Posted by: Uticopa in bullying, abuse on
Jun 01, 2011
Bullying can be a problem at any stage of your life. For the hapless victim it causes serious distress and can affect mental health for decades to come.
The mindsets of the people doing the bullying are often similar, whatever their ages. It's when the ancient ‘tribal' instinct of terrorising a perceived ‘enemy' comes into play. And who is the supposed enemy? It's anyone who is seen to be different in some way from the rest of the peer group. The instinct of the bully is to chastise and taunt the person seen to be ‘different' so that, by so doing, the bully is made to feel somehow more confident and ‘king' of his domain.
The bullying victim at school
In today's world of rush, rush, rush, there's often no time to say goodbye to a loved one when they die. Yet, our priorities must change. Dying is a part of life. It can't be avoided, however much we wish it, and must be accepted and dealt with.
Let's say it's been two years since your father died and your mom still won't go out socially or stop talking about wanting to join him. Similarly, perhaps you can't shake a sense of meaninglessness into your life as the anniversary approaches of the death of someone close to you. This is exactly what prolonged grief disorder is all about.
Prolonged Grief Disorder (PGD), previously called complicated grief, has now become a recognized mental disorder. Researchers at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston developed and tested standard criteria for identifying the condition, based on the input of a team of experts in bereavement and mood/anxiety disorders. It is shortly to be included in the Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DMV-5), the psychiatric care bible for diagnosing problems. The research was done with widows and widowers but is also applicable to the general population.
Do these symptoms sound familiar to you? Fatigue. Insomnia. Loss of appetite. Aches and pains. Most of us with these symptoms usually assume we're suffering from an ailment that's physical. Sometimes we're right. But, how often do we realise that what is really wrong is depression?
Even in good times, there are millions of new cases of depression every year. Yet many of those people - more than a third, according to a recent report by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration - never receive treatment. This is despite the fact that nowadays there are more ways than ever to get help.
One reason is simple confusion over what the illness feels like. The common idea that depression means ‘feeling sad' has a lot of truth to it. Other symptoms could be emotional numbness, a sense of worthlessness, hopelessness, even thoughts of suicide. But for many people, the experience is a bit more blurry - a series of changes affecting them not just emotionally but also physically and mentally.
Historically, British people have always ignored the effects of our poor, wet weather. The heavy rain has always been there, so most carry on regardless. However, as the world shifts towards global climate change, water-related problems are arguably the most imminent and most personal. As Britain's temperature rises and weather patterns become more extreme, will our health be compromised by a lack of clean water and diseases spread by polluted floodwater?
And what of our mental health? Will our stoic disregard for the weather turn to mental depression or worse?
Health professionals, until now noticeable only by their absence in the climate change debate, will become increasingly important in helping us to understand and adapt to problems and in promoting behavioural changes that might avert the greatest threats.
In days gone by, mental ‘disturbances' were considered something you should ‘snap out of' - a mere emotional phase that you should grow out of, like adolescence. Decades later and mental illness is an actual, recorded disease, warranting much-needed medical intervention. Well, yes, but how do we know we actually have it - especially in those crucial, early stages?
Early diagnosis of Alzheimer's would be critical in order to stop and reverse cell death before it is too late. As we all know, once brains cells are dead there is no way to revive them. But, if you catch Alzheimer's Disease early enough you could slow it down and even reinvigorate the cells.
What we have always needed is a ‘Dr. Bones'-type machine from Star Trek that doctors can run down our apparently healthy bodies to pick up those tell-tale early signs.
Posted by: Uticopa in Untagged on
Dec 14, 2009
Christmas is almost upon us. We are bombarded on all sides by lures and enticing goods on display, coupled with increasing demands for more, more, and more from our families. But, this is not the time to be weak. Some people, particularly men, will resort to things like gambling to feed their craving for money. Others, particularly women, will treat shopping as an addiction rather than a necessity.
Let's start with gambling. How to treat it?
Some new research says that the same drugs used to treat substance addictions could prove effective in treating pathological gambling. They tested medications designed to decrease urges and increase inhibitions in two groups of male and female pathological gamblers: those driven by urge (those who gamble when the desire becomes too strong to control) and those who don't have normal inhibitions of impulsive behaviour (they're unable to control the desire to gamble even when the urges are minimal or nonexistent).
