Darkness to Dialogue: Living Well With Mental Illness

Mental Health Recovery Tip of the Week A gentle tool for focusing on joy Grow Your Joyspan: How to Build Lasting Joy in Daily Life 🌿✨ Summary: Feeling stuck in fleeting happiness? Focus on your joyspan,  the practice of cultivating enduring joy in daily life 🌞. These simple strategies can boost your mental health, resilience, and overall wellbeing 💛. What Is Joyspan? Joyspan, a term coined by gerontologist Dr. Kerry Burnight , refers to the intentional cultivation of lasting joy, not just short bursts of happiness 🌈. Unlike temporary moods, joyspan grows over time through mindful habits and consistent self-care, creating a more fulfilling, resilient life 🌱. 5 Practical Ways to Build Your Joyspan: Savor Joyful Moments ☕ Pause and fully experience moments that bring you happiness, even if they seem small, like a warm cup of tea or a kind gesture. Practice Gratitude 🙏 Keep a daily gratitude journal or reflect on what you’re thankful for. Shifting focus to positivi...

Patterns or Personality? How to Tell the Difference in Mental Health Recovery Estimated Read Time: 5 minutes Summary  When you’re healing from mental illness or trauma, it’s easy to confuse learned coping behaviors with your true personality. This post explains how to distinguish between patterns and traits, why this distinction is important, and how it can facilitate genuine change in your recovery journey. Key Takeaway Patterns are learned behaviors shaped by environment, trauma, or mental illness, while personality traits are more stable, biologically influenced tendencies. Recognizing the difference helps you change what’s changeable and embrace what’s authentically you. When I Thought My Patterns Were Me I used to believe my avoidance, people-pleasing, and overthinking were “just my personality.” Friends described me that way. But when I began my healing journey, I learned these weren’t my true nature, they were survival strategies I’d developed over years of stress and trauma...

  June/July 2025 Edition This month’s spotlight features Oscar, who generously shares, in his own words, the story of how his healing journey began. From a defining moment in solitary confinement to years of reflection, growth, and hard-won self-awareness, Oscar’s path reminds us that change can start in the most unexpected places. His voice is a powerful reminder that mental health recovery is possible, even when the odds feel impossible. I’m honored to share his story with you. What Led Me to Begin My Healing Journey In the year 2000, I was before a panel of people, a lieutenant, a sergeant, a case counselor assigned to me, and a therapist. They were going through my file detailing why I was in segregation. In the California prison system, it’s also called the hole. I was sent to the hole for a violent fight I was in with another guy inside of prison. At the time I was serving a double life sentence, I fell under the title of Juvenile lifer, which in my case at the time...

Summary Mental illness and recovery can profoundly change how you see yourself, challenging your identity and sense of purpose.  Rebuilding your identity after mental illness isn’t about returning to who you were; it’s about discovering who you are now.  This shift requires both self-awareness and self-compassion as you begin to piece together a life that reflects your truth, not just your survival. This post explores the process of rebuilding a stable, authentic identity after mental health struggles. Embracing this transformation allows healing to take root and helps you reclaim your voice and life with intention. Reclaiming Myself: My Identity Beyond Diagnosis For a long time, I thought of myself as only what I struggled with. Depression and anxiety weren’t just conditions I lived with; they became the lens through which I saw everything. I was the “sad girl,” the “worrier,” the one who couldn’t keep it together. Even in spaces where no one said those things aloud, I ...

Summary Healing from mental illness is often invisible and nonlinear, making it hard to recognize progress.  This post explores subtle yet powerful signs that indicate you are moving forward in your recovery journey, even if it doesn’t always feel that way. 💡 Recognizing these signs can boost motivation and encourage continued care.❤️ Personal Narrative: Recognizing My Quiet Progress For a long time, I equated healing with feeling completely “fixed” or returning to some version of “normal,” whatever that meant. I thought that if I wasn’t having massive breakthroughs or dramatic realizations, I must not be making progress. On days when I felt heavy or disconnected, I assumed I was failing, even if nothing had gone wrong. But gradually, I noticed small, almost imperceptible shifts. My panic episodes happened less frequently. I found myself taking deeper breaths in stressful moments rather than spiraling. I began speaking to myself with a softness I didn’t know I was capa...