Sometimes it takes big acts to get us to stop and realize there are things from the past that, despite having fully dealt with them to the best of our ability at the time, resurface and need our immediate attention again. I call these "big acts" (and sometimes they're relatively small acts) emotional land mines. What counts as an emotional land mine? Anything that causes us to go back in time and relive painful experiences; the trigger can be as simple as a sight, smell, t

There has always been a stigma surrounding mental health and mental illness. Perhaps it's because we can't physically SEE signs & symptoms of mental illness. If someone is suffering from depression, they may have figured out a way to hide it so it doesn't manifest itself in outward physical symptoms. There are certainly people who look and act like they are depressed (low energy, crying, sleeping a lot, easily agitated), but oftentimes these physical signs are dismissed as

The first time I was introduced to cutting and self-harm was during my first year of teaching. There was a student who was deeply troubled, and one day when he came to ask me a question about the math concepts we were working on, his loose sleeve slipped up and I saw his forearms littered with one inch long cuts. Being that this was the first time I ever saw this type of self-inflicted injury, I kind of freaked out and went straight to one of the counselors on campus to let