Psychology & mental illness myths. - BUSTED.

A lot of the sigma around mental illness comes from myths and misconceptions about it that have been around for a while. I started looking into it and found some really interest psychology facts as well that I thought I'd share.

Myth- Adults don't grow any new neurons 

Truth - We do grow them, especially in the hippocampus, which is responsible for memory forming and emotional responses. 

Myth- Alcohol kills brain cells. 

Truth - It may not 'kill' the cells by excessive drinking may cause damage to the portals that send signals to the brain. 

Myth- Its better to express anger than hold in it. 

Truth- This is something I learnt about during therapy but have also read about in psychology books.  Expressing your anger can actually feed into it and make the aggression worse. I've learnt that dealing with the sadness that often comes with anger is more effective in the long term. 

Myth- We only use 10% of our brain.

Truth - People love the idea that we don't know how to use our brain to its full capacity, just imagine what we could do! But that's simply not the truth. 20% of our energy is used on brain power, and if we used more energy than then, it was simply be difficult or impossible to do anything else but think! 

Myth - You can tell if someone has an eating disorder by looking at them.

Truth- People with eating disorders come in all shapes and sizes. Eating disorders such as bulimia, binge eating and even anorexia can look normal in size. 

Myth- Eating disorders only affect women.
Truth-anyone can be affected by eating disorders, regardless of their gender.

Myth- The media is to blame for eating disorders.
Truth- There are numerous reasons why eating disorders can form, from a traumatic childhood, to genetics or simply a combination of multiple factors. The media may effect some peoples views on their bodies but eating disorders themselves are usually the result of many other reasons.

Myth- Self harm is a suicide attempt.
Truth - Self harm is coping mechanism for dealing with extreme emotions. In some cases, self harm prevents the person from actually attempting suicide.

Myth- There is no cure for mental illness.
Truth - This couldn't be further from the truth, there are many different forms of treatment for every mental illness, from medication to therapies, its about finding the right way to treat it for you.

If you want to learn more about mental illnesses and the common myths, check out the Mind website for a whole bunch of interesting information and advice. And remember that not everything you hear is true!

Becky x

Common thinking errors.

Black or white: This is similar to the all or nothing thinking. For example ‘I failed my driving test, Im a horrible driver and should give up.’

Over-generalization: One unfortunate event leads to the assumption that it will happen every time.

Mental filter: Picking out and dwelling on negative details.

Disqualifying the positive: Successes are seen as flukes.

Catastrophizing:  exaggerating your own imperfections

Emotional reasoning: taking feelings as facts. For example ‘I feel fat, therefore I am fat.’

Personalization: Blaming everything on yourself. 

Classic BPD thoughts...Part 1

These are thoughts that I personally deal with and are typical of a lot of people with BPD and other mental illnesses for that matter.

• 'Don't cry here, you can self harm later...' - Self harm is my safety blanket when I'm in a situation that I can't show my true feelings.
• 'If I get too close, they'll just leave me' - This is the classic fear of abandonment that comes hand in hand with BPD.
• 'Shut up Becky, you sound clingy' - I try to excuse or explain why I may have called someone tonnes of times, but the truth is I'm worried and I think they'll think I'm clingy.
• 'If they don't call you back, they obviously don't like you' - Any other reason can seem invalid
• 'Just be honest about how you feel...but then won't I seem attention seeking?'
• 'Your so stupid, why can't you just be happy?! Nothing is wrong!'
• 'Who am I? How do people see me?' - Lack of Identity is common and not having a sense of who you are can really make you question everything.
• 'Oh no my scars are healing, I'll have to self harm again.' - Once the cuts heal it feels like I should have healed inside as well, but often I haven't and cutting again is my way of showing how much emotional pain I still feel.

These are just a few of the overwhelming thoughts people with a mental illness can experience. In other blog posts I'll give some advice on how to overcome these thoughts and deal with them.


