Susan S. Knows All About Walking
I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’ve dedicated this space this week to promoting the NAMI Walk, which is tomorrow. There are, of course, many walks other than the one in the Philly area, including the Greater New Jersey walk at the ETS campus near Princteon, NJ. (If you haven’t been to that campus, it’s lovely. I know it well, and would like to live there.) So a shout-out to Susan for not only talking the talk, but walking the walk.
liz | 12:48 PM | Uncategorized
Comments?
You people are oddly silent these days. I hope my blog is working right. If you’re having trouble commenting, let me know.
liz | 5:05 PM | Uncategorized
10 Tools to Live Your Life Well: Piss Off!
Lists are very popular. Americans love lists, and publications, blogs and organizations looking for PR also loves lists. Hence my cynical interpretation of Mental Health America’s newest goofy initiative Live Your Life Well, which offers 10 tools and their benefits. Now, there are certainly things we could all do to promote healthy living, especially in the context of chronic illness. But doesn’t anyone ever have an original thought? Here are MHA’s tools:
1. Connect with others
2. Stay positive
3. Get physically active
4. Help others
5. Get enough sleep
6. Create joy and satisfaction
7. Eat well
8. Take care of your spirit
9. Deal better with hard times
10. Get professional help if you need it
Why doesn’t anyone ever have anything really radical to say? How about: “masturbate often,” for instance. Or: “fantasize about punching a cashier if you’re in a long line.”
Let’s make our own list, people! This is a call for submissions. Bring it.
[Photo of the Sex Pistols meant to inspire anarchy.]
liz | 1:04 PM | Uncategorized, media
Voice Awards Deadline Approaches
Thanks to Fran Hazam for sending this along:
Deadline for Mental Health Consumer Nominations Fast Approaching
Don’t forget to join with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) to recognize mental health consumers who give a voice to people with mental health problems. The Voice Awards honor consumer leaders who inspire us with their contributions toward promoting the social inclusion and recovery of people with mental health problems.
If you know of mental health consumers who have led efforts to promote social inclusion, demonstrated that recovery is real and possible, and made a positive impact on their workplaces, communities, and/or schools, there is still time to nominate them for a 2009 Consumer Leadership Voice Award. Additional consideration will be given to nominees who have made a positive impact within special populations such as culturally diverse groups, young adults ages 18 to 25, and those who have worked to prevent suicide.
Nominations are open to anyone, are free, and there is no limit to the number an individual can submit.
The Voice Awards will be presented at a gala ceremony in Los Angeles on October 14, 2009. Please visit www.voiceawards.samhsa.gov for more information about the Voice Awards and updates on this exciting event.
If anyone wants to nominate me, that’s great, ’cause there’s nothing I love more than having an excuse to spend time in a hotel room with cable TV while I eat a box of Hot Tamales.
Go here to nominate people.
liz | 10:08 AM | Uncategorized
R.I.P. Nick Hughes
Thanks to Susan — who, like me, surely has a long memory with the Plath/Hughes family — for sending me the tragic news that Nicholas Hughes hanged himself. But let’s not dwell on the question of heredity or a gene for suicide; we’ll leave that to the other pundits. Instead, I like this bit from the Times online:
A family friend said last night: “Nick wasn’t just the baby son of Plath and Hughes and it would be wrong to think of him as some kind of inevitably tragic figure. He was a man who reached his mid-forties, an adventurous marine biologist with a distinguished academic career behind him and a host of friends and achievements in his own right. That is the man who is mourned by those who knew him.”
So his parentage, and any parallels, aren’t what matter now. Jeers to the Daily Kos, one of my favorite sites, for the headline “Like mother like son.” Tacky.
liz | 11:40 PM | Uncategorized
Dealing With Life? Yes and No
I had a flibberty-gibbet the other night — the kind of thing that makes your companion want to take you to the hospital and tell you later, “It was like you disappeared. There was no one inside.” Mind you, there was plenty of activity: renting of garments, flagellation and an attraction to razor blades. But the Liz of the present was gone.
What prompted my meltdown was that I moved to a new place, alone, thereby disrupting my routine, my solid relationship, my daily contact with my hamster … I could go on. The only positive is that my dog and I are back together after a long time apart, and I can now talk to her all the time. Like, “So Hannah, should we call Comcast and yell at them for completely messing up our account? Or will we have to cancel altogether, despite their monopoly?” Then she lifts her lazy head from her pillow and looks at me as if to say, “I’m sorry we’re having so much TV trouble. I, for one, would really like to watch Animal Planet.” (She’s pictured here yelling at me for putting her in a fisherman’s sweater.)
