Medication and Stigma

Why are some illnesses and conditions stigmatized while others are not?  Writing in the New York Times, Dr. Aaron Carroll, chief health officer of Indiana University, suggests that stigma arises when we don’t understand the causes of a condition.  Mental disorders like bipolar and supposedly “lifestyle” problems like obesity and alcoholism may appear to be more under the control of …

Alexi Pappas

How do you recognize the symptoms of depression?  Isn’t that something everyone should know?  We’ve all learned how to recognize the symptoms of Covid 19, right?  And other diseases have organizations that do public education about them, like cancer, heart disease, etc. Alexi Pappas, writing in the New York Times, says that everyone should be taught to recognize the symptoms …

A Lonely Disease: Stigma and Bipolar

Stigma about mental illness is found everywhere, so why not in the intensely macho world of college football?  Brent Guy, a college football coach for 30 years can tell you all about stigma.  He hid his bipolar diagnosis and regular medication from everyone but his wife and doctors.  I’ve written quite a few of these “famous people with bipolar” profiles …

stigma in mental illness

Stigma in Mental Illness – Nancy

An interesting opinion piece in the New York Times this past week highlights unintended consequences of the ways in which we talk about mental illness and the strategies we use to reduce stigma around it. Dr. Lisa Pryor, a mental health care practitioner in Australia comments that increasing discussion, publicity and stigma reduction around “moderate” mental illnesses like anxiety and …

Demi Lovato March for Our Lives

Demi Lovato Encourages Us to Be Vocal – Nancy

Recording artist Demi Lovato is supporting a project called Be Vocal that enables and encourages people living with mental illness to speak out and make their stories heard in the wider world.  Lovato, a platinum-selling artist who has been performing and recording since the age of ten, received a diagnosis of bipolar disorder in 2010. “When I finally got diagnosed …

Mariah Carey has Bipolar

Mariah Carey Has Bipolar – Nancy

Singer-songwriter Mariah Carey has bipolar according to an interview with People magazine, carried on their April cover.  Now in her late 40’s, Carey says that she did not seek treatment for many years, thinking she only had severe insomnia. Now, she is in therapy and taking medication for bipolar II disorder and continuing to work in the studio on her …

Depression Is Often Untreated

Depression is often untreated, according to the results from the federal government’s National Health and Nutrition Examination study. The vast majority of Americans with depression didn’t seek help from a mental health professional Only 35% of people with severe depression and 20% of those with moderate depression said they had sought help from a mental health professional, according to the report …

Where is the Outrage about Suicide?

Imagine a world where a silent epidemic was cutting short the lives of young, otherwise healthy people. Imagine that, that deaths in this epidemic were rapidly increasing, while deaths from cancer, heart disease, HIV, and stroke were decreasing. Now imagine that there was no public outrage, not even any clear recognition in the media of what was happening. And imagine that …

Patrick Kennedy Talks about Bipolar and Addiction

This is a great video that talks about the powerful negative effect of stigma (not talking about mental illness) on the Kennedy family. Patrick Kennedy talks about his struggles with bipolar depression and substance use. For More Information Bipolar Hope Magazine article about Patrick Kennedy’s career and his struggles with bipolar and recovery and his efforts to galvanize the mental …

Touched with Fire

I am so happy to see that bipolar is coming out of the closet. One dramatic example of that is the movie Touched with Fire. In it, filmmaker Paul Dalio tries to share the lived experience of bipolar with the world. He strives to share the beauty as well as the pain of bipolar, relying heavily on the imagery of Vincent …

World Bipolar Day 2016

World Bipolar Day 2016 World Bipolar Day is celebrated each year every 30th of March, the birthday of the well known post­ impressionist painter Vincent Van Gogh, who was posthumously diagnosed as probably having bipolar disorder. The World Bipolar Day is the fruit of the initiative of the Asian Network of Bipolar Disorder (ANBD) in collaboration with the International Bipolar Foundation (IBPF) and International …

Depression Screening Recommended

Although it seems like nothing more than common sense, we were very pleased to see that the United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), which is the major organization responsible for guidelines for public health interventions in the United States, added depression screening for adults, in particular for pregnant women and women who recently given birth, to its short list of …

Mental Health Awareness Week

It is Mental Health Awareness Week in the US. The National Alliance on Mental Illness has announced a “Go Green for Mental Health” campaign (although I am still pretty fond of the sliver ribbon campaign to fight stigma). Meanwhile, the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance has just put out a video called “I’m Here” that makes the point that there …

Parity is What We Want

An overwhelming majority of Americans want parity. A large study found that almost 90% of Americans reported that mental health and non-mental health care were equally important to them in terms of their overall well-being. At the same time nearly a third of those Americans surveyed felt that mental health care was inaccessible and 40% felt that it was something that …

Blog Recommendation

A longtime reader of this blog sent us an email – “I wanted to share one of my favorite blogs. I first found out about the author and blog through his amazing article right after Robin Williams’ suicide. I feel he writes what I feel but can’t put into words on my mental health. Best, Geraldine.” http://letsqueerthingsup.com/2015/06/22/mental-health-recovery-isnt-always-daisies-puppies-and-rainbows-and-thats-ok/ Geraldine has bipolar …

Mental Health Problems and Physical Health

An incredibly well researched article in the journal JAMA Psychiatry summarized a body of research on the impact of mental health conditions on overall mortality in the world population and concluded that roughly 10% of all mortality was related to mental health problems. As I’ve recently been wrestling with problems helping people get access to treatment I thought it might …

World Bipolar Day

Today, March 30, is World Bipolar Day. World Bipolar Day is a collaborative initiative of the International Society for Bipolar Disorders, the International Bipolar Foundation, and the Asian Network of Bipolar Disorders. I took advantage of the opportunity to do some web surfing and found an incredibly rich array of Twitter sites devoted to this topic. Bipolar World. Bipolar Blogs. Julie …