On this webpage, it looks like Eunice Kennedy Shriver is screaming in fright at the fact that the media is misrepresenting depression. Check it out here.
liz | 3:18 PM | Uncategorized
Liz Spikol was born in Philadelphia sometime in the 20th century. She started writing about her experience as a person with mental illness in 1999, while employed at Philadelphia Weekly as the paper’s managing editor. Aside from serving as that paper’s web editor, music editor, staff writer, senior editor, executive editor and a host of other random roles that she couldn’t make up her mind about, she has also worked as a Spanish teacher, as a Certified Peer Specialist during Philly’s system-wide transformation and as a communications specialist for a prison reform organization. Currently, she works at the Mental Health Association of Southeastern Pennsylvania and writes book reviews for PW. This blog — named one of the Top 10 Bipolar Blogs of 2007 and 2008 by PsychCentral — is about medications, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, OCD, PTSD, SAD (and many other acronyms), mad pride, Big Pharma, celebrities, hospitals, stigma and the recovery movement. And other stuff.
The mass media really does misrepresent depression, just as this article states. Recently I heard one of my local tv stations say unequivocally, as part of the health segment on their nightly news show, that “depression is caused by a chemical imbalance.” I wrote the station to tell them that they were stating as fact something that was only a theory. Someone from the station emailed me back saying that they don’t have the staff to research those reports themselves very often, so they usually just pass along the stories directly from CNN. I sent him back this link to a web-based article by a psychiatrist refuting that “chemical imbalance” theory:
http://www.candidpsychiatrist.com/index.php?page=prescribing-on-faith
I hope he had time to read it.
That’s no scream..it’s old age… will happen to us all..
I read the following book reviews in the NYTimes online:
http://www.nytimes.com:80/2008/02/26/books/26meth.html?th&emc=th
Both father and son have written memoirs about the experience. David Sheff’s is Beautiful Boy: A Father’s Journey Through His Son’s Meth Addiction and Nic Sheff’s is Tweak: Growing Up on Methamphetamines.
I was then listening to NPR and heard Terry Gross interviewing the father and son authors. http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=13&prgDate=02-26-2008&view=storyview Listen to Tuesday’s show — Feb. 26, 2008
“Memoirs of Meth Addiction from a Father and a Son
Drug addiction doesn’t just affect the addict, it changes the whole family. Journalist David Sheff and his son Nic join Fresh Air to talk about Nic’s addiction to methamphetamine and the separate memoirs they’ve written about the experience.”
If you have the time, do listen to the complete interview. I could relate so much to both of their stories. The son Nic has been sober for over 2 years but during his last time in rehab, he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. He’s on a mood stabilizer and he feels that his dx/medication had been a missing part of his attempts at recovery earlier. Turns out that crystal meth and meds to treat bipolar disorder have some things in common and that’s why meth can be so quickly addictive in such persons. The father’s guilt, despair, anger and primal love for his son are so apparent. Absolutely riveting—and hopeful, too. Btw,a another similar powerful and more tragic book from about 10 years ago by George McGovern is called Terry: My Daughter’s Life and Death Struggle with Alcoholism. Terry struggled with depression all her life, too. As I listened to the Terry Gross interview, I was wondering if George McGovern might be tuning in as well. The Newsweek cover story last week on addiction is also very interesting. 80% of peope with addiction also suffer from major depression, bipolar disorder,PTSD or other brain illness.
Are your meds working ok, Liz?
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