Monday, March 24, 2008

NPR: Poet's Intimate Stanzas Explore Grief and Salvation


Weekend Edition Saturday, March 8, 2008 ·


The poet Li-Young Lee was born into history and suffering in 1957.

His parents were Chinese, and his father, Lee Kuo Yuan, had been Mao Zedong's personal physician. But after a falling out with Mao, the elder Lee fled to Indonesia with his family — a move that almost cost him his life.

"Because of his being Chinese, and his political and spiritual influences, he was thrown into jail and tortured," Lee says. "He spent 19 months in a leper colony and he nearly died. And he escaped."

Poetry of Pain

In Behind My Eyes, Lee's first collection of poetry in seven years, the acclaimed poet reflects on his extraordinary family history in meditations on suffering, prayer, death and love. One of his 22 poems is "Self-Help for Fellow Refugees," a work that looks back on his father's painful imprisonment and its effect on the family.

to read more or listen to the story, click here ...

McSweeney's: Observational Notes for the Veterinarian Regarding My Dog Hank


from McSweeney's


OBSERVATIONAL NOTES
FOR THE VETERINARIAN
REGARDING MY DOG
HANK.

BY JON METHVEN

- - - -

Dear Doc:

As you suggested, I've monitored my beagle for canine depression. Here's the list of behaviors:

  • Hank plays less fetch. Hank would say it's because no one throws him the ball lately. But we're all making sacrifices and Hank needs to show more initiative.
  • With the children no longer living at home, Hank acts lethargic.
  • I believe my wife's nervous breakdown and bed rest have resulted in Hank developing psoriasis. Is that possible?
  • Indoor urination. Sadie, a dog with my formerly secret wife and family in Elmira, urinated indoors when she was a puppy, but that passed.
  • Not sure this is important, but my Binghamton wife's breakdown may have had something to do with her learning about my 17-year affair, along with the four children and separate life I've been living in Elmira. Anything to do with Hank's psoriasis?
  • Hank seems nervous. I'm no veterinarian, but I wonder if this has something to do with the pit bulls my father-in-law has guarding our yard, which continuously try to fuck Hank.
  • Incidentally, I'm no longer allowed in my house in Binghamton. My father-in-law sits on the porch with a shotgun. This makes Hank edgy.
  • Did I mention I haven't been within 30 yards of Hank in weeks? My monitoring is done through binoculars from the neighbor kids' treehouse. I buy them beer, they promise not to tell. Hank still not playing fetch.
  • From my vantage point, it's difficult to tell if the pit bulls are having relations with Hank or just wrapping their front legs around his waist to anchor him to the yard and keep him from escaping. I sense Hank knows I'm watching. He is planning his escape.
  • Hank eats less frequently, as do I. Hank's hunger strike is likely due to his missing my companionship. Mine is due to the inaccurate warrants out for my arrest on polygamy charges and the fact I cannot obtain food because of the misleading ransom posters around town.
  • I was hoping to move Hank in with my second family in Elmira, but the authorities have contacted them. My second father-in-law also has issued misleading ransom posters for me and my Elmira dog, Sadie.
  • That reminds me, Doc—there is no Sadie. Like myself, Hank has two identities. In Binghamton he's Hank. In Elmira he's Sadie, and has cancer of the hind leg. Hank (Sadie) has to wear a bandaged paw around my Emira family on account of we always pretend we're going away for chemotherapy. Hank really hams up the illness—that dog can act!
  • The pit bulls have been trying to prevent Hank's escape six or seven times a day. Hank is very determined to join me as a fugitive! Strangely, each time he gets loose from one pit bull, instead of running away, he runs toward another. Can beagles develop Stockholm syndrome toward their captors, Doc?
  • Hanky lonely.
  • Hank plays dead more frequently. As if, by lying uninvolved, he can dissociate himself from the decisions he's made in his life and the repercussions that await. Hank doesn't sleep, just paces. Hank. Must. Eat.
  • Doc, that was me that broke into your house last night for clothes and food. I suppose if you trust your life to 16-year-olds you're supplying booze to in order that they keep you fed and hid, you shouldn't be surprised when you're eventually chased out of a tree house in the middle of the night by drunken teenagers, who strip you naked and hunt you through the woods for sport. Apologies to your family for any inconveniences that resulted from my breaking and entering.
  • And also for my re-breaking and re-entering the following morning.
  • And later that afternoon.
  • By the way, Doc, I'm living in your kids' tree house. Any more of this bean dip left?
  • Doc, the cops somehow found my hideout in your backyard. I'll contact you when the time is right. Give Hanky Boy a big kiss, check on his psoriasis, and tell him arf-arf from Daddy! Thanks, Doc.