Hope everyone is keeping well.
Becky x

Self harm, the facts and my personal battle

A lot of people, who have never dealt with a mental illness don't understand why someone would purposely harm themselves. They may not understand why it helps or how it becomes extremely addictive, they just know its not a healthy way to express emotion. Let me explain how it felt for me...


From the first cut, I was hooked. Hooked to the quick relief I felt when I cut, an escape from the emotional turmoil I was feeling. I was 13, and I used a sharp hairclip, it didn't bleed so I kept going until my arms were swollen and red raw. From then on it was my go to tool whenever things got too much. Seeing the scars was proof that what I was feeling was real and painful, as I felt no one understood. Although of course I tried to hide it,  never taking my jumper off, even in summer.


As the addiction grew, I would test myself to see how far I could take it, using blades now as I knew they were more dangerous. It was my way of seeing the pain physically and it was easier to cope with a cut then what was going on in my head.


Why do people self harm?


People self harm for a whole bunch of reasons and sometimes its a mixture of a few. For me personally it was proof of my feelings and also gave me a sense of control over my own pain. Below is a list of some other reasons why someone may self harm:

• express emotions that are hard to verbally explain
• To ask someone for help (note: never call a self harmer an attention seeker! They are in need of help not to be judged)
• stop feelings of dumbness
• To distract from the emotional distress
• Express suicidal thoughts without actively attempting to take their life.
• To feel in control of their pain

What counts as self harm?


Anything in which the person has done to deliberately harm themselves, it is NOT just cutting. Here is a list of examples:

• Bruising
• Burning
• Overdosing
• Making yourself sick
• Cutting
• Scratching
• Biting
•  Under eating or over eating
• punching the wall  

Useful advice to you if you self harm


There is no easy way of stopping or even reducing your self harm. Sometimes something may go wrong in your life and your first thought is to hurt yourself (Mine is for sure) but if you feel like you really want to make an effort to stop, below is some things I've learnt over the years:

• Wait 15-30minutes. When an urge comes on, I try to tell myself to wait for at least 15minutes, if the urge is still there and hasn't died down at all then I allow myself to. But most of the time just allowing the urge to pass has stopped me! To distract myself in that 15 minutes I usually write in my diary or draw how I'm feeling or how I want to self harm.
• Call a trusted friend. I really hope that you have at least one friend you can trust with your secret self harm and that they are supportive. If so, call them, explain the situation like this 'I'm having the urge to self harm so I thought I could talk about it with you..'
• Write down why you want to self harm and the emotions linked with it. This is a technique I learnt when in therapy. It really gets you to focus on the emotions and where in your body you feel them. Writing down everything you can about how you feel is a good way of distracting from actually cutting! Some questions you could ask yourself: Why do I want to self harm? What will it achieve? What emotions have led to this? What urges do I have?
• Learn your triggers. Learning what brings on the urges is a good step to reducing them. If it is something in particular that your family or friend does, try to communicate with them about it. If its seeing a blade or weapon you may use, take it out of your sight. If it is how you feel about yourself, work on your self esteem with a therapist. (Or google online free therapy sheets)

Advice for friends and family of those who self harm and how to help.

• You may not understand their reasons why they self harm but do NOT blame them for it. It will only make them feel worse about themselves and feed into the addiction.
• Ask them about it. TALK to them. As hard it may be for you to hear, you need to talk to them, they need to know you care and are worried.
• Help them clean the wounds.
• Tell them to call you if the urge comes on.
• Do not make them promise to never do it again. This is an unfair thing to ask to them as self harm is a important coping mechanism to them for the time being.
• Do some research.
• Support them on finding the root cause of their problems.
• Urge them to go seek professional help
• And above all NEVER give up on them.

I hope this has been useful to someone, after all that's why I started this blog. There is a lot of information on the internet about self harm and a number of charities that can offer support like Mind.


Talk soon!
Becky x