7 Quick Takes Friday

1)  Please pray for my daughter-in-law, whose father has terminal cancer.  She is pregnant with her first child and is going to name the baby after him. It breaks my heart that she has to go through this at all, much less at such a young age and when she is becoming a mother.

Our Lady of Sorrows, watch over her.

2)  I've been struggling with feelings of depression and burn-out.  I'm going to be looking for a local NAMI group to join.  I wish there were a CHADD group nearby.

3)  Yesterday was the feast of St. Benedict.  I am especially attracted to his idea of stability.  Life isn't always smooth sailing, in spite of promises by some televangelists and advertisers.  Stability is one of the cornerstones of love. It is what makes us stick by someone through think and through thin.

4) I've been doing some preliminary research on ADD and it is amazing what I'm finding.  Factors that may contribute to causality include premature birth and maternal smoking, both of which apply to me (and my mother respectively) Along with distractability, ADD symptoms can include impulsivity (which, if involving food, can lead to weight gain) and slow processing.  So much is making sense.

5)  The pastor where I go to daily Mass often preaches on the importance of focusing  more on living out our Christian lives and less on the outward "trappings" of Christianity and Catholicism. This is hitting me where I live right now.  I think, if a person or group's focus is too much on outward signs of piety, it can lead to a kind of "shunning" (either overt or covert) of those perceived to be on the "outside" of the group.  We need to keep a close watch on ourselves if we find ourselves thinking that someone is not a "true" Catholic just because they don't happen to have a particular devotion that we favor.  I don't think approved devotions should be suppressed, but, in my opinion too much "official" focus on them can lead to marginalization of parishioners whose spirituality does not include those particular devotions.

6)  In spite of my support for getting rid of the HHS mandate (or putting in place a *real* conscience clause), I *am* in favor of universal health care in one form or another.  I think many Catholics are cutting off their noses to spite their faces when they tow the Republican Party line insisting that people without healthcare are lazy and evil.  We are morally obligated, as a society, I think, (and the bishops do too) to make sure everyone is cared for.  We need to stop the partisan politics and start caring for each other.  If we are innately suspicious of the Church's teachings on social justice, we are not in line with the Church.

7)  I really think that focus away from active love is what is killing our parishes and our faith. We need to not only set a good example of what Christians are, but we need to literally do what Jesus did--help, love and heal others.   We need to be counter-cultural, and right now kindness is the most counter-cultural thing we can do as Christians.

God Speaks to us in the Midst of our Depression

Our priest gave an interesting homily this morning.  He said that the Jewish people were depressed because they had been in exile and were waiting for their Messiah when the prophet Isaiah gave them a message of hope:

Strengthen the hands that are feeble,make firm the knees that are weak,Say to those whose hearts are frightened:Be strong, fear not!Here is your God,he comes with vindication;With divine recompensehe comes to save you.

I had never heard the word "depression" used in this context before, but as someone who struggles with depression,  I appreciate the connection.  The Lord is always there to bring us out of our dark days, whether through a word,  a smile, or a helping hand.   


I know I have to remind myself often not to give into feelings of despair and despondency.  Knowing that God is ready to listen makes a difference.  

The War on Anti-Depressants

Therese Borchard writes a thought-provoking article on her blog, Beyond Blue entitled Are Puritans Behind the War on Antidepressants?  Borchard suffers from depression and has written three books on the subject.  She is also the associate editor at Psych Central where she also blogs.

Her premise here is that our country's Puritan heritage has caused us to look askance at psych meds, believing that we should "tough it out."  Underneath this belief, she says, is the idea that the depressed person is at fault and must endure God's punishment.  This attitude, of course, can be part of and fuel the depression itself--not the best way to kick it.

Christ spoke against the blame-the-victim mentality when he told the disciples regarding the man born blind that it was neither his sin nor his parents' that caused the man's blindness.  Nevertheless, this dangerous misconception continues in many religious circles even today.

Borchard points out that most of the anti-medication claims are either "groundless or simplistic".  I'll add that this tendency lends itself beautifully to most media articles on the subject.  People read (and write) in attention-grabbing headlines and fail to point out the scientific nuances in these studies that should color treatment decisions.

This article is an essential read for anyone who is touched by depression--their own or someone else's.

The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive

The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive is a documentary by Stephen Fry, one-time comedy partner of Hugh Laurie (lately the star of House.)  Fry talks with both American and English sufferers of bipolarity about the effect of their illness and examines his own history and his current symptoms to decide whether or not he should resume treatment.

He discusses the (apparently American) trend to diagnose this disease rather early and muses about the link between his own creativity and mania.

