mental health

AWARENESS: Statistics in Domestic Violence 

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October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month

• In America, one women is fatally shot by a spouse, ex-spouse or dating partner every 14 hours.  Learn how to spot the signs and recognize the warning of an abuser.

• 474 Domestic Violence gun related fatalities since January 1, 2016

•1 in 3 women and 1 in 4 are victims of DV in their lifetime

• The presence of a gun increases the risk of homicide in domestic violence situations by 500% • Intimate partner violence accounts for 15% of all violent crimes

• Domestic Violence crosses all races and class line at similar rates

• 1 in 15 children are exposed to intimate partner violence

• Long Term effects, especially chronic exposure to DV may include physical health and emotional difficulties in adulthood (such as depression, anxiety disorders and PTSD)

sources: http://www.ncadv.org/learn-more/statistics http://www.ncadv.org/content/children-and-domestic-violence 

The National Domestic Violence HOTLINE : 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) 

#takeastandagainstdomesticviolence #dvam2016 #dvam

 

Wind Down Wednesday : Recognizing 5 Stress Signals

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Our body can signal us when we are stressed.  Are you able to recognize them?  Learn how to recognize the top 5 stress signals and what you can do to work towards relieving your stress. 

1) Insomnia– If you go to bed thinking or worrying, the physiological response is adrenaline, which is activating and interferes with getting sleep or achieving restful sleep.  

How to wind down. Create a routine for winding down and putting your mind to rest.  Before bed, swim, walk, mediate, drink warm milk or herbal tea (no caffeine), take a hot bath or choose to think of peaceful, pleasant thoughts. 

2) Headaches and sore muscle – When your body is in high gear, you are continuously on alert to respond and body tension accumulates.  If tension is chronic, the results can be muscle soreness and rigidity.  A tight neck, upper back and shoulders can lead to an headache.  

How to wind down. Stretching and light exercise every couple of hours throughout the day may help relieve the symptoms. 

3) Stomach problems – When you are stressed, acid is secreted in the stomach, which can cause heartburn, stomach cramps or other digestive problems.  Over the counter antacid may alleviate the symptoms, but don’t ignore the real culprit of irritation : stress, caffeine, smoking, alcohol, poor nutrition, inadequate sleep and relaxation or spicy food. 

How to wind down.  Use physical activity, deep breathing and self-soothing activities to calm your digestive track.  Be sure not to ignore these symptoms and consult with your PCM. 

4) Addictive Behaviors – Efforts to escape chronic stress by drinking too much, increase smoking, overeating, overspending, gambling or other negative patterns that lead to increased stress.

How to wind down. Find helpful and healthful ways to deal with stress.  Seek a local qualified professionals therapist in your area. 

5) Low Sex Drive – While this can be a signal of stress of fatigue, a variety of other issues need to be explore with your PCM such as high blood pressure, decreased testosterone, excessive salt consumption, excessive alcohol use, certain drugs and disease that may cause hieghten blood pressure in some people.  

While there is no way to prevent stress, we can control how we respond and handle it.  Try not to let stress build up, deal with stress when it strikes, think positively, visualize yourself solving your stressors, set limits and time frame to when you will manage your stressor and lastly, be honest about what you have control over and what you do.  Take this Wednesday to wind down and move towards recognizing your stressors, physical stressors and make moves to manage the stress.   

Winding Down, 

Shayla Peterson, LCSW
Source : Therapist’s guide to clinical intervention : 1-2-3’s of treatment planning (2nd edition) by Sharon L. Johnson

Feel your Feelings Friday 

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Get unstuffed and stop sticking.  Let’s take Friday to address our feelings and being mindful of our emotions. The goals is to notice and experience our emotions and allow them to come and go naturally. That means sometimes experiencing painful emotions without turning the pain into suffering. Emotional Suffering can be created by stuffing or sticking to our emotions, and that’s out of BALANCE.  

When Stuffing our emotions, we bottle up l, ignore and reject your emotions. Emotional Stuffers try to push their emotions away. Just because we stuff or ignore our emotions does make them go away. It causes emotional build up, leading to feeling overwhelm and possible breakdown.  

