This week’s focus: mental health in the news

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

@LillyAnn “Springtime is at hand.
When will you ever bloom,
if not here and now?” ~ Angelus Silesius

Some Tweets to Ponder

@healthyplace “Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.” ~ Albert Camus

‏@zebraspolkadots “Boundaries are not about what I will ‘let’ others do or not do but about what I will stick around for. #lifelesson”

@AncientProverbs “The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be.” ~ Socrates

@WisdomalaCarte “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” ~ Alice Walker

@AnnTran_ “The quieter you become, the more you are able to hear.” ~ Zen Saying

Linked Tweets

In the News

@PsychCentral Bring Your Child to See ‘Bully’ Despite the R Rating
[SEO: “Watching the film is a teachable moment for you and your child. As parents, you can help your child develop a sense of integrity that no one should be treated poorly and feel unsafe. Additionally, you are letting your child know that you do take this matter seriously and they should not be afraid to tell you should this happen. The shame felt by victims and bystanders all too often helps perpetuate the bullying cycle.”]

@PsychCentral Lifetime Traumatic Stress Linked to Heightened Inflammation
[SEO: “‘Not everyone who is exposed to trauma develops PTSD,’ said Cohen, who also is an assistant professor of medicine at UCSF. ‘This study emphasizes that traumatic stress can have a long-term negative impact on your health even if you don’t go on to develop PTSD. … What we think is happening is that people with a history of multiple traumatic stress exposures have increased inflammatory response more often and for longer periods, and so inflammation becomes chronically high. … ‘”

Other recent studies have indicated a correlation between heightened inflammation and heart disease, diabetes, and immune system disorders. For me, and a lot of child abuse survivors, this is science catching up to what we’ve long intuitively known: that traumatic stress transfers to the body in insidious ways.]

For Veterans and Military Families

@IAVAPressRoom Honoring a Service Member’s Ultimate Sacrifice, Whether It Was Made on the Battlefield or Not (via @nytimes)
[SEO: “Far too often, we at the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS), hear similar stories from military families who have suffered the loss of a loved one who died while serving in the armed forces and then are denied ‘gold star’ status because their loved ones did not die in a combat zone or were not killed in action.” …

“While we were heartened to see the White House expand the policy in 2011 to send presidential condolence letters to the families of those who die by suicide while stationed in combat zones, the policy continues to exclude the two-thirds of families whose military loved ones die by suicide in other locations.”

@WarriorCare Read about what the Red Sox are doing for wounded warriors
[SEO: The Red Sox Foundation paired with Mass. General Hospital to form the Home Base program for vets and their families. Describes local (to Boston area) programs, and includes PTSD and TBI resources for veterans, clinicians, and the general public.]

@PsychCentral Facebook For Veterans With PTSD
[SEO: “A neuro-scientist who’s done research for the Pentagon, Paul MacDonald, PhD, has created an online center on Facebook for veterans [at Veteran Central, many of whom need some kind of assistance reintegrating back into daily life after their tours of duty. The site is also an excellent resource for veterans struggling with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), traumatic brain injury (TBI), and other mental issues.”

“In addition to information about job postings, scholarships, and programs of all kinds, Veteran Central offers comprehensive forums, podcasts, videos, and articles—most of which are created by veterans themselves. Although the site is geared towards all veterans, there are plenty of resources for those with PTSD and TBI….”]

The Rest of the Best

@natasha_tracy Warning Signs of a Suicide Attempt
[SEO: “Some of these predictive factors are noticeable by others, while others are not. The biggest factor in predicting a suicide attempt, no surprise to me, is anxiety. While 80% of people who attempted suicide had a depressed mood, 92% had severe anxiety. (Emphasis in original.) It is my belief the nervous (anxious) energy of anxiety is often what causes people to act on their suicidal thoughts.”

Includes lists of both predictive and non-predictive factors for suicide. “If those are the predictors of a suicide attempt that’s actually good news because now we can know for what to look. We can identify high-risk people and high-risk times for ourselves and others.”]

@healthyplace Are You Lonely?
[SEO: Discusses what is loneliness?; what would it feel like if you were not lonely?; 7 ways to relieve loneliness; and “get close to five” — a plan to include five people in your life that you can feel close to.]

@KimbersP Simple changes can have a huge impact on people’s mental health. The Mental Health Foundation’s tips.
[SEO: “Anyone can make simple changes that have a huge impact on their mental health and wellbeing. We’ve come up with ten practical ways to take care of yourself and get the most from life.” These are broad categories that everyone would do well to address, or improve upon.]

@ashwinsanghi Why We Find It Hard to Do Things That Are Good for Us
[SEO: A great discussion about various types of resistance that hold us back from doing things that are good for us, that feel great when done, and even that we want to do … but somehow don’t. Are these things familiar? Resistance to change; to what we might find; to being nice to ourselves; to trusting a process; to our own humanity. Yes, these things still follow me around like my shadow.]