thedodobook

[thedodobook]

Follow us @anxietyproblem​

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For more posts like these, go visit psych2go

Psych2go features various psychological findings and myths. In the future, psych2go attempts to include sources to posts for the for the purpose of generating discussions and commentaries. This will give readers a chance to critically examine psychology.

[thedodobook]

When branches on a tree grow, it doesn’t grow only on one side or to one direction. It grows around the trunk, in different lengths, some thick, some thin, and some branches extend from another branch. Comparable to human personality.

Subconscious Thoughts (via subconscious-thoughts)

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I think I've said this before at least once, but I felt the need to share it again.

Every time someone asks me for advice I am HELLA nervous because each time is different and I just never know if I will be able to help this time. I am just so scared that I think I can help everyone but won't be able to help this one person, who needs it more than the others. I am just so sorry in advance. I am trying my best ♡

But anyway this is what I love about what I do - the moment of surprise and the way I feel just before hearing the other person's story. It gives me the same feeling adrenaline does and I kind of love it. And you just don't know how great the feeling of pride after helping is.

Much love for everyone who read this. If you feel unloved and underestimated, I love you guys ♡ And smile in front of the screen for me. I'd love that.

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I wanted to share something that probably no one will read. 

I was thinking about the idea of this blog and currently it looks so messy and unorganized. From now on I’m going to comment a certain subject for a week and a story, connected to this subject, so I can focus more on one thing. The blog won’t look chaotic that way.

Thank you if you somehow read this <3

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When you're walking 100 miles, stopping at 90 is the same as stopping halfway through.

Chinese proverb

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Being happy doesn't mean that everything is perfect. It means that you've decided to look beyond the imperfections.

Gerard Way

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Good morning ♡ I wish you a joyful and colorful day, no crying and a bit of my own huge ambition, because everyone needs a bit of that ♡

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Everyone needs to read this

Infograph by: Schizophrenic NYC

“Mental Illness Recovery Series” book contains 100 true life stories of people all around the world battling daily with their mental disorders. It’s an inspirational book 📖, that gives rise to the silenced truth of mental illness and the exhausting, but noble journey of recovery.

🌏📚 Where to buy it :) = http://awakesociety.com/mental-illness-recovery-book/ 🌏📚

_____________________________

🗣Tell me why you love the book via email mlgaston1@gmail.com with the subject: BOOK REVIEW..

Thank you ☺️ STOP THE STIGMA 🤗

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We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.

Sir Winston Churchill

I decided to share daily quotes with you guys just because

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Here’s one more, shorter way, to describe hysteria posted by @phantasmfairy

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This is the video that motivated me to share my previous story.  This is such a brave and strong woman. I hope more people can see this and find the strength to help themselves.

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Story #2 - I’m not good enough.

M I N E  OR  N O T  M I N E? This is the story of Alicia and how she fought Anorexia (Anorexia was the name of her best friend at the time, for that purpose it is written with a capital "A").

The story begins with Alicia's first year at high-school. She was 14 at the time. She had no close friends, no people to lean on. But she was in a new class, she had all of these 4000 new people around her. All she had to do, was make some friends.

Things didn't turn up that way for her though. She was depressed, which made it a lot harder to socialize. The new people in the school were constantly asking her "why are you always with your headphones on" and she felt like they were judging her, she was broken. She tried to remove the headphone barrier step by step and started talking to people in her class. She still was depressed, so she never really made close friends, but at least she was talking to people.

Thing is, when she started talking to people, she realized something about herself: she wasn't skinny enough. In her class there were so many beautiful girls who were so skinny, they looked perfect. One even had a thigh-gap. Alicia was so jealous, she wanted to be like them. That was the moment she realized that she had always been "chubby".

There was one thing Alicia hated: the way her back looked like a waterfall of sweat, when she was wearing tight T-shirts during the summer. And that was the moment she realized it was all because of her weight. She needed to become skinny ASAP. So the journey began.

