Tuesday, February 19, 2008

NYT: Midlife Suicide Rises, Puzzling Researchers

By PATRICIA COHEN
Published: February 19, 2008


Shannon Neal can instantly tell you the best night of her life: Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2003, the Hinsdale Academy debutante ball. Her father, Steven Neal, a 54-year-old political columnist for The Chicago Sun-Times, was in his tux, white gloves and tie. “My dad walked me down and took a little bow,” she said, and then the two of them goofed it up on the dance floor as they laughed and laughed.

A few weeks later, Mr. Neal parked his car in his garage, turned on the motor and waited until carbon monoxide filled the enclosed space and took his breath, and his life, away.

Later, his wife, Susan, would recall that he had just finished a new book, his seventh, and that “it took a lot out of him.” His medication was also taking a toll, putting him in the hospital overnight with worries about his heart.

Still, those who knew him were blindsided. “If I had just 30 seconds with him now,” Ms. Neal said of her father, “I would want all these answers.”

Mr. Neal is part of an unusually large increase in suicides among middle-aged Americans in recent years. Just why thousands of men and women have crossed the line between enduring life’s burdens and surrendering to them is a painful question for their loved ones. But for officials, it is a surprising and baffling public health mystery.

A new five-year analysis of the nation’s death rates recently released by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that the suicide rate among 45-to-54-year-olds increased nearly 20 percent from 1999 to 2004, the latest year studied, far outpacing changes in nearly every other age group. (All figures are adjusted for population.)

For women 45 to 54, the rate leapt 31 percent. “That is certainly a break from trends of the past,” said Ann Haas, the research director of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

read more ...

Beyond Blue: Lincoln's Blueprint for Success

Therese Borchard writes in "Beyond Blue"

The reason why Lincoln's story inspires so many people comes down to hope, says Shenk, author of "Lincoln’s Melancholy." In the Winter 2007 Issue of the John Hopkins Depression and Anxiety Bulletin, Shenk was interviewed about the incredibly thorough and absorbing book that took him seven years to research and write.

From Shenk's quotes, I learned even more about the man who earned the equivalent of a Nobel Peace Prize, Purple Heart, and three Olympic Gold Medals in the mental health competition.

"The essential question that Lincoln grappled with during his lifetime was how do you have hope in the face of great suffering," Shenk explains. "That question never ceases to be relevant for him. To me, Lincoln was a man who suffered more than anyone in his circle of contemporaries, and a man who achieved more than anyone in his circle. And the reason he was able to succeed all came down to hope."

Shenk mentions a troubled young woman Lincoln counseled. The wise man didn't tell her that she would recover immediately from her depression. He asked her to acknowledge hope, "to let a crack of light into her life, to know that it would not always be as dark as it was now. He advised her that if she could only keep a piece of that awareness in the midst of her great suffering, then her whole experience would change."

Hope, yes. But how did he get there? How did he move past his sadness and anxiety?

I don't think he did completely.

Shenk believes that for his entire life, Lincoln feared that he would go insane. (Knowing that is worth at least two trips to the shrink for me, because I have the same worry, as do most people who have ordered off a psych ward menu.) "The two main things Lincoln did to cope with his depression," says Shenk, "were to articulate his suffering, through poetry especially, which helped him cut straight into the heart of real life. He would also tell jokes, spending much time laughing and making others laugh." I wonder if our president knew the one about Santa getting seduced by a sexy blonde in lingerie.... Well, maybe he had more class than I do.

Shenk divides Lincoln's "blueprint for a successful life with suffering" into three stages:

First the melancholic leader acknowledged his pain. He sat his problems down for a long interview and examined every square inch of them. He asked them how long they intended to stay with him, and when they said forever, he wrote up some rules.

"Very well," he told them, "but there are curfews and you are not allowed to do A, B, and C." Then he strapped a harness around each wild invisible body. According to Shenk, Lincoln learned to live with his pain and adapted to the pain on its own terms.

Finally, Abe turned to a cause greater than himself. "Listen guys," he told his problems, "not only are you going to abide by these rules, you are going to chip in and help me do a few things around here because I know what you are capable of." He channeled his suffering to make it work for him.

"Looking back at Lincoln's life," says Shenk, "what we can learn from him that can help us get through our own struggles with depression or other forms of mental illness boils down to a simple sentence: 'And this, too, shall pass away.'"

How interesting. Those are the very words that kept me alive, the phrase my mom repeated to me almost every day of my 18-month darkness. For Lincoln, it certainly passed. And it will for me too if I ever get stuck again.

Learn more about Abraham Lincoln and his depression at Shenk's website: www.lincolnsmelancholy.com.

NYT: Reports of Gunman’s Use of Antidepressant Renew Debate Over Side Effects

By BENEDICT CAREY

Steven P. Kazmierczak stopped taking Prozac before he shot to death five Northern Illinois University students and himself, his girlfriend said Sunday in a remark likely to fuel the debate over the risks and benefits of drug treatment for emotional problems.

Over the years, the antidepressant Prozac and its cousins, including Paxil and Zoloft, have been linked to suicide and violence in hundreds of patients. Tens of millions of people have taken them, and doctors say it is almost impossible to tell whether the spasms of violence stem in part from drug reactions or the underlying illnesses.

“It’s a real chicken-and-egg sort of situation,” said Dr. Jane E. Garland, director of the Mood and Anxiety Disorders Clinic at BC Children’s Hospital in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Dr. Garland said some people could and did become agitated and unpredictable in response to the drugs, usually just after starting to take them or soon after stopping.

“But it’s hard to make a case for a withdrawal reaction here, because Prozac comes out of the system gradually,” she said.

The girlfriend, Jessica Baty, said in an interview on CNN that Mr. Kazmierczak took Prozac to battle anxiety and compulsive behavior but that it “made him feel like a zombie and lazy.”
She said that in the days leading up to the shooting he was not behaving erratically, as university officials had suggested.

Much of the debate over the side effects of antidepressants focuses on erratic behavior like the cautious college student who stabs herself or the good husband and father who buys a gun and shoots himself.

The drug labels warn about agitation and severe restlessness, and display a prominent caution that the medications increase the risk of suicidal thinking and behavior in some children and young adults.

Psychiatrists said Monday that stopping an antidepressant could cause effects like lightheadedness, nausea and agitation as the brain adjusted. Among the most commonly prescribed drugs, Prozac is the least likely to cause withdrawal effects because it stays in the system longest, the doctors said.

“A small dose of Prozac is what you might use to block withdrawal symptoms when you take a patient off one of the other drugs,” said Dr. Donald Klein, an emeritus professor of psychiatry at Columbia who has consulted with drug companies.

Sara Bostock, of Atherton, Calif., whose daughter committed suicide shortly after taking Paxil, acknowledged that the interaction between drug effects and underlying emotional distress was hard to untangle.

Ms. Bostock wrote in an e-mail message, “As an observer and suicide survivor, my main wish is that medical professionals, regulatory authorities and other scientists will examine closely the entire medical and treatment history of the perpetrators of these violent incidents in which innocent people are victims.”

She is a founder of ssristories.com, a Web site that has tallied 2,000 news reports of violent acts in which people were thought to be taking antidepressants or had recently stopped them.

“If it weren’t for us, many of these stories would be lost to oblivion forever,” Ms. Bostock said.
Psychiatrists say the debate on such side effects, particularly suicide in the last four years, has driven many patients from drugs that could help save their lives. The psychiatrists emphasize that patients should be closely monitored for changes in behavior when starting or tapering off a medication.

Advocates on both sides agree that catalogs of violent acts are not enough and that news reports are incomplete. Only more thorough investigation and careful tracking of drug side effects, they say, will clarify the links between drug treatment and violent behavior.

Dr. Michael Stone, a professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia, maintains a database of 1,000 violent crimes, including mass murders, going back decades. In many cases the accused had stopped taking drugs for schizophrenia, Dr. Stone said.

