He wrote this for me. My love. We met through an app called Tinder. In fact, we haven’t even met in person. Yet, we fell in love. The song below is when I fell in love with him.

For me, anxiety has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. These days while I am on my journey to obtain internal healing I am confronted with imagery, snap shots and even movies of different experiences that I've had that has single handedly shaped anxiety to be what it is in my life. With all things there is a root. A beginning. A starting point. An introductory point. Pre-vision if you will. I remember when I was around 3 or 4 years old being in an environment that was not necessarily safe for kids to grow up in and I remember being in bed at night with the lights being off and my room being completely dark. Even in darkness I could see a dark figure with a brimmed hat on approaching me. Fear paralyzed my body as my breathing became more rapid and tears filled my eyes. I don't remember what happened after that, but to this day I remember the feeling of fear,uncertainty, hopelessness, confusion and not being able to breathe. Needless to say, I have felt those same feelings throughout my childhood and it has followed me all the way into adulthood.

Ever since I started openly sharing my life, my past, my traumas, and process to healing, I have received a lot of happiness, testimonies from others, praises, and questions... This writing is for that. Because healing is no joke, and the more we consume the bullshit we see on social media the more damaged we get. So I want to be as clear as possible. As straightforward as possible. And answer some of the questions that I have been receiving about healing, the process, and what has been my experience.

I have, for as long as I can remember, been fascinated by other people’s history.

As most of you all will be aware these days, time and time again you'll see on the news something to do with the opioid crisis gripping the country, actually a lot of countries around the world. This person overdosed and died. Kids left in cars, parents passed out. Doctor shopping gone crazy, the up scheduling of medications, doctors constantly told not to prescribe too many, and they'll have to explain themselves, should that rates they prescribe opioids, be too high compared to other doctor's in the same area. Unless, of course they are a pain specialist, palliative care or cancer specialist. While changes are badly needed and I certainly agree with certain steps there are a lot of things that need to change before its too late. Before people feel that suicide is the only way out of their constant, draining and soul destroying life. See, now things have gone too far on the side of caution, pain patients, who could access their pain medications now have to jump through hoop after hoop. Like they have to prove they aren't addicts or drug dealers. You'll see your doctor for your regular medications for your non-cancer pain, especially since the new rules came in, feeling like your doing something wrong. Something you have done quite possibly for years, only to feel like your be looked at like an addict or dealer of some kind. You feel like that if you ask for an increase of medication, or just going back up to the doses you were on a month or two ago, because you gave it a go at a lower dose and it's not enough, is a luxury that you have to earn. You are at the mercy of the doctor you see. And what kills is you feel like a lap dog begging for a treat after fetching the ball for your owner, a second class citizen just for accessing the necessary medicine you need. And of course, the younger you are the worse it is.

I gaze at the stranger that stands in front of me, staring at me. She’s a reflection of me that I can’t recognize anymore. When I lean closer to her, I notice that her eyes are like small windows. I could see everything she was keeping inside of her. I saw all of her sadness, pain, and anger. She still had a small remnant of her soul left, lingering somewhere deep inside there. But despite all of the darkness and hurt, I saw through her lifeless eyes, I saw something that caught my attention. It was a small little glint of something that I haven’t seen in a while… I saw love.

Savage warmongers or animal-loving pacifists? Uncivilized beasts or trainable inferiors? Early settlers of North America perhaps debated these questions amongst themselves when encountering the indigenous peoples of The New World. Regardless of the discussions that took place, one thing is certain: the decimation of Native American (NA) populations is a black mark forever ingrained in United States history.

Dear (Suburban) Black Girl,

On February 15th a 40 year old woman took her own life. I may not have known her, but she was one of the 7 billion+ humans I share this planet I call home with. She had a life to live, family and friends who loved her, and so much left to add to the shared experience we are all living through. But n0w she's gone. And though I didn't know her, I can't help but feel pangs of genuine anger and sadness.

An Open Letter to Lady Gaga -

“No one is going to hold your hand if it looks like that,” I remember the first time that you told me that. Eight years old, I had chewed my nail and picked the cuticle so badly I was bleeding. “I just need a bandaid,” half embarrassed, with zero understanding of how anxiety can manifest itself.

Who is Patrick Bateman?

