Factoids

From The Influence of Exercise on Mental Health by Daniel Landers

Exercise is as effective at reducing anxiety and depression as psychotherapy, relaxation training, meditation, engaging in enjoyable activities, and social contact

Reduced anxiety
* Best results with “aerobic exercise”
* Best results after 10-15 weeks of regular exercise
* Best benefits for those who begin with lower fitness levels
* Best benefits for those who begin high in anxiety

Reduced depression
* Best results after 9 weeks of regular exercise
* Best results when done several times a week
* Best results with more vigorous exercise
* Best benefits for those who are more depressed

Exercise is associated with positive self-esteem, restful sleep, and ability to respond to stress

Effects of The Pill

* Combined oral contraceptives raise the levels of blood fats, cholesterol, and tryglicerides
* It has been shown that one in every 200 women coming off the pill will have no periods for the rest of their lives and it can take up to two years for the body to return to normal.
* The youngest women have longer exposures to pills, and breast cancer will affect 1 in 4 pill takers.
* The pill raises copper to abnormal levels in the blood, depletes zinc, magnesium, B-vitamins, essential fats and amino acids, which cause depressive symptoms.
* Early cervical cancer in pill takers is epidemic. Only a few years on the pill causes cervical cancer risk to increase 5 - 6 fold
* Studies show that pill takers are more likely to suffer from depression and commit suicide
* Prescribed hormones cause serious vascular illness sooner than smoking, (4 years in pill takers, whilst 25 years in smokers)
* The pill lowers the protective fats in the blood, while elevating the artery clogging fats
* Pill hormones cause cancer of target organs: breast, cervix, endometrium, and ovaries. The cancer occurs from weeks, up to 40 years, after exposure
* A few years on the pill increases melanomas (skin tumors) 2 - 3 fold.
* The risk of rare liver tumor increases with hormone exposure. The risk of benign tumor increases 100-500 times after five years of pill use. Cancerous liver tumors increase 4-5 fold, after eight years of pill use.
* Contraceptive hormones upset immunity causing an increased risk of STDs, infections, cancers, lupus, ME and MS.
* Ex pill takers have more risk of infertility and re-occurent miscarriages
* Magnesium deficiency from pill use causes excess parathormone secretion, which increases bone loss and osteoprosis
* Fibroid growths are stimulated by synthetic oestrogens. Ovarian cysts and ovarian cancers are more common in ex pill takers
* Prescribed hormones contribute to food and skin allergies and cause gut candidia. Many girls on the pill get thrush and or skin allergies.
* Prescribed sex hormones raise levels of stress hormones
* The risk of diabetes occurs with longer exposure. Hypoglycemic symptoms in pill takers is common and are early warning signs of diabetes to come.
* Pill hormones change blood vessels, dilate and thicken arteries and veins in the womb, legs, eyes, brain and throughout the body, ausing migraine, palputations, high blood pressure, clots strokes and heart attacks
* Risk of pill induced vascular death (strokes and heart attacks) is 10 times higher for women over age 35 taking the pill
* Some of the symptoms that women notice are:
Weight gain
Increase or decrease in acne
Nausea and vomiting
Dizziness
Headaches
*DEPRESSION*
Anxiety and nervousness
High blood pressure
Loss of libido
*Please see the study in the Journal of Sexual Medicine that with long term use loss of libido may be permanent http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/01/060104232338.htm

There are other birth control options out there! Two you may not know about are Ladycomp and Centchroman.

Meditation might be in order, since it kind-of feels like I am filled with fractals.

manic from the sunlight. manic from the sunlight. manic from the sunlight. manic from the sunlight. manic from the sunlight. manic from the sunlight. manic from the sunlight.

Can't I just die a little on the inside?

It's fucking exhausting trying to maintain my sanity in a crazy world.

It's the world that's crazy, not me. It's the world that's crazy, not me. It's the world that's crazy, not me. It's the world that's crazy, not me. It's the world that's crazy, not me. It's the world that's crazy, not me. It's the world that's crazy, not me. It's the world that's crazy, not me. It's the world that's crazy, not me. It's the world that's crazy, not me. It's the world that's crazy, not me.

So I am not really taking the highest of the high roads here. But it is all true.

