I despise bad reporting and I don’t care if you write for a newspaper with a circulation of 3 people or the New York Times – there is no excuse to report badly on mental illness, there is quality information available everywhere.
Comments on Depression can be treated through lifestyle changes
This article contains some of the most widely-spread mistruths about depression and mental illness and is inexcusable. It doesn’t even pass a sanity check (even by an insane person).
Antidepressants are good for short-term treatment, but they do not facilitate with the long-term changes needed to treat the illness, and they add to the growing prescription drug abuse problem in the U.S.
A side effect of antidepressants is hallucinations, and most of the time, different medication is prescribed to the patient.
If the number of people who experienced hallucinations from taking antidepressants alone were to get together for a party, they could fit in my freaking apartment. Yes, it can happen with some antidepressants, but it’s far from common.
The Bipolar Burble welcomes Leslie Smile for today’s piece on how she recognized that sleep was affecting her bipolar disorder and how she worked to cure her insomnia.
I’ve lost many hours holding the wall up with my glazed stare. Unable to calm my mind yet unable to focus my thoughts clearly, I’ve been sleepless for days on end. I would go on through my days like a zombie. “Just keep going,” I’d tell myself. Some days I would come home from work and collapse on my bed until the next morning. I would wake grouchy, confused and still tired. Insomnia doesn’t keep you awake permanently… just until you crash.
Insomnia’s Effects on My Life
I’ve always envied people who sleep easily. Their brains must be cleaner, the floorboards of the skull well swept, all the little monsters closed up in a steamer trunk at the foot of the bed. ~ David Benioff
The tired feeling morphed into a bone deep lethargy; an energy sucking, crippling fatigue drained me. I began to feel like I could barely survive. I had begun the dip into major depression and bipolar behaviors. I don’t blame my mental illness on my poor sleep nor do I blame my sleeplessness entirely on my mental illness but as I’ve come to learn bipolar disorder and insomnia affect each other in such a way both deserve the attention and respect of proper self-care and good sleep hygiene.
Some of you may recall I did a reader survey a while back on the Bipolar Burble. The vast majority of the feedback was incredibly generous and positive. I appreciate all the feedback.
However, one of the things that came up multiple times was the desire to have more personal mental health stories represented here. People valued the in-depth information but wanted it balanced with life stories of real people with mental illness.
It seems it’s more politically correct these days to say “behavioral health” rather than “mental health.” Hospitals and governments are changing their programs from mental health programs to behavioral health problems. And somehow this is progress. Somehow this is less stigmatizing.
How’s that again?
Did my behavior suddenly become a problem while I wasn’t watching? Because, quite frankly, I found the notion there was something wrong with my mind to be insulting enough, to find out that now, my behavior is the problem has pushed me over the insultant edge.
Last time we discussed the routines involved around sleep, part of sleep hygiene, and how to train your brain to get a better night’s sleep. This time I’ll be sharing additional tips and information on how to beat insomnia and sleep better every night.
I get asked fairly regularly for insomnia tips or ideas on how to get a good night’s sleep. I actually have quite a bit of knowledge in this area as I’ve written many articles on sleep disorders for other sites. I know many tips and even rules for getting a good night’s sleep.
Sleeping Well Takes Work
If you’re like most people you will experience insomnia some time in your life. It’s actually a very normal problem. Insomnia stems from stress and anxiety, mostly, but can also come about thanks to mental illness or psychiatric medication.
And the thing is, conquering insomnia, no matter what the cause, takes work. You will have to do things you won’t want to do. But when trying to sleep well, you get out of it what you put into it.
Train Your Brain to Sleep Well
The reason most people don’t sleep well is because they have something called bad “sleep hygiene.” Sleep hygiene is simply all the behaviors and thoughts surrounding your sleep habits, and for most of us, our actions and thoughts are keeping us from sleeping.
But you can train your brain to sleep well. It takes time, but you can do it.
Recently I read Invisible Tattoos: The stigma of psychiatryby Dr. Henry A. Nasrallah in Current Psychiatry. Invisible Tattoos is and editorial piece on how the stigma of mental illness affects psychiatrists just like it affects the mentally ill. And my reaction?
Oh cry me a freaking river.
I thought the piece was a little whiny and navel-gazing. I mean seriously, these people are respected professionals making lots of money – they don’t have an illness threatening to kill them every day.
But then I got a comment from a medical student and I reconsidered my position. Maybe antipsychiatry poster-boy Tom Cruise doesn’t just fuck around with the way people look at me, maybe he fucks around with the way people look at psychiatrists too. And maybe stigma is difficult for psychiatrists to deal with.
Sometimes I get so wrapped up in research, I forget some people are looking for some introductory information like the different between the types of bipolar disorder. Thanks to commenter on my GooglePlus feed, I was reminded of this fact and I decided to answer her question here so I could give her more detail.
Bipolar Terminology
Unfortunately, within bipolar terminology resides more bipolar terminology. But don’t be scared, I have information on most terms on my site and I shall try to walk gently into that good encyclopedia.
This is pretty de rigueur for someone with a mental illness (especially depression or anxiety).
Beating Yourself Up Over a Perceived Error
And this morning I got an email from someone in just this situation. This person had spent some time with friends and felt they were overly-anxietious, overly-talkative, overly-hyper and so on. And unfortunately, this person was using this perception to beat themselves up.
This is wrong. Please read my response to this person. I hope it will help anyone in this situation (which includes me, from time to time).
Last week I didn’t post three new things but don’t take that to mean I wasn’t learning because I certain was, and always am. For this week I have these three new pieces of information to share:
Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) treatment for depression to be free for (some) Canadians
You may not know this, but ecstasy (MDMA) has been studied as a psychiatric medication. Yes, that’s right, that stuff kids take at raves. The stuff that makes you thirsty and fall in love to the person next to you. That stuff. And MDMA was shown effective in several psychiatric uses.
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I despise bad reporting and I don’t care if you write for a newspaper with a circulation of 3 people or the New York Times – there is no excuse to report badly on mental illness, there is quality information available everywhere.
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