“Broken” wrote about his experience in the middle of the night, when he described finding himself unable to sleep and have rationale thoughts.

I wanted to share this post because of three things that “Broken” did for himself that probably saved his life:

1. He recognized something wasn’t right, and saw a “danger” signal.

3. He asked for help, continuously.

Having personally experienced that “bottomless abyss”, I can say that asking for help (#3) was most difficult for me, yet it’s probably the most critical. When the illness disrupts your connection to yourself, sometimes connecting with other people is a round-about way of reconnecting with yourself again. This is why it’s so important to have people who are willing to just listen to you as you purge that tangled mess in your mind.

You CAN get through this. I believe it is just like any skill that we learn and become better with practice; at least, that is what I’ve found true for myself.

Once you’ve pulled yourself through an episode, no matter how dark how frightening how long it seems to last - you realize that you CAN pull through, that you HAVE pulled through, and that you WILL be able to pull through if darkness calls again.

Welcome to the October 30, 2007 edition of carnival of depression, bipolar disorder, and mental health journeys.

GrrlScientist looks at a well-covered media topic from a fresh angle: Is There A Genetic Link between SSRIs and Suicidal Ideation? She writes, “A new study provides preliminary data suggesting that a gene variant is linked to suicidal ideation triggered by SSRI treatment in a small subgroup of people taking citalopram (celexa).” The study to observe changes in proteins that affect glutamate signaling. Although this study is preliminary and only limited to one antidepressant within the SSRI class, it suggests at least a couple of things to me: 1) the possibility of using a genetic test to help identify those patients at great risk for developing suicide ideation on SSRI type of antidepressants, thereby helping physicians better manage and monitor for those risks, and 2) the role of glutamate signaling in mental illness, including depression and bipolar disorder. I’ve read years ago about the effects of lithium and valproate (BP drugs) on glutamate signaling.

Isabella’s World Mental Health Day: A Cultural Round-Up was an interesting “mental health tour” around the world, looking specifically at certain cultural groups as well as suicide trends. This was particularly timely, as I had received an email asking for mental health resources relating to Asians, for which there is a lack of information and (in my opinion) support and awareness. In many cultures, depression is still depicted as a character flaw and something to be ashamed about. This fosters continual denial and prevents people from seeking treatment for otherwise manageable diseases.

Megan Bayliss’s A conversation about self-harm was a very smart way to present a set of frequently asked questions about self-harm. It was presented as a conversation that helps us understand how someone who self harms processes this coping mechanism. For example: Question: As you said, you have a cut to show people how you feel - yet you keep your self-harming behaviour a secret? Answer: To you it doesn’t make sense but to me it makes perfect sense. The cut is a visual display of my pain. I don’t have to share it if I don’t want to but to me it represents everything that is under the skin. And if I really have to show someone how I feel inside I can just show them my cuts.

Marcella Chester covers some recent events surrounding anger and how law enforcement make judgment calls that sometimes may have deadly consequences. One of my friends formed a company specifically to pair law enforcement personnel together with professional actors to help law enforcement better manage situations of mental health crisis.

Thank you to all those who submitted articles to this edition of my mental health carnival. Congratulations to those whose entries made it into this carnival! Please note that even if your entries were not selected (my selection criteria have become stricter, and I limit each edition to include only 3-4 entries), I personally visit and read each and every one of your submissions. To submit your best articles for consideration in a future carnival, please use this link.

Until Next Time!

Marie sent me a video meditation on all the stuff she’s bought to try to “fix” herself; it was one of the more creative blog entries I’ve received. Here’s the link to Marie’s video meditation and to her blog, Diary of a Bad Buddhist. I don’t know what “dialectical materialism” is, but it makes Marie happy, and at least it only takes up virtual space and not the space in her house!

GrrlScientist is quite prolific and sent me three entries, one relating to mental health research and two relating to suicide trends. In terms of the research material, I’d recently written about the potential utility of the enzyme Protein Kinase C in designing novel drugs for treating the mania phase of bipolar disorder, although I have reservations about the clinical study itself (too few participants). GrrlScientist covers a few other recent developments in bipolar disorder research.

I had seen the recent CDC report on teen suicide and wanted to bring it to your attention. I also remember last year when GrrlScientist wrote about her own suicide attempt and her experiences in the psychiatric ward (and no one taking good care of her parrots!).Thus GrrlScientist can write about suicide prevention from a personal perspective and I encourage you to visit her article.

Part of the speculation around the increase in suicide amongst teens is whether the 2003 mandatory “black box” warning for antidepressants had something to do with this trend. In other words, are teens killing themselves due to depression that is not treated, as doctors have become wary about prescribing SSRI-class of antidepressant drugs to children and teens after numerous reports of SSRI-induced suicidal ideation? GrrlScientist writes about this also.

Last week, I listened to a radio interview with one of the authors of CDC’s suicide trend and this question was raised. The author didn’t directly address it, only emphasizing that suicide is a complex behavior and is contributed by many factors. I think treating teen and child depression can get tricky, and the black box warning serves to make doctors aware of the risks involved when prescribing these drugs off-label (i.e. not approved by the FDA) for such vulnerable population of patients. That’s not to say that a doctor cannot prescribe an SSRI antidepressant for a patient whose condition requires immediate treatment, but the risk warnings caution doctors to carefully watch and monitor that patient if an off-label prescription is given.