New beginnings

These are not good times for us. All of us need to put our energy somewhere that it can do some good in keeping the world alive. Many people are turning to various kinds of political action. My own areas of expertise call me to something broader than politics, though. I want to use my skills and knowledge to help people to recover from trauma and mental illness.

Here are some of the things I am trying to include:

• Coping skills

• Medical information

• Self diagnosis

• Self medication

• Healing from trauma

• All about emotions

• Advice column

• Memes

Yes, memes. It started as a way to make communication easier for me, and now... I have literally thousands of them. And a lot of them are specifically for emotional support, or about being mentally ill.

The catch, of course, is that I am myself a hot mess of mental illness and trauma. Keeping myself attached to this project is going to be important. It's really just a matter of writing on my blog instead of on Facebook. I've written plenty of blog-worthy stuff there, and I will probably start out sharing it here.

The effects of this are not going to be as immediate, but I want to build something that endures.

This is Maslow's hierarchy of needs. The basic idea is that our needs at the lower levels need to be met before we can pursue needs at the higher levels. For example, if I'm hungry, or don't feel safe, it becomes more difficult to form closer bonds in my relationships. My greater concern is for my own security.

Some people live in constant uncertainty about their basic survival, leading to poor development in the upper layers. The longer this persists, the worse it becomes, because bad relationships and bad self image become the new normal. When they have more stability with their basic needs, they may still have no idea what is wrong with the rest of their life.

This is one of the things that trauma does to us. It is possible to heal it, but it takes a lot of work, a lot of time, and you have to know what you're doing.

That means you should get started as soon as you can. Hopefully, I can help.