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mental illness is more common than you think

Because of the wonderful response at anxieties 101 -
 
I'm bringing you more information at anxieties 102!
 
Those that haven't been thru the entire network, you'll see how the underlined link words in each article are linked to one of the 30 plus sites within the emotional feelings network of sites, so you can learn additional information concerning the word you clicked on.
 
Taking the extra step to learn more information is purely for your recovery's success! The more you put into recovery, the more you will get out of it.
 
kathleen

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Mental Health
 
 
 

Mental Illness and Violence: A Link?

Mental Illness Alone Doesn't Predict Violence, but Substance Abuse Increases Risk for Mentally Ill, Study Shows

 
By Kathleen Doheny
WebMD Health News
Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD

Feb. 2, 2009 -- When horrific acts of violence erupt, such as killing rampages on school campuses or mass slayings by heads of families, the public often reacts by saying the offender must have been "crazy."

Although mental illness and violence are often thought by society to go together, the perception is not entirely true, according to a new study.

"Mental illness alone does not increase the risk of violence," says Eric Elbogen, PhD, assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, citing the results of his recent study published in the Archives of General Psychiatry.

But when mental illness is combined with other risk factors such as substance abuse, it does increase the risk of violence, Elbogen found. Mental illness "makes a difference but only in the presence of other risk factors," he says. Besides substance abuse, Elbogen looked at such other factors such as a history of violence, age, gender, and stressors such as losing a job or getting a divorce.

Mental Illness & Violence: The Study

Previous research has produced mixed results about the link between mental illness and violence, with some finding a clear association and other studies finding, as did Elbogen's, that alcohol and drug abuse increases the risk in the presence of a mental illness.

For his study, Elbogen evaluated data on nearly 35,000 people, all interviewed about their mental health, history of violence, and use of substances between 2001 and 2003. Participants were part of the National Epidemiological Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions, conducted by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

At the first interview:

  • Nearly 11% of participants said they had been diagnosed with mental illness, including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or major depression.
  •  21.4% had substance abuse or substance dependence.
  •  9.4% reported a severe mental disorder and substance abuse or dependence.

The percentage of participants reporting a mental illness reflects the percentages found in the general population and in other studies, Elbogen says.

In a second interview conducted in 2004 or 2005, participants were asked about any violent behavior, such as committing a sexual assault, fighting, or setting fires, in the time between interviews.

Mental Illness & Violence: Results

In all, 2.9% of participants said they had been violent in the time between the first and second interviews.

When Elbogen evaluated the possible associations between mental illness, violence, and other factors, having a mental illness alone did not predict violence, but having a mental illness and a substance abuse problem did increase the risk of violence.

The risk was increased even more if the person had mental illness, substance abuse problems, and a history of violence.

For instance, when Elbogen looked at those who only had a severe mental illness, 2.4% had been violent. But when he looked at those with major depression and substance abuse or dependence, 6.47% had been violent.

You can read my own personal thoughts concerning mental illness and violence - substance abuse and alcoholism and violence and mental illness from my own experiences by clicking here.

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When he looked at those with schizophrenia, 5.15% reported violent behavior in the time period between the interviews. But when a person with schizophrenia also had substance abuse or dependence problems, 12.66% reported violent behavior in the time between the interviews.

The highest risk for violence was found in those who had mental illness, a substance abuse problem, and a history of violence. These participants had 10 times the risk of violence than those who only had mental illness.

Other factors that predicted violent behavior included a history of juvenile detention or physical abuse, having seen parental fighting, a recent divorce, unemployment, or being victimized themselves. Being younger, male, and low-income also boosted the chance of violence.

"There is a relationship [between mental illness and violence] but it's much weaker than most people think," he tells WebMD.

"I think a lot of people think mental illness is the usual cause if not the foremost cause of violence," Elbogen says, citing a survey in which 75% of respondents said they considered people with mental illness as dangerous.

But his study concludes that “the findings say mental illness is relevant and you can see that throughout the data. But it's not really one of the foremost causes of violent behavior [by itself] in our society."

