to step next.

When readers tell me Déjà Vu helped them feel seen—that it mirrored their manic spirals or the hollow aftermath—I’m reminded why I write these stories. To dismantle stigma. To remind us that living with mental illness is not a flaw in character, but a feat of endurance.

3. Of Laughter & Heartbreak: OCD and the Art of Staying

By the time I wrote Of Laughter & Heartbreak, I wanted to explore a different texture of the mind: the obsessive, ritualized patterns of control that masquerade as safety.

Stevie Matthews is almost sixteen. Her thoughts arrive like barbed wire; her rituals multiply like vines. When the summer’s order collapses, she’s hospitalized—a space she never asked for, but where, for the first time, she meets others who understand the language of compulsion.

OCD, for Stevie, is both prison and prayer. Her rituals aren’t about superstition; they’re about trying to keep the world from shattering. I wrote her story as both confession and communion—a letter to anyone who’s ever mistaken coping for control.

Behind those locked doors, Stevie meets her mirror selves: the anxious boy who collects facts like talismans, the quiet girl who hides notes to her future self, the nurse who knows that healing isn’t linear. Together they build something like family—a map stitched from shared fragments of hope.

This novel, like the others, carries the pulse of first love—not in grand gestures, but in small acts of belief. The hand that steadies hers during a panic spiral. The smile that says you are not too much. The love that grows not in spite of illness, but within it. Because love, at its truest, doesn’t demand wholeness—it meets you in the fragments and stays.

4. The Quiet Revolution of Survival

Each of these novels began with illness, but each ends with something larger: a reclamation of humanity.

In Secret Whispers, Adria learns that her art can hold what her mind cannot.
In Déjà Vu, Ivy redefines truth beyond the lens of mania.
In Of Laughter & Heartbreak, Stevie learns that control is not safety, and surrender is not defeat.

Together, they form a kind of triptych about resilience—the quiet kind that never makes headlines. They remind me that mental illness and first love often share the same vocabulary: vulnerability, risk, surrender, trust. Both require standing on the edge of the unknown and saying yes anyway.

To live with a brain that misfires is to live constantly between worlds—the real and the imagined, the lucid and the lost. Yet within that space, there’s beauty. There’s empathy. There’s art.

These are not stories about being cured. They’re stories about being human.

5. Why I Keep Writing

Sometimes readers ask why I return, again and again, to characters who struggle with their minds. My answer is simple: because I know what it means to stay.

Because the world still whispers that mental illness is weakness.
Because the stories that saved me were the ones that refused to flinch.
Because the young readers who see themselves in Adria, Ivy, and Stevie deserve to know they are not broken—they are becoming.

Writing these books has taught me that resilience isn’t the absence of relapse; it’s the decision to keep loving life anyway. It’s the courage to reach for connection even when your hands shake. It’s the soft defiance of building hope out of symptoms.

And maybe, at the center of it all, it’s first love—the thing that reminds us we’re still capable of wonder.

When I look back on Secret Whispers, Déjà Vu, and Of Laughter & Heartbreak, I see not a trilogy of illness, but a mosaic of endurance. Each girl walks through her own labyrinth and emerges carrying the same small flame: belief.

Belief that we are more than diagnosis.
Belief that love is still possible in the dark.
Belief that the quiet work of staying—of waking up again, and again—is itself a form of grace.

If these stories have a single message, it’s this:
Even when the mind fractures, the heart remembers how to reach for light.

“Whimsy and Bliss” by Angela Grey

 

Shady Oak Press (2025)
ISBN: 978-1961841468
Reviewed by Stephanie Elizabeth Long for Reader Views (09/2025)

Abigail Whimsy and Lainey Bliss have been best friends since the second grade. Like yin and yang, their opposites somehow fit together like errant puzzle pieces. Whimsy exists in a world of vibrant dreams and imagination, while Lainey is pragmatic and even-keeled, which anchors Abigail. Because nothing good can last forever, the girls have one final summer together before Lainey goes off to a fancy college, leaving Abigail behind.

