Woman and Child First

BRAVE online Self-Help Program for Anxious Kids

Developed by a team of Queensland mental health professionals over the last 15 years, the BRAVE program has now gone online with a program that can be used by children and young people with anxiety. This is an excellent resource on all levels of anxiety management, as demonstrated in the program's name and steps: B (body signals) R (relax) A (activate helpful thoughts) V (victory over fears) E (enjoy yourself).

BRAVE being an online self-help tool supports those kids and teenagers who are reluctant to go into face-face counselling and those who are in regional areas with little access to mental health facilities. But it's really for all kids who are struggling with this particular monster. It can be used with parent support (helpful for younger children who may have reading difficulties) or it can be entirely self directed.

Giving kids the tools to manage anxiety sets them up well. It gives them a gift that they can continue to use and modify as they get older. 

Trial it here.

Teenage Depression

My work by it's very nature involves receiving secrets.  It's sacred information from the hidden spaces within my clients. The teenagers I see are beautiful, young and free. But those qualities are the last things that they themselves see if they are battling depression and anxiety. As they slowly approach me, with their intelligent caution they begin to share secrets. At times, I find  some of those secrets heartbreaking.  They speak of self hatred and isolation. Behind the shy smiles, there are beliefs of being ugly, dumb. There's something wrong with me.

Such is the truly monstrous nature of depression and anxiety. The turnaround is what we work towards. Sometimes it involves medication. But no amount of pharmaceutical support will ever be as good as the power of genuine self regard that is continuously nurtured. Refusal to believe any of these Black Dog* thoughts, a stubbornness, a determination not to be defined by this condition...These are the things to be inspired.

The great blessing for the young is that they are young. With their whole lives ahead of them, they can learn to take this Black Dog, tame it and keep it in it's rightful kennel. It can actually be a stunning opportunity - the meeting of depression and/or anxiety can be the whole reason for the growing of strength and true self esteem that can be taken into adulthood. 

I am always greatly moved and honoured when I am allowed into these secret places, these shadowy spaces. Once that door is opened I can sit down with my teenage pal and we can nut out the best ways of being kind and compassionate to the self first. Then we get to work out how  he or she can start to have some fun again and to grow who they are, in all their rebellious and wonderful youth.

*Winston Churchill's Black Dog was the name he gave his depressive periods.

Leunig to the Rescue

In response to your question 'What is worth doing and what is worth having?' I would like to say simply this. It is worth doing nothing and having a rest.

- Michael Leunig: The Curly Pyjama Letters (2001)

 

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THE AGE - LEUNIG: Just a cartoonist with a moral duty to speak

Teenage guts with icing

This is such a great story - a teenager coming out as gay with a happy cake to celebrate and inform! "Good Morning Parents..." reads the letter of introduction. How inspiring to be so young and able to have the courage to say (and with humour): Hey Guys, I'm Different and I'm Really OK with it. Can you be too please?

My thoughts go to other young gays who know damn well the response would never be as supportive as this story describes. Sometimes secrecy is survival - but if this part sounds like you, make sure someone knows. Someone you trust and who makes you feel good about simply being you.

 

Trauma and it's healing

 

EMDR ( Eye Movement Desensitisation Reprocessing) is now recognized by WHO (World Health Organisation) and recommended as a treatment for trauma and PTSD.

This follows previous endorsements of American Psychiatric Association and Australian Centre for Post Traumatic Health. More bodies of influence are seeing what practitioners of this therapy have seen in their consult rooms over and again - the actual healing of trauma.

I have been practicing EMDR for around a decade and I have seen miracles with this beautiful therapy. While it's certainly not for everyone, this therapy has provided me as a therapist with more success stories than any other therapy I've used in all my years of practice.

In short, when it works it really works. A person's suffering can be not just alleviated but cleared altogether regarding specific trauma's. This can have a lovely ripple effect into the person's life generally too.

In the above video, the developer of this treatment, Francine Shapiro, speaks and EMDR is explained. You can see it's been quite controversial! That's why it's also one of the most highly researched areas of psychology - they've had to do the homework on it to have it recognized.

Due to the robust nature of EMDR and what I can provide my clients, I really do love this therapy. 