Each day she would eat two packages of pretzels and nothing more. Her stomach would ache like crazy and sometimes she would cry because of the pain. But Alicia did not give up. She kept doing it. Moreover she started taking capsules of green coffee - the ones she bought were supposed to last 30 days and costed 23 Euro, which in Bulgaria is not a small amount of money.

The real problem began when one night her mother had made one of her most favorite dishes. The whole day Alicia had eaten only two packages of pretzels. But during dinner, just like before, she enjoyed the food so much, that she ate a really huge amount of it. One night, right after overeating, she got so sad and anxious, that she threw up. No, she did not throw up intentionally. She threw up because of Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD).

Essentially, Alicia lost over 15 kg in 2 months only by starving herself.

Even after partially recovering and fully escaping from Anorexia, Alicia still vomited at least once a month, if she ate huge amounts of heavy food.

Well, Alicia did recover. Unfortunately though, she never got rid of the side effects, so to this day she still gets to a certain risky situation where she starves herself, without wanting to. She started wearing only high-heels because they made her legs look better and thinner even without a thigh-gap - she would still love to have one. Alicia has disgusted expressions on her face every time she weighs herself, although her body looks perfect. There are weeks, when she eats like a pig every 2 hours, but the following weeks after them she doesn't even want to eat, meaning she could go days without even getting hungry. One more little side effect that maybe some of you will think is good, but is actually really poisonous: she never gains weight, no matter how much she eats and what kinds of food (DISCLAIMER NOTE: do not think that starving yourself and then recovering will fix all of your biggest problems. You might never get enough strength and support to even recover and it might not even work out that way for you).

Analysis:

Society creates social norms that obligate young people (especially girls, because they are more emotional) to fit into socially accepted frames. These young people look around them, see what skinny looks like and think that a skinny body is what makes you look beautiful, they think they're not good enough. Alicia did so, too.

I'm going to put an exclamation mark on this one because it's one of the most important points of the problem. Alicia did not look at the way her body looked. She preferred to look at the numbers and because they weren't fitting the frame "you should weigh this much if you're this tall", she decided she wasn't good enough. Even after losing weight, Alicia weighed 52 kg, which seemed like a lot to a 14 year old girl, so she was aiming at 45 kg, which was the weight number most girls in her surroundings had.

Alicia became anorexic. The media teaches us that Anorexia is when you can see a person's ribs, pointing at you through the weak skin. That's not the truth. Anorexia is a mental illness, that begins with the though "I'm not thin enough." And even if the media is right, this thought itself is extremely alarming: a person starts to seek ways to get thinner and he might get to bone-revealing Anorexia sooner or later, if he follows this exact thought.

Alicia also had Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), so she threw up every time she felt sad about something.

Solution:

I know it's easier to say than do, but you need to get rid of the mentality, that you're not good enough. First of all, you need to learn to love the things you already have. Love your family, love your friends, love your dog, or just love nature, because they love you for who you are, not for your body shape. Second, you need to learn to love yourself the way you are, because every bit of you makes you you and you are perfectly lovable just the way you are. A wise man once said "If you don't like something about yourself, change it. If you can't change it, learn to love it." So if you do insist on changing the way your body looks, go change it: lower the amount of consumated calories and go train. Play volleyball, play tennis. Go ice skating or ride a bicycle.

Find a hobby. Look for your passion, look for what you love. Find your talents and the areas you're good in, so you can love yourself for what you really are instead of hate yourself for something the media enforces and is not true. You never know if you're not the only one, who can change the world with this exact same power you keep so well hidden under that coat of anxiety.

How did Alicia deal with the problem:

As strange as it sounds, Alicia was lucky to be scared of what was happening to her. She hadn't thrown up for seven years until her first experience with GERD, so she got scared and told her mother. Her mother started asking questions and researching afterwards. They found out the problem and fixed it with a specific diet. First of all, they eliminated heavy (meat, tomatoes, rice) and unhealthy foods from the diet. Alicia ate only toasts with cheese, some fruits and pretzels for a couple of months, 3 times a day. The idea of the diet was to increase the amount of food slowly - a fruit for breakfast, one package of pretzels for lunch and a toast for dinner, the next day two fruits for breakfast, two packages of pretzels for lunch, two toasts for dinner and so on. She also started training tennis and that helped maintain a stable and nicely looking body.

