Anniversary

"In addition to friendship, attitude is one of the few things in life where we have a true choice. We cannot change what is fated to happen or the actions of events or other people.

What we can change is our reaction to such things with the attitude we adopt. In truth, our attitude can be more important than anything we do. It can make or break families, companies, and nations. It is more important than schooling, talent, looks, or wealth.

How we react is everything and our attitude is the choice we have; it is a choice we make every minute of every day. It is a state of mind that no one can take from us. If we are in control of our attitudes, we are in command of our lives. And that is the best way to live."

I would love to say that I wrote that, but I stole it from a blog who stole it from the company who makes his snow boarding equipment. Whatever. I'm quoting it to you now, because it is the essence of what gives our life any sort of meaning. I've struggled for a year now asking myself that very sort of question. Today is the anniversary of a suicide - a friend of mine who took her life and left us all behind with nothing but questions. I have lived a year longer than her and I'm never sure which of us made the right decision. There are days that I am so unhappy that I just don't want to draw another breath, so how can I blame her for choosing not to? And yet I still do. I'm still angry. But I am ultimately in control of my attitude.

So what does that leave me with? Some wisdom, perhaps. I get up and I live with depression, in a society that so often lacks compassion, and I love the people that I love regardless of their flaws and insensitivities, or maybe because of them. I can choose to be wounded by my day or to feel blessed by the gift of it. I can weep with the overwhelming pain of it all or I can move through it. Every single day I make choices. And they are mine to make.

I miss Dianne. I miss the father that I never got to know. I miss the woman I would be if all these and a hundred other tragedies hadn't happened. I wish I had done things differently - for a minute or two - and then I try to absorb the fact that things happen to us regardless, that one can't prepare for a tsunami or a foreclosure or cancer. That these too are the stuff of which our lives are made. I must define my life on my own terms and not be a victim of the things I can not control. I must choose.

All in all, I am very blessed. I've a roof over my head, a job, enough to eat. I've a family that means the world to me and a cat who woke me with a wet nose kiss this morning. And even though the sun isn't shining, I know it will shine again. Attitude is everything. Today I will be happy...

Errors lead surgeons to contemplate suicide

A study suggests medical errors, job burnout and depression lead surgeons to contemplate suicide at higher rates than the general public, and they're much less likely to seek help.

Fear of losing their jobs contributes to surgeons' reluctance to get mental health treatment, according to the study. Nearly 8,000 surgeons participated.

About 6 percent reported recent suicidal thoughts; the rate was 16 percent among those who'd made a recent major medical error although it wasn't known if that was the reason.

Only about one-fourth of those with suicidal thoughts said they'd sought professional mental health treatment. By contrast, among the general population, about 3 percent have suicidal thoughts and 44 percent of them seek mental health treatment, other studies have shown.

The research didn't address specific reasons why they had contemplated suicide but strongly suggests depression, job burnout and medical errors were contributing factors. To a lesser extent, being unmarried, divorced and childless also were linked with contemplating suicide. Other factors also could have contributed to a risk for suicidal thoughts.

Results published previously from the same survey showed almost 9 percent of participating surgeons said they'd made a recent major medical error. Overall, surgeons queried worked 60 hours per week on average; 40 percent felt burned out; and 30 percent had symptoms of depression. Most said their work left little time for personal and family life.

Read the whole article by Lindsey Tanner here.

A brain is a terrible thing to waste....

Most people haven't noticed that this country is suffering from a severe brain shortage. "Sure, I've noticed," you may chuckle, pointing a finger at Washington or the local government of your choice. But that's not the kind of brain shortage we're talking about. We mean gray matter, white matter, brain tissue -- the stuff in your head that neuroscientists need to investigate a variety of diseases, disorders, and dilemmas.

During the Eighties, investigators learned more about the central nervous system than in all prior human history. The Nineties promised to be even more enlightening. "The brain is the last biological frontier," says neuroscientist Deborah Mash, director of the University of Miami Brain Endowment Bank. Founded in 1986, it's one of only three general brain banks in the nation. "We need to study the human brain postmortem--diseased brains and healthy ones for comparison."

Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor became a neuroscientist precisely to study the brains of people diagnosed with severe mental illness, specifically schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. ( Dr. Taylor has a brother living with schizophrenia and you may remember her from her book, A Stroke of Insight.) She was shocked to learn that the "tissue issue" - or lack of postmortem brain tissue from the psychiatrically diagnosed - has really held back the scientific community from unraveling the mysteries of severe mental illness. Dr. Taylor has made it her mission to bring this shortage to the attention of the population at large.

