Darkness to Dialogue: Living Well With Mental Illness

Intellectualizing in Mental Health Recovery Article Summary Intellectualizing is a defense mechanism often used in mental health recovery. While it can help us make sense of trauma, it can also delay emotional processing. This post explores how to recognize and balance intellectualization with emotional engagement in recovery. Have You Ever Found Yourself Analyzing Your Feelings Instead of Actually Feeling Them? Sometimes, in the middle of intense emotions, it feels safer to step back, break everything down, and make sense of it all. This tendency, called intellectualizing , is a psychological coping mechanism where the mind leans heavily on logic, analysis, or abstract reasoning to avoid uncomfortable feelings. While it can provide clarity and temporary relief, relying too much on intellectualization can quietly distance us from the very emotions we need to process in recovery. I want to explore how intellectualization shows up in mental health recovery, especially for those of us n...

Summary Healing doesn’t follow a timeline. For those living with mental illness, recovery often brings unresolved emotions to the surface long after the trauma occurred. In this post, we explore why time feels distorted during mental health recovery and how to release the pressure to “catch up.” Estimated Read Time: 🕒 5 minutes When Time Doesn’t Feel Linear 🕰️ I’ve been thinking a lot about time lately, not in the way most people do, but in the way trauma can bend it.  There are moments I look at my life and feel like I’m somehow behind. I’m in my 40s now and only just beginning to unpack some of the trauma from my 30s. Not because I ignored it, but because I didn’t yet have: the language the safety the support to begin I didn’t know what mental health recovery looked like. I didn’t know I was even allowed to name what happened to me. And now that I am doing the work, it feels like I’m sorting through emotional boxes that should’ve been unpacked years ago. Some memorie...