Mental Illness & Violence: Second Opinions

Experts who reviewed the paper for WebMD say they hope the new research may change mistaken perceptions toward those who are mentally ill.

"Having a severe mental illness alone doesn't predict anything," as far as violence, says Philip Muskin, MD, professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University in New York. The new results, he says, confirm some other studies with similar results.

For those affected by the severe mental illnesses evaluated in the study, Muskin says, "You are no more at risk for committing a violent act than anyone in the population."

Paul Appelbaum, MD, former president of the American Psychiatric Association and a professor of psychiatry at Columbia University, says, "If you take the body of data as a whole, I think what everyone would agree with is, if there is an impact of mental illness on violent behavior it is not very great. And there is no question that the overall contribution of people with serious mental illness to violence in our society as a whole is quite small."

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De-Criminalizing Mental Illness
By M.J. Stephey Wednesday, Aug. 08, 2007
 

"Psycho." "Freak." "Jason from the horror movie." These are the answers that counselor Habsi Kaba gets from Miami police officers when asked to describe people with mental illness. Such stereotypes are surprisingly common, says Kaba, and not just within law enforcement. But these misconceptions are especially dangerous when they're held by police, who are often forced to make split-second, life-or-death decisions about mentally ill suspects. "The worst thing you can have is power and lack of knowledge," Kaba says.

Just ask Mike, 31, who knows firsthand. Mike suffers from schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and depression. Since the age of 17, the Los Angeles native has been repeatedly arrested during psychosis for nuisance crimes like disturbing the peace, only to serve his time, fall off his medication and get arrested again. On three separate occasions, his hallucinations were so severe he tried to commit suicide by provoking the police to shoot him. Though he is receiving treatment, rising health care costs and declining federal help mean Mike will likely end up in jail again.

L.A. Police Lieutenant Richard Wall told Mike's story to members of the House Judiciary Committee in March, in support of the 2007 Second Chance Act, which aims to reduce recidivism, in part with better mental health treatment for prisoners returning to society. Prisons, Wall testified, have become the nation's "de facto" mental health care provider. According to the Federal Bureau of Justice Statistics, there are currently 1.25 million inmates like Mike, with debilitating disorders ranging from schizophrenia to post-traumatic stress disorder, abandoned in the U.S. prison system instead of receiving treatment in hospitals.

"If you think health care in America is bad, you should look at mental health care," says Steve Leifman, who works as a special advisor on criminal justice and mental health for the Florida Supreme Court. More Americans receive mental health treatment in prisons and jails than hospitals or treatment centers. In fact, the country's largest psychiatric facility isn't even a hospital, it's a prison - New York City's Rikers Island, which holds an estimated 3,000 mentally ill inmates at any given time.

Fifty years ago, the U.S. had nearly 600,000 state hospital beds for people suffering from mental illness. Today, because of federal and state funding cuts, that number has dwindled to 40,000. When the government began closing state-run hospitals in the 1980s, people suffering from mental illness had nowhere to go. Without proper treatment and care, many ended up in the last place anyone wants to be.

"The one institution that can never say no to anybody is jail," Leifman says. "And what's worse, now we've given [the mentally ill] a criminal record."

Most police officers aren't trained to deal with people suffering from severe mental illness. But because they are the first to respond to calls involving psychiatric crises, police are in a unique position to fix the crippled system. That effort is now under way, thanks to Crisis Intervention Teams (CIT), which are being adopted by a growing number of police departments across the country.

The concept was pioneered by the Memphis Police Department in 1988 after an officer shot and killed a person suffering from schizophrenic hallucinations. Working with the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill and two local universities, Memphis police trained and organized a unit of officers specifically to deal with people in psychosis - a mental state commonly suffered by patients with severe mental illness in which their thoughts don't match up with reality.

In these cases, normal police procedures often increase the chances of violence, confusion and even death. So, police officers are taught to approach psychotic suspects in a different way: by speaking softly, rather than shouting commands, repeating phrases, holding hands palms-up instead of holding a gun or badge, and wearing plainclothes instead of uniforms. These actions may seem minor, says Kaba, who is the CIT training coordinator for the Miami Police Department, but they go a long way in breaking down the barriers - psychological and otherwise - that often exist between the mentally ill and police.

