15 Fascinating Quotes on Mental Health

Love is a serious mental disease.
― Plato






I'm not a big fan of psychoanalysis: I think if you have
mental problems what you need are good pills. But I do
think that if you have things that bother you, things that
are unresolved, the more that you talk about them,
write about them, the less serious they become.
― Stephen King




If the national mental illness of the United States
is megalomania, that of Canada is paranoid schizophrenia.
― Margaret Atwood






In the past, men created witches: now
they create mental patients.
― Thomas Szasz






When you've been locked up in a mental institution,
people are going to ask questions. It was OK,
because I didn't have to act perfect all the time.
― Drew Barrymore







“I wanted to tell her that if only something were wrong
with my body it would be fine, I would rather have
anything wrong with my body than something wrong
with my head, but the idea seemed so involved and
wearisome that I didn’t say anything.
I only burrowed down further in the bed.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar








“depression in its major stages possesses no
quickly available remedy: failure of alleviation
is one of the most distressing factors of the disorder
as it reveals itself to the victim, and one that helps
situate it squarely in the category of grave diseases.”
― William Styron, Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness










“My life isn't good or bad. It's an incredible series
of emotional and mental extremes, with beautiful
thunderstorms and stunning sunrises.
Some would say this is my artistic temperament.
Others would say i am mentally ill or bipolar.
I SAY... it's a bit of both and i make the most
of them, CREATIVELY.”
― Jaeda DeWalt






“Bipolar illness, manic depression, manic-depressive
illness, manic-depressive psychosis. That’s a nice way
of saying you will feel so high that no street drug can
compete and you will feel so low that you wish you had
been hit by a Mack truck instead.”
― Christine F. Anderson, Forever Different: A Memoir of
     One Woman's Journey Living with Bipolar Disorder







“I get absolutely shitfaced. I am shitfaced and hyper
and ten years old. I am having the time of my life.”
― Marya Hornbacher, Madness: A Bipolar Life






“People with BPD are like people with third degree
burns over 90% of their bodies. Lacking emotional
skin, they feel agony at the slightest touch or movement.”
― Marsha Linehan






“My heart keeps begging me for a reason to keep
beating, but I'm running out of lies to tell it”
― Stephanie Ware







“Depression: the healthy suspicion that modern
life has no meaning and that modern society
is absurd and alienating.”
― Neel Burton, The Meaning of Madness






Sometimes the appropriate response
to reality is to go insane.
― Philip K. Dick





“If being sane is thinking there's something wrong with
being different....I'd rather be completely fucking mental.”
― Angelina Jolie

Medication for the Youth of the Nation!

If the "War on Drugs" was the bad cop confronting
what most Conservatives agreed was the biggest
social evil facing America in 80s, then "Drug Education"
was meant to be the softer, more feminine good cop
that would help eliminate this nemesis once and for all.

Nancy Reagan would personify the campaign - a new way to keep kids off drugs, and billions
of dollars would be spent imprinting this catchy
slogan into young minds and the minds of so many
frightened parents everywhere...

Naturally, there would be t-shirts, bumper stickers
and a host of other merch. This simple solution to
the whole darn problem would be shouted from the
mountain tops, echo down the valleys and reverberate
down the corridors of power.

Like so many of the solutions of the Reagan era-
the Star Wars defense system, trickle-down economics,
etc - "Just Say No" was simple, clear and effectively
useless. Here too, billions would be spent to no great
effect beyond scratching the itch of the aging Puritans
who would back Ronnie come hell or high water.

To this day, no one knows how many kids just said
no, but apparently not enough because in spite of
all the best branding money could buy, more people
were buying more - and better - drugs all the time.

As time went on, and it turned out hugs weren't
making the crucial difference, drug education
took on a nastier edge...

In the tradition of Reefer Madness,
the gloves started coming off....

Yeah. Right.

One of the challenges of addressing young people
about drugs is that kids aren't stupid. The best
one could hope that a campaign of simplistic
slogans might do is start a conversation - ie -
when a parent or other authority figure says
"Just Say No", the child might respond with
"Why Should I?".

At that point, the authority figure needs to have
an intelligent reply. Ideally, it will include scientific
facts and some reasonable qualifications.

The facts should not fly in the face of the kids'
lived experience (marijuana leads to heroin, etc).

The reasonable qualifications need to address
the latent stupidity and/or intrinsic hypocrisy 
of "Just Say No"- like why so many adults don't,
whether it's cocaine or bourbon or gin.

One might also need to explain why, if Drugs
are for Losers, that anyway they should Just Say
Yes to the Thorazine/Nembutal/Ritalin/etc that
have been prescribed for their depression/anxiety/
other newly diagnosed condition...

There is a growing concern about the incidence
with which kids are being prescribed pharmaceuticals
for a growing number of mental conditions.