“I only have a handful of cases,” he added, “where the person was on an antidepressant.”

Beyond Blue: Because of, Not In Spite of

Therese Borchard writes:

Last week's post on the Newsweek happiness article provoked many interesting comments. I especially liked this insightful one from Beyond Blue reader Mia:

Such a great discussion here. And I really love the distinctions being made: "medicine" vs "drugs" and "sadness" vs "depression." And how I love Dr. Kramer's over-and-over-and-over insistence that we're talking about a disease here people -- not simply a deeply felt negative emotion. Is there a tendency to throw pills at things too quickly in this society? Perhaps. But people seem to forget that one of the reasons drugs are prescribed -- and one of the useful applications of drug samples from pharmaceutical reps -- is to help diagnose the problem in the first place. Is it "sadness" or "fatigue" or "depression"? Sometimes I can't even tell, but recently -- in my usual weary dreary battle to slog through the winter -- I added Prozac back into the mix of other meds, vitamins, and alternative-med therapy (had half a bottle left after weaning myself off them early last summer), and dang, I felt so GOOD for the first time in many months. (And I wanted to cry, then, NOT because I was sad but because I was happy and relieved...if I was sad, then it was because I waited so long to think about trying it, all the beating up of myself I was doing and the half-life version of myself that I was giving to my kids.) My point: Sometimes it's the taking of the meds -- and getting (or not getting) the expected/desired response -- that helps pinpoint the malady, even sorting out when "depression" is emotional upheaval vs chemical upheaval.

I don't know about anybody else, but more than once in this whole sadness-vs-illness debate I've found myself wishing for a different word than "depressed." When people say, "How depressing!" or "Man, I'm sure depressed" they're not talking about the same kinds of things that have most of us turning to SSRIs. And maybe that in itself contributes to the confusion and the ignorance, of having my mom, for instance, say to me that she wished my sister could "pull herself together" so that she could "get off all those d*mn pills." Maybe if chemical depression was called something like Peter Kramer Syndrome, like Lou Gehrig's Disease or Tay-Sachs, people would finally "get it"??? Get that ingesting the right chemical, in manufactured pill form -- to address the body's inability to manufacture it on its own (much like insulin for the diabetic) IS IN ITSELF part of "pulling yourself together." They're not mutually exclusive realities!

God bless the people who can do this on their own, with talk-therapy alone or a right mix of alternative therapies -- I applaud you, I envy you, and sometimes for months at a time I can BE you. But sometimes that SSRI is exactly the crutch I need -- and I use the term "crutch" on purpose, because even tho it has a negative connotation, a crutch used properly is an effective and needed tool when you're in danger of falling and hurting yourself, or of causing further damage when a healing part of your body is still vulnerable.

My own problem with depression -- and this is where the people around you are so important, to help you get a reading on what's going on with yourself -- is that I don't always recognize when a new or deeper episode is creeping up on me. Usually, a major depressive episode happens so gradually that I don't notice it. (It's like that adage that if you throw a frog into boiling water, it knows enough to jump out. If you put a frog into cold water and gradually turn up the heat, it will of course stay put and get cooked.) Once major depression settles in and is firmly rooted, I typically lose my ability to be the good and vigilant advocate of myself that I'd be in the case of other health problems.

Instead of thinking "Oh crap, my neurotransmitters are petering out again, better go see the doc" the tendency instead is to do just about everything OTHER than that -- work harder, guzzle more caffeine to work harder, wallow in self-hate, subject myself to overly critical people who feed into that self-hate, more work and more caffeine and less sleep, and voila your chemical imbalance shuts you down just like a washing machine that aborts the the spin cycle whenever its balance is off. (I heard a great quote at a retreat recently that may apply here: "Your mind can play tricks on you, but the body never lies.") After a while, how can you reasonably expect yourself to haul your sorry butt into a doctor's office when you can't even manage the basics like remembering to eat, take a shower, or changing your clothes?

Because our obsessively optimistic society -- control your own destiny, pull yourself up by your bootstraps (assuming you have bootstraps, which the untreated depressive doesn't) -- can't figure out what to do with the likes of us, because our reality simply doesn't "compute," doesn't fit their model and belief system, we need to be removed from the landscape of the American Dream somehow, just as surely as Native Americans who got in the way of land-grabbing westward "progress." And so if our depression becomes too bothersome to be written off as mere emotional travail (trivializing the disease), then we're "put on a pedestal" (romanticizing the disease) like Poe and Van Gogh in the name of great art. To which I respond, like Dr. Kramer: That's not BECAUSE OF depression -- that's DESPITE depression. Kinda makes you wonder what other great works of art Van Gogh might have evolved to, as his techniques matured, had he not killed himself. I mean, duh! Had he survived depression, we might be thinking of "Starry Night" as his early/immature work instead of his crowning glory!

CNNMoney:Bummed out? Bad time to shop

A new study says incidental emotions can influence the prices at which individuals buy and sell.


NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Think you paid too much for a little gift you bought yourself after a tough day at the office? A new study suggests your emotions may have pushed you to a bad decision.

According to a study by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, sadness propels people to spend more for an object than they would have otherwise paid and to sell items at a discount. Disgust, on the other hand, depresses both buying and selling prices.

"We're showing for the first time that incidental emotions from one situation can exert a causal effect on economic behavior in other, ostensibly unrelated situations," Jennifer Lerner, an assistant professor of social and decision sciences and psychology, said in a press release.

During the study, participants were asked to watch scenes from movies that elicited either sadness or disgust. The first group watched a clip from "The Champ" in which a boy's mentor died while the second group viewed a scene from "Trainspotting" of a man using a filthy public toilet. After watching the scenes, participants wrote about how they would feel in similar situations in order to solidify their emotions.

Participants were then asked to buy and sell highlighter pen sets to one another. The disgusted group, on average, were willing to sell the pens for $2.74 compared to the $4.58 price emotionally neutral participants -- a group who watched a documentary -- asked for the same item. The price that disgusted participants paid for the highlighers, $2.98, also lagged behind that of the control group, $3.53.

People who were sad were willing to sell the pens for $3.06 but were willing to buy them for $4.57.

The results led researchers to conclude that sadness pushed participants to try to change their circumstances, which translated to a greater willingness to buy new things or sell items that they own, while disgust caused people to refrain from spending and to rid themselves of things they had already purchased.

Researchers say the implications of the study could be used to decode consumer spending patterns following highly emotional events such as the September 11 terrorist attacks. The study, however, doesn't prove that retail therapy is a valid treatment for the blues.

"We didn't focus on how they felt after they bought things. Instead we focused on what led up to the buying decision," Lerner told CNN/Money.

Lerner and her team are currently planning an experiment that will test the correlation between an individual's emotional state and their investment decisions.

Monday, February 18, 2008

The Last Psychiatrist: What Else Causes Suicide?



In which I take the semiotic logic of medication induced suicidality to its inevitable, silly end. Using nothing more than a Volvo. And without lawyers.


With the recent news that anticonvulsants double the rate of suicide, I got to thinking: isn't Klonopin (clonazepam) an FDA approved anticonvulsant?


Sure, it has different pharmacology than the other 11 studied, but Lamictal, Lyrica, Depakote, etc are equally different. So if we're going to pretend that we never had to take pharmacology in med school, if we're talking class effect, then Klonopin gets the warning.


Which may mean that all benzos should get the warning, since, well...


But why stop there? Antidepressants carry the warning across pharmacology. SSRIs, TCAs-- even Seroquel has the warning ONLY because it's now an "antidepressant" for bipolar disorder. Again, the FDA would like us to pretend that doctors had every M, W, F 9am-10am off in med school. We're not postulating the pharmacology is the cause, since they are all different-- we're saying it's a class effect. Ok, well, what else is an antidepressant?


Well, a number of medicines not FDA approved. Lithium, even though that's supposed to reduce suicide. CBT or other therapies? They must ultimately act on some biological pathway, right?


...inevitably, there can only be one conclusion: psychiatry causes suicide. You are all on notice.


