Tag: anxiety

All Birds Have Anxiety – REVIEW

Valerie @ Valerie's MusingsLeave a comment

4 out of 5 stars.

All Birds Have Anxiety is the third in a series of books that Kathy Hoopmann wrote about different types of mental illnesses and developmental disabilities. It was a good book about an important subject matter, but not my favorite in the series.

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Purchase Links: Amazon – B&N

Synopsis

Life as a bird can be stressful! From worrying about airplanes, windows, and getting enough worms to eat, it is clear that birds can be anxious beings. Through a light-touch, quizzical depiction of bird behaviour, All Birds Have Anxiety uses colourful images and astute explanations to explore with gentle humour what it means to live with anxiety day-to-day, and how to begin to deal with it.

Following the style of the best-selling All Cats Have Asperger Syndrome and All Dogs Have ADHD, wonderful colour photographs express the complex and difficult ideas related to anxiety disorder in an easy-to-understand way. This simple yet profound book validates the deeper everyday experiences of anxiety, provides an empathic understanding of the many symptoms associated with anxiety, and offers compassionate suggestions for change.

The combination of understanding and gentle humour make this the ideal introduction to anxiety disorder for those diagnosed with this condition, their family and friends and those generally interested in understanding anxiety.

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© Graphic Garden

Review

While the information in this book is great, there was just something about it that seemed “off”. I can’t even really put my finger on it, but I definitely didn’t like it as well as I liked the previous books, All Cats Have Asperger Syndrome and All Dogs have ADHD.

However, the information given was very well done. Simple language is used to help kids understand what anxiety is and what it might feel like in their bodies. The book discusses how to overcome anxiety as well in simple steps that are easy for any age to follow. Things like facing your fears so they don’t become even more overwhelming in your mind, controlling your breathing, etc.

The photos of the birds are beautiful and many of them seem to be experiencing anxiety when we look at them. I believe they can help children realize that they’re not the only ones feeling the way they do.  It can also help parents and other family and friends realize that this is a real issue and not something the child is doing to garner attention or get out of doing something.

All in all it’s a decent book and I do recommend it.

Life with Depression & Anxiety

Valerie @ Valerie's Musings6 Comments

As I said in my welcome post, while this blog will mostly be book reviews, there will be  occasional posts of my musings on life. Today is one of those posts.

I have several mental illnesses, including depression and anxiety. For the most part, I’m still able to work full-time and do some things after work, depending on how many “spoons” I have left after work (Here’s a link if you don’t know what “spoons” means: The Spoon Theory).  Unfortunately, for the last 2 weeks or so, getting thru work has taken every single “spoon” I have for the day. By the time I make it through work, I’m utterly spent. If I do anything at night, it’s playing mindless computer games (Candy Crush Jelly, anyone?).

Of course, then my anxiety kicks in because I have all these books that I need to read for review purposes and I’m not getting to them. This in turn makes my depression worse, with depression kicking my butt, telling me I’m useless and worthless because I can’t get things done in the time frame that I said I would. Then my anxiety gets worse, etc… It can become a seemingly never-ending cycle in my head. I work hard at not letting it really bring me down. Most days I’m successful, but sometimes, it just feels like life is so overwhelming, I have an elephant on my back. This is one of those times.

I don’t share these things to elicit pity or whatever emotion it invokes in you. I share it for two reasons.

1) To serve as a semi-apology. The anxiety ridden part of me says I should apologize for not having a post in over a week. Particularly when I have such a large queue of things to read. Logically my brain knows that I don’t need to give an apology, but I’ve found in these situations, it’s better to issue the apology instead of stewing about it for weeks. It helps keep the panic at bay for a while longer. It’s a perfect example of picking one’s battles. I need my spoons for fighting off the negative thoughts about myself that depression gives me, not for fighting the panic of not apologizing, especially if apologizing will take care of that panic for me.

2) I’m a firm believer that if we don’t talk about mental illnesses and mental health issues, they won’t lose their stigma. You never know who in your life might be suffering from one or more mental illnesses. Those of us who suffer from mental health issues often hide them because the stigma behind them is so huge. I’m pretty careful about how much I share and with whom. You never know how someone’s going to react when you tell them about these things. I don’t want to lose friendships over it, or the job I love. Consequently, I work really hard at not letting them interfere with my life.

Most days, if you saw me at my job, you’d never know I was battling these illnesses. But I know they’re there and I know how tough the battle is, but very few would be able to tell. My job is in the customer service field, which means working with the public. I do all I can to be a smiley, cheerful figure for people to in order to help them the best I can.  Sometimes, it just doesn’t work and more of the depression seeps through, but most days you wouldn’t be able to tell.

During the harder times, I try to stay positive and try to not get too down on myself. I have to live with these conditions for the rest of my life so I’ve got to make the best of it. Sometimes that means I have to be gentle with myself and try to control the panic over not getting things done when I want to. Sometimes that means finding someone to help motivate me and get something done. And sometimes it just means I need to rest more.

I’m not ashamed that I have depression and anxiety. Yes, some days they’re really tough to work with and life doesn’t go so well. Other days they’re more manageable and I can go about living my life. But I do have to be realistic and know that sometimes, sometimes I’m just going to have to rest and not get everything done. It sucks, but I know from experience, it’ll just make things worse if I push myself too far.

So for now, I’m behind on reviews. I’m hoping that things will improve soon so I can back on track. Please bear with me. Thank you for being here and reading my posts.