Belifenet: Chocolate Is Not the Enemy





It wasn't yet 7:00 in the morning and already I was chain-eating lime chili tortilla chips. I stood at the kitchen counter, emotionally hung-over from yet another fight with my boyfriend. I was crunching the anger, salting the wounds. Crunching and salting with bites of chocolate for good measure. I couldn't stop. Even the tortilla chip bag had a wickedly furious crinkle. I couldn't eat fast enough to block the tension of not wanting to abandon my relationship, not knowing how to go on. I was broken, a whir of helplessness, powerlessness. This echoed my drinking days. Twelve years I'd been sober. How did I get this way with food? This had to stop. Had to stop! What had been an occasional binge followed by days of deprivation had become a near-daily nightmare.

A prayer flashed through my mind, one that my friend Marti Matthews shares in her book, Pain: The Challenge and the Gift. It goes like this: "Help! Help! Help! Help! Help!" Which, she suggests, can be repeated with hands thrown in the air.

I repeated it silently all the way to a breakfast with one of my best friends, a bearer of wonders and wise words. While I collected myself, she whipped out a flyer from her bag and slapped it on my empty plate. "Taking Your Own Shape: Explore Your Relationship with Food and Body," it said. What? Oh my God. The most important part of praying for help is recognizing it when it arrives. Darn, I'd have to go.

The class was intimate and scary. Six women sitting on couches. That first night, I felt like someone who'd arrived from another planet with a "Waiting for Instructions" note pinned to my soul. Please tell me what to do and when to do it. Give me the whole calories in/calories out regime with a few collages thrown in to express my creativity and no one will get hurt. Now!

Instead, we talked. And we listened. We talked about our bodies--what it felt like to live in them. We shared our love and lack of love for others and ourselves. We set no weight-loss goals. We suffered no weekly weigh-ins or calculations of the foods we ate, and in what proportions. Got no stickers for eating right. Or scowls for eating wrong.

In fact, Dr. Becky Coleman, our teacher, said there was no right or wrong, only alive and less alive. She needn't have told us. She radiated acceptance. She embodied an invitation to a whole new level of living that was spacious and expressive. She'd weighed 300 pounds, not once, but twice. Eight years ago, she lost 170 pounds and has never found them again.

How strange. My body was a Frankenstein to me, out of control, hunted and feared by the villagers. Becky practiced compassionate experimentation. Explore your weight. Don't condemn it. Perhaps hunger was a message from your deep, wise self. What if your body generously expressed what you were afraid to? Well, if my body was speaking, it was mumbling, that's for sure. Maybe because its mouth was full.

One evening we introduced our "Favorite Food Friends" to each other. A vegetarian brought a huge plate of steak and french fries. I showed my old faithful Ben and Jerry's Chubby Hubby ice cream. Chocolate-covered peanut butter–filled pretzels tucked into vanilla ice cream. I'd met Chubby Hubby years ago when my then live-in boyfriend moved away. It was everything: salty, crunchy, soft, sweet. Thanks to Ben and Jerry's planet-friendly ethics, I could save myself and the world at the same time.

"You say you crave variety," said Becky. "Interesting variety in that carton." She invited us to experiment with our food friends. Did we reach for them in anger? Sorrow? What would happen if we held the tension that triggered the craving just for a moment?