Before Lainey leaves, Abigail has devised a plan. They will create a map (complete with a detailed legend) and explore all the mysteries of their town—dismantle the “thin” places, using her late grandmother’s journal (chaotic musings) as a guide.

As they delve deeper into the journey, Abigail’s reality becomes skewed, and Lainey’s attempts to keep her friend’s sanity in check become more difficult. The places they visit awaken a humming within Abigail, and the more they add to the map, the louder the hum becomes.

Whimsy and Bliss is a coming-of-age literary masterpiece. Angela Gray’s writing is known for its vivid imagery and deep metaphors, and this novel is no exception. Readers will quickly be immersed in Abigail’s world of wanderlust, where magic and realism become blurred. Beyond that, the character-driven story explores themes of friendship, self-discovery, and bridging the transition from childhood to young adulthood.

Sometimes it can be hard to decipher the difference between imagination and illness. The author has done an excellent job of illustrating Abigail’s unraveling—the whispering of nature, the ebb and flow of the hum, and the excitement turned obsession. With every place Abigail and Lainey traversed, I fell more in tune with Abigail’s frequency, at times questioning what was real and what was fictitious—this is the type of story that makes you see the world differently.

Whimsy and Bliss certainly highlights the plight of mental illness, particularly hypomania. Still, at its core, the novel’s overarching message is one of connection and trust—it’s the impenetrable sisterhood between two young women on the cusp of adulthood. In a world that is often stuck in the me-versus-you mentality, the solidarity between friends is refreshing, teaching us that we don’t have to suffer alone; we can lean on others for support.

For readers who love young adult books about friendship and adventure with a focus on mental health, this literary gem will appeal to you. Angela Gray’s exquisite prose is unmatched, and the multilayered characters are memorable. Abigail and Lainey’s map of thin places will forever hold a special place in my heart.

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Of Laughter & Heartbreak book trailer

This is the summer of locked doors, fragile rituals, and the ghosts that keep count.

I’m Stevie Matthews—almost sixteen, the kind of girl people whisper about. “Bat-shit crazy,” they say. Maybe they’re right. This summer, the order cracks. Obsessive thoughts tighten like barbed wire, rituals multiply, and the only way forward is a hospital stay I never asked for.

Behind those doors, I meet strangers who feel both broken and familiar, each carrying their own secret galaxies of fear and hope. Together, we make a kind of map—messy, jagged, stitched with laughter, unraveling with heartbreak.

This is the story of how I learn that friendship can be born from accident, that healing isn’t neat or pretty, and that sometimes the bravest thing is to stay.

This book is a tender, unflinching portrait of adolescence, OCD, and the fragile alchemy of survival—equal parts bruised and luminous, like a diary written in ink and ghost light.

agoraphobia anxiety bipolar disorder book review chronic mental illness delusions depression grief group therapy hallucinations healing high school how to write a memoir intrusive thoughts Journaling meditation memoir writing tips mental health mental illness mindfulness nutrition OCD psychosis psychotherapy PTSD schizophrenia self-harm social anxiety disorder social withdrawal stigma stress reduction suicide support group work writing writing fiction writing for healing writing for mental health writing for transformation writing suggestions writing therapy YA fiction YA fiction about mental illness YA novel YA novel about mental illness YA romance

When Characters Refuse to Stay Secondary: The Day One Draft Split Into Three Lives

Some stories begin with a single spark. For me, it was a scene in a psych ward where Nico and Zibby from The Cartography of First Love found themselves alongside Abigail Whimsy from Whimsy and Bliss and Aspen James from Shadows We Carry. At first, they shared the same space—four voices pressed together by circumstance, four fragile hearts mapping escape routes in whispers. But as I wrote, each one began to grow beyond the walls I had built, demanding not just a role in a shared narrative but the full breath of their own.