 

Related articles

EMDR for PTSD

How Trauma Leads to Depression

Managing Depression and Anxiety

"myCompass is an interactive self-help service that aims to promote resilience and wellbeing for all Australians. myCompass is a guide to good mental health – it points you in the right direction. You can track your moods, write about them and view information and tips. You can also choose to do one of the modules designed to help you manage mild to moderate stress, anxiety and depression."

Find it here.

A great tool provided by Black Dog Institute. I'm always on the look out for non-drug approaches to dealing with the black dog, the fearful monkey and the good old freak we know as stress. You can download this onto your phone and track confidence, depression levels, alcohol usage and more. Generally, to keep in touch with yourself. I'm impressed.

A recent motivation was given to me on viewing the 7.30 Report the other night. The show ran a story on the (anecdotal) evidence that exists to suggest taking Effexor, an anti-depressant, has been linked to the onset or continuing of gambling addiction. One spokesperson has come out to help and alert others that after he started taking Effexor, he started gambling. Within 3 months he had lost $80,000.

Anti-depressants don't suit everyone.

How Does Your Garden Grow?

We so often feel like change and growth should be easy and come with some sort of magic wand. It doesn't. 

Personal evolution comes like a well tended garden. Plan it (decide). Design it (set goals). See it with all its colour (visualize what you'll look like when you're being your best self).

And then: Do. The. Work.

Your muscles (brain, heart, soul) will be sore and stiff with the thing. Keep going. You'll become better, fitter, stronger  as you go.

Plus you see the garden grow. Mary was onto it. Mary knew something.

Nurture it.  Water that garden. For god's sake, get rid of the weeds. Negative thoughts, spinning like a turntable of noise, never stop until you get them out of the garden of your self.

Tend to the garden of you. Yes there will be death (loss, pain). Turn the soil of your life afterward. Fertilize it with new stuff, good stuff. Grow the next garden.

This verse came to me in childhood and resonates with a deeper meaning now:

Mary, Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells, and cockle shells,
And pretty maids all in a row.

Wikipedia

Do the work on your garden. Grow  it, love it. The world needs silver belled, cockle-shelled gardens, in all ways.

 

 

Asking The Right Questions

 How often do you enquire as to how you are going - on an emotional level?

How often do you make a check-in with yourself and ask the real questions? 

For instance: How am I going? What do I need to do today to lift myself? 

These exercises are entirely necessary if one is learning to manage depression. Buy hey and c'mon. These questions are just necessary. This is daily practice.

Give yourself some attention. Ask the real questions, wait for the answer and then act on your own advice.

Contemplative Sculpture.

A Greater Good

Although I haven’t seen good research to substantiate this theory that mothers’ happiness directly influences the happiness of their children, a fairly extensive body of research has established a substantial link between mothers who feel depressed and “negative outcomes” in their children, like acting out and other behavior problems. As you might imagine, when we mothers feel depressed it is not good for our children’s happiness. -Christine Carter, Ph.D.,

Yet another reason to look after yourself. I repeat, to nourish and nuture oneself as a woman, a mother is NOT a luxury, it's an essential.

The above snippet comes from a blog that looks closely at the "Science of Raising Happy Children".

Can't remember how I stumbled on it, but I'm really enjoying reading from it. Over to the sidebar for you, Half Full Blogversations!

Painting by Kim Richardson

Post Natal Depression

Tell me how hard it is for a previously high functioning woman to admit she has postnatal depression.

Here's the answer: Very Very Hard.

It's not eased either by a societal obsession with the image of High Functioning Motherhood. (HFM aka Huge Freaking Myth).

Many of us have it and "soldier" on regardless, pretending that the body we now have isn't that much different, that a continuous lack of sleep is something we just have to deal with (used as a form of torture anywhere else) and that childbirth itself isn't, for some of us anyway, traumatic!

If you have PND it's so very understandable. Here are some tips:

-Don't let it eat you up, because it truly would love to do that.

-Get out and about, even and especially when you don't feel like it.

-Tell someone.

-Get  your exercize happening, alone preferable, with baby in pram otherwise.

- Accept that social and emotional supports are essential at any time, but right now they are life-changing.

- Stop overworking.

- Read, watch, listen to any of your old favourite books,films or music.

-When baby sleeps, so does mummy. Housework waits. That's the rule.

Not a bad little note.