Tag: depression

Categories
Comics Mental Health

Read The Sad Ghost Club

Read The Sad Ghost Club

Ever felt anxious or alone? Like you don’t belong anywhere? Like you’re almost… invisible? Find your kindred spirits at The Sad Ghost Club.

This is the story of one of those days – a day so bad you can barely get out of bed, when it’s a struggle to leave the house, and when you do, you wish you hadn’t. But even the worst of days can surprise you. When one sad ghost, lost and alone at a crowded party, spies another sad ghost across the room, they decide to leave together. What happens next changes everything. Because that night they start the The Sad Ghost Club – a secret society for the anxious and alone, a club for people who think they don’t belong.

I liked the art; the story was too YA for my preference. Relatable in parts, but too on the nose and very slow paced.

Categories
Mental Health

A skull full of poison: an apt metaphor for depression

Liked It’s very weird to have a skull full of poison by Adam Mastroianni (Experimental History)

I don’t know exactly what to call the thing I felt. “Mental health” and “mental illness” feel corporate and euphemistic, the kind of phrases you use when you’re trying to sell a meditation app, or when you’re explaining to your boss why you didn’t finish the PowerPoint on time. I prefer to think of my experience as having a skull full of poison.

I thought I’d recover from my skull-poisoning and everything would go back to normal, shipshape, better than ever, really! Redemption would have straightened out all the strangeness, like “ah yes, I get it now, this was all for something.” I mean, if there’s no arc, what’s the point? You just felt bad and then you felt less bad? That’s it?

I will happily take feeling better, thank you very much!

I wanted to solve my bad feelings the way I had learned to solve everything in life, which is by being a diligent student and a good boy. But you can’t ace feeling good like it’s a math test, and trying only makes you feel worse.

Relatable 😂

Categories
Memoir Mental Health Personal Growth

Read Wintering

Read Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult T…

Sometimes you slip through the cracks: unforeseen circumstances like an abrupt illness, the death of a loved one, a break up, or a job loss can derail a life. These periods of dislocation can be lonely and unexpected. For May, her husband fell ill, her son stopped attending school, and her own medical issues led her to leave a demanding job. Wintering explores how she not only endured this painful time, but embraced the singular opportunities it offered.

A moving personal narrative shot through with lessons from literature, mythology, and the natural world, May’s story offers instruction on the transformative power of rest and retreat. Illumination emerges from many sources: solstice celebrations and dormice hibernation, C.S. Lewis and Sylvia Plath, swimming in icy waters and sailing arctic seas.

Ultimately Wintering invites us to change how we relate to our own fallow times. May models an active acceptance of sadness and finds nourishment in deep retreat, joy in the hushed beauty of winter, and encouragement in understanding life as cyclical, not linear. A secular mystic, May forms a guiding philosophy for transforming the hardships that arise before the ushering in of a new season.

Liked some of this, wasn’t sure about other parts. The second half I liked better than the first. She has a keen eye for observation and describes her feelings vividly. I liked the bits of other places and natural history — dabbling in other people’s cultures less so. I’m not sure it all pulled together for me though I thought she ended it well.

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Categories
Art and Design Cool Mental Health

Looking at art makes your brain happier

Liked Canadian Doctors Will Soon Be Able to Prescribe Museum Visits as Treatment by Molly EnkingMolly Enking (Smithsonian Magazine)

Hélène Boyer explains that museum visits have been shown to increase levels of serotonin, a neurotransmitter colloquially known as the “happy chemical” due to its mood-boosting properties…According to Boyer, the uptick in hormones associated with enjoying an afternoon of art is similar to that offered by exercise…

Also in Brussels this year

So there’s a chemical reason I like going to museums 😂

Curious if anyone has studied whether the effects hold from a virtual visit 🤔

Categories
Getting Shit Done Mental Health

Watched How My Mental Health Affects My Productivity

Watched Mental Health And Productivity: A Peek Inside My Journey by Sarra CannonSarra Cannon from heartbreathings.com

Mental health is a topic close to my heart, because my own journey toward my goals has been as much about mental health as anything else. Today’s video is a casual, real chat about how my mental health affects my productivity, what my journey has been like up to this moment, and how I’m working […]

Anxiety and depression do impact your productivity

Task clarity — bite-size actions identified in advance that help her feel like she’s making progress towards her “dream future”

  • appreciate small joys
  • focus on physical basics — sleep enough, eat well
  • pay attention to your behavior — look for triggers of negative spirals
  • acknowledge your tough days, let yourself do simple tasks when feeling bad
  • pay attention to negative self-talk
Categories
Mental Health Self Care Society The Internet

Read Notes on a Nervous Planet

Read Notes on a Nervous Planet by Matt Haig

The societies we live in are increasingly making our minds ill, making it feel as though the way we live is engineered to make us unhappy. When Matt Haig developed panic disorder, anxiety, and depression as an adult, it took him a long time to work out the ways the external world could impact his mental health in both positive and negative ways. Notes on a Nervous Planet collects his observations, taking a look at how the various social, commercial and technological “advancements” that have created the world we now live in can actually hinder our happiness. Haig examines everything from broader phenomena like inequality, social media, and the news; to things closer to our daily lives, like how we sleep, how we exercise, and even the distinction we draw between our minds and our bodies.