He wrote this for me. My love. We met through an app called Tinder. In fact, we haven’t even met in person. Yet, we fell in love. The song below is when I fell in love with him.

I release you to your addiction, and I willingly replace my love with silence.

Let's face it: all of us face some kind of bullshit on a daily basis. It's either from being at work or getting a super weird message that throws off your whole day. I've been there way too recently than I care to admit, but hey, bullshit happens. It's how we deal with it that really makes us be able to move on from it and continue to live our lives. It sometimes blows my mind how I can hold onto something way longer, or think I'm completely over something because I told myself to be over it, but it pops it's ugly head up six months later. I used to think boxing up the bullshit and pretending it didn't affect me would work. Compartmentalize and deal with it later. Guess what? Didn't work! So what is there to do now?

If you’ve been affected by suicide, then there are people you can get in touch with. You can contact an organisation such as Cruse Bereavement Care or Survivors Of Bereavement By Suicide (SOBS)

It’s sad to say that we’re all going to get hurt in life. We have very different ways of dealing with that hurt. Weather it’s physical, mental, or emotional hurt. What we don’t realize is that we hurt ourselves more by keeping all that hurt locked up inside. So I’m going to tell you a story about Delilah.

For me, anxiety has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. These days while I am on my journey to obtain internal healing I am confronted with imagery, snap shots and even movies of different experiences that I've had that has single handedly shaped anxiety to be what it is in my life. With all things there is a root. A beginning. A starting point. An introductory point. Pre-vision if you will. I remember when I was around 3 or 4 years old being in an environment that was not necessarily safe for kids to grow up in and I remember being in bed at night with the lights being off and my room being completely dark. Even in darkness I could see a dark figure with a brimmed hat on approaching me. Fear paralyzed my body as my breathing became more rapid and tears filled my eyes. I don't remember what happened after that, but to this day I remember the feeling of fear,uncertainty, hopelessness, confusion and not being able to breathe. Needless to say, I have felt those same feelings throughout my childhood and it has followed me all the way into adulthood.

“Alex, you can’t sleep with the lights on. Adults don’t do that. Get a grip, turn the lights off and go to sleep,” I pep-talked myself at three-thirty in the morning, eyes glued to the ceiling. This was my nightly ritual. The skeletons in my closet were alive and well and loved to take me through a world of repeated terror every time the sun disappeared. I pulled myself to the side of the bed like a zombie and flipped the switch on my lamp causing an immediate flood of black to envelope my room. I rolled on my back, shut my eyes, and practiced rhythmical breathing, a handy method to fall asleep, courtesy of my therapist. It was effective.

One day I'll stop feeling this

Bipolar disorder is a mental health condition where the person experiences extreme mood swings, emotional highs like hypomania, or lows like depression. In fact, the emotional mood swings might happen rarely or could happen multiple times a year. And while most people might experience emotional symptoms, many of them might not even. But the fact that matters is, bipolar disorder is common. One in a hundred people have been diagnosed across the globe and it does take about 10 years as what experts suggest for one person to find out, the person is bipolar.

I wake up in the morning and find myself shining with a ray of hope for the day. I am ready to take on the world. No army can assuage me. I make some eggs since that seems to be all I can afford to eat for breakfast right now. Then my typical morning starts. I have a cigarette where my pains burn away in the cherry. I taste the sweet coating and burn of a Camel Crush Menthol and try to say, "Fuck it all", as I blow out the smoke. I feel my heart start to burn with passion and ambition and put on my favorite song Eye of the Storm by Ryan Stevenson to get myself going for the day. That's when I get sucked into the rabbit hole by daydreaming of what could've happened and what could've been in the past.

Living with a mental illness is the most difficult journey one can have. Because it is not visible you can't show your wounds if you like. You can look absolutely normal and speak normally but inside you are crying and hurting all the time. I'm writing this article to let the people who might be suffering but afraid to go and see the doctor. It is exactly what happened to me, it feels as if you are going through a bereavement. I didn't pay attention to myself for years, because I was an extremely busy woman with two small children, numerous projects, work, university. Sometimes I would read science books to the point that I couldn't switch off. My mind was constantly racing and it was difficult to rest in that moment of my life. I remember smiling but sometimes inside I was feeling sad. The moments of euphoria was when I would listen to my favourite tunes or exercised. There were the days when I felt on top of the world. I would describe this feeling to my friends.

