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From the outside, you seem steady. You listen well. You show up on time. You rarely raise your voice. People might describe you as thoughtful, composed, and even emotionally intelligent. Inside, thoughts play continuously. Emotions rise and fall without warning. A minor interaction can replay in your mind for days. You move through intense emotional waves, only to arrive at numbness or indifference. This is often how people describe Quiet BPD , also known as internalised bord

There are days when life looks fine from the outside. You’re functioning. You’re showing up. You might even say you’re “okay.”And yet colours feel duller. Music doesn’t move you the way it used to. A warm cup of tea tastes neutral. Joy hasn’t disappeared dramatically; it has simply gone quiet. This experience has a name: anhedonia,  the reduced ability to feel pleasure. Although anhedonia is often associated with major depressive disorder, research increasingly recognises tha

Some life changes are obvious turning points. Others look small on the surface but feel deeply unsettling inside. A new job, a breakup, relocation, illness, or even a long-awaited opportunity can leave you feeling emotionally off-balance. You might still function, but something feels heavier than it should. This is often how adjustment disorder appears. It does not always look dramatic, yet it can quietly destabilise daily life. Adjustment disorder is a stress-related conditi

Some people don’t just sense emotions. They absorb them. A friend’s anxiety lingers in your chest. A stranger’s sadness follows you home. Even scrolling through the news can feel physically heavy. Although empathy is often praised, there are moments when excessive emotional sensitivity begins to interrupt daily life. This experience is often described as hyperempathy. It refers to a heightened emotional responsiveness that can become overwhelming or even physically exhausting

Dissociative amnesia is characterised by the inability to recall significant personal information, usually associated with a traumatic event or high emotional pressure, that cannot be explained by normal forgetting or by injury or disease of the nervous system (American Psychiatric Association, 2022). In its less dramatic forms, there are no obvious blackouts. Instead, memory loss may appear as partial, selective, or limited to specific situations. You may remember facts but

Some forms of depression don’t arrive with a crash. They drift in quietly, like fog settling over a familiar landscape. Life looks the same, but it feels different. The question isn’t “What’s wrong with me?” so much as “What is the point of all this?” This is often described as existential depression, a form of psychological distress rooted not primarily in brain chemistry, but in meaning, identity, freedom, and the awareness of mortality. It’s common among deep thinkers, cre

Have you ever wondered why some relationships feel intoxicating, intense, and almost impossible to leave, even when they hurt? Why does walking away feel like pulling yourself out of a storm without shelter? This is where trauma bonding and healthy attachment can quietly blur into one another. From the outside, both can look like love. From the inside, they feel very different in the body, the nervous system, and the heart. Let’s gently untangle the two.   Understanding the D

There’s a quiet kind of pain that doesn’t always announce itself with panic attacks or sleepless nights. It lives deeper, closer to the heart. It shows up when you do what you have to do, but it goes against what you believe is right. This experience has a name: moral injury.Originally studied among military veterans, moral injury is now widely recognised in caregivers, healthcare workers, survivors, aid workers, teachers, and helpers of all kinds. Anyone who has been forced

Imagine this: you are in a very peaceful state, perhaps looking at pictures on your phone or drinking your tea, and out of nowhere, a flashback comes from the past, and it’s like you are living it again. The racing heart, sweating palms, and strong feelings are all there, like you are right in the moment. For a moment, you’re not in your cosy living room or at your desk, you’re back in that moment you thought you’d left behind. This is what a psychological flashback feels lik

It’s late at night. You hear a scream from the next room or notice someone sitting upright in bed, eyes wide open, heart racing, but they’re asleep. You try to comfort them, but it doesn’t work. By morning, they have no memory of it. These are night terrors, a type of parasomnia, or unusual sleep behaviour. They can feel frightening, confusing, and even mysterious, both for the person experiencing them and for those around them. What Are Night Terrors? Parasomnias are sleep d

