Mental Illness
We should all be ashamed of ourselves. You may not have to like Jason Russell, and you may be sceptical about his Kony 2012 campaign. You may be concerned that the foundation misuses its finances, and Russell’s religious preferences may not be your own.
But I am deeply disturbed by the schadenfreude surrounding Russell’s nervous breakdown and the way it was reported.
Firstly, let’s make one thing clear. Russell wasn’t masturbating, and he wasn’t arrested. There was no evidence that he was intoxicated either. There has been no evidence to corroborate the claims.
Continue reading "It’s our fault that Kony guy went starkers raving mad" »
Post traumatic stress disorder is a very real, very damaging thing, especially among those who have served in a war zone. There’s a lot to be learned about it from listening to the real experiences of those who have been immersed in the unimaginable.
But you know what - we don’t need to learn it from Sergeant Robert Bales. There’s nothing about his financial stresses, or alleged marital difficulties, or level of disgruntlement with his military bosses over his most recent deployment to Afghanistan to in any way explain the acts he’s accused of.
I don’t care that his house was on the market for $50,000 less than he’d paid for it. I don’t care that his foot hurt. And couldn’t give a toss that his friends are grieving over how “our Bobby” snapped. While it’s normal to look for an explanation for horrific things - some of what we’re hearing about Bales sounds more like an excuse.
Continue reading "No good reason or excuse can be offered for this atrocity" »
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wangaratta boi says:
war crimes happen. no-one knows whos the enemy and whos the civillian in afghan the locals are the same people who fire mortars and rifles at you at night. and during the day act inocent when a patrol is out during the day. look at the russians in the 80s… Read more »
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Colin says:
It seems to me that poeple are defending the soldier or the army rather than man, so… What if he wasn’t a soldier? Seriously, if this guy was an accountant with the same stresses & disorders (PTSD isnt confined to soldiers) & he killed these people in say Sydney, can… Read more »
It’s a puzzling paradox that while people with mental illnesses are still battling stigma, the ‘worried well’ will gleefully embrace the latest on-trend disorder.
Do you have to triple check that you switched the stove off? OCD! Wake up worrying about the day ahead? Anxiety! A surfeit of pouty Facebook pics? Narcissistic!
In dazzling displays of psychobabble savvy, we also fling diagnoses at bosses, at politicians, at friends. She’s probably a psychopath. He’s got Asperger’s. They’re anally retentive. Or expulsive. Or something.
Continue reading "Relax - you’re not depressed. It’s all in your head." »
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P. Thornton says:
Years and years ago, when my skepticism regarding the diagnostic end of certain areas of our medical profession was first being developed, I, in the finest tradition of Mad Magazine, referred to ADD as Another Dumb Disorder. My opinion has not changed. I liken it to using the new electronic… Read more »
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Fiona says:
For me, mental illness has been an appropriate response to a world gone mad. True story. But the bigger tragedy is where people like me keep shtumm about our diagnonis of a mental illness and our eventual recovery from the heavy handedness, discrimination and stigma that is heaped upon us… Read more »
If Matthew Newton’s A Current Affair interview was his opening shot at public redemption, it was a misfire.
Both the actor and A Current Affair seemed to want the Australian public to swallow the troubled star’s “cathartic” TV tell-all and wave him off cheerfully on his road to professional rehabilitation.
But, there was one big thing lacking – free and easy use of the “s” word.
Continue reading "Sorry seems to be the hardest word for Matthew Newton" »
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anti bully says:
Hallelujah Read more »
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Heidi Mungoven (Loving wife of Bipolar sufferer) says:
If the media’s intention was to hold a loaded gun to Matthew’s head with the hope of getting an apology, then it was the media’s gun that misfired. Mental Illness already carries heavy stigma. Shame on you media. You should be raising awareness of this very dark disease known as… Read more »
One in five is a ratio that gets bandied around a lot when we talk about mental illness. It refers to a fifth of our population who experience it within a 12-month period.
When you stack that up it means almost half us between 16 and 85 encounter some kind of a mental disorder within our lifetime.
With those kinds of numbers it is impossible not to be touched by it in some way. It may not be obvious. It may be as subtle as the depressed friend who took stress leave from work or that drunk relative hiding something deeper.
