Misconceptions about Suicidal Thoughts

My publicist seems to think people have a lot of misconceptions about mental illness (she's right), because many of her questions go there. You are very open about discussing your own struggles with suicidal thoughts. What do you think are the biggest misconceptions about people going through similar experiences? So today's post will focus on suicidal thoughts or suicidality.

Suicide is not a choice

The way people talk, you'd think we sit down and make a list, pros and cons of suicide. Then based on our calculations, we make some kind of decision. She chose to end her life. Or, How could he have been so selfish.

This is called the volitional theory of suicide, suicide as an act of will. The suicide prevention approach that addresses it is to weigh in on that list of pros and cons, like Jennifer Michael Hecht's book, Stay.

You know -- Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Or, Think of what you'll miss out on. Or, whatever. In other words, how dumb or short-sighted or irresponsible or selfish you must be to decide to kill yourself.

What People with Depression Need to Hear

Depression is one tough condition. Contrary to those cheery ads on tv and friends who want you to get over it, it is not easy to recover. Doctors also, in their eagerness to get you to do something that will help, sometimes oversell their solutions.

Chris Aiken's recent article in Psychiatric Times presents a more helpful picture.

Five Things to Say to People with Depression

You can expect, and do deserve, a full recovery. Aiken's point is that people with depression have a hard time believing we will ever feel any differently. (This is true. Boy, is this true.) Nevertheless, chances are, we will feel better. There is a rub here however. Most people get to full recovery, not all. As a patient, I'd like to hear up front that even if it comes back, chances are that things will get better again. So many of us feel like failures when depression recurs, when actually both remission and recurrence are part of the natural course of the illness.

Misconceptions about Therapy

Continuing the press kit-inspired series...

No, therapists aren't like friends that you pay

Therapists make you work. The work you do depends on the kind of therapist you see. Interpersonal therapists get you to examine your relationship patterns. Are they working for you? Are you sure? Social rhythm therapists make you track your schedule. For people with bipolar, an off kilter schedule results in an off kilter brain. (The chart I use is here.) Cognitive behavioral therapists even give you work sheets! Mostly this homework involves learning to examine your thoughts. Just because your brain tells you something doesn't mean it's true.

No, therapists don't give advice

Misconceptions about Antidepressants

What do you think are the most common misconceptions about antidepressants?

Prozac Monologues: A Voice from the Edge is at the press kit stage with Q&A in development. My publicist wants me to answer questions that interviewers might ask. My responses should be in the three to seven sentence range, she says.

Three to seven sentences are not my forte. I am doing my best and taking comfort that in an interview format, there might be a follow-up when I can say more.

They are good questions and worth a blog series, I think, where I can expand to three to seven paragraphs. Mostly seven. Maybe more. Plus, you know, pictures. So that's what you get for a few weeks.

No, antidepressants are not happy pills

Trauma, COVID-19, and Cutting Yourself Some Slack

Are you failing to build your abs while social distancing?
Or learn that new language?
Or clean out that closet (you know which one)?

Are you utterly exhausted while getting nothing done and beating yourself up for it?

STOP. Just stop.
And read on.

Frazzled Cafe and Ruby Wax - Yes, I am a Fan

Ruby Wax is the founder of Frazzled Cafe, a peer support group for anyone who is overwhelmed by the stresses of modern life. As Ruby says, our brains just don't have the bandwidth. If that describes you, check it out. But bring your own coffee. The meetings moved online, a Zoom meeting on account of... you know.

Ruby is an American-born long time television personality in Britain and comedienne whose career pivoted when mental illness caught up with her. She went back to school to study the brain and got a masters from Oxford on mindfulness based therapy. Since then she has written books, toured, lectured, using her prodigious brain and her comic chops to entertain and educate about brain health.

The End of Miracles - A Review

What is it like to have depression with psychotic features?

What is a day like inside a psych ward?

What is the psychiatrist thinking?

Sometimes the best way to explore questions like these is in a story. So here is Prozac Monologues' first review of a novel.

Monica Starkman is a psychiatrist at the University of Michigan whose expertise includes psychosomatic disorders, stress, and women's issues around fertility, miscarriage, and obstetrics. In her debut novel, The End of Miracles, she turns her clinical experience to the story of one woman, Margo Kerber, a long-infertile woman who finally conceives, tragically miscarries, and then... unravels.