LGBT Romantic Relationships: Coming Out and Dating Tips!
by alex straaik on 01/12/11 at 9:45 pm
I’m Coming Out!: The Struggle & The Bliss There are approximately 1.2 million queer people in the United States who have reported living with a same sex partner. It is highly likely that this number is considerably higher, but due to long-standing prejudices predicated on baneful stigma, myth, and societal norming, some couples may choose [...]
Full StoryOn Depression: Bringing Sexy Back To Behavioral Health
Quite unbeknownst to me, until reading last April’s Daily Mail columnist Janet Street Porter’s (essentially the United Kingdom’s Anne Coulter) article, Depression? It’s Just the New Trendy Illness!, I have been deeply hip to the latest in unfairly feminized medical maladies resulting in missed days of work—back injuries, stress, anxiety, and depression—for two years running. [...]
Full StoryBipolar Disorder: Types, Effects, and Hope
“I have often asked myself whether, given the choice, I would choose to have manic-depressive illness. If lithium were not available to me, or didn’t work for me, the answer would be a simple no… and it would be an answer laced with terror. But lithium does work for me, and therefore I can afford [...]
Full StorySelf-Injury: Our Histories And The Road To Recovery
Self-Injury: Self-mutilation is a general term for a variety of forms of intentional self-harm without the wish to die. Cutting one’s skin with razors or knives is the most common pattern of self-mutilation. Others include biting, hitting, or bruising oneself; picking or pulling at skin or hair; burning oneself with lighted cigarettes, or amputating parts of [...]
Full StoryYou Can Go Home Again: On Inpatient Hospitalization
You shouldn’t give up on psychiatric hospitals if you need them, and sometimes it is markedly imperative—but you should, if possible, conduct serious research ahead of time as part of your safety plan. Drawing from personal experience, in one Psychiatric Emergency Room I walked into, I wound up in one of the most terrifying and [...]
Full StoryOphelia On The Bridge: Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD)
Borderline Personality Disorder (commonly abbreviated as BPD) is classified as an Axis II, Culster B personality disorder in the DSM-IV (though it is significant to note there are ongoing arguments drafting the forthcoming DMS-V, with BPD as one of many central issues). A patient is diagnosed with BPG if s/he exhibits five (or more) of [...]
Full StoryOne Size Doesn’t Fit All: Types Of Antidepressants
While the efficacy of antidepressants is uncertain, antidepressants have been proven to reduce adverse conditions in individuals with mood disorders by a minimum of 50%. As each person’s body chemistry is rather unique, an SSRI might be incredibly useful for one individual while it renders no positive effects for someone else. Therefore, it is not [...]
Full StoryInsomnia: Getting The Sleep You Need
Insomnia is a very real, frustrating, and painful illness that affects upwards of 25–30% of the population—that’s and it’s not as if anyone is having a blast tossing and turning all night, thereby completely hosing the following day. Risk factors for insomnia include—but shockingly are not limited to—depression, stressful or traumatic events, age (the elderly [...]
Full StoryElectroconvulsive therapy (ECT): Separating Fact From Fiction
The mere mention of ECT typically induces much eyebrow-raising and head shaking skepticism, as the population is most familiar with the procedure from television and film—most notably the violent scene in the film version of Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest and the more recently Darren Aronofky’s Requiem For A Dream, where the patients are the [...]
Full StorySuicide: “A Terror Beyond Falling,” and How To Beat It Back
According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC) suicide is the 13th leading cause of death worldwide, with over one million people intentionally ending their lives each year. Importantly, the United States has an exceedingly high suicide rate, rating number six in leading causes of death of individuals in the nation (11th of all deaths); [...]
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