Mental Health in the News

Here's a story I was covering for my law firm gig yesterday:

Antipsychotics Offer Modest Benefits for Non-Approved Conditions

Atypical Antipsychotics Appear to be Effective in for Only Few Off-Label Uses, Study Suggests

I have some thoughts on this... but they'll have to wait until I finish my work for the day.

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Mental Health in the News

I am so bored tonight. So, so bored. Might as well blog, right? Let's find some bipolar disorder in the news.

Here's one - Stanley Medical Research Institute removed a man's entire brain without his wife's consent. This doesn't have that much to do with bipolar disorder...except that the institute 'harvests' brains to study bipolar and schizophrenia.  I can kind of see why that would freak a person out. On the other hand, a brain won't come in handy in the ground. I totally agree that nobody should have their brain removed without some kind of approval. Horror movies, anyone? But at least his brain went toward helping sick people. When I die, I don't care what happens to my body. Bury me, cremate me, prop me up in a lawn chair with a coffee can to collect change on Route 30, whatever. I probably have at least 20 busted parts that science would love to have a crack at, so I say have at it.

Schizophrenia and bipolar are genetically linked. I have no idea what that means, but probably should. I'm hoping it doesn't mean I'm going to become schizophrenia later in life. The important thing, at least for me, is the word GENETICS. The word GENETICS, of course, meaning that mental illness is a REAL MEDICAL DISEASE. No, not everyone is making up a diagnosis to excuse their lazy/bad behavior and/or spiritual deficit. There ARE people in the world - myself included - with an actual disease of the brain. Special thanks to my mom's side of the family for giving me so many wonderful genes to work with (bipolar, Alzheimer's...)

Help for depressed teenagers - I wish this had existed when I was a kid. That sentence makes it sound like I was a teenager before color TV, but I only graduated from high school in 1997, not even a full 15 years ago. When I was 15, I was put on a little blue pill called Zoloft which only served not make me non-suicidal, but I was still miserably depressed. Years later, when I was diagnosed with bipolar, I found out that there was a good chance the Zoloft had made the bipolar worse. Yeah, apparently if you have bipolar and only take an antidepressant but not a mood stabilizer with it, it can make you a lot sicker in the long run. I don't think it even crossed anyone's mind that I was bipolar when I was a teenager. I wish there had been real help back then, because I felt desperately alone. It also would have helped to know I had a mental illness and wasn't just a loser.

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Sept. 21, 2011

If you've read this blog more than once, you probably noticed that I have commitment issues. I can't settle on one blog design. It's not that I really love to switch things up. Actually, I don't like change. I just can't find a design that makes me go, "Oh yeah. THIS is it." I really wanted to go with a pill motif, but I didn't want to field the hate mail from people insisting that antidepressants don't glorify God, so I rejected the idea.

Actually, I might go with that idea yet.

So I apologize for the schizophrenic crazy constant design change. There is no perfect blog, but I'm hoping to find one that I can at stand.

I haven't blogged much lately because I have had walking pneumonia. I don't know what "walking" pneumonia means. I assume it means "Congratulations! You have pneumonia and you're still walking!" I am getting better, though I sometimes have a coughing fit that makes me feel lucky not to be holding my eyeballs in my two hands. Right before I came down with pneumonia, I gave up smoking - as in, the DAY before. What a reward! I think people who quit smoking should get a special prize - a lifetime without pneumonia or something. A lifetime without cancer would be unfair to people who never smoked in the first place, but no pneumonia seems like a fair trade.

Tonight I'll settle for a good night's sleep. I'm watching a UFO documentary right now where one of the experts is...Dan Aykroyd. We need to talk about aliens one of these days on this blog, we really do. I should interview my dad and get his views - nobody has read more about UFOs than my pop.

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Still Changing 10 Years Later

I have blogged about 9/11 every year since it happened. This time of year, I always feel like American life should slow down and that we should all pause to really remember that day - that we should watch something about it, or read something about it. We should all give up a chunk of our time every September 11 to truly reflect on that horrible day to make sure we never forget it. And we should do it not just to remember those who died, but also to remember the very best humanity has to offer, and how - albeit for a short time - we all came together and loved each other like family.