The next time Chubby Hubby called, I paused with spoon in hand. I let my body experience the ache for peace with my lover. Then I ate the ice cream.

Instead of slapping my thighs and cursing my willpower, I became curious. So there really were emotions trying to emerge between bites. My body relished the pauses from chips and chocolate. Attention at last! I began to enjoy feeling fluid and elegant instead of leaden. Twenty pounds fell away. Discovering that my cravings, my clenched heart, my anxious belly had answers for me was like being lost and panicky in the woods and discovering the trees could speak. Now when trees speak, I listen.

NYT Magazine: There's Nothing Deep About Depression


By PETER D. KRAMER

Published: April 17, 2005


Shortly after the publication of my book ''Listening to Prozac,'' 12 years ago, I became immersed in depression. Not my own. I was contented enough in the slog through midlife. But mood disorder surrounded me, in my contacts with patients and readers. To my mind, my book was never really about depression. Taking the new antidepressants, some of my patients said they found themselves more confident and decisive. I used these claims as a jumping-off point for speculation: what if future medications had the potential to modify personality traits in people who had never experienced mood disorder? If doctors were given access to such drugs, how should they prescribe them? The inquiry moved from medical ethics to social criticism: what does our culture demand of us, in the way of assertiveness?



It was the medications' extra effects -- on personality, not on the symptoms of depression -- that provoked this line of thought. For centuries, doctors have treated depressed patients, using medication and psychological strategies. Those efforts seemed uncontroversial. But authors do not determine the fate of their work. ''Listening to Prozac'' became a ''best-selling book about depression.'' I found myself speaking -- sometimes about ethics, more often about mood disorders -- with many audiences, in bookstores, at gatherings of the mentally ill and their families and at professional meetings. Invariably, as soon as I had finished my remarks, a hand would shoot up. A hearty, jovial man would rise and ask -- always the same question -- ''What if Prozac had been available in van Gogh's time?''

I understood what was intended, a joke about a pill that makes people blandly chipper. The New Yorker had run cartoons along these lines -- Edgar Allan Poe, on Prozac, making nice to a raven. Below the surface humor were issues I had raised in my own writing. Might a widened use of medication deprive us of insight about our condition? But with repetition, the van Gogh question came to sound strange. Facing a man in great pain, headed for self-mutilation and death, who would withhold a potentially helpful treatment?

It may be that my response was grounded less in the intent of the question than in my own experience. For 20 years, I'd spent my afternoons working with psychiatric outpatients in Providence, R.I. As I wrote more, I let my clinical hours dwindle. One result was that more of my time was filled with especially challenging cases, with patients who were not yet better. The popularity of ''Listening to Prozac'' meant that the most insistent new inquiries were from families with depressed members who had done poorly elsewhere. In my life as a doctor, unremitting depression became an intimate. It is poor company. Depression destroys families. It ruins careers. It ages patients prematurely.

Recent research has made the fight against depression especially compelling. Depression is associated with brain disorganization and nerve-cell atrophy. Depression appears to be progressive -- the longer the episode, the greater the anatomical disorder. To work with depression is to combat a disease that harms patients' nerve pathways day by day.

Nor is the damage merely to mind and brain. Depression has been linked with harm to the heart, to endocrine glands, to bones. Depressives die young -- not only of suicide, but also of heart attacks and strokes. Depression is a multisystem disease, one we would consider dangerous to health even if we lacked the concept ''mental illness.''

As a clinician, I found the what if challenge ever less amusing. And so I began to ask audience members what they had in mind. Most understood van Gogh to have suffered severe depression. His illness, they thought, conferred special vision. In a short story, Poe likens ''an utter depression of soul'' to ''the hideous dropping off of the veil.'' The questioners maintained this 19th-century belief, that depression reveals essence to those brave enough to face it. By this account, depression is more than a disease -- it has a sacred aspect.

read more ...

