Christine Schoenwald

Anxiety isn't something people choose to experience — it's connected with how their brains see the world.

A new study conducted by Offir Laufer, David Israeli and Rony Paz (of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel) has found that individuals with anxiety see the world differently, and this difference is because of a variance in their brains.

My brother, Frederick, was eight when I was born. I don't know if he was happy to have a sister or resented me being born, as it was difficult to get any kind of reading on what he was thinking or feeling. I never felt any love or affection from him — unless his way of showing it was through emotional and physical abuse.

The truth is, we want our cats fat and our women skinny.

I still went to the painful place of being fat-shamed and decided that was why he had refused to kiss me. The pain never fully went away.

One of the reasons that narcissists are so troubling is their lack of compassion and awareness regarding how their behavior affects other people.

When the formerly fat spoke of their hardships, I didn’t take them seriously. I thought that without the problem of weight, their lives must be perfect.

As if parenting wasn't challenging enough, sometimes you actually have to talk to your children. Not only do you have to speak with them, but you want to do it in a way that will have positive and lasting results.

My swimsuit phobia started in middle school — that breeding ground of body shame and fear. One minute I’m a kid excitedly putting on my pink two-piece and running into the ocean, the next, I’m avoiding any place where people are known to live in their swimsuits and I might be forced to wear one.