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Can Time Heal All Wounds? Understanding Time’s Role In Healing

Post author:admin
Post published:January 6, 2023
Post category:POSTS

We can thank the Greek dramatist, Menander, for giving us a saying that has gone through numerous translations and remains timeless even today. Today, this quote is used by many people to comfort others going through pain – whether emotional or physical.

“Time heals all wounds” – When you hear this, what’s the first thing that comes to your mind? Do you believe in these words or do you feel that all this is faux?

There are times when all you need is a few months to work through the pain, like a sprained ankle for example, but when your pain refuses to heal, what can you do? Can time truly heal all wounds?

I, for one, used to believe that time is all I need to get over something traumatic, but lately, I’ve begun to realize that time might not help me heal if I don’t cooperate with it!

I agree that time is an important part of the healing process, but there are also factors that we conveniently forget to note when it comes to the healing process. Time can dull the pain of the trauma or the loss, but time alone can’t heal you.

Today, I’m exploring with you the role of time in healing, other factors that can hinder your healing, and how you can utilize time to speed up your healing.

Time Heals All Wounds: Can It Be True?

There were times in my life when my mother used to tell me that, “time waits for no one” and this phrase stuck with me for a long time. I used to think that if I didn’t heal on my own, nothing will help me. But, when we talk about time and healing, what role does the former play in the latter’s process?

So according to experts, time allows an opportunity to self-reflect on the source of your pain. When you give time to yourself to heal, you reflect and process the event that’s hurting you or causing you emotional pain. This time allows you to decide how you’re going to use this chance to shape your present and your future going forward.

Time allows you to gain healthier insight into your trauma, better your relationships, and facilitate your growth. Many people use time as a healer and gather memories and experiences that change their perspective on the difficult experiences they’re healing from.

You can reconnect with your old friends, create new friends, build new relationships, or even participate in activities that can help speed up your healing and recovery. It also gives you the strength to move on. Now, this can’t be said for all experiences.

When it comes to healing from grief, for example, it can be a different process. When you lose someone, it leaves a mark on your heart and mind, and it makes it difficult to move on from said loss. Here, time helps! So, grief never leaves, we just form new experiences around grief. Those experiences we gain with time allow our grief to not feel overpowering anymore.

That helps us move on while keeping the memories of our loved ones with us.

Now, when I talk about self-reflection, I don’t mean rumination. Ruminating on negative beliefs can hinder your healing and set you back on your recovery. When you truly gain a new perspective on your situation, that’s when it is healthy self-reflection.

What Can Hinder The Healing Process?

There are other factors that we might not consider that can hinder our healing process. Here are some things that can prevent time from healing us;

Being fixated on the pain and negative experiences
Refusing to let go of the experience
Being in denial or not allowing yourself to believe the trauma
Not forgiving the other person (or yourself) for the trauma
Not allowing yourself to lean on a social support system to express your emotions
Engaging in unhealthy and negative coping mechanisms
Ruminating on the negative beliefs left from the experience

Tips To Promote The Healing Process

If you’re not utilizing or cooperating with time and letting yourself heal, then it will take more than you might imagine. The more you let your wounds fester, the more chance there will be of catching an infection, won’t it?

The same happens with emotional or psychological hurt too. The more you refuse to work on healing (even with time), the more it’ll take for you to heal.

Here are some tips to help you utilize time and speed up your healing process;

1. Try Cathartic Activities

You need to learn how to express your emotions to let your mind and heart begin the healing process. This means choosing to integrate art-based activities such as making music, writing in a journal, or creating art to express your feelings. Try to pick activities that feel cathartic to prevent suppressing your emotions.

2. Accept Your Emotions

You need to accept your emotions as they are. This is an important step especially when you’ve experienced a traumatic event such as a death of a loved one or a physical injury. You need to accept the emotions that you associate with the event and allow yourself to feel those emotions to move on.

3. Seek Support

Time won’t help if you won’t cooperate with it. Social support can work wonders for your healing journey so spend some time with your social support people. These people can be your friends, family, therapist, or life coach. You need people in your life who can help you with emotional support.

