Tattoos and Mental Health:

Tattoos and mental health have a complex and evolving relationship.

Here’s an overview of the key connections:

1. Self-Expression and Identity

Positive: Tattoos often help people express their identity, values, or life experiences. This can lead to improved self-esteem, a sense of control, and emotional catharsis.

Example: Survivors of trauma may get tattoos as a symbol of healing or empowerment (e.g., a phoenix, semicolon for suicide prevention, etc.).

2. Coping Mechanism

Mixed: Some individuals use tattoos to cope with emotional pain or psychological distress. While this can be therapeutic, it can also be a form of self-harm or signal unresolved trauma.

Example: People with a history of self-injury may turn to tattoos as a safer or more socially acceptable form of bodily expression.

3. Social Connection and Stigma

Positive: Tattoos can foster a sense of belonging in subcultures or communities (e.g., veterans, artists, trauma survivors).

Negative: Stigma still exists in some cultures or professional environments, potentially affecting mental health through social judgment or discrimination.

4. Association with Mental Health Conditions

Some studies have found correlations between tattoos and higher rates of mental health issues such as depression, anxiety, or impulsivity. However, correlation does not equal causation — tattoos may simply reflect a person’s journey through mental health challenges rather than being a cause or symptom of disorder.

5. Therapeutic Uses

In clinical settings, therapists sometimes explore the meaning of a client’s tattoos as a way to access deeper emotional themes or unresolved issues.

Shervan K Shahhian

“Filtering reality” usually means that our minds don’t perceive or process all information available around us — we automatically filter it based on what we expect, believe, need, or fear.

What it is:

It’s a mental process where the brain selects certain details for attention and ignores others.

It happens unconsciously most of the time, based on personal biases, survival instincts, habits, emotional states, and learned conditioning.

Why it happens:

Efficiency: If we took in everything without filtering, we’d be overwhelmed. Filtering lets us focus on what seems most important.

Survival: Our ancestors needed to quickly detect threats or food, not admire every leaf. So evolution favored brains that filtered for relevance.

Meaning-making: Filtering helps us interpret reality instead of being drowned by raw data. It simplifies the world into stories and categories we can handle.

In short, filtering reality is how consciousness survives complexity — but it can also limit growth if the filters become too rigid or outdated.

Shervan K Shahhian

Human Performance Psychology, (HPP):

Human performance psychology is the field that studies how psychological factors (like motivation, focus, stress, confidence, mental toughness) impact someone’s ability to perform at their best, especially in high-pressure environments. It’s used a lot in sports, military, performing arts, business leadership, and even astronaut training.

Key areas in human performance psychology include:

• Mental skills training: like visualization, goal setting, and self-talk.
• Stress management: staying calm and effective under pressure.
• Resilience building: bouncing back quickly from failure or setbacks.
• Optimizing focus and attention: managing distractions and maintaining flow states.
• Fatigue and recovery: understanding how mental and physical fatigue affect performance and how to recover.

In some ways, it overlaps with sports psychology, but human performance psychology is broader—it’s about any kind of performance, not just athletic.

Shervan K Shahhian

Lobotomy, what and why:

“CONSULT A MEDICAL DOCTOR”

A lobotomy is a type of brain surgery that was once used to treat certain mental illnesses, mainly severe depression, schizophrenia, and extreme anxiety.

The basic idea was to sever connections between the prefrontal cortex (the front part of the brain involved in thinking, planning, and emotions) and the rest of the brain. Surgeons believed this would reduce a patient’s intense emotional suffering and uncontrollable behaviors. The procedure was first widely promoted in the 1930s and 1940s, especially by a Portuguese neurologist named Egas Moniz, who even won a Nobel Prize for it in 1949.

Why it was done:

At the time, there were very few effective treatments for severe mental illness.

Hospitals were overcrowded with patients who had no hope of recovery.

Psychiatrists were desperate for anything that could calm violent or suicidal individuals.

However, lobotomies often left patients with terrible side effects:

Loss of personality

Emotional flatness

Intellectual decline

Sometimes even death

By the 1950s and 1960s, new psychiatric medications like Thorazine became available, and lobotomies quickly fell out of favor because the risks were too high compared to the benefits.

Shervan K Shahhian

Splitting in Mental Health:

In mental health, splitting is a psychological defense mechanism where a person is unable to hold opposing thoughts, feelings, or beliefs about themselves or others. This leads them to see things in black-and-white, all-or-nothing terms — someone is either “all good” or “all bad,” with no shades of gray.

