May is Mental Health Awareness Month. While working on my memoir yesterday, I found myself reflecting on my earliest memories of mental illness. My first encounter with a diagnosed mental health disorder happened when I was 11. My mother was dating Bryce, who would later become her husband. One afternoon, my mother, Bryce, his son, and I were in the...[ read more ]
Johnzelle speaks with Jessica from The Mental Health Emergency Fund about the stigma surrounding mental health. Check out the episode here: https://mentalhealthemergencyfund.com/johnzelle-anderson-2/ Thanks for listening! If you enjoyed this, consider supporting my creative work by buying me a coffee or a book from my wishlist. Thanks in advance!
While this blog focuses on mental health, I occasionally get creative with a relevant book or movie review. Today, I'm doing something a bit different. When Megan Thee Stallion released her sophomore album, "Traumazine," last Friday, I knew I wanted to write about it here. As an EMDR therapist, I know a lot about trauma; however, I'd never heard the...[ read more ]
I keep up with the Freeform show, Grownish, and was impressed with how they tackled the topic of mental health meds in this week's episode. So today, I'll be sharing some of the insights I gleaned from the episode (Sidenote: you don't have to be familiar with this show to learn from this post.) To start, I love that the...[ read more ]
In part 1*, I talked about: How vaping is pervasive among teens and young adults How targeted marketing plays a role The associated health risks of teen vaping And I also provided some tips to parents Today, I'll be reflecting on a WSJ article** I read earlier this week to continue the conversation. The Article The first post focused primarily...[ read more ]
It's obvious that the COVID-19 pandemic has changed many aspects of our lives and that our concept of "normal" continues to evolve. Though I've written previously on work-life balance and remote schooling/working, today I'd like to talk about how our concept of work is evolving. I'll cover the pros, cons, and provide tips on how to find balance in this...[ read more ]
I realize this is my third post on the topic of technology/ social media in the past week but I had to share what I learned from an article* in today's newspaper. The headline was, "Parents, Here are Teen Girls' Rules for Instagram." As a therapist working primarily with adolescents, this immediately caught my attention; more so, I was blown...[ read more ]
When I was in college, I took all of the developmental psychology courses. Why? Because learning about the various life stages has always fascinated me. At the time, I found it odd when I read how famous psychologists like Piaget conducted research on their own children! Now that I'm the parent of a toddler, it makes more sense. With that...[ read more ]
As the world continues to adapt to the COVID-19 pandemic, the past year and a half has pushed most of us into a more virtual existence. With that in mind, I thought I'd share some insights on the impact of technology on mental health using insights gained from the audiobook, Finding Balance in a Digital World, by Doreen Dodgen-Magee**. Research...[ read more ]
I grew up in the 90s and have always been a big fan of the group, TLC. When their song, "Unpretty," shuffled onto my playlist this morning, I felt inspired to finish this post, which has been sitting as an undeveloped draft for several months. After I define what body dysmorphia is, I'll provide more context for why my mind...[ read more ]