Mental Health Update

It’s designed to be an assistive device for people who are deaf or simply don’t have the best hearing. They also provide good alerts for people with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). That’s where it helps me. It keeps me aware of when I need to get something done, despite how distracted I might be by whatever is going on around me. It’s also great for people who are often in load environments where a beep might not be heard. Best of all, it alerts you without alerting everybody else.

I discovered that there is an established Attention Deficit Disorder blog over at Blogspot. It's set up by the people who bring you "Attend" (and perhaps other alternative A.D.D. products - I'm not focused enough yet this morning to wade through their information.) But you might be interested!

Had a meeting in Glasgow this afternoon and it was in a new building. I used to be really really scared of heights (within buildings and man-made structures, I like to have my feet on the real ground so hills are ok), sometimes not even coping with going up the first floor. Anyway, I’m much better now and even when I have relapses it’s never as bad as it was ten years ago. Plus I know prozac works for me even if it does take a couple of weeks to get in the system. So, this meeting was up on the 5th floor, which I can deal with. I’d rather be lower down, but I can do the 5th. Only today it was in a room with big windows and a view over the city. I had to ask the woman I was meeting if we could perhaps not sit by them, she was very understanding, perhaps too understanding as she kept asking if I was ok.

One of these scenarios that does make a good story, but is equally indicative of my stupidity involves my having stayed in a relationship with someone for over a year who was in the initial stages of schizophrenia. When I was in college, I tended to have weird relationships with men who were nice and liked me, but were intimidated by my lack of neediness, and probably thought they'd rather be seen with a truly hot girl anyway. (I have my charms, but I'm not a supermodel.) I met a few weirdos who were willing to play ball, and then, my junior year, I started dating a nice, quiet fellow who seemed totally sweet and open and fun. Within that first month, he drew me into this little circle of crazy within which he would suddenly become someone else for a few hours -- a violent and bitter person, using a voice that wasn't his. He'd threaten me, accuse me, even try to kill me (several times, once by pointing the car at an oncoming truck). When he snapped out of it, he remembered nothing. And if I told him about it, he'd try to jump out the nearest window to die. Stupidly convinced that "my love" could save him or whatever, I stayed with him.

It doesn’t seem to be Alzheimer’s, says the neurologist. Her problems more closely resemble Parkinson’s and a dangerously mis-mixed cocktail of antidepressants, antipsychotics, and various other drugs to control her anxiety and other problems.

Ibn Hazm on Anxiety. This was taken from “al akhlaq wal siyar”. I have serious akhlaq issues, so when I read this stuff, it makes me sit still and go into automatic time-out mode. After reading inshaAllah, just sit still and ponderrrr…. Mannnnnn, I love this stuff! woah. I just really, truly LOVE this stuff! I have an urge to scream right now.

Dr. Mike Heiser has recommended a new book called Brain Trust by Colm Kelleher, which purports to establish a link between mad cow disease and Alzheimer’s. If Kelleher is right, and he’s got the credentials to make his claim plausible, it makes this news especially ominous:

Currently in psychology we are leaning about psychological disorders. One disorder that seemed fasinating was schizophrenia. Schizophernia is characterized by a lack of integration amongst normal psychological function. In other words: a person seems to be out of touch with reality.

The exchange between Cruise & Lauer began when the host asked the War of the Worlds star about his recent comments criticizing Brooke Shields for taking antidepressants to handle postpartum depression.

on top of the social difficulties associated with Autism and Asperger's Syndrome there is a whole host of overlap/associated conditions. ADD/ADHD, dyslexia, dyspraxia, OCD, schizophrenia, epilepsy and Sensory Integration Dysfunction.

1) Sing - loudly
2) Go on long walks (either to look for cool rocks or just around, depending on locale)
3) Drive :twisted:
4) Take pictures
5) Write

I’m not going to tag anyone, but if you feel the need to follow suit; knock yourself out.

As harsh as that sounds, it rings true. Event though when I upset her it is like getting my back/bikini area waxed, it hurts, it tears me up. I just do not understand why I do it with her, and/or with anyone else. It seems like it’s my bipolar disorder, but that’s just an easy scape-goat, I cannot use that forever and ever. I need to become the man I need to be, and stop doing all this stupid stuff. Easier said then done at this point.