4. Engage In Activities That Support Your Values

You can also speed up your healing by engaging in activities that align with your values. This includes working on your hobbies and interests. You can also choose any of these activities to promote healing with time;

Spending time with friends and family
Connecting with new people
Journaling your thoughts
Meditating on your emotions
Working on your physical health
Making new memories
Expressing your gratitude for things in your life
Forgiving yourself and all who hurt you
Engaging in self-reflection and understanding your emotions
Reaching out to a therapist or life coach
Engaging in creative or expressive arts to express your emotions

Time Is A Healer…

But only when it lets it be one. “Time will heal everything” might be an old saying, but it stands true to this day. Even though many people might swear by it, saying that time is a healer, it might not be true in many cases such as grief over losing a dear one. Time might dull the pain, but it may never truly heal.

The idea of letting time heal all wounds is to allow yourself to find ways in which you can understand, process, and express your emotions so that you can begin your healing journey. If your healing is slow, then don’t blame yourself. There’s time for everything, so be patient with yourself and be self-compassionate.

If you’re still finding it hard to move on or heal, then you can seek a professional’s support. They can help guide you through your emotions and kick-start your healing process. It’s OK to ask for help when time seems to go slow.

I hope this article helps you understand how time heals all wounds, but I also hope that you remember that time is not the only factor to consider on your healing journey.

Swarnakshi Sharma

Understanding Emetophobia! Can Your Phobia of Vomiting Trigger Bulimia?

Post author:admin
Post published:September 19, 2022
Post category:POSTS

I doubt if there is someone who likes throwing up or enjoys vomiting. Most of us are disgusted by it and try to avoid it. Does this mean we all have emetophobia (fear of vomiting)? Emetophobia is a rare mental health condition, it only affects 0.1% of the world population.

Most people assume emetophobia to be very common but not many people fear throwing up. Although frequent vomiting is common in children and young adults, without a traumatic vomiting experience or a strong cause, developing emetophobia is unlikely.

However, knowing the symptoms of emetophobia and the cause of emetophobia is necessary because no matter how rare emetophobia may be, it can happen to anyone.

Let’s read more about the meaning of emetophobia and why it happens…

What Does Emetophobia Mean?

Emetophobia is a mental health condition that can be defined as an intense and irrational fear of vomiting or seeing someone vomit. It is a type of anxiety disorder, the thoughts of vomiting generate a lot of anxiety and panic in someone with emetophobia.

Emetophobia makes you so anxious and fearful about vomiting that even the thought of it makes you feel unsettled. You don’t allow yourself to vomit, look at vomit, think of throwing up or even hear someone vomit.

In emetophobia, the fear is so strong that you can go to any extent to just avoid vomiting. The phobia of vomit has a direct impact on your general well-being and routine life because you completely change your behavior and action so that you can avoid vomiting by all means.

What Are Emetophobia Symptoms?

Emetophobia makes you avoid anything and everything that is associated with vomit or reminds you of vomit or vomit itself. To understand emetophobia better you need to know all symptoms emetophobia has.

Here are some common symptoms of emetophobia;

Avoid places or food items that are associated with vomit
Avoid consuming things that are new to you
Avoid eating outside, eat slowly, and eat very little
Recheck the food more than once to see if it’s stale
Tend to overcook food just to ensure it’s not raw
Avoid touching anything that might have germs
Avoid visiting people in hospitals because of high possibility of seeing someone vomit
Consume medicines to avoid nausea even before having it
Frequently take your own temperature to see if you’re fine
Show signs of germophobia
Strictly avoid even the use of terms like ‘vomit’ or throw up
Run away from people who look sick or ill
Avoid going close to things that smell or look bad
Breathlessness, tightness in the chest, and increased pulse at the thought of vomit

Along with these symptoms of emetophobia, there are some behavioral symptoms like extreme fear of vomit, fear of not finding a washroom to puke, fear of embarrassment caused by vomiting in public, fear of vomiting on someone or thing, etc.

