Recovery means something different to every person. Most of us are in recovery from something. Recovery from the end of relationships, from substance use, from an addiction to eating or shopping, or really any struggle that has impacted life in difficult ways. As a teenager I needed help find recovery from the struggles that high…

You’ve probably encountered someone in your life and have written off their quirky behaviors to OCD. Perhaps this friend was overly neat and organized. Maybe they were excessively clean and were taken to be a germophobe. Possibly, this person just seemed uptight and needed to learn to relax. Or, so you thought. In reality, OCD…

How often do you see young people on their phone? If you answered anything other than all the time, you are not interacting with the same teenagers that we are. Phone and tablet use is so common that it is even being added to their school curriculum. Prompts such as “find this resource online and…

Mood disorders are very common mental health diagnoses. Experiencing a mood disorder can be characterized by a distortion in mood that makes functioning difficult. A person may be very sad, depression, happy, angry, and may struggle to maintain a mood state. At any age, people who experience mood disorders may be more likely to engage…

Today’s teenagers face a multitude of pressures, among which include the need for good grades and the ability to get into a good college. But aside from academics, teens also experience several pressures that can be quite worrisome for parents, including pressures to try drugs or to have sex. With both drugs and sex, once…

Though it seems that teen drug use as it pertains to cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamines is stable, if not on the decline, drug use and abuse is still prevalent. Whether it be alcohol abuse, prescription medication misuse and abuse, and one of the more common behaviors that we are seeing, vaping, teens today are still…

Stress can reduce our quality of life in unimaginable ways. It is a human experience and one of the few things that bond us all together. We all experience stress. The magnitude of those stressors are different, but it is something we can all relate to. Even infants feel stress as they cry waiting for…

In your everyday life, you probably have no reason to even talk about “coping mechanisms” on a regular basis. However, if you or a loved one were to be faced with a mental health issue of some kind, I would be willing to bet that you may hear and use these words often. First and…

As we enter into the fall season, households across America start packing up their summer wear. And, they start pulling out fall clothing and warm blankets, and switching the thermostat from air conditioning to heating. For many Americans, however, fall means an emotional change as well. In fact, the fall season is well known for…

Eating disorders can be caused by a variety of reasons. In most cases, they stem from an obsession with body weight, food, or body shape. In these cases, the person with the eating disorder has some sort of altered reality about their situation or tries to overcompensate for that perceived shortcoming. Though most of us…