Friday Funny: Picture Perfect

Education: Self-Injury

 Self-Injury, more commonly known as “Self-Harm” or “Self-Mutilation”, occurs in approximately 4% of the American population. Sadly, 15% of those who self-harm are adolescents or teenagers. College students are the demographic most affected by self-injury: 17&-35% report these behaviors.

Self-injury is when a person intentionally and repeatedly injures him/herself. The most common forms of self-injury are cutting, head-banging, hitting oneself, burning, hair pulling and scratching.

Why?

People who self-injure commonly report they feel empty inside, over or under stimulated, unable to express their feelings, lonely, not understood by others and fearful of intimate relationships and adult responsibilities. Self-injury is their way to cope with or relieve painful or hard-to-express feelings, and is generally not a suicide attempt. But relief is temporary, and a self-destructive cycle often develops without proper treatment.Self-inury can also be a way to have control over your body when you can’t control anything else in your life.

Read more about the diagnosis, warning signs, and treatment of those who self harm via MentalHealthAmerica.net.

Wentworth Miller – Our Newest Celeb Superhero

Wentworth Miller, best known for his role in the series “Prison Break,” was recently named a celebrity ambassador for Active Minds, a United States-based mental health advocacy group.

Celebrities who generate awareness around this issue help mitigate stigma. They send the message that mental health issues aren’t something to fear or shame. They also put public and beloved face to an otherwise invisible condition.

Experts say the more mental illness is given a national conversation, the more likely people with mental health issues will reach out for help and the more society will accept psychological conditions as a whole.

Wentworth Miller joins other celebrities, such as Demi Lovato and Carrie Fisher, who have also been outspoken when it comes to mental illness.

Thank you Wentworth!

via Huffington Post

 

Physical Source of Depression

I really love reading and sharing articles containing scientific research on the biology of mental illness in the human brain. As it relates to stigma, this research is very important: it affirms that mental illness is a legitamite disease with basis in biology.

“Our finding, with the combination of big data we collected around the world and our novel methods, enables us to locate the roots of depression which should open up new avenues for better therapeutic treatments in the near future for this horrible disease.”

Read the full article here.

*Many thanks to my friend Adrienne for giving me the heads up on this article. 

Friday Funny: I’m not crazy….

Gorgeous…and haunting

During the month of October, artist Shawn Cross has chosen to illustrate mental illness as part of the “Inktober” Art Challenge. Before he begins a drawing, he researches each condition in order to focus his theme to one particular image. The result is gorgeous and amazing. This is such an amazing way to shine a light on the issue of mental illness…

Coss said he hopes fans appreciate his art, and if it helps them cope, “I am 100% in support of it.”

“I hope that people can appreciate my creations,” he said. “Most importantly I hope, if anything, it affects a person on some level. This may be a new venture for me into the world of mental health…or it’ll vanish into the abyss of the internet.” (via BuzzFeed)

Thank you Shawn! You images are amazing and are a powerful tool for educating the public  about mental illness.

Check out the entire collection, as well as Shawn’s other work, via his Facebook, Instagram and his personal website.

Many thanks to my friend Mike D. for giving me a heads up about this article. You rock!

 

 

Educate: Schizophrenia

One of the biggest weapons we have to fight stigma of mental illness is to educate people about the various disorders. Education about illnesses is the only way to dispel common misconceptions about these disorders and the people who suffer from them. Occasionally, this site will provide basic information and links to different types of mental illness in the hope of spreading accurate awareness and of breaking stigma.

Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a widely misunderstood disorder that effects about 1% of Americans. Both men and women, of all ages, are susceptible to the illness. The main symptoms of the disorder are delusions, hallucinations and paranoia.

People with the condition may hear voices, see imaginary sights, or believe other people control their thoughts. People with schizophrenia may have trouble organizing their thoughts or making logical connections. They may feel like the mind is racing from one unrelated thought to another.

Schizophrenia is not Multiple Personality Disorder. And, despite myths, the risk of violence against others is small.

For more in-depth information about Schizophrenia, check out this information slide show from WebMD.com.

 

 

Different Types of Stigma

This is fantastic article that not only defines stigma, but also the different types of stigma the mentally ill are subject to….

There are five levels of stigma that can affect your daily living experiences if you have depression. Stigmatizing beliefs occur on a personal level, in the general public, within professions, via labels and by associative connections.

Learn more here.

Friday Funny: Just a few minutes….

What’s it like in a psychiatric hospital?