If you see these emetophobia symptoms in yourself or someone you who, you don’t need to worry. You just need to visit a trusted mental health professional and culminate your worries. If at you are diagnosed with emetophobia, you don’t need to panic because emetophobia is easily treatable.

What Causes Emetophobia?

Like any other type of phobia, emetophobia does not really have a particular cause. It can happen to anyone. Having said that, there are a few causes that can make a person more susceptible to developing emetophobia.

Let’s have a look at some of the causes of emetophobia;

Having a traumatic vomiting experience in the past
Having a family history of phobias or anxiety disorders
Having an embarrassing vomit incident in public
Experience bad food poisoning or other vomit-related issues
Watching someone vomit in front of you
Having someone through up on you
Having experienced anxiety or panic during a vomiting episode
Overthinking about vomit and things associated with it

How To Get Over Emetophobia ( Emetophobia Treatment)?

The treatment process for emetophobia is not very complex. Once you are diagnosed with emetophobia, you might go through some talk therapy so that your doctor can understand your triggers and intrusive thoughts about vomit. During that talk therapy, your doctor might help you work through your intense but irrational thoughts so that your emetophobia is controlled.

Along with talking there, your doctor can advise you to invest your time and energy in other types of treatment measures like;

Medication: there are no specific medicines for emetophobia but in some cases, doctors prescribe medicines to reduce the symptoms of anxiety and panic.
Cognitive behavioral therapy: in CBT the therapist helps you identify negative and irrational thoughts and replace them with positive and rational thoughts.
Exposure therapy: it works best for cases like phobias. Your doctor might begin with exploding you to vomit little by little. Once you are able to manage your thoughts on things associated with vomit, the exposure will move on to actual vomit.

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Kirti Bhati

Risk Factors for Postpartum Depression: Family History of Psychiatric Illness

Post author:admin
Post published:September 1, 2022
Post category:POSTS

In the general population, about 15% of women will experience depression after the birth of a child. Given the downstream effects of postpartum depression (PPD) on the child’s health and well-being, it is essential that we be able to identify women at high risk for experiencing PPD. Identifying risk factors before delivery — or even before pregnancy — would allow us to monitor high-risk women more closely and may also afford the opportunity to initiate preventative interventions that mitigate the risk of illness.

A systematic review and meta-analysis from Zacher Kjeldsen and colleagues examined the association between a family history of psychiatric illness and the risk for postpartum depression. In their final analysis, 26 studies were included, containing information on 100,877 women. The meta-analysis showed a twofold increased odds ratio (OR) of developing PPD when mothers had a family history of psychiatric illness (OR, 2.08; 95% CI, 1.67-2.59).

The meta-analysis from the current study indicates an almost twofold increase in the risk of PPD in mothers with a family history of psychiatric disorders compared with mothers without a family history. In other words, women with a family history of psychiatric illness will have a 30% risk of experiencing PPD. While this is a useful piece of information, this is most likely not a surprise to most. We know that having a family history of psychiatric illness increases one’s risk for depression, and having a history of depression increases the risk for PPD. (However, some studies have not shown an association between a family history of psychiatric illness and PPD.)

The current study did not look at specific psychiatric disorders. In another study analyzing data from the Danish medical register, researchers observed that if a woman had a first-degree relative (mother, father, brother, sister, or child) with a history of any psychiatric disorder, her risk of having an episode of postpartum psychiatric illness was about 1.5-fold higher than in women with no family history. However, if the woman had a first-degree relative with a history of bipolar disorder, her risk of having an episode of postpartum psychiatric illness increased nearly threefold. (In contrast to the study from Zacher Kjeldsen and colleagues, the Danish study looked at risk only in women with no personal history of psychiatric illness prior to pregnancy.)

Both studies remind us to ask about family history on both sides of the family. While having a mother or sister who has experienced postpartum psychiatric illness may increase a woman’s risk of PPD, having a brother or father with any type of psychiatric illness also confers significant risk.

What we do not yet know is how various risk factors — such as depressive symptoms during pregnancy or discontinuation of medications — interact with each other, nor do we know how protective factors (e.g., social supports) may modulate risk. Our ultimate goal would be to generate some PPD risk calculator so that we could evaluate each woman and give a more personalized estimate of risk for perinatal psychiatric illness and to select appropriate preventative interventions. This is maybe where big data can help us.

