How quitting antidepressants healed depression which sparked my weight loss

I've never been what you'd call a confident person. I might give the impression of positive self-image, but it's a mask I where to keep people from seeing how really fragile I am emotionally. But one thing that has boosted my self-esteem is weight loss. I <---lost ----="" 100="" and="" confetti="" dance="" do="" joy="" of="" pause="" pounds="" that="" the="" throw="" to="">

I feel prettier now. Not beautiful--operative suffix pretty-ER. I have also noticed that I have become more self-aware as I gain confidence. I'm more mindful of how I speak and don't babble nervously as much as I used to. Even my writing has improved because I can think more clearly. That's partly due to quitting anti-depressants and switching to herbal, healthier mood management.

St. John's Wort, magnesium, kava kava and B-12 have eased depression so much more than Paxil ever did. And they don't cause weight gain--of which the medical community doesn't warn you--like Paxil and other SSRI. And let me tell you, that IS depressing. So quitting the antidepressant helped me get out of the drug-induced mind fog, see the weight gain clearly so I could lose weight which reduced anxiety, panic attacks and depression which helped me see everything more positively and think more clearly, which helped...you get the idea. It's been a

happy spiral up instead of a vicious cycle down. #winwinwin

Mental Health: How Being an Empath Can Ruin Relationships

14 years ago, I discovered I'm an empath. I always knew, even as a child, that I felt others pain, but it was good to discover that intense sensitivity had a name. Empath Guide defines it well: Criticism, suffering, hurt, humiliation, shame are hard enough for me to bear. Watching others feel them is agonizing. Knowing I'm an empath explains a lot about my interpersonal struggles. It can ruin or heal relationships.  Mental Health: How Being an Empath Can Ruin Relationships

25 Drug-Free Therapies to Treat Menopause Depression, Anxiety

Anxiety, panic attacks, depression, and PMS (pre-menstrual syndrome): I struggle with each to a varying degree. For seven years I took the antidepressant Paxil (paroxetine), but I put on weight at an alarming rate. When I entered menopause, it felt like I had PMS every day. My depression and panic attacks escalated. I decided to quit and find ways to treat emotional distress without medication. Here are 25 drug-free therapies that have kept me off antidepressants and helped me to lose weight and feel better.Read more at: 25 Drug-Free Therapies to Treat Menopause Depression, Anxiety

Cognitive-Behavioral "Talk Therapy" Helps Teen Depression, Suicide, Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia Talk Therapy Success Encouraging for Teen Depression, Suicide New research shows that talk therapy, or Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, is having success with schizophrenics, many of whom are teens and young adults. These findings are encouraging for parents; they demonstrate that CBT can help with teen depression and suicide prevention, too. Here's how.

Pity Party: When Low Self-Esteem Becomes a Weapon

There's a newish term called crybully which aptly describes a hidden type of bullying. Crybullying is passive aggressively bullying another person by calling them out as the bully. It is part blame-shifting, DARVO, projection and transference of responsibility off from the actual perpetrator and onto the victim. And another part of it is weaponized "low self-esteem" or self-pitying narcissistic injury cloaked as low self-esteem. 

The crybully in usually a narcissist who uses his self-professed low self-esteem as a crutch and an excuse for toxic behavior. He says things like 

(heavy sigh) I don't think anything of myself. Don't expect anything of me. I can't be held to normal rules because I am suffering. You can't judge me anymore harshly than I already judge myself." Translation: oh woe is me, nobody understands me, how I've suffered, you're all out to get me, yada yada. 

The problem with this type of stinkin' thinkin' is that it usually comes out because someone has confronted the crybully with his own bad behavior. He has experienced narcissistic injury and he doesn't like it. That's not a real injury. It's a kick to his inflated ego. 

This toxic behavior twists your words to make himself sound like the poor picked-on little boy. In reality, what you said was probably not terribly inflammatory. However because you confronted his words or behavior, you didn't hide and cover up, you walked into the elephant in the living room instead of around it, the crybully goes into 'poor me' mode. 

But instead of just coming out swinging, the crybully uses emotional black mail. He hides and his passive-aggressive, underhanded nasty words and behaviors behind a smokescreen of low self-esteem. He defends his actions by claiming to feel so "terrible" about himself and can't help it.  No compassionate person is going to question the motives and actions of a person who already feels low about himself. 

It's in the bully's best interest that others see him as the victim, the wronged one, the poor innocent. It's important for him to use his low self -esteem to protect himself from having to accept any responsibility for his actions. When you confronted his behavior you made him vulnerable because you exposed his self-esteem as a crutch, a tool and even a weapon.

