Children's Mental Health Awareness Day

The American Academy of Pediatrics and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) is joining together to celebrate National Children's Mental Health Awareness Day tomorrow (May 3rd). 

One in five children and adolescents in the United States have diagnosable mental health condition that requires monitoring or intervention and interferes with their daily functioning. Often a parent first talks to their child's pediatrician about their concerns before a mental health evaluation or other treatment is sought out. Just as many adults go to their primary care physician when they have symptoms of depression or anxiety, a parent often doesn't know where to turn to about the mental health of their child.

The AAP is recognizing that pediatricians are treating more children for behavioral disorders and is trying to bring awareness to what we can all do to help children who have suffered a trauma in their lives. The misconception by many is that children are resilient and are not as affected as we think they are. Many children are exposed to traumas that do have an effect on their mental health and emotional well-being.

This year, the national theme will focus on building resilience in young children dealing with trauma. Trauma can include disasters, violence, and family separation, as well as many other experiences. Coping skills are needed so that children can learn how to deal with stress that affects them.  

May is Mental Health Awareness month and the focus is on not only recognizing symptoms of mental illnesses but also encouraging people to get treatment. We can all help to end the stigma of mental illness by educating ourselves and others. Mental illnesses are treatable and they do happen to children. If you would like more information about mental health topics that affect children, adolescents and teenagers, check out the following links. If you have concerns about the mental health of your child or someone that you know, talk to someone about it.

 Dealing with a sibling's drug addiction

Oppositional Defiant Disorder

Self-injury videos on YouTube

 Recognizing and coping with Conduct Disorder

Depression and teens

Cyberbullying and your child 

Bipolar rage in children 

Sleep and the bipolar child 

 

What Chronic Depression Feels Like

Depression is the Demon

It sneaks up on me like a thief in the night. I was just living my life, feeling pretty good, and then, I feel it begin.

The darkness begins to creep in. I feel a sense of panic because I know what to expect. It has visited me before.

I get angry because I was feeling so well. Optimistic, confident and dare I say it, happy? Maybe I was even too happy. Like a storm that threatens to ruin a beautiful sunny day, I am disappointed. I let myself believe that this time I had it beat. The dark feelings weren’t coming back again.

But I was wrong.

In my mind I try and fight it. I recognize the familiar feelings begin again. The thoughts that all is hopeless invade my mind even though I try and make them go away.

I feel like crying for no apparent reason. Right now I can keep from crying but I know soon it will get harder. I feel so restless and I cannot distract myself although I try.

Then it deepens and I just stop caring again. I avoid talking to anyone because I don’t want them to know that it is back again. Soon there will be no hiding it. Everyone will know.

I hate that.

I’m afraid that they will get tired of me and leave me forever. In my mind I am screaming, "It isn’t me, it is the demon".

I still care enough that I feel ashamed by its power over me. I guess that is good. It hasn’t swallowed me whole. It is coming though.

The longer it holds onto me the harder it is to break free from its grasp. It chokes me and wears me down. My mind tries to reason with it but I am getting worn out from the fight.

It won’t let me sleep more than a few hours at a time. I wish I could just sleep until it goes away again but it doesn’t work like that.

The last time it was here I thought it would never leave. I knew what it was doing but I couldn’t stop it. I surrendered to it.

Like a zombie I went through my days barely functioning and certainly not caring. My mind raced with self-pitying thoughts. I took a shower only so I could cry without anyone knowing. But they knew. How could they not?

The negativity oozed from me and there was no hiding it. I was the darkness.

Now it is back and although it is familiar it is not my friend. Depression is the demon and it is not wanted here.

Extremes in Moods - When to be concerned

Extremes in moods with periods of "normal" behavior in between can make you wonder what is going on. Should you be concerned or if you are a woman, blame it on hormones?

There is a Test for Bipolar that can help you determine if the symptoms you have been living with are reason to get evaluated.

With so much talk lately about mood disorders, it almost seems like everyone you know can fall into some category. Diagnosis is not easy and relies upon honesty from the patient and a doctor who is well-trained in listening and hearing what a patient doesn't say.

Could you be bipolar ?

