Depression and Suicide Re-Visited in the Aftermath of the Death of Robin Williams

Robin Williams… Humble Hero and Comic Virtuoso Dead at 63

Goodbye Robin Williams… May you rest in peace!!  Thank you for all the joy and laughter you brought into all our lives!!  For the talent you shared and for all your good works!!  May you find the joy, peace and laughter that you were looking for in the next life!!  Read more here

 

By Marion Algier  -  True Health Is True Wealth (THITW)  -  Cross-Posted at AskMarion

The world was shocked to hear of the death of Robin Williams and even more shocked to hear about the details of his death… his suicide after a life of depression.

Two movies that Williams made come to mind when thinking about the events surrounding his death: Dead Poets Society and What Dreams May Come.

How the lessons of ‘Dead Poets Society’ can help us understand suicide and depression:

By Alyssa Rosenberg – Washington Post: As we have absorbed the news that Robin Williams committed suicide at the age of 63, the conversation about his life and legacy has starfished in any number of directions, some of them outrageously ghoulish, many of them thoughtful. I have been struck by many of the pieces that focus on two ideas: the greatness of Williams’ performance in the period private school drama “Dead Poets Society” and attempts to render suicide and depression more comprehensible.

(Buena Vista Pictures)

“I stand upon my desk to remind myself that we must constantly look at things in a different way,” John Keating (Williams) told the boys in his high school English class in “Dead Poets Society.”

But poetry does more than give us unique perspectives on familiar subjects. It can be a powerful pathway into the mind-sets of profound depression and suicidal ideation that are difficult to render rational to people who are trying to understand them from the outside, and that are flattened by all but the most incandescent prose writers. If we are to truly take Keating’s advice, we ought to examine the same medium that explains to us why we live for insight into why some people choose to die.

Keating teaches his boys Alfred Lord Tennyson’s “Ulysses,” with its injunction from the Greek hero, “How dull it is to pause, to make an end, / To rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use!”

He might have reached back to Ovid’s “Metamorphoses” and the story of Ajax’s suicide. In Sir Samuel Garth and John Dryden’s translation, the mighty fighter, furious that Odysseus has been awarded a prize that Ajax believed rightly his, and unable to understand the logic that permits such a decision, commits suicide. “He who cou’d often, and alone, withstand / The foe, the fire, and Jove’s own partial hand,  / Now cannot his unmaster’d grief sustain, / But yields to rage, to madness, and disdain.”

Or what about the “Aeneid,” which gains so much of its power from a seeming contradiction. When Aeneas meets Queen Dido, he is in awe of her. In Robert Fitzgerald’s marvelous translation, Aeneas marvels “What age so happy / Brought you to birth? How splendid were your parents / To have conceived a being like yourself!”

But Aeneas’s hope that “your name and your distinction / Go with me, whatever lands may call me” carries with it the promise that he will leave. When he does, Dido’s understanding of the laws that are meant to govern gods and men cracks and she becomes fixated on a vision of her own death. Virgil captures the moment before her suicide in stunning verse: “Dido’s heart / Beat wildly at the enormous thing afoot. / She rolled her bloodshot eyes, her quivering cheeks / Were flecked with red as her sick pallor grew / Before her coming death. Into the court / She burst her way, then at her passion’s height / She climbed the pyre and bared the Dardan sword– / A gift desired once, for no such need.”

I sometimes wonder if Keating read the work of Weldon Kees, who disappeared in 1955. Kees’s fate is a mystery, but even if he did not kill himself, his vanishing act is a kind of self-murder.

Kees’s work captures the flatness of depression beautifully. In a series of poems about a character named Robinson, Kees describes the man’s “sad and usual heart, dry as a winter leaf.” Ultimately, Robinson vanishes, his absence throwing a pall over the world: “The mirror from Mexico, stuck to the wall,” Kees writes, “Reflects nothing at all. The glass is black.  / Robinson alone provides the image Robinsonian.”

Many of Kees’s other poems seem to suffer from infections similar to the ones that ravage Robinson’s spirit.