In part 2, he searches for the answer to his apparently worsening symptoms by talking to people such as American actor Richard Dreyfus, who has been on lithium since the 1970's.  When he goes through a depressive episode during filming, he talks openly about it rather than his usual coping mechanism of hiding in his house and searches out a family whose grown daughter had resisted medication and hospitalization because of the fear of stigma.

He faces his fear of ECT and psychiatric hospitals by researching both and speaks to a doctor who keeps her symptoms at bay through diet and a lower stress lifestyle.  Another woman maps her moods.

Fry also takes us through one of his rather manic moods where he shops with a therapist along to rein him in. Then he meets with a young lady whose depression and its effects are making her feel suicidal.

While some portions of this documentary are difficult to watch, it is a well done, in-depth look at the illness and its treatments.

PTSD Awareness Day--June 27

Today is PTSD awareness day.  Millions of people in the United States develop Post Traumatic Stress Disorder every year.  Anyone who is a witness to trauma can develop PTSD.

Historically, PTSD was known by various names.  Called "Soldier's heart" in the American Civil War, it was known as "Shell Shock" in World War I and "Combat Fatigue" in World War II.

Symptoms include depression, anxiety, difficulty concentrating, flashbacks and nightmares, feeling detached, experiencing restricted emotional affect and a sense of a foreshortened future.  The person also may suffer from difficulty sleeping, be hypervigilant, angry and have an exaggerated startle response.

Children with PTSD may lose a recently acquired developmental skill such as potty training.

Any traumatic event may trigger PTSD in anyone, even if others similarly exposed do not go on to develop it.

The most effective treatment for PTSD is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) sometimes coupled with SSRI medication.

For more information on PTSD visit http://www.ptsd.va.gov.

Spirituality and Mental Illness

I wanted to call attention to a very helpful post by an internet friend, Lisa Graas about the spiritual needs of those suffering from mental illness.  Lisa suffers from depression and has outlined a very helpful means to emotional wellness.

She suggests offering up one's sufferings for others.  These graces, she says, are important not to waste.  It also gets us out of our own heads, something I had not thought of before.  It does not matter if you don't have anyone or anything specific in mind to offer up your sufferings for.  God will use them regardless.  You can always offer them for others who suffer from mental illnesses.

Lisa suggests a devotion to Saint Dymphna, something that is close to my heart.  She mentions St. Dymphna Shrines both in the United States and abroad, to visit.

Something else she talks about that I have also found crucial is the development of virtue.  I recently posted about how helpful Totus Tuus Ministries have been to me in that regard.  Overcoming one's shortcomings and avoiding their repetition reminds me very much of the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.  We must squarely face how we have hurt others and make amends when possible.

DSM-5 Proposed Document

The American Psychiatric Association has released a draft document of the fifth edition Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and is asking for public comment.  The website, dsm5.org, has a list of proposed revisions to the DSM-5  that you can click on and read.

So, if you have any personal opinions on the classification of mental illnesses or if you have a general interest in psychiatry and mental health, click on the above link and take a look.

Do remember, though, that diagnosing mental illnesses is a subjective task, which is why the DSM changes as often as it does.  Diagnosing is up to the individual psychiatrist.  There are no blood tests or any objective measures for doctors to use.  Those who do not fall neatly into the categories proposed must be diagnosed via the drugs that work to control their symptoms and hence, please the insurance companies.

Nevertheless, the proposed DSM-5 makes for interesting reading and is open to public comment.

The Americanization of Mental Illness

Last week's New York Times had a fascinating article called "The Americanization of Mental Illness" which postulates that unlike physical disease, mental illness has not been historically the same across cultures and time.  What we see as anorexia, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, with a particular set of symptoms for example, may not have always existed in a way that would be recognizable to psychiatrists of today.  In fact, the article says, mental illness is culturally specific.

Various countries, cultures and times have given rise to very different types of mental illnesses.  In some cultures in South East Asia, men sometimes suffer from amok, which is described as "murderous rage followed by amnesia."  In the 1890's some European men became labeled as "Mad Travelers" because they would travel on foot for hundreds of miles in a trance-like state, not knowing who they were.  Women in the same time period became afflicted with "hysterical" paralysis of the legs.

Now however, the instantaneous speed of world wide communication along with technological advances in medicine have exported the medical model of mental illness across the globe.  Mental illness is now seen as a result of a biochemical imbalance in the brain.  This perspective has overtaken the once prevalent psychosocial/environmental model of mental illness.  Along with this change, it was assumed that a medical model of mental illness as a brain disorder would increase compassion in the way those who suffer are treated by the outside world.

