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Experiences a person has in childhood influence the character traits they develop as they grow to become adults. Some children are abandoned by their parents, a form of abuse that can be profoundly traumatic and leave emotional scars for years to come. Borderline personality disorder is, in part, caused by trauma and leads to abandonment issues in relationships and problems with drugs or alcohol. The weight of emotional baggage can be lightened with therapy. Learn about the signs of abandonment issues in adulthood and the types of therapies that can help individuals heal.

Being in relationships with others, whether romantic or platonic, can make you aware of your attachment style. Understanding your attachment style can help you cultivate healthy relationships with loved ones, romantic partners, and friends. This is possible even after years of experiencing unhealthy relationship dynamics due to trauma, mental illness, and substance use.

Discovering inner peace requires a pattern of asking yourself what you need to feel at peace with yourself while letting go of what you do not need. It also means beginning to trust yourself rather than judge yourself and accept where you are rather than force yourself to be somewhere you are not.

Experiencing stress is very common, and some stress is important to experience. Stress allows you to be challenged, stimulated, and grow. Although, when stressors in your life are constant or increased, stress can become chronic. Chronic stress can cause adverse mental and physical health side effects that get in the way of everyday life.

Contrary to popular belief, a person does not develop an eating disorder because they are weak or have no self-control. Instead, an eating disorder is a mental health condition that factors such as genetics or trauma can cause. An individual's quality of life can significantly deteriorate as they experience ongoing stress and even life-threatening complications from an eating disorder. This article will focus on binge eating, the most common eating disorder in the United States, and how treatment can help.

Healing is a process of beginning to feel safe in allowing yourself to be more human. Experiences of trauma often produce the desire to be perfect through control over your environment, emotions, thoughts, and actions. Perfectionism can give you a false sense of safety when you do not feel safe without being in control due to living in chaotic environments with complex family dynamics.

Healing is a process of tapping into your healthy self and beginning to make decisions from this part of you. This is done with acceptance of unhealthy parts of you that may have kept you stuck in ways that were not in alignment with the goals and desires you have for recovery. When you can cultivate awareness around the different parts of you that exist and begin a conversation with different parts of yourself, you can also build trust with your healthy self. This is a catalyst to creating change and fostering your expansion and growth.

Experiencing mental illnesses such as anxiety and depression can disconnect you from your inner power. Recovery is what allows you to get back in touch with the innate, intuitive, and powerful parts of yourself that you become disconnected from as a result of mental illness. You can get used to barely getting by, and you may not even have the awareness that feeling connected to yourself is possible.

Loss can be a truly traumatic and ground-shaking experience that no person should have to confront alone. A social support system is critical for healthily processing the stages of grief. You can overcome turmoil by participating in group therapy and connecting with others who understand what you are going through.

Having structure early in recovery can be helpful to ensure you are doing what you need to do to reach your goals, make it to appointments, and create safety in new ways of living. It is easy to miss appointments, forget what you know about how to help yourself, and set yourself up to “fail” when there is not a supportive structure in place. This is why structure in recovery is so important.

Beginning treatment and therapy to recover from mental illness and/or substance use disorder can feel scary but liberating—there can be excitement in knowing that healing is possible but fear in not knowing what this means, looks, or feels like for you. Part of healing means accepting uncertainty and making peace with not knowing. There are also things you can generally expect in your first therapy session, which can help ease the anxiety you may be feeling.

Intrusive thoughts can cause high amounts of distress, especially if individuals struggle with mental illness of any sort. Intrusive thoughts can feel all-consuming and seem like they are true. Learning to see intrusive thoughts for what they are and release them is possible and an important part of experiencing relief from musings for peace of mind.