In “For My Daughter,” he darkly speculates about the fates that a woman can meet, “Parched years that I have seen  / That may be hers appear: foul, lingering  / Death in certain war, the slim legs green. / Or, fed on hate, she relishes the sting  / Of others’ agony; perhaps the cruel / Bride of a syphilitic or a fool.” The poem ends in a surprising place. “These speculations sour in the sun,” Kees admits. “I have no daughter. I desire none.”

In “The Upstairs Room,” he uses that same sense of surprise to talk cruelly about “The floor my father stained,” not with varnish but with “The new blood streaming from his head.” The characters in “Five Villanelles” are paralyzed, prevented even from acting to protect themselves: “Here in the kitchen, drinking gin, / We can accept the damndest laws. / We must remain until the roof falls in.”

“Dead Poets Society” is set in 1959, at the same moment that the confessional poets were emerging as a significant force in American letters.

If Keating’s teaching took, I can imagine the young men of that film encountering Anne Sexton’s sharp observation in “Wanting to Die” that “But suicides have a special language. / Like carpenters they want to know which tools. / They never ask why build.” Or maybe they would be touched by Robert Lowell’s report of his stay in a mental health facility in “Waking in the Blue” that “We are all old-timers, / each of us holds a locked razor.” Lowell himself recalled Dido in “Falling Asleep over the Aeneid.” His character dreams that he is Aeneas, holding the sword that Dido used to kill herself, when he is visited by a bird who counsels him “Brother, try, / O Child of Aphrodite, try to die: / To die is life.”

Sexton and Sylvia Plath captured the grinding drive towards annihilation in “The Double Image” and “Lady Lazarus.” In the former, Sexton watches leaves fall off the trees with the daughter she has failed to parent because of her suicide attempts and stays in institutions. “I tell you what you’ll never really know,” she tells the little girl, “all the medical hypothesis / that explained my brain will never be as true as these / struck leaves letting go.”

“This is Number Three.  / What a trash / To annihilate each decade,” Plath writes in an expression of extreme weariness.

In Elizabeth Bishop’s “One Art,” she counsels readers that ” It’s evident / the art of losing’s not too hard to master / though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.” It is good advice. But poetry can help us see that while we are supposed to recover from losses like Bishop’s, or John Keating’s loss of a student and a job, not all of our brains work the same way.

What Dreams May Come also deals with depression, death and suicide and attacks the religious stance that there is not escape from suicide, that once you go down that path you will spend all eternity in Hell.

There is such a profound sense of drama, magic and emotion behind the story in "What Dreams May Come," a film based on the novel by Richard Matheson. There is a strong story with which anyone who loves someone else can identify, as well as an ostentatious and elegant scope of visual and auditory imagery that jumps right for your eyes onscreen. Matheson's visions of heaven and hell are magnificently realized here, as well as the love between two people that is unbreakable, even after death. 

The movie begins with the chance meeting of two American tourists traveling in Switzerland. Soon after, Chris and Annie become inseparable, and after their wedding, they bear two children. Many years later, Ian and Marie are killed in a car collision, leaving their parents distraught yet overcoming. Another couple of years later, Chris dies in a car accident as well, on his way to celebrate the "Double D" anniversary of his wife's emotional recovery from their childrens' deaths. This begins his trip into heaven, which is rocky at first during his attempts to console his living wife, then graduating into his acceptance of his immortality and ascemding into heaven, which turns out to be the creation of his own thoughts and settings. When he realizes that he is not completely happy without Annie, he becomes depressed, so it is no surprise that when Annie commits suicide and is sent to hell, he readies himself to rescue his wife from her emotional confines that keep her in her prison of eternal darkness.

The story for this movie is very ambitious, as are the filmmakers who bring it to life. There is an abundance of vivid memories in the form of flashbacks, many of which are precisely used to move the plot along and keep the story moving. Instead of becoming bored with the ongoing story of Annie and Chris's married and parental life, I found myself becoming more and more entranced as their lives unfolded, and say what you will, but the only way to tell a story like this is through flashbacks. If you were to take all of the memories and place them in order at the beginning of the movie, the audience would forget about the important moments that have an effects on the actions and events that take place in later instances of the film. Each one is a separate piece of the puzzle, and they all fit together quite well.

