Active listening involves concentration, understanding, responding when appropriate and only to an appropriate degree, and letting the other person guide the conversation as they need. And it’s still a conversation so long as one person is talking (or snotting on your sleeve) and another is paying attention.
Month: January 2017
Facebook Needs a Kick in The Ass
Facebook has a particular set of what it calls community standards that it has developed over the years as a way of harmonising the varied cultural ways and mores of its users, or so they will tell you if asked. It’s a work-in-progress they might say as well, evidenced most recently by their attempts to fight the onslaught of “fake news” and horribly partisan propaganda from both ends that we've all been drowning in lately.
We Need to Talk About Mental Health
In Canada, yesterday was #BellLetsTalk day, an event one of our larger telecommunications companies began some years ago to advance the awareness of mental health issues and reduce the stigmas surrounding them. It’s actually rather brilliantly done, too, considering how it uses various social media platforms to offer a distinct reward for those who do … Continue reading We Need to Talk About Mental Health
Do I Really Want to Die?
After my mother had passed, and already struggling with my injury worse than I ever had before, I remember sitting right here, at this very desk, and, wracked with big, heaving, sobs while the sun still shone outside my window, Googling “if I kill myself will I still go to heaven?”
Abuse of The Safe Space Concept
The concept of a safe place, a happy place, the use of it physically or only in minds of those who need one, and its efficacy as a useful and valid tool to manage anxiety are under threat because of a small but vocal bunch of thugs who throw it like they were throwing rocks.
The Nature of Dignity
Dignity is such a tender thing, gentle and diaphanous, and so easily disturbed that our reactions when it is can be very raw. When a person fits into the narrow little cubbyhole of expectations that our culture allows us, it’s easy to forget just how quickly it can be upset, because when we maintain that focus, keep up with the Joneses, it seems nailed on like aluminum siding when in reality we’re still only just pinning it to our faces with our own expectations.
Being The Astute Patient
The onus is ours to be prudent consumers, to advocate for ourselves as much as we can without losing sight of the contribution of others we trust, and to be our very own educated healthcare professionals.
Structure, Routine & Planning
Structure and routine are important to me, and many of those like me, regardless of the severity of their anxiety. It allows a certain level of control that we need in order to properly function, and we’re often unable to respond to last minutes changes very well.
The Cream in My Coffee
On the Road From Hiraeth is an expedition into thoughts and ideas, concepts both academic and pragmatic, that began as simple (often shorter - sorry about that) Facebook posts. I have no wonderfully impressive scholarly credentials, and what I write now is meant primarily for my own benefit, my own journey, but shared for whatever benefit others might glean from it as well as a personal desire help where I can.
I Can Take It, Doc
Can I be cured? There’s a question and a half, and one without an easy answer. I recall once telling my doctor that I was sure this would never go away, that I was never going to not have PTSD, and the look she gave me (she always has trouble keeping a professionally straight face with me) was one of shock with an equal measure of wor
Patrick Riley 