Chicago Tribune: NIU wants comfort dogs back on anniversary of shootings


Campus wants dogs back on anniversary of attack

By Carolyn Starks
Tribune reporter
March 14, 2008

When classes resumed after the slayings at Northern Illinois University, anxious students showed up at the campus counseling office seeking to talk to someone who was a good listener -- someone calm, someone furry.

They wanted to see the dogs.

In the aftermath of the Feb. 14 shooting by gunman Steven Kazmierczak, comfort came to the shaken DeKalb campus from an unusually calm pack of four-legged therapists whose mission was to find people who wanted to pet them.

The weeklong presence of these comfort dogs has been so missed at NIU that campus officials are working to bring them back on the first anniversary of the shooting -- and earlier, if possible.

"In many instances, they gave to students things we couldn't give them as mental health professionals," said Elizabeth Garcia, a counselor at NIU whose office coordinated the dogs' daily schedule. "Some students didn't want to talk to counselors but talking to the dogs made them feel better. I saw people sitting on the floor with them, talking to them like they were humans."

Twelve dogs were from Animal Assisted Crisis Response, an elite group of therapy dogs trained to bring emotional rescue after a disaster or crisis. Some of the dogs were used in New York after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and at Virginia Tech after the campus shootings there.

At NIU, comfort dogs rode city buses, went to basketball games, sat unnerved at noisy dorm parties and mingled inside pizza parlors. A campus religious group also brought dogs from Extra Mile Ministries to greet students.

Campus officials said the dogs drew crowds, and there were constant requests from students and faculty members who asked to talk to them or pet them.

On the first day back to classes after the shooting, the dogs were brought to the newsroom of the Northern Star, the college newspaper.

"Everybody stopped what they were doing and ran to the dogs," said senior Eric Rood. "It's not going to make anything go away but there's something comforting about petting a dog."

One of those seeking comfort was faculty member Rebekah Kohli, a program coordinator in Women's Studies, who was nervous when she returned to the campus Feb. 19. She said she had memories of wounded students running into her building, bloodied and seeking cover.

Kohli tried deep breathing, but found herself smiling less and looking over her shoulder too often. One morning, she looked outside and smiled at the comfort dogs. "Why not," she figured, and asked if one could come to her office.

"Tikva came up to my knee and she's got this puff of hair -- I mean really thick fur -- that just sticks up all over her body," Kohli said. "I petted her and she rolled over on her back. It brought joy and a sense of calm in the midst of a day."

Tikva, a keeshond with a plush coat of silver and black fur, stayed for an hour that day. When the dogs left the campus, Kohli taped a photo of the 8-year-old dog to her computer.

"She continues to bring me a smile," Kohli said.

Cindy Ehlers founded the organization, which is based in Eugene, Ore., shortly after she and her dog responded to a school shooting in 1998 close to her home.

She realized that most regular therapy dogs could not withstand the stress of crisis situations. They would need special training.

Her organization certifies comfort dogs throughout the nation. NIU officials said the dogs came in contact with about 16,000 people on campus.

"Not many dogs could withstand hundreds of students petting them all day long," Ehlers said. "The dogs have to be comfortable with emotional reactions from people -- the crying or those who are withdrawn -- those extremes that regular therapy dogs may or may not encounter."

Ehlers said several students who were in Cole Hall when the shooting occurred wept when they approached the dogs. One student hugged Tikva and told the dog what happened that morning, Ehlers said.

Zadok, an Akita, walked around campus giving kisses to students who knelt beside her. A Dalmatian was a favorite because it was sweet. The male students liked Lionel, a hound dog and Labrador retriever mix.

Ehlers said she and Tikva are more than willing to come back, because they too were comforted.

"We've never been treated so nicely," Ehlers said. "The things they said -- they really touched me."

-----------

cstarks@tribune.com


The Telegram: A fresh look at Madness






'A History of Madness' is a visual investigation of how mental illness has been treated, classified and stigmatized throughout history.


"Visual artist Michael Pittman is speaking from his Grand Falls-Windsor home, describing his latest project. Pittman is an artist known for his spare yet layered canvases, full of odd, telling shapes, "very singular and archetypal," and delicate colours sometimes offset with primary, or primal, blares.