Some think that many normal childhood behaviours
are included in ever-expanding medical definitions
of "illness". If I was a parent, I would be concerned.

That said, as these vintage ads show, the idea of
drugs for kids is nothing new...

Is this for the child or the adult?

It's certainly possible that kids are developing
more mental issues these days. They live with
stresses I can't imagine, from metal detectors
at school to social media bullies to the growing
sense that the future is really going to suck.

There won't be enough jobs, and most of them
will be of the "do you want fries with that?" variety.
Just going to a club or even a mall might get you
shot by some wanna-be gangster and then there's
the climate... changing.

It would be more surprising if they didn't have
an issue or two.

The last thing I would think they need is somebody
busting their chops, or even their ass, for smoking
a joint with a friend once in a while. Or dressing
"weird" or listening to "awful" music.

Maybe it's the adults who really have the problems.
Maybe they are giving kids issues.

Maybe instead of talking down,
we should listen up.

*

Happy "Let's Talk" Mental Health Day!

Happy "Let's Talk" Mental Health Day!

Does that sound cynical?


It's not intended to...


It's now about 6pm on "Let's Talk" day*, and if the local news
is to be believed, there has been a lot of talk-
people posting/tweeting/w.h.y. about depression and other
manifestations of mental illness today so much that Bell
is kicking 57,000,000 nickels towards "improving care
and access, stimulating research and encouraging best
practices in the workplace.".


That's a lot of nickels.

Big respect and thanks to Clara Hughes for stepping
up to front this undertaking. She's my nominee
for "best use of cred".

And fair's fair - respect to Bell for doing something good
in the world. Yes, it's a mad bang for the ad buck buy,
but people are talking. That is a good thing, and in my
experience, rare enough to remark on.


It's even getting talked about during the sports report.
Amazing!

One can't help wondering what sort of world this might
be if more corporations-that-are-also-people showed
some fucking humanist initiative.


*


But all this 'good' is not without it's ironies...

Such was the result of my attempt to check out the web site. There's always room for improvement.

It's now about 7pm, and according to the local news,
it's up to about 62,000,000 nickels. Sweet.

This is my 4th post so far, and I'll probably do another
to kick it up to a quarter (as in 5 nickels, baby!).

It's not like I don't have quarters laying around the house.
It's not like I feel like I'm I'm stickin' it to the Man by costing
them money every time I do...


...but it is like "today's your day day, boyo.
Today you don't have to be ashamed".

I was diagnosed as bipolar 2 nearly ten years ago.
It was mostly a relief, frankly.

Why? Because it meant everything wasn't my fault.

All those days when I would lay in bed, so sad and broken
that only the thought of letting someone down that I cared
about could get me up.

All those meetings where I'd feel like a fricken'
Martian every time I suggested a possibility.

I could go on for days. Sometimes I do...

  Why not? I've got the time...

I used to be "high-functioning". I used to be one of the best
in the country at what I did. I used to make shit up,
and then build crews to make it happen and together
we would turn it into magic.

That was then. Now, I'm just another broke-ass guy
in a broke-ass town. I'm 58 years old, and I haven't worked
for years. I'll probably never work again.

My doctor is not equipped to deal with my medication needs.
I used to go see a shrink for that, whose practice was
a mere two hours a day, but he's gone now.
Nobody knows where.


I'm hoping I can get a welfare claim running soon.
I used to hope for a disability claim, but that apparently
those can take nearly five years to get going.


In the meantime, my Mom stretches her pension 

to include me. And my dog.

Even if I wasn't pre-disposed, it would be depressing.
And the beat goes on...

*


So, there you go. That's me celebrating Let's Talk day...
by talking about depression, and mental illness, and stigma.

*

If I was to try and boil it down to one thing I would say
to everyone who is not bipolar, it would probably come
down to this:

... that's my nickel.














* Bell has launched a campaign to encourage discussion
of mental health issues in the lead-up to its national
"Let's Talk Day" on February 8.
Bell introduced the mental health initiative in 2011,
committing to spend $50 million over five years in a bid
to change Canadians' attitudes on the subject.
Besides deflating the stigma around mental health,
the campaign also focuses on improving care and access,
stimulating research and encouraging best practices
in the workplace.

Read more: http://www.ctvnews.ca/bell-launches-2012-let-s-talk-mental-health-campaign-1.754199#ixzz2KjNXQQUc

The campaign against depression

Bell launches 2012 'Let's Talk' mental health campaign

*

Depression - the dark, dirty secret

Is curiosity an inherent part of living bipolar?

One person is not much of a statistical sample, but it's
certainly part of my bipolar experience, Ever since I was
diagnosed, I have read a lot about "my condition".