I gaze at the stranger that stands in front of me, staring at me. She’s a reflection of me that I can’t recognize anymore. When I lean closer to her, I notice that her eyes are like small windows. I could see everything she was keeping inside of her. I saw all of her sadness, pain, and anger. She still had a small remnant of her soul left, lingering somewhere deep inside there. But despite all of the darkness and hurt, I saw through her lifeless eyes, I saw something that caught my attention. It was a small little glint of something that I haven’t seen in a while… I saw love.

As I lay here wide awake, and alone in my bedroom at 5:10am on a Sunday, I cannot help but wonder where I would usually be right now...

Imagine waking up in pain every single day. Think about how horrendous that would make you feel. Imagine the kind of effect it would have on your mood and your general outlook on life.

Let's face it, becoming depressed is a very real thing. It has happened to most people. Perhaps it has either happened to you, or you are currently experiencing this phenomena. Whatever the case, this article is here to potentially help assist you get out of depression.

The symptoms of clinical depression range from persistent sadness to brain fog, appetite changes, sleep disorders, and suicidal thoughts.

High school, Bachelor's degree, Master's degree, PhD, job, marriage, children...

I'll preface this by saying; I am a narcissist. For years, I have struggled to understand my own psychology and my own predatory tendencies to the people around me. Part of my methodology for protecting the people I care about is by explaining how narcissism appears in the context of any sort of relationship. However, there is an area of 'dark psychology' that goes beyond strictly narcissism and is called the 'Dark Triad'.

The Stigma Surrounding Mental Illness and My Story

Living with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) must be hellish no matter what your trigger is. But living with contamination triggered OCD during a global pandemic must be some kind of living nightmare. There is no escaping it at the moment. Everywhere you turn there is talk of germs. Washing hands, sanitising surfaces and wiping down groceries are all things you did anyway. But now you’ve gone into full-on hyper-drive. And the threat that you perceived anyway has just suddenly become even more real. So how can you stop yourself spiralling out of control and letting the OCD take over your life even more? 

In the past 20 years, the need to be connected to everyone, everywhere, all the time has increased tenfold. With the development of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, and Tumblr, everyone feels the pressure of social media.

The current diet culture created a general obsession with weight that has made many people sick and can lead to eating disorders. Relentless focus on food and weight can seep into your psyche, resulting in unhealthy fixations.

It’s said that narcissist personality disorder is just that, a dysfunctional personality disorder however I see it as much more. There is so much more going on then just how someone acts towards others.

The 9 big signs of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), identity disturbance, chronic feelings of emptiness, stress-related paranoid ideation, impulsivity in two areas, suicidal or self-mutilative behavior, affective instability, inappropriate anger, and avoidance of abandonment are divided into three larger categories; disturbed relatedness, behavior dysregulation, and affective dysregulation.