On the opposite end of the spectrum, is Sticking. When we stick to our feelings, we hold on to emotions and try to keep them around. When we emotional stick, we replay stressful situations and experience the emotions over and over again. Sticking prevent are emotions to natural come and go and never provide them with the opportunity to fade. Thus leading emotions to Stick around longer than hey natural would.  

Create Balance by actually feeling your Feelings. Feeling your feelings serves as a middle group between stuffing and sticking. Trying noticing your feelings without holding on to them. Observe and describe your emotions, your sensations, thoughts and urges. Take note of how intensity comes and go. When a new emotions is ready to come in, let the emotion go and notice the new feeling.  

I hope that you find Feel your Feelings Friday helpful and beneficial to creating a balance to kick off your weekend.  Send me note let me know how “Feeling Friday” balanced you. 

Unstuffed and Not sticking, 

Shayla Peterson, LCSW



Source: DBT skills training by Jean Eich, Psy, LP

8 minutes to Serenity, Courage & Wisdom in 8 Steps

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You can reduce feelings of anxiety by using serenity, courage and wisdom.  This quick blog will allow you to step back and evaulate your situation, determine he difference between the things you can and cannot change, and then act on your knowledge.  

Step 1) Describe a situation that you have been feeling anxious about in your own life lately. 

Step 2) Think about the situation careful and realistically, then list the things that you can actually change about the situation. 

Step 3) List the things that you really cannot change.  

Step 4) How will it affect your life if you accept the things you cannot change.  

Step 5) Are you able to feel serene about? Ask yourself, why or why not.

Step 6) Do you have the courage to change the things you can change? Tell why or why not. 

Step 7) What might help you feel more courageous? 

Step 8) WRITE and READ aloud : “I have the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” 

Balanced in Serenity, Courage & Wisdom,

Shayla Peterson, LCSW 
Source : The anxiety workbook by Lisa M. Schab, LCSW (2008)

5 Myths about Emotions – Part 1 

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The roles of our emotions serve an important function and are necessary; even they are painful at times. Emotions help with motivation, information, and communication. If the way we look at emotions are faulty, it will continue to make it difficult to manage our emotions effectively. Read below for the 5 of the ten common myths that people believe about their emotions. Allow this article to challenge your beliefs to make the necessary adjustment:

1. There is a right way and wrong way to feel in every situation. This is untrue. Everyone experiences different emotions about the same event because their interpretation of that event will vary. Your emotional response will also depend on many factors, such as your involvement in the situation, your relationship to others involved your state of mind before the event took place and so on. It is important to remember that emotions are not good or bad, right or wrong; however you feel in a situation is the way you should feel.

2. It’s not good or healthy to feel angry. Myth. Anger is a natural human emotion. It serves a purpose; therefore, it is good, and it is healthy. What may not be positive or healthy is the ways that you are expressing it.

3. Happy or emotionally healthy people don’t experience painful emotions. This is not true! Even the happiest people have pain in their lives sometimes. Life is about the good and bad, pain and joy. Life is naturally going to have painful moments, regardless of how happy or well-adjusted the person is.

4. Feeling sad is weak. Again this is another myth. Emotions arise for a reason, to motivate you to change something, to help you communicate and so on. The emotion is normal and healthy. You response to the emotion might be health and if this is the case, that is what you need to focus on. What would be the healthier course of action that could help you cope with this intense emotion?

5. Painful emotions are destructive. False. It is not the emotion that is destructive. It is how you chose to act because of the emotion. For example, feeling anger does physical hurt you or anyone else, it is when you choose to act in a violent physical way because of the anger that people get hurt.

Were you able to identify any faulty beliefs that may be causing difficulties in your life? If so, I hope that you can feel empowered to start making small changes. If you found these top 5 myths helpful, don’t forget to check back in with Balancing the Circus next week for myth about emotions 6-10.

Balancing emotions,

Shayla Peterson, LCSW

Reference: Van Dijk, S. (2012). Calming the Emotional Storm:using DBT skills to manage your emotions and balance your life.

