Tag Archives: mental health

I Have ADD

Amelia McDonell-ParryFebruary 9, 2012 //

How much should you know about your psychologist's personal life? Read More »

Explaining Depression

What does it really feel like to suffer from depression? Read More »

Find A Therapist

Seven tips for finding the right therapist. Read More »

When I first started taking Adderall, it wasn’t prescribed to me — it was my boyfriend’s. It was 2006, and I had a fun but creatively unfulfilling job at a men’s magazine. On the weekends, I was determined to grow a freelance career that, god willing, would allow me to quit. Freelance writing, especially when you’re starting out, involves a lot of pitching, in particular pitching editors who don’t know you. It’s a lot of coming up with ideas, proposing those ideas, and waiting, hoping and praying, that someone, anyone bites and is willing to pay you a decent sum to write it. To be a successful freelancer writer, you have to be extremely motivated and focused.

I had the motivation. But focus was out of my grasp. I felt stuck literally and mentally. And being stuck make me anxious. Keep reading »

Girl Talk: In Defense Of Being Lazy

Jessica WakemanJanuary 19, 2012 //

Explaining Depression

What does it really feel like to suffer from depression? Read More »

Be More Productive!

Here are nine surefire ways to make 2012 your most productive year yet! Read More »

Find A Therapist

Seven tips for finding the right therapist. Read More »

What do you do when one of the things you used to like about yourself the most, looking back, becomes one of the things that you like about yourself the least?

From as young as I can remember, a rocket ship of ambition propelled me forward in all that I did. I didn’t — and still don’t — have a wide variety of interests, because writing was where I excelled. I threw everything into it. My parents, of course, fanned the flames of this. They loved having a daughter who made them proud.

And I loved getting some attention. My older brother Eliot*, his bipolar disorder and his drug and alcohol addictions, consumed most of my parents’ energy and nearly all of their attention. I wrote a poem when I was 13 or 14 that I can remember to this day because it still applies to my life sometimes. It was called “Measuring Cups” and it was about parents struggling to measure out love and attention equally amongst their children, but failing. When I was that young, the best way I could find attention, short of developing a heroin addiction myself, was to impress my parents with awards and articles and prizes and accolades. There was no confusion about this lifestyle, no hard choices to make. All I had to do was whatever made me look the best. Keep reading »

7 Tips For Finding The Right Therapist

Angie JacksonJanuary 10, 2012 //

New Year, New You

Everything you need to kick 2012 off right. Read More »

Shrink-Dumped!

I got dumped by two shrinks -- before find the right one for me. Read More »

On Saying "No"

Ami talks about how she needs to learn how to say, "No." Read More »

There’s nothing quite like spilling all your secrets to a complete stranger. It can be liberating … or it can be terrifying. Plus, going through your HMO’s provider book isn’t going to tell you what you want to know about the therapist you’ll be working with. I’ve been seeing therapists on-and-off for a decade and a half now, and I’ve learned a bit about shopping for a new one on the way. Here’s how it goes… Keep reading »

Girl Talk: I Got Dumped By Two Shrinks

Cristina Fahrbach-ConnorsDecember 28, 2011 //

Therapy Boundaries

How much should you know about your psychologist's personal life? Read More »

Explaining Depression

What does it really feel like to suffer from depression? Read More »

Depression Overshare?

Should Jessica not have told her boyfriend's parents she's depressed? Read More »

The first psychiatrist (“shrink”) I ever saw helped me through a rough time by prescribing me an anti-depressant. I figured I’d be on it short term until I was in a better place. That shrink took my health insurance. I didn’t realize how lucky I was.

Little did I know that once I relocated and needed to find a new doctor, I’d have a better chance of finding a unicorn with a prescription pad than a decent shrink who’d accept my insurance. Keep reading »

Panic Attacks, Explained In Cartoon Form

Jessica WakemanDecember 20, 2011 //

Explaining Depression

What does it really feel like to suffer from depression? Read More »

Celeb Mental Cases

These celebs have talked about their mental issues. 8 Photos »

Celebs On Depression

Celebs open up about coping with depression. 10 Photos »

Here at The Frisky’s offices, one of the most hotly anticipated books of 2011 is Agorafabulous!: Dispatches From My Bedroom, by the comedienne and all-around-awesome-lady Sara Benincasa. I love this girl for her balls-out honesty regarding her mental health struggles with agoraphobia and anxiety. Agorafabulous! is based on Sara’s one-woman show of the same name, which recounts how vicious panic attacks created a fear of the outside world, to the point where she refused to leave her college dorm room. In this cartoon, Sara explains all about anxiety attacks, the “flight or fight” response, and why you shouldn’t shop at Whole Foods. As someone who has suffered from panic attacks from age 15 onwards, I could have used an explanation like this back when I was hyperventilating and didn’t know what the eff was going on!