So to the present. I start my new job tomorrow and I’m very excited about it, with a bit of anxiety. I haven’t gone to a “job” job type situation in a long time, and while I miss it, I need to get my mind back in that mental space. I started it with a purge of a lot of conceptual theory books that I had when I thought I’d do a PhD. I know everything I need to know about post-structuralism, thank you very much.

I saw this meme on someone else’s blog and thought that it was way cool … so I’m participating! :) You’re supposed to list “… things you enjoy, not because you have to but because you WANT to, even when no one around you wants to go out and play … what lowers your stress/blood pressure/anxiety level? Make a list; post it to your journal.” Here are mine:

I remember those movies from the seventies and eighties where guys like Jack Nicholson were put into a cold dank looking place, white walls, piles of meds and patients walking around in a daze ready to be inspired to revolt and enjoy life all by an energetic and charismatic scitzo. If a place like that does exist, I certainly was not privileged enough to populate it. My time at Homevale was an eye opener to say the absolute least. Though in the long run I feel as though my therapy failed successfully, I did learn a lot about myself and the world. I was diagnosed with schizophrenia which is a chronic, severe, and disabling brain disease, but if any one had asked, I would have explained that I was just lonely. The use of antipsychotic medications to control my self-talk was the automatic response but strangely enough it was the other young crazies that surrounded me that truly “cured” me.

Later the story explains furthur, “Mediafax news agency said Cornici suffered from schizophrenia and the symptoms of her condition caused the priest at the convent and other nuns to believe she was possessed by the devil.”

I know I am finding myself tired again. I wasn't near as tired when I had quit for a whole month. The biggest thing I face in quitting is anxiety. I got really anxious when I tried to quit before. I was also pretty restless but that wasn't as bad because I would get out and do things. Although also had a lot of trouble focusing on things.

Talked to Daniel Letourneau of PANDA the Quebec ADD organization. Learned that Attention Deficit Disorder in French is Trouble Déficit de l’Attention.

Have a look at this story about a young woman, diagnosed with schizophrenia, who was tortured and killed by religious nuts at a convent after they felt whe was possessed by the devil. This is yet another reason why I don’t generally subscribe to organised religion.

Instead think back to last year after the first (documented) case of mad cow disease in the U.S. Remember the sweeping new rules announced by the USDA and FDA that were supposed to further restrict the use of animal byproducts in cattle feed? Well it appears that those rules are passing quietly into the night.

4. Pro-ana/mia/E.D. Researching the controversial (sic) web community that purportedly celebrates eating disorders.

There were several theories floated by Michael Schiavo and others over the years, including heart attack, stroke, eating disorders and caffeine that could have caused her brain damage. However, they were all ruled out after examination of all of her medical records.

Senior congressional Democrats on food and farm issues asked Monday why the Agriculture Department suddenly ordered new tests on tissue from a cow declared free of mad cow disease seven months ago.

I am so angry. I haven’t taken my newly adjusted antidepressants in like three days, so I feel like crying while I’m angry. It’s so fucking hot here that I cannot sleep. The heat by itself makes me miserable and unpleasant, and not being able to sleep is just making my mood even more foul. And then of course my mother’s sorry excuse for a husband thinks that one o’clock in the fucking morning is a dandy time to use power tools in the fucking basement, so I couldn’t even sleep when I tried to do so on the couch downstairs, where we actually have air conditioning. I hate the world and sometimes i am just really tempted to kill myself because everything sucks. And I am angry. >=(

I initially found the PBS site because I was looking for documentation on the Insulin-Coma Therapy that Nash’s character received in the movie. It disturbed me. How barbaric! Why would anyone think that putting someone into a coma via an overdose of insulin — then bringing them out with intravenous glucose — would help a mentally ill patient? Well, let me say I was surprised. (ICT is not practiced any more in the U.S. because of antipsychotic drugs.)

