With perennial cuts to mental health services, police are the first line of response in many communities when mental health crises arise. That needs to change.
Mental health crisis teams work — does your city have one?
Tag: mental health
Mental health and gun reform do not belong in the same sentence
We need meaningful mental health reform in the United States, but we need to pick the right time to discuss it.
We need better treatment for post-surgical depression
The first time I had surgery, I was startled by something that happened afterward: I was tired all the time for a while, which made sense given that I was still processing the anesthetic, but also, I was deeply depressed. I didn’t understand why I was experiencing such intense suicidal ideation when circumstantially, things were […]
Mental illness and the loss of patient privacy
People in the US are big on their privacy, quite reasonably — people should be able to enjoy privacy in their homes and persons, and this shouldn’t get violated for the convenience of others, society, or the government’s desires. People are concerned in particular about medical privacy, given the high risks of discrimination, whether in […]
Borderline personality disorder and dehumanising women
Psychiatrisation has long been used to shut women up when they’re saying things viewed as controversial or socially unacceptable; by suggesting that they’re crazy, they can be shunted off to the background, their views invalidated. This tactic exists today just as it did in the past. While women might not be pushed into asylums to […]
Living with misophonia
Misophonia is finally, slowly, starting to have its day in the sun — the Washington Post did a feature on it in December, for example, and there seems to be a flickering awareness of what it is. Sort of. With the exception of the people who have it, though, a lot of that awareness is rather dismissive. […]
The whirlpool of depression
Depression is a funny and inconsistent beast. It’s not like a skinned knee, which stings for a moment before flushing red, drops of blood appearing on the surface, following a predictable and neat pattern from beginning to end. You fall down, your knee hurts, you clean it, it scabs, eventually it heals over, first with […]
Affordability isn’t the only barrier to mental health care for low-income people
With ACA up and running, we are repeatedly assured that health care is within reach for everyone now! No one need suffer, alone and cold, not in a world where everything is beautiful and nothing hurts. Everything is splendid — when someone wants to see the doctor, by golly, she can just nip right on […]
How Not to Respond to Depression
Being depressed is, to put it mildly, really not enjoyable. Depression takes many forms for many different people, and at various stages of depression — some people have highs and lows, some people have major depression, some people have functional days and others never do. Depression can involve a huge array of treatments including therapy, […]
Mental Health Treatment Is Not One Size Fits All
Let’s say you’re a doctor with a patient who presents with an infection. You examine the patient, determine that the infection is bacterial, and prescribe basic antibiotics. You start with a base standard of care that’s usually effective, and you send the patient away with clear instructions on how to use the medication, what kinds […]