Tag: Mental Illness
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Living with Anxiety
(This is a completely unedited stream-of-conscious recording of a few minutes in a day with anxiety. Everyone’s experience of anxiety will be different, but I hope this gives you some idea of what living with anxiety can be like.) The anxiety is moderate today. I can do what has to be done, but it’s hard.…
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Polyamory Boundaries and Mental Illness
There’s a bit of a debate in poly circles about rules/agreements vs boundaries. Short version: Boundaries are personal–I will not date anyone who is anti-thiest. (I’m perfectly happy dating athiests, but if you are going to attack/belittle/look down on religions and religious people I am so fucking out of there.) Rules or agreements are relational–Michael…
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Poly Advice for the Mentally Ill: “Communicate, Communicate, Communicate”
Standard Poly advice: Communicate, Communicate, Communicate Nothing is more important to a healthy relationship than communication. If we aren’t keeping our SOs in the loop about how we feel and what is going on with us, then small problems will become big problems until someone comes home from work to find their stuff sitting on…
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Depressive Disorders and Polyamory
Apologies for the late post. I had this typed up and ready to go yesterday, and then the internet gremlins ate it. Took me until this morning to be able to rewrite it. This post and others discussing specific mental disorders will reference the Diagnostic and Statistical Manuel of Psychiatry and Psychology, Edition Five (DSM-V).…
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Poly Advice for the Mentally Ill: “Be With Your Emotions”
Sorry for the late post today. I thought I had a draft saved for the next poly fiction list, but apparently not. Depression messing with my head, I guess. So, today I’m finally going to take a look at some of the standard poly advice and how it applies (or more often doesn’t) to those…
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Polyamory and Mental Illness Blog Series
Polyamory and Mental Illness (Guest post by Clementine Morgan) Facts About Mental Illness for Poly Partners Opening Up About Mental Illness How Can I Support my Mentally Ill Poly Partner? (Part 1) How Can I Support my Mentally Ill Poly Partner? (Part 2) A Rant: “I Know I am Being Irrational Right Now” When Polyamory…
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Living with Depression
I hadn’t meant to start introducing the different mental illnesses yet. I hadn’t meant to write this post this week. But for reasons that will hopefully be obvious it is the only post I could write. Here then is a look at depression from the inside. Depression is hell. Depression is a different hell for…
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When Mental Illness and Polyamory Collide (Part 1)
The Complexity of Mental Illness and Polyamory In some ways, mental illness and polyamory actually go very well together. The larger support network can be a huge benefit for someone dealing with mental illness, while the increase in available support also means that no one person gets overwhelmed trying to support the mentally ill partner…
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A Rant: “I Know I am Being Irrational Right Now”
Some 7 years ago (give or take) I was sitting in a room with three other people in my poly network. My PTSD and anxiety had been severely triggered, I was not thinking clearly, I was feeling jealous and persecuted. Long experience with my own mental illnesses allowed me to recognize that what I was…
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How Can I Support my Mentally Ill Poly Partner? (Part 2)
Part 1 Learn Our Cues When my anxiety gets bad I start rocking in my seat. Just moving forward and back, forward and back, while I type or read, eat or chat with friends. It’s a little idiosyncrasy that can tell you a lot about my mental state. After six years living with him, I…