Sometimes I learn useful things. Sometimes it makes
me laugh. Sometimes all it does is make it clear how
much of my bipolar life is not studied/discussed/etc...

Case in point: depression.

It's not that depression is not studied/discussed/etc-
if anything, it seems to be the primary focus of most
studies and discussions but from my perspective, there's
one key element of depression that never seems
to come out.

How fucking boring it is...

Being depressed is central to the bipolar experience,
to the point where unfortunately it virtually defines it.
By comparison, "mania" or as I call it "the fear of mania"
is a very distant second place.

Depending on whether you are BP1 or BP2, and just how
BP1 or BP2 you are, you may well spend over 60% of your
life being depressed. When one factors in the time spent
transiting into or out of depression, the odds are you will
spend most of your life being slightly to seriously depressed.

Often, this is a fact of life that is largely out of one's
personal control. Medication and/or various "lifestyle"
choices (nutrition, exercise, etc) can mitigate or even
minimize the impact of one's personal dark tide, but it
will always be a part of life.

And anyone who doesn't think that that this gets really
boring after a while (a) has never been there, (b) is living
in a very active state of denial or (c) is suffering from an
almost total failure of the imagination.

The darkest of the dark sides of depression is called "suicide
ideation". That's jargon-speak for "suicidal thoughts". Again,
depending on whether you are BP1 or BP2, and just how BP1
or 2 you are, this is probably a significant part of your
bipolar experience.

When these thoughts first start coming on, they can be very
frightening. Then, as time goes on they may even become
(and here's another dirty little secret of depression for you)strangely comforting.

That may sound very strange to some, but when most of
one's waking hours are spent in varying states of depression,
when all one can think about is what a worthless sack of
shit one really is, it is not really as strange as all that to
know that to find some slight comfort in the fact that
there is a way to never feel like that anymore.

But again, in my limited experience, once one was actually
explored the possibility of taking that step, and done some
research, and perhaps even decided on which way one
would do the deed, it gets really old, really fast.

To have the same thought recur, over and over, against
one's will is a great big goddamn bore. At some point, it can
even become as big a problem as the original feeling of
depression that brought one to thinking about suicide in the
first- ie- it is so, so, so boring to continually find ones' self
thinking about it (again, against one's will) that one can
start to crave release from how boring it is...














It's not a bad thing to confront life's most fundamental
question - to be or not be - once in a while. It's not a bad
thing to pause on occasion and look at one's life to see
if one has or has not been the kind of person one aspires
to be.

In fact, I don't think it's something that "normal" people
seem to do enough, frankly.

But as a full-time thing?

It's worse than useless. It's destructive. It takes the time
and energy one would like to like to put into doing useful
things in the universe, liken trying to change the
government or doing the laundry.

And when it is a state of mind that one has little or no
control over, it is almost a meta-state of depression
wherein one gets depressed about being depressed
all the time.

And when it goes on for days, and then weeks,
and then sometimes for months, 24/7?

It gets boring. Really, really, really boring.






.

Vincent van Gogh

... another person with "mental health issues"
     who decided death would be better...

!

Bipolar as Mood Disorder

There is an old cliche in Christian culture that the devil's
greatest trick is convincing us that he doesn't exist.
Sometimes I wonder if the inverse is just as true - ie -
the church's greatest trick is convincing us that god does.

I don't know if either one is true, and it couldn't matter
less, because (a) in the absence of such Absolute knowledge,
I just try to live in ways that help - or at least don't hurt -
other people and (b) even if I did know The Truth,
nobody would believe me anyway.

And anyway, I think there is another trickster among
us whose impact is just as profound who attracts much
less attention... words.

Words are really tricky.

They are tricky because we each and all assume we know
what they mean. On a personal level, this is probably
inevitable and maybe even benign.

Where it gets tricky, to the point of dangerous, is when
we assume that what a word means to us is what it
means to the person we're talking to...


***

A simple example would be "blue".

When I say "blue", I think of a dark shade called Navy Blue
that was probably imprinted by a set of Laurentien pencil
crayons when I was very young.







You may have thought of the colour of the sky,
or the sea, or a pair of pants or a berry on a bush.







You might even think of that same pencil crayon,
but the odds are you didn't...
yet that's what I meant.


***

Who cares.

Most of the time, none of us- including me. It's so obvious,
we're so busy, so use an adjective or two, blah, blah blah...


The only reason it's on my mind right now is because I was
reading up on some aspect or other of "bipolar"and once
again saw it described as a "Mood Disorder".


I had one of those strange moments where it was like
I was seeing this term for the first time, and it made me
go "Hmmmm....".

It reminded me of this graphic that I did recently:








Everyone has moods. Good moods, bad moods...
you don't have to be polarity-gifted to be in one mood
or another, or even to be called "moody".