You are the Ringmaster

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IMG_0586Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages…..Life can feel like you are managing a circus, literally a circus attempting to balance different roles such as spouse, parent, son or daughter, brother or sister and friend. Let’s not forget the hoops we jump through for our careers. Along with juggling our feelings and past experiences that sometimes get in our way of making effective decisions.  Balancing the Circus’ missions is to provide tools to reduce the stress and create a space to produce a smoother running Circus (oops, I meant to say smoother running Life).  You are the Ringmaster or RingMistress (a female circus leader) of your life, and you get to decide the balance between acceptance and changes in your circus called, Life.  Imagine that you actually got a handle on family, work, life balance with a guest appearance mental wellness.  Let’s put on our high black boots and red top coat, because getting up and getting dress is half the battle.  Be the Ringmaster. It’s your Life!!!

 

Ringmistress,

Shayla Peterson, LCSW

6 Myths about Self-Injurious Behaviors

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The two most common reasons for self-injuring are 1) to control the extremely painful and frightening experiences of overwhelming emotions, and/or 2) escape from awful feelings of being numb and empty. Self-injury is not a cry for attention, it a way to regain emotional balance, it is a solution to the extremely disturbing emotional problem of feeling out of control, and it works. It can be considered an effective coping skill, just not a healthy coping skill. March 1 was Self-injurious Awareness Day, so let’s address the myths behind self-injurious behaviors according to the book, “Helping Teens who Cut: Understanding and Ending Self-Injury” by Dr. Michael Hollander, Ph.D.

MYTH 1 -They do it to get attention. According to some researcher, less than 4% of adolescents deliberating hurt themselves to get attention. It is the most common reason that parent and some therapy give account for the behavior despite the fact that often an adolescent is self-injurious for months before an adult even notice. The misconception of this kind derails treatment and prolongs both the adolescent’s and the parents’ distress.

MYTH 2 – Everyone is doing it. Deliberate self-injury has been part of the adolescent scene for many years. Many therapists suggest that self-injurious behaviors are on the rise. These are three possible reasons why self-harm is the rise a) deliberate self-injurious has often been mistakenly documented as a suicide attempt, b) no firm criteria due to the narrow to board view of what of what constitutes non-suicidal self-injury and c) Adolescences seem less secretive about it.

MYTH 3 – PEER PRESSURE is the Main Culprit. While those who cut themselves are often friends with others who do the same, peer pressure probably has little effect on keeping the behavior going. People use their peer groups to air their problems. People and Adolescent, in particular, don’t start injuring themselves because of the influences of friends; they are more likely to choose friends who share their behaviors. Therefore, it is not unusual for one teen to tell another about her personal experience with self-injury or to let on that another friend has tried it. Preliminary research suggests that 52% of adolescents learn about self-injuries from a friend or media.

MYTH 4 – Drugs and Alcohol Increase the likelihood of self-injury. Self-injury soothes emotional distress, just as drugs and alcohol do. So the behavior, especially in a person who self-injures as a way to regulate emotions, would rarely be triggered by drug or alcohol use.

MYTH 5 – Certain Kids Manage Physical Pain More Easily than Emotional Pain. When adolescents are asked about the self-injurious behaviors shared that it is easier for them to bear physical pain than emotional pain. However, when you ask an adolescent does their self –injurious behavior hurt, the typical answer is NO. How can it be easier to manage physical pain than emotional pain if there is no physical pain? When the mechanism that provides the relief for this teen has to do with the neuropsychological effect of self-injury some people experience when they are in an intense emotional state. This sense of soothing is the most common experience during the moment of self-injury. It seems that when emotional revved up, there is a sense of calmness and relief when skin tissue is damaged.

MYTH 6 – It’s a Failed Suicide Attempt. More often than not, deliberate self-harm is not a failed or half-hearted suicide attempt. Those people who self-injure themselves may do so as a type of suicide prevention. Most therapists are better able to differentiate self-injury from self-harm with the intent to die. It is critical that any person who is self-injuring undergo a thorough suicidal assessment by a qualified professional.
March 1 was Self Injury Awareness Day and I hope that this brief article shed light on the myths bout Self-injury. For additional information regarding assessments and treatment, please contact a qualified mental health professional in your area.

Check out these resources for further education:

S.A.F.E. Alternative – www.selfinjury.com
Adolescent Self-Injury Foundation (ASIF) – www.adolescentselfinjuryfoundation.com

References:

Hollander, Micheal. Helping teens who cut: understanding and ending self-injury. (2008)
Shapiro, Lawrence. Stopping the Pain: a workbook for teens who cut & self-injure. (2008)

By Shayla Peterson, LCSW