September 11 is as fresh in my memory now as it was on September 12, 2001. Has it really been 10 years? September 11, 2001 is the only day that I can honestly say I remember from beginning to end. I remember my mother calling and waking me up, telling me "we are under attack." I didn't understand what she meant. Who was attacking us? She told me to turn on the TV, which I did, just in time to see the second plane hit the towers live.

I remember the absolute helpless feeling I had, and the sense that if people could fly airplanes into buildings, they could do just about anything. I was waiting for the world to end. I drove to my parents' house in the afternoon because I felt a sense of urgency about seeing them, stopping to pick up the very last newspaper on the stand on the way. Fifteen minutes after the truck had delivered them, they had all been purchased...all but one. I still have it stashed away and I look at it every year.

I remember everything about that day, but one memory in particular always chills me to the bone. I was driving home from my parents' house, hoping my husband would be sent home early from work (he wasn't.) It was the perfect early autumn type of day in Pennsylvania, and everyone was driving with their windows open. As I sat in traffic in the town square waiting for the light to change, I could hear Tom Brokaw's voice all around me. Everyone in traffic was listening to the same thing with their windows open. I will never forget his words: "We are at war."

As my husband and I watched news coverage into the early morning hours of September 12, I knew everything had changed. I had changed, the country had changed, and the world had changed. Oh, how I had changed. Any innocence I had left before 9/11 was now gone. The cruelty that man was capable of inflicting on itself was overwhelming. It's not something I've ever been able to wrap my mind around. I know there are people who murder and terrorize in the name of God, but it's such a foreign concept to me. For that, at least, I am grateful. I don't want to be able to understand that kind of inhumanity and evil.

Right after 9/11, and in the years following, I became a die-hard Conservative, pushing for 'preemptive' strikes against the 'axis of evil' and fully believing that throwing certain people out of the country and preventing others from coming in was the answer to our security problems. I don't really feel that way anymore. I have not completely gone over to the Left, but as I get older, I realize that pushing away the 'poor, huddled masses" only rips away at the core of who we are supposed to be as a nation - a beacon of hope where others come to find new beginnings. Does it expose us to risk? Of course. But we can't curl up in a defensive ball and lose our identity and our true purpose on this planet.

We can't call ourselves peacemakers and then blow up countries without provocation. And those of us who call ourselves Christians... how can we advocate an "us before them" mentality? We don't like to think about it or admit it, but Jesus would never stand for that.

I guess my politics exist somewhere in the middle these days. But, without a doubt, the same event that hurled me over to the right eventually made me start searching for balance years later.

Yes, 9/11 changed me.

I used to feel sad that my young nieces and nephews would never live in a pre-9/11 world where terrorism was never a real concern, but my views on that have changed, too. I am now thankful that they live in a country that no longer denies the existence of evil or how it so desperately wants to reach out and destroy us. We are more aware now, and, I believe, safer. We are grounded in reality, instead of having our head in the clouds. No doubt, it was a nice way to exist, but not terribly smart.

So I will do some remembering of my own this weekend. I will look back over the images and listen to the sounds that rocked our world 10 years ago, and it will be as shocking as ever. These are the things that never get easier over the years. It never ceases to take my breath away. 

It also never ceases to make me proud to be an American. We come together in times of tragedy, brush ourselves off, and carry on.

We always survive, and we always will. There are some things no terrorist can kill. Pin It

Bad Neighbors: Part 3 (Rubber Chickens, Bloody Corpses, and Dumb Dogs)

Which way did he go? I have to poo! I love my master! SQUIRREL!!!

One thing I have learned from living in apartment buildings is that the people for miles around assume the building's dumpster is intended for the entire town. Though I live in a much nicer building in a much nicer neighborhood now, the same still rings true here. Random cars pull up to our dumpster all day. Strangers hop out, unload the contents of a small village, and drive away with no remorse whatsoever. Since we moved here, In recent years, I have turned to quietly expressing my displeasure by hanging out of my window and - when I'm really annoyed - shooting video of the offender. Once in a while, I'll go so far as to ask, "Do you live here?" and if I get a no, I add a "Well, then get out of here."

What would these people do if I followed them home and sometime the next day I put all of my trash on their front lawn? They would not like it, but it wouldn't be any different than what they do to me.

The family living in the house beside our second apartment was arrogant - the kind of people who ignored you if you said hello, then laughed as they walked away. They, too, had no problem using our dumpster for all of their disposal needs. Most people throw their trash away as fast as possible, presumably so they can avoid being caught. Our neighbors took their time, looked you right in the eye as they did it, and dumped their stuff several times a week.