Continue reading "Depression ain’t the only mental illness in town" »
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ts says:
@magpie sorry for the belated reply. thanks for the information and advice. she is current seeing a child psychologist and for the most part things are being controlled however there are good times and bad and the bad times can be very bad. and unfortunately it quite often occurs out… Read more »
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stephen says:
I think the relationship between smartness and mental illness is over stated. The smarties you mentioned were odd, and possibly only Schumann was clinically obtuse, (I defer to Van Gogh’s diagnosis - I’ve recently saved up and bought his ‘Letters’ - I don’t think he was mad) yet where we… Read more »
An email pinged into the inbox, asking if I could write a short blog for a new website – Mindshare – an online mental health community.
The email went to the ‘think about later’ folder. And I sort of did think about it later, but my mind kept skittering over the surface of it, like a beetle on a shiny floor. Touching it but leaving it untouched.
When that happens it’s because there’s something I’m a little bit afraid of. When I got a follow up email, I sighed and had a proper think about it. And what I thought was that I’m afraid of the language of mental health: I don’t want to write an opinion piece on it because the language is cold, and fills me with dismay. The language I know goes something like this: Mental health in crisis. Psychotic abandoned by failing system. Children with mental illness left years without treatment. Suicide cluster. Depression epidemic. Neglect. Danger.
Continue reading "Why it should be OK to tell a friend to take their meds" »
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Jailyn says:
I was so confused about what to buy, but this makes it undesrtadnalbe. Read more »
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Ashley says:
@ Stephen , well said. The comments and article on this thread are quite enlightening. Its a fine line between stability/sanity and a malaise of the psyche. And in some cases where people are labelled metally ill, the ’ are you sure its a ‘me’ problem ’ is a valid… Read more »
Mental health surveys consistently show that around one in five of us will experience an episode of significant distress and dysfunction in any year. It saddens me that this suffering is mostly labelled as mental disorder and that we are encouraged to seek medical treatment for it.
No one likes suffering, but to suffer meaninglessly is worse. We should therefore strive to help people make sense of their distress; instead contemporary psychiatric practice is to rob actions and experiences of their meaning by applying simplistic labels and glib biological explanations.
Of course biological understanding can impart meaning, sometimes dramatically.
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narelle says:
well its good to see that NO-ONE here actually had a mental illness or know ANYTHING about it…but are willing to spout bs anyway…being sad and being depressed…are 2 TOTALLY different fking things!!! also when medicated women find it easier to adress major issues…such as abuse…i know this because i… Read more »
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Anne Stocks says:
One good thing is that not many people have a medical certific saying their normal, I need to frame mine and hang it somewhere to remind me when I feel anything but normal, that I am, because they said so. Even though they thought I had Bipolar and at times… Read more »
One of the lowest points of my life came when I was a 17 year old runaway scratching out a heavily eyelined living as a waitress in Sydney.
Thanks to a Great Dane-sized bout of black dog depression, I’d gone from being a straight-A student to a high school drop-out in a few short months.
In 1987, I was writing three-unit English essays on Jane Austen and dreaming of becoming some sort of millionaire adventurer balloon-ess.
Continue reading "Don’t let that Black Dog howl so loud it drives you mad" »
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Nobody really gives a stuff says:
Thanks for sharing Emma. Depression in men manifests itself a little differently than in women. I’ve often tried to anaylse and rationalise the feeling but with the onset of the fog it’s difficult. The best way I can describe the onset of an episode are lyrics from a Metallica song… Read more »
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Gardener says:
Nicely put…. Read more »
Being the small-l liberal kind of place that it is, South Australia not only has a “thinker in residence” to help generate innovative ideas for public policy, but a kindly Catholic priest called Monsignor David Cappo who heads the Social Inclusion board to vet major government policies for their community impact.
Both of them must have been on a rostered day off when the State Government and the Health Department came up with one of the more foolish public policy ideas of recent times, which will have the effect of denying vital health care to sick young women, and forcing older women into an environment which experts believe will not help but harm their wellbeing.
SA has clocked up plenty of progressive firsts. It was the first Australian state to give women the vote, first state to recognise indigenous land rights, first state to introduce an anti-discrimination act – but now it’s about to clock up a first of a different kind as the first state to effectively shut down a cutting-edge health facility which for the past 30 years has been saving the lives of young women battling eating disorders.