This film is one of those movies that showcases the possibilities for filmmaking in the future. Really, when you think about it, there is no way that the movie could have been made thirty years ago and still have the same impact as it does now. The settings and scenery play the most important role of the movie, for they provide the reason for the emotion and action that affects our characters. The beginning shots in Switzerland show us beautiful vistas of mountains and lakes, which will later become the inspiration for Chris's heaven, as well as many of the paintings Annie creates. Their home bursts forth with color and brightness, proving that color plays a big role in the film. When everyone is alive, everything seems light and airy. After Chris's death, all is dark, and the walls of the home seem dismal and gray. One scene in particular is a scene in which Chris watches his children being driven away in their van down a long line of lilac trees, a slight fog covering the scene. Their is that brilliance of color, yet the dark fog makes us uneasy, hence the accident that kills their children.

Heaven is elegantly portrayed in this film, and is done so with a new twist: that each person has their own private heaven created in the image of their own personal desires and thoughts. Chris's heaven is based on the paintings of his wife, from the mountains of Switzerland to a small island in the middle of a mountain lake with an opulent, airy house. The filmmakers give each scene the precise look of a painting, even after the special effects fade, using vivid colors, lots of flowers and mountainous backdrops, to transport us into Chris's new world. This is one of the most incredible film achievements ever, taking us to a special place that is warm, inviting, and personifies every thought we, as an audience, have ever had for beauty and vision.

Hell is given a truly horrifying and intense treatment, displaying visions of suffering as well as the personal and emotional pain of life that haunts us all. Somewhat like the way in which Heaven is created, Hell is seen as a persons's "life gone wrong," which allows for the creation of their pain-driven eternity. The gateway to hell is a stunning visual image, a vast, smoky graveyard of smoldering shipwrecks that creak and groan. There is also a dismal, endless sea of decrepit faces of hell's inhabitants, that groan and scream at one another. The most striking of all the settings is the overturned cathedral, where Annie resides. The columns rise from the ceiling and go on forever into the darkness, which gives the whole place a sense of the neverending.

There is a unique chemistry between the two leads that carries on the film's emotion and power. Robin Williams is charming, humorous and bold as Chris Nielsen, and through his acting and talent, he is able to make us believe in the love that Chris holds for Annie. Annabella Sciorra is moving as Annie, embodying all of the emotions and grief that set the stage for the second half of the story. When the two are together onscreen, they are happy and in love, and we buy it because they make it appear very authentic. Cuba Gooding, Jr. plays the angel that brings Chris to heaven, doing well in his performance of helping Chris through his struggle to realize his death. Max von Sydow, whose part is not as big as others he has had, is the tracker who takes them all to hell, and his words of wisdom keep the film's informative angle moving.

"What Dreams May Come" will go down in history as one of the most innovative and spectacular films ever made, full of ambition and inspiration. In its story, we are taken on a journey of the human heart, as well as a striking vision of what may lie in store for everyone under God's eye.

When I hear ridiculous statements from people like '”Robin Williams’ suicide or any suicide was a cowardly act,” it shows me how little progress we have made in this realm and how uninformed people really are.

I lost my Mother to suicide after a long bout with depression that also involved the shooting of My 21-year-old brother; all ultimately caused by the untimely death of my father from colon cancer and the events that followed.  It is a story for another time.  But as Dennis Miller said on the O’Reilly Factor, “If a gentle and cool cat like Robin Williams could be lost to this disease, we all can!” 

Who should you be calling today that can use your help?

Depression: Approximately 21.5 million American adults, or about 9.5 percent of the U.S. population age 18 and older in a given year, have a depressive disorder. Nearly twice as many women (12.0 percent) as men (6.6 percent) are affected by a depressive disorder each year. These figures translate to 13.7 million women and 7.8 million men in the U.S.

