I am honored to have my Twitter feed included in this list of 50 Best Twitter Feeds for Psychology Majors! Go check out the other 49, broken out into these categories: News; Organizations; Patients; and Professionals.

Best Tweets for Trauma and PTSD Survivors is a weekly Friday feature. My selections are entirely subjective, and I know it will never be possible to include every great resource tweeted. But I can try! I’ve personally read all tweeted links, and believe them to be of great value.

Disclaimer: I am in no way responsible for content found on any other website. Stay safe, and don’t follow links if you believe you might be triggered by them. Also, I will not be re-checking links from older Best Tweets posts, and if the site’s archived URL is different from the one I’ve provided here, you may need to do a search on their site.

Please Share My Stuff! You can now “like” and “share” this post everywhere with the touch of a button or two at the end of the linked tweets! Feel free to do any or all of that! (And thanks.)

Photo Credit

@HealthyPlace “People take different roads
seeking fulfillment and happiness.
Just because they’re not on your road
doesn’t mean they’re lost.” ~ Dalai Lama

Six Standalone Tweets to Ponder

@zebraspolkadots “Awareness is the opposite of avoidance. To break behaviors that help us avoid life is to choose to live in awareness.”

@HealthyPlace “Acceptance and tolerance and forgiveness, those are life-altering lessons.” ~ Jessica Lange

@DrAthenaStaik “We cannot do everything at once, but we can do something at once.” ~ Calvin Coolidge

@PsychDigest “The bend in the road is not the end of the road unless you fail to make the turn.”

@PemaQuotes “So the challenge is how to develop compassion right along with clear seeing, how to train in lightening up and cheering up…”

@StevenHandel “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” ~ Kurt Vonnegut

Linked Tweets

@SarahEOlson2009 PTSD: Symptoms, Treatment and Self-Help (via helpguide.org)
[SEO: Extensive, well-organized resources for all things related to PTSD. A good place to start if you are new to the diagnosis, or to give loved ones to help them understand more about PTSD. The PTSD index is in the right column; other possibly related topics are in the left column.]

@HealthyPlace Supporting Someone with Bipolar: For Family and Friends
[SEO: This link provides a compendium of articles on Healthy Place pertaining to supporting a person with bipolar, whether by friend, spouse, or other family member. An excellent resource that anyone diagnosed with bipolar should point their loved ones to for support.]

@PsychCentral Healing Together: Why Can’t We Speak About Rape? Finding a Voice
[SEO: Although found in a blog focused on couples, this comprehensive, thoughtful look at rape and its impact is for anyone dealing with it, whether as part of a couple or not. It also can help anyone wishing to better understand rape’s devastating effects upon a loved one.]

@SarahEOlson2009 Psychiatric News Alert: Antipsychotics May Cause Diabetes By Thwarting Crucial Pathway
[SEO: “Antipsychotics — some of the most prescribed medications in the United States — can interfere with normal metabolism by activating a protein in the transforming growth factor beta pathway…. Moreover, antipsychotics known to cause obesity and diabetes were found to activate this pathway, whereas antipsychotics that are not known to raise risk of obesity and diabetes did not.”

When TV commercials rattle off potential side effects of specific drugs, pay attention to “may raise blood sugar” or “may cause weight gain”. If I were not already an overweight diabetic (in which case, those drugs will never be offered to me), I’d never want to take on the risk of becoming one via these drugs. Be your own best advocate. Know what you are being prescribed, and what the risks are. Discuss it with your doctor.]

@LillyAnn The Pause Upon Which All Else Relies (via @zen_habits)
[SEO: “When we fail, it’s because we act on urges without thinking, without realizing it. … What if instead we learned to pause after each urge? What if we stopped, looked at that urge, paid close attention to what it feels like inside our bodies, but didn’t act? The urge would no longer control us. We would be able to make conscious choices that might be healthier for us, help us be happier. If we can pause, we create space. Space to breathe, to think, to be without acting.”]

@PTSDandYOU We Are Failing Our Veterans With PTSD: The Life and Death of Sonny Mazon (via @HuffingtonPost)
[SEO: “He didn’t get the help that he needed to heal the pain of his memories from Afghanistan, and as he withdrew from his friends and family he descended into an abyss of sadness. His relationship with his girlfriend had always been problematic, but it became violent. He hurt her badly in a fit of rage, was arrested for domestic abuse, and chose to end his life. We shouldn’t whitewash over the violence of his actions, but the context of his life story does help us to see his crime in a different light.”

These issues — increasing suicides, substance abuse, potential for domestic abuse — are not going away any time soon. It is in everyone’s best interests that the U.S. Government do far more than it currently is to provide timely effective treatment — without the stigma attached — to our service members.]

@kbellbarnett Gawker Confessions of a Therapist: Are psychologists allowed to publish their clients’ secrets? (via @slate)
[SEO: “Can your shrink spill your secrets? Yes, if your identity is concealed.” Article discusses ethics involved and potential violations, and the difference between ethics required of a “therapist” vs. a “psychologist”. Long before my personal story was published in my book, I expressly gave my therapist permission to discuss my case in whatever format he deemed appropriate. If this is an issue for you, discuss it with your clinician.]

@Mindful_Living Getting Unstuck from Automatic Negative Thinking
[SEO: “Simply the knowledge that your thoughts are more inclined toward the negative primes your mind to begin to question these thoughts as they come. For example, in a moment you find your mind swirling on negative details you may start to also have a thought arise, ‘my mind has a bias toward the negative.’ This thought pops you into a mindful space, a moment of clarity and choice that I call The Now Effect.”

“In this space you will have the awareness to ask the question ‘Is this thought true? What evidence do I have for this thought? Is there another way I can see this situation?’ This opens the door to see opportunities and possibilities you never knew existed.”]

@natasha_tracy Acceptance of Bipolar [or any Mental] Disorder is a Process
[SEO: (While the original post is aimed at bipolar diagnosis, its author also tweeted the post using the more generic “mental disorder” descriptor. Anyone recently diagnosed with any mental disorder can benefit from this post.) “The diagnosis of a mental illness is a loss. No, it’s not the loss of your mind, but it’s a loss. It’s a loss of your understanding of who you are. It’s a loss of how you see yourself. It’s a loss of control. It’s a loss of many things depending on the impact of your personal illness. And losses beget grief. Or losses beget grieving, and grieving is a process.”]