Self Care as a Mentality

Mental Health
Sort-of Transcript: In the year long stream of chaos since Trump's election I've had thousands of conversations about the importance of self care. Social workers, activists and artists have been talking about self care for decades, but sometime in the past few years it entered the mainstream consciousness. Self Care became a buzzword, an almost meaningless short form for a laundry list of things that are supposed to make us feel good. There are millions of articles offering self care tips (over 17,200,000 according to Google), all offering the same advice. Get some exercise. Take a long bath, preferably with an aromatherapy bath bomb to calm yourself down. Rewatch one of your favourite movies. Book a professional massage. None of this is necessarily bad advice, but there are a couple problems with…
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The tortured artist stereotype is killing our best and brightest

Mental Health
On May 18th of this year Chris Cornell, one of my favourite singers and a minor rock and roll legend, died by suicide. I wrote part of this article, then shelved it, too heartbroken to finish. I nursed my wounds, the moment passed, and life went on. On July 20th Chester Bennington, singer of Linkin Park,  was found dead, another suicide. And I knew I had to finish this, no matter how much it hurt. This is a conversation we need to have. A note before we get started I don't presume to know why Chester Bennington--or anyone else--felt suicide was the only way out of his pain. What I'd like to say is rooted in my own experiences as a creative person who's struggled with depression for almost thirteen…
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Please stop telling millennials to “pay our dues”, we’re already doing it

Mental Health
[caption id="attachment_2914" align="alignleft" width="200"] Don't I look like I'm about to murder someone? There's probably a good reason...[/caption] Last week I saw a video I've seen a thousand times: some older white guy proclaiming that Millennials are all screwed up because we were treated like special snowflakes and then we grew up and realized life is hard. I'm not going to link to that video because I don't like sharing bullshit, but I want to address the idea behind it. I've already gone on a massive Twitter rant about this video, so I've Storified the rant for your enjoyment, and I'm going to expand on it below, addressing some misconceptions that came up in conversations around the rant. [View the story "Why you need to stop saying "Millennials need to…
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Understanding resistance

Mental Health, Mental Health, Self care for writers
Over the last few days I've been reading the DIY MFA book, a writing book by one of my favourite bloggers and writing teachers, Gabriela Pereira. I'm going to post a review of the entire book next week, but today I wanted to examine a specific concept in closer detail: the idea of using resistance as a guide. This idea--the idea that resistance is a good thing because it forces you to grow into a stronger writer--is one I've heard stated in many different ways over the years(or, more accurately, read stated many different ways on different blogs). It's one that resonates with me strongly, but to me it doesn't necessarily mean forcing yourself through the piece anyway. Sometimes it means you need to stop and develop your characters or your world more thoroughly.…
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Self Confidence For Writers Part 4: Coping with Criticism

Mental Health
I've talked before about the rules of critique courtesy, but there's a big difference between responding nicely to your critiquer and handling the critique well on an emotional level. There are also many different forms of criticism you're bound to face throughout your life. Everybody faces criticism, and we all know how much it can hurt. As such, our first instinct is often to ignore the criticism, let it go like water off our backs. Sometimes this is helpful--sooner or later you're bound to encounter unfair criticism or a critique that isn't useful in any way--but often it's actually counter productive. Even the harshest criticism often has a grain of truth, and if you ignore the criticism altogether, you don't learn how to make yourself a better person or how…
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3 Reasons to Schedule Time for Self Care

Increasing productivity, Mental Health
You have a job. You also have a couple paid writing assignments, a blog to maintain, friends to visit and a family who seems convinced that they deserve some of your precious time. Oh, and you're trying to write a novel in your "spare time". With everything else going on in your life, it's easy to ignore self care. When was the last time you read a good book purely for pleasure? Enjoyed a sunset by yourself? Had a relaxing bath? Did yoga? Odds are you've heard about how important it is to take care of yourself, but how deeply have you thought about it? Is self care part of your daily routine? Here are 3 reasons why it should be: 1. You need your health to write. This includes…
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Writing through Depression

Inspirational, Mental Health, Writing
For the last two weeks I've been struggling through a bout of depression, and it's no secret that this is a common affliction for writers. Many of the most famous writers have struggled with and written about depression, and some of the most famous, such as Hemingway, have killed themselves. Others use writing as an escape, and it saves them from their depression--this seems to be the category most of the writers I've met fall into. No matter which camp you fall into, it can be difficult to write when you're depressed. Some days it's difficult to do anything, but you have to push through it. Nine times out of ten, pushing through and writing will make you feel better. Over the years I've suffered several bouts of depression, and…
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Freedom

Blog Stuff, Mental Health
Last Friday the doctors freed my wrist from its prison. It's only been a few days but I can already feel the difference in my psyche. I'll be wearing it to bed for another two months, which is a cakewalk at this point. I've already seen an increase in productivity--though it may be imagined because I'm happier--but it's going to take me a while to get back into my routine. I never managed to finish my edits of Moonshadow's Guardian, which is my first priority this month after paid work. It's going to take me a while to get back into my routine. My wrist is in a particularly fragile state after a month of disuse, and I'm still battling the depression that came with the splint. Unfortunately this means…
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Dealing with a Crippling Wrist Injury

Mental Health, Writing
For the last five years, I've struggled with wrist pain. Multiple trips to doctors years apart yielded no results--they just told me to put some ice on it and take Ibuprofen, even when I told them I'd already tried that. The response was something along the lines of "well, go home and try it some more". Well, after years of jumping through hoops, I joined up with a health clinic--on a quest to get the free dental service for youth offered there--and lo and behold, the doctor there realized I have a serious problem and sent me to a hand clinic. The hand specialist decided I have tendonitis instead of carpal tunnel (what a relief *rolls eyes*) and sentenced me to wearing a splint on my left wrist for a…
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Caring For Your Mental Health

Mental Health, Writing
Not long after my dad died, my grandmother gave me a book called 'Soul Catcher'. A 'Soul Catcher' is like a dream catcher, but for the soul. It's a journal full of inspiring pictures and prompts designed to help you find yourself and escape depression. While I never really used the 'Soul Catcher' for its original purpose, I can't forget that book. What I can't forget about the book is the story of the woman who wrote it. She talks about how she reached her professional goals and wrote prolifically for the public on a number of subjects, but that her own writing, her journalling, grew more tortured even as she gained more success. She reached the darkest part of her depression one day when she uprooted herself, moved to…
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