Carnival Mental Illness - Premiere – October 31, 2007

Carnival Mental Illness - Premiere – October 31, 2007

I welcome everyone to the first edition of Carnival Mental Illness.
I am overjoyed with the response, and thanks to everyone who took the time to submit articles with reference to mental illness; perhaps how it touched our lives or people in our lives. 
At times we sit [...]

Antidepressants Absent In Most Suicides: Study

Online source:  http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/
Thursday, October 25, 2007 - NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - In a postmortem toxicology study of a group of adults who committed suicide in New York City, researchers found that most were not taking antidepressants.
“The results indicate that the majority of the suicides did not result from antidepressant use,” Dr. Andrew C. Leon, [...]

Favorite Teacher

   Reflect for a minute who your favorite teacher was. At times it is difficult to decide, other times; straightforward, and then there are the recollections of really horrid teachers.  They can make or break a student’s school year.
For me, my favorite high school teacher was Mrs. Evans. She had blonde hair, a brilliant [...]

Depressed Heart Patients Benefit From Cardiac Rehab

 
Friday, September 28, 2007 - NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Patients who become depressed after a major heart-related event, such as a heart attack, have a significantly higher risk of dying than those who are not depressed, a study finds, but cardiac rehabilitation and exercise training can substantially reduce depression and the associated mortality.
Depression and [...]

YOU’RE FIRED

When you first hear these words, you automatically think of losing your job.  I thought I would take it one step further and think back to some of the times I’ve actually been ‘fired’ in other situations.
I will begin with the career position.  The ‘firing’ took place during my first year, in what would be [...]

Prescription Label Warnings Small

Source:  http://www.sciencedaily.com
BOSTON, Sept. 12 (UPI) — Most prescription drug labels highlight the pharmacy’s name or logo rather than medication instructions, a U.S. study found.
The study, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, found 89 percent of the labels listed the pharmacy name first and instructions fifth.
The study looked at labels for four drugs from chain, [...]

Depressed Often Underserved by Primary Care Doctors: Study

Source:  http://www.healthday.com/
Health Highlights – September 4, 2007 – (HealthDay)
Most clinically depressed people who are treated by their primary care doctors do not receive care “consistent with quality standards,” a new Rand Corp. study concludes.
For the 1,131 people with depression studied, physicians showed low rates of adherence to nearly half of 20 standard treatment recommendations, the [...]

Counseling Boosts Alzheimer’s Caregivers’ Health

Source:  http://www.healthday.com/
Spouse study finds it brings the patient real benefit, too
THURSDAY, Sept. 6 (HealthDay News) — Spouses caring for partners with Alzheimer’s disease report better physical health if they participate in individual or group counseling, new data shows.
“Preserving the health of spouse caregivers through counseling and support also benefits the person with Alzheimer’s disease, [...]

PTSD - working through the memories

“Baby Blue   working through memories of childhood abuse”
Music is: May It Be by Enya
Video Created by: M.R.Teel   http://www.myspace.com/bleaux42
This is the second video I discovered on YouTube by ‘M.R. Teel’. Her work is astounding dealing with childhood abuse and sexual abuse. I was moved to tears throughout this entire video.
My story, along with so many others [...]

Carnival Mental Illness

Carnival Mental Illness
Just a reminder to submit your articles by October 25, 2007 for the Premiere Carnival Mental Illness.  I have had a very good response so far - so keep them coming.   I will be showcasing submissions on October 31, 2007.  Mark this on your calendar.
At Blog Carnival you do not require a log-in.   [...]

3.7 Billion Days Lost To Illness Annually

Online Source:  http://www.sciencedaily.com
BETHESDA, Md., Oct. 2 (UPI) — More than half of U.S. adults have a mental or physical condition that influences functioning resulting in 3.7 billion days per year lost to illness.
Dr. Kathleen Merikangas of the National Institute of Mental Health and Dr. Ronald Kessler of Harvard Medical School used data from the National [...]

PTSD: Dirty Little Secrets

I wrote in earlier posts of my childhood sexual abuse; very much a ‘dirty little secret’.
Recollecting my past, namely at around eight years old, my friends and I would be playing in our yard and the predator next door would be sitting on his balcony.  I felt frightened for them and me, and wanted so [...]

