Q: My 10-year-old stepson nibbles on my shirt and so does my 8-year-old stepdaughter. Is that normal behavior? They don’t break skin, they just nibble the front, shoulders and sleeves of the shirt. A: There could be a few different reasons underlying this behavior, or it could be something that is resolved as the kids [...]

Q: If you are absolutely sure that you will die, when you are in fact very close to death, will your natural fight/flight response make things worse for you in terms of survival? That is, would your natural fear of death hasten your death or perhaps, on the contrary, prolong your life? A: Much like [...]

Q: Throughout my childhood I was home-schooled by an oppressive and domineering mother whom I bitterly resented, and I came to associate those feelings of resentment with my education. As a teenager, I dropped out of high school. I now need to study in order to get my GED (General Educational Development tests), but whenever [...]

Q: I’m 18 years old and I have never slept in a bedroom by myself. I’m terrified to death of the dark and even if I could make peace with the dark, I couldn’t bear to sleep by myself. I will turn 19 soon and it has taken me a long time to admit that [...]

Q: When I write I can’t see words in my mind’s eye. I use a dictionary constantly. I can’t chat online because the stress debilitates me to the point where I can’t spell the word “run” or even know what letter it begins with. I try to sound the word out with my mouth but [...]

Q: I’m a young guy, aged 20. I was a jovial person with a lot of friends, having a good life like every other young person my age but for the past two months I’ve been deeply depressed. I used to watch porn clips — from the age of 13 — but I started getting [...]

Q: I was involved in an accident five years ago at my place of work. I’ve had seven spinal surgeries and I live in chronic pain due to the operations not working, scar tissue and damaged nerves. I had three really hard years where I spent a lot of time in bed isolated from everyone. [...]