Ruta Nonacs, MD PhD

Zacher Kjeldsen MM, Bricca A, Liu X, Frokjaer VG, Madsen KB, Munk-Olsen T. Family History of Psychiatric Disorders as a Risk Factor for Maternal Postpartum Depression: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. JAMA Psychiatry. 2022 Aug 17.

Understanding the prejudice against, and struggles of the LGBTQIA+ community

Post author:admin
Post published:August 10, 2022
Post category:POSTS

With all the advances in the world, one thing that remains a constant battle is the fight to live as our authentic selves. Here, columnist Bhavna shares the terrible reality for many members of the LGBTQIA+ community and implores us to stand with them to fight for everyone’s right to love, with pride

Love is love. Loving and being loved is the most basic of needs in any organism. Poets tell us that to love is the goal of human existence, and to be loved is the greatest treasure of the heart. And yet, for some like me, who are part of the global LGBTQIA+ community, loving whom we choose could be a death sentence.

Despite advances in LGBTQIA+ rights through Stonewall’s first riot to the Pride marches across the globe, loving someone of the same sex can mean death in many parts of the world.

In June, during our Queen’s Jubilee, the representative of Her Majesty in Indonesia was called to account why there was a Pride flag flying at the British Embassy. This is timely proof that there are still many countries around the world where there is a price to pay for love.

We hear of young couples being reported to authorities, sometimes by their own families, because they are gay and love each other. Why?

We hear of two young women in India, in their early 20s, hounded by their families because they have chosen to be in a loving relationship, and abducted by their families to force them apart, having to go to court to fight for their right to be together. Why?

We hear of corrective rapes in South Africa, and other parts of the world, to ‘teach’ LGBTQIA+ people a lesson. Why?

We hear of trans siblings of the LGBTQIA+ family being harassed and murdered, and transwomen being assaulted and murdered, because they found the courage to be who they are.

We hear of high rates of suicides in the LGBTQIA+ community, because of the stigma of being gay. Why?

We hear of people choosing to enter heterosexual marriage and betray themselves to keep their family happy and take the target off their backs. This raises many other questions. We can’t hide what we feel – I know, I was in the closet for 32 years of my life until it became unbearable to live the lie, and I had to come out before it killed me. I will never get those three decades of my life back.

One of the excuses I read and hear repeatedly about why being LGBTQIA+ could be a death sentence for some is that it is against ‘their’ religion. Yet, despite my study of religious literature over decades, the main lesson I’ve taken from all religions has been love, forbearance, and peace. The final commandment of Jesus was to ‘Love one another as I have loved you.’

The Office for National Statistics found that 1.9 million people in the UK (3.1% of the population) identify as LGB, whereas those identifying as trans number 1%, according to Stonewall.

The National LGBT Survey carried out in 2017 found that LGBT respondents are less satisfied with life compared with the general UK population. Furthermore, more than 66% stated concern about holding hands in public for fear of reprisals. The report stated that at least two in five people had experienced verbal harassment or physical assault due to their sexuality. It further stated that at least 2% had undergone conversion therapy in an attempt to ‘cure’ them of being LGBT. A further 24% of responders had sought mental health support in the 12 months of the survey. These statistics are not surprising, considering people’s views towards the community.

This is the same report by the government that stated ‘none of this is acceptable and went ahead to publish their LGBT Action Plan, and yet still refuses to ban conversion therapy for people identifying as trans.

I have worked with many clients that have identified as LGBTQIA+ over the years, and who have struggled with their sexuality. I’ve had therapy myself to overcome my struggle with my sexuality and end a marriage. We have been lucky to have found the strength and courage to seek help. But what about those who felt that they had no choice but to take their own lives to stop the horrific pain? There are two cousins in my own family who took their own lives. The taboo against being LGBTQIA+ is great in Asian and African cultures and countries where being gay is still illegal.

