One of my least favorite symptoms of depression is the intrusive thoughts. (For the record, I don’t actually have any favorite symptoms.) Intrusive thoughts probably happen to everyone from time to time. I can’t be sure because of the problem of other minds and such, but psychologists claim it happens to everyone sometimes. There’s a…
One of the hardest parts about dealing with a mental health condition is that the world doesn’t stop to give you time to get better. That means, in large part because so many people don’t understand mental illness, there’s a lot of pressure to continue living your life as close to normally as you can….
The U.S. Preventative Services Task Force is recommending anxiety screenings for kids as talked about here: Why a US task force is recommending anxiety screening in kids 8 and older (theconversation.com). I think this is a wonderful idea. I have one hesitation which I’ll get to, but this is mostly a huge step towards acknowledging…
This isn’t the kind of thing I’m normally inclined to write about. I’m not a crier. I’ll cry at funerals. The occasional book will get me. But I don’t cry at movies or weddings or any of the other places where people typically cry. Especially at work. There are lots of things that I steadfastly…
Apparently, it’s Mental Health Awareness Week which happens during Mental Health Awareness Month. I must be a bad advocate. I had no idea. I found out through the morning announcements. And, get this, green is the Mental Health awareness color. At least that’s what I’m guessing since they asked us to wear green to support…
Given how hard it is to talk about, and write about, mental health, it seems like fiction, stories, might be the best way to get people to understand. So much of the way we talk about it is metaphorical and impressionistic after all. But I’ve noticed a dearth of good fiction that centers mental health….
One of the many frustrating things about mental health issues is that it is a lot harder than it ought to be to get help. This difficulty can be thought of as hurdles that need to be jumped. Unfortunately, the hurdles appear at nearly every point in the process of seeking help. They can be…
It’s Saturday evening, around 7:30. This was the first week in a few weeks that was supposedly normal. I worked both jobs, had my kid for half the week, and had my classes. No spring break. No sick days. Just my life as it’s been for the past nine months or so. Except I’m still…
One of the odd things about depression, for me at least, is the way it robs me of any kind of attention span. I’ve always had a very long attention span. Even as a little kid I would get absorbed in things and spend hours and hours on them. I can’t even count how many…
I use prescription medication to help treat my depression. I find medication may be the most poorly understood subtopic in the mental health conversation. On some level, that’s totally natural. Most of us don’t know enough chemistry and biology to understand even the basics of what the drugs do and how they work. We are…
