More On Vets

Call the national suicide hotline (1-800-784-2433) and the first question asked is "Are you a member of the armed forces?" Shocking? Hardly....

More here.

Veteran's Day

As Veteran's Day approaches I become pensive. I have friends who strive to take their husbands on mini vacations this weekend... anything to keep them away from home and all the patriotic crap on TV. For many men this is a hard day to look in the eye. Bad memories. Worse dreams. We may put this day aside to honor the dead, but it often only opens the wounds of the living.

Consider:

• Almost 1 in 3 veterans returning from Afghanistan and Iraq confront mental health problems.
• In 2006, the suicide rate in the Army reached its highest level in 26 years.
• Approximately 30% of veterans treated in the Veterans health system suffer from depressive symptoms, two to three times the rate of the general population.
• More Vietnam veterans have now died from suicide than were killed directly during the war in the 1960s and 70s.
• Approximately 40% of homeless veterans have mental illnesses. Approximately 57% of this group are African American or Hispanic veterans.

Perhaps along with honoring those slain in war, we should consider taking better care of those who survive it. If you know a veteran who is suffering, please visit the NAMI Veteran's Resource Center for up to date information, online discussion groups and links to agencies and organizations that can help. Or make a donation and add your vet's name to the NAMI Veteran's Tribute Honor Roll. It's time we supported our troops in a way that leads to healing and a return to a full and productive life.

chaos (again)

I can't believe that it's been nearly a month since I've posted, but on the other hand, time tends to morph interestingly when in the midst of chaos. As is incredibly par for the course of life with a bi-polar loved one - things took a turn last month. Here I am, teaching a Family to Family course for people in my very situation. Didn't expect to be Exhibit A in the course, but I suppose everything happens for a reason.

My son has gotten very, very good at hiding his disease. Sometimes I think he even fools himself. But with 20-20 hindsight, it all stands out in stark relief. In the back of my mind I think I knew that something was brewing... but I always hope that I'm just being overprotective or paranoid. To make a long story short - the stressful job that he had been doing so well at (!) took it's toll and he quit impulsively. Then - in a perfectly natural (if unfortunate) fit of terror, he lied to his wife about it and told her he was fired. When she found out she naturally booted him out (for lying) and he ended up on my couch.

The stresses of everyday living that even I take so for granted, are often far too much for someone with a mood disorder to deal with. He put on a brave, if utterly false, face - afraid to disappoint his beloved, wanting her to be proud of what he could do and letting himself wear thinner and thinner until he felt there would be nothing left if he stayed. Quitting was a maladjusted protection... giving him short term relief and causing long term consequences. Their finances are tentative and now he is unemployed and fragile. Had he come clean with the pain he was in earlier, maybe this could have been avoided. Now we all face damage control.

We all struggle to keep mental illness from being the center of our lives. Often it usurps center stage despite all our efforts. Recovery is a long and arduous road. I watch my son in his pain and I mourn again. I watch his love in hers. I watch them struggle to find answers, to find comfort. She found a blog of a married couple living with this honesty issue and read about their attempts to build a working relationship. They have a 48 hour 'safe zone' - if he comes clean to her after an initial reflexive lie within 48 hours she is only allowed to thank him for his courage. No repercussions. This is something to try.

The poet Roethke, who suffered from mental illness gives words to the concept of recovery in his poem Cuttings
"...one nub of growth
Nudges a sand-crumb loose,
Pokes through a musty sheath
Its pale tendrilous horn.
Cuttings (later)
This urge, wrestle, resurrection of dry sticks,
Cut stems struggling to put down feet,
What saint strained so much,
Rose on such lopped limbs to a new life?

What saint indeed.

A glimpse into a bipolar mind

Sometimes words fail me. Listen to someone who's there. Bipolar Awareness Day is Oct. 11th. Find out more about the facets of Bipolar illness here.

Mental Health Awareness Week

October 7-13, 2007 is national Mental Illness Awareness Week (MIAW). Sponsored by the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), MIAW was established in 1990 by Congress in recognition of NAMI’s efforts to educate the public about mental illnesses, which occupy more hospital beds in the US than cancer and heart disease combined. Mental illnesses are medical conditions that disrupt a person’s thinking, feeling, mood, ability to relate to others, and daily functioning. The good news about mental illness is that recovery is possible, if people have access to the treatment and services they need.

The fifth annual Bipolar Disorder Awareness Day is on Thursday, October 11, 2007. People diagnosed with bipolar disorder, which affects an estimated 10 million Americans, experience alternating episodes of mania (severe highs), depression (severe lows) and mixed states which contain elements of both. Unfortunately, seven out of ten people with bipolar disorder receive at least one misdiagnosis, and many wait years for an accurate diagnosis. It is estimated that 80 percent to 90 percent of people with bipolar disorder can be treated effectively with medication and psychotherapy.

The National Alliance on Mental Illness is the nation's largest grassroots mental health organization dedicated to improving the lives of individuals and families affected by mental illness. NAMI has more than 1,100 affiliates in communities across the country who engage in advocacy, research, support and education. NAMI -Skagit joins other affiliates nationwide this week in raising awareness about mental illness.

Depression

Researchers have concluded that depression is more damaging to everyday health than chronic diseases such as angina, arthritis, asthma and diabetes, and if people are ill with other conditions, depression makes them worse.

Somnath Chatterji of the World Health Organisation, who led the study, said researchers calculated the impact of different conditions by asking people questions about their capacities to function in everyday situations -- such as moving around, seeing things at a distance and remembering information. "Our main findings show that depression impairs health state to a substantially greater degree than the other diseases," the researchers wrote.

The team used World Health Organisation data collected from 60 countries and more than 240,000 people to show on average between 9 percent and 23 percent had depression in addition to one or more of four other chronic diseases -- asthma, angina, arthritis and diabetes.
The most disabling combination was diabetes and depression, the researchers said. "If you live for one year with diabetes and depression together you are living the equivalent of 60 percent of full health," Chatterji said in a telephone interview.

The findings show the need to provide better treatment for depression because it has such a big impact on people with chronic illnesses, Chatterji added. "What tends to happen is a health provider doesn't look for anything else but the chronic illness," he said. "What we are saying is, these people will also be depressed and if you don't manage the depression you can't improve a person's health because depression is actually worsening it."

Content provided by Reuters

Mental Health Myths

For some of the more than 54 million Americans who suffer a mental illness in any given year, the stigma of their condition may prevent them from seeking treatment, U.S. experts say.

A team at the Menninger Clinic in Houston reviewed the top five myths about mental illness:

• Myth #1. People with mental illness are weak. In fact, many famous and powerful people have struggled with depression and other forms of mental illness. Making the decision to seek help for mental illness, and participating in treatment, takes strength in itself.
• Myth #2. Medications cure mental illness. While medicines can help manage symptoms, they're only part of the treatment process, which also includes therapy to help patients better understand the factors that contribute to their mental illness.
• Myth #3. People with mental illness could "snap out of it" if they really wanted to. That's no different than telling someone with the flu, diabetes, hypertension or other physical illness or problem to "snap out of it."
• Myth #4. Children don't have mental illness. In fact, 10 percent of children and adolescents in the United States suffer from serious emotional and mental disorders that have a major impact on their day-to-day lives, according to a 1999 U.S. Surgeon General report.
• Myth #5. People with mental illness don't get well. The truth is that a combination of medication and psychological treatments and support reduces symptoms and improves quality of life in between 70 percent and 90 percent of people with mental illness, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

See the Surgeon General's overview on mental illness here. Thanks to Revolution Health for this post.