Date:  Tuesday, May 7 @ 7:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. (EST)

Register:  https://www4.gotomeeting.com/register/469236071

Description:  This special Mother’s Day webinar features best-selling author and Psych Central blogger Zoë Kessler (ADHD from A to Zoë) and special guest Lisa Aro, aka “Queen of the Distracted.”

Mark it on your calendar now, and check out additional information about the webinar inside…

The opposite of depression is not happiness, according to Peter Kramer, author of “Against Depression” and “Listening to Prozac,” it is resilience: the ability to cope with life’s frustrations without falling apart.

Proper treatment doesn’t suppress emotions or dull a person’s ability to feel things deeply. It builds a protective layer — an emotional resilience — to safeguard a depressive from becoming overwhelmed and disabled by the difficulties of daily life.

However, the tools found in happiness research are those I practice in my recovery from depression and anxiety, even though, theoretically, I can be happy and depressed at the same time. I came up with my own recovery program that coincides with the steps toward happiness published in positive psychology studies.

Labels can haunt you forever. What makes them particularly insidious is how unaware most of us are to its debilitating affects.

A diagnosis from a doctor, for example, can render you helpless. For some, it can be a death sentence.

Thoughtless words from an insensitive relative or a classmate can be hard to forget even years after the words were spoken.

Unlike the wounds that heal when physically hit, seemingly innocuous words from others, can last a lifetime.

How do you prevent words from doing more harm to you?

This week our top posts addresses some of these issues. One way is by refusing to accept insults thrown at you and focus instead on finding where they are coming from. Maybe someone made you feel bad about your weight, being single, or put you down in front of others. Instead of taking those words in, think about who’s throwing them at you. Is it the result of an old way of thinking, a negative and incorrect belief propelled by society, or an unjust boss? Knowing where these hurtful labels came from can help you to take matters into your own hands. You don’t have to absorb the hurt and pain sent from insensitive people. As you’ll read below, what you do with what others say to you is your choice.

{Flickr photo by Karina}

Pro-anorexia (or “pro-ana”) groups have been around online for over a decade, and we first discussed them here five years ago. More recently, with the rise of social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest, these groups have found a new life. Often associated with the label “thinspiration,” these groups elevate the idea of being thin to a virtual religion.

People who are all about thinspiration engage in disordered eating in order to be as thin as possible — a common symptom of anorexia. But they don’t see it as a disorder or a problem, making this an insidious problem.

Nonetheless, such eating and self-image problems can result in health problems, even putting the individual’s life at risk.

Some people have sought to get common words or terms that people engaged in thinspiration use banned from social networking websites. One such woman is Torri Singer, a broadcast journalism major who has recently begun a petition to get such terms banned from Twitter.

Julie Fast’s friend went to the hospital for a terrible colitis attack. “It was so serious they sent her straight to the ER.” After reviewing her medical records and seeing that her friend was taking an antidepressant, the intake nurse said, “Maybe this is all in your head.”

When it comes to mental illness, people say the darnedest things. As illustrated above, even medical staff can make incredibly insensitive and downright despicable remarks.

Others think teasing is okay.

Fast, a coach who works with partners and families of people with bipolar disorder, has heard stories of people getting teased at work. One client’s son works at the vegetable department of a grocery store. He has obsessive-compulsive disorder and poor social skills. When his symptoms flare up, his coworkers will ask questions like, “Why do the labels have to be so perfect? Why do they have to be in line like that?” They’ve also teased him about being in a psychiatric facility.

But most people — hopefully — know that being an outright jerk to someone about their mental illness isn’t just inappropriate and ignorant. It’s cruel.

This guest article from YourTango was written by Susan Heitler.

In relationships, we all have our fights; and having the occasional heated debate between you and your significant other is even healthy.

But when these fights cross into full-blown blow-ups, the argument can quickly get out of hand.

Stay calm and follow these guidelines if you want to avoid a screaming match. Follow these ten tips for effective anger management if you want to enjoy a lasting, loving relationship.