Individuals who've noted on their drivers licenses that they are organ donors have willed everything but the brain, although most are not aware of that. If a person is interested in donating his or her brain to science, they will need to make specific arrangements. The Harvard Brain Tissue Resource Center has created a specialized collection specifically for NAMI families, where operators are available 24/7 at 1-800-BRAINBANK. The bank collects brain specimens from parents, siblings, and children of psychiatrically diagnosed as well as those living with mental illness. So-called "normal" brains are just as much in demand as unhealthy ones.

The reality is that if the tissue was more readily available, more scientists would be studying mental illness. If someone has passed they sure don't need it anymore, but that brain tissue may help us understand, treat, and cure biological disorders of the brain. And that would be the greatest gift you could give.....

Gay in America

In 1973 the APA did away with homosexuality as a mental disorder. The change wasn't easy, but the weight of the scientific evidence suggested that same-sex attraction was a normal variant of sexuality among well-adjusted people. Today, you can hardly open a paper or turn on the news that you aren't hearing some new horror show about gays in America - from teens being bullied to suicide to states denying civil liberties to same sex couples. I'm often mortified because I grew up knowing that some people are gay - in fact, both of my uncles were homosexual. I never occurred to me as a child that there was anything wrong with that. I called their partners 'uncle,' too. It seemed like the most natural thing in the world.

I didn't realize until I was an adult, the price that every gay man or woman must pay to live in our society. And although I have gay people in my life who have found a measure of happiness; who have found someone to love and were lucky enough to have an accepting and loving family, even these people bear the scars of being different in a culture that grows less and less accepting of anything but some idealized 'normal' (which seems to me to be white, male, straight and Protestant.) I watched a beloved uncle die of AIDS back in the day where it was referred to as "the gay plague" and watched nurses refuse to touch him because of their ignorance. I watched another struggle with his faith, a faith that denied who he was and labeled him a 'sinner' for loving the people that he loved. He lived a monogamous life for nearly 25 years with the same partner, but could never be married. He is a veteran (both of my gay uncles served their country... imagine that,) and lives with bi-polar disorder. I know of two (thankfully) unsuccessful suicide attempts.

In my opinion, every human being is the result of a nearly infinite number of variables. Many of these variables are visible to us in our lifetimes - where we were born and to whom, our social situation and nationality, our training into that society and into spirituality, and all the things we experience from our birth to where we are now. Perhaps we can decipher some of these variables, although I suspect that many people never feel the need to. In addition, we consist of innumerable amounts of genetic code; codes that give us our gender and the color of our eyes and skin, our height and body type, even five fingers and toes. But there are codes for every possible variation in the human being and scientists have only scratched the surface of these. Some codes make people susceptible to disease, or unable to moderate their mood, and yes, I do believe that some people are genetically homosexual. With all that infinite variety, from completely straight to completely gay, and every variation in the middle of that, human sexuality simply is. We are sexual beings. It shouldn't be a big thing.

Statistically, twenty percent of the human population is gay. Always have been. Always will be. I've always thought of it as a type of natural birth control. Some of those gay people have brain disorders, some have hemophilia, heart disease or diabetes, some will stay in the closet, some will become activists and fight for their basic rights. In the end, all of them are simply human beings and as such are entitled to basic human rights and basic human dignity. And as such they want what we all want, to be loved... and to live without fear.

10 Tips to Manage Your Scattered Brain

Let’s start right away. I want to eliminate anything that can distract you from finishing this post.

• Do you feel like you want to do a million and one things this instant?
• Do you lack the ability or desire to stay with your task till you complete it, including the simplest of tasks?
• Do you feel unmotivated to start on something that you really want to accomplish?
• Are you easily distracted and everything in the entire world seems more interesting than what you’re doing?
• Are there things you need to do that remain undone because there is no outside pressure/deadline to force completion?

If you answered yes to any or all of the above questions then you are a scattered brainer. Welcome to the club . There is nothing wrong with being distracted every now and then, or not even getting anything done. But when it becomes a constant in your daily life, you can fall into a stressful trap of avoidance, or worse, trying to catch up and make up for lost time.

I have been implementing the tips below to deal with my scattered brain. I’m slowly regaining my focus and brain power. Hope you find these tips useful. Try to work with as many of them as you can.

1. Know what you want to do and prioritize.

This is the most obvious and probably one that is listed in every productivity book and article out there. The importance of this step cannot be overstated.

If you don’t know what you want and stuff is just floating in your head, you’ll never get the satisfaction of doing anything. So yes make a list of everything that is on your mind. Then Prioritize—with a capital P. This is where you get to tell your brain to stop fretting about the small stuff and focus on what is really important.

