Welcome to my Mental Health Recovery Journey

Hello everyone, and welcome to Mental Health with Mel. 

My name is Melanie, but my closest friends and family all call me "Mel", which means you can, too!

This is a blog I've been wanting to start for a while, but haven't had the guts to do it for fear of exposing myself TOO MUCH on the Internet. But after realizing that I post fairly regular updates about my own mental illnesses on Instagram and Twitter, I figured - why NOT start a blog? Maybe I can reach/help more people when I have additional space to go off on tangents and I'm not limited by a specified number of characters. 

I'm not going to go into too much detail with this introductory post; I hope to use this platform as a way to chronicle my experiences with multiple mental illnesses, as well as my recovery efforts*. 

And with that being said, I do want to be transparent and let you - my dear reader - know that I am currently in a Partial Hospitalization Program (PHP). I started on Wed. 9/1, and the program goes for about six weeks (more if needed), and it runs Monday-Friday from 9am-1:30pm. This program focuses on the Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) treatment process, with a strong focus on mindfulness; other topics covered are nonjudgmentalism, interpersonal effectiveness, and radical acceptance to heal past traumas. 

Of course as time goes on I will go into more detail about the end-goal for these topics; just keep in mind that I'm sharing information I learn from my own therapy experiences, plus additional research on the topics we discuss in group (without sharing any personal information about the counselors/fellow clients, of course! because HIPAA). It is my own personal end-goal that through shared experience, we can create a community to help others living with mental illness(es) to not feel so alone. 

I think this is a solid point to wrap up this first initial post. If you have any topics you'd like to see covered in this blog, let me know in the comments and I'll include that information within my research for future posts. 

Until next time, dear reader, do take care of yourself and show yourself grace. We're only given what we can handle, and it's okay if we can't handle everything - especially all in one day. 

Brightest Blessings, 
Mel

RECOMMENDED READING: 
DBT for Dummies by Gillian Galen, PhD and  Blaise A. Aguirre, MD

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