And so, reductio ad absurdum, let's all stop this nonsense.


The Scotsman: There's Nothing At All Funny About Depression

By JANEY GODLEY

STAND–UP comics are often prey to depression. Take John Cleese, Stephen Fry, Paul Merton, Tony Hancock, Kenneth Williams and Spike Milligan as examples.

It does seem that being funny in public equates to being sad in private.

My daughter Ashley went round a bunch of local comics in Glasgow asking them about their lives and deduced that the majority of them have had disturbing childhoods or horrific incidents in their lives that led them into standing up in public and telling jokes.

I myself have never shied away from talking about my difficult childhood and sexual abuse, though I have never suffered from depression.

I am very lucky. It takes a lot to get me feeling down. I tend to deal with an issue in my own way and get on with solving the problem. Not everyone is so fortunate.

Being free from mental health issues is a wonderful feeling, especially when I read an article about the amount of comics who have become suicidal due to the pressure they feel.

People deal with life very differently. From what I understand about depression it can strike anyone at any time. It must be really debilitating and make a person feel so helpless that they can delve deep into their own dark hell. Suicide can be the result.

Depression is on the increase in Britain and the statistics show that this mental illness is affecting more young people than ever before – and yet the government is trying to get some claimants with depression off Incapacity Benefit.

Mental health groups are fighting this policy. The government is making sly assumptions that some young people coming forward with the condition are feckless work-shy scroungers and intend to question them further, to determine who really should be at work.

Depression is indiscriminate. It affects all classes, ages and ethnic groups in the UK.

People who suffer from this condition are unable to work. Though their limbs are fine for lifting boxes and their legs can manage stairs, the very thought of having to deal with the world outside their door can stop them from getting out of bed. That is disabling when it comes to holding down a job.

Self-esteem is eroded and the very core of your soul is shaken when a depressive episode takes hold.

My mother suffered from depression and that affected our whole family and the people who lived around her. Families are often torn apart and marriages suffer terribly when this condition takes hold. I recall coming home from school and being scared of her frightening moods. I was terrified she would harm herself.

Sir Winston Churchill called his dark depression "the black dog", yet he managed to contribute to society in the darkest times of the 20th century while suffering from his awful illness. No-one called him a shirker, nor did they belittle his condition.

The government should be supporting young people who suffer from depression and other mentally disabling conditions. We have thousands of young men and women currently fighting in war zones and the high numbers of military personnel who report back home with various mental issues will need this country's attention, not its derision.

David Freud, great-grandson of Sigmund Freud, is an investment banker who has been hired by James Purnell, the new Work and Pensions Secretary, to shake down the current system.

This is the man who saved Euro Disney and his idea is to get big companies to create jobs for people currently claiming sickness benefit and he will use a "carrot and stick approach" by paying the company money for keeping people in a job for more than three years.

That carrot theory might have worked with Thumper in Disneyland, but enticing companies with cash to get sick people to work is a false economy. Just pump the cash into the NHS and let the private sector decide who they want to employ.

My opinion is this: the majority of people claiming Incapacity Benefit through depression are going to be vigorously examined. The result of this scrutiny will be that some people will be refused Incapacity Benefit and shunted into a lower benefit bracket to save the government cash or they will be forced to take jobs through Mr Freud's scheme.

There are barely enough secure jobs for able-bodied people let alone satisfactory work for those who are living with depression or any other mental illness.

Depression is a killer. Ask The Samaritans. Ask the homeless charities. Just don't ask Gordon Brown. To him and his equally depressing chums – it's a myth.

Spread The Love NOW winner: A Sense of Equinity

A Sense of Equinity

Animal Cops Houston, a reality show on Animal Planet, showed a story about 3 neglected and deprived horses being rescued.

Prologue:
One morning the Houston SPCA gets a call about a few mistreated horses in a stable. When they go to check, they see a terrible sight. Three extremely weak horses were found barely standing in the stables. They didn't have food, nor water. And they were almost skeletal. The experts on that show said that it takes about 6 months of food deprivation for a horse to get in that state.

One horse, Playboy 2000, in particular was in an alarming state. He was the weakest of the lot. One could see almost every bone in his body. He had scars all over his body, which was evidence that he was beaten and tortured. His name was branded on his body, by using the most rudimentary methods. He seemed like he was on the verge of collapsing. The worst thing that the SPCA saw over there was, a barn full of hay, in sight of the horses. The horses could see the hay, but they couldn't reach it.

This was the worst form of torture a hungry being can be subjected to. Imagine being hungry and tied up for weeks, and you can see plenty of food nearby, but you cannot reach it.The horses, in their quest for nourishment, had gnawed off the wooden railings of their stables. It was pitiful to watch, and understandably, the SPCA people were furious. When they questioned the owner, he mentioned he owned one horse, while his father owned the other two. They were apparently training the horses for rodeo championships. It took all of the chief officers resolve not to smack that owner right there.

Fortunately the horses were confiscated and taking to the SPCA clinic for immediate treatment. The doctor, a lady, was shocked to see the horses in such a state. She was particularly worried about Playboy 2000, for he looked the worst. They immediately started the treatment, and provided food for the horses, but it seemed Playboy was giving up the battle. He collapsed in the stable, while still chewing the hay. A fully grown horse, collapsing down, holding onto the hay in its mouth for fear of letting go, and trying to chew as much as he could to survive. Talk about the effects of cruelty to animals.

It took almost all of the crew to lift the poor horse up and put him in slings, so his body weight could be supported by the harness. His legs were too weak to support him, and lying down would damage his vital organs. Some of the staff volunteered to stay back, and see the horses through the night. It was important that Playboy survived the night.

Miraculously he did. As did the other two horses. Due to the constant treatment by the dedicated SPCA staff, all 3 horses regained their strength, and health. The owners were arrested on charges of cruelty to animals. They were fined, the horses taken away from them, and they were ordered community service.

Playboy steadily regained his health, and was later adopted by a lady.

After a few months, the SPCA doctor went to check his progress, and was astounded to see the complete recovery of a horse who everyone thought would die. He was up to his prime health, well muscled, well fed. All his wounds had healed. The scars were just a reminder of the terrible ordeal he had gone through for many months. But he wasn't complaining. His new owner was treating him well, she loved him a lot, and he loved her in return.

To show the doctor, she saddled him up, and took him riding. It was tearful to watch him fully fit, doing the rounds, working his muscles, and listening to every word his new owner was telling him, trying to heed to every command.

He was a beautiful horse, and the owner mentioned that there was no regret, anger, or sadness in him regarding his ordeal. He had a big heart, he was very loving, and keen to please his new owner.

This story is not about the cruelty that human beings can inflict on creatures they deem lesser than themselves.

It is also not about the compassion, and kindness shown by SPCA to rescue the ill treated, and bringing them back to health.

This story is also not about the generous new owner, who adopted a tortured animal and treated him as her own, giving him a new lease of life.

This story is about the horse, Playboy 2000, so you better hear it from the horse's mouth.

Read the rest .....

The Urban Monk: Compassion - Group Writing Project Results

I'll be featuring the winners of the Group Writing Project here on We Must Not Think Too Much, because I think the essays are extraordinary.

To read more about the project, click here:

McSweeney's Internet Tendency: Mondays With Kafka

MONDAYS
WITH KAFKA.
BY JIMMY CHEN
- - - -

To: All Staff
9:21AM
Subject: My printer

Something fairly odd has happened. My printer's toner (which usually lasts at least a month under normal printing frequency) was mysteriously depleted over the weekend. I'd rather not to get into it, but this was a very strange weekend for me. Let's just say I'm a little "bugged" out, and not particularly in a chirpy mood.

Last Friday, I put in a new toner cartridge, and this morning it seems that it's completely empty. At first, given the absurdity of such a notion, I erroneously concluded that something was wrong with the toner sensor, and that the printer was simply confused. I've been told that I have a way of anthropomorphizing machinery, but I could hear the gurgling soul within.