What is shocking is that recent studies have shown this not to be the case.  In fact, the medical model of mental illness may indeed be doing just the opposite.  A study in Turkey, for example, showed that people who believed schizophrenia was a "disorder of the spiritual or inner self" (ruhsal hastagi) were more likely to view those suffering from schizophrenia as less aggressive and more willing to agree that they should live in the community than those who labeled the disorder as "an illness of the brain or reasoning abilities" (akil hastaligi).

Another surprising finding is that patients in the United States and Europe are found to relapse more often than those in other countries.  The article suggests that in third world countries, mental illness is seen as something outside the patient and therefore not as integral to their identities as people.  Westerners see the brain as "the self".  A brain disease means the person is somehow no longer...a person.  The article  says that we in the "first world" are "hyperintrospective" and tend to "psychologize (our) daily existence".  Non western countries do not over medicalize every aspect of the human experience as we do in the west.  "Normal" is becoming a smaller and smaller box that our society wants to force each of its members to fit into.

The article ends by saying that "we are investing our great wealth in researching and treating mental illness...because we have rather suddenly lost older belief systems that once gave meaning and context to mental suffering."  The effect of this loss of a spiritual outlook has been to increase the mental illness label (and the fear that accompanies it in the greater social group) while decreasing compassion and acceptance of those who are labeled as "different."

Societies as old as civilization have had spiritual explanations and remedies for many things, including mental illness.  Throwing away this spirituality as superstitious is counter productive and ineffective.

Saint Thérèse--A Patroness for Mental Illness

Today is the feast of Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus.  I have hesitated writing this post because I feel like I could never do her justice.

Our parish has had a 3 day triduum of prayer for St. Thérèse.  Fr. Frederick Miller has come from Mt. St. Mary's seminary where he teaches theology, to preach the triduum on St. Thérèse.  He wrote his doctoral dissertation on her and has some amazing insights into her struggle with self-centeredness and her deep, deep love of Christ.

When Thérèse was alive on the earth, there was a tendancy to sentimentalize saints and things religious.  St. Thérèse is, even today, seen as a overly-sweet, flowery perfect-person who sailed easily into sanctity.  She was someone who was drawn to Christ from the beginnings of her time on earth, however, she was not someone who found sanctity easy. 

When Thérèse was born, she was taken to live in the home of her wet nurse, who became, for all intents and purposes, her mother.  At the age of one, she was (to her) inexplicably taken away from the only mother she had ever known to live with her biological family.  That was her first loss.

Three years later, her mother died of breast cancer.  Rather than allow herself to mourn, she immediately appointed her sister Pauline to be her substitute mother.  Five years later, Pauline entered the Carmalite convent, devastating Thérèse, who, no longer able to cope internally with so many losses, had a nervous breakdown.

She took to her bed for months. Her family was, needless to say, very worried about her and the doctors had told them that they could do nothing for her. 

What finally cured her was when her sisters brought a statue of Our Lady to the foot of her bed.  Thérèse saw Our Lady smile at her.  She was finally able to have the Mother that had been denied her.  It was the first of many graces in her life.

We have made St. Thérèse into a rather 1 dimensional saint, when, in fact, she was very complex.

I think we have another Heavenly advocate for those who suffer from mental illness.

Thérèse said, before she died, "I will spend my Heaven doing good on earth."

Let's ask her to help us in our daily struggles.

Note:  To purchase a CD of Fr. Miller's talk about St. Thérèse of Lisieux, go to Mount Media.  It is WELL worth purchasing! 

Childhood Anxiety--is our lifestyle worth the price?

According to The American Psychological Association's Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,

"if the average child of today were placed in a time machine and flashed back to the year 1957, he might be institutionalized as emotionally disturbed due to his high level of anxiety."

According to a study by Jean Twenge, PhD, an average child of today experiences the same amount of anxiety that a childhood psychiatric patient experienced in the 1950's.

Think, a minute, what this study tells us. It took quite a lot for a child to become a psychiatric patient in the 1950's. Yet, our stress levels for average children now match that level. Obviously, our levels of stress have gone way up. Also, everyone is experiencing these increased levels of stress, not just a few. Our society must have begun to assume that this constant level of stress is normal to be seeing this level of stress in most average children. And, finally, if our children were to be transported back to the 1950's, our high level of stress would probably get most of them a psychiatric diagnosis.

And yet, we are more medicated than ever. And yet, there is less stigma for many psychiatric conditions than there was in the 1950's.

What is happening? I would love to get readers' input on this. What things have changed since the 1950's that would negatively affect the psychological health of an entire population? What can be done about it on a societal level? What about an individual level? What changes must take place?

National Depression Screening Day--Oct. 10

October 10th is National Depression Screening Day. Screening for Mental Health, the organization who sponsers the event, has information on its website for health care providers, employers, government agencies and the public about depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and other mental health challenges affecting children, adolescents, college students, and those in the military, to name a few specific groups.

