Horse, of course

Now that I’m working at a community mental health center and have daily one-on-one interaction with so many people who live with psychiatric problems, I’m more attuned than ever to the need for creative approaches to dealing with mental illnesses. That’s why I love the idea of “care farms,” as the Europeans call them — rural therapeutic farm communities. It’s all good and well to try to get people to integrate with the community, but when the community is a big scary city, that can be hard. Listen to this, though:

“There’s hope at Rose Hill,” says Daniel Kelly, who along with his wife, Rosemary, founded Rose Hill after their son, John, was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. “Many of the people who havecome here to live have taken what they learned here and gone on to be very successful. Many of our former residents will tell you it totally gave them back their lives.”

According to a 2002 survey of 100 Rose Hill graduates conducted by Wayne State University, more than 60 percent were living independently in the community; nearly 65 percent were working for pay, volunteering, or attending school.

Kudyba, who graduated from Rose Hill more than six years ago, is one of its many success stories. Today, she rents her own house, works part time as a courthouse file clerk, and rides horses for enjoyment. She funds her passion by mucking out stalls (a skill she acquired at Rose Hill) in exchange for riding time.

Read the whole article from Schizophrenia Digest, which is reprinted with permission on NAMI’s website.

Home on the Farm

liz | 3:13 PM | Uncategorized

Gone, gone, gone

Today has been a hard day, perhaps because yesterday was hard. I had a mini meltdown, due to various factors, and woke up this morning five minutes before I had to leave. That’s always disconcerting. I fled out of the house, totally confused and disoriented, feeling depressed and addled. I spent half an hour in a dark room today in between meetings, just sitting with my head in my hands. I thought it might bring clarity, but I think some days are just sad days, and that’s that. You just have to get through them, and know that tomorrow won’t be as sad. I’m going to walk home from work, which will maybe help my mood, and then get into bed and read. The sooner the day ends, the better because — to quote Scarlett O’Hara — “tomorrow is another day!”

liz | 4:13 PM | Uncategorized

Vivid Dream: A Survey

Those of you who’ve been reading this site for some time know that I often write about the vivid dreams I have as a result of my drug cocktail. They’re fascinating and horrifying and sometimes very funny. The New York Times this week has several good article about sleep and dreams. Here’s a roundup.

Science writer Natalie Angier writes about nightmares, and their prevelence, in In the Dreamscape of Nightmares, Clues to Why We Dream at All :

A big reason bad dreams offer insight into the architecture of dreams generally is that, as a host of studies have shown, most of our dreams are bad. Whether research subjects keep dream journals at home or sleep in research labs and are periodically awoken out of rapid eye movement, or REM, sleep — the stage most often associated with dreaming — the results are the same: about three-quarters of the emotions described are negative.

My Times favorite, Benedict Carey, writes in An Active, Purposeful Machine That Comes Out at Night to Play about new research that says the purpose of sleep may not be as mysterious as we believe.

Now, a small group of neuroscientists is arguing that at least one vital function of sleep is bound up with learning and memory. A cascade of new findings, in animals and humans, suggest that sleep plays a critical role in flagging and storing important memories, both intellectual and physical, and perhaps in seeing subtle connections that were invisible during waking — a new way to solve a math or Easter egg problem, even an unseen pattern causing stress in a marriage.

Finally, Stephanie Saul writes in Sleep Drugs Found Only Mildly Effective, but Wildly Popular , that though medications like Lunesta differ little from Placebos, people report great results.

Dr. Karl Doghramji, a sleep expert at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, agreed. “Sleeping pills do not increase sleep time dramatically, nor do they decrease wake time dramatically,” he said. “Despite those facts, we do find patients who, when they take them, have a high level of satisfaction.” Dr. Doghramji has disclosed in the past that he is a consultant to pharmaceutical companies.

liz | 12:36 PM | Uncategorized

Headline of the Day: United Press International

Marijuana can make depression better/worse

liz | 10:22 AM | Uncategorized

MRSA madness

All this hysteria over the “new superbug” is making me crazy. MRSA has been around forever — a plague in prisons and jails. In Pennsylvania, MRSA is legion in prisons for all kinds of reasons, but you never see headlines about it. Why? Because no one cares about incarcerated people. If they get horrible, life-threatening staph infections, well, they probably deserve it. But if our children get it, Jesus help us! It’s all over the news. I’m pissed off. And check out the first sentence of today’s USA Today piece, which is entirely consistent with every other news item I’ve read or heard.

A killer bacteria known as MRSA has been a growing problem for years, particularly in hospitals and nursing homes.

[Emphasis mine.]

And prisons! Prisons, you idiots!

Okay, I’ll try to calm down now.

Governments urged to make killer bugs a priority

liz | 11:19 AM | Uncategorized

Forced drugging of a different kind

I’m a little late on this story. Immigration officials have apparently forced deportees to take psych drugs so they are in pliant condition to be returned to their native countries. The ACLU has filed a motion in federal court to stop authorities from using the practice again. From the Los Angeles Times:

The motion comes after an official with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement testified before the Senate last month that 50 immigrants had been given psychotropic drugs against their will over a seven-month period. Thirty-three of them had no previous psychiatric diagnosis.

One deportee, a Christian pastor in Riverside, was pinned down in a holding cell in Los Angeles the day before he was scheduled to be flown to his native Indonesia, the ACLU contended in court papers. Another, a Senegalese man, was wrestled down in the aisle of a plane parked at LAX and injected with medication. Those two deportees were in addition to the 50 cited during the Senate hearing.

“The new information shows the government’s forcible drugging policy is more widespread than previously suggested,” said ACLU attorney Ahilan T. Arulanantham.

Deportees file motion over forced sedation

liz | 12:55 PM | Uncategorized

Maple Leaf Rag

I’m all about Canada’s Globe and Mail today. Check out this good article about PPD:

The new prenatal exam: Are you blue?

liz | 4:11 PM | Uncategorized

New book of interest

Canada’s Globe and Mail reviews an interesting new book with a provocative title: The Astonishing True Story of a Woman Afflicted With Bipolar Disorder and the Miraculous Treatment That Cured Her . The cure is something I guarantee (okay, almost) you’ve never heard of before, and I wouldn’t recommend it. But the book sounds like a compelling memoir nonetheless.

Bipolar explorer

liz | 11:39 AM | Uncategorized

Funny or Offensive?: Video from The Onion

We haven’t done one of these in a while, so I thought it was high time. Thanks to John for the tip…

In the Know: Is the Government Spying on Paranoid Schizophrenics Enough?

liz | 5:35 PM | Uncategorized

Good morning mes amis

Hello all. I spent the weekend in Sandy Hook, NJ, and it was nice. I walked on the beach and picked up sea glass, which is really just glass, but doesn’t “sea glass” sound better? It was 80 degrees out. I know that should make me anxious about global warming, but I basked in it. It was so lovely to be beachcombing in October. Usually, October is a depressing time for me. SAD hits hard. So I’m feeling more optimistic than usual.

I wanted to see a movie yesterday but the timing didn’t work out. I really want to see Does Your Soul Have a Cold?, an IFC production about depression in Japan. The latest review I read was pretty harsh. But Monsters & Critics liked it.

I wish I had cable. As it stands now, I’ll have to wait for a year until it comes out on DVD. Or, like, a few weeks until someone posts it on YouTube.

liz | 10:58 AM | Uncategorized