A lot of treatment for mental health concerns is focused on the disorder. Medications for the symptoms, cognitive-behavioral therapy for the irrational thoughts. Professionals always asking “How’re you doing?” “How’s the week been?” “How’s your depressive mood this week?” They look at your eye contact, monitor your lithium levels.

The focus for most treatment professionals is on a patient’s symptoms and the alleviation of symptoms. Few professionals delve into how a disorder — like bipolar disorder or clinical depression — changes our identity. Everything we know about ourselves.

Everything we thought we knew about ourselves.

That’s why this recent piece in the NYT Magazine by Linda Logan exploring this issue is so interesting and timely.

Sometimes, I overhear people casually using the term “OCD” (obsessive-compulsive disorder). They’re ‘OCD with being clean’ or ‘OCD with organizational skills.’

In fact, however, a real struggle with OCD is a manifestation of anxiety that creates an actual disturbance in one’s life.

Lena Dunham, creator/ writer/ producer/ star of the HBO award-winning series “Girls,” showcased the leading character, Hannah, (played by Dunham herself) in very raw and honest encounters with the illness toward the end of this past season. Hannah had dealt with OCD in high school. It resurfaced when she was faced with two significant stressors: trying to write an e-book in a short time frame, and dealing with the rocky aftermath of a breakup.

Whether the scenes illustrated episodes of relentless tics, counting, or a compulsive habit that brought her to the emergency room, “Girls” took on authentic territory that invited other OCD sufferers to feel less alone.

For their book, “The Wisdom of Failure,” authors Laurence Weinzimmer and Jim McConoughey interviewed 1,000 managers and leaders on one of my favorite topics: failure. The results comprise a fascinating volume on the benefits of blunders.

Here are some insights from their book.

What can understanding failure teach both seasoned and aspiring leaders that they can’t learn only by modeling success?

While studying success provides valuable lessons during good times, often these lessons aren’t applicable in hard times. The road isn’t always smooth and the sky isn’t always blue. When challenges present themselves, lessons gleaned from previous failures can help leaders avoid making the same mistake twice or making the wrong decisions.

Making mistakes — or failing — are part of taking healthy risk. They provide us with new ways of thinking and give us new insights into how we can improve as leaders.

One of the toughest challenges when you have kids is time, or lack thereof. It’s easy for many things, including creativity, to get brushed aside. For years.

But having less “discretionary time” as a parent can become just another excuse stopping you from creating, said Miranda Hersey, a creativity coach, host of the blog Studio Mothers and author of The Creative Mother’s Guide: Six Practices for the Early Years.

Hersey knows a lot about having little time. She has five kids, ages 5 to 22.

Yet, creativity has always been part of her life. For Hersey, “a creative life is full of passion, self-expression, intuition, observation, discovery, asking questions, learning, and making connections, with other people and the world around us.”

Whether you’re experiencing anxiety, depression, anger, jealousy, envy, guilt, hurt or shame, you are most likely (perhaps unintentionally) perpetuating your problem by your thoughts. Let me explain.

When we function in a healthy manner, we don’t just experience joy and happiness, prancing around without a care in the world. We actually still experience a range of emotions, some of which can be very difficult to live with.

It’s absolutely healthy to feel anxiety, depression, anger, jealousy, envy, guilt, hurt or shame. But what makes experiencing these emotions healthy is that we don’t linger in them for longer than is good for us. We don’t demand that they ‘go away.’ We accept the appropriateness of how we feel, and do something about our situation.

Let me give you an example of how a person’s thinking can perpetuate depression.

Are sex and intimacy different things? Can you have one without the other? Or does one lead to another?

It seems that there are many conflicting opinions on the roles of sex and intimacy within a relationship (and out of one, too).

It is difficult to really get to the bottom of this problem because no two people have exactly the same ideas on sex. In a traditional framework, sex would come with long-term commitment, or marriage, which would be associated with the couple having an intimate connection with each other (and usually wishing to procreate).

However, in an increasingly promiscuous society, the connection between sex and intimacy can be a tenuous one.