But for the moment he has put down his paintbrushes and picked up some books. His "History of Madness" is intended to work on a couple of levels - not just as an exhibition, but also as a fact-based accounting of the treatment of the mentally ill over the past several centuries.


"I'm researching right now, doing the preliminary, formal reading - I just finished Foucault's 'Madness and Civilization,'" Pittman said. "I'm collecting material on how (madness) is and was viewed."


From Scotsman.com: Modern life's pressures put pets on Prozac






PROZAC was certainly was not on Dr Doolittle's list of remedies. But increasing numbers of pets are being given anti-depressants to help them cope with the strain of 21st century life, not least the tendency for many hard-working owners to leave animals on their own for hours.


Morose Macaws and stressed Spaniels are being prescribed mood-enhancing drugs to contain their distressed and anxious behaviour.A leading Scottish animal expert claims increasing numbers of pets are being given Prozac and similar remedies to help them overcome symptoms of deep depression.


CCHR: Scientology PSA: Treating Mental Illness Like Blowing Your Brains Out

From the Citizen's Commission on Human Rights:

CCHR's Mission StatementThe Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) is a non-profit public benefit organization that investigates and exposes psychiatric violations of human rights. It works shoulder-to-shoulder with like-minded groups and individuals who share a common purpose to clean up the field of mental health. It shall continue to do so until abusive and coercive practices committed under the guise of mental health are eradicated and human rights and dignity are returned to all. CCHR's Board of Advisors, called Commissioners, include doctors, scientists, psychologists, lawyers, legislators, educators, business professionals, celebrities and civil and human rights representatives. CCHR was co-founded in 1969 by Professor Thomas Szasz, Professor of Psychiatry Emeritus, and the Church of Scientology, dedicated solely to eradicate mental health abuse.

The Guardian: Is your dog writing morbid poetry? Help is at hand

from The Guardian:

If our pets really are a barometer for human stress, then we should raise the emotional terror alert to orange

Marina Hyde
The Guardian,
Saturday March 8 2008



After a lacklustre Oscars ceremony, and a depleted awards season that failed to capture the public imagination, all stardust-seekers must turn their eyes to Crufts this weekend, where the flashiness quotient has never been higher.

According to reports, the biggest dog show in the world has seen an influx of canine glamourpusses, if you will, as a result of the relaxation of the quarantine laws, the general apotheosis of all things showbizzy, and probably the Hollywood writers' strike. The writers' strike seemed to affect everything from David Letterman's opening monologue to Shanghai zinc futures, so it stands to reason it will have had some influence on the owners and dogs gambolling round the Birmingham NEC on these most hallowed of dates in the canine calendar.

But just as the glittering surface of the Oscars masks the often troubled lives of its sparkly attendees, so the razzmatazz of Crufts belies the existential angst suffered by - or, more likely, projected upon - so many pets. Why is it that more and more dogs seem to lack the skills to cope in a troubling modern world? Who knows. But last year, that big-hearted pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly launched its response to the crisis: a canine form of Prozac, called Reconcile. (Aren't drug names always so creepy?) So if your dog is sleeping a lot, writing morbid poetry, or listening to the Smiths - or if you just feel he's getting too old for his pooch Ritalin - chemical help is now at hand.

read more ...

UU World.org: Local TV show sheds light on mental illness

UU minister conducts mental health ministry via public access TV.
By Jane Greer 3.10.08

Kathryn Lum was describing what it was like as a person with mental illness to first feel the positive affects of medication. “I remember for the first time lying in bed feeling like I had just been thrown up on the shore,” she told the cameras. “I had been shipwrecked and the waves had been crashing over me and I had been struggling to keep afloat. Then I found myself on the beach and resting. Feeling peace for the first time.”