What began as one writing endeavor quickly branched into three novels. I realized I loved each of them too much to let them be shadows in someone else’s story. Nico and Zibby’s romance needed its own compass. Whimsy’s dreamlike adventures deserved to unfurl before her diagnosis became part of her arc. And Aspen’s haunted sketches needed the weight of silence and discovery only their own narrative could hold. By giving them individual pages, I gave them the freedom to tell me who they really were.

The backstories I first drafted in that shared ward became scaffolding—notes, fragments, hints of a life I would later let bloom fully. For Whimsy and Aspen, I wrote them at a point before hospitalization, while their lives were still luminous with magic and not yet marked by diagnosis, though Whimsy’s epilogue eventually folds that thread in. It was the only way to honor their wonder as much as their struggle. For Nico and Zibby, I leaned into the familiar rhythms of the ward itself—the routines, the hush, and the clamor—because their love story was inseparable from that claustrophobic yet strangely tender landscape.

Each character is close to my heart because their beginnings trace back to my own. I was hospitalized repeatedly between the ages of 13 and 15 for an eating disorder. I remember the unlikely friendships, the long hours, and the way we mapped impossible escape plans—California always our imagined salvation. Those memories, both heartrending and inspiring, found new breath through Zibby, Nico, Whimsy, and Aspen. What started as one shared room became three worlds, each carrying a piece of that past and reshaping it into a story.

Anti-anxiety Hobbies

Hobbies for People with Anxiety

1. Writing Expressively:

Expressive writing is a highly effective anxiety management technique and once you start to notice the benefits you are likely to get pleasure from engaging in this activity.

I found that regularly writing about what happened in my childhood and how that made me feel was incredibly healing.

2. Listening to Calming Music: 

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Regularly listening to calming music can be a highly effective way to calm down quickly and ease your anxiety symptoms.

One study in 2017 concluded that:

Music listening is associated with a decreased level of anxiety and distress.

This is one of my favorite hobbies for relieving anxiety, because I realized very early on that each time I would put on my headphones and listen to relaxing sounds my anxiety would start to ease instantly. I found this to be incredible and putting on calming music became one of my emergency anti-anxiety measures.

3. Reading Empowering Books:

A 2009 study at the University of Minnesota found that reading can reduce stress by up to 68%, so this is a highly effective hobby for people suffering from stress and anxiety.

Reading powerful books by beautiful authors helped me to get out a very dark anxiety hole.

If you don’t have the time to read, you can listen to all of these books instead by signing up to a platform such as Audible.

4. Going for Walks:

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Being physically active is essential for managing anxiety because exercise stimulates the release of endorphins, hormones that makes us naturally feel good.

It also helps to release excess energy, which if not released would make you more anxious.

But the trouble is, anxiety as a condition can be very exhausting and overwhelming and so it is often hard to find the motivation to do any form of exercise.

That’s why I recommend gentle physical activities for people with anxiety, and in my experience, walking is the best form of exercise for anxiety relief.

5. Connecting with Animals :

Thor (Cocker Spaniel & Cavalier King Charles mix)

Spending time with animals—by playing with them and stroking them—can be a great hobby for managing anxiety.

Getting a pet would be of course an amazing solution for that, but it’s also not essential. You can always volunteer at rescue centers by offering to walk their dogs or play with their cats.

The reason animals have such a great effect on your mental health is because, according to research interacting with them can increase the levels of “the love hormone” oxytocin and decrease levels of “the stress hormone” cortisol, which has a calming effect on the body and mind.

For example, one study, showed that,

Interaction between owners and their dogs’ results in increasing levels of oxytocin in both owners and dogs, whereas cortisol levels decrease in the owners, but increase in the dogs

6. Dancing in Your Own Home 

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It might sound silly but dancing in your house or apartment when no one is watching is another great hobby for releasing tension and anxiety.

I like to put on my favorite songs and dance; you may even like dancing like crazy, doing lots of jumping, and freestyle movements.

7. Getting into Yoga:

 Yoga is an ancient technique that is very beneficial for managing anxiety.

Anxiety makes us tense, irritable and inflexible, while yoga can work to reverse all of these, plus nourish us with a whole host of other health benefits. 