The US government’s elaborate cover-up of mad cow dangers in the United States has begun to unravel. Twenty-four hours after our successful protest (with Organic Consumers Association) of the US Department of Agriculture’s mad cow dog-and-pony show in St. Paul, USDA Secretary Johanns was forced to admit that a cow tested last year and declared safe in fact DID have mad cow disease, or at least has tested positive on the definitive Western Blot test recently administered by USDA and considered the 'gold standard' for BSE testing.

I thought about depression a couple of weeks ago, but I didn’t think it was much of a problem. My wife thinks I might be in denial. Kinda scary. She mentioned some of the things I do and say. Hearing them from another person, I realize how negative I’ve become and how bleak a picture I paint of my existence.

Diagnosed with depression and borderline personality disorder, she was stable as long as she had stable housing. But like others in similar situations, once her sanctuary was threatened, she lost her grip.

So I thought my treatment was complete. And perhaps it will go on for another year. I am not overly anxious about this – it may be the Zoloft that cuts down on my anxiety or it may be my weekly counseling sessions that are helping me process overwhelming information. Regardless, I plan to keep tossing this new dilemma around in my head until I feel a definite sense of direction.

Parents who model good eating habits help their kids make better choices and avoid eating disorders, says Antine. She cites a recent study showing that mothers who eat lots of fruits and veggies are less likely to pressure their daughters to eat, and those daughters are less picky and consume more produce.

As soon as a society backs off from the absolute value of all human life, a process of devaluation begins in which ever more life is thought unworthy of life. One need not speculate about the “slippery slope.” We have already begun the descent. The trend started in our courts with terminating the ventilator of a person supposedly in a persistent vegetative state, and has proceeded to the starvation of those judged incompetent. And once the right to death by starvation was granted a competent person, it was next seen appropriate to grant this “benefit” to the incompetent.

Worries about addiction to anxiolytics (Valium, Librium, Ativan) and hypnotics (Mogadon, Temazepam) has meant that people are now looking for more natural methods of relieving stress and anxiety. The most simple and natural way to achieve mental harmony is offered by relaxation. Even relaxing for a short time, say 15 minutes per day can be of great benefit.

I am lucky that not too far from my office is a hypnotherapist and I refer a number of clients to him who are asking about smoking. My level of experience in using acupuncture to stop smoking is a moderate success at best and I find that I am most helpful with the side effects of anxiety, irritability and sleeplessness. I can help take the edge off the craving, but I can’t make it go away.

Sometimes the hardest thing one can do is nothing. I know this really well, and I am usually not very good at it. My baby sister has struggled for years with a love affair with drugs. You see, she is Bi-polar (used to be called manic depression). She has only been medicated for a couple months in a row before she falls back into the drug world and begins to self medicate.

The headline-grabbing story all over the place today about how half of Americans suffer from mental illness at some point raised my skeptical hackles. I knew there was almost surely Big Pharma money lurking somewhere and sure enough, my assumption had some validity to it. It's difficult to critique studies like this or the drugs used to treat depression because invariably someone thinks you are attacking the notion that there is a real problem or that the drugs help, when you aren't doing any such thing. I'm just saying that I think Big Pharma...

Last night we talked about Borderline Personality Disorder and Sally. I told My Personal Expert that I felt bad about Sally firing me as her case manager so fast, and to my surprise MPE thought that was a good thing. "It just means you didn't hesitate to draw boundaries," she said, "and that's what you've got to do." Then she said that it is helpful to think of people with BPD as being four-years-old. Think of how you have to deal with a four-year-old and you will be on the right track.

Like heart disease, anxiety and depression, scientists discovered in a study of 1,397 pairs of female twins that there is a genetic basis to female orgasm.

I've written repeatedly on body issues. I have also confessed my own struggle with eating disorders. I don't have an answer for this right now, other than this deep dismay that our insanely unhealthy attitudes toward bodies--especially white attitudes toward bodies--are deadly. Literally.

I realized that even though I get depressed about being a nonsocial geek, or being “weird”, after listening to some of the kids in the room, I realized that at least I can communicate normally with other human beings.

People with the condition swing between bouts of severe depression and periods of manic euphoria. Treating the symptoms and enhancing quality of life has been one of the challenges for this disorder.