What is BPD? Border line personality disorder. I’m not going to bore you with my diagnoses. I’m going to paint you a vivid picture. It’s getting into recovery but the symptoms and feelings still exist as if you were a little girl still. The fear of abandonment, feeling unloved, feeling like I’m not good enough and invalidated. That my friends and family are better off without me. That I’m broken. Like physically broken because my brain is broken. It doesn’t function properly. Life in recovery for me in minimizing my BPD episodes. However they will always exist. So it’s more about how I should cope with them. I was triggered a few days ago when my oldest brother made a comment that he’s never been my actual Dad. As you know as I just told you brings up the feelings of being invalidated, unloved and not good enough. Living with a loved one who has BPD it’s important you learn how to specifically word everything you say. It’s not so much about the things you say it’s how you say them. My brother could’ve said “I love that you feel I was there you like a dad because I know your dad wasn’t, I’ve just always felt like an older brother who loves you very much.” Saying the same thing but one triggers an episode and one doesn’t. For us borderliners we have that one or few people who we can call to at least subside the depressive episode because it’s hard to make it fully stop. My brother whose 5 years older than I am is my life line. I often feel he’s my IV when I’ve lost blood. Or my oxygen tube when I can’t breathe. Meaning he’s saved my life. My only proof that there are amazing kind hearted loyal men in this world is because my brother exists. He’s the most amazing male figure I’ve ever known. In my episodes I feel like I don’t deserve him. Just ten minutes on the phone with my one brother he pulled me out of falling into a deep depressive episode. Truthfully I question if I really deserve him. Im so broken sometimes that I start to feel that he may get tired of putting me back together. I don’t know how he makes my illnesses a priority. How he does it with a wife, kid and two jobs. And with all that in my life my brother is the only human in my life who has never triggered me. I think it’s because he knows me the best out of everybody because he experiences my episodes with me. I know I rely on him a lot and sometimes I feel guilty about it because I know I could never completely return the favor to him. He doesn’t need me to save his life. Not sure how people like my brother exist. But he does. And I’m so grateful because he helps make my episodes manageable and sometimes can pull me out. I felt much better after I spoke to him as I ate something and laughed just minutes after. Then that night my ex happens. He’s the biggest trigger I’ve ever had in my life. Every single trigger that I’ve mentioned with BPD he hits all of them consistently. He’s a selfish heroin addict and quite honestly my severe illness has never mattered at all to him. It’s not that I love somebody because they are unavailable bc of drugs. What nobody understands is I love him because he’s the only man that’s loved me as much as my brother does. It’s the passion and the love he feels so strongly for me that makes it hard to leave. Even though he can’t present the love in the right way because he’s unhealthy. Because of drugs his love is toxic. But I see his core personality all the time before the drugs take over him. And the person he is in his core is somebody I’m devestayed that I have no choice but to stay away from. He never completely understands that I am just as sick as he is. He minimizing my struggles. So he then triggers me just a few hours before I just was. He doesn’t show up to see me when he knew I really needed him after he had recently told me loves me but then took it back and said he loved drugs and being with other girls more. So it checks off everything. He made me feel abandoned, unloved and not good enough. The second we feel this way the depressive episode spirals. You know you’re very susceptible to fall into an episode when you’ve been self medicating a lot. My ex was deeply stressing me out and for a week and I was taking my sleeping pill and drinking myself to sleep. The worst part of it is knowing how sick he’s making me because he won’t better himself and how hard it is to leave him when they are those loving passionate times his core personality exists. So the episode starts as I was already close to my breaking point. All it took was two triggers. But the triggers from my ex hit harder than other people. His triggers have me stuck in episodes for days. When they honestly can be as short as 30 minutes. Immediately I feel actual emptiness in my chest. With BPD we have chronic feelings of emptiness. My chest physically hurt. And when it does I have a hard time sleeping. I feel alone. Hollowed out. And really just empty. The emptiness hurts to much to sleep. Especially in an less familiar place. Not your safe space. It was 4 AM but I told my cousin I needed to be home. I’d never get out of my episode if I didn’t try and heal. Which means sleeping in my safe space. That’s how we heal from episodes. Only thing you can do is sleep in a place that always makes us feel secure. That night a young male driver drove me home. I purposely kissed him in a way I knew would drive him crazy and make him utterly obsessed with me. And then ghost him. I do this a lot. It’s to make me feel powerful and sadly feel better about myself. That they fall in love with me after one kiss and I run inside and block them on everything after they declare their obsession for me. And I know they’ll spend days even weeks to months thinking about that one kiss with me. My friends say I’m the definition of a male player. I think I’m just fucked up in the head. I went to sleep and felt that I was better. I did a few things to heal. Made sure to get out of my bed. Watch a show I love. Showered twice. Listen to rock music and go for a drive. Get my favorite Gatorade. Get some sun. Call my brother to say hi. But I barely ate that day maybe 400 calories. I wake up again the next day having convinced myself I was fine. However still haven’t eaten anything and it’s 9:00 PM. I realize my hunger pains is a way I self harm in my depressive episodes now that I’ve overcome bulimia and don’t binge and purge. My closest friend knows when I’m in the episode. My voice is completely flat. I sound lifeless. And my cute giggle is nonexistent. I actually can barely smile or laugh. My mom is worried because I won’t eat. And she’s nervous I won’t wake up all day. My closest friend feels helpless because she wishes she could pull me out but she knows there’s nothing she can do. A lot of times during the episode you can’t really sleep. Sad thing is I can’t even pull my self out of the episode. I just use my healthy coping mechanisms, like right now writing this article. And sleep to heal and pray I wake up and the episode is done and I have my appetite and life back to my body, voice and facial expressions. At this point it’s a few days into my depressive episode. Life is actually great. I finally met someone where the feelings are mutual. Had two real estate closings. My modeling is going really well. And contracts are being signed on my first flip property. I’m even consistently losing weight. There’s no rationality behind the episodes sometimes. Someone who holds power over us triggers us and it’s hard to pull ourselves out. Today I am not experiencing chronic feelings of emptiness. I feel more lifeless and drained. I only hate 600 calories all day because the hunger pains make me feel better. It’s my “healthy” way to self harm in recovery. Instead of impulsive dangerous behaviors that could leave me in jail or dead. I listen to sad songs and cry instantly after thinking I was just okay. I can’t hold back tears. The thing that sent me in the episode haunts me until it’s over. My most used coping mechanism is driving blasting emo music. Which is rock, alternative rock, hard rock, punk rock. The music actually pulses through my veins, it penetrates my skin and the screaming words of depression and suicidal ideation with loud beating drums and electric guitar numb the sadness and speak to me on a level that I know these bands deeply understand what I’m feeling. I don’t always experience suicidal ideation. This episode I haven’t felt like the world would be a better place without me or that I’m a failure. This episode has mainly been strong feelings of sadness and the inability to feel anything other than morose. Even with all the good around me. I’m stuck in a bubble where there’s a gray rain cloud showering on me all day and night. Even though outside my bubble a few feet from me the sun is beating down. All that I can do now at 3:00 AM is try to sleep. All I can hope is that I heal this time I sleep and wake up out of the episode. Sometimes we have to walk away from people just to save ourselves. Even the ones we love the most.

