Today I read about a new therapy known as Triple Chronotherapy. Yes, it’s a big fancy word. Chronotherapy. Quite frankly, it sounds made up.
But it isn’t.
Chronotherapy is a combination of light therapy, prolonged wakefulness and sleep phase advance. It aims to reset the circadian rhythm to treat depression.
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Pretty much weekly I get messages from people who are desperate to help a loved one with a mental illness. I hear versions of this story over and over, my child/parent/sibling/friend/spouse is sick and won’t get help for their mental illness. They say they would rather be in jail than be on medication for their mental illness. They can’t take care of themselves and they are going to end up on the street. Their behavior is destroying our family/relationship. Their behavior is destroying them.
Believe me, I get it. I really, really do. And sometimes you have to except that not everyone with a mental illness will get help. Sometimes you have to say goodbye to a person with a mental illness.
Read MoreWhen I tell people to see a mental health professional, I recommend they get someone who specializes in whatever mental illness the person has. This is just common sense. You don’t go to a neurologist when your foot hurts.
I also tell people to get a therapist who specializes in their disorder. Again, this makes sense. Honestly, if your therapist is used to hearing the woes of the Real Housewives of Some Rich Place then they may not be the best choice for a person with major depressive disorder.
I tell people to get a therapist for their mental illness because psychiatrists don’t do psychotherapy.
Read MoreI am very medication-reactive. Not so much with the positive effects, but I can almost guarantee you I’ll get all the side effects.I get every side effect for antidepressants, every side effect for antipsychotics and every side effect for pretty much anything else.
And sometimes, just for good measure, I’ll get side effects that doctors say “aren’t possible”. They are my favorite. And those overractions are often on the lowest known effective dose of the medication.
But if you add a low dose, lower than thought effective, of an antipsychotic, can this be helpful?
Read MoreI get emails and messages now and then from people asking what to do about their mentally ill loved one. They want to convince their loved one to get help for a mental illness.
These people are in the unenviable position of watching someone they love be sick. And the unfortunate thing about mental illness is that when you confront it, it doesn’t like it very much.
It’s kind of a tall order.
And the thoughts I have on the matter don’t really make the issue sparkle either. Because let’s face it, the person either listens to you or they don’t, and really, they have the right to do either one. Here’s a bit of reality on convincing a loved one to get help for a mental illness.
And for the record, even if you don’t immediately succeed, many of us first hear about our mental illness from a friend, but sometimes that takes a while to sink in.
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Here at BurbleCo I try to relate matters in a very even-handed, logical and frank way. I attempt to deliver my opinions and facts as just that, opinions and facts. I try not to inflame groups with whom I vehamently disagree. I try to respect everyone’s point of view as I wish to have mine respected. I short, I try to act like grown-up. A kind, caring, reasonable grown-up.
Well. Fuck. That. Shit.
Read MoreI have written thousands and thousands of words in this blog and elsewhere about how much I hate medication.
I hate it in the car, I hate it on a train, I hate on a boat, I hate it in the rain.
I hate it in the snow, I hate it in the sun, I hate it standing still, I hate it on the run.
I hate it before breakfast, I hate it after lunch, I hate it in the morning, I hate it during brunch.
And while I could fill an entire blog with all the ways I hate psych meds, I still, take them, everyday.
Weird you say?
(Well, yes. But no more so than the disease it treats.)
Because no matter how much I might hate psych meds, medication non-compliance kills.
Read MoreAs many of you have been waiting for, I am honored to present the Burble’s first guest post by Holly Gray, author of Don’t Call Me Cybil. If you haven’t already done so, check out Is Multiple Personality Disorder Real, and then enjoy!
My name is Holly Gray. I have Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), formerly known as Multiple Personality Disorder. When I was diagnosed with this mental illness in 2005, all I thought I knew about DID was born of misconceptions and stereotypes. I’d never met anyone with DID. I’d never read any books or articles other than sensationalistic material that pops up in a search engine query. I couldn’t have cited an educated source for any of my supposed knowledge. A movie perhaps, a television crime drama, or a friend of a cousin’s boyfriend’s friend.
In other words, I had no legitimate knowledge of Dissociative Identity Disorder. Like any other mental illness, if your education comes from anecdotal evidence and entertainment media you’re not just uninformed, you’re misinformed.
Read MoreSometimes people ask me where they should go for an online support group. Sometimes people ask me what other blogs I read. These are reasonable questions, unfortunately, my answer is: I would know, I don’t go there. I find many online haunts full of misinformation and misrepresentation. And I hate misinformation and misrepresentation.
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