Anyway, I brought in a technician from Opt Inc. who specializes in HP printers. Having thoroughly inspected the printer, he concluded that nothing was wrong with the toner sensor, and that the toner cartridge was indeed empty. When confronted with vows of disbelief, he said, "Shit happens." He then noted that, in this world, irrational does not mean impossible. I smell an aphorism.

To call this a moral issue and make implications of one's conscience is absolutely absurd. We are all kind people. This is about getting at the truth—to find out what happened. If this is another one of your office gags, it's not funny. The castle you guys made in the break room, while structurally impressive, was just mean. Also, a huge waste of paper.

I understand that this missive may be read as yet another example of the so-called "grim" disposition you attribute to me. I understand that my chronic pallor continues to create tension between myself and the rest of this company. However, I see my quiet repose as a welcome alternative to challenging each one of you to a wrestling match. I have eight arms (metaphorically speaking, of course).

Listen, my printer is exactly that—my printer. See the label. It says "Franz Kafka's personal printer." If you absolutely must print a poem for your lady friend, go ahead. People like to get laid—I get it. I don't want anybody walking on eggshells here. Just try to observe that every piece of paper costs money, and black toner powder does not grow on trees. It's mined from deep within the earth, in dark places you cannot imagine.

Cheers,
Franz

P.S. I want my mug back, too.

Falling Fruit TV: Being Human and Suffering Less Along The Way

Click on the "Buddhist Geeks" logo to listen to the audio file ...


Running Time: 19:55
Hosted by:
Vince Horn
Guests:
Noah Levine

Noah Levine, Buddhist teacher and dharma punk, shares the intimate details of his early lifestyle of punk rock, drugs, and jail and his climb out of a harmful way of living that was facilitated in part by meditation practice. For more details about his journey check out his spiritual memoir, Dharma Punx. He also shares with us his experience of becoming a Buddhist teacher under the tutelage of Jack Kornfield.

We go on to talk about Noah's most recent writing Against the Stream, and his unique way of expression the dharma. We also discuss the difference in how 1st generation & 2nd or 3rd generation teachers might express the Dharma in the West. He claims that there is a difference in emphasis, but that they are expressing the same fundamental teachings.

We finish our conversation discussing the ideas of karma and grace, and their inter-relation, as well as the true aim of the path, which for Noah is about "being human and suffering less along the way."

This is Part 1 of a two-part series.

now THIS is what I call a Valentine's Day article!

from Beyond Blue:

12 Ways to End Addictive Relationships

In his book, "How to Break Your Addiction to a Person," Howard Halpern first explains what an addictive relationship is, then gives guidelines for recognizing if you're involved in one. Then, he offers several techniques on how to end an unhealthy relationship (or an emotional affair).

I’ve compiled and adapted all of his suggestions into the following dozen techniques, excerpting what I found to be the most important passages for each.

1. Keep a Relationship Log
2. Find the Patterns
3. Write Memos to Yourself
4. Make Connections.
5. Foster a Supportive Network
6. Complete Your Sentences
7. Be Aware of Your Body
8. Nurture Your Core Fantasies
9. Awareness of Wanting
10. Stop Thoughts and Distract Yourself
11. Allow Multiple Attachments
12. Connect with the Timeless

read the whole article (it's a goodie!) here:





The Washington Post: Healing a Troubled Mind Takes More Than a Pill

MESSAGE (NOT) IN A BOTTLE
Healing a Troubled Mind Takes More Than a Pill


By Charles Barber
Sunday, February 10, 2008

Feeling depressed? No problem, pop a pill.

That's what more and more Americans are doing these days to quell what ails their troubled souls. The use of antidepressants in the United States has exploded in the past couple of decades, and drugs such as Prozac, Paxil and Zoloft, which didn't even exist 20 years ago, are household names, almost household staples.

And why not? The television ads make it seem so easy: An agonized man or woman stares listlessly into space or slumps on a bed or couch, holding their head in their hands. Then they take a pill and suddenly morph into a happily engaged and joyous being, back on the job or walking in a park, awash in sunshine, surrounded by grandchildren, a golden retriever nipping at their heels, while lush music plays in the background.

But recovering from mental illness is rarely that simple. I know.

As an optimistic 18-year-old freshman at Harvard in the 1980s, I found myself afflicted by indescribably disturbing and intrusive thoughts that involved repetitious words and irrational fears that I had harmed others. This assault on my mind -- diagnosed a few years later as obsessive-compulsive disorder -- led me to drop out of two colleges in as many years and made it difficult to hold down a job as a busboy.

That was the low point. After that, I began the long, arduous and at times confused process of emotional recovery. Medication was helpful -- as was cognitive behavioral therapy, particularly early on -- but what ultimately made the difference, what really made me want to get well, was finding a sense of purpose in my new life, a life that had been reconfigured by illness.

read more ...

The Urban Monk: Loneliness - The Beginning of Romance

If that's the case ... I've been "beginning" for years! When does the romance part start???

The Urban Monk writes:

When we are in the depths of our loneliness, what comforts us – what could possibly take us away from it? What, indeed? So often, it feels like there is no solace; like we are running from our own shadow. And it is true, in a way. There is no escape from being alone. We are always alone. But there is a way out of loneliness.

All our efforts at escaping loneliness are fundamentally flawed, for we don’t understand the nature of what we are running from. There is something beautiful about your loneliness. And when you see that, when you acknowledge it, learn to delight in it, that’s when something shifts inside you. When your loneliness becomes aloneness - that is freedom! That is when you can truly begin to Love!

read more ...

and we'll add this to the "Yeah, Right" ... section ...

Naw, it's there. Which makes living without it that much harder ...

Therese Borchard writes in Beyond Blue:

The Best Valentine’s Day Ever: A Husband Who Gets His Wife

Yesterday was a day in which I better understood why, according to a November 2003 article in “Psychology Today,” 90 percent of marriages involving a person who has bipolar disorder end in divorce; that, according to “The Sidney Morning Herald,” people with bipolar disorder have three times the rate of divorce and broken relationships as the general community.

My irritability and moodiness the last two weeks is precisely why J. Raymond DePaulo, Jr. M.D. writes in “Understanding Depression,” that “depression . . . has a much greater impact on marital life than rheumatoid arthritis or cardiac illness” and that “one study found that only severe forms of cancer affected a family as adversely as depression or bipolar disorder.

Here’s the weak link in my chain of recovery: Katherine has poor vision, and it’s not improving. This means she wants to be held constantly. She’s scared to cross streets, to walk in garages. So I hold all of her 55 pounds. Which has caused some hip misalignment. My left hip hurts. Which means I can’t run—an essential piece to my recovery. I can’t really walk (for exercise) without aggravating the pain. Which means I’m not getting my outside fix.

After three callous snaps yesterday morning, the normal husband would throw out a few himself, in defense. And the argument would grow into a tree that would occupy so much of the living room that man and wife could no longer fit in there together. Instead, Eric responded with compassion knowing that my moodiness is seldom about him, and almost always about a broken part of my recovery program.

“Uh oh,” he said, wearing a concerned expression. “What’s going on?”

“I’m sorry for snapping,” I explained. “I was close to losing it a month ago. And now, not being able to run … it’s affecting my chemistry.”

“Can’t you swim?” he asked.

“Yeah. But only twice a week, because I have Katherine on the other days. I guess twice a week isn’t enough, because I feel extremely fragile. Yesterday I almost started to cry at Whole Foods when some uppity woman glared at me with that “Super-Nanny wouldn’t survive at your house” expression when she saw Katherine shove handfuls of blueberries in her mouth back at the fruit display. I’m annoyed at everything and everyone. Even people with whom I haven’t talked to in weeks. I’m annoyed at them.”

“Do you want me to come home for lunch so you can swim?” Eric asked me.

“Are you sure you have time to do that?” I asked him.