Lum, who has schizoaffective disorder, was a guest on a new public access cable TV program called “Mental Health Matters—Alameda County,” which debuted last fall. The show is trying to counter the stigma and prejudice often attached to mental illness by talking with people who actually suffer from various conditions as well as with family and loved ones who live with them.
The monthly TV show is the brainchild of the Rev. Barbara Meyers, a UU community minister associated with Mission Peak Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Fremont, Calif. As a community minister, Meyers’ work takes her outside the church and into the community. Her own particular ministry centers on mental health issues. “With as many as 20 percent of the populace living with a mental health problem at any one time, there is a lot of needless suffering that could be alleviated with more information and understanding,” she wrote in a press release for the show.

The series of 30-minute programs is broadcast on Comcast public access channels in Alameda County, Calif. The first show focused on the stigma frequently attached to mental illness. Succeeding programs have been devoted to suicide, schizophrenia, recovery, bipolar disorder, and African American mental health. Each show concludes with a list of resources for people interested in finding out more.

read more ...

NPR: Blanche DuBois: Chasing Magic, Fleeing the Dark


Weekend Edition Saturday, March 15, 2008 ·



When she boards the streetcar that will take her to her sister Stella's home in New Orleans, Blanche DuBois knows she's headed for a place where she doesn't belong — and where, she will soon discover, she "is not wanted."


Blanche DuBois, the fallen Southern belle at the center of Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire, has been a character so rich and so complex that bringing her to life is one of acting's greatest challenges. Playing her is like climbing Mount Everest, both physically and emotionally demanding. Actresses talk of losing their voice, suffering bouts of depression or having anxiety attacks while playing the part.


Yet they covet the role.

The Spoof: Death Now Classified as Mental Illness

from The Spoof:


(Philadelphia PA) A recent conference of doctors, scientists and pharmacy representatives at the University of Pennsylvania voted to list death as a mental illness.





The disorder is characterized by withdrawal from reality, low body temperature and loss of bodily functions. The disorder can inflict almost anyone at anytime according to the conference but is curable. A new medication can either control or cure the syndrome.





"Death is simply severe depression and catatonia with associated physical disorders." said chairperson Dr. Buddha Quackery.





Conference attendees were informed Merck recently developed a pill called 'reviverin' to reverse the disorder. Shares of Merck climbed 1000% yesterday on the New York Stock Exchange.Reviverin is still in developmental stages according to Dr. Quackery.





"We expect the pill to be bigger than viagra, only because both men and women and even children can use it."





But clinical trials have not been promising yet, according to Dr. Quackery.





"Most patients simply refuse to swallow the pill; the patients can be very stubborn! One of our clinicians, a Dr. Jesus DiNazarian, had great success with a patient named Lazarus Judean and we are working to repeat the results.





"The conference also voted to list 'life' as a mental disorder. Medications are being developed to control this disorder as well.

Beliefnet: Seven Ways to Restart Your Day


Beliefnet Feature from Oprah.com

You've just woken up, and you're on the wrong side of the bed. Is there any way to switch to the other side? Absolutely.For those times when your mind is addled, and your center is shaky; open this little black bag of cures and find your beautiful balance!

1) As soon as the alarm rings...

Spend your first 15 seconds awake planning something nice to do for yourself today. "This can really set you up in a good mood--even if it's just going by the farmers' market and getting fresh strawberries," says Alice Domar, PhD, whose next book--Be Happy Without Being Perfect: How to Break Free from the Perfection Deception--will be out in March 2008.

2) Get up.

The longer you lie there, the more you ruminate, the darker your outlook is likely to become, says Christine Padesky, PhD, coauthor of Mind Over Mood. So get vertical and make a cup of coffee, take a shower, feed the cat...


3) Drink...

Make that two glasses of water upon awakening, the time when our bodies are dehydrated, says Susan M. Kleiner, PhD, author of The Good Mood Diet. Dehydration causes fatigue, which affects your mood.


4) Move it.

You already know the number one way of chasing away a bad mood: exercise. A workout at the gym sure helps. But even just a few minutes of movement--a fast walk, for example--raises energy and reduces tension, says mood expert Robert Thayer, PhD, professor of psychology at California State University, Long Beach, and author of Calm Energy.