Continue reading "When cost-cutting hits the most vulnerable" »
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Aaron Fornarino says:
I cannot believe some of the inane comments on here. Some of you guys really have no clue. Clinical risk factors such as sexual assault and violence are there whether you believe it or not. Furthermore, who cares if a few teenagers die because of inadequate services at the Women’s… Read more »
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Daniel C says:
The comments posted here seem to struggle with the concept that asking for particular resources and conditions to treat certain mental illnesses is somehow controversial. I read comments claiming that this is similar to racism or it is about vilifying male patients or those with a psychotic illness. These views… Read more »
When news broke Bert and Patti Newton were going on A Current Affair to talk about their son Matthew a lot of people rolled their eyes, and then nearly 1.8 million of us tuned in.
I was definitely in the fairly large skeptics camp, wondering what good the interview could possibly do, and if in fact, it could turn out to be self-indulgent and harmful. And then I watched it.
You can read news stories about the content of the interview here and here. And you can watch the whole interview here.
Continue reading "They might be Bert and Patti but they’re still struggling" »
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acai fat loss says:
Long Cat,incident remember base drink reply general war attempt odd bird reason marriage ourselves seat follow overall advise direct drawing assessment last capacity her increase winner accompany under assess right reasonable aim wait prevent client raise training potential opinion die apply night track nurse alright slightly impose associate theory none… Read more »
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JP says:
Whatever became of the dignified silence? Read more »
Anyone who has watched the news or listened to the radio over the past few weeks would have heard of the inquest into the death of Channel Ten newsreader Charmaine Dragun, who committed suicide at the Gap in 2007.
From all reports Charmaine was an intelligent and bright young woman who had a promising career ahead of her as a television broadcaster. However, she was troubled and ultimately this became too much for her to bear.
Charmaine’s career was in the electronic media, an industry with its own special pressures, egos and preference for perfection. The media is competitive – absurdly so – and I imagine it was unlikely anyone dealing with self doubt and anxiety would feel comfortable discussing their situation and reaching out to a colleague for support.
Continue reading "Suicide prevention is everyone’s problem" »
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Amy says:
To All Interested Parties on the Subject of Suicide! I found Mr. John A. Neve’s comments are the “most reliable and honorable” among other comments replying to Mr. Neve’s views, values, and understanding about “personal freedom, personal dignity, and personal rights” including the “Right to End Your Own Sufferings and… Read more »
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Marita says:
It seems to me that a number of people are commenting on this issue when they have no idea in the slightest, of what mental illness really is or what it feels like to suffer from a depressive illness. I also think that some of you need to think, and… Read more »
When I was a hare-brained 25-year-old travelling around the world, I decided to climb Alaska’s most northerly mountain range, alone, with winter approaching and with almost no comparable experience.
I got into trouble thumpingly quickly. Two hours out from an Inuit village the polar wind came thundering up the valley like a great icy bowling ball, the wind-chill factor dropped to about minus 20 and my fingers burned just short of frostbite as I struggled to peg my whip-cracking tent into the snow.
By morning I wanted to abort, but I went on up into that white morass of mountains. It was painful, it was terrifying and it was unwise, but the experience was a perfect instance of the paradoxical payoffs of exposure.
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SeanT says:
michael ‘people with these disorders can barely get a break from centrelink’ is the kind of stigma i guess an article like this is asking us to reconsider. i have two friends with anxiety disorder and neither of them have anything to do with centrelink. they might not go mountain… Read more »
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Robusto says:
Risk taking without preparation and calculation (which may need to be lightening fast) I believe is still stupid and just has the effect of reminding yourself and others what a noong you are! As any rock climber knows the last person you would want to climb with is someone who… Read more »
David Cappo is a priest.
But he is one of the most powerful South Australians. Sure, he’s Vicar-General of the Catholic Church, a Monsignor and Dean of the Cathedral. He’s also our State’s Social Inclusion Commissioner, with a free range over social policy.
Monsignor Cappo is a member of our powerful Economic Development Board, and - most importantly - sits on “Ex-Com”, the Executive Committee of Cabinet, which includes me, the Deputy-Premier, and senior Ministers. Cappo has clout, and in order to get things done he sometimes has to act more like the Inquisition than a confessor.
Continue reading "A priest with punch: social inclusion explained" »
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Dissident says:
David Cappo is an unelected and unaccountable person appointed to a position of so-called power by a politician who is bereft of ideas and the capability to actually do things as a way of abrogating his responsibilities. Read more »
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Rob says:
I give Mike Rann credit for getting Cappo on board and letting him get some things done. In a political world dominated by dreary party hacks and ex-journalists, it is refreshing to see the impact that a leader with vision & verve can still make (I’m talking about Cappo in… Read more »
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