Depression - OC87 Recovery Diaries

Depression: A mood disorder characterized by such signs and symptoms as sadness, fatigue, apathy, lethargy, negative self image, hopelessness, anhedonia (difficulty experiencing pleasure), and disruptions in sleep and appetite, leading to impaired functioning. For more comprehensive information on depression, please click here.

Get new posts delivered to your email inbox weekly »

[et_bloom_inline optin_id=optin_16]

Can Hard Work Can Beat Depression?

Can Hard Work Can Beat Depression?

Starting mainstream schooling later in life, Jonathan Riley had trouble making friends, speaking publicly, and reading at grade level. All of this piled on with depression meant they had a lot of work ahead of them.

Losing Her Saved Me: How I Healed From Trauma

Losing Her Saved Me: How I Healed From Trauma

This mental health recovery story focuses on Amanda’s journey with OCD, Anorexia, Complex PTSD, trauma and grooming. Amanda had to cut off her mother in order to heal. Read to learn more about how Amanda learned to ask for help and recover from trauma.

We’ll Leave The Gaslight on For You

We’ll Leave The Gaslight on For You

This mental health recovery story focuses on Lindsey’s journey through abuse and childhood trauma, gaslighting, and hospitalizations, where Lindsey learned to trust her intuition and find practices around caring for herself. Read more in this mental health essay!

The Gentler Lessons of a Bipolar Disorder Diagnosis

The Gentler Lessons of a Bipolar Disorder Diagnosis

Shortly after her first hospitalization and diagnosis of bipolar, Jocelyn fell into a deep depression. While in the hospital, Jocelyn was guided by the beauty of an orchid, sitting on her window sill. Jocelyn found ways to find beauty day to day to help cope with depression and diagnosis, along with therapy and medication. Read more about her story!

Eight Miles Of Agony: Anxiety and Travel

Eight Miles Of Agony: Anxiety and Travel

I don’t know if I will ever be free of the panic attacks but I have hope that I will know how to cope. As of right now, I am taking things one day at a time, living my life and sharing my story so that others know that they are not alone.

Eating Disorder Healing and Changing Our Narratives Around Them

Eating Disorder Healing and Changing Our Narratives Around Them

This mental health recovery story focuses on Ziba’s journey through an eating disorder, that often felt invisible. Ziba felt unseen in her disordered habits around eating and misunderstood when she first shared that she made herself sick to doctors. As she learned more about her disease and found help herself, Ziba worked to dismantle stereotypes and bust stigma. Through therapy and group work Ziba was able to understand her disorder and reconnect to herself. Read more!

I Want to Live: Turning a Corner with Suicidal Ideation and Depression

I Want to Live: Turning a Corner with Suicidal Ideation and Depression

This mental health recovery story focuses on Tina’s journey through a fixation on death, depression and suicidal ideation. Tina’s thoughts and actions felt out of control, guide by anxiety. Suicidal ideation was a constant in her life, how Tina sought help and learned that are her core, she wanted to live. Through therapy and a close encounter with death, Tina discovered her will to live. Read more about Tina’s journey!

I Suppressed Everything – A Story of Abuse and Bipolar

I Suppressed Everything – A Story of Abuse and Bipolar

This mental recovery story focuses on Lisa’s journey of childhood trauma, abuse and eventually her diagnosis of bipolar. After years of physical, sexual and mental abuse, Lisa thought she had found stability, until her mania set in followed by severe depression. Lisa’s life felt like it was spinning out. Her physical, sexual and mental abuse dictated her life, her mania felt out of control, how Lisa came to terms with her diagnosis of bipolar and past trauma and found a way to heal. With time and therapy Lisa found ways to cope. Read more about Lisa’s journey!