Key Characteristics of Splitting:

Idealization and devaluation: A person may alternate between extreme admiration and intense dislike for someone, based on a single event or interaction.

Instability in relationships: People who split may have tumultuous relationships due to their shifting perceptions.

Inability to integrate positive and negative aspects of oneself or others into a cohesive whole.

Commonly Associated Disorders:

Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD): Splitting is considered a hallmark feature of BPD, though it can appear in other conditions.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder and other personality disorders: It can also occur in these contexts, though often less pervasively.

Example:

Border Line, example:

A client with BPD may say of their therapist:
“You’re the best therapist in the world!” (idealization)
Then, after a perceived slight:
“You’re just like all the others — completely useless!” (devaluation)

Why It Happens:

Splitting often originates from early developmental trauma or invalidating environments, where the person never developed the capacity to tolerate emotional ambivalence or complexity.

Shervan K Shahhian

Suppressing Grief or Anxiety only extends Suffering, why:

Suppressing grief or anxiety only extends suffering because when these emotions are pushed away or denied, they aren’t actually resolved — they remain active beneath the surface, influencing thoughts, behavior, and even physical health in subtle but powerful ways. 

Here’s why:

Unprocessed Emotions Don’t Disappear Suppression is like stuffing emotions into a box and locking it — but the box is still inside you. Over time, those emotions may leak out as irritability, depression, panic attacks, or physical symptoms (like headaches, fatigue, or digestive issues).

Avoidance Blocks Healing Emotions like grief and anxiety have a natural arc — they arise in response to loss or threat and, when fully experienced, tend to lessen over time. Suppression interrupts this healing process, leaving you emotionally “stuck.”

Increases Internal Conflict Part of your mind is trying to feel or express the emotion, while another part is working hard to block it. This creates tension and drains mental energy, leading to greater stress and fatigue.

Impacts Relationships When you suppress your emotions, especially grief, it can create distance between you and others. You may seem emotionally unavailable or cold, which makes it harder to receive the support you actually need.

The Body Keeps ScoreAs trauma researcher Bessel van der Kolk puts it, “the body keeps the score.” Suppressed emotions can manifest in somatic (bodily) ways — chronic pain, immune issues, or psychosomatic conditions.

Ultimately, allowing yourself to feel and express grief or anxiety — whether through talking, writing, crying, or meditating — is a form of respect for your inner life. It’s how you metabolize pain and create space for growth, connection, and peace.

Shervan K Shahhian

Love bombing is a psychological manipulation tactic where someone overwhelms another person with excessive affection, attention, praise, gifts, or promises early in a relationship in order to gain control or influence over them.

Key Characteristics:

Intense flattery and compliments

Lavish gifts or gestures

Constant communication (texts, calls, messages)

Pushing for quick commitment or declarations of love

Creating a sense of dependency or obligation

Where It’s Common:

Narcissistic relationships: Often used by narcissists to idealize their targets before devaluing and discarding them.

Cult recruitment: To create loyalty and dependency on the group or leader.

Abusive dynamics: As part of a cycle of abuse — idealization, devaluation, and discard.

Why It’s Harmful:

Initially, love bombing can feel flattering and exciting, but over time it’s often followed by emotional withdrawal, manipulation, or control. It can lead the victim to doubt their own perceptions, become isolated, or feel trapped in an unhealthy relationship.

Shervan K Shahhian

Narcissistic Abuse:

Narcissistic abuse refers to the psychological, emotional, and sometimes physical harm inflicted by someone with narcissistic traits or Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD). This kind of abuse is often manipulative, controlling, and deeply damaging, though it can be subtle and hard to identify at first.

Common Signs of Narcissistic Abuse:

1. Gaslighting – Making you question your reality or sanity.
2. Love bombing – Overwhelming you with affection and attention early on, then withdrawing it to control you.
3. Devaluation – Criticizing, belittling, or undermining you after gaining your trust.
4. Triangulation – Involving others to manipulate or isolate you.
5. Blame shifting – Refusing responsibility and blaming you for problems.
6. Silent treatment – Withholding communication as punishment.
7. Projection – Accusing you of things they are actually doing.

Effects on Victims:

• Loss of self-esteem and identity
• Anxiety and depression
• PTSD or complex PTSD (C-PTSD)
• Emotional confusion and trauma bonding (feeling attached despite the abuse)

What to Do:

• Document behavior for your own clarity
• Set boundaries (and enforce them)
• Seek support – therapy, support groups, or trusted friends
• Consider no contact if the abuse is ongoing and severe

Shervan K Shahhian