If you ever have to teach other people, or simply want to communicate more effectively, you’ll have an edge by learning how to recognize, understand and communicate appropriately with people who have different learning styles. If you want to learn more about teaching ADD students, take a look at this page on my website with links to 34 Articles & Ebooks on how to teach students with attention deficit disorder.

The workers allowed the pups to hear their mother's call during the period of separation and found that this auditory input increased the serotonin receptor concentration in the males' amygdala, yet decreased the concentration of these same receptors in females. Although it is difficult to extrapolate from this study to human behavior, the results hint that if something similar occurs in children, separation anxiety might differentially affect the emotional well-being of male and female infants. Experiments such as these are necessary if we are to understand why, for instance, anxiety disorders are far more prevalent in girls than in boys.

Anxiety disorders were the most prevalent (affecting 28.8 percent of Americans at some time in their life), followed by impulse-control disorders (24.8 percent), mood disorders (20.8 percent) and substance use disorders (14.6 percent).

The gene codes for the serotonin transporter, the protein in brain cells that recycles the chemical messenger after it's been secreted into the synapse, the gulf between cells. Since the most widely prescribed class of antidepressants act by blocking this protein, researchers have focused on possible functional consequences of a slight variation in its DNA sequence across individuals. Everyone inherits two copies of the gene, one from each parent, which comes in two common versions: short and long. The short version makes less protein, resulting...

A cow suspected of having mad cow disease has been found in northern Japan in what may be the nation’s 20th case of the illness, an official said Saturday.

My mother is a bit freaked out that I may be clinically depressed. I don’t think she quite gets the fact that depression is a disease like anything else.

Having spent plenty of time learning about how stress affects my own brain chemistry and finding out about healthy ways to deal with stress so as to avoid slipping back into major depression, I was quite interested in the subject. I know that the defense mechanisms I developed as an abused child, in order to survive that stress, led to major problems later in life when I wasn't capable of dealing with stress normally. I had simply never learned how and not dealing with stress can cause an amazing number of problems.

June seems like a good month to slip into a deep insanity, or dare I say it – depression. As good a month as any, I suppose. For reasons I haven’t quite pinned down yet, I find myself spending a good amount of time feeling like there’s a thick cloud around my head; my mind as Jacob Marley, dragging heavy chains twisted up with rusty locks. Dickensian, indeed … and I hate metaphor all over again, in every sense of the cliche it creates, the cowardice of it. But I do slip up every now and then, running to hide in an...

I don’t doubt that we’ll learn more ways to manipulate our minds chemically, but I do wonder about how widely accepted these treatments will be, not because of ethical concerns but because it’s not going to be as simple as this article makes it sound. Most of the OTC medications I take or used to take have so many side-effects and interactions; decongestants, antihistamines, and many OTC painkillers all come hedged around with various warnings and restrictions. It’s not that you can’t take them or that they don’t...

Autogenic training is a century-old European method for achieving relaxation based upon passive concentration and body awareness of specific sensations. Its effectiveness has been shown in relieving many stress-related disorders including anxiety, tension, insomnia, and examination stress. Find out if…

Many people have heard about this story as it was a best seller as well as a popular movie. I have saw the movie when it was playing in theater and enjoyed it. The book is different, but a very readable yet somewhat disturbing story. It tells quite a saga of John Nash from an extremely obnoxious young genius, to a nearly homeless, schizophrenic nobody, and back to a functional mathematician and person who won a Nobel Prize for his early work. While Nash sounds like a total sod when young, he was brilliant and parts of the math community as well as his (ex & future) wife (one person) stood by and supported him through a long period os schizophrenia.

Still, there have been other publicity hiccups related to Cruise's increasingly public association with Scientology, the religion founded by the science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard. In a series of television interviews on "Access Hollywood" last week, the star spoke at length about his passion for Scientology, at one point criticizing the actress Brooke Shields for taking antidepressants for postpartum depression. Scientology considers modern psychiatry and its medications to be harmful.

Well, my mom has been diagnosed as having Bipolar Disorder for the second time in 15 years, which is a worrisome thing. I went out and did a bit of research on the topic and found a nice little packet of information.