Posted by: Uticopa in Untagged on
Dec 13, 2009
If you can't afford all the things your family wants, you just need to be strong and tell them enough's enough.
As far as your mental health is concerned, being stressed can actually be good for you, but you've got to find the right balance. There's no point in spending more and more in an effort to please everyone and end up making yourself too ill to enjoy it.
There are good and bad types of stress. The bad kind is chronic and uncontrollable, like the tension caused by an unhappy marriage or a sick relative. But there are a lot of positives associated with short bursts of stress, especially now with that big build up to Xmas. The reason? Stress jolts you into repair mode. When you injure yourself, your body goes into alert mode and starts to repair itself - healing your injury and revving up your immune system to protect against infection. Short-term stress works the same way. Initially, it produces free radicals and hormones such as cortisol that wreak havoc on your tissues. But then, when your body senses the damage, it begins to repair itself. If the stress is short-lived, you can heal quickly and still have enough energy left over to heal everyday wear and tear, like a scratch or a bruise.
It's now official. Mentally-scarred veterans are being medically discharged from the British army with...wait for it....a golden handshake of £3000! Is that all they're worth? Soldiers whose lives have been shattered by the traumas of fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq are being paid as little as £3000 as compensation for all they've suffered after their medical discharge.
What price bravery? What price to sacrifice your own mental health in pursuit of fighting for your country?
Of course, none of this is ever mentioned in those exciting ads inviting you to apply for a career in the British forces. The ads are full of enticing scenes of far-away exotic locations, team-work with your mates, and you get paid too. What a wonderful job! However, there isn't even any small-print to warn you against the worst thing of all. You might just lose your life in pursuit of this new ‘wonderful' job, and at the very least return home injured and battle-scarred. What? I hear you say. A small price to pay for all that this career offers you?
When random surveys are taken of what worries people the most, the issue that keeps rising to the top of the pile is hooliganism and knife-wielding young people. When you look at police case-studies of the perpetrators of such youth crime, the same family scenario constantly surfaces: neglect, a missing parent or two, a family background lacking in essential ‘tough love' guidelines etc. etc. All of these things, if left unaddressed, can leave children with burgeoning mental health issues that could have been avoided.
Foster parents, who know only too-well about dealing with childhood disruption, often say that they wish mental health services were available to all. It's ironic that they have better access to such services than is available to most parents. It seems that if you're in the system, it's easier to get help, whereas parents are often out there on their own. Foster parents can qualify for remedial services in the home, which involves home visitations from mental health professionals. And, of course, the professional sees a better picture of the family situation.
Many foster parents will cite children who have come to them "wounded". They say that counsellors they have worked with have been very good, but there are just not many people who specialize in children. You can't treat a child as an adult.
Posted by: Uticopa in pets and mental health on
Nov 09, 2009
It's proven! Mental health therapists have discovered that animal-assisted therapy (AAT) increases social interaction and decreases aggression in people with mental disorders. So much so, that sufferers who interact with animals on a regular basis often no longer need medication at all. It's those patients with poor communication skills who are most likely to benefit from participating in AAT programmes, since they find it easier to communicate with others in the presence of animals.
For those who are still not convinced, below are some of the known benefits of having a pet:
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Pets can help ease loneliness or isolation. They give us a reason to get up in the morning. They accept us for who we are and don't judge us.
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Physical contact is important to our mental health. Stroking and cuddling with a pet is very therapeutic.
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Animals improve our mood with their companionship. A pet can provide a reason for living.
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Pet owners are more active. The exercise we get from walking, feeding and grooming a pet keeps our minds healthy. We're also likely to laugh and feel more playful when we share our home with a pet.
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Routine is beneficial in enhancing emotional stability. Caring for a pet provides a predictable routine and link to reality.
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Having a pet improves attention and decreases aggression, anger, stress and anxiety.
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Pets can help us relax and forget about our problems for awhile. Gazing at fish in an aquarium is soothing.
For sufferers with more serious disabilities, there are specially-trained psychiatric service dogs, which are usually identified with a cape, tag or harness. These dogs perform specific tasks that mitigate the negative effects of a person's mental illness. For example, a psychiatric service dog might bring patients their medication or lead them to a safe place when they are having a panic attack.
