Tag: Mental illness
What the Labels of Mental Illness Obscure
Let me explain something about me: When I was 12, I started having panic attacks, brought on by fears that I couldn’t shake, even though I knew they were irrational. I was terrified, for example, that I’d become depressed—but I’d never been depressed before, and didn’t feel depressed. My junior high school devoted a series of assemblies to warning us budding teenagers that we were entering the most dangerous years of our lives, now ripe targets for cutting, suicide,
The Mystery and Agony of Chronic Depression
If you are having thoughts of suicide, please know that you are not alone. If you are in danger of acting on suicidal thoughts, call 911. For support and resources, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 or text 741-741 for the Crisis Text Line.
Shortly after 2 p.m. on January 31, 2019, I left my Dartmouth College office to kill myself. It was 11 days after my 57th birthday.
At my desk, I had written and torn
Will We Ever Find a Cure for Mental Illness?
Psychiatry, from its very inception, has been subject to raised eyebrows if not outright ridicule. Even before Freud came along with his batty theories about infantile sexuality and repressed wishes to kill one’s father, the discipline had struggled to define its methods and objectives. More than two centuries after it emerged as a profession devoted to the care—and hoped-for cure—of the mentally ill, psychiatry is still seen by many as half-baked, neither a science nor an art, pulled
The Other Guy Running for Governor in California
SAN FRANCISCO—Michael Shellenberger was more excited to tour the Tenderloin than I was, even though it was my idea. I was nervous about provoking desperate people in various states of disrepair. Shellenberger, meanwhile, seemed intent on showing that many homeless people are addicted to drugs. (If that seems callous to you, Shellenberger would say you’re in thrall to liberal “victim ideology.”)
He told me not to worry. “You seem like a tough Russian chick, right?” he said as we walked
Kristen Stewart, Diana Spencer, and the Ghost of Anne Boleyn
In the new biopic Spencer, Diana Spencer, Princess of Wales, wanders her decaying childhood home, talking with Anne Boleyn’s ghost. The beheaded second wife of King Henry VIII warns Diana of her dispensability as a royal and tells her to assert her power. It is not, strictly speaking, a faithful reproduction of history.
The surreal film from the Jackie director Pablo Larraín presents Kristen Stewart as the late ex-wife of Prince Charles in a meta bit of casting. Just
How to Experience Friendship – The Atlantic
The irony in loneliness is that we all share in the experience of it. In this episode of How to Build a Happy Life, we sit down to discuss isolated living and Americans’ collective struggle to create a relationship-centric life. As we continue along our journey to happiness, we ask: How can I build my life around people?
This episode features Dr. Vivek H. Murthy, the U.S. surgeon general.
This episode was produced by Rebecca Rashid and hosted by
Why Millennials Are Obsessed With Dogs
This article was published online on July 29, 2021.
Since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, I have asked one question more than any other. It’s come up time and again, day and night, as frequently in my post-vaccination spring and summer as it did in the dark moments of the pandemic’s first wave: Are you my booboo?
The question is never answered by Midge, my agoraphobic chihuahua, but the answer is obvious. She’s