And here’s where I knew that I made the best decision of my life to marry him:

“Therese,” he said. “It’s cheaper for me to take an hour at lunch unpaid than to send you to Johns Hopkins. I know your brain needs exercise. It’s mandatory, not optional. And the last thing you need for your mental health is to be laid up on bed rest with painkillers after a hip replacement.”

That was the best Valentine’s Day present I could have ever asked for: a husband who would come home for his lunch hour so his bipolar wife with the bad hip could swim so that her neurotransmitters would again send messages of well-being back and forth to her neurons and that the amygada and hippocampus regions of her brain could go into the body shop for some nerve regeneration. Which means that she would care less about what some witchy woman at Whole Foods thinks of Katherine’s appetite and manners.

Another entry in my snarky salute to Valentine's Day and all things romantic ...

from Beyond Blue ...

Erma Bombeck: We Needed One Another
Slowly, awkwardly, with tears streaming down our faces, we reluctantly reached out to one another. Neither of us knew how much strength we had to give, but we were willing to share it. We gave one another something that most friendships are not able to give—vulnerability. Throughout our years together, we had built up a history and a closeness so subtle even we didn’t know it was there. On that evening, we admitted we couldn’t handle life alone. We needed one another.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh: The Dance of Love
A good relationship has a pattern like a dance and is built on some of the same rules. The partners do not need to hold on tightly, because they move confidently in the same pattern, intricate but gay and swift and free, like a country dance of Mozart’s. To touch heavily would be to arrest the pattern and freeze the movement, to check the endlessly changing beauty of its unfolding. There is no place here for the possessive clutch, the clinging arm, the heavy hand; only the barest touch in passing. Now arm in arm, now face to face, now back to back—it does not matter which. Because they know they are partners moving to the same rhythm, creating a pattern together, and being invisibly nourished by it.

The joy of such a pattern is not only the joy of creation or the joy of participation, it is also the joy of living in the moment. Lightness of touch and living in the moment are intertwined. One cannot dance well unless one is completely in time with the music, not leaning back to the last step or pressing forward to the next one, but poised directly on the present step as it comes. Perfect poise on the beat is what gives good dancing its sense of ease, of timelessness, of the eternal.

The Guardian: Mind how you report mental health

Journalists are being urged to show more sensitivity when handling stories that feature people in distress

David Batty
Monday February 18 2008


Headlines labelling offenders "psychos" or "schizos" have long been a staple of the British press. But in recent years, coverage of crimes committed by people with mental health problems has faced increasing criticism - much of it for distorting public perceptions about the risks posed by those in mental distress.

When the Sun splashed on Frank Bruno's admission to a psychiatric hospital in 2003 with the headline Bonkers Bruno Locked Up, it misjudged the public's mood - later editions of the paper changed the story to Sad Bruno in Mental Health Home. But despite assurances of adopting more measured coverage, papers, particularly the tabloids, can nevertheless still revert to sensationalist language.

Striking the right balance in cases of violent crime can be difficult. Jon Clements, crime correspondent for the Mirror, has won praise for his coverage of a case involving a man with schizophrenia who attacked a church congregation with a samurai sword. While his paper had branded the perpetrator, Eden Strang, a "nut" at the time of the attack in 1999, Clements set the case in context in an interview following Strang's discharge from a psychiatric hospital in 2002.

"I was a bit nervous going into his house on my own but he was obviously a bright guy on the road to recovery and full of remorse," says Clements. His piece made clear the severity of Strang's mental ill health at the time of the attack, which led to him being cleared of attempted murder and assault due to diminished responsibility. "The psychiatrist said he was as mad as you can get at the time," says the reporter.

Clements admits it is often tough to balance the sensational nature of crime reporting with the concerns of mental health campaigners: it is unrealistic to expect the media to censor or ignore crimes because they are committed by people with mental health problems.

"If someone goes 'mad' with an axe on Brixton High Street it's not going to make a lot of difference if they're mentally ill, drunk, high on drugs or just a vicious bastard, the story will be written," he says. "But you can include context. Part of a crime reporter's job is to explore the background and motive of a crime. So, for example, it makes sense to explain what paranoid schizophrenia really is and the risks people with it really pose."

The BBC's home editor Mark Easton says many journalists do not feel comfortable about the complexities of mental health, or about the language they should use to try to describe it.

"Journalists do like to deal in issues of black and white, and sane and insane," he says. "There's a tendency to want to see whether an offender is mad or bad as if you can draw a distinct line between the two. We should have an awareness that things are not as simple as the courts would like you to say [they are]. There's an enormous number of people locked up who are subsequently found to have mental health problems."

He believes journalists and mental health campaigners need to find better terminology to describe mental disorders. For example, mental health charities have promoted the term "service user" as an inoffensive description of people with mental health problems. However, many journalists complain the term is meaningless and confusing for their readers - and editors.

"I would urge campaigners to think of terminology that better addresses the issues involved," says Easton. "Even the phrase mental health is a switch-off - people immediately think of people in asylums."

Easton is optimistic that coverage of mental health issues will not be so skewed towards rare cases of violent crime in the future. He lays the blame for the lurid headlines about mad axmen over the past decade with the government's attempts to drive through controversial new mental health laws in the wake of the murders of Lin and Megan Russell.

The killing by Michael Stone, who had a history of untreatable personality disorder, led ministers to propose legislation to preventatively detain people with severe mental health disorders even if they had committed no crime. Campaigners complained the bill reinforced the idea that everyone with a mental illness was a danger to the public. The legislation, first proposed in 1998, did not receive royal assent until last year.

"It has completely warped coverage of mental health issues to focus on a tiny minority of psychopaths who are a significant risk to others," says Easton.

· What's the Story?, a handbook on reporting mental illness, is published by Shift

The Guardian: Law 'reinforced mental health stereotypes'

David Batty
Monday February 18 2008


The government today admitted its controversial new mental health law led to negative media coverage that reinforced the misconception that people with mental health problems are violent.
The mental health tsar, Louis Appleby, said the Mental Health Act 2007's focus on protecting the public led the media to highlight the risks posed by those with mental disorders.

Professor Appleby said: "The protracted debate around the bill did unfortunately highlight in the media the issue of risk because of the legislation's focus on protecting both patients and the public - this was never the government's intention."

His comments came as the Department of Health published new guidance for journalists in a bid to end sensationalist coverage of mental health issues. The handbook, What's the Story?, says 27% of mental health coverage is about homicides and other violent crimes. In contrast, it notes that 9% of the 600 homicides in England and Wales each year are committed by someone with history of mental illness, though that condition is not always a factor in the crime.

"This new guidance is the first step in correcting the common misconception that people with mental health problems are likely to be violent," said Prof Appleby.

The BBC crime correspondent Mark Easton, who contributed to the DoH handbook, said the protracted passage of the act had led to lurid headlines about mad axmen dominating the media's coverage of mental illness.

Mental health campaigners complained the legislation, first proposed in 1998 but not passed until last year, reinforced the idea that everyone with a mental illness was potentially dangerous through its tough measures to force people to undergo treatment.
"It has completely warped coverage of mental health issues to focus on a tiny minority of psychopaths who are a significant risk to others," said Easton.

"I looked at the BBC news coverage of mental health since 1998 and there were well over 100 stories on our website about dangerousness, but hardly anything about innovations such as cognitive behavioural therapy, which has been a really extraordinary development in treatment for anxiety and depression."

Moira Fraser, head of policy at the Mental Health Foundation, welcomed Prof Appleby's acknowledgement that the act had increased the stigma associated with mental illness.

"I think some of the debate around the Mental Health Act was completely damaging because there was a focus on risk or violence that didn't do any favours to people with mental health problems. An acknowledgement that was unhelpful is welcome."

Telegraph.co.uk: Femininity as mental illness

Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 17/02/2008

Melanie McGrath reviews Mad, Bad and Sad: A History of Women and the Mind Doctors from 1800 to the Present by Lisa Appignanesi




'She's mad, she is,' my 10-year-old neighbour recently announced of his 14-year-old sister, who was cheerfully carving her name on a streetlamp. 'You don't wanna talk to her, she's flipped.'