So it’s a big adjustment. I haven’t lived alone since 2000 or 2001. Wowza. Having time to myself, without TV, just encourages me to think sad thoughts. The difference between being crazy in the old days and being crazy now is that it gets under control at some point — usually when I take the Seroquel and the world comes back into focus. Say what you will about that drug, but Lordy, it sure works for my psychotic episodes.
Forgive me, then, for posting less regularly right now.
liz | 10:06 AM | Uncategorized
A Suicide Watch That Doesn’t Need Watching?
I’m a very stern advocate of suicide watches in jails and prisons; too often people die because of negligent guards and institution officials. But I admit that when I heard Austria’s Josef Fritzl was under suicide watch, I thought, “Well, it wouldn’t be the worst thing if he killed himself.” From the Guardian UK:
According to police, Fritzl held his daughter in the windowless, soundproof cellar beneath his house in the town of Amstetten, and raped her more than 3,000 times, fathering seven children with her. He is alleged to have drugged her in her bed when she was 18 and dragged her into the cellar which he had purpose-built over several years.
Three of the children stayed in the cellar with their mother, while the other three were taken upstairs to live with Fritzl and his wife Rosemarie, who was told that Elisabeth had run away to join a sect and, unable to cope with her children, had dumped them on the doorstep.
The crime came to light at the end of April this year when Elisabeth’s 19-year old daughter Kerstin became gravely ill, requiring hospital treatment. Elisabeth persuaded her father to take Kerstin to hospital where suspicious doctors called the police.
Following a nationwide appeal for Kerstin’s mother to come forward, Fritzl released Elisabeth from the cellar and she was able to tell police her story. The three children who had been held in the cellar were released on April 26, when they saw daylight and breathed fresh air for the first time in their lives.
Very uncharacteristic of me to support negligence on the part of the guards, but there’s a possibility he’ll only be convicted of incest, coercion and sexual abuse, in which case he wouldn’t spend more than six years in prison.
Six years for this guy, who shows an absence of remorse? He’s a danger.
Fritzl last month told a psychiatrist that he was “born to rape” and that his treatment of Elisabeth was a direct result of his experience of an abusive mother. He told her he had hatched the plan to incarcerate Elisabeth while he was serving a jail sentence for rape in the 1980s.
On the other hand, perhaps he will be convicted of a murder charge. See below.
liz | 12:11 PM | Uncategorized
German Shooter, Alabama Shooter — “No Known Motive”
Two tragedies in the news will, potentially, raise the subject of mental illness and violence. In Germany, a teenager killed 15 in a school shooting, and was then killed by cops. In Alabama, a man in his 20s went on a shooting rampage, killing multiple members of his family and other random people before killing himself. In both cases, according to current news reports, motives remain obscure.
I hate to say it, but I’ve rarely seen stories like this that don’t end up with a mental health “angle” — most recently, I’m thinking of Virginia Tech. Keep your eyes peeled.
liz | 12:17 PM | Uncategorized
Daylight Saving Time and SAD
I don’t clinically have SAD, but I’m certainly subject to a darkening of the mood in the winter months. So when Daylight Saving Time hits and we spring forward, I’m generally quite relieved. But an article on MSN.com cautions those with SAD not to put away those lightboxes just yet.
Daylight saving time has always been a difficult adjustment for night owls, who need several mugs of coffee or caffeinated tea to feel human in the morning. Unfortunately, the adjustment became a lot harder in 2007, when we started making the shift a full three weeks earlier—the second Sunday in March instead of the first weekend of April. The change means that many of us will spend the rest of March waking up in the dark.
This is especially bad news for people suffering from Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) ….
SAD is most common in northern latitudes where days are very short in the winter, but researchers are starting to realize it’s not the total amount of daylight that triggers the disorder—it’s having to slog through dark mornings. …
Even for those whose winter blahs don’t quite reach the level of clinical depression, the next few weeks may be tough. You may end up hitting the snooze button a bit more often, or taking naps during the day. Luckily, naps have been shown to improve productivity, so you can full rationalize getting some extra shut-eye.
I posted this a couple days after the DST switch because, um, I was napping.
[Get yer T-shirt here.]
liz | 10:37 AM | Uncategorized
Mind-Body Connection More Than Just Bad Self-Help Books
Emotional Link to Physical Health Is Universal [Psych Central]
liz | 10:51 AM | Uncategorized