The term mental illness can be daunting. It can be scary and bring an uneasy feeling. Discussing mental illness in public is frowned upon by some. But why? What made society believe that talking about mental illness is bad? Why are we afraid to discuss the seriousness of mental illness? Why are some people afraid of people with mental disorders? Is it their “unpredictability?” Or is it our inability to fully understand their illness?

Growing up isn’t always easy. Learning about life & fighting the everyday struggles. Approaching someone new, you hear their words & you question their intent. Overtime you grow to find interest, but they start to ask for favors. You worry their intentions are more self reliant.

I want to start by saying that any kind of sexual abuse is NEVER the survivor’s fault. There is no excuse for it and there are no “factors” that play a part. Childhood sexual abuse is a crime, plain and simple. Only, for the survivor’s, it’s not plain or simple.

Please note that this story contains descriptions of domestic violence.

One day during probably one of the worst times I struggled with trauma, I had a daydream. I saw myself as a young child, maybe 7 years old. I was in a dark well. It looked like I had fallen so deep into the well that I couldn't see the light of day anymore. _Was it day or night?_ I wasn't sure. It was just total darkness. I sobbed and cried but nobody could hear me. I screamed for help and not a soul could hear. Nobody would come. My throat was tight, and my lips were dry and cracked. I was parched. I said and pulled my knees close into my chest. It just felt better to be crumpled up into a ball. It allowed me some body heat or at least the idea of it.

One in Five Canadians will experience a mental health issue at some point in their lifetime, so why is it that average “wait times for outpatient services are six to nine months”?(CBC News, 2015). Mental Illness is a common, yet often unacknowledged reality for many individuals; it’s imperative that medical concerns are treated quickly and efficiently no matter what the concern is. However most Canadians struggling with mental health issues, do not have that quick and efficient treatment for something that could potentially be unnoticeably life threatening. Despite there having been “a 30-per-cent jump from the same month the previous year.” (CBC News, 2011) in ER visits at one hospital alone.

Some people claim that vitamins and minerals can cure serious mental illness. That's not what I'm talking about here. While in general, there's not a ton of research funding for supplements and herbal products, there are a number of supplements that do have some research evidence to support their effectiveness in depression.

One of the things I talk about in my new book Managing the Depression Puzzle is the idea of differentiating between illness treatment strategies and wellness promotion strategies. I think it’s a distinction that applies to mental illness in general. So what’s the difference?