Mind and Spirit Blogger

A question was posted by a woman to the diabetic support group that I belong to.  This woman asked the group if her diabetes could be causing or contributing to her depression. Yes, yes and yes!    There is a relationship between depression and illness, especially long term or chronic illness.  Illness can be an underlying cause of depression and other and psychological or emotional issues.  Chronic states of disease can contribute to stress, anxiety, anger, depression, and more.  These conditions may be short term or may become chronic just like the illness.  Another way to think if this is, whenever our bodies are unhealthy our minds may suffer.  Short term illnesses will normally have short term mental responses for instance, if you suffer from a cold or the flu that lasts two weeks or even more, we might find that we feel sad because we cannot function in our normal manner.  We have to stay home from work or school and we may miss t...

Most of us think of trauma as an event that is life threatening or an event in which one believes that he or she is in imminent danger of losing their life. Examples of a traumatic event would  be the recent mud slides in Washington state. The people involved in those mud slides may experience strong emotions They can experience feelings of fear, panic, guilt, anger and helplessness from that event, Another and unfortunately well know example is the trauma that many of our returning veterans witnessed and experienced during  their service in the middle east and other battle fronts.  Trauma often results in a condition that is called post traumatic Stress disorder or PTSD. The symptoms include hyper arousal, flashbacks, anxiety, depression disassociation and more.Suffers of PTSD might experience nightmares and they may try to avoid people or places that remind them of the event. Sounds, smells or sights can remind a tr...