Thank you if you read the whole story. If you have a similar problem or a friend of yours has, you can think about the solution and try to fix your own situation that way. If you still can’t find a way, text me at any time, tell me your story and I’ll try to help!

Quote:

“You're fucking perfect to me.” ― P!NK

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Fun fact #2

I love learning new languages. I know four by now and I am trying to learn my fifth by the end of this school year (four months).

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Related to yestarday’s post, this is what hysteria means.

DISCLAIMER: This picture is only for informative purposes. If you feel as if you’re not mentally healthy, contact a professional, but do not diagnose yourself by what you read on the internet. 

(Resources: www.wikipedia.org, www.jointsmedicine.com) 

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Story #1 - Love behind a Facebook chat

M I N E   OR   N O T   M I N E?

This is a story about Amy and what happened to her, after she met Adam and Suzy - online projections of real people. Amy was at age 16 when she started roleplaying on Facebook. To her, it was the world, where she escaped, when life got too tough - she could look gergeous like one of her idols or even sound smarter, because no one could hear her there. Most importantly, she was not alone - the people there were the best thing that had happened to her. They were understanding, positive and treated the other people in the community like actual human beings, unlike those in the disgusting real world she was forced to live in. But like everything you get too obsessed with, the once only a game realm of roleplaying became the real life of a girl, who had no idea what she was getting herself into. After a month or two into roleplaying, she met these unique people Adam and Suzy. They had her charachter, liked the same things she did and were able to relate to her real life problems. Everyday she got back home from school and turned the computer on immediately, only to text the two people, that made her life seem like less of a living hell. Interessting enough, she fell in love with Adam. Real-life love. She would give everything to have him, protect him and love him. She would die for him. And they started dating in real life through roleplay. She had never been happier in her life before. Then Adam left. He left roleplaying and he couldn’t be found on anywhere on social media. Suzy stayed on the other hand. During that time she became the new best friend of desperate Amy. They became sisters from different mothers and nothing could tear them apart. And a month after leaving, Adam came back. Their relationship began again. And it was the best relationship ever. What was really strange about it, was that Amy spoke to Suzy all the time on her phone or Skype, they knew each other’s real Facebook accounts and knew how the other one looked in real life, but Amy didn’t know how Adam looked or at least sounded. He was an entirely strange person to her, but she never realized it. And because all of it was happening on a Facebook chat, the stranger part occured - Adam and Suzy had the same style of writing - they used the same words to express themselves, and even the smallest actions and reactions like surprise and happiness were expressed in the same way. Amy was young, naive, stupid and worst of all - in love. So she didn’t really understand what was happening. But she asked Adam about his contacts. And every time she did, she ended up at a dead end, because he was a professional in making excuses. The story doesn’t sound real bad by now. But things didn’t turn out good for Amy after on. Adam was obsessive, so he wanted all of her time - he made her quit tennis trainings an acting classes. Furthermore, he threatened her and created huge scandals every time she refused to give him a bit of her time. She didn’t mind, because she still loved him, so Amy agreed with everything he wanted. She was even bullied by Adam. He made her feel useless and inferior. There was constant exaggerating for dying and sleep paralysis on Adam’s side and people mentally and physically abusing him. What Amy did was constantly stress everything, because she was worried for the person she loved. She would cry all day and night, have constant nightmares or not sleep at night. Suzy wasn’t helping her and wasn’t by her side when Amy needed her most, so she felt alone again. Fights with Suzy occured at some point, too. It wasn’t until Amy started having heartaches, that she realized what was happening. By then it had gotten even worse. So she had to leave. And she did. But she came back. All of this continued the way it was before. In the end, she left both of them for good. It was the hardest decision she had ever made. When she left for the last time, she still had no idea how Adam looked, how he sounded, or what was really going on in his life. She just didn’t want to know anymore. What all of this did to her was, that she was in major depression, she had panic attacks, she cut herself. She stopped talking to people around her, even her family, because she was too busy texting all the time, so she didn’t have comminicating skills. And, worst of all - she started having hysterical attacks. She removed the real world and turned her surreal roleplaying game-realm into her real life. And to this day, after researching a lot, Amy still doesn’t know if Suzy was typing from Adam’s profile just to trick her. To this day, Amy is unfortunatelly still suffering from everything that Adam and Suzy created.