The difference, when you are bipolar, is profound.

You don't have a mood- the mood has you.

You can't just think a happy thought or eat a Snickers bar
or have a coffee and move on.

That feeling of depression is not something you can
just shake off, or think your way out of. Even if you can
convince yourself to pull up your socks, it's not going to
change a damn thing*.


If you've experienced this, you know what I mean.

If you haven't experienced it, (a) you are soooo lucky
and (b) "depression", like "blue" is something we don't
share an understanding of, and we never really will.





*yes, there are things you can do that may alleviate
or even dispel that "mood" for a day or a week or whatever,
but it's always out there...

.

Urban stress & mood disorders

i live out in the sticks, about two hours north of "the city"
in a place most people wouldn't even call a hick town.
The main street runs about four blocks, and there's a few
chain stores huddled together out by the highway and
as far as the urban experience goes, that's about it.

There was a time not so long ago when I lived in a warehouse downtown on the main drag of a big city, but these days
the boonies is a much better fit.

The quiet suits me and i like having a lake at the end
of the street almost as much as my dog. On the right night,
there's a big-ass moon in a sky full of stars, deer, bears
and coyotes, if you're up for a walk.

When i get down to the city now, there's a manic feeling
that sets in as i hit the sprawl and the longer i stay there,
the itchier it gets til i simply have to leave.

it's not all bad while i can surf it, but it gets exhausting.
it gets ennervating because it's so relentless.

"it" being what feels to me like a full court press on my
nervous system. senses working overtime. it doesn't fit.
i don't fit.

up here, i fit.  fit because there's a lot of space.
physical space. acoustic space. outer space.

i'm still bipolar. there's bad days and nights where ever
i am, no matter what but here there are also loons,
sugar maples and woodpeckers.

there are people here too, who aren't always so busy
and/or so late for whatever that a line-up at the grocery
check-out makes them break out in a cold sweat.

Bipolar or not, you know when something - or someplace -
fits and here does, for now, for me. i notice things as
much as ever, but more of it makes sense.
i don't get as itchy.

it's not just me. it's not just my imagination
or my intuition. there's some science to it too.

A walk in the park gives mental boost
to people with depression

"Our study showed that participants with clinical depression demonstrated improved memory performance after a walk
in nature, compared to a walk in a busy urban environment,"
said Dr. Berman.

Dr. Berman's research is part of a cognitive science field
known as Attention Restoration Theory (ART) which proposes
that people concentrate better after spending time in nature
or looking at scenes of nature.

The reason, according to ART, is that people interacting
with peaceful nature settings aren't bombarded with
external distractions that relentlessly tax their working
memory and attention systems. In nature settings, the
brain can relax and enter a state of contemplativeness
that helps to restore or refresh those cognitive capacities.

A walk in the park a day keeps mental fatigue away

If you spend the majority of your time among stores,
restaurants and skyscrapers, it may be time to trade
in your stilettos for some hiking boots.

A new study in Psychological Science, a journal of
the Association for Psychological Science, reveals
that spending time in nature may be more beneficial
for mental processes than being in urban environments.

Research shows a walk in the park improves attention
in children with ADHD

For children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
tasks that require concentration such as doing homework
or taking a test can be very difficult. A simple, inexpensive
remedy may be a "dose of nature."

A study conducted at the University of Illinois shows
that children with ADHD demonstrate greater attention
after a 20-minute walk in a park than after a similar
walk in a downtown area or a residential neighborhood.

Stress in the city: Brain activity and biology
behind mood disorders of urban residents

Being born and raised in a major urban area is associated
with greater lifetime risk for anxiety and mood disorders.

"Previous findings have shown that the risk for anxiety
disorders is 21 percent higher for people from the city,
who also have a 39 percent increase for mood disorders,"
says co-author Jens Pruessner, a Douglas researcher.

"In addition, the incidence for schizophrenia is almost
doubled for individuals who are born and brought up
in cities.
















Air pollution linked to learning and memory
problems, depression

Long-term exposure to air pollution can lead to physical
changes in the brain, as well as learning and memory problems
and even depression, new research in mice suggests.

While other studies have shown the damaging effects
of polluted air on the heart and lungs, this is one of the
first long-term studies to show the negative impact on
the brain, said Laura Fonken, lead author of the study
and a doctoral student in neuroscience at Ohio State University.










Freeway air bad for mouse brain

A new study reveals that after short-term exposure to
vehicle pollution, mice showed significant brain damage —
including signs associated with memory loss and Alzheimer's
disease.

The mind-numbing toxin is not an exhaust gas, but a mix
of tiny particles from burning of fossil fuel and weathering
of car parts and pavement, according to the study to be
published Thursday, April 7 in the leading journal
Environmental Health Perspectives.



















*