Abortion Not Linked To Mental Disorders, Study Says

Stefanie BlejecDecember 9, 2011 //

Dear Wendy

This woman's boyfriend was absent when she had an abortion. Read More »

Abortion Lies

CPCs scolded for misleading women about abortion. Read More »

WTF Abortion Billboard

Crazy guy shamed ex with a billboard because she had an abortion. Read More »

Having an abortion does not increase a woman’s chance of developing mental health problems, a British health agency has found. The U.K.’s National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health compared a number of studies conducted worldwide in the past 20 years and found that in cases of unwanted pregnancy, women who chose abortion were no more likely to develop disorders like depression and anxiety than those who gave birth. Research does point to an increase in mental disorders in women with unwanted pregnancies in general, with approximately one in three women with unwanted pregnancies diagnosed with such disorders. These statistics did not rise, however, in the cases in which women underwent abortion. Keep reading »

Girl Talk: I’ve Got “Recovery Envy”

Rachel Kramer BusselNovember 18, 2011 //

Addicts On TV

The small screen's most realistic drug and booze abusers. Read More »

Mistress Of "Sober House"

Meet Jennifer Gimenez, the former den mom of Sober House. Read More »

Addiction Memoirs

The 10 best books about addiction. Read More »

I’m not an addict, and I’m not an alcoholic. But as offensive as this may sound, I sometimes I wish I were, if only so I could have a language and a community to help me deal with what often seem like out of control urges—a structure surrounding me to help me cope with, well, life. But there are no 12-step meetings for people who simply have trouble getting up every day, who feel hollow and weak and unworthy, but who don’t gloss over those feelings with a single, predictable vice. Over the course of my life, I’ve certainly used alcohol, sex, shopping and food to help quell those feelings, and they’ve each worked, in limited doses, but eventually their effects wore off.

The thing is, though, my rock bottom moments don’t revolve around alcohol, though I’ve consumed my share, or drugs (I’ve attempted to smoke pot twice, and basically failed each time); sometimes it’s food, sometimes it’s sex, sometimes it’s shopping, but I fundamentally believe that the core part of me that hates myself in those moments when I’m eating an entire box of cereal, screwing someone I’m not that into, or buying a pair of shoes I don’t need and can’t afford, is the same impulse that drove, say, my father or grandfather to drink (both are recovering alcoholics). Keep reading »

Limerence: A Psychological Condition To Describe A Crush That Won’t Go Away

Amelia McDonell-ParryJuly 18, 2011 //

My senior year of college, I fell head over heels in love (or so I thought) for the first time. Aaron* and I had an on-and-off friends with benefits type situation that I kept hoping would evolve into more. It didn’t and I probably should have stopped hooking up with him because it really wasn’t benefitting me mentally. But I just couldn’t. Not being with him literally made me sick. I thought about him almost constantly, completely involuntarily. The obsessive thoughts continued even after I graduated and moved to New York, when having a FWB relationship wasn’t even possible. I would think about him while I was at work, while I was on the subway, before I went to bed at night, all the time. In total, my mind and heart’s obsession with him lasted for three goddamn years. Sounds kind of crazy, right?

Turns out, my crush may have actually been a sign of a rare psychological disorder called “limerence,” in which someone “is in a constant state of compulsory longing for another person.” Keep reading »

Today’s Lady News: Oregon Jail Says “No Bail, No Abortion”

Jessica WakemanJuly 5, 2011 //

A jail in Oregon won’t let a 23-year-old pregnant woman have an abortion unless she posts 1/10th of her $65,000 bail. You see, her abortion is not an “emergency.” Um, hello? This woman is being treated for mental health issues! She doused herself with paint thinner! And lighter fluid! She sure sounds like an excellent candidate for unwanted motherhood to me. Sigh. [Yamhill Valley News Register via Reproductive Rights Reality Check]
The hotel maid who accused Dominique Strauss-Kahn, former chief of the IMF, of sexual assault announced she will sue The New York Post and five of its reporters for libel after it published a story on Saturday claiming she was a prostitute. [Reuters]
Meanwhile, writer Tristane Banon has filed a complaint accusing Strauss-Kahn of attempted rape in 2003. [Los Angeles Times]

Keep reading »

“Teen Mom”‘s Amber Portwood Attempted Suicide

Jessica WakemanJune 15, 2011 //

“Teen Mom” was always real … but it just got real. Emergency personnel responded to Amber Portwood‘s house in Anderson, Indiana, on Tuesday morning after a call from Gary Shirley’s mother claimed the 21-year-old mother was depressed and threatening to kill herself. According to Star magazine, police arrived to find Portwood lying face-up on a couch with a rope “loosely knotted around her neck.” She was apparently fading in and out of consciousness and needed an oxygen mask to help stabilize her before she was taken to a local hospital. Amber Portwood’s life, as chronicled on MTV and in the tabs, has always been a hot mess — from her boy drama to her arrest for assaulting Gary Shirley, the father of her kid — and I’m sorry to see how it’s affecting her. Mental illness is not something that can be ignored in hopes that it just goes away. I hope Amber Portwood and MTV take this suicide attempt seriously and get her the help she needs.

[Radar Online]
[Us Weekly] Keep reading »