I've suffered from depression for most of my life and have had a couple of major episodes. There have been times when I decided dying would be better than living and while I'm not proud of that, I'm also not ashamed of it. My illness has caused lots of irrational...
Next post on weight & health: Determined At the age of 50, I'm now on my fifth year of being fat. When I went from size 10 to size 18 in the last months of my marriage in 2013, I thought, "I'm not worried about gaining weight. I've been thin and active my...
When you're in a major depressive episode, get off your dating apps. I'm not talking about having a blue day. I'm talking about the chronic emotional disorder: clinical major depression that warps your view of the world. If you suffer from this and you're single and...
Bernie Sanders has my vote, which I plan to cast later this week during Illinois' early voting period. But I was disappointed by his remark in last night's debate: We are -- if elected president -- going to invest a lot of money into mental health. And when you watch...
By the way: last week I celebrated National Suicide Prevention Day on September 10th by not wishing I were dead.
Fariha Roisin describes her experience growing up in Living With My Mother's Mental Illness. If you have a few minutes, please read it and let me know if your childhood was similar to Roisin's experience. I wonder how many people grew up in similar circumstances...
I'm very grateful to my friends. I had a bout of depression in the past week and they responded in just the right ways. They asked how they could help and offered to talk, but they didn't give me a pep talk or keep asking why I was depressed. They just let me know...
HBO's four-part series Olive Kitteridge is one of the best things I've ever watched. Frances McDormand is perfect in the title role, a middle-aged Maine native with layers of memories and emotions underneath her severe expression. It's based on Elizabeth Strout's...
Have you ever thought it would better if your life just ended now? If so, you know what I'm talking about. Does it absolutely baffle you that anyone would rather be dead than alive? If so, then please read one of the best things I've read about why people kill...
Why don't I fear what most others fear? Things like losing my job, being divorced or having others think badly of me? Because the boogie man is inside my head and I don't have enough fear for the stuff that's outside of me, too.
When you find out someone died of cancer, do you wonder how they could have hurt their loved ones by doing that? Do you suspect they took the coward's way out? Do you think, "But he had it all: money, marriage, great kids, a successful career. Why would someone like...
Do you ever get tired of being yourself? Do you ever think, "I don't want to be me anymore?" I get so sick of being me. I get SO sick of being me. I'm not the only one, right?
I don't want to sound like I've joyously found a wonder pill, but my chiropractor put me on S-Adenosyl methionine (SAMe) a few weeks ago and it's greatly changed my mood. Have you heard of SAMe (pronounced "sammy")? From the Web MD website: SAMe is a...
Guess what? I'm feeling better. The combination of the tapping and crying I did earlier in the week, having a turbo-level chiropractor visit, re-reading my positive blog posts and support from friends has pulled me out of my crying jag. Dr. Ashley Frer can work...
Guess what, everybody? There's an upside to having bipolar disorder and depression! Dr. Nassir Ghaemi runs the Mood Disorders Program at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts USA. His book, A First-Rate Madness: Uncovering the Links Between Leadership and...