• Pre-schoolers represent the fastest-growing market for antidepressants. At least four percent of preschoolers—more than one million—are clinically depressed.
• The rate of increase of depression among children is 23%.
• In most developed countries, 15% of the population suffers from severe depression.
• An estimated 30% of women are depressed.
• 41% of depressed women are too embarrassed to seek help.
• 80% of depressed people are not currently receiving any treatment.
• An estimated 15% of depressed people commit suicide.
• By 2020, depression will be the second largest killer after heart disease. Furthermore, studies indicate that depression is a contributing factor to fatal coronary disease.

340 million people in the world suffer from depression and rising. 1 in 4 women will suffer from depression. Postnatal depression affects 14 per cent of new mothers. 1 in 10 men will suffer from depression (this statistic is not absolutely correct because more women are apt to see their doctor for depression than men do.) Depression strikes all races, rich and poor.

The World Health Organization estimates that about 121 million people worldwide have some form of depression, although less than 25 percent have access to effective treatment [source: WHO]. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, about 14.8 million adult Americans experience clinical depression in any given year — or about 6.7 percent of the U.S. population over 18 [source: NIH Depressive]. Women are more likely to have major depression than are men, and the average age for a bout of clinical depression to set in is 32 years old. Older adults also are depressed, however. In fact, people 65 years and older commit suicide at a higher rate than the national average [source: Senior Health]. The good news is that NIH statistics show that the percentage of all adults in the U.S. who are depressed went down a full percentage point from 2007 to 2008… but something tells me that the figures from 2008 to 2014 will have gone in the other direction!!

Technorati Tags: Robin Williams,Movies,Depression,Suicide,Mental Illness,Substance Abuse,Warnings,Hollywood,Stigma,Drugs,Dennis Miller

Court orders Planned Parenthood to start telling the truth

Abortionists ordered to warn of serious suicide risk

WND: A federal appeals court affirmed the last provision of a long-disputed informed consent law today, ruling that the state of South Dakota can require abortionists to inform women seeking to terminate the lives of their unborn baby that they face an increased risk of suicide.

Attorney Harold J. Cassidy called the decision of the full 8th Circuit Court of Appeals “a fabulous victory for the women of the state of South Dakota.”

Cassidy represents Leslee Unruh, president of the Alpha Center of Sioux Falls, and Stacy Wollman, president of Care Net of Rapid City. They were allowed in intervene in the case filed by Planned Parenthood against the state’s new law.

“This victory represents the fourth separate decision of the 8th Circuit reversing the district court in this one case, two decisions issued by en banc (full) courts four years apart – a rare occurrence that underscores the importance of the issues presented by the case,” said Cassidy.

“As a result of this case upholding all eight major provisions of South Dakota’s Abortion Informed Consent Statute, pregnant mothers will now be informed: 1) that ‘an abortion terminates the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being;’ 2) that the mother’s ‘relationship with that second human being enjoys protection under the Constitution of the United States and the laws of South Dakota;’ 3) ‘that relationship and all rights attached to it will be terminated;’ and 4) the abortion places the mother ‘at increased risk for suicide ideation and suicide,’” he said.

The court’s opinion said even Planned Parenthood’s own testimony documented a link between abortion and suicide.

“Planned Parenthood’s own expert, Dr. Nada Stotland, admitted that one of the studies, which determined a suicide rate after abortion of 31.9 per 100,000 as compared to a suicide rate after live birth of 5.0 per 100,000, ‘indicates an association; not causation, but an association’ between abortion and suicide,” the judges wrote.

Commenting on the decision, Steven H. Aden of the Alliance Defending Freedom said “a woman’s right to make a fully informed choice is more important than Planned Parenthood’s bottom line.”

“If Planned Parenthood truly cared about the well-being of women, it would not try to prevent them from being informed of the well-documented risk of suicide that accompanies abortion,” he said. “The 8th Circuit has done the right thing in upholding a reasonable law that protects the well-being of women by making sure that the truth is not hidden from them.”

The Sioux Falls Alpha Center’s Unruh said the ruling “gives hope to the hopeless.”

“These are women who had abortions who were coerced, persecuted, broken. These women did a very courageous thing in going to the South Dakota legislature and telling their stories,” she said. “These judges have believed them, listened to their hearts and have ruled on their