‘The numbers are tragically high: every year, approximately 2 million U.S. adolescents attempt to end their own lives. An estimated 2,000 succeed, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness…Yet suicide experts say it’s not uncommon for parents to be taken completely by surprise by a child’s depression and suicide and learn about the factors[…]
“Depression. Anxiety. Emotions!!! We’ve been talking about all of them on Smart Girls a lot lately because frankly, we think it’s time to put an end to the stigma around mental health. Another Smart Girl who is looking to end the stigma around depression is author, musician, and all around artistic lady Elizabeth Swados. After[…]
“So if one out of every four people struggle with mental illness, then why did I feel like I was they only person who had ever experienced this before? If 25 of every hundred people I pass on the street have a clinical need for psychiatric care, then why did I feel like I had[…]
“In the last two decades, it has become widely accepted that postpartum depression, which can make mothers both inattentive and irritable, is dangerous, and many states have instituted programs to screen for it and treat it. Far less recognized is an equally troubling condition: antenatal depression, or depression suffered during pregnancy, which affects up to[…]
“We don’t talk about mental illness in my family. Rather, we wish we didn’t have to. When we do, it’s the folk sickness that twines its way through my maternal lineage like ivy. We speak of it in whispers, though everyone’s been treated for it at some point, Prozac and Zoloft and Lexapro all the[…]
“I wish somebody had told me that it’s OK to be anxious,” says Wilson in the video. “That you don’t have to fight it. That, in fact, fighting it is the thing that makes it worse.” And in addition to discussing her experience, she also demonstrates a breathing exercise that she uses to help her[…]
“We definitely need to continue the mental health awareness efforts that are being done by amazing organizations. We also need to go further. Most organizations and campuses have been focused on training faculty, parents and students on what to do when someone has a mental health challenge, but typically the only thing we tell someone[…]
“With high-school seniors deciding where they’ll be attending college in the fall, now is the time, psychologists and psychiatrists say, for teens and their parents to focus on how to maintain good mental health away from home. This is particularly vital for the growing number of teenagers who have already struggled with mental illness in[…]
“Some teenage girls are headed to the White House Monday to be recognized for an app they created. Their “Safe & Sound” smartphone app is meant to help teens struggling with depression and anxiety.” Listen to the story here Source: NPR.org, Morning Edition Image Source: NPR.org
“It’s been a couple of months since I came out as a man suffering from depression. Perhaps it is the people I’ve chosen to surround myself with, but I have faced none of the harmful judging I’ve heard accompanies such a revelation. Conversely, there is a better than good chance people are judging me negatively[…]
