We could also call this: Recovery is like rowing. You’ll be bad at both until you’re not. And then you’ll just push harder. If you’re working with a personal trainer on your physical fitness, it’s not strange if you expect to work with somebody that’s in better shape than you, that practices the skills you want […]
There’s this old Buddhist story about a king that proposes a game to a group of monks. They must compete to identify an animal in a dark room. Whichever monk identifies the animal first will become the head monk at a temple the king is building. Eager to demonstrate their wisdom to the king, to […]
A story submitted to the City of Brains Project by a woman in Toronto covers the complex, difficult journey of trying to get access to mental health help for OCD. It’s so frustrating that there are evidence-based treatments, very well-supported by research, but they’re not actually made available to people. As you can see in the story, […]
It’s very popular in OCD patient communities, and in mental health communities in general, to get stuck on labeling superficial symptoms. But it becomes just another way to practice the judging and categorizing and discriminating that can fuel so many compulsions. A more effective approach to support recovery from OCD is to understand (and eliminate) the compulsive […]
Eighteen years ago, I was studying Egyptology in university and thought I had my career path planned out – until my entire world came crashing down around me. I found myself on a rollercoaster that never seemed to slow down, that went completely off the rails and the safety bar had flown off thirty seconds […]
When we started EVERYBODY HAS A BRAIN, our goal was to share information about mental illness and recovery to help people understand what they were dealing with and that it was possible to do something about those mental health challenges. But once you understand that you’re struggling with a mental illness and you can do something about […]
When people are struggling the most, they often encounter a part of the healthcare system that can seem like it was designed in the medieval era: emergency room care for people with mental illnesses. As budgets for mental health services get cut year after year, with no preventative care or dedicated psychiatric treatment centers accessible, […]