In Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things, Jenny Lawson uses “furiously happy” as a weapon to counter mental illness, and intends to “destroy the goddamn universe with my irrational joy and I will spew forth pictures of clumsy kittens and baby puppies adopted by raccoons and MOTHERFUCKING NEWBORN LLAMAS DIPPED IN GLITTER AND THE […]
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In this post, I’ll take a look at some of the available guidelines for evidence-based treatment of anxiety disorders. While psychotherapies are extremely important in the management of anxiety disorders, this post will focus only on anti-anxiety medications. The treatment guidelines I refer to come from the British Association for Psychopharmacology and the World Federation
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I can’t think of any other type of health condition that has such polarized relationships with medications as mental illness. In some ways, to medicate or not to medicate has become a moral issue, with various involved parties taking a stance based on principle. Often, this stance is very broad, making sweeping generalizations. Public misconceptions
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There are a lot of excellent mental health resources out there, and quite a few of them are actually free. Here are some of the good mental health workbooks and worksheets that I’ve come across, most of which are available as printable PDFs. They’re based on therapeutic approaches that have proven to be effective. This
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There’s lots of information out there about crisis resources for people thinking about suicide, but resources accomplish very little if we don’t reach out to access them. There are many potential barriers to help-seeking, and I wanted to talk about a few of them here, based on my own experience with major depressive disorder and
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The language people use when it comes to mental health matters. A lot of words are tossed around to describe who we are and what we experience, and in this post, I’ll consider some of the issues around labelling and mental illness and whether certain words are helpful or harmful. Role identities We all have
What’s in a Name? Labelling and Mental Illness Read More »
In 2013 the International Society for Bipolar Disorders and the Canadian Network for Mood and Anxiety Treatments combed through the scientific literature and put together these guidelines for the pharmacological treatment of bipolar disorder. Treatments are classified as 1st, 2nd, or 3rd line based on the strength of existing evidence to support their effectiveness. The
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This post is a conglomeration of various quote posts I’ve done over the years. The first few gems in the post full o’ quotes are mental health-related tidbits from Eeyore, Winnie the Pooh’s eternally pessimistic friend. When I was young, I had Winnie the Pooh wallpaper, and Eeyore was my favourite. A sign of things
Quotes Galore: Eeyore, Mental Health, and More Read More »
If I Could Tell You How It Feels: My Life Journey With PTSD captures Alexis Rose’s journey toward healing from PTSD. The book consists of narratives interspersed with poetry, along with beautiful art by Janet Rosauer. The chapters are short, which I always appreciate since it makes it easier for readers with concentration problems, and they
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Job interviews are unpleasant at the best of times, and to me have always felt very fake. But throw mental illness into the mix, and they can be a huge obstacle. There are a number of aspects of job interviews that particularly worry me. Answering unexpected questions My cognitive symptoms of depression aren’t as bad
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