Click here to find a free depression screening near you, or take the free online evaluation from Screening for Mental Health.

Depression in College Students

A recent study has apparently shown that over 50% of college students have thoughts of suicide, as opposed to about 15% of the general population. That is a huge number.

Remembering my own depression throughout college, I wonder what is it about life as a young adult that causes this much depression.

My first thoughts are the "unnatural" setting that college students find themselves in. Being stuffed into overcrowded dorms with huge numbers of your peers, cut off from those younger and older than yourself, having no privacy and little sleep seems to me to be a recipe for mental health disaster.

My second thought is the fact that almost everyone in today's society feels they "have" to go to college, whether or not they are academically, financially, emotionally or socially prepared for it. There are precious few jobs and career paths out there for those for whom college is not a good choice.

As much as I value and support lifetime education, I think it is time for a viable alternative to the traditional college.

Another Catholic Blog on Depression

Rosario, a new reader to Dymphna's Well, has a blog that deals with depression and anxiety disorders from a Catholic perspective. Crown of Thorns, Crown of Glory has very insightful information on expressing your needs in a healthy way, Saints and their interior struggles, and some OCD links.

Check out another member of the Catholic Blogosphere!

Isolation

I heard a sermon on EWTN this morning while driving to work. The priest told a story of an exorcist (yes, there are still such things in the Church) who was performing an exorcism on a 19 year old girl. The priest asked the evil spirit who was possessing her, what relationship two people who were enemies while alive, would have in Hell.

The demonic spirit replied, "How stupid you are! There are no relationships here. People are completely wrapped up in themselves, constantly regretting and mourning the sins they have committed. It is like a cemetery."

I couldn't help but think of how easy it is for us as human beings to isolate. I think many of us in this modern culture even believe that isolation is the key to happiness. Apparently not. It is the gateway to Hell in more ways than one.

Isolation is such a temptation in this life and a great curse to those of us who struggle with mental illness. We must press on, however, We must "fight the good fight, finish the race and keep the faith." That includes reaching out and continuing to live our faith in the garden of humanity in which God placed us.

(The illustration is Van Gogh's, A Public Garden with People Walking in the Rain)

Mental Illness Awareness Week

It is better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness.

Wild cheers go out to Dolorosa Journal for pointing out, well in advance of the day, or in this case, the week, that October 7-13 will be Mental Illness Awareness week.

Tuesday, October 9, will be the National Day of Prayer for Mental Illness Recovery and Understanding. On that day, if your community does not sponsor something specific to raise awareness of the plight of mental illness, stop by your local house of worship to pray, light a candle, and lift up the pain in your life caused by mental illness to our God, who always hears us.

Online resources include NAMI, The National Alliance on Mental Illness, Hope to Healing, founded by Sr. Ann Catherine Veierstahler and Mental Health Ministries, founded by a Methodist minister who has also suffered from depression.

A Clarification

In reading over some posts, and being rightfully called on the carpet by some posters, I wanted to clarify the issue of mental illness vs. evil in the VA Tech shootings. Here is my position as clearly as I can explain it.

Evil exists. As a Catholic, I believe that God exists, and, so does evil.

But, as a mental illness advocate and consumer, I firmly believe that mental illness certainly exists and has nothing (in general) to do with evil. Mental illness is a brain disorder and by definition, causes various behaviors.

There are situations where an otherwise "sane" (read, non-mentally ill) person commits horrible atrocities. It is in those situations that it is easiest to see the work of evil.

But, the fact that evil exists, does not, by definition mean that the person committing those horrible acts cannot suffer from mental illness.

Mental illness does not preclude intelligence--it often accompanies it. People who suffer from mental illness are quite capable of planning and forethought in many cases. The fact that an act is planned, does not mean the perpetrator does not suffer from mental illness.

Mental illness is physical and for the most part, treatable.

In trying to balance my belief in the medical model of mental illness with my belief in the existence of evil, I missed the boat. For that, I apologize.

We have failed as a society

We are failing our mentally ill. The masacre at Virginia Tech and its horrifying aftermath has shown us that, as a society, we are putting the "rights" of people with severe mental illnesses to remain untreated ahead of the safety of our citizenry at large. The pendulum has swung too far and 33 people have paid the ultimate price.

Most people who suffer from mental illnesses are not a danger to themselves or others. Those people have a right to be supported and integrated into society at every level. There are those, however, who shows clear signs of violent tendancies which should never be ignored, especially at the institutional level. There were many incidences where the VA Tech killer showed signs that he was violently unstable and steps should have been taken to keep him away from the college community and to keep weapons out of his hands.