Melissa Plantz

About Melissa Plantz

Melissa Plantz is a Christian author and freelance writer. She spent twenty years in the pharmacy industry and has specialized in faith, fitness, nutrition, geriatrics, and mental health since 2015. She writes from the beautiful Lake Marion area in South Carolina.

8 Signs of a Toxic Relationship

2025-09-24T06:49:41+00:00September 24th, 2025|Couples Counseling, Individual Counseling, Marriage Counseling, Premarital Counseling, Relationship Issues|

Toxic relationships can leave emotional scars, not only physical ones. You should know the signs of a toxic relationship to recognize those red flags in your own relationship or the relationship of someone you love. Eight Signs of a Toxic Relationship There are eight common signs of a toxic relationship. Your relationship does not need to display all eight signs to be unhealthy and traumatic. Yours may only display one or two. For example, your significant other may not control the finances or talk badly about you behind your back (as far as you know), but this person makes mean comments and sometimes hits you or demands sex from you. This is abuse and should be dealt with carefully. Once you recognize the signs of toxicity in your own relationship, you may need professional help to resolve it. You may need law enforcement, legal counsel, family law (if you have children), and counseling to move through the trauma and start fresh. A Christian counselor can walk you through the steps and help you end a toxic relationship. Read more to learn eight signs of a toxic relationship. Tells Others You are “Crazy” An abuser needs sympathy from others. They want the focus on them and for people to understand what they are “dealing” with at home. An abuser will tell others you are crazy, hard to live with, or hostile toward them. These are often lies to remove your credibility and to gain sympathy for themselves. This can also trigger isolation as other people distance themselves from you. Lies to Gain Sympathy An abuser may exaggerate or outright lie about you to others to gain sympathy. They crave attention but do not want their narrative questioned. They may do whatever they can to keep you isolated and limit the [...]

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What You Need to Know About Emotional Eating

2025-05-08T05:51:21+00:00May 8th, 2025|Eating Disorders, Featured, Individual Counseling|

The emotional eating pattern is a familiar one. You start the day as usual, waking up and vowing that this will be the day you eat healthy and “stay on plan.” You eat a nutritious breakfast, then grab a quick lunch of coffee and a small wrap. But then the work stress piles on, and you get a call from the school that you need to pick up your child early. Your spouse must work late, and you must figure out dinner. Before you know it, you are standing in the pantry eating a bag of chips and nibbling a cookie from the new box. Emotional eating, that familiar struggle, has you in its grip again. But what exactly is emotional eating? Can you stop it? What is emotional eating? Emotional eating is an impulsive behavior. We feel uncomfortable, and a surge of strong emotions, and we are unsure how to handle these feelings. In turn, we choose food to soothe our souls. Unfortunately, an eating occasion is a temporary event, and the feel-good chemicals released by the brain are a fleeting quick fix. Often, emotional eating behaviors go back to childhood or early adult years. If you felt emotions and did not know how to manage them, you may have reached for food, or someone may have rewarded you with food to make you feel better. Eventually, our brains recognized this behavior as a reward system. Emotional eating can lead to physical and mental conditions: Rapid weight gain. Obesity. High blood pressure. Rapid heart rate. Shortness of breath. Feeling out of control. Feeling guilt and shame. Depression. Anxiety. Increased risk for a heart attack or stroke. Digestive issues. Low self-esteem and confidence. Body image issues. Emotional eating is a behavior you can stop. The behavior becomes impulsive, and [...]

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