Low self-esteem can be a weapon, you ask? Absolutely. Here's how. When you confront a bully on his unacceptable behavior, his cover is blown. When you call it what it is, he can't hide behind the "poor me" facade anymore. And that's when he shows his true colors, in narcissistic rage. A person with truly low self-esteem already believes the worst about themselves. If you confront us, we go into the grovel fawn trauma response. We abase ourselves. We accept full responsibility and feel intense guilt. We don't make excuses. In fact we take on everyone else's shame as well. 

So the fact that the crybully narcissist reacts with affronted rage to your confrontation of his behavior, proves he think very highly of himself. He feels self-righteous entitlement to lash out because his "rights" to whatever he imagines he has a right to have been "violated." His behavior is far more bullying and abusive than anything you supposedly did to him. 

Suddenly his 'low self-esteem' doesn't seem like a handicap for him, but a weapon that he wields with deadly accuracy. People feel sorry for people with low self-esteem. They hate and fear bullies. Don't let the crybully fool you with excuses of low self-esteem. Those who truly struggle with self-esteem don't often talk about it and when they do, they do not use it as a crutch, tool or weapon.

12 Step Slogans for Emotional Health

Feel like you're up to your neck in hot water? Depressed or angry and don't know how to cope? Learn how to manage emotional issues with 12 step slogans! 12 Step programs like Al-Anon and AA have proven successful in the treatment of all sorts of emotional issues. Depression, anxiety, addiction, bi-polar, eating disorders, OCD and other emotional health issues respond well to 12 Step programs. Here are some reflections on the Al-Anon and AA slogans. 

These slogans have helped me manage my anxiety attacks much better. Most of us would probably agree that stress levels, dysfunctional behavior and the need for mental health help is escalating in our busy world. You've heard the slogan, 'half of the US is on anti-depressants and the other half should be'. perhaps? This is an indictment more of the insecure structure of the world in which we live than in our failing abilities as humans. So words like 'coping' 'stress-relievers' , a plethora of acronyms like ADD, ADHD, OCD, PMS, IBS and a multitude of other lifestyle diseases and nervous conditions pepper our vocabulary.

There are treatment, drugs, therapies available; most are expensive and all of them require that you practice some form of self-help techniques. And that is appropriate. If I wait for someone else to make me well, it isn't going to happen. Even if I am a praying person, I have to take some initiative. So why not begin the self-help techniques now. One of the best programs that I have found and used is the 12 Step principles of AA and Al-Anon. The whole premise of AA is to 'work your own program'. Many of us have suffered at the hands of others. But if we wait for someone else to 'get help' or 'make it right', it probably will never happen and worse yet, we miss precious chances to work at healing our own thinking and behavior. No one else has the power to make us whole, except we ourselves.

One of my favorite part of the Al-Anon program is the slogans. The slogans are just short simple sayings that contain an ocean of wisdom. For me they are like mini prayers or even mantras. I have always had this bad habit of practicing what I call 'emotional self abuse'. My mind with out any clear consciousness on my part will begin to play a series of very hurtful and toxic tapes. I rehearse all my errors and faults, I call myself names, I criticize every little thing about me. Pretty soon, I am putty in the hands of anyone who wants to take pot shots at me. And unfortunately, even in the happiest home or workplace or social situation, we hurt the ones we love. So I am even more vulnerable to anything anyone says, even innocent remarks or common occurrences can shake my sense of self to the core when I am already on a downhill roll in my own head anyway.

So I practice saying these slogans to myself daily. Now a lifetime of prior negative messages will take some time to erase and tape over. And recorded tapes, are literally and metaphorically magnetic: what touches them sticks to them. And repetition is the best way to learn something, right? That is how people are 'brain washed' so to speak.

So I must literally meditate on the Al-Anon slogans, these little nuggets of wisdom many times a day. I am repairing the damaging messages and replacing them with new healthy messages. And when life does fall apart, as it does on a pretty regular basis, and my subconscious goes into auto pilot, I have a new set of tapes that begin to play. So that when a major problem occurs, instead of the old 'tapes' which played 'You're an idiot, you should have known better, what were you thinking' and other nice stuff like that. my brain is playing some new tapes.

Easy does it.
One day at a time.
Keep it simple.
Let go and let God
Think.
How important is it?
Just for today.
First things first

These 'tapes' and others in the program I can stay glued listening to.

When I use the slogans, , they are most instrumental in bringing about inner peace, even when situations are in chaos. All it takes is time and practice and the rest of your life. Because it is a one day at a time process. We fall off the bike, but we get back on. 'But like Charlotte in Charlotte's Web says, that's what we've got isn't it? A lifetime...'