Building mental wellness on a foundation of strength
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.
While I know that people tend to be somewhat skeptical of statistics, I thought it would still be interesting to explore some of the stats that are out there related to mental illness. Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) These figures come from CAMH in Toronto, Canada, on their Facts and statistics page. Mental… Continue reading Some Surprising Mental Illness Statistics
The Balance Between Life and Death is a novella by Elizabeth Holland, who you may know from her blog Anxiety and Liz. The intro says "This novella focuses on the importance of putting your mental health first. A reminder that you never know what someone is hiding beneath their smile." The protagonist is a young… Continue reading Book Review: The Balance Between Life and Death
Let's say you're scrolling through your Twitter feed. You see a tweet that makes it seem like that person intends to imminently act on suicidal thoughts. What do you do? Unfortunately, there isn't really a good answer. I've been on the reporting side on one occasion. Someone had posted on their blog, which was shared… Continue reading How Should Social Media Handle Reported Suicidal Posts?
A blogger I knew died by suicide on yesterday. She scheduled a blog post and a Twitter share of the post to go live after the fact. One of the things mentioned in her post was that her plan was to be struck by a train. Today I was looking at the Twitter comments in… Continue reading Guilt Is Not a Suicide Prevention Strategy
Do antidepressants increase the risk of suicide? There are certainly people out there who are very vocal in insisting that they do. However, as is so often the case, the loudmouths don't tend to be especially well informed. The FDA black box warning Since 2004, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has required a… Continue reading Antidepressants and Suicide Risk
Just to get things started, I'll say that I'm "mentally ill", I "suffer from" depression, and I'm a little bit "crazy", although the degree varies over time. Now that we've got that out of the way, there are a lot of people who like to take a stand against language that is thought to stigmatize… Continue reading “Rules” for Talking About Mental Illness
Today is World Mental Health Day (the 27th annual), and this year's focus is on mental health promotion and suicide prevention. The message from the president of the World Federation for Mental Health, which organizes World Mental Health Day, states: "The object of making suicide prevention the theme of World Mental Health Day in 2019 is… Continue reading It’s World Mental Health Day
It's now week 16 of the Working On Us series over at Beckie's Mental Mess. Please visit Beckie's post to see the guidelines for participation. This week's topic is passive suicidal ideation. For anyone, the difference between passive and suicidal ideation is essentially I wish I was dead (passive) vs. I want to kill myself… Continue reading Working On Us – Week 16 – Passive Suicidal Ideation