As a writer I need to know my character to such a degree that I can convince the reader that they are real. This means that I use the right lingo, hit the appropriate emotions and offer a legitimate look into their life.

There is a trend towards political correctness that has been playing out over the last few years.

What was once funny and acceptable is now considered downright offensive.

Recently JK Rowling has faced backlash for ‘transphobic’ tweets. This has led to her being totally vilified and her master work being pulled apart for other such issues…

Somewhere along the line I lost contact with myself. Trauma froze me in time. This made me withdraw from people.

Connection now scares me.

Being thus frozen, my way of looking at the world, from a relationship perspective also froze. At the time of the freeze I was young. At that age, socialising is often facilitated by the adults for the child, it’s rarely done directly.

A study of patience, practice & perseverance.

Borderline Personality Disorder makes maintaining relationships extremely difficult. If you or your partner have BPD you know exactly what I am talking about.

Rage. Blame. Confusion. Jealousy. Emotionality.

By the end of this post you will know what has helped me to navigate these kinds of relationships successfully and continually.

I have found a lot of success on Skillshare, and have guaranteed a small, yet stable source of online income. Not yet enough live off, but enough to know that I can buy food for my family if my regular job disappears.

I want to clarify some common misconceptions that seem to pervade around the topic of self-harm. If I have missed anything, please let me know.

1) Not everyone who self-harms is suicidal
Whilst there is a definite relationship between self-harm, depression and suicidal ideation, they are not always correlated. One does not have to be suicidal to self-harm, and not all people who are feeling suicidal will self-harm…

Despite everything that happened, I loved my father and still do. To this day my biggest regret is not connecting with him more. I do not forgive him for what he put my brother and me through, but I regret not trying to get to know him on a deeper level, particularly as an adult. When I talk about my childhood, people always say something along the lines of:

“But you were just a child and he was the adult. He should have done more; it was his fault that your relationship fell apart.”

Yes, he was the adult and I was the child. But that truth does not change my role and my actions towards him. I still made the choice to limit contact. I still made the choice to become emotionally distant. I still made the choice to stop seeing him altogether for years. Despite all that he was and all that he did, I still played a role in our relationship, or lack thereof.

Completing 24 hours of continuous BJJ was a challenging experience. I learnt a lot, both about myself as a person, as well as about the art of BJJ.

This post will outline these lessons, as well as highlight the aspects of the mindset, nutrition and recovery needed to attempt a 24 hour exercise session.

Completing the 24hr-Grapple-A-Thon was one of my life goals, something that I have been dreaming of doing since I first started martial arts at 6 years old.

I am happy to say that I am learning social skills from my 1.5 year old. His unabashed confidence and ability to just make friends has blown me away.

True, I don’t approach strangers and show them my toy train collection, or teach them how to go “Sh sh sh”, but I am starting to use some of the methods of connection that my son is naturally demonstrating …

What you eat directly impacts your metal state. Put simply, the better you eat, the better you will feel.

I spend a lot of my time researching and experimenting to find what works to best guard my mental state. I want to do everything I can to ensure that my mood is stable and that my mental health is improving over time …

As a young child, I was sexually assaulted. As a grown man, I openly talk about it.

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I first decided to share my story with the world. Talking about sexual assault is widely considered a taboo subject. There is a tremendous amount of stigma, harsh judgement and disinformation …

On the night of my father’s death, I actually had plans to visit him. If these plans were not changed, I may have been the one to discover his passing and in doing so, prevent his neighbour from breaking in and robbing his lifeless corpse ...

The key to overcoming the fear of failure is to realize that if you don't attempt it, you have failed by default. If you don't at least try, you have already failed...

"You may be in an echo chamber and not even realise it.

Most people talk with people who share similar views to them. The articles, blogs, videos and posts shared tend to be of a similar nature to what they already believe.

Consider the websites that you visit, the social media platforms you frequent, the forums that you post in and the people you associate with online. How often do you hear a dissenting view? Moreover, how often does that dissenting view gain traction and change opinions? Have your opinions ever changed on a strongly held issue based on online discussion?..."

"Typically, we don’t leave a relationship until it becomes so bad that the truth of the situation is truly undeniable.

However, by then, we have been beaten down and are broken by the relationship’s turn for the worse. Our confidence levels are shattered and we may have the symptoms of a plethora of mental afflictions – we are anxious about the future and depressed about ourselves. Our self-worth drops so low that we feel like staying is the right option because ‘they are the best someone like me could get’ or ‘at least I am lucky enough to have someone’..."

To understand how a vegan may feel, try to imagine a world where human corpses were on display in the meat section of a supermarket, or that the eating of humans was casually discussed multiple times per day in conversation.

The problem comes when these feelings are projected and forced onto unwilling and unsuspecting ears. This is often met with anger, annoyance and confusion...

"Clearing the mind is practically impossible, and really not the goal of the meditation session. Rather the benefits come from calmly returning to the sensation of the breath..."

If you share your mental illness with someone, you are asking them to imagine a condition they can only read about and can’t experience.

Really you are asking them to change the lens that they view the world by. To overlay upon their reality, one of your condition. They have to put that lens over every situation that they have ever lived through, every action both minor and major, every interpersonal interaction, as well as over their hopes and plans for the future.

If you are currently pregnant and wondering what to buy and why, this is for you. It covers what you should buy prior to the birth in preparation. As baby gets older, you will need to get more things, but by then you will know what you need...

"It was like releasing water through a dam. It felt like if I didn’t cut, that my mind would crack, with devastating results ..."