Depression

  • Sharing – 10 Signs You’ve Developed Depression, Even If You Don’t Feel Sad

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 1 minute

    You should go read the whole thing, because I think there’s a certain amount of self-awareness that is required to truly identify the early signs for depression or other struggles.

    For example, I know that there are two signs for me that might mean I’m headed for some struggle with depression, and neither one of them look like sadness. First, I start to get incredibly irritated, and then, because other people irritate me, I start to withdraw and isolate.

    If I look at the standard explanations and visual images we use when we talk about depression, I don’t see those signs. I’m not sitting around listening to sad music, crying, or over-eating. I’m too angry for that.

    I suspect for many people their depression may not look like that either, it may look a lot more like some of the things in this article.

  • Sharing – Life With Anxiety & Depression: It’s Time We Stopped Suffering In Silence

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 2 minutes

    Similar to Clint, when I wrote about not being OK a few weeks back, I also got quite a few private messages from friends and professional contacts who are silently also not OK. But they weren’t ready to talk about it publicly and I understand that. We’ve made it entirely too difficult for most people to talk about it publicly, because we immediately start to treat someone differently when we learn that they are now, or have in the past, been dealing with mental health issues. Unfortunately, that reaction that many have to hearing someone talk about it, is because we are so uncomfortable and unfamiliar with the idea of someone talking about it. And, so the circle just keeps repeating. 

  • Sharing – Happy childhood? That’s no guarantee for good mental health

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 1 minute

    This study out of Australia confirms something I’ve written about many times in regards to things like the ACE (Adverse Childhood Experiences) study: While the study reaffirmed that people who had adverse and unpredictable early life experiences had elevated symptoms of poor mental health (including depression and paranoia), it also found that children who grew…

  • What I learned from my husband’s suicide | Lori Prichard

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 3 minutes

    I saw this talk shared the other day and bookmarked it to go back and watch later. It’s a powerful talk given by Lori Prichard about her husband’s suicide. If you’ve not lived with depression, or lived close to someone dealing with it, you may have a hard time relating, but I want you to try, because I know how accurate this is. I’ve been depressed. I’ve lived with that bully inside of my own brain that told me every day how much better off people would be without me, and I managed to hide it and downplay it so that most people didn’t know anything was wrong at all, or as Lori put it, they let me get away with talking them out of any concerns.

  • Sharing – Population vs Individual Prediction of Poor Health From Results of Adverse Childhood Experiences Screening

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 3 minutes

    Now, here comes a study, linked below, that has done the real scientific research and found:

    “ACE scores can forecast mean group differences in later health problems; however, ACE scores have poor accuracy in identifying individuals at high risk for future health problems.”

    Yes, there are statistics that show that there’s an impact at the societal level from childhood trauma. We should be addressing those issues as a society, things like child poverty, parents in the prison system, abuse, neglect, etc. because we know that as we lessen those impacts on kids, and make resources available for the kids who’s trauma we can’t prevent, we can impact the overall increases in depression, addiction, crime rates, etc. that are a direct result of childhood trauma. But, at an individual level, these things aren’t fate. How one person navigates trauma and is impacted by it, is not going to come down to just the number of traumas they dealt with as a child. When we identify one person with 4 or more ACEs according to the survey, all that really tells us is that it’s basically 50-50 whether or not they are depressed, or there’s a close to 30% chance they’ve used illicit drugs, but a 70% chance they haven’t. One person is not going to neatly fit every category and shouldn’t be treated as if they do. 

  • Shared Links (weekly) Jan. 24, 2021

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 1 minute

    Why Toxic Positivity Can Be Damaging to Our Mental Health

    Taking Men’s Mental Health More Seriously

    Mental health check: What to ask and how to know if you need help

    Female child sex abuse ‘remains taboo’ while victims struggle

    Overwhelmed? You Are Not Alone

    6 Ways to Stop Feeling Embarrassed About Your Depression

    Lack of diversity and the pandemic challenge colleges to address mental health issues for students of color

    French incest affair sparks ‘hundreds’ of #Metooinceste testimonies on Twitter