It’s my job to label people—not how I like to think about it, but I can’t deny people see it that way. So how do we label better?
Category archives: Mental illness
Anxiety disorders: Alarms gone wrong
If you think of anxiety as an alarm system I was recently trying to explain to a patient about the panic attacks they were having and to help them understand what the issue was without making them feel like I was saying, “It’s all in your head.” (Which she had already heard too many times.) …
We worry too much about violence from people with mental illness…
…and not nearly enough about violence TO them. In years of work I haven’t been attacked even once. But I know several colleagues who’ve been attacked by—wait for it—patient relatives. Why are we so focused on the wrong end?
If you’re getting mental healthcare, I beg you: don’t stop your appointments
It’s for your own good, especially if medication is part of your care. I see this too often, and it’s heartbreaking and a bad idea. And stopping because you’re doing great reveals a common misconception about how mental healthcare works.
Can we all just admit life gets tiresome?
A meditation on living with existential dread (Photo credit: Mario Azzi) Death doesn’t make me as anxious as life—and living—does. And I know I can’t be the only one. Right? Right? I don’t know for sure if that’s something everyone feels. Like, I’m sure there are those who know of what I speak, but I’m not …
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The Story-View Manifesto: It’s time to own your story
You’re a storyteller. You may not feel like it or think about it, but that’s because it’s so ingrained into who you are, into your very DNA, that you don’t have to be conscious of it. Like your eyes, you see things through the stories you tell, which is exactly why they can remain invisible …
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FRSC Nigeria wants to reverse Nigeria, mental health-wise
We need to stop them before they go further (Photo by Nabeel Syed on Unsplash) So here’s the latest on Nigeria’s Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC Nigeria) and their poorly thought out and potentially harmful plan for motorists, which I’m going to try to show as dangerous and worthy to be scrapped post-haste. This is not …
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I’m Christian and I don’t believe mental illness is “spiritual”
(Except we can agree malaria and measles are, too.) On October 30, 2016, a prominent and otherwise widely respected Nigerian pastor tweeted: “The root cause of mental illness is Sin (Rom 6:23) and the foundational solution to mental health is Salvation.” Let’s just say the tweet ended up deleted. Amid the subsequent furore on Nigerian Twitter …
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Professional opinions on Trump’s mental health are a bad idea
And I don’t even like Trump (Courtesy: Owantana) So yesterday, this happened. Yep. The American Psychoanalyst Association (APsA—not to be confused with the APA—American Psychiatric Association) yesterday relieved its members of what’s known as “the Goldwater rule” against making statements about the mental health of public figures. I think that was a bad move. You might …
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Chester Bennington taught me to scream
A tribute to the man who gave me a soundtrack for a difficult time. When I heard, yesterday, of Chester Bennington’s passing, I felt a hollowness within. Linkin Park’s music (especially their debut Hybrid Theory album) helped define a major inflection point in my life and growth. I’ve struggled with existential questions since childhood, and …