My unemployed actor ex-boyfriends appears to have Narcissistic Personality Disorder.  Awesome.

From Wikipedia:
At least five of the following are necessary for a diagnosis :

1. has a grandiose sense of self-importance (check)
2. is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love (check)
3. believes that he or she is "special" and unique and can only be understood by other special people (giant check)
4. requires excessive admiration (check)
5. strong sense of entitlement (check)
6. takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends (check)
7. lacks empathy (check)
8. is often envious or believes others are envious of him or her
9. arrogant affect (check).

From Dr. Irene:
"The narcissist mimics real emotions artfully. He exudes the air of someone really capable of loving or of being hurt, of one passionate and soft, empathic and caring. Most people are misled into believing that he is even more humane than average.

From How to Recognize a Narcissist:
"A striking thing about narcissists that you'll notice if you know them for a long time is that their ideas of themselves and the world don't change with experience; the ones I've known have been stalled at a vision that came to them by the age of sixteen."

From Wikipedia
Narcissistic Personality Disorder "is considered to result from a person’s belief that he or she is flawed in a way that makes the person fundamentally unacceptable to others. This belief is held below the person’s conscious awareness; such a person would typically deny thinking such a thing if questioned. In order to protect themselves against the intolerably painful rejection and isolation they imagine would follow if others recognized their supposedly defective nature, such people make strong attempts to control others’ view of them and behavior towards them.

"Many other behaviors can stem from narcissistic concerns, such as immersion in one’s own affairs to the exclusion of others, an inability to empathize with others’ experience, interpersonal rigidity, an insistence that one’s opinions and values are “right,” and a tendency to be easily offended and take things personally.

"People who are overly narcissistic commonly feel rejected, humiliated and threatened when criticised. To protect themselves from these dangers, they often react with disdain, rage, and/or defiance to any slight, real or imagined. To avoid such situations, some narcissistic people withdraw socially and may feign modesty or humility.

"Though individuals with NPD are often ambitious and capable, the inability to tolerate setbacks, disagreements or criticism, along with lack of empathy, make it difficult for such individuals to work cooperatively with others or to maintain long-term professional achievements. With narcissistic personality disorder, the person's perceived fantastic grandiosity, often coupled with a hypomanic mood, is typically not commensurate with his or her real accomplishments.

"The interpersonal relationships of patients with NPD are typically impaired due to the individual's lack of empathy, disregard for others, exploitativeness, sense of entitlement, and constant need for attention.

"It has been suggested that Narcissistic personality disorder may be related to defences against shame."

And this is not just crazy ex-girlfriend talking. From How to Recognize a Narcissist again:

"Truthful reports about narcissists' private behavior are often treated as symptoms of psychological problems in the person telling the tale -- by naming the problem, you become the person with the problem. And I'm talking about the experience many of us have had with "the helping professions," including doctors, teachers, clergy, counselors, and therapists. This stuff is hard to talk about in the first place because it's weird, shameful, and horrifying, and then insult is added to injury when we're dismissed as overreacting (how many times have we heard "You're just too sensitive"?), deluded or malicious, as inventing stories, exaggerating, imagining things, misinterpreting -- it goes on and on. The fact is that there is next to nothing anyone can do to modify a narcissist's behavior and the only useful advice I ever got (first from my non-narcissistic parent, later repeated by my Jungian analyst) was "Get out and stay out."

I'm going to blame the meds. Nah, not really, it was the relationship.

I am so 20 different kinds of fantastic. When did I lose myself?

Next step: Chi-square test. Then one of those light thingies.

I totally have S.A.D.

I have been noticing how the voices shouting "Attention Wendy: Life is meaningless and full of sadness. Just thought you should know" do not seem to have the same grip on me lately. I can sort-of stop listening to them when I want to. And I am feeling an influx of fresh ideas and energy - wanting to write more and do more things and just generally beginning to feel more optimistic about the future. Like maybe the wind is blowing and I am walking across campus and the feeling starts to creep over me "Hey, maybe life isn't a meaningless void after all." And I thought about how my struggles with depression have always been in November and December. And I realized my writing has consistenly flagged in the winter and picked up in the spring.

