Life Sentence

I'm not usually a fan of this type of story, but this got to me. Well written, the pain and emotion came through. I had tears running down my cheeks.

Life Sentence

Antidepressants Not A Suicide Risk?

Antidepressants Not A Suicide Risk - Psych Central News

We hear people scream about the dangers of SSRI's, then this. So which is it?

The Marketing of 'Wristcutters: A Love Story'

From Mental Health America, via Liz Spikol's blog.

Dear friends,

We need your help. AfterDark Films plans to release a Lionsgate Entertainment movie this summer called Wristcutters: A Love Story. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival last year to some acclaim. Mental Health America and its national partners have not yet been able to view the film and cannot yet share any detail on the content.

This month, however, AfterDark will launch an alarming “shock and awe” advertising campaign featuring cutouts of the movie characters in the states in which they kill themselves (e.g., jumping off bridges and electrocuting and hanging themselves). These signs will hang from telephone poles and trees in communities nationwide.

Interestingly enough, recent outrage around the advertising campaign of another one of the companies’ films, Captivity, forced AfterDark to remove billboards that showed graphic images of women, being kidnapped, confined, tortured and killed.

Go to The Trouble With Spikol for information on how you can contact AfterDark and try to stop this highly offensive Wristcutters' marketing blitz.

Comeback Lines

From Comeback Lines

People who take medication to treat a mental illness often face opinions and advice from friends (and strangers) whose ignorant ideas about medication come from stigma-reinforcing sources that lack an understanding of the science, evidence-based treatment, and/or real experience of mental illness.

Next time an uninformed person tells you to throw away your pills, consider a response like this one by Bradtastic, a person with bipolar disorder. It’s his original text, framed by the Dinosaur Comics visual format.

Friday Shorts

You can file this under BFD if you like…
Leave a comment and I’ll link to your blog. If it has some relevance and connection to bipolar or other mental disorder, and is moderately interesting, I’d be happy to add the link and visit regularly. Don’t think this is coercion to get return links, I don’t care much about that. If you are a blogspot blogger, I’ll follow your profile to find your blog. Otherwise, you may need to leave me your URL.

On a related note…
I started using Bloggrolling for my links. Blogrolling is a free online service that stores your links. You sign up for an account, you decide on your categories or groups, and you add your links to the appropriate category. They even give you the code to add to your blog. You add a button to your browser toolbar (they tell you how to do it), and then you can add a link by simply clicking the button on your browser toolbar. One click to add a link to your blog! Ya gotta love it.

Speaking of notes...
Some albums I've recently come across, that are highly recommended. They're not new releases, but new to me.

North Mississippi Allstars, Robert Randolph, John Medeski - "The Word".
An incredible mix of gospel, R&B, rock, and blues. No vocals to interfere with the jams, and some incredible string-bending guitar playing.

Michael Franti & Spearhead - "Yell Fire".
Hip Hop meets reggae. Unique and very hip.

The New Pornographers – “Twin Cinema”.
I worked out to this CD today, and it was great workout music. Energetic without being heavy. Not headbanger stuff.

Speaking of headbanger stuff...
Expert Ties Ex-Player’s Suicide to Brain Damage

Since the former National Football League player Andre Waters killed himself in November, an explanation for his suicide has remained a mystery. But after examining remains of Mr. Waters’s brain, a neuropathologist in Pittsburgh is claiming that Mr. Waters had sustained brain damage from playing football and he says that led to his depression and ultimate death.

An excellent, and disturbing, article.

Enough odds and ends for today, I hope everyone has a great weekend!