Posts Tagged as "mental health"

Schizophrenia: It’s the disease, not the person

September 30, 2016 /

He was always super fun to be around, one of the kindest and open-minded people I knew, but then he changed. I remember the last day I saw him he was a completely different person. He was unrecognizable. No longer happy. Always mad. I could not understand why he didn’t want to be himself anymore.

Combating the Stigma of Mental Health

May 31, 2016 /

I’ve seen the effects of not getting help for mental illness first hand and it's no joke. It's very sad to see. One day a friend may be behaving normally and the next they can fall apart. What makes it worse is that sometimes you don’t even know what's going on or how to help.

Helping Young People Learn to Grieve

May 5, 2016 /

I also thought that the minimal anticipatory grief I had allowed myself to experience, when he was battling cancer, was sufficient. ‘I should be done. These tears are helping no one,’ I thought. But I simply wasn’t “done” and squelching my tears only allowed the depression to surface in more sinister ways. I couldn’t fall asleep, I would spend days eating only sweets, and, most damaging of all, I felt utterly alone.

Advocates Challenge Law Enforcement on How Prop. 47 Savings Should Be Spent

April 8, 2016 /

“The worry is that Prop 47 funds will be used for mental health treatment that is run by law enforcement,” says Lizzie Buchen, the statewide advocacy coordinator for Californians United for a Responsible Budget (CURB). “Jails are not a place where people can heal. They can be very traumatic for people with mental health issues.”

Making Juvenile Hall the Mental Health Provider of Last – Not First – Resort

December 18, 2015 /

According to a new study by the San Francisco-based Young Minds Advocacy Project (YMAP), as many as 70 percent of the kids in California’s juvenile detention centers are in need of mental health care, and most of them are not getting it. Patrick Gardner, YMAP’s founder and one of the report’s authors, says many of these youth would not be in detention in the first place if there were more home and community-based mental health services available.

President of Gay-Straight Alliance Speaks Out on Mental Illness

November 9, 2015 /

In Brenner’s experience, there are a lot of people who see depression as simply being in a bad mood. They don’t realize that depression is a diagnosable and treatable condition. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, mood disorders like depression are the third most common reason for hospitalization among youth and adults between the ages of 18 and 44.

Using Cosplay to Get Through Anxiety

November 9, 2015 /

“Many people think that a person who is depressed is sad all the time, is unable to laugh, is ‘weak’ and/or suicidal. None of these are true of everyone,” Scarlet says. “Many people with depression might not be ‘obviously’ depressed. They might laugh and appear happy while struggling on the inside.”

Aging Trans People Locked Out of U.S. Health Care System

November 9, 2015 /

In fact, studies have confirmed that transgender older adults suffer far higher levels of depression, disability and loneliness than nontransgender older adults. Seventy-one percent of transgender older adults have contemplated taking their own lives, compared with just 3.7 percent of the general U.S. population.

The Torment of Isolation – Ending Solitary Confinement for Juveniles

September 17, 2015 /

Solitary confinement did not rehabilitate me or stop me from returning to jail. What it did do was leave me with a lasting scar in the form of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that I continue to carry with me today.

Learning to Live With Anxiety

August 31, 2015 /

I was diagnosed with Panic Disorder, Social Anxiety Disorder and Generalized Anxiety Disorder. The doctor told me that taking an antidepressant would help me, but my mom felt I was too young and she worried about possible side effects.