A lot of people are hesitant about trying yoga because they think they won’t be able to get into certain positions, but I can assure you that anyone can practice yoga. Yoga is about connecting with your own body, mind and soul, and everyone else is irrelevant. It doesn’t matter what the other people are doing, all that matters is that you are listening to your body and doing what you can do. I have fallen in love with yoga, and it has become a big part of me. I just practice for myself, and I don’t care how I look to anyone else. Yoga has helped me to improve my breathing which is essential for managing anxiety.

8. Cooking Enjoyable Anti-Anxiety Meals

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Healthy eating is necessary for reducing and managing anxiety. But when we start to eat healthily it can be hard to stick with it because we don’t know how to make tasty meals that are healthy and also, we often don’t know what to eat.

That’s why searching for healthy recipes and experimenting in the kitchen is a great hobby to adopt because it can help you eat healthily long-term, which can make enormous positive changes to your anxiety levels.

But that’s not all, cooking as an activity has shown to benefit mental health.

One study showed that adolescents with the most cooking skills reported a greater sense of mental well-being, as well as less symptoms of depression.

9. Watching Inspirational Movies:

Watching inspirational movies and documentaries, or movies based on a true story, can be very uplifting and motivational to encourage us to make positive changes in our lives.

I have found that watching such movies benefits me the most in the evening after a long day to help me calm down and unwind.  

10. Create Beautiful Pictures or Paintings:

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Whether it’s photography or painting, I find these activities extremely relaxing and fun, and it’s also a great way for me to be present in the moment (mindfulness) which is an anxiety alleviator, especially out in nature.

 

Enjoyed this post? Why not check out my YA novels or Native American mystery series on Amazon, or follow me on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Goodreads, LinkedIn, Bookbub , or AllAuthor.

Anxiety and Nutrition, specifically Carbohydrates

“What a strange combination? What have carbs got to do with anxiety?”

According to Harvard Medical School, natural foods rich in carbohydrates including whole grains, vegetables, legumes and fruit, are an essential element of a healthy and balanced diet but are also some of the best anti-anxiety foods. These foods are a good source of complex carbohydrates and fiber, provide a slow release of energy and are stable on blood sugar. But that’s not all, natural whole foods contain many other beneficial nutrients necessary for mental and physical health.

So, despite increased popularity of low carb and keto diets, carbs belong in your diet, and natural foods rich in carbs are very important foods for managing mental health.

What are Carbohydrates?

There are three types of carbohydrates: sugars, starches, and fiber.

  • Sugars are simple carbohydrates.
  • Starches and fiber are complex carbohydrates.
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Due to their simplicity, sugars absorb rapidly into the bloodstream and give a quick release of energy. But sugars (simple carbs) can affect blood sugar levels causing sudden spikes and dips. Low blood sugar can in turn affect anxiety levels. When your blood sugar drops suddenly, this signals hunger to the brain, which can activate the flight-or-fight response (stress response), causing irritability, nervousness, and other classic anxiety symptoms.

In contrast …

According to Harvard Medical School, 

Complex carbohydrates are metabolized more slowly and therefore help maintain a more even blood sugar level, which creates a calmer feeling.– Harvard Medical School

Carbohydrates are found in both natural (good carbs) and refined foods (bad carbs). Taking all of the above into account, the best source of carbohydrates for health and managing anxiety are natural foods high in complex carbohydrates.

How to Manage Anxiety with Carbs?

1. Choose The Best Source of Carbs 

If fruit and legumes are natural foods, a good source of carbohydrates and contain vitamins, minerals, and more why are they not the best source of carbs?

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2. Limit Fruit and Legumes

Fruit and legumes are healthy but while you can have whole grains and veggies for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, fruit and legumes need to be limited.

  • Fruits are high in natural sugars and if consumed in large quantities can affect blood sugar levels. Two pieces of fruit a day is healthy and sufficient.
  • Legumes are a good source of protein and a great meat replacement for lunch or dinner. But since we need protein in relatively smaller quantities than carbohydrates, legumes should also be limited.

