Posted on April 4, 2020
by Kēphen
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Pulled from the archives and originally written in 2012, updated and expanded. Please be advised this entry discusses difficult emotions and suicide, it may not be appropriate for those easily disturbed or triggered by such topics. Support resources are provided at the end of… Continue Reading “A Journey Called Hope”
Category: All, Atheism, Religion and Spirituality, Behavioral Health, Human Condition, LGBTQ+Tags: *See All Posts, Behavioral Health, Bipolar Disorder, Childhood Trauma, Closeted, Coming Out, Coming Out Story, Depression, Homophobia, LGBTQ+, Major Depression, Mental Health, Mental Illness, Religious PTSD, Religious Trauma, Religious Trauma Syndrome, RTS, Self-Acceptance, Self-Hatred, Spiritual Trauma, Suicidal, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicidality, Suicide, Suicide Awareness, Suicide Prevention, Trauma
Posted on January 21, 2019
by Kēphen
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“Nature is not a place to visit. It is home.” ~Gary Snyder Liberation and a Return to the Sacred Buddhism has a long history with the forest. Siddhartha Gautama fled the comforts of the Shakya Kingdom and immersed himself with the lands beyond to… Continue Reading “Liberation and a Return to the Sacred”
Category: All, Atheism, Religion and Spirituality, Behavioral Health, Environment, ScienceTags: *See All Posts, Behavioral Health, Buddhism, Ego, Forest Bathing, Forests, Four Noble Truths, Liberation, Mahayana, Mental Health, Nature, Nature Therapy, Pan, Pantheism, Sacred, Self, Siddhartha Gautama, Taoism, Woodlands
Posted on January 20, 2019
by Kēphen
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The Perfect Life: An Unexpected Loss In order to protect the identity of his family, I will only refer to the young man in this article as “A.J.” A.J. was in his senior year of high school, where he was active in… Continue Reading “The Perfect Life”
Posted on January 2, 2019
by Kēphen
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Love Me Not:A Conversation About Mental Health & Relationships If you’ve read my previous work, you know that I’m often very personal and brutally honest about my experiences and my mistakes. This essay will be no different. I want to share with you some… Continue Reading “Love Me Not”
Category: All, Behavioral Health, Human Condition, LGBTQ+, MiscellaneousTags: *See All Posts, American Midwest, Behavioral Health, Boyhood, Bullying, Coming of Age, Dating, Erectile Dysfunction, Growing Up, Homophobia, Life, Mental Health, Mental Illness, Orientation, Performance Anxiety, Relationships, Repressed, Romance, Self-Hatred, Sexual Dysfunction, Sexual Experiences, Sexuality
Posted on October 24, 2018
by Kēphen
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Recovery for me is a multi-faceted term. It means acknowledging my behavioral condition, understanding it and understanding that I and it are not one in the same – that I am more than my condition. It means that I recognize the signs and symptoms… Continue Reading “Life After”
Category: All, Behavioral Health, Human ConditionTags: *See All Posts, Behavioral Health, Bi-polar Disorder, Depression, Health, Inspiration, Life After Trauma, Mental Health, Mental Illness, Recovery, Suicide Awareness, Suicide Prevention
Posted on September 20, 2018
by Kēphen
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My name is Kephen Merancis and there’s really no easy way to start the conversation that we need to have. It takes a lot of courage to break the wall of silence that stigma builds. It takes at least a little bit of hope… Continue Reading “Out of the Darkness: My Experience with a Mental Health Condition”
Category: All, Behavioral Health, Human Condition, Kephen's Commentary, MiscellaneousTags: *See All Posts, Behavioral Health, Bi-polar Disorder, Depression, MCRD, Mental Health, Mental Illness, San Diego, Suicide Awareness, Suicide Prevention, USMC
Posted on September 20, 2018
by Kēphen
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According to the American Psychiatric Association Foundation, employees with depression miss on average 31.4 days per year and an additional 27.9 days of unproductivity when they report for work, but are unable to focus due to the symptoms of depression. Various studies show that… Continue Reading “U.S. Behavioral Health and the Workplace”
Category: All, Behavioral Health, Human Condition, ScienceTags: *See All Posts, Addiction, Anxiety, Behavioral Health, Depression, Loneliness, Mental Health, Mental Illness, Workplace
Posted on March 19, 2018
by Kēphen
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The Inexplicable Have you ever stopped to think for a moment how incredibly rare your existence actually is? The odds that you would ever come into being are literally on average a million to one. That’s literally a 0.000001% chance that you would be… Continue Reading “The Inexplicable”
Category: All, Human Condition, In Loving Memory, Kephen's Commentary, MiscellaneousTags: *See All Posts, Appreciation, Awareness, Behavioral Health, Dealing With Loss, Death, Delusion, Dying, Ego, Ethics, Existence, Existential, Existentialism, Fulfillment, Gratitude, Happiness, Honesty, Human Connection, Insight, Inspiration, Introspective, Joy, Lessons on Living, Life, Loss, Loss of Loved Ones, Meaning, Mental Health, Mindfulness, Mortality, Philosophy, Purpose, Rarity of Life, Reality Check, Reflecting, Ruminating, Truth, Value of Life, What Matters, Wisdom
The Ardent Axiom 
Out of the Darkness: My Experience with a Mental Health Condition
Posted on September 20, 2018 by Kēphen
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My name is Kephen Merancis and there’s really no easy way to start the conversation that we need to have. It takes a lot of courage to break the wall of silence that stigma builds. It takes at least a little bit of hope… Continue Reading “Out of the Darkness: My Experience with a Mental Health Condition”
Category: All, Behavioral Health, Human Condition, Kephen's Commentary, MiscellaneousTags: *See All Posts, Behavioral Health, Bi-polar Disorder, Depression, MCRD, Mental Health, Mental Illness, San Diego, Suicide Awareness, Suicide Prevention, USMC