Experiencing a historical event is no doubt affecting everyone, but the effect it has on youths and adolescents are significantly stronger. During these pivotal developmental periods when it comes to building relationships, receiving an education, and exploring who they want to be, the pandemic and its effects such as quarantine, anxieties about the future, and so on almost makes it feel like all this progress is at a sudden halt. Continue reading Weekend Reads: How is Gen Z Coping with COVID?
Of course, everyone finds different things amusing (memes and self-deprecating humor are two topics we’ve covered before), but cringe humor has started to become more and more popular among adolescents on social media. Continue reading Why do Teens Like Cringe Humor?
The SOVA Project is happy to feature this blog post written by one in our team of fantastic SOVA Ambassadors—these are young people who help create meaningful blog posts from adolescents’ perspectives. We hope you can use their post to start a conversation with your adolescent.
The blog post includes a discussion and details about abusive relationships. Please read with caution if any of these items triggers or upsets you.
It still feels odd for me to say I was in an abusive relationship. The two years I dated this person and two years I was married to them I was blind to the facts. Somehow everyone around me could see what I could not. I was in love and felt sorry for their circumstance so I ruined my own life in the process. Anxiety and depression were always a struggle of mine but they really peaked during that time with the suicidal thoughts and panic attacks. Continue reading Signs You Are In an Abusive Relationship
The SOVA Project is happy to feature this blog post written by one in our team of fantastic SOVA Ambassadors—these are young people who help create meaningful blog posts from adolescents’ perspectives. We hope you can use their post to start a conversation with your adolescent.
The blog post includes a discussion about nightmares and mentions of graphic imagery. Please read with caution if any of these items triggers or upsets you.
Can dreams serve as diagnostic criteria for mental health?
Since I was a child I have always had very vivid and intense dreams that I typically would remember. Most of my dreams were and still are nightmares, but I am not quite sure what that means. As I got older I discovered quite a few people never really remember their dreams or even knew if they dreamed or not. Continue reading Are Dreams Linked to Mental Health?
The SOVA Project is happy to feature this blog post written by one in our team of fantastic SOVA Ambassadors—these are young people who help create meaningful blog posts from adolescents’ perspectives. We hope you can use their post to start a conversation with your adolescent.
For those living with a romantic partner, I’m sure you’ve experienced a mix of positive and negative experiences with each other. In this unprecedented time, there really isn’t a rule book for how to be in a functioning relationship.
Feelings and issues might surface now that you are spending most of your time together and you may have no clue how to deal with them. My partner and I certainly don’t have all the answers, but I hope some of the points below help someone out. Continue reading Relationships in Quarantine
As Mental Health Awareness Month hits the halfway point today, it feels like there couldn’t be better timing to explicitly have a conversation focusing on the topic as daily life continues to be a constant series of unknowns and stressors given the pandemic, staying at home, and adjusting for those where places are starting to slowly open back up. Continue reading “Tools to Thrive”
In this time of isolation and being removed from many, if not all, of your loved ones and those close to you, social media has almost become a necessity in order to connect with them. In fact, you may have seen, or even given, advice on how important it is to reach out and connect with those virtually. Continue reading Oversocializing on Social Media
The SOVA Project is happy to feature this blog post written by one in our team of fantastic SOVA Ambassadors—these are young people who help create meaningful blog posts from adolescents’ perspectives. We hope you can use their post to start a conversation with your adolescent.
The answer is yes. Despite being a social butterfly, I find that my mental health is usually the reason most of my relationships either cease to exist, or are hanging on by a thread.
You can be confident, and love the way you look and feel about yourself, but there will always be people that either say the wrong things, or have bad actions to hurt you that can cause an emotional toll on you mentally. I find that my confidence can result in me having high standards for what I “should” have between relationships and friendships, versus how I should appreciate what I am able to get out of them. Continue reading Does your Mental Health Status Affect your Relationships?
The SOVA Project is happy to feature this blog post written by one in our team of fantastic SOVA Ambassadors—these are young people who help create meaningful blog posts from adolescents’ perspectives. We hope you can use their post to start a conversation with your adolescent.
Looking back at myself now to when I was younger, I can very clearly see signs and symptoms of anxiety, that was not just normal growing up. Some would include obsessively worrying about fire drills in class when we were told we were to have one, getting anxious about reading out loud in class, and performance anxiety surrounding the sports I did from third grade through high school. Continue reading Growing Up with Anxiety
The SOVA Project is happy to feature this blog post written by one in our team of fantastic SOVA Ambassadors—these are young people who help create meaningful blog posts from adolescents’ perspectives. We hope you can use their post to start a conversation with your adolescent.
For many people, including myself, thinking about the unknowns in the future may be a source of anxiety. Unfortunately during this COVID-19 pandemic, most of our lives are filled with unknowns. My mind races with unknowns about the virus- Are my loved ones and I safe? How and when will states reopen? Will a vaccine become widely available? When will this all end and our lives return to normal? Continue reading The COVID Knowns and Unknowns