So, it’s still important to consume fruits and legumes as part of health eating, but the bulk of your calories need to come from vegetables and whole grains.

Get into the habit of using the glycemic index to check which vegetables are better for your blood sugar. The lower the glycemic index, the more stable the effect on blood sugar.

Examples of Good Carbs

Vegetables such as Acorn squash, Artichoke, Asparagus, Bok choy, Beans, Broccoli, Brussels sprouts, Butternut squash, Cabbage, Carrots, Cauliflower, Celery, Chives, Green, red, yellow pepper, Kale, Leek, Onions, Parsnip, Potato, Pumpkin, Radish, Spinach, Sweet potato, and others

Whole Grains such as Barley, Corn, Oats, Quinoa, Brown, red, black and wild rice

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Legumes such as Chickpeas, Lentils, Peas, Kidney Beans, Black Beans, Soybeans, Pinto Beans

Fruit such as Apple, Apricot, Banana, Blackberry, Blueberry, Cherry, Cranberry, Grape, Raisin, Grapefruit, Kiwi fruit, Mango, Melon, Cantaloupe, Watermelon, Nectarine, Papaya, Peach, Pear, Plum, Prune, Pineapple, Pomegranate, Raspberry, Strawberry

3. Avoid Bad Carbs

When plant-based foods are refined, we have refined carbohydrates. For example, whole wheat grain is refined to produce white flour. During this refinement process, wheat grain is stripped of fiber, vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals, and healthy fats, leaving behind only the starchy carbohydrate. Manufacturers also commonly use bleaching agents, additives, preservatives, colorings, flavorings, and other chemical ingredients which are bad for our health and can trigger anxiety. If foods are minimally refined, i.e. in the case of whole-wheat flour, then some of the nutrients are still retained. But foods such as pizza, cakes, chocolate, and similar are examples of heavily refined carbohydrates, and these are bad carbs.

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Bad carbs are poor in nutrients, can be very inflammatory, and should be avoided. Refined carbs are likely to impact blood sugar levels and anxiety levels, according to Harvard Medical School.

What are some of the side effects of consuming bad carbs? Due to the poor nutritional content and commonly added chemical ingredients and bleaching agents, refined carbs can cause or contribute to many health issues and chronic diseases. For example:

4. Become Good at Spotting Bad Carbs

Refined carbs are all sugars and starches excluding those in the form of natural whole foods. It might be easy for most of us to identify sugars because they taste sweet. Also, they usually come in the form of crystals, syrups, or powders. Refined starches such as refined grains, however, are a lot more confusing.

To help you, here are the main categories of refined carbohydrates:

  • REFINED SUGARS – Also referred to as added sugar. I.e. table sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, brown sugar, fruit juice concentrate. Manufacturers add refined sugar to foods as a sweetener or as a preservative. They use over 90 different names for refined sugars.
  • FRUIT JUICES – Purchased juices go through a heavy industrial process.
  • ALL KINDS OF FLOUR  – Also, from any type of grain. I.e. wheat flour, rice, and corn flours. Note, whole meal flours are less refined and healthier.
  • INSTANT/REFINED GRAINS – including breakfast cereals, white rice, and instant rice.
  • REFINED STARCHES – i.e. corn starch, potato starch, modified food starch. Or any powdered ingredient with the word “starch” in it.
5. Adopt an Anti-Anxiety Diet

According to Harvard Medical School, introducing complex carbohydrates into your diet is a great way to manage anxiety. But it’s also important to consume balanced meals, stay hydrated, reduce caffeine, cut out processed foods, eat magnesium-rich foods, get enough omega 3 fatty acids and follow many other anti-anxiety diet techniques

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Book review: All the Things We Never Said by Yasmin Rahman

Hot Key, 2019

As soon as I read the subject matter of this boldly designed book, I knew that I had to devour it. It’s a character driven; UK Young Adult contemporary novel based on mental health. Not to be disappointed when I began reading, I was drawn into the stories of the three girls. I loved the author’s note at the beginning which really set the tone for the book.