2. Break it down and keep it simple.

Once you have your list and you determine your top two or three tasks, choose one to start with and break it down to the simplest form of action. Every step should not take more than 15 to 30 minutes to complete. If it takes longer, break it down further.

The smaller the task, the less time it takes to get done, the more you’re likely to stick with it. This is a good way to tell your brain to just stay with it for 15 minutes.

3. Start and do it slowly—one task at a time.

Don’t try to speed thing up in an effort to save time. This triggers your brain to drift to what you want to do next instead of what you’re doing right now. Your brain can focus on one thought at a time, so make it about what is right in front of you. Do things slowly and deliberately. You will feel much better once you complete your task.

4. Take breaks.

Don’t be tempted to work nonstop for hours on end. This will lead to burn out and you won’t have enough motivation to start again.

After completing a 15-30 minute task, take a break and do something fun. You can stretch, move, read an article or whatever you feel like doing. Just don’t take too long. I would suggest 5-10 minutes.

Once you complete 4 tasks, take a longer break—an hour or so. This is your free time to do whatever you like—guilt free.

5. Learn to focus.

If you want to have laser sharp focus, you need to learn how to meditate and do it.

Meditation is becoming more mainstream now and is really easy to do. You don’t need to spend an hour. Start with a few minutes and move up to 15 – 30 minutes. Do a search and pick a breathing or mantra meditation. The most important thing is to train your brain to relax, and focus on one thing (the mantra or your breath).

6. Ditch your clock/watch. Work in intervals.

Forget about the clock and don’t obsess over time. It doesn’t matter when you start working on something. Use a timer and set it to the estimated time to complete your task (an interval of no more than 30 minutes). Start the timer and go for it. Don’t stop until your time is up. Take a break and repeat.

Focus on working and getting your tasks done, regardless of what time it is. This way you are guaranteed to work instead of finding excuses to postpone things till tomorrow, when you can work on them bright and early.

7. Don’t do anything else until your interval is done.

Don’t do anything else while your timer is running for a specific task. If it is something that requires inspiration (like writing) and you can’t seem to find any, just sit still and think about the task until your time is up.

Don’t be tempted to do something else because you can’t seem to get started on the task at hand. Sooner or later inspiration will come—you’ll be surprised by how effective five minutes of silence can be in sparking your genius.

8. Keep going.

If you fall off the wagon, just pick up and start again. There is no reason for you to give up. Review what you did and what went wrong, learn from it and move on to your next task or interval.

Remember: practice makes improvement.

9. Power down and reboot.

Give yourself free days to enjoy yourself away from tasks and to do’s. Keep it free and don’t commit to anything new. This is a time for you to relax, have fun and spend time with your loved ones.

Use your off days to unwind and empty your mental cache. Don’t try to squeeze in anything else. After a break, you’ll feel energized and motivated to get back to your tasks.

10. Make it fun.

Embrace your playful inner child and use your imagination to make the best out of every task. Even the most mundane thing can be fun and entertaining.

When you are working on a task, imagine that someone is watching you and commenting on how brilliantly you’re working. Or that you are trying to set a world record, or break your own. You can have a conversation with yourself as you work … you get the picture.

Your results depend on where you choose to put your focus and energy. So do what gives you the most effective results in the most enjoyable manner. Once you get going and you keep going, there is no turning back—things get easier and you start harnessing more of your mental power.

Ed. note: snagged this from One With Now.

It Gets Better

Should You Disclose Depression To Your Employer?

"If I had diabetes I would probably tell my company," Sandy says. "But I've never told them this." By "this," she means the fact that she suffers from depression. Today, CNN tackles a huge question: If you're suffering from depression, should you let people at your job know?

As the piece by Health.com's Anne Harding points out, happy employees are productive employees. So it's in a company's best interests to make sure workers get what they need to be healthy — mentally and physically. The problem, of course, is that a stigma surrounds mental illness.

Depending on the atmosphere and environment you work in, disclosing depression (or bipolar disorder, or any kind of mental illness) can seem like asking for trouble. Your coworkers may see it as an excuse; your boss may think of you as weak, and you might even be the subject of gossip. Of course, this shouldn't be the case. But who hasn't worked at a company where acting human — instead of like a cog in the machine — was viewed as a flaw? Any kind of personal issues were frowned upon; nothing mattered except the work.

The thing is: The more people admit to depression and other mental illnesses, the faster these conditions would lose some of the stigma. And if your job is part of what's making you depressed, well, at least take comfort in knowing we've all been there.

Depression In The Workplace: Don't Ask, Don't Tell? [CNN]

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