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 will say that I am "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 … 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
This week's featured product on the Mental Health @ Home Store is the FREE safety plan for suicide prevention. It seems appropriate to feature it today, on World Suicide Prevention Day. The safety plan includes prompts to help you plan ahead to keep yourself safe by identifying resources, coping strategies, and reasons for living. Don't forget to … Continue reading MH@H Store Featured Product: Safety Plan
Today is World Suicide Prevention Day. There are many ways to approach the concept of suicide prevention. One of those ways is to decrease the stigma related to suicidality, because stigma tends to promote silence, and silence is definitely not a good thing when it comes to suicidality. One stigmatized belief that I see frequently … Continue reading World Suicide Prevention Day – Suicide Is Not Selfish
Hello I Want to Die Please Fix Me: Depression in the First Person is written by journalist Anna Mehler Paperny, and is both a story of her own personal experiences of suicidality and an in-depth journalistic exploration of depression and suicide. The author has done her research well. The book contains information gleaned from interviews with … Continue reading Book Review: Hello I Want to Die Please Fix Me
I first learned about the concept of cognitive deconstruction a while back when I reviewed Jesse Bering's book Suicidal: Why We Kill Ourselves. He wrote about it as a process of narrowed thinking that can occur leading up to a suicide attempt. The American Psychological Association defines cognitive deconstruction as: "a mental state characterized by … Continue reading Cognitive Deconstruction and the Lead Up to Suicide
It's week #7 for the Working On Us mental health prompt series over at Beckie's Mental Mess. Visit her post to see the guidelines to participate. Content warning: This week's topic is suicidal ideation. Prompt #1 Questions Have you ever experienced suicidal thoughts? Have you ever attempted suicide? Were you ever hospitalized for a suicidal … Continue reading Working On Us – Week #7 – Suicidal Ideation
First off, we'll establish a couple of things: If you're having thoughts of suicide and need to reach out, there's a list of crisis resources here. No need to worry about me; I'm not currently suicidal. I recently saw a post by Elizabeth of Life. Love. Bipolar. on the topic of suicide attempts and the way … Continue reading No Regrets? Surviving Attempted Suicide
Beckie from Beckie's Mental Mess is starting a new weekly mental health prompt called Working On Us. You can visit Beckie's post to get all of the details plus the picture prompt for this week. I'm going to do the written prompt: When you first found out that you had a mental illness/disorder, what was … Continue reading Working On Us – Mental Illness Diagnosis
Getting By: Understanding Lifelong Depression is a memoir by Jack Trelance. The author has lived with depression since his teens, and admits to planning his first suicide attempt at age 14. He describes his first suicide attempt at age 25, and afterwards he didn't feel sadness but rather "a slow-burning anger and frustration, coupled with resigned, … Continue reading Book Review: Getting By
The emerging blogger series is aimed at community building through giving mental health bloggers who are early in their blogging evolution the opportunity to have their work seen by a wider audience. It's also a way to introduce you as a reader to some newer members of our community. This post is by Megan of … Continue reading Emerging Blogger Series: Megan – Be Alright
I was reading an article on Medium recently entitled Please Don't Email Me About Suicide. The author was saying that when she has written before about suicide, she would receive emails from readers expressing that they were suicidal at that time. I agreed with some but not all of what she said, so I thought … Continue reading What if a Stranger Tells You They’re Suicidal?
Language matters when it comes to talking about suicide, particularly when it's mentioned in the media. Sometimes, though, I wonder if getting too nitpicky about language is counterproductive. After all, as stigma researcher Patrick Corrigan says, stigma gets attached to labels but is not a product of those labels. On Twitter I recently came across … Continue reading How picky should we be about suicide-related language?