The book tells the story of 3 young girls from 3 very different lives, but they all have one sad fact in common, the want to die.  As a result the girls each sign up to a website that is designed to pair people with other people who want to die. But it is this pack that brings the 3 girls together and allows them to find the support that they each needed. 

As I learnt more about why Mehreen, Olivia and Cara had joined MementoMori. I really began to connect and empathize with the diverse characters which weren’t the sole focus of the story and didn’t define the characters entirely. Mehreen’s religion was an important factor, but she was so much more than just that and was such a real character that, despite me being from a totally different background, I could relate. I found it to be the same with all the characters and that was something that I think Yasmin really excelled at with this novel and its unusual typeface

So, the website sets a time place and course of death for the girls, and as the date of termination (as it is referred to) approaches the girls have to complete a task that is set and send photographic proof. The first 2 tasks the girls do with easy, but it is when the 3rd task arrives that the girls admit that they have changed their minds. 

The problem is the website doesn’t want to let the girls out. After all, they signed up and agreed to the terms and conditions. Pushing the girls to their breaking point the girls begin to crumble and turn on each other.  

This is an interesting book, but as I first mentioned you need to be careful when reading this story as it is an emotional and mental journey. It has to be noted that this book contains many triggers, for those that vulnerable to such material. Topics touched upon, besides suicide, include self-harm, rape and severe anxiety and depression. I personally was okay with all of these and found that they were handled very sensitively and not in a way that made for uncomfortable reading.

All the Things We Never Said is not a typical YA book. I believe that it is a book that can help to open dialogue and get people talking about their feelings and issues, instead of hiding behind a mask that so many people use today to hide how they are truly feeling.

This book highlights the importance of speaking, talking about your problems, and how you are feeling. As it is through these actions, the characters realize that they are not alone and that the simple act of talking to someone openly and honestly can change your perspective.

An audiobook is also available for those that may have issues with the typeface.

Enjoyed this post? Why not check out my YA novels or Native American mystery series on Amazon, or follow me on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Goodreads, LinkedIn, Bookbub , or AllAuthor.

Lessen Depression through Thought Control

Depressive thinking is unrealistic and unfair:
1. unrealistic negative thoughts about your situation
2. unfair negative thoughts about yourself
3. unrealistic negative thoughts about your future

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The plan should be to replace depressive thinking with realistic thinking.

First, is spotting depressive thoughts: Here are the most common types of depressive thinking:

1. all or nothing: seeing situations as totally one way or the other.

2. perfectionism: where you think that you have to be the best in the situation, or it means that you failed.

3. overgeneralizing: based on one negative event, you expect that things will continue to go wrong; or based on one negative fact, you assume that everything else in the situation is negative.

4. labeling: talking oneself in a harsh way, calling yourself names like “loser”, or whatever the worst insults are for you. This kind of self-labeling is unfair.

5. exaggerating: exaggerating risks and expect the worst possible thing to happen.

6. mind-reading: imagining that other people are criticizing or rejecting you, even when you don’t have any real reason to think that.

7. filtering: paying close attention to events that are disappointing or to critical comments from others. When something positive happens, you ignore it and you treat praise as unimportant

Realistic thinking is:
1. accurate about your situation, seeing things clearly as they are;
2. fair about yourself, looking in a balanced way at the positive and negatives in your life;
3. accurate about your future, not exaggerating bad outcomes.

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Altering depressive thoughts by asking yourself these realistic questions: (preferably on paper because it helps in seeing it clearly):

  • What proof do I have? Would most people agree with this thought?
  • If not, what would be a more realistic thought?
  • Can I get more proof, like asking someone about the situation?
  • What would I say to a friend in a similar situation?
  • What is a less extreme way of looking at the situation?
  • What will happen if I think this way? Is there another way of thinking that is more encouraging or useful?

Enjoyed this post? Why not check out my YA novels or Native American mystery series on Amazon, or follow me on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Goodreads, LinkedIn, Bookbub , or AllAuthor.