What Happened When Meghan Markle Asked for Help?

Ask for help. That is the suicide prevention message. When you are in trouble, ask for help.

And I am not going to suggest otherwise. That's about the only way you will get help. The pain that you are in, the scary thoughts that you are having, there is a way out that is a way through, that leaves you alive on the other side. The way begins when you tell somebody, when you ask for help.

That, alas, is not the end of the story. This week we watched as a princess, a celebrity, somebody who lived in a multimillion dollar house in a multibillionaire family told her story of what happened when she asked for help.

They told her, No.

Are You Asking Your Meds to do All the Work?

Where is my magic pill? They say it takes a while to find the right medication, you just have to stick with it.

But for how long? How many chemistry experiments? When? WHEN will my bipolar get fixed?

This was me, resisting therapy, resisting exercise, resisting every other suggestion my doctor made. Alas, here are the pills that finally did the trick:

Pills are not enough.

Do You Really Want to Use Mental Illness as an Insult?

I am tired to death of hearing mental illness diagnoses used as pejoratives.

I am tired to death of hearing technical medical terms that apply to me and my friends hurled as insults at political figures, used to describe weather conditions, and employed as self-deprecating comments in the context of life's little challenges.

I am especially tired to death of hearing this language in the postings of Facebook friends and in the pulpit from educated people who should know better.

Especially after I have called them on it over and over and over.

So you can imagine that my eyes perked up at a thread that addresses this issue, posted on Twitter by somebody who goes by the handle @queerfox.

Can People With Mental Illness Become Saints?

 The day approaches - the start of Lent Madness.

What, any reasonable person might ask, is that?

Take March Madness. Mash this bracket-style competition with a list of saints, some well-known, some utterly obscure, chosen by Scott Gunn and Tim Schenk, the two members of the Supreme Executive Committee who answer to nobody. Despite years of campaigning, they still will not include Fred Rogers. But I digress...

Every weekday through Lent the reader is presented with two saints and asked to vote. Anybody with an internet connection can vote - only once - they will know. The saint with the greater number of votes advances to the next round.

Help! How Do I Talk to My Delusional Cousin?

Consensual reality has taken a real beating lately. Fake news, alt facts, conspiracy theories, Russian Facebook bots... Sure, we'd all like some civil discourse. But what do we do when we can't even agree on what is true?

Delusional is a big word to throw around, especially when you are trying to stay in some sort of relationship with friends or family whom you believe, frankly, to have gone over the deep end. Does it really apply to this situation? Or is the use of the word a lit match in a room full of gasoline?

Let's start with some clarification. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-5) defines delusions as fixed beliefs that are not amenable to change in light of conflicting evidence. Well, that sure sounds like what we are dealing with.

Delusions are taken as indicators of a mental or physical disorder. But before we go making armchair diagnoses, consider how powerfully our minds cling to ideas that are demonstratively false, the fear of spiders, the hope in lottery tickets, trickle down economics. Let's exercise some restraint and some humility here.

How Will You Get Through This Week?

Self care is not my best subject in the best of times. I can establish a routine, get up, eat breakfast, go to work, walk in the afternoon, and so on. I can hang on to good habits, eat a healthy diet, wear amber glasses at night. But that place in the list where I am supposed to do something for myself? Here is how that goes:

    Therapist: What will you do for fun this week?

    Me:

Okay, so what will YOU do for fun this week? (Clearly, I could use some ideas.)

And now there is this insurrection. How did that word work its way into daily conversation?

What Happened to My Bipolar Brain and How Do I Fix It?

The most troublesome statement in Goodwin and Jamison's Manic Depressive Illness may be this: "Complete symptomatic remission does not ensure functional recovery." This is no small problem. For some 30% to 60% of patients with bipolar disorder, simply treating their mood symptoms is not enough to help them return to a full life.

There’s a third pole that needs to be addressed for that to happen: cognitive symptoms. These often persist even when patients are euthymic, and they range from problems with memory and attention to more subtle deficits such as picking up on social cues and making wise decisions. 

Chris Aiken's article, Eight Ways to Improve Cognition in Bipolar Disorder, opens with these paragraphs. Ironically, what Aiken calls troublesome, I find immensely reassuring. My experiences are real!