There was no limit to the types of things these people would throw in our dumpster - trash, lawn clippings, tree branches, dead appliances, a bloody deer carcass...

It was November, deer-huntin' season 'round these parts, and my husband went out to the dumpster to unload some trash. First, he saw the familiar looking flies swarming the bin. Then he got closer and realized there was a huge bloody, skinned corpse inside. I wasn't there at that moment but, oh, how I wish I could have been. I imagine he had the same look I had when I first saw the bloody corpses dangling from the laundry rack next-door to our old place. I imagine he blinked at least 20 times to make sure he wasn't dreaming.

Mr. Arrogance saw the bag of garbage dangling from my husband's hand, and the glossy-eyed stare on his paralyzed face and came walking over. "Oh, sorry," he said. "I'm a hunter and I put my deer remains in there every year." Then, he walked away.

All my bewildered husband could say was, "He obviously doesn't know anything about skinning deer."

Our landlord - the one who replaced the exploded oven downstairs with a hot plate - put a lock on the dumpster. It felt like a small victory until everyone in the building complained about having to open it in the dead of winter and losing their keys. The lock came off as quickly as it went on.

The longer we lived there, the more I started to lose it. Shotgun fire woke us up in the middle of the night for weeks on end. The police suspected a deer poacher, but nobody could get to the scene (or the sound) in time to catch the offender. It wasn't in the distance - it sounded like the shooter was firing from our porch. And then, at the crack of dawn, the illegal daycare next-door had me on my feet. I don't think I slept for 3 months straight.

But gunfire became a regular sound in our home.
One afternoon, while trying to write my book with cotton balls stuffed in my ears and the paintings shaking on the walls from the herd of children running loose in apartment 1, I was startled out of my concentration by a loud "BANG!" Fearing neighborhood carnage, I ran to my window.

Mrs. Arrogance was standing there with a pistol as his dog, who was cute but dumber than a box of hair, ran around the yard in a frenzy. Mr. Arrogance went over to the corner of the yard and retrieved something I couldn't quite make out. He whistled for the dog's attention, threw the item in the air, and fired the gun over his head.

The dog ran in 15 circles, tried to bite his own tail, peed on a shrub, went over and licked his owner's foot...then ran to the tossed item and laid down on it.

Mr. Arrogance berated the dog for his stupidity and picked the item up off of the ground. That's when I realized it was a rubber chicken. The neighbor was trying to teach his dog to hunt with a rubber chicken, and it wasn't going well.

Again and again, Mr. Arrogance threw the chicken across the yard, fired his gun (I tinkled a little every time), and I watched as the dog did everything but fetch his intended prey. He pooped three times. He drank out of the bird feeder. He rolled on his back and howled. He chased a butterfly. He mostly ignored the chicken. His owner was furious, but it didn't register in the dog's mind. It was playtime! The more the dog failed to complete his tank, the angrier Mr. Arrogance got.

This went on every day until winter, when snow finally blanketed the ground and Mr. Arrogance couldn't back even his enormous SUVs out of the driveway. It's hard writing a book when a gun going off every thirty seconds, but I never complained to anyone because, honestly, it was hilarious.

I might have finished that book a lot sooner, had I not spent many afternoons staring out the bedroom window, giving that dog a high-five with my mind. Goooood dog, I wanted to say. Good puppy! Make daddy look like a weenie! That's for putting your bloody deer carcass in our dumpster!

*******************************************************************************

All decorated for Christmas, the Clampets sit down for a nice family dinner.

When the Arrogance family moved away, I was a little disappointed, knowing my autumn entertainment was leaving me. I wondered what the next owner might be like. That summer, I found out.

A family full of leather-clad hillbilly types moved in, parking numerous beat-up cars and trucks all over the street and on their front lawn. They had so many vehicles and so little concern as to the appearance of their property that one June afternoon they had their front yard torn up and replaced with concrete. After that, the house was nearly invisible behind their mud-encrusted, dented, 1970-something vehicles.

When Christmas rolled around, they were overcome with holiday spirit.
They placed a life-sized, antique-looking plastic Santa in a lawn chair on the front porch. There he stayed until almost February, standing on the chair and being held up by the garage door.  

Merry Christmas.









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