Very casual writing style, like a collection of blog posts (even listicles 😂). I don’t have as much trouble as he does with phone use, but can relate to the overall overwhelming information intake of the internet and the constant marketing pressures. Enjoyed reading through this slowly. Complementary to Oliver Burkeman’s Four Thousand Weeks.

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Categories
Health Mental Health

Anxiety and depression increase risk of long COVID

Bookmarked Psychological, not physical factors linked to long COVID (news.harvard.edu)

“We were surprised by how strongly psychological distress before a COVID-19 infection was associated with an increased risk of long COVID,” said Siwen Wang, a researcher in the Department of Nutrition at Harvard Chan School who led the study. “Distress was more strongly associated with developing long COVID than physical health risk factors such as obesity, asthma, and hypertension.”

[D]istress before COVID-19 infection, including depression, anxiety, worry, perceived stress, and loneliness, was associated with a 32 percent to 46 percent increased risk of long COVID. These types of psychological distress were also associated with 15 percent to 51 percent greater risk of daily life impairment due to long COVID.

I hate self-fulfilling prophesies.

Link to paper:

Associations of Depression, Anxiety, Worry, Perceived Stress, and Loneliness Prior to Infection With Risk of Post–COVID-19 Conditions by Wang etc al, JAMA Psychiatry (2022)

Categories
Mental Health

Happiness and unhappiness should be measured separately

Bookmarked Happiness Is Two Scales by Uri (Atoms vs Bits)

The common way to talk about happiness is as a single scale: unhappy at one end, neutral in the middle, happy at the other end. I think that model is wrong.

If someone (including yourself) is struggling with low well-being, it’s important to ascertain which of two problems are happening:

  • not enough happiness
  • too much unhappiness

This is interesting and resonates with where I am now:

Removing unhappiness doesn’t actually increase happiness, it just…. removes unhappiness, which is good but unrelated.

Now that I am free of a stressful situation, I have space to add more happiness, but filling that opening with positive feelings isn’t a given.

Categories
Romance

Re-read Love in the Light

Read Love in the Light (Hearts in Darkness, #2)

Makenna James and Caden Grayson have been inseparable since the scorching night they were trapped in a pitch-black elevator. But they’re not strangers anymore, and Makenna hopes that night put them on the path to forever. All that stands in the way is introducing her tattooed, pierced, and scarred boyfriend to her father and over-protective brothers.

Must fight for love in the light…

Haunted by a childhood tragedy and the loss of his family, Caden never thought he’d find the kind of red-hot love he shares with Makenna. But the deeper he falls, the more he fears the devastation sure to come when he loses her, too. When secrets are revealed and the past threatens the present, Caden questions whether Makenna deserves more than he can give. Maybe they’re just too different—and he’s far too damaged—after all…

I liked this better than the first time I read it six years ago. I appreciate having a hero who struggles with his mental health but finds a way through.

Categories
Mental Health Society The Internet

Mental Health as Community, Identity, and Marketing Target

Bookmarked The BuzzFeedification of Mental Health by P.E. Moskowitz (Mental Hellth)

Did you know that the founder of BuzzFeed predicted that we’d all be yelling at each other about ADHD 25 years ago (kinda)?

Interesting theory that different diagnoses of mental health have been promoted as additional unique identities to be marketed to, though I’m not sure I’m quite that cynical (shocking honestly) / I feel like people gravitate towards like groups and want to identify and build community with others like them, and they are the ones reinforcing those micro-identities as they call them (even if corporations may have encouraged pathologizing neurotypical behaviors in the DSM). Identity politics and grouping are linked with the Internet beyond just mental health. I do appreciate the connection that capitalism feeds on identity.

The social model of disability fits neurodivergence as well as physical disability; it is society that makes other ways of thinking and acting unacceptable or more challenging. But, not sold on diagnosis being equivalent to a BuzzFeed quiz. Even for a changing condition, identifying the source of the challenge can in itself help treat the issue, or allow self-acceptance and compassion that improves other aspects of someone’s life. Realizing your brain is working in a way that it is not helpful to you can start a path of change. And for something like ADHD that reflects differences in brain chemistry, it is something that is part of how you are forever, even if it at some point is not a disability. (Or are they positing that neurodiversity shouldn’t be broken down or classified because diagnoses are too restrictive and reductive? You become more like the parameters of the identity you choose?) For me, anxiety and depression are ways of thinking that I have moved in and out of at different times in my life, and it is useful to know my brain tends that way so I can watch for early warning signs that I’m slipping back in and may need help.