5) Investigate.

When you're dogged by anxiety or the dread you woke up with, try to pinpoint what's causing it. Did someone say anything the day before? Do you have a meeting today you wish you didn't? Was it the dream you were having when the alarm went off? "If you can figure out why you're upset, that's halfway to feeling better," says Domar.

6) Be kind and thankful.

This isn't exactly news, but generosity and gratitude are both big contributors to happiness, according to Todd B. Kashdan, PhD, who directs the Laboratory for the Study of Social Anxiety, Character Strengths, and Related Phenomena at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. Do something nice for a stranger or friend and see if you don't feel better about yourself. Also, jot down three things that you're grateful for. It seems so simple, but counting your blessings just has a way of making you remember the sun is shining.


7) Laugh at yourself.

The best comedians point out the mundane aspects of life--relationship strife, a boring job, a closet full of too-tight clothes; they exaggerate those circumstances, and give us a perspective we can laugh about, says Mark Ridley, owner of the Comedy Castle in Royal Oak, Michigan. Look at your own life and try to appreciate the absurdity of what doesn't go exactly according to plan (the diets, the men, the buzz cut). Acknowledging how little control we actually have over what happens is sometimes a most freeing gift to yourself.

By Kathryn Matthews from O, The Oprah Magazine, October






NYT Books: Neurotic Who Makes Scary World Her Banquet




By WILLIAM GRIMES
Published: March 19, 2008


For a brief but intense period in 2006, Patricia Pearson logged on daily to Flu Wiki. This is a Web site (fluwikie.com) devoted to the concerns — the very deep concerns — of people convinced that a worldwide outbreak of influenza is imminent, and that it will make the ravages of the Black Death seem like a mildly unpleasant interlude.


“Here could be found a great milling together of fiercely articulate and freaked-out people from around the world, posting to discussion topics like ‘What Will We Do With the Bodies?’ Ms. Pearson writes in “A Brief History of Anxiety.” Visitors to the site offered suggestions on how to turn back the infected, zombie-like hordes who, in a desperate search for food, will try to invade the fortified homes of the healthy.


Ms. Pearson, the author of the highly amusing “Area Woman Blows Gasket,” sees the humor in Flu Wiki, but she too worries about pandemics. A lot. She also obsesses about sudden liver failure, possibly cancerous moles, flying insects, the supervolcano underneath Yosemite National Park and the possibility that her car will blow up. All of this seems potentially hilarious, but the humor quickly freezes as Ms. Pearson describes a lifetime of absurd but crippling fears.


Monday, March 3, 2008

Domestic Disturbances: Overselling Overmedication


Judith Warner writes in the New York Times:

On the bookshelf behind me at work, I have two new books on the way the pharmaceutical industry is turning us into a nation of hypochondriacal pill-popping zombies: “Shyness: How Normal Behavior Became a Sickness” and “Our Daily Meds.” On the floor, windowsill and shelves of my office at home, I have quite a few more: “Generation Rx” … “The Last Normal Child” … “Toxic Psychiatry” … “Let Them Eat Prozac” … The latest volume, front and center now on my desk, is Charles Barber’s “Comfortably Numb: How Psychiatry Is Medicating a Nation.”

In the book, Barber argues that Americans are being vastly overmedicated for often relatively minor mental health concerns. This over-reliance on quick-fix medication is numbing our nation and dulling our awareness of real and pressing social issues and of non-psychopharmacological therapies and treatments.

Barber is hardly alone these days in this line of reasoning. The notion that American children and adults are being over-diagnosed and overmedicated for exaggerated or even fictitious mental disorders has now become one of the defining tropes of our era.

This storyline persists despite the fact that government research has repeatedly shown that most adults and children with mental health issues don’t get the specialized help that they need. It persists despite the fact that there’s really no way to meaningfully evaluate the degree of over-diagnosis and medication unique to our era, because to do so is essentially to look at the current era in a vacuum. We don’t know how many adults suffered from things like depression in the distant past because no one ever asked. The words and concepts through which we understand common mental health disorders today didn’t exist until the last few decades.