Emptying My Head: Bipolar Depression, A Tale of Two People

Emptying My Head: Bipolar Depression, A Tale of Two People

This mental health recovery story focuses on Erica’s journey through an abusive childhood, a diagnosis of bipolar depression and the feeling of being misunderstood, by other and by herself. Her bipolar depression and anger left Erica confused, when she found therapy she was able to see what was beneath her rage and come through to the other side. Erica realized that her anger masked a deep sadness, as she worked with a counselor she found a way to explore her past and understand her present. Learn more about Erica’s journey!

The Kid’s Alright, or Close Enough; My Asperger’s Diagnosis

The Kid’s Alright, or Close Enough; My Asperger’s Diagnosis

Rachael grew up with a feeling that she was different from others. She experienced anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder symptoms and had regular meltdowns. Eventually these things turned into a problem with substance abuse. Her inability to adapt to change and childhood anxiety created a barrier, how Rachael’s diagnosis of Asperger’s Syndrome in adulthood helped her to understand her past and gain a newfound stability. Once, Rachael could understand what was going in her mind, she was able to take back control of her life. Read more about Rachael’s story!

Sailing for Life and Surviving PTSD

Sailing for Life and Surviving PTSD

Hell or High Seas follows veteran Navy rescue swimmer Taylor Greiger and friend Stephen O’Shea on the sailing adventure of a lifetime to prove that Taylor is stronger than his PTSD diagnosis.

Dancing Away Depression

Dancing Away Depression

it has been a very long time since I have been out dancing. I am much too depressed and the pain is overwhelming; however, there came a meeting of my many minds and the solution was couch dancing. LOL, you say? I would be willing to bet you have never tried it!

Physician Mental Health & Suicide

Physician Mental Health & Suicide

by https://youtu.be/7qBobGOF0fs Doctors are the healers and the helpers. But what happens when it’s the doctors who need the healing and the help? An estimated 300 to 400 doctors die by suicide each year, a rate of 28 to 40...

Is Mental Illness Your Rabbit, Too? Living with Anxiety and Depression

Is Mental Illness Your Rabbit, Too? Living with Anxiety and Depression

Not hallucinations, but rather some of the smaller and fuzzier denizens native to Cambridge, Massachusetts. There is no metaphor more fitting for the person I was back then: twitchy, easily startled, a propensity to run scared from others. I had lost all the avenues I’d had to hide from depression and anxiety, and they closed in like a pair of gangsters in an alleyway.

From Depressed and Suicidal to a New Outlook

From Depressed and Suicidal to a New Outlook

I went from unhappy to miserable to struggling to overwhelmed to depressed and suicidal. First I was diagnosed with post-natal depression, followed by treatment-resistant clinical depression. Then came the biggest clanger of all, diagnosis number three: borderline personality disorder.

Talking About My Depression

Talking About My Depression

I’m talking about my depression, not in vague terms any longer. It is a problem. It has a name. My boys know that name and I hope they’ll be stronger for it.

Best Day Project

Best Day Project

To cope with depression, Grace Kim set out to do something scary every day, and the Best Day Project was born, giving Grace a new perspective on life.

A Director’s Journey

A Director’s Journey

I was 14 and my mother, in the depths of depression, sat in our living room crying. This experience began a director’s journey into documentary film.

Learning To Trust Again

Learning To Trust Again

As someone with Asperger’s Syndrome, it’s very difficult for me to take the perspective of other people. Recently, I made a breakthrough in this area.

Mental Health > Art

Mental Health > Art

Is art more important than mental health? Laura Farrell shares her own mental health art and says that mental wellness is more important than creating art.

Meet Monica (Again) – Mental Health & Chosen Family

A Journey Within

Monica, a young transwoman, talks about her experience with mental health challenges, homelessness, and finding her chosen family at The Attic Youth Center.

A Choice

A Choice

I don’t really want to share any of this. My mind is like a pendulum swinging from, “I don’t have any mental health problems and it’s a sham to pretend. . .

Of Two Minds

Of Two Minds

In OF TWO MINDS, Liz recounts her lost years of extreme mania and depressions as well as the effects of electroshock treatments.