'Yeah,' said the girl, adding a swirly 'c' and a loveheart above the 'i' in her name, 'I'm, like, totally mental, me.' Her brother nodded sagely. 'She so bad, she the Princess of Crazy.'


It's an odd sort of world, isn't it, where being mad, as in flipped, as in the Princess of Crazy, can admiringly describe a sibling engaged in the routine defacement of street furniture, whereas being really mad, as in psychotic, say, is a description even most scrofulous Xbox-zombie would be leery of visiting upon his teenage sister.



read more .....

The Morning Sun: Poetry combats stigma of mental illness

PUBLISHED: Sunday, February 17, 2008

By Lisa Satayut
Sun Staff Writer


Richard Hartlep, 58, is a quiet man who lives a quiet life. Although he usually doesn't have a lot to say and sometimes has trouble expressing his feelings. He has no problem communicating through written words.

And his message is beautiful.

It's a message that he hopes will break the stigma that is associated with being around those with a mental illness.

You say weakness, I say sickness.
You say shrink, I say psychiatrist.
You say too ballistic or too vanilla, I say bi-polar.
You say way too tragically gloomy Gus, I say depression.
You say he or she babbles about God and Molson Canadian all in the same breath,

stare too much, and look like hell, I say they're schizophrenic, and they're not feeling too hot either.

Hartlep was diagnosed with depression when he was a teenager and has been trying to maintain a stable life ever since. He was 18 the first time he tried to kill himself. Growing up, his parents treated him like he was "retarded" and sheltered him from life. Or maybe it was the other way around and they didnt want anyone to be around their "not-so-normal" child.

"It was swept under the rug," he said of his first suicide attempt. Hartlep has spent a great deal of his life in and out of psychiatric hospitals and group homes. He has been homeless. And for a while his "home" consisted of a small single hotel room at the Mission Street apartments.

You say rubber-room, I say time-out room.
You say you will flip out again any time soon, I say I'm feeling much better, thank you.
I say I was having an episode. You say looney bin.
I say Psych unit, you say I needed help, I say I'm getting help. You say those like me are the black sheep of the family, I say we're a unique piece to our puzzle.
You say on dope, I say on meds.
You say therapy, I say the spilling of the guts.


But currently, Hartlep is doing just fine. He sits quietly inside his small but cozy apartment in Winchester Towers. Hartlep is a CMU football fan and is wearing a Motor City Bowl T-shirt while he waits for his instant coffee to warm up in the microwave.

He loves his job working at the Comfort Inn. He has been there for almost three years now and says the people he works with are great. Although none of them know about the specifics of his mental illness he doesn't think his coworkers would treat him any different.

But that has not always been the case. Although Hartlep was born and raised in Mecosta County he spent some time living in Arizona. He worked at a hotel in Phoenix and would oftentimes be teased and made fun of by his coworkers. In 2004 he decided to put his frustration on paper.

"Why not write about it?" he said. He bought a typewriter at a thrift store and has been typing away ever since.

You say I can't drive anymore, I say I shouldn't be driving anymore. You say, so this is what it's come down to, collecting bottles and cans, I say its Dial-a-Ride money.
You say I still work for minimum wages, I say I'm still able to work.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

In Memoriam: Victor Charles

"If you should die before me, ask if you can bring a friend ....."


Victor Charles
August 21, 1989 - March 2, 2002

Who can say for certain; maybe you're still here
I feel you all around me - your memory's so clear
Deep within the stillness I can hear you speak
You're still my inspiration - can it be

That you are my forever love
And you are watching over me from up above
Fly me up to where you are beyond the distant star
I wish upon tonight to see you smile
If only for a while to know you're there
A breath away's not far to where you are

Are you gently sleeping here inside my dream
And isn't faith believing all power can't be seen
As my heart holds you just one beat away
I cherish all you gave me every day

'Cause you are my forever love
Watching me from up above
And i believe that angels grieve
And that love will live on and never leave

Fly me up to where you are beyond the distant star
I wish upon tonight to see you smile
If only for a while to know you're there
A breath away's not far to where you are.

I know you're there.
A breath away's not far to where you are.

"To Where You Are"
By Richard Marx

The Last Will and Testament of an Extremely Loved Dog

The original version of this tribute was written by Eugene O'Neill for hiswife Carlotta, a few days before their Dalmatian passed away from old age in December, 1940.



I, SILVERDENE EMBLEM O'NEILL (familiarly known to my family, friends, and acquaintances as Blemie), because the burden of my years and infirmities is heavy upon me, and I realize the end of my life is near, do hereby bury my last will and testament in the mind of my Master. He will not know it is there until after I am dead. Then, remembering me in his loneliness, he will suddenly know of this testament, and I ask him then to inscribe it as a memorial to me.


I have little in the way of material things to leave. Dogs are wiser than men. They do not set great store upon things. They do not waste their days hoarding property. They do not ruin their sleep worrying about how to keep the objects they have, and to obtain the objects they have not. There is nothing of value I have to bequeath except my love and my faith. These I leave to all those who have loved me, to my Mistress, who I know will mourn me most. I ask my Mistress to remember me always, but not to grieve for me too long. In my life I have tried to be a comfort to her in time of sorrow, and a reason for added joy in her happiness. It is painful for me to think that even in death I should cause her pain. Let her remember that while no dog has ever had a happier life (and this I owe to her love and care for me), now that I have grown blind and deaf and lame, and even my sense of smell fails me so that a rabbit could be right under my nose and I might not know, my pride has sunk to a sick, bewildered humiliation.

I feel life is taunting me with having over-lingered my welcome. It is time I said good-bye, before I become too sick a burden on myself and on those who love me. It will be sorrow to leave her, but not a sorrow to die. Dogs do not fear death as men do. We accept it as part of life, not as something alien and terrible which destroys life. What may come after death, who knows? I would like to believe with those my fellow Dalmatians who are devote Mohammedans, that there is a Paradise where one is always young and full-bladdered; where all the day one dillies and dallies with an amorous multitude of houris, beautifully spotted; where jack rabbits that run fast but not too fast (like the houris) are as the sands of the desert; where each blissful hour is mealtime; where in long evenings there are a million fireplaces with logs forever burning, and one curls oneself up and blinks into the flames and nods and dreams, remembering the old brave days on earth, and the love of one's Mistress.


I am afraid this is too much for even such a dog as I am to expect. But peace, at least, is certain. Peace and long rest for weary old heart and head and limbs, and eternal sleep in the earth I have loved so well. Perhaps, after all, this is best.


One last request I earnestly make. I have heard my Mistress say, "When Blemie dies we must never have another dog. I love him so much I could never love another one." Now I would ask her, for love of me, to have another. It would be a poor tribute to my memory never to have a dog again. What I would like to feel is that, having once had me in the family, now she cannot live without a dog! I have never had a narrow jealous spirit. I have always held that most dogs are good (and one cat, the black one I have permitted to share the living room rug during the evenings, whose affection I have tolerated in a kindly spirit, and in rare sentimental moods, even reciprocated a trifle). Some dogs, of course, are better than others. Dalmatians, naturally, as everyone knows, are best. So I suggest a Dalmatian as my successor. He can hardly be as well bred or as well mannered or as distinguished and handsome as I was in my prime. My Master and Mistress must not ask the impossible. But he will do his best, I am sure, and even his inevitable defects will help by comparison to keep my memory green. To him I bequeath my collar and leash and my overcoat and raincoat, made to order in 1929 at Hermes in Paris. He can never wear them with the distinction I did, walking around the Place Vendome, or later along Park Avenue, all eyes fixed on me in admiration; but again I am sure he will do his utmost not to appear a mere gauche provincial dog. Here on the ranch, he may prove himself quite worthy of comparison, in some respects. He will, I presume, come closer to jack rabbits than I have been able to in recent years.


And for all his faults, I hereby wish him the happiness I know will be his in my old home.