The ultimate purpose of the CIT program is perhaps empathy. Using a device called Virtual Hallucinations, officers can begin to understand what it's like to be in the grip of a severe and untreated mental illness. Made by the pharmaceutical company Janssen, the rig and headphones simulate the disturbing and disorienting environment of a psychotic episode.

After using the rig, Lt. Wall of the LAPD says he was struck by the idea of being exposed to such chaos all the time. "It's just a scary thing," Wall says, "I can do it and walk away from it." Those with serious mental illness, however, cannot.

Community members like John Kowal, 54, work with CITs to provide officers with a more intimate knowledge and understanding of psychosis. Kowal, who suffers from bipolar disorder and alcoholism, has been working with Miami's Police Department and inmates as a "peer specialist." His duties range from consultant to mediator to companion. "I can bond with [mentally ill inmates]. I can say, 'Hey, I was in jail. I take medicine. It's worth it,'" Kowal says. "I don't go by a book. I'm like a friend."

Likewise, the program challenges stereotypes of law enforcement officers as trigger-happy bullies. "Just like police don't understand people with mental illness, we don't understand them," Kaba says. "They're social workers, they're brothers and sisters, they're priests. They play every role out there."

Some officers initially dismissed the CIT program as run-of-the-mill sensitivity training or extreme political correctness, but Cindy Schwartz, director of Florida's Eleventh Judicial Circuit Criminal Mental Health Project, says those same officers now marvel at the program's success. The CIT model has received numerous awards from nationally recognized mental health organizations, law enforcement agencies, and humanitarian groups for treating mental illness as a disease, not a crime. Such change cannot come too soon.

Last December, the Advocacy Center for Persons with Disabilities filed a federal lawsuit against the state of Florida, alleging that it was violating the civil rights of hundreds of mentally ill convicts and inmates awaiting trial by leaving them jailed and without treatment. "We reached a crisis point," says Leifman, the Florida judge, of the state's inability to address mental illness. "We have hundreds of defendants languishing in jail." It got so bad that two mentally ill inmates in a Pensacola, Fla., jail died after being brutally subdued by guards. And in Clearwater, Fla., a schizophrenic inmate gouged out his eye after waiting weeks for a hospital bed.

In June, New York legislators passed a bill outlawing solitary confinement for mentally ill inmates after a study found that such isolation - to which mentally ill prisoners are often subjected - worsened psychiatric symptoms and often led to self-mutilation or suicide attempts.

When it comes to mental health care in the U.S., Leifman says, history is repeating itself. During the 1800s, long before state-run agencies existed to treat mental illness, families would simply drop their loved ones off at jails or prisons, where their conditions remained untreated. Then came state-run hospitals that Leifman refers to as "horror houses" given that patients were usually either neglected or abused — experiments involving drugs and electroshock therapy inspired movies like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and finally drew the public's attention to the civil rights abuses of people with mental illness. There appeared a glimmer of hope in 1963, when President Kennedy, in what would be his last public bill-signing, authorized $3 billion to create the first national network of mental health facilities. But after Kennedy's assassination, the country turned its focus to Vietnam and not one penny went into the project.

"It's the one area in civil rights that we've gone backwards on," says Leifman, noting that nearly half of the nine floors in Miami-Dade's County Jail are mental health wards, even though the building is "more like a warehouse than a facility." He decries the conditions that these inmates face, including vermin-infested, decrepit buildings that lack adequate ventilation, lighting and water supplies. Leifman also laments the amount of taxpayer dollars used to fund such an inadequate system. Taxpayers in Miami-Dade County spend $100,000 each day to house the mentally ill in prison; moreover, studies show that people with mental illness stay in jail eight times longer than other inmates, at seven times the cost.

"We can't really build our way out of the problem. It's not just about state hospital beds or jails," Leifman says. "We need to really take a hard look at how we're dealing with the problem overall."