Many families from ethnic minorities blame being LGBTQIA+ as a Western fad, and yet this community has been around for thousands of years.

In some cultures such as the First Nations Tribes in the USA, it was respected and revered as Twin-Spirit people. Despite the need for a lot of work still to be done to make people understand that we are born this way, and no amount of beatings, abuse, or conversion ‘therapies’ can change this fact, I am pleased to see more specially trained therapists like myself offer support with issues that face the LGBTQIA+ community. I am encouraged that more people are choosing to live their truth and be authentic, but we still have a very long way to go, as long as prejudice still exists.

If you have an LGBTQIA+ person in your life, love them, and support them. They are precious, too. Happy Pride, love is love.

Cluster C Personality Disorders: Living with Fear and Anxiety

Post author:admin
Post published:July 24, 2022
Post category:POSTS

A personality disorder is a psychological condition where the person thinks and behaves differently. The thought process and actions of an individual with personality disorders are away from what is expected out of them, they are very atypical.

People with a personality disorder do things that they aren’t supposed to do, things that society looks down upon or doesn’t approve of. Some people end up doing bizarre things because of their personality disorders.

Today, we will be discussing the cluster C of personality disorders. To make the diagnosing and treatment easy for personality disorders, they were divided into 3 clusters, such as

The cluster C of personality disorder is not much talked about. So, we will be discussing all cluster C personality disorder characteristics, causes, treatments, etc.

Let’s get started;

What is Cluster C Personality Disorders?

Cluster C Personality disorders are a set of 3 different personality disorders which share some common traits like fearfulness and anxiety. The entire cluster C of personality disorders revolves around anxiety, doubt, and fear besides the specific symptoms of personality disorder.

I say so because anxiety, fear, and doubt almost remain constant in all the disorders falling in cluster C personality disorders. It doesn’t matter what the situation may be these three traits are present almost all the time.

People who deal with cluster C personality disorder often struggle to maintain relationships. There are various other mental health implications as well like self-esteem issues, feelings of worthlessness, self-doubt, etc.

What Causes Cluster C Personality Disorders?

The exact cause of cluster c personality disorders has not yet been discovered. Having said that, many experts believe that there are a few risk factors involved which might play a role in developing personality disorders of cluster c.

Let’s have a look at them;

Genetics
Past experiences
Traumatic experiences
Early exposure to relationship issues
Cultural influences

Characteristics Of Cluster C Personality Disorders

Like I told you earlier, cluster C personality disorders consist of 3 different types of personality disorders. All three of them show traits of anxiety, fear, and doubt in common. Let’s look at the characteristics of cluster C personality disorder according to each disorder;

1. Avoidant personality disorder

Avoid social interaction because of fear of rejection or disapproval
Low self-esteem
Talk to others only when they are sure that others like them
Don’t try new things because of fear of rejection
Obsessed with thoughts of being criticized or rejected
Struggle with feelings of inadequacy
Feelings of shame when out in public

2. Dependent personality disorder

Want others to take responsibility for major things in their lives
Face issues with decision making
Constant need of seeking approval and reassurance from others
They fear confrontation
Can go to any lengths to get their comfort back
Struggle with self-doubt
Feel uncomfortable when left all alone
In a constant need of support
Fear of being left on their own

3. Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder

Obsessed with following rules and organizing things
Obsessed with perfectionism
Intolerance of any change in belief
Obsessed with work (workaholics)
Are very stubborn
Might have a hoarding disorder
Don’t spend money because they want to save it in case they run out of money
Can’t work in teams unless everyone works exactly how they want.

How To Treat Cluster C Personality Disorders?

Cluster C personality disorders are treatable conditions. Most of the symptoms can be treated and managed in such a way that they stop interfering with your life. Once your doctor has diagnosed your condition you will either be prescribed medication, psychotherapy, or a combination of both depending on the severity of your symptoms.

Cognitive behavioral therapy works best in reducing the symptoms of cluster c personality disorders. CBT focuses on identifying the intrusive negative thoughts and finding a replacement for them so that they don’t bother you anymore.

Thanks for reading.

Take care and stay safe.

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