Coming to terms with a life lived unloved by the ghost of a woman who never was. — Please Note: Some names have been changed to protect the anonymity of individuals both living and deceased. by: E.B. Johnson The day I found my mother’s psychiatric medication is a day that saved my life. Sneaking into my mother’s bedroom had always been a sin, but it became a capital…

Looking at the group coaching trend and what it means for those on a recovery journey. — It is no secret that we are in the middle of a mental health crisis. Despite the fact that 1 in 5 Americans will experience a mental illness over the next year, only about 12.1% of those individuals will receive the care that they need. There aren’t enough hands on…

A uniquely-American trend comes for a beloved duet. — When Miley Cyrus and her godmother, Dolly Parton, released their duet “Rainbowland” in 2017, they had no idea of the controversy it would cause. “It’s really about if we could love one another a little better or be a little kinder,” Parton told people in an interview promoting the new…

You can’t hold on to the shadows forever. Free yourself from the darkness and move toward a life filled with joy. — It would be nice to think that our relationships always have a happy ending. That’s not the way life works, however. Connecting with another person is challenging, and building a life with them is even more so. It’s a balancing act. …

Would I have succeeded? Or could there have been something worse on the horizon? The answer is all of the above. — At times, my life has felt like moving down a dark tunnel. Surrounded by darkness, with walls pressing in on every side, I had no choice but to push forward focused on a pinpoint of light and a hope so desperate it made me weep. My life has often felt…

It turns out we’re not so hot at seeing the patterns we repeat. — In the last weeks, we’ve all been exposed to a new level of A.I. panic. Since the launch of tools like ChatGPT4, the doom-mongers have been on a campaign of grim predictions, telling the public to envision every possible Mad Max hellscape imaginable. The most laughable terror content has come…

Untangling the complex ways in which a narcissist plays the victim. — My mother was a narcissist and she loved to use guilt to conceal her worst behaviors. One day, she crossed the line with me and ended up taking a belt to me until I vomited all over myself. A few days later, confronted by a family member, she apologized. But…

If intelligent life exists…where is it? Our theories may say more about us than they do about cosmic neighbors. — When balloons and oddly shaped metallic objects began appearing in the skies over the US, aliens were immediately called into question. Was the world’s most domineering country being visited by a force above? Had the time finally come for the first dramatic contact between aliens and the human species?

If a healthy parent is the glue that binds siblings together, the narcissistic parent is the solvent who breaks them apart. — There is no relationship more challenging than the sibling relationship in a narcissistic family. The movies and top TV shows don’t paint a fair picture of what happens in these twisted homes. Far from the close and cuddly sisters and brothers we see in fairy tales, the siblings in a…