To many people, the thought is scary. We either have misconceptions about the mood disorder, we know someone who has it and is not doing well or we are afraid to be "labeled". You may not even be bipolar or even have a mental illness.

Believe it or not, it could be as simple as a food allergy, a vitamin deficiency or a reaction to medication that you already take. If you are a woman, it could be hormonal.

See your doctor if the extremes in your moods are out of control. If you feel concerned enough to wonder if you could be bipolar, then that is reason enough to go get evaluated. Being bipolar isn't the end of the world. Living with bipolar disorder is something that millions do and they live well in spite of bipolar.

Connecting mental illnesses to the mind/body connection

There is no question that sometimes an antidepressant is necessary when the grips of depression have you paralyzed. Relying on an antidepressant alone will only get you on an endless cycle of dependence on a pill to help you deal with life.

Depression is often the result of an inability to cope with an event or several events that happen in your life. Ignoring the cause of depression by just treating it with antidepressant medication is being in denial of your inner demons.

It does take courage to face these demons and although cognitive behavioral therapy can help, there is no guarantee that you will be successful. Some people can fight an inner demon for years sometimes suppressing it only to find that it returns in the form of chronic depression or anxiety.

Not to say that fighting depression or anxiety is hopeless because I firmly believe that you can overcome depression and anxiety.

I recently came across a blog written by a practicing Buddhist who is also a doctor. Dr. Alex Lickerman is also someone who suffers from mild PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder). His blog explores such ideas as the mind/body connection and how physical symptoms can be psychological in nature.

He has some ideas on how to help yourself with your depression and many of these ideas I have done myself. His theories on why we become depressed and his honesty about how difficult it truly is for doctors to properly diagnose and help their depressed patients is refreshing. As a Buddhist and a medical doctor he manages to balance medical science with Buddhism and explain it all in a voice that is encouraging yet honest.

It does take courage to face the cause behind your depression but unless you do the work, you are not going to see your depression go away.

If you are fighting the darkness of depression, these tips can help you to see the light.

Visualize

Visualization is a practice that involves seeing and believing that you have the strength to overcome whatever problem you are facing. Using visual aids such as a board that you personalize with positive affirmations, pleasing pictures or even simple words to remind you of how you see your life is another way to practice visualization.

Avoid major decisions when you are down

Sometimes this is not possible but many times it is. If you can recognize that you are not in your “normal” state of mind, cut yourself some slack and put off major life decisions. This will avoid you making further problems for yourself. Often when you are in the midst of depression, your mental attitude is not conducive to being able to think clearly.

Prioritize your problems

We can easily get overwhelmed by life especially when it feels like bad things keep happening. How bad are they really? Sometimes it is all about attitude but when there is too much for us to handle, we experience an emotional overload and shut down. We feel powerless to solve our problems because it feels like there are so many to deal with. Resolve to deal with one issue at a time. Realize that if you take it one baby step at a time, you can find solutions. Juggling all your problems at once isn’t working.

Stop and breathe- it will pass

Instead of succumbing to panic, stop, breathe and wait. Not only will everything seem to get clearer, but you will sometimes see that it isn’t as horrible as you imagined. Solutions may become more visible once you are able to calm yourself and think clearly.

Use distraction to heal your mind

Music, meditating, art, writing, or whatever soothes you will also distract your mind from the problems and stress that seem to be consuming your being. By taking a break from it all, you are rejuvenating yourself and the solutions to your problems may become clearer.

Face your fears

Acknowledge what is frightening to you and allow yourself to rationalize it. Imagine all the scenarios and remind yourself that no matter what- you can and will survive it. Maybe the outcome is not what you had imagined or hoped it would be but you can do it.

Write it down

Get out a piece of paper and write down everything. Spill your guts. Spell it all out on paper. Sometimes after doing this exercise you may see how silly some of your problems appear to be. Sometimes you can also recognize how you may be making your problems worse by your reactions to them!

Believe it or not, you will get through this. Try and think back to other periods of your life where you felt helpless and you were despondent. You made it through, didn’t you? You will get through this also. Accept that sometimes obstacles that happen in life bring changes that are good even though at the time they don’t feel that way.