The narrative survives largely uncontested despite the fact, shared by psychiatrist Peter Kramer in his Slate review of Barber’s book, that only tiny numbers of people are receiving mental health services without real, clinical levels of mental health dysfunction or a history of mental illness or trauma. And despite the fact that, contrary to received wisdom, the United States is not a world leader when it comes to the use of psychiatric medications. (The U.S. is “’in the middle’ relative to other countries, and is not an outlier,” a study from M.I.T’s. Sloan School of Management, cited by Kramer, showed last year.)

Just because it feels like, just because it sounds like, just because soaring drug company profits and obnoxious direct to consumer advertising seem to indicate that everyone around us is popping pills like mad doesn’t mean that they are doing so. Nor does it mean that we’re in the grip of some new, previously unheard-of, and uniquely epoch-defining social phenomenon.

read more ...

Beyond Blue: And The Oscar Goes To ...

Therese Borchard writes in Beyond Blue:

If anyone deserves an Oscar for exceptional acting, it's a depressive.

My guardian angel, Ann, told me the other day that she has spent more than half of her life pretending to be a happy person.

"People have no idea I suffer like I do. When they learn about my manic depression, they shake their heads. Because I appear to be so content and jovial."

Ah yes. "Fake it 'til you make it."

My epitaph.For at least 18 months, forty-five of my fifty-minute therapy sessions went to acting lessons: how to feign a stable and functional person until I became one.

read more ....

NPR: So Your Tiny Black Heart Is Broken


(In the "It's Never Too Late For Cynicism" department ... we present this little gem from NPR...)



NPR.org, February 12, 2008 - Valentine's Day has always been a cruel holiday: For those in love, it applies pressure to perform — to prove one's devotion through a series of insipid gestures. For those in the tentative early stages of courtship, it litters the emotional terrain with landmines, forcing new couples to state feelings they might not be ready to express. And, for those beset by heartbreak or loneliness, Valentine's Day provides a crass, cruel reminder.


These five songs — all great, all released in the past five years — are for those wishing to wallow in the holiday's sheer, soul-wrecking brutality. Each is carefully selected to provide a vivid soundtrack for those moments when alcohol isn't even necessary, so drunk is the listener on his or her own misery. Enjoy!


Check out the songs here:

Suicidal pets get anti-depressants

News.com.au reports:

February 25, 2008 02:19pm

PETS at risk of self-harm are increasingly being prescribed anti-depressants because they cannot discuss problems in their lives with others, a leading veterinarian says.

Zoo and wildlife medicine specialist with the UK’s Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, Romain Pizzi, told the Telegraph that more pets were being prescribed Prozac.

Tropical birds such as parrots seemed to have been the most affected by depression, Mr Pizzi told the newspaper.

But Mr Pizzi said anti-depressants were only used in the most extreme of cases.

“Firstly, we will change the environment of the animal and make sure it has more stimulation and toys,” Mr Pizzi told the newspaper. "When we have ruled out underlying medical problems, we try to break the cycle by using Prozac… (which) is given to the parrots in liquid form.

"It doesn't cure all animals, but around two-thirds respond to the treatment. In a small number of cases things will go well until we wean them off Prozac and the problems return."

Mr Pizzi said the severity of some pet’s depression often put their lives at risk.

"Typically if people go out to work all day their parrot will get very bored and frustrated and eventually develop depression,” he said.

“Symptoms often include plucking out their feathers or self-harming, which is obviously very dangerous.

“When cockatoos in particular are depressed they can start to self-mutilate and peck their own legs to the bone."

Some of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies have also recognised the need for anti-depressants for animals.

Last year, Eli Lilly released a chewable anti-depressant for dogs onto the US market.

The manufacturers even gave the “Reconcile” drug a beef flavour.

Pfizer has also created a diet drug for dogs, as well as motion-sickness medicine for all pets.

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