A safe place to talk openly about mental health & illness
until you can do better. I'll start with a bit of a disclaimer and say that I didn't do any searching to verify these quotes, and internet quotes are notoriously unreliable, so these people may or may not have said the things that I'm telling you they said. Regardless of who said what, I think… Continue reading A Collection of Quotes and Thoughts on Mental Illness
I saw the topic of trigger warnings circulating in the blogosphere recently, and I though I'd chime in with my own thoughts. In a very general sense, a trigger is one thing causing another to occur. What's particular to people with a trauma history is that what's being triggered is re-experiencing, such as having a… Continue reading Are Trigger Warnings Useful?
Dan DeChiaro / CC BY Today marks 19 years since the terror attacks in the U.S. on 9/11. For this post, I decided to talk about the fallen in quite a literal sense; those who jumped and/or fell to their deaths from the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. Shown at the bottom of… Continue reading Remembering the Fallen of 9/11
Today is World Suicide Prevention Day. It's also National Suicide Prevention Week and National Suicide Prevention Month (that's a lot of awareness!). I thought it would be a good time to talk about suicide attempt survivors. The term "suicide survivor" isn't generally used for people who've lived through suicide attempts. Rather, it's the term used… Continue reading Suicide Attempt Survivors: Yes, We Do Exist
I heard recently the Daisy Coleman, who was in the 2016 documentary Audrie & Daisy, had died by suicide. I had watched the film on Netflix a couple of years ago, but I thought I'd watch it again and write a post about it in honour of Daisy. Rape culture was a problem then, and… Continue reading Audrie & Daisy: Rape Culture Kills
The Silent Scream: An Anthology of Despair, Struggle, and Hope is put together by Maria Alfieri. There are 10 other contributors to the book using their full names, including myself, and other writing anonymously. In the introduction, Maria writes: It is through our vulnerability that our liberation from our inauthenticity starts. Through honest conversation we… Continue reading Book Review: The Silent Scream
s I recently wrote about whether the wording "committed suicide" was likely to be an effective target for anti-stigma messaging. A commenter mentioned that in their home country, suicide was a crime up until quite recently. That got me curious, so I did some digging to find out where attempting suicide is illegal to this… Continue reading Where Is Attempting Suicide Illegal?
I saw a post recently by another blogger about stigmatizing language that people should avoid. One of the things he mentioned was "committed suicide," which is something that comes up regularly in discussions of language use related to suicide. I'm not convinced that it needs to be as big an issue as people make it… Continue reading Is “Committed Suicide” Worth Making an Issue Out Of?
Shame Ate My Soul is Susan Walz's personal story of rising above stigma, suicide attempts, addiction, and misdiagnosis, and eventually finding recovery. I've known Sue, who blogs at My Loud Whispers of Hope, since the beginning of my blogging journey. The book opens with a heartbreaking conversation with 2 of her 3 children, as they… Continue reading Book Review: Shame Ate My Soul
As a person with depression, being open and honest with treatment providers is likely to go straight out the window if it appears to conflict with whatever goal feels most pressing to me at the time.
