I really like this article in the Guardian today. It speaks about how we may be in a current age of loneliness. I see how this is affecting so many people that are struggling with their mental health. The bottom line is humans need each other. Technology, competition, socioeconomic status and myriad of other factors […]
I started speaking about my experiences with bipolar disorder with anger control problems and psychotic features when I was 17. At that time, I knew almost every other advocate in the country. There weren't many of us. Now there are thousands. There's been an extraordinary leap in mental health advocacy over the last 19 years. […]
Fraternities and sororities have a lot of stereotypes that they are constantly fighting. To the outside world these organizations can come across as superficial cliques that are unnecessarily selective and just want to party. There is a lot of attention paid to individual chapters that are involved in hazing, substance abuse and racism. Greek life […]
My life wasn’t magically easier after I was released from the psychiatric ward for a suicide attempt. The intervention was done. I wasn’t actively trying to harm myself, but I was far from safe. During the 4 years after my discharge, I went through the extremes of bipolar disorder, anger control problems and psychosis. I […]
Yesterday, the White House had a briefing on mental health and suicide prevention in honor of Suicide Prevention month. Advocates, professionals and organizations often use the words, "mental health," in a way that assumes everyone knows what mental health is. Unfortunately, that's not true. If we're going to decrease stigma and have an honest conversation about mental […]
I attempted to take my own life during my senior year of high school. Two months after I got out of the psychiatric ward, a psychologist came into my classroom to talk to students about mental illness. He told us about a patient with severe mental illness who thought he was Winnie the Pooh and […]
