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If you are already a member of the HealthyPlace community, then you know how beneficial online support groups can be. If not, I invite you to check out the mental health forums and chat on HealthyPlace.com and get involved. I have been a member of the online mental health community for the past two years making video blogs and participating in forums. It has been an amazing and therapeutic experience to talk to so many people that really understand what I am going through.
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world.
Indeed it is the only thing that ever has."
- Margaret Mead
I believe we all dream of making a positive difference in the world. I am lucky enough to say that one of my dreams is about to come true. In about two weeks, The ADHD Awareness Book Project: 365 Ways to Succeed with ADHD will be published!
As an ADHD Life Coach, I help people living with ADHD understand their disorder, reduce their challenges, get things done and find hope. For the past nine years, I have individually done my best. However, having worked in the mental health field for over 25 years, I also know that, proportionately, not that much has changed in the overall awareness of ADHD. I meet clients every day from age seven to
My last boyfriend had no clue that I suffered from depression. Some people may find that difficult to believe, but it's actually very easy to mask your feelings and symptoms. In my case, it was very easy to choose a partner from whom I could hide the truth and, therefore, to prevent myself from having a healthy and successful relationship.
Social connections in sobriety are touted by Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) to greatly aid an addict's recovery. But there are requests for more research into not only the benefits of AA's methods, but how those benefits are achieved. Are social connections in sobriety a piece of the answer?
When I was first diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder, despite my young age, I was told that I would need to take medication. Probably for the rest of my life. I wondered, as many people do, if medication would change me. Sure, I was told it would make me well and make my life easier, but I was not sure what that really meant. Would I still be me?
When my son, Ben, finally began treatment for mental illness, I kept careful notes on all the symptoms I saw between appointments. At best, Ben would see his therapist and/or psychiatrist for 1 hour a week and was often able to hold it together for that one hour in a much better way than he'd been able to do all week with us. So I made an effort to fax these notes to the provider the day before the appointment.
Some read it. Most did not, citing "no time" as the reason.
Really? What kind of session can you have if you don't have all the facts? Families know. They know a lot.
“How drunk do you have to be before cutting your own hair starts to seem like a good idea?” Taz Mopula
Long ago, I had a hypothetical girlfriend we’ll call Prunella Entwhistle. Indeed, it was so long ago I was not yet sober and still cheerfully diving headfirst into debauchery as one might leap into a swimming pool. This was during that blissfully ignorant period in my life when I believed that, as a result of facing down bipolar disorder and defeating it, I had become bulletproof.
By then I’d recovered from several devastating battles with the terrifying illness referred to at the time as manic depression. I had even written a memoir (Invisible Driving) that chronicled my ordeal. Having walked through fire and survived, I bristled with self-satisfied cockiness and swaggered through life like a cowboy breaking in new jeans.
It's hard enough trying to decipher the behavioral symptoms in children who have psychiatric illness. Trying to determine the root cause of physical complaints where no obvious cause exists is next to impossible.
According to Dr. Dimitri Christakis, who wrote an editorial accompanying the study, the results should be cautiously interpreted because they only tested a few tykes, but gosh darn if the data didn't look bad for TV. He even felt the study suggested that media exposure is a public health issue. Why, that means the government can get involved and finally do something about all those brightly colored cleaning supplies who sing silly sea shanties to our children!
Last week I wrote about how psych meds can make you feel boiling hot or freezing cold. And, of course, they can.
What surprised me is the number of people who wrote in here and on Facebook about how they didn't know that. Not only did they not know it, but it had been happening to them and they didn't know it. They didn't make the connection and in some cases the doctor said it wasn't possible (like mine did).
This brings me to something I always say:
An effect that occurs after starting a medication is a side effect until proven otherwise.
Thank you for your comment. I'm sorry you're in that situation. I know how hard it is for parents to watch a child with mental illness struggle. Know this: you are not alone. Many parents are in this untenable situation.
Your options are very limited for the reasons you have listed. Your son is an adult and get to make his own decisions -- even when those decisions are heavily influenced by an illness. And while some might disagree, the US tends to fall on the side of personal rights, regardless of illness.
If your son is a risk to himself or others, you can see about getting him treated without his consent. (In some States, this is also possible when a person is at a grave threat of decompensation [getting sicker].) I know this is a hard thing to do, but sometimes the only thing that will help someone is the treatment they refuse.
I recommend you check out the Treatment Advocacy Center. They have a hotline and a lot of information online about serious mental illness and treatment of those illnesses: https://www.treatmentadvocacycenter.org/
I also wrote this piece about the situation when help is refused (not associated with HealthyPlace) and it lists some additional resources: https://natashatracy.com/bipolar-blog/person-mental-illness-accept-illness/?swcfpc=1
Finally, I recommend you reach out to other parents in the same situation. You may be able to find these people through groups like NAMI (just Google them). Knowing others facing the same issues can help.
I hope your son is able to get help.
-- Natasha Tracy