Which made me visit my blog. Which led to a graph. Which proves I have S.A.D.


It's science, yo.

And this, combined with my PMS and energy shifts throughout the day, means I am just a collection of fluctuating wavelengths, all luminescent and wavering, up and down up and down up and down throughout the day/month/season, coalescing and expanding, twisting in unexpected but mathematically precise ways. Never knowing what direction I am going in any given moment. Like everything else in the universe, I guess.

Ah, life.

Speaking of Mental Illness...

MYTHS AND FACTS ABOUT MENTAL ILLNESS

Myth: It is unsafe to be around people with mental illnesses because they are likely to become violent.
Fact: People with a mental illness who are receiving treatment are less likely to be violent than the general population. They are more likely to hurt themselves than anyone else. In fact, someone diagnosed with schizophrenia is 2000 times more likely to commit suicide than they are to harm someone else.

Myth: Mental illness is a permanent condition. People diagnosed with psychiatric disabilities will never get better - they will just get worse and worse.
Fact: Mental illness can be treated just like any other illness. Over a 20 to 30 year period, the majority of people recover from even the most severe forms of mental illness. With treatment, 70-90 percent of individuals have significant reduction of symptoms and improved quality of life.

Myth: Depression is all in someone's head. They just need more will power to pull themselves out of it.
Fact: Mental illnesses are no different from physical illnesses. In many ways it is similar to diabetes. There are physical changes in an organ (for diabetes, the pancreas, for mental illnesses, the brain) that affect the levels of chemicals the organ produces (insulin for diabetes, neurotransmitters for mental illnesses). Someone with depression has difficulty changing their mood the way someone with diabetes has difficulty digesting sugar.

➢ One in five Americans suffers from a mental disorder.

➢ An estimated 44 million Americans experience a mental disorder in any given year

➢ Nearly two-thirds of people with mental illness do not seek help, even though effective treatments exist.

➢ Half of the population of the United States will have a mental illness some time in their lives.

➢ In 2000, mental illness, including suicide, was the Number 2 cause of disability, more than cancer and AIDS combined

➢ Among adults, 15% have anxiety disorder, 7 percent have mood disorders, and a little over 1 percent have schizophrenia

➢ Depression is common among people over 65. This group has the highest suicide rate. At the same time, depression is significantly under-diagnosed in this population. Many people think that depression is a normal part of life for older adults, so they do not seek help.

WHAT TO DO IF YOU THINK SOMEONE MIGHT BE SUICIDAL
1. Ask them if they are feeling suicidal.

Do not be afraid that you are going to plant the idea of suicide in their head. They will most likely be thankful that you are listening to them. If they say they are suicidal…

2. Find out if they have plan in place to kill themselves.

Ask if they have an idea of how they would kill themselves. You are trying to determine the seriousness of their intentions. The more specific the person is with their plan, the more they need immediate attention. Ask if they have thought about what method they would use and when and where they would do it. If someone says, “Oh, I haven’t thought about it too much” they still need your support and professional help, but it does not need to happen immediately. If they say, “I plan to kill myself on my father’s birthday next week by shooting myself with my grandfather’s gun in my garden” they need immediate professional attention.

3. Seek professional help immediately if the person seems to be in immediate danger.

You can call 911 or, in Austin, call the Crisis Line at 472-HELP

4. Remove means of suicide from environment

5. Make a no-harm contract with them.

Make a written contract with the person stating that they will not hurt themselves for a certain amount of time (decided between the two of you) without talking to someone first, particularly a mental health professional. Have them write it down.

6. Help them find professional help.

Help them find the number of a mental health professional and make an appointment. Offer to drive them to the appointment. Again, have them write it down.

7. Be supportive and listen to what they have to say

8. Get support for yourself, too.

Perhaps my whole blog could be distilled down to pictures from Post Secret and A Softer World

Note to self

Smoking does not make you less restless. And shifts in energy are not problems.

I am going to stay in bed all day and write bad poetry.

I never rest, cheekbones tight
a thousand forgettings

my waist a river stone
dreaming of return
recalling the purr under the surface
patiently caressed over ever and over
ceaselessly, in the water soaked light

remembering

yeah, that was ugly