Today we are taking some time to talk about emotion regulation, or more accurately, dysregulation. According to Google, emotion regulation is: “the ability to respond to an experience with a range of emotions in a manner that is socially acceptable and flexible enough to permit spontaneous reactions, as well as the ability to delay spontaneous reactions as needed.” What it comes down to is: it is the ability to experience and express your emotions in a way that is not threatening to the self or causes social distress. The problem is that this is not easy for everyone to do.

We all experience emotions, both negative and positive, on a daily basis. However, for some, these emotions can become very overpowering and can cause them to react in a way that may result in personal harm or upset to their social environments and relationships. Emotion regulation is the skill people possess that generally describes that person’s ability to effectively manage and respond to an emotional experience, without the aforementioned personal and social disturbances.

Continue “Emotion dysregulation and 5 signs thereof.”

According to Forbes magazine, by the year 2030, millennials will represent 75% of the work force population. But, why should this be important and why do we need to understand them better?

Millennials are the demographic cohort following generation X and typically include individuals born in the early 1980’s as starting birth years, through to the mid 1990’s and early 2000’s as ending birth years. They are marked by an increased use and familiarity with communication, media, and digital technologies and they also have liberal approaches to politics and economics. The reason it is important to understand this group is because they are currently the movers and shakers of the political and economic spheres. However, they also hold a very specific set of belief systems, which influence the way in which they make sense of their world. It is also these belief systems which may lead to irrational expectations, relationship breakdown, emotional distress and an inability to cope in the workforce. Here are some of the reasons it is so hard being a millennial. Continue “Why it is so hard to be a Millennial”

To get through our day as sane as possible, we often tend to tolerate situations, people and behaviours which may be bad for our emotional wellbeing. Often we tolerate these things because we may not have the skills needed to address them right away. Other times, we may not address them in order to avoid conflict or negative emotions, or because addressing them is a straight-up inconvenience. You may have even built up quite an impressive tolerance to your emotional stressors, but there are some things you should never tolerate.

Continue “6 Things you should never tolerate”

“Like a city whose walls are broken is a person who lacks self-control”.         (Proverbs 25:28). On a daily basis I am confronted with people who are unable to maintain healthy relationships, whether personal or professional, and the main reason for these relationship breakdowns is very simply the lack of personal and professional boundaries.

Boundaries are very important in any relationship, as they are our safety structures. Without them we are vulnerable and we may end up in some very uncomfortable situations.

Here are a few signs that you may have unhealthy boundaries: Continue “7 Signs you may have unhealthy boundaries.”

We all experience bad days: those days where you just feel that the world is on your shoulders and you have all the energy of a permanently exhausted pigeon. For people who suffer from depression, anxiety, or a host of other mental health issues, this is not the exception – it’s the rule. It’s about being too tired to get up or having such low motivation that you can’t even think about doing anything other than just lying in the same position forever. This is the daily struggle of someone suffering from a mental illness. Although medication and therapy can and do make a big change in these peoples’ lives, happiness still relies on the person and the choices they make to keep themselves positive, happy, and motivated.

Now please don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that someone with a mental illness should just snap out of it (I know that feeling all too well). What I am saying is that, as with most chronic illnesses and especially depression and other chronic mental health problems, it is a fight for health every day. The moment you give in or decide to just give up on life, you allow the depression to steal just a little bit more of who you are. Whether you are suffering from a mental illness, going through a slump, or just having a bad day, here are a few simple things you can do on a daily basis that will turn those down days into more positive and constructive days.

Continue “How to Have a Good Day When You Suffer From a Mental Illness”

We all experience life very differently, but moreover we all express our experiences in different ways. Some are able to talk about their experiences, some write about them and others may even sing about them. Today I would like to share with you a poem that was written by someone who experienced a very sick, mentally ill patient for the first time.

Due to the stigma surrounding mental illness that exists in our society, many of you may think that this is a poem about fear and the unknown, but it is the exact opposite: it is the recognition of the self and the need to be known.

Continue “Experiencing Mental Illness”

Working in a psychiatric environment can at times be very challenging. This is not only because it is a job which requires a high emotional input, but also because, by the time you meet the patients, they have already been through hell. The closest person they come into contact with at that moment in time may just be the person onto whom their anger and frustration gets released.

But, that being said, these environments are also places of hope. Where the hope (that you may have felt was lost forever) returns. It is a place where your faith in humanity gets restored. It takes a very special type of person with a real passion to pick up that responsibility, whether you are a classic mental health care worker such as a doctor, nurse or therapist, or if you are working behind the scenes to make sure the system keeps running smoothly. Each of these people, through their care, is able to change people’s lives.

Continue “Frontline Psychiatry”

Communication is important in all relationships, whether it is an intimate relationship, a friendship or between colleagues at work. We might never know that we’re doing something to offend another person unless someone points it out to us because according to our way of thinking, we’re not doing anything wrong.

Let me give you an example.  Three of us at Vista Clinic were invited to a school for an appreciation lunch.  I offered that we should all go in my car.  Firstly, I have to say that I am still a loner.  I hardly ever have passengers, even though I have a family car.  But on this day, two of my colleagues were in the car with me and on our way back, one of them said: ‘Deon drives like the busses in Mauritius.  He pulls away with great speed and my head is against the seat, but when he stops my face is on the dashboard!’  The two of them laughed, but I looked at them and asked: Really?
I didn’t know this until she pointed it out to me.  I started to concentrate on what I do while driving, and discovered that it’s true! Now that I am aware of it, I can work on my driving habits in order to become a safer driver.

Continue “Speak the truth in love”

It is Valentine’s Day… Whoop whoop! So here are a few steps to make sure that you are the best “Valentine” this year.

Step 1: Know it is Valentine’s Day.

Okay, so we have already nailed step one. By this time, your Facebook, e-mails and phone has probably reminded you that it is V-day. If you forgot – no worries! You know now, and the next few steps will help you be the most awesome “Valentine” ever.

Step 2: Forget what you think you know about Valentine’s Day.

The nay-sayers will tell you that Valentine’s Day is only a holiday invented by the greeting card companies and chocolate manufactures to make more money out of you. Furthermore, if you Google Valentine’s Day, you will be surprised by all the legends, tall tales and half-truths. But, the point is, it is about love and celebrating connectedness, so don’t get caught up in the past of what it means or the retail gimmicks – see it for what it is: a celebration of love! And this includes all types of love, be it parental love, friendship, or romantic love.

Continue “How to be the best Valentine this Valentine’s Day.”

The first step in letting things go is being able to accept that you need to let them go. For most, this is the problem: we hold on to things so tightly because of an uncontrollable fear. We fear that if we let it go, we would have no idea how to cope anymore. Take anger, for example: every day I work with people who have pent-up anger which they are so eager to get rid of, but when given the opportunity to let go of the anger, most of them don’t. The reason is fairly simple: because when we are angry, we have something to hold on to. It is much like a life raft that keeps us connected to the pain in our life and we believe that by letting it go, we are telling others that what they did to us was okay.

STOP! Letting go does not mean you are weak or you are now somehow putting an “okay” sticker on others’ hurtful behaviour. Letting go means we allow ourselves to move forward. So here are some things you should let go of in 2017.

Continue “let it go!”