The original version of the story incorrectly stated that CIT was created by the Memphis Police Department after one of its police officers was shot and killed by a person suffering from schizophrenic hallucinations. In fact, the schizophrenic man was shot and killed by police.


source site: click here to open a window that reveals Time Magazine Online!

anxieties 102
this month's featured homepage article!

29% of depressed Americans who haven't seen a therapist in the last year

Shape,  Dec, 2008

If you're suffering from a case of the winter blues but don't know where to turn for help, get a list of psychologists in your area at locator.apa.org.

SOURCE: CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION

COPYRIGHT 2008 Weider Publications
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learnin

National study finds post-traumatic stress disorder common among injured patients

Published: Wednesday, September 10, 2008 - 23:22 in Health & Medicine

Suffering a traumatic injury can have serious and long-lasting implications for a patient's mental health, according to the largest-ever U.S. study evaluating the impact of traumatic injury. Researchers from the Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center, the University of Washington, and the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found that post-traumatic stress disorder and depression were very common among patients assessed one year after suffering a serious injury.

They also found that injured patients diagnosed with PTSD or depression were 6 times more likely to not have returned to work in the year following the injury. The study followed 2707 injured patients from 69 hospitals across the country, and found 20.7% had post-traumatic stress disorder and 6.6% had depression one year after the injury.

Both disorders were independently associated with significant impairments across all functional outcomes: activities of daily living, health status, and the return to usual activities, including work. Patients who had one disorder were 3 times less likely to be working one year after injury, and patients with both disorders were 5 to 6 times less likely to have returned to work.

The findings have important implications for U.S. acute care hospitals. Smaller scale investigations in acute care medical settings suggest that evidence-based psychotherapy and collaborative care interventions can reduce the symptoms of PTSD and related conditions among injured trauma survivors.

"This study highlights the importance of ongoing studies of PTSD and depression screening, and intervention procedures for injured patients treated in acute care hospitals nationwide," said Douglas Zatzick, M.D., principal investigator and a psychiatrist at the University of Washington.

"If studies of PTSD and depression establish the effectiveness of screening and intervention procedures, American College of Surgeons policy requirements similar to the recent mandate for alcohol screening and brief intervention could be considered."

The American College of Surgeons now requires that level I trauma centers must have on-site alcohol screening and brief intervention services as a requisite for trauma center accreditation.

Source: University of Washington - Harborview Medical Center

this month's featured homepage article!
anxieties 102

Anxiety, mood disorders put cancer patients at risk for PTSD
 
Published: Monday, May 5, 2008 - 16:21 in Health & Medicine
 

Breast cancer patients who have a prior history of mood and anxiety disorders are at a much higher risk of experiencing post traumatic stress disorder following their diagnosis, new research suggests. A study of 74 breast cancer patients at the Ohio State University Medical Center found that 16 percent of them (12 women) suffered from PTSD 18 months after diagnosis.

Women with PTSD were more than twice as likely as breast cancer patients without the disorder to have suffered from previous mood disorders such as depression before the cancer diagnosis. They were also more than three times more likely to have experienced anxiety disorders.

What is unique about breast cancer patients with PTSD is that they have already had this double hit of both anxiety and mood disorders even before they got the diagnosis,” said Barbara Andersen, co-author of the study and professor of psychology at Ohio State University.

So when they are in a new situation that is very anxiety provoking – cancer diagnosis and treatment – it is not surprising that they are at risk for developing PTSD.”

The findings suggest that doctors should screen newly diagnosed breast cancer patients for past mood disorders, she said. Those who have histories of mood and anxiety disorders may need help in order to avoid PTSD. However, the results also show that most breast cancer patients aren’t at risk for PTSD.

Andersen conducted the study with Deanna Golden-Kreutz, clinical research manager at Ohio State’s Cardiovascular Clinical Research Unit, and Rebecca Shelby, a former Ohio State graduate student now at the Duke University Medical Center.

Their study appears in the April 2008 issue of the Journal of Traumatic Stress.