Fear can make challenges scarier than they have to be. Fear can overcome you, paralyzing you to accepting change. Stress and disappointment can make you feel horrible about yourself, doubt your worth and make you feel hopeless.

There is always hope.

Believe it and it will be so!

Animal Hoarding

Many neighborhoods have the "crazy" cat lady who feeds strays and whose home is filled with several cats. Not too many people recognize the fact that animal hoarding is a result of a mental illness.

Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety disorders, depressive disorders and obsessive compulsive disorder are often responsible for a person's uncontrollable need to save and protect animals. Most of the time, the conditions that their animals are living in are less than humane.

Hoarding animals is a disease; there is nothing "normal" about it.

Thanks to television programs like Animal Planet's Confessions:Animal Hoarding, the dirty secret about why people hoard animals is being talked about.

Again, it brings back a common subject- stigma about seeking help for mental health issues. People hoard animals for several reasons but they all stem back to a traumatic event or a feeling of lacking control in their life. It is almost always rooted in depression or anxiety.

Treatment for animal hoarding includes cognitive behavioral therapy which can be extremely emotionally painful for people. Of course, the person needs to let go of most of the pets they are hoarding. They are forced to face what issues have caused them to become hoarders and giving up the security of hoarding pets is part of the painful process.

Each case must be looked at individually. That crazy cat lady in the neighborhood has her reasons why she needs to take care of all these cats. When she gets professional mental health treatment, the crazy cat lady can begin to heal and live a more normal existance.

Coming Clean or Beating the Stigma to a Punch

Catherine Zeta-Jones recently made the public admission that she had sought treatment for bipolar 2 disorder . Now the truth comes out via her husband, Michael Douglas on the Oprah show that it was not her intention to become a spokesperson for mental illness but instead, she spoke out before she was outed.

It still was a brave move for a celebrity to make. Certainly celebrities who are "outed" about other personal subjects can refuse to comment. It is just sad that there is still such a stigma against those who admit to having a mental illness.

If you look at the statistics, nearly 5.7 million adult Americans suffer from a form of bipolar disorder. Many who do have a mental illness hide it like a shameful secret.

Mental illnesses are no different than diseases such as diabetes, heart disease or high blood pressure. Is it because it involves behavior and mood swings and some mentally ill people are seen as "unstable"?

Although there are extremes in behaviors when someone is mentally ill, not every bipolar patient is without hope. Nor every schizophrenic, or anxiety sufferer or any other person who is afflicted with a mental illness.

Someday the stigma against those with a mental illness will have been replaced with compassion and understanding. I hope I see that day.

Depression and Women

Research shows that women are more likely to talk to their doctors about their mental health than men are. This is not a shocking revelation. Most women are more able to discuss their feelings than men are.

Is it the stigma of mental illness that keeps men from seeking treatment for their depression? Or maybe it is the male machismo that makes them feel like they need to not admit to such a "weakness"?

The disturbing part of this research is the idea that so many people still see depression sufferers as "weak" people. In my mind, it takes courage to admit yourself powerless to the symptoms of depression and treatment for depression includes being able to look in the mirror and face the issues that are causing your depression.

Depression happens for many reasons. You can be at a higher risk if you are genetically predisposed to mental illness but many times, depression happens because of a high stress event in your life. We are only human and many of us are not taught the coping mechanisms that we need to survive this life. Even if you do feel that you have the coping mechanisms, depression can still affect you.

Depression can happen to the best of us. It also can happen to the strongest people. Becoming depressed does not mean that you are weak- it means that you are human. Facing your depression takes courage and a will to want "normalcy" to return to your life.

Male or female, in your lifetime you may develop depression that is more than just the "blues". If you do, I hope that you will ignore the uninformed who call depression a weakness.

Depression is real and anyone who has ever been treated for it knows the truth. Don't be afraid to speak to your doctor if you think you have symptoms of depression . There is life after depression and it is good!

Bipolar Hope

I watched a show on Investigation Discovery today about a mother who was searching for her adult daughter that had disapppeared. Enough time had gone by for the mother to feel very strongly that her daughter was most likely dead, but she still wanted and needed closure.

