Let’s revisit the question I posed in my “Quitters Are Winners Too” post: what is it about American life that increases the prevalence of depression? Americans are more depressed than any other group in the world.
Tag: Mental Health
Grieving Mental Illness – The Soloist
The Soloist, starring Robert Downey Jr. and Jamie Foxx, tells the story of L.A. Times columnist, Steve Lopez, and schizophrenic musician, Nathanial Ayers. The film is based on Steve Lopez’s book titled The Soloist: A Lost Dream, an Unlikely Friendship, and the Redemptive Power of Music.
Trashing the Labels
John Beckham offers a short essay in Granta, “A Vacation From Myself”, which I take as anecdotal evidence in support of a claim I’ve been making for some time: mental health therapies (Wellbutrin in Beckham’s case) often come with a cost — a loss of the self — and we need to be more circumspect in the way we value such therapies.
Story: The Incredible Shrinking Zombie
I had forgotten to take my meds again. I had an “Oh shit” sinking feeling in the bottom of my stomach when I found a full bottle of pills on the window sill above the kitchen sink and realized a whole month had passed me by and still I hadn’t opened it, not even once.
Story: Jack the Giant Killer
Doctor Horvath motioned for Jack to take a seat by the round, low coffee table while he settled himself in a swiveling chair in front of the bare desk, and then he turned to face Jack while resting his right elbow on the desk.
The Bloor Street Viaduct in Toronto
Going “off the Bloor Street viaduct” used to be a fairly common event. In his novel, In the Skin of the Lion, Michael Ondaatje imagines the first such going “off the Bloor Street viaduct.”
Cho Seung-Hui: A Lone Deranged Gunman
As all of America mourns the deaths which occurred on the Virginia Tech campus, bloggers are drawing comparisons to the body count that issues daily from Iraq.
Belief is a Queer Thing
Can queer theory be used as a tool to think about mental health? This is a question that has nagged me for a few years now, and in the fall, I had an opportunity to write about it for a course on liberation theology.
Death by Pepper Spray
On September 26, 1995, Zdravko Pukec gained the distinction of being the first person on Canadian soil to be asphyxiated by pepper spray. The debate continues regarding the effectiveness of pepper spray as an alternative restraining measure, and periodically the fatalities are paraded in the media.
Quitters Are Winners Too
Conventional wisdom—at least in North America—holds that persistence is a virtue: “if at first you don’t succeed” and all that. We marvel at those who single-mindedly pursue their dreams and, after overcoming countless obstacles, finally get to roll in their success like pigs in mud. But recent thinking from the nascent field of evolutionary medicine turns conventional wisdom on its head.
The Wounded Storyteller by Arthur W. Frank
In anticipation of a new course I will be taking this term, Spirituality, Health & the Christian Life, I read one of the required texts, The Wounded Storyteller, just for a taste. I was stunned at how closely Frank’s account of illness matches my own experience and at how closely his language (he might call it his discourse) speaks to the way I orient myself to my world.
The Sin of Incoherence
We assume, without question, that our lives must conform to the strictures of an unwavering consistency. But this is impossible. And yet we further burden ourselves by demanding that we apply this standard over time, inquiring about yesterday’s behaviour to ensure that it is consistent with today’s.
The Student Point of View
This week, we all go back to school. The holidays away from school have reminded me why it is I keep slogging it out as a student. There is something important about a student’s viewpoint.
Demonic Possession
Fall term is over. I can only describe it as harrowing. To on outsider, I am certain there was little indication of the interior foment.