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…
U2 has a song called “Stuck in a Moment”. It’s a pretty great song (this version and this version, too). I’d say it’s a top 3 U2 song. But I’m writing this because I’ve long thought that the line, “Don’t say that later will be better/Now you’re stuck in a moment/And you can’t get out…
Recent research is showing that it may be possible to diagnose mental health conditions through blood tests. It’s intriguing work. One of the most frustrating parts for patients with mental health issues is the process of diagnosing the condition. It’s a lot of trial and error and it takes a long time. Like with any…
After reading my two-parter about why it can be so hard to talk about depression, a friend sent me this article: 18 Words for Sadness & Depression That Don’t Exist in English. It is exactly what it sounds like. Some of the words are helpful. For instance, the Pitjantjatjara (aboriginal Australian) word “Watjilpa” apparently describes…
Asking what mental illness is might seem a little silly. I mean depression, anxiety, bipolar, OCD, schizophrenia, etc., etc., etc. are mental illnesses, right? Yes, of course they are. But I mean the question more generally. I don’t want examples of mental illnesses. I want to know what makes something a mental illness. AIDS, Covid,…
I had a bad day yesterday. It prevented me from writing about what I had intended writing about. Instead, I just tried to describe some of the feelings I was having. I didn’t think it was very good, but a bunch of people reached out with words of support. That was nice even though it…