During the piece, the mother mentioned that her daughter had been diagnosed with bipolar 2 disorder . This is not the first story I have heard about a young woman who disappears after falling off of her treatment program for bipolar.

Still, as a parent of a bipolar adult child, I have hope. What else can I do? I will never give up on my child. I know how strong I am and I have to believe that my strength is genetic. (my tendancy for mental illness was)

Today scientists, doctors and researchers have recognized that bipolar in children is very real. There have been documented cases of children as young as 5! The earlier someone is diagnosed with bipolar or any other disorder like anxiety or depression, the greater their success is of treatment.

Although my child was not diagnosed until adulthood, I still have hopes of her having a stable life. As any parent of a bipolar adult can identify with, when I watch programs about missing bipolar adults, I feel for the parent because I know their lives have been in turmoil long before their adult child disappeared. I hope that parent is never me.

Natural Remedies

Coping with anxiety is something that most people face at some point in their lives.

The teenager who is stressing over final exams is facing anxiety that can often influence how well they are going to do on their tests.

Starting a new job or embarking on a new business venture can produce levels of fear about what if and other concerns.

Taking a supplement such as Omega 3 has been proven to reduce symptoms of depression and can help those who are under stress.

Most doctors do not encourage their patients to choose natural remedies for disorders like depression and anxiety but not every patient really needs a pharmaceutical fix.

Orthomolecular medicine looks for a cause behind the symptoms. Unlike modern medicine, tests are done to look for deficiencies that can cause anxiety symptoms. You may only need to take a Vitamin B supplement if you are constantly tired and lack energy. It may not be depression at all!

Herbal remedies and vitamin supplements have been coming under fire lately with warnings that they can be dangerous to use. Not to sound like a conspiracy theorist but, with so many doctors pushing pharmaceutical drugs on their patients, maybe the powers that be are concerned that people who make the choice to try a natural remedy will hurt the billion dollar pharmaceutical business that runs our healthcare system.

Sometimes with some mental illnesses, a pharmaceutical drug is the best choice for treatment. Other times, an anti-depressant can do more long-term damage. Many people can overcome anxiety and depression by the use of herbal remedies, vitamin therapy, a more natural diet, lifestyle changes and stress reduction therapy. A pill with side effects and the risk of damage to your liver is not always needed.

Explore the idea of natural remedies by getting good medical advice. If your doctor is not open to the idea, find one who is. Weighing the benefits of natural remedies versus pharmaceutical fixes is the smarter way to cope with mental illness and honestly, whatever else ails you.

Labels

Labels are for jars, not people.

You are more than your diagnosis and in order to function in spite of a diagnosis, you need to remember that.

Conditions like anxiety disorders can be overcome. When you allow yourself to be labeled with your diagnosis, you can almost fall victim to it. Anxiety disorders can paralyze you and keep you from living the life that you deserve to live.

Fear should not be a part of life. Not the kind of fear that comes with anxiety disorders.

Treatment can help a person with any kind of anxiety disorder learn how to cope and eventually even overcome the fear that rules their lives. Cognitive behavioral therapy is a method that is widely used and proven effective.

With cognitive behavioral therapy, a person is forced to face the source of their fear and confront it. This is done with a professional who acts as someone who will "hold your hand" and encourage and teach you how to find the courage to face what keeps your anxiety alive.

Yes, it takes courage to face your fears and destroy these demons that cause anxiety to dictate your life. Anyone who suffers from an anxiety disorder does get to a place in their lives where they say "enough".

It is almost like someone who is addicted to a substance. Until the substance abuser recognizes their addiction and decides to do something about it, the substance has the power over them. Once the substance abuser decides to face their addiction, they can overcome it. It isn't always easy but it is possible.

The anxiety sufferer may know that their anxiety controls them. They may feel powerless to it but eventually, they will feel desperate for help. Facing it is scary. Changing it can take time but you can learn how to free yourself from anxiety.

Labels are for jars- not for people. Once you refuse to be defined by a diagnosis and decide to rise above it the strength will appear that you can use to fight back.