Imagine walking into a café where every sound feels too loud, every light too bright, and even the gentle brush of fabric against your skin feels overwhelming. For many people on the autism spectrum, this isn’t imagination; it’s daily life. Sensory experiences aren’t neutral; they can arrive louder, sharper, or quieter than expected. Recognising sensory processing differences in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) brings us from misunderstanding to empathy and helps us move from i

You made it through the storm. The dark nights of the mind are (mostly) over. The therapy sessions, the self-work, the restless nights led somewhere. You began to heal. And yet, as the dust settles… something feels off. Recovery (mental, emotional, physical) often brings relief, but it can also introduce a quiet, unsettling question: Who am I now? The person you are feels different. Familiar habits don’t quite fit. Your future seems blurry, and the “you” you once knew doesn’t

Have you ever snapped at a friend for no obvious reason, only later to realise you were actually feeling sad, lonely or anxious? Or maybe you’ve felt a tightness in your chest, a flutter in your stomach, or a wave of fatigue but couldn’t name the feeling beyond “just off.” That uneasy sensation might be what psychologists call emotional displacement: when your inner feelings get “mis-translated” into physical sensations or behaviours instead of being recognised, named, or exp

Most people think grief is something that arrives after a loss. But sometimes, grief shows up before anything changes, right at the moment you realise you need help. That quiet ache you feel when you finally step into therapy, acknowledge a diagnosis, or begin a mental-health journey? That’s what many are starting to recognise as pre-recovery grief, the mourning of the life you imagined you’d have. It’s the soft sorrow of realising that the path you hoped for may never unfold

Some feelings come gently like the waves. Others hit hard and suddenly overwhelming, and are not possible to retract once let loose. In case you have been through an episode of anger that was faster than your control, or if a loved one turns from serene to enraged in a fraction of a second, just remember: you are not the only one, and you are not defective. These years of sudden anger have been claimed to be nothing but "overreactions" by a large number of people across the g

Some habits start quietly, barely noticeable. A small tug at your hair during stress. A subtle picking at your skin when you’re lost in thought. Nibbling on your fingernails while looking at your phone. Nevertheless, for a multitude of people globally, these are not simply "habits." They are Body-Focused Repetitive Behaviors (BFRBs), the very behavioral patterns that could express the states of being overwhelmed, tensed, and emotionally drained more succinctly than verbal com

Some days, your body whispers. Other days, it aches, burns, or tightens in ways you can’t explain—yet deeply feel. If you’ve ever found yourself trapped between “I know something is wrong” and “but the tests say everything’s normal”, you are not alone. Somatic Symptom Disorder (SSD) is among the most prone-to-misunderstanding mental disorders—but still affects people around the world. The term does not mean “overreacting,” “being the center of attention,” or “having delusions

Have you ever thought that your value is connected to being nice, helpful, and always saying yes even when it takes away your inner peace? If that's the case, then you could be battling what some refer to as the “Good Girl Syndrome.” It’s not a medical condition, but it is a pattern that originates at the root of self-denial, perfectionism, and the never-ending drive to please others. Moreover, over the course of years, it can gradually undermine and affect your mental health

Most people sometimes wonder whether their emotions are right or wrong, and sometimes expressing their feelings results in guilt rather than relief. Emotional invalidation is a process that usually starts gradually and is unnoticed for a long time. It occurs when someone discredits, belittles, or ridicules our emotions, sometimes softly and sometimes in a harsh way, but the impact is always profound. And the tricky part? Many of us don’t even realize we’re carrying the effect

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where something good was just around the corner an opportunity, a new habit, a healthier routine—and you just quietly moved away from it? You may be procrastinating, overthinking, or suddenly getting uninterested in the issue. Perhaps the moment you conceive of progress, there is an inner voice that says, “Not yet.” If this resonates with you, then you are not alone at all. Self-sabotage is a struggle that a lot of people face, espe