Analysis and summary

Amy was searching for an escape from real life, so when she found Adam and Suzy, they were everything she thought she was looking for. They didn’t seem toxic, because they were her only way of forgetting the truth.

She was in love, so she wasn’t capable of connecting the dots.

Her blindness led to depression. Depression led to panic attacks. Panic attacks turned into hysterical ones. And hysteria led to self-harm.

She started getting sceptical, but continued doing it, because she was still alone, didn’t know how to cope with life and wanted to give Adam and Suzy a chance.

Solutions and advice

If you ever face cyber-bullying, do your best to just get away from it. People all over the world are going to say a lot of things to bring you down. Here it is your job to make sure they do not succeed.

Learn that you are more. You are capable of everything and just need to wait a bit to find your true passion. But your online-life can not replace your real one, no matter how hard you try.

Try talking to random people in real life. You never know if these people aren’t the people you always needed to talk to.

Find a hobby and use it as a weapon. The online community is not an escape - it’s a prison. It stops you from following your dreams and upgrading yourself as a person. Read books, run in the park, write a poem or a song, buy a dog and play with it anytime you’re free. Even sitting in the park and looking at the passing people, imagining what their lives are like and where they are going, could bring you joy and distract you from problems for a while.

Always listen to your 6th sence - you feel sceptical, there is a relevant reason behind it. Probably your mind is telling you that you need to leave. Now.

Never leave a problem unsolved. If you feel depressed or inferior, seek for help. Talk to a friend, talk to a professional. Think about why the problem occured and what the easiest way for you to fix it is.

How Amy dealt with the problem

She was sceptical and she was ready to leave. At that point she was curious of the story behind the scenes, so she waited to leave, although it hurt like hell to leave everything she had and loved behind. She asked herself why had all of these bad things happened to her and how she could get rid of them. She started talking to people. After she left, she asked an acquaintance to gather a lot of people in one place and introduce them to her, so she could begin her social life. And she did. She met 50 new people in 2 hours and spent a couple more months to think about who she was and how she could fix herself. And she did fix herself in a certain way.

Thank you if you read the whole story. If you have a similar problem or a friend of yours has, you can think about the solution and try to fix your own situation that way. If you still can’t find a way, text me at any time, tell me your story and I’ll try to help!

Quote: 

“If someone is trying to bring you down, it only means you are above them.“ ― Bella Thorne

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Fun Fact #1

Here’s a short story about me: 

I’ve always hated this drink that we have in Bulgaria, called boza. It looks like the food you ate last night after you’ve gotten rid of it. And I don’t even remember what it tastes like, but it was gross, although it’s the most Bulgarian thing you could ever drink. When I was four years old, my great-grandmother really wanted me to drink this bunch of nasty molecules called boza for some reason, so she started pushing me into drinking it. I refused with the words “I would never drink such a thing, even if you force me to open my mouth and pour it inside against my will.” Well, I was having fun in my pool, when she threatened me that she’d pour the thing in my pool, if I don’t drink it.  My father had to literally push this old woman to the side so she wouldn’t do it, because I was basically crying. This is the moment I started hating boza even more.  And, as a child, who just wanted to play in her pool all day, I absolutely stopped respecting my great-grandmother. bb