One last word of farewell, Dear Mistress: Whenever you visit my grave, say to yourself with regret but also with happiness in your heart at the remembrance of my long happy life with you: "Here lies one who loved me and whom I loved". No matter how deep my sleep I shall hear you, and not all the power of death can keep my spirit from wagging a grateful tail.


HE RESCUED ME

In 1990, I was separated, jobless, and facing the prospect of losing my home because I couldn't even pay my mortgage. On my way home one evening, as I stopped at the intersection of two rural roads, a little black-and-white dog came up out of the ditch and stood right in front of my truck. He peered at me so intently, I was reminded of the James Herriot short story about abandoned dogs and their heartbreaking efforts to find the people who so callously dumped them. I drove on, but a minute later, circled back and picked him up.

Victor Charles, as I named him, had been beaten and was starving and dirty. His eyes were red from road dust and he was exhausted from his efforts to find his people. A bath made him look a little better, but he was so malnourished, he couldn't even keep food down and needed medication just to keep a meal in his stomach.

His inner wounds were even worse -- he was afraid of all men, and every time I reached to open a cupboard door or something, he ducked down as though fearing a blow. When I took him to the vet, he cowered away from the open door of the truck -- he was terrified of riding in the car. No doubt a ride meant, to him, another dump in the country.

Things weren't going much better for me at the time, and often, the pain of the divorce, fear of the future, fruitless job searches and just plain despair overwhelmed me. Frequently, it was just too much to bear, and more than once, the thought of ending my life crossed my mind. But always there was Vic. Who would take care of such a badly damaged little dog if I didn't? And even in the depths of my depression, I knew I couldn't let him be abandoned again. So I lived -- for him.

Eight years later, Vic and I have a much different life. He is happy and healthy and medication controls the epilepsy the vet thinks was brought on by his beatings. You'd never think he'd ever known a bad day to look at him now! Vic turned nine August 21st, the eighth anniversary of the day I found him. Our story is very much like the line at the end of the movie "Pretty Woman." I rescued Vic, and he "rescued me right back."

-- 1998

(On Valentine's Day, 2002, Victor Charles was diagnosed with cancer. He died at home in my arms March 2, 2002)

Reuters: U.S. raids Iraq psychiatric hospital over attacks

OK, I still think this is still one of the funniest "depression jokes" I've seen in a long time:

I was depressed last night so I called Lifeline.
Got a call center in Pakistan .
I told them I was suicidal.
They got all excited and asked if I could drive a truck.

But then I read this on the news this morning ...


By Michael Holden
BAGHDAD (Reuters)
- U.S. troops raided a psychiatric hospital in Baghdad on Sunday and arrested a man suspected of involvement in two recent bombings blamed on mentally impaired women, the U.S. military said.

Ten days ago, explosives carried by two women, said by Iraqi and U.S. officials to be mentally handicapped teenagers and unwitting suicide bombers, blew up in two popular pet markets in central Baghdad, killing 99 people and wounding more than 150.

The attacks, which the U.S. military blamed on al Qaeda, were the deadliest bombings in the city since last April.

"We did conduct an operation at the al-Rashad hospital," Lieutenant-Colonel Steve Stover, a spokesman for U.S. troops in Baghdad, told Reuters.

"We detained an individual that we believe was linked to al Qaeda in Iraq and suicide bombers."

He confirmed the man was suspected of being involved in the recent deadly attacks but declined to give any further details. The man had not yet been charged, he added.

An Iraqi Health Ministry official said the acting director of the al-Rashad hospital, which cares for mentally ill patients in southeastern Baghdad, had been taken into custody.

Another senior health official in charge of hospitals in the area identified the same man and said U.S. and Iraqi forces spent three hours searching the building.

"They arrested the acting director, accusing him of working with al Qaeda and recruiting mentally ill women and using them in suicide bombing operations," the hospital official said, adding that patient files and computers had been seized.

Neither U.S. nor Iraqi officials have produced definitive evidence that the market bombers suffered any mental impairment but both sides have said there was strong evidence to indicate the women suffered from Down syndrome.

They have also said it was likely the women were unwitting bombers duped by al Qaeda and their condition was possibly a reason why the women were able to avoid being searched.
(Additional reporting by Aseel Kami and Ahmed Rasheed)

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

750 years apart ... they wrote this ...

Nothing is born, nothing is destroyed.
Away with your dualism, your likes and dislikes.
Every single thing is just the One Mind.
When you have perceived this,
you will have mounted the Chariot of the Buddhas.
-Huang Po, "Zen Teaching of Huang Po"

(born ? - died 850)

… what though the sea with waves continual
do eat the earth, it is no more at all:
nor is the earth the less, or loseth ought.
for whatsoever from one place doth fall,
is with the tide unto an other brought:
for there is nothing lost, that may be found, if sought.

Edmund Spenser, "The Faerie Queene"
(c. 155213 January 1599)

NPR: Arguing the Upside of Being Down




All Things Considered, February 11, 2008 · Author Eric G. Wilson has come to realize he was born to the blues, and he has made peace with his melancholy state.

But it took some time, as he writes in his new book, a polemic titled Against Happiness: In Praise of Melancholy.

At the behest of well-meaning friends, I have purchased books on how to be happy. I have tried to turn my chronic scowl into a bright smile. I have attempted to become more active, to get away from my dark house and away from my somber books and participate in the world of meaningful action. … I have contemplated getting a dog. I have started eating salads. I have tried to discipline myself in nodding knowingly. … I have undertaken yoga. I have stopped yoga and gone into tai chi. I have thought of going to psychiatrists and getting some drugs. I have quit all of this and then started again and then once more quit. Now I plan to stay quit. The road to hell is paved with happy plans.

Wilson has embraced his inner gloom, and he wishes more people would do the same.
The English professor at Wake Forest University wants to be clear that he is not "romanticizing" clinical depression and that he believes it is a serious condition that should be treated.

But he worries that today's cornucopia of antidepressants — used to treat even what he calls "mild to moderate sadness" — might make "sweet sorrow" a thing of the past.

"And if that happens, I wonder, what will the future hold? Will our culture become less vital? Will it become less creative?" he asks.

Friday, February 8, 2008

Newsweek again: Happiness: Enough Already



The push for ever-greater well-being is facing a backlash, fueled by research on the value of sadness.

By Sharon Begley NEWSWEEK


The plural of anecdote is not data, as scientists will tell you, but consider these snapshots of the emerging happiness debate anyway: Lately, Jerome Wakefield's students have been coming up to him after they break up with a boyfriend or girlfriend, and not because they want him to recommend a therapist. Wakefield, a professor at New York University, coauthored the 2007 book "The Loss of Sadness: How Psychiatry Transformed Normal Sorrow Into Depressive Disorder," which argues that feeling down after your heart is broken—even so down that you meet the criteria for clinical depression— is normal and even salutary. But students tell him that their parents are pressuring them to seek counseling and other medical intervention—"some Zoloft, dear?"—for their sadness, and the kids want no part of it. "Can you talk to them for me?" they ask Wakefield. Rather than "listening to Prozac," they want to listen to their hearts, not have them chemically silenced.


University of Illinois psychologist Ed Diener, who has studied happiness for a quarter century, was in Scotland recently, explaining to members of Parliament and business leaders the value of augmenting traditional measures of a country's wealth with a national index of happiness. Such an index would measure policies known to increase people's sense of well-being, such as democratic freedoms, access to health care and the rule of law. The Scots were all in favor of such things, but not because they make people happier. "They said too much happiness might not be such a good thing," says Diener. "They like being dour, and didn't appreciate being told they should be happier." (For one man's struggle with the pressure to pursue happiness, click here.)


Newsweek:The Pursuit of Unhappiness



Misery is a rational response to the world, but sometimes you just have to feel good. Try not to get carried away.