SWEET AUDREY

I met Audrey in 1998, as an inpatient during one of my countless hospital stays.  Both of us were living and breathing pitch black depression.  We grew very close, seated in the lounge daily, forever sipping diet Coke.  Both of us were struggling though, both feeling as if we were being swallowed up by quicksand.  [...]

Purging Habits Mark Eating Disorder Severity

Online source:  www.reuters.com
By Anne Harding
October 1, 2007 - NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Whether or not a person with an eating disorder uses more than one method of purging may be a better indicator of the severity of the disorder than how frequently purging occurs, results of a study suggest.
But purging frequency was linked to [...]

Life

Life
© By Benjamin K. Kotey
It takes a day to make a dream,
But it takes many nights for a seed to become a tree.
Life is a ladder that must be climbed.
But in every stage,
There are many rivers and battles to fight
And our hopes determines our future.
Life is a trip through the wilderness
And everyone must survive for [...]

On The Topic of: Resentment

Do you harbor some resentment?  I hate to confess I do; feel some kind of character flaw in me feeling this way.   I feel embarrassed even speaking about it to a degree.
Wikipedia:  Resentment is an emotion of anger felt as a result of a real or imagined wrong done. Etymologically from “ressentir”, French re-, intensive [...]

DISSOCIATIVE DISORDERS

Dissociative disorders are so-called because they are marked by a dissociation from or interruption of a person’s fundamental aspects of waking consciousness (such as one’s personal identity, one’s personal history, etc.). Dissociative disorders come in many forms, the most famous of which is dissociative identity disorder (formerly known as multiple personality disorder). All of the [...]

Pro-Anorexia Websites Hurt Viewers’ Self-Esteem

By Anne Harding
Friday, September 14, 2007 - NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - No matter what their weight or their eating habits, young women feel worse about themselves and their appearance after viewing pro-anorexia websites, which explicitly encourage extreme thinness, a new study shows.
“It works on a couple of levels, it works on mood, it works [...]

WHO: Mental Illness Not Being Treated

Source:  http://www.sciencedaily.com
BETHESDA, Md., Sept. 7 (UPI) — The world’s mental illness needs are largely going unmet — especially in less-developed nations — a study of 17 countries found, a U.S. researcher said.
“Good treatments are available for many mental disorders. Yet, the world continues to struggle with the very real challenge of providing these services to [...]

JUDGE JUDY PISSED ME OFF

I am/was a huge Judge Judy fan, but the slur she made yesterday during a court case made me fume.  I have always enjoyed the show, and her hard-hitting, opinionated manner.
Yesterday, she was grilling the plaintiff and he was dancing around for an answer and couldn’t get the answer out fast enough.  Unexpectedly, she blurts [...]

Have You Ever Wondered?

WHERE YOU WOULD BE IF IT WEREN’T FOR DEPRESSION?
I’m borrowing this question from a member of “Mental Earth Community”; a forum I belong to.
My answer:  I have wondered and thought about that many, many times over the years.  This illness catapulted me into a life of depressive despair, loneliness, hospitalizations; loss of so many things, [...]

LITHIUM 101 - Everything you ever wanted to know

This is a very informative video about Lithium, and how it relates to Bipolar Disorder
It was produced by:   www.bipolarhelp.org

Real Friendships

A real friend is one who walks in when others walk out ~~ Walter Winchell
While sitting across from a girlfriend yesterday at our favorite coffee house, having a delicious conversation, I thought to myself, “How lucky you are to have a friend”.
***
Drifting back to 1994.
I’ve become accustomed to having no friendships in my life for [...]

Carnival Mental Illness

In Blog Carnival, I now have a featured Carnival, Carnival Mental Illness.   
Blog carnivals are a great way for bloggers to recognize each other’s efforts, organize blog posts around important topics, and improve the overall level of conversation in the blogosphere. Carnivals come in edited “editions”, just like magazines or journals.
Since blog carnivals include [...]

Increased Job Stress, More Depression

Online Source:  http://www.sciencedaily.com
Ontario, Canada - Sept. 28 (UPI) — Increased levels of job strain and a lack of social support at work are associated with higher risk of depression — a study of Canadian workers found.
Emma K. Robertson Blackmore of the University of Rochester Medical Center, in New York and Canadian researchers utilized data [...]