First they strip search you. Then they search any belongs you have with you to ensure you aren’t bringing a potentially dangerous item on to the ward – like shoelaces. If you are lucky, you get to keep your own clothes. If not, you are stuck wearing a couple of hospital gowns until some kind soul from the outside brings you “ward acceptable” clothing. Then they take you to your room, where you spend the next ten minutes contemplating if your new roomie is crazier than you, and whether this should be a cause of concern when it is time to go to sleep.

Your days are spent in a variety of groups: art group ( you paint ceramic bears ), social group ( you play board games ), music group ( you play “name that tune” ), and my personal favorite, life skills group: this is the group where you learn to “pull the weeds from your garden of life”. I honestly thought we were going to hold hands and sing “kum-by-ya.” But you have to stay awake and pretend to be participating or the ever-watchful nursing staff will write down “patient is unresponsive to treatment”. And that is not good: if you are not responding to treatment, that means you will have to stay longer.

After a few days, you get to know folks a bit and everyone starts to compare war stories: “I was locked in [insert name] hospital and they only let you have supervised showers.”. Or “Yeah, I did a stint at [insert name] – they make you wear paper underwear so you don’t try to hang yourself with the real ones.”. We are like a bunch of convicts discussing our rap sheets and showing off our self-harm scars like prison tattoos.

Mealtimes are a big deal. We do get to pick our own meals (I recommend the fruit and cottage cheese plate – it’s almost impossible to screw that up). Food becomes currency and the dinning hall is the black market: “Hey, I’ll trade you my Raisin Bran for your fruit cup”. Once you get in good with people, you start ordering extras for them and them and they do the same for you. So meal time ends up resembling a food fight: bagels, butter, cereal, sugar, teabags and oranges get thrown around the room. Just remember to duck while you chew.

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Everyday, you get your fifteen minutes with the psychiatrist assigned to your case. This is the guy who decides when you can be released from the ward, so you have to be extra polite when you answer his stupid questions (try not to drool – they don’t like that. No sense of humor, these guys).

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Evenings in the social/TV room can get pretty off the hook depending on who has taken their night meds and who hasn’t. Sometimes a nurse comes in and starts scolding because everyone is acting up and being too loud. Now really…it’s a group of people with mental disorders who have all been cooped up together for days and are currently on a sugar high from our night snack. Does she expect us NOT to act out a bit?

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Laughter is a big part of the hospital experience. Everything is funnier, even it it should not be funny. Being in that environment is very stressful, on top, of course, whatever it is that lead you there in the first place. My guess is that amplified funny bones are a simply a coping mechanism. Either that, or the suggestion of playing pornographic charades REALLY is that funny.

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Nighttime on the ward ranges from weird to scary to downright hilarious. I am one of the lucky ones: my night meds knock me out as if I had taken a horse tranquilizer, so I miss most of that fun. Those that do not take sleep aids report people swearing, hollering, arguing with themselves, or announcing when they fart. One night the elderly woman next door spent over an hour cussing out the staff. My roomie and I laughed until our sides hurt. I never knew a person could swear in such a creative manner – I should have asked her for private tutoring. And then there was the woman who walked up and down the hall one night yelling “The flight of Icarus! The flight of Icarus!”. You can’t make this stuff up, folks.

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So after you have sucked up to the nurses and doctors for several days (or your insurance runs out) they are ready to spring you from the chicken coop. That first breath of fresh air is the best thing in the world, and you have your William Wallace moment: “FREEEEEEEEDOM!”. Then you go home.

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But it’s weird. It’s like you fell through the rabbit hole and just came out the other end. You are totally disoriented, your mind is in shock, and your body is wondering why it is wearing real shoes. The place you have so desperately wanted to come back to for the past ten days feels alien – like a suit of clothes that doesn’t fit right. All you really want is quiet and solitude. And to shower…alone…for a week straight.

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It takes a few days to get reacquainted with the world: to stop looking at the clock and thinking you should be in some group or lining up for your meal tray. The oddest thing is dealing with the people in your life – most of them don’t know what to say or do. Everyone around you walks on eggshells and watches your every move, wondering if you are going to crack and have to go back. All of this is highly irritating, but you indulge your loved ones (without too much eye rolling) while devouring real food and without a creepy nurse spying on you.

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Doing time in a psych ward is an experience that changes a little part of you forever. You never forget the faces of those that you shared secrets and stories and laughs with. You never forget the paintings in the hallways because you paced them for ten days straight. You never forget looking out the window in your room and thinking that only an inch of glass separates you from the outside world – a world that keeps turning while yours has temporarily stopped.

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Sometimes I wonder…which side of that window is more crazy?