By Jerry Adler Newsweek Web Exclusive


What is this happiness of which the poets speak? Beats me. I have glimpsed it fleetingly in the shreds and scraps of dreams that slip away with the dawn—evanescent, like life itself. The better life is, the sooner it will seem to be over, and the greater the regret at leaving it behind. In his 80s, William S. Paley, the immensely wealthy and powerful head of CBS, would wail to friends, "Why do I have to die?" I've never actually had cause to wonder about that, but I have to admit, if I had Paley's life I wouldn't want to die either.

At other times happiness steals over me in the stillness of a Sunday afternoon in springtime, with the warmth of the sun soaking me down to my bones, making me feel … well, that's the problem right there: it makes me feel awful about climate change. Unhappiness is the natural outcome of fine-tuning one's sensibilities to the awful truths about the world. With every breath I draw I am mentally counting carbon dioxide molecules. I feel the hunger of the polar bears as acutely as if I were stranded myself on an ice floe drifting out to sea. I pine for extinct species of salamanders on the other side of the globe as if they were my own kids.


Thursday, February 7, 2008

MPR: Depression state's top mental health issue


by Dan Olson, Minnesota Public Radio
February 6, 2008



St. Paul, Minn. — A study by Minnesota's seven largest health insurers finds about one out of every ten state residents with health insurance is diagnosed at some time in their life with a mental illness.

Medica senior vice president for government programs Glenn Andis said the one in ten survey finding was in line with national results. Andis said one mental illness accounts for most of the diagnosis.

"Depression is the number one diagnosis overall when you put all the categories of depression together and that includes both for children, adolescents and adults, but then certainly a huge category for children and adolescents is attention deficit disorder," Andis explained.

Seven of the state's largest medical insurers participated in the survey. They cover about 2.5 million Minnesota residents.

Andis said the survey results also suggest that children and older people may be over-medicated in some cases for their mental illnesses and that adults are likely under-diagnosed for their disorders.

Listen to the feature audio here ...

Here is a more complete written summary of the report, put out by Minnesota Health Plans ...

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

The Writer's Almanac: "Things" by Fleur Adcock


There are worse things than having behaved foolishly in public.

There are worse things than these miniature betrayals,

committed or endured or suspected; there are worse things

than not being able to sleep for thinking about them.

It is 5 a.m. All the worse things come stalking in

and stand icily about the bed looking worse and worse

and worse.



Tuesday, February 5, 2008

The Writer's Almanac: "Self-Employed" by David Ignatow

I stand and listen, head bowed,
to my inner complaint.
Persons passing by think
I am searching for a lost coin.
You're fired, I yell inside
after an especially bad episode.
I'm letting you go without notice
or terminal pay. You just lost
another chance to make good.
But then I watch myself standing at the exit,
depressed and about to leave,
and wave myself back in wearily,
for who else could I get in my place
to do the job in dark, airless conditions?

Poem: "Self-Employed" by David Ignatow from Against the Evidence: Selected Poems 1934-1994. © Wesleyan University Press, 1994. Reprinted with permission.

Work Is Making You Mentally Ill



Reports says work is affecting the mental health of thousands every year. How are businesses dealing with anxiety, depression and stress?


Sathnam Sanghera


Workplace “stress” is now the second-biggest occupational health problem in the UK after musculoskeletal conditions and, according to a World Health Organisation report, “depression” is the fourth most significant cause of suffering and disability after heart disease, cancer and traffic accidents. By 2020 it will rank second, behind heart disease. It’s no surprise that calculations vary as to what this might cost British business in lost productivity. Different reports have put the annual cost at £3 billion, £9 billion and a massive £32 billion. But the extent of the problem is perhaps best illustrated by the fact that in 2006, BT admitted that it had about 500 people off sick with psychiatric problems every single day.


What’s going on? In many ways our lives and careers are more comfortable than ever. Unemployment, the Government keeps on telling us, is very low. Most of us don’t work down tin mines but in shiny, air-conditioned shops and offices. Foreign holidays have never been more obtainable, social networking sites tell us that we have hundreds of friends apiece and we can get the complete series 1-6 box set of The Sopranos for just £49. Yet we still appear to be on the brink of an epidemic of madness and misery.



Monday, February 4, 2008

Beyond Blue: Dear God: On the Beatitudes and Hope

In her blog, "Beyond Blue," Therese Borchard writes:


Today feels like pizza day in the canned-green-peas-smelling cafeteria of my soul. Because I get to read the Beatitudes! Hands down, my favorite passage in your book (the Bible).

For this at-times pessimistic, skeptical person, your eight promises give me a better shot (than I had I spent the fifteen minutes reading the DaVinci Code) at peace and serenity. I repeat them and absorb them for the same reason that a homeless person spends all his money on a lottery ticket: they lead me to hope, a much-needed ingredient to my recovery.

Kahlil Gibran ... on joy and sorrow ...

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.

And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.

Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven?

And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?

When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.

When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

Some of you say, "Joy is greater than sorrow," and others say, "Nay, sorrow is the greater."

But I say unto you, they are inseparable.

Together they come, and when one sits, alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.

Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.

Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.

When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.

Zen Habits: 17 Unbeatable Ways to Create a Peaceful, Relaxed Workday


The first step is the realization that you are in control of your day. You can create the perfect workday, if you’re willing to start from scratch....


NYT: Using Music to Lift Depression’s Veil


Many people find that music lifts their spirits. Now new research shows that music therapy — either listening to or creating music with a specially trained therapist — can be a useful treatment for depression.


"If you can no longer make fun of someone for being black or gay or even disabled, you can laugh at them for being 'wacko'"


Britney Spears is being detained in a psychiatric hospital. Her very public breakdown reminded Emma Forrest of her own slide into mania and suicidal despair - and how her parents helped achieve her ultimate recovery.


Sunday, February 3, 2008

This I Believe: We All Need Mending




Weekend Edition Sunday, February 3, 2008 · Like most women of her generation, my grandmother, whom I called Nonie, was an excellent seamstress. Born in 1879 in Galveston, Texas, she made most of her own clothes. Widowed at 43 and forced to count every penny, she sewed her three daughters' clothes and some of their children's, as well.


I can knit but I cannot sew new creations from tissue-paper patterns. Whenever I try, I break out in a sweat and tear the paper. It clearly requires more patience, more math, more exactitude than I seem willing or capable of giving.


Recently, though, I have come to relish the moments when I sit down and, somewhat clumsily, repair a torn shirt, hem a skirt, patch a pair of jeans, and I realize that I believe in mending. The solace and comfort I feel when I pick up my needle and thread clearly exceeds the mere rescue of a piece of clothing. It is a time to stop, a time to quit running around trying to make figurative ends meet; it is a chance to sew actual rips together. I can't stop the war in Iraq, I can't reverse global warming, I can't solve the problems of my community or the world, but I can mend things at hand. I can darn a pair of socks.


Accomplishing small tasks, in this case saving something that might otherwise have been thrown away, is satisfying and, perhaps, even inspiring.


Mending something is different from fixing it. Fixing it suggests that evidence of the problem will disappear. I see mending as a preservation of history and a proclamation of hope. When we mend broken relationships, we realize that we're better together than apart, and perhaps even stronger for the rip and the repair.


When Nonie was 78 and living alone in a small apartment in New Jersey, a man smashed the window of her bedroom where she lay sleeping and raped her. It was so horrific, as any rape is, that even in our pretty open, highly verbal family, no one mentioned it. I didn't learn about it for almost five years. What I did notice, though, was that Nonie stopped sewing new clothes. All she did was to mend anything she cold get her hands on as though she could somehow soothe the wound, piece back together her broken heart, soul and body by making sure that nothing appeared unraveled or undone as she had been.


Mending doesn't say, "This never happened." It says instead, as I believe the Christian cross does, "Something or someone was surely broken here, but with God's grace it will rise to new life." So too my old pajamas, the fence around the garden, the friendship torn by misunderstanding, a country being ripped apart by economic and social inequity and a global divide of enormous proportions — they all need mending.


I'm starting with the pajamas.

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