In addition to the women who had PTSD, another 20 percent (15 women) had “subsyndromal” PTSD, meaning that they experienced significant symptoms of PTSD, but not at the level of those with the full diagnosis.

Patients with subsyndromal PTSD were more likely than others to have had mood disorders, but compared to those who had full PTSD, were much less likely to suffer from anxiety disorders, Andersen said.

The findings showed that past alcohol and substance abuse was also linked to post traumatic stress disorder symptoms. About one-third of women with PTSD had a past history of alcohol/substance abuse or dependence, compared to 1/5 of subsyndromal women and 1/10 of women with no PTSD.

Another issue for women who had PTSD – as compared to those with subsyndromal PTSD and those with no PTSD -- was a history of traumatic life events, the study found. For example, 1/2 of the PTSD patients reported having been physically attacked or abused in their lives, compared to less than 17% of women in the other two groups.

Although women with subsyndromal symptoms generally fared better than those with the full disorder, in some cases women in both groups faced significant coping difficulties. Women in the two groups were nearly 4 times more likely than those with no PTSD to say they were unable to work because of emotional distress (42% of PTSD group, 40% of subsyndromal group, and 11% of those with no PTSD.)

That’s a huge difference, and shows the real-life impact that PTSD symptoms can have on some breast cancer patients,” Andersen said.

While the study suggests most cancer patients aren’t at risk for PTSD, Andersen said mood disorders are another matter.

I think depression is the mental health condition that needs the most attention as far as treating breast cancer patients, even more so than PTSD” she said. “That’s the direction our research is going, and we are working to develop an intervention to treat cancer patients with depression.”

Source: Ohio State University

anxieties 102
this month's featured homepage article!

Large hormone dose may reduce risk of post-traumatic stress disorder
 
Published: Monday, October 27, 2008 - 14:14 in Health & Medicine
 

Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) researchers found that a high dose of cortisone could help reduce the risk of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The article appears in Biological Psychiatry, Volume 64, Issue 8 (October 15, 2008), pages 708-717. In an animal model of PTSD, high doses of a cortisol-related substance, corticosterone, prevented negative consequences of stress exposure, including increased startle response and behavioral freezing when exposed to reminders of the stress.

Cortisol is secreted into the blood stream through the adrenal glands, which are active when the body responds to stress. It is known as "the stress hormone" because it is also secreted in higher levels during the body's "fight or flight" response to stress, and is responsible for several stress-related changes in the body.

According to Dr. Hagit Cohen of the Anxiety and Stress Research Unit at the Faculty of Health Sciences, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, "A single intervention with high-dose corticosterone immediately after exposure to a psychogenic stressor was highly effective in reducing the incidence of PTSD-like behaviors and improved the resilience to subsequent trauma-cue exposure in an innovative controlled prospective animal study."

"Single high-dose corticosteroid treatment may thus be worthy of clinical investigation as a possible avenue for early pharmaco-therapeutic intervention in the acute phase, aimed at prevention of chronic stress-related disorders, such as PTSD," Cohen explains. "In this sense, it brings treatment of PTSD to a new era – an era of secondary prevention, an era of the golden hours."

Source: American Associates, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

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site contents:
 
it's in the news....
  • mental health - homepage
 
anxiety disorders....
  • a brief description of how people feel who have anxiety disorders
  • what anxiety disorders are
  • it's in the news.... current news articles from around the web concerning anxiety disorders
anxieties & depression...
  • an explanation about how depression is usually found as well when an anxiety disorder is diagnosed
  • it's in the news... depression & anxiety disorders

generalized & social anxiety

  • description of both mental disorders classified as anxiety disorders
  • feelings & emotions felt by those experiencing these disorders
  • treatment basics for these disorders
  • it's in the news for generalized & social anxiety disorders

panic disorder

  • description of this mental disorders classified as an anxiety disorder
  • feelings & emotions felt by those experiencing panic disorder with panic attacks
  • treatment basics 
  • it's in the news for panic disorder & panic attacks

phobias

  • description of the different types of phobias classified as  anxiety disorders
  • feelings & emotions felt by those experiencing phobias with or without panic attacks
  • treatment basics 
  • it's in the news for phobias / agoraphobia

post traumatic stress disorder

  • description of this mental disorder classified as an anxiety disorder
  • feelings & emotions felt by those experiencing ptsd with or without flashbacks, nightmares, dissociation, hyper arousal, hyper vigilance, derealization & panic attacks
  • treatment basics 
  • it's in the news for post traumatic stress disorder
  • military dealing with ptsd coming back from Iraq & previously in combat
  • ptsd link to heart disease
  • acute stress disorder

obsessive compulsive disorder

  • description of this mental disorder classified as an anxiety disorder
  • feelings & emotions felt by those experiencing ocd
  • treatment basics 
  • it's in the news for obsessive compulsive disorder
  • other compulsive & obsession disorders
  • what are compulsions & disorders? rituals?

depression

  • description of this mental illness & how it is often comorbid with anxiety disorders & eating disorders
  • feelings & emotions felt by those experiencing depression
  • treatment basics 
  • it's in the news for depression

how it all works

If you've just clicked over to this site from one of the other sites in the emotional feelings network of sites, I can understand any confusion you may have experienced in looking over the large number of sites that are linked together to form the emotional feelings network of sites.
 
What you've happened upon is a network of sites formed out of one individual's personal growth / recovery journey from many different reasons.
 
Let me just list a few:
  • mental illness: depression - post traumatic stress disorder - social anxiety - generalized anxiety - phobias & severe panic attacks

  • an eating disorder: night eating syndrome

  • domestic violence history

  • parental alienation history

  • chronic divorce & remarriage

  • traumatic childhood incidents

  • poor parenting skills in childhood

  • abusive childhood incidents

There's more, but truly... an entire lifetime of hurt, sadness, pain and constant intense fear & hyper-vigilance; does not a balanced person make. 

I'm showing you how this happens to a person with the articles on the left side of this web page. Of course, there are a number of factors involved with so much dysfunction, in my case for example, as well as a very long time line with no treatment or relief of symptoms.

When this happens, there's a direct correlation to brain chemistry changing. Most times when things are this severe, the changes are permanent. Can an individual leave a past so full of tragic circumstances come to live a happy normal life? Yes. I have to promise you - a hundred times "yes!"

How long does a person have to be on a personal growth / recovery journey? This is the exact question my husband is asking. He is very tired of my time being occupied with my personal growth / recovery journey. It may be selfish of him, and I do believe it is; but unless you are willing to DEVOTE a huge amount of time and energy to this journey you might take, you could very well not succeed in finding well being & understanding.
 
I have no idea how long it will take. I get better everyday. I go backwards sometimes when I'm faced with the very difficult things, but truly I am constantly growing. I'm asking you to look deep within yourself and look objectively at what you must face. It's easier to deny it all, but it doesn't feel as good in the end!
 
Keep visiting to see what's been added daily!
 
kathleen

5 years into my own personal growth & recovery journey has brought you a newer, fresher version of anxieties 101 with this site - anxieties 102!
 
I just gotta tell you that life in recovery, five years later has been inspiring, surprising & just plain fantastic! I can feel the differences within my persona every day. Just ask me... I'll tell you! It's worth the effort to work with self help activities, reading without homework assignments & reaching further than you think you can reach! I love feeling normally well & mindfully in the present moment!
 
kathleen !

ijustgottasayit.jpg

 

The Cost of a Child

The government recently calculated the cost of raising a child from birth  to 18 and came up with $160,140 for a middle-income family. Talk about sticker shock. That doesn't even touch college tuition. For those of us with kids, that figure leads to wild fantasies about all the things we could have bought, all the places we could have traveled, and all the money we could have banked if not for (insert child's name here).

For others, that number might confirm the decision to remain childless. But $160,140 isn't so bad if you break it down. It translates into $8,896.66 a year, $741.38 a month or $171.08 a week. That's a mere $24.44 a day. Just over a dollar an hour.  Still, you might think the best financial advice says don't have children  if you want to be rich. However, the opposite is true There's no way to put a price tag on:

  • Feeling a new life move for the first time
  • Seeing the bump of a knee rippling across your skin.
  • Having someone cry, "It's a boy!" or shout, "It's a girl!" 
  • Hearing the baby wail and knowing all that matters is it's healthy.
  • Counting all 10 fingers and toes for the first time.
  • Feeling the warmth of fat cheeks against your breast.
  • Cupping an entire head in the palm of your hand.
  • Making out "DA" or "MA" from all the cooing and gurgling.

What do you get for your $160,140?

  • Naming rights. First, middle and last.
  • Glimpses of God every day.
  • Giggles under the covers every night.
  • More love than your heart can hold.
  • Butterfly kisses and Velcro hugs.
  • Endless wonder over rocks, ants, clouds, and warm cookies.
  • A hand to hold, usually covered with jam.
  • A partner for blowing bubbles, flying kites, building sand castles,
  • Skipping down the sidewalk in the pouring rain.
  • Someone to laugh yourself silly with no matter what the boss said or how your stocks performed that day.

Moreover, for $160,140, 

  • You never have to grow up.
  • You get to finger-paint, carve pumpkins, play hide-and-seek, catch lightning bugs, and never stop believing in Santa Claus.
  • You have an excuse to keep reading the adventures of Piglet and Pooh, watching Saturday morning cartoons, going to Disney movies and wishing on stars.
  • You get to frame rainbows, hearts, and flowers under refrigerator magnets and collect spray-painted noodle wreaths for Christmas, hand prints set in clay for Mother's Day, and cards with backward letters for Father's Day.

For $160,140, there's no greater bang for your buck.

  • You get to be a hero just for retrieving a Frisbee off the garage roof, taking the training wheels off the bike, removing a sliver, filling the  wading pool, coaxing a wad of gum out of bangs, and coaching a baseball team that never wins but always gets treated to ice cream regardless.
  • You get a front-row seat to history to witness the first step, first word, first bra, first date, first time behind the wheel.
  • You get to be immortal. You get another branch added to your family tree, and if you're lucky, a long list of limbs in your obituary called grandchildren.
  • You get an education in psychology, nursing, criminal justice, communications, and human sexuality no college can match.
  • In the eyes of a child, you rank right up there with God.

Psalm 127:3-5 "Lo, children are a heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate."

Author Unknown

a list of articles:
 
anxiety disorders
 
what are anxiety disorders?
 
how are anxiety disorders treated?
 
generalized & social anxiety page
 
Does Social Anxiety Hold You Back?
 
Conquering an Uncertain World Thru Spiritual Growth
 
Don't Let Social Anxiety Disorder Ruin Your Career

Real Solutions For Combatting Extreme Shyness

 
Anxiety - Understanding & Treating The Condition
 
how it all works
 
The Effects of Stress on the Brain
 
How Stress Symptoms Affect Brain Function
 
Stress on the Brain

 
you've been visiting anxieties 102...
please have a great day & take a few minutes to explore some of the other sites in the emotional feelings network of sites! explore the unresolved emotions & feelings that may be the cause of some of your pain & hurt... be curious & open to new possibilities! thanks again for visiting at anxieties 102!
 
emotional feelings - emotional feelings, 2 - emotional feelings, 3 - emotional feelings 4 - feeling emotional - feeling emotional, too - feeling emotional, 3 - feeling emotional, 4 - sorry to report that extremely emotional no longer exists! it was a sad surprise for me, believe it! now there is feeling emotional five! It's a work in progress, but you're welcome to visit when you have the chance!- your unemotional side - your unemotional side 2 - the layer down under - more layers down under - the layer down under that - the self pages - night eating - teenscene - angels & princesses - changes 101 - more changes - different religions - parental alienation - life skills 101 (not published yet) - physical you 101 abuse 101 - children 101 - try recovering 101
 
anxieties 101 - click here!
anxieties 102 - you are here!
 
almost 30 sites, all designed, editted & maintained by kathleen!
 
until next time: consider yourself hugged by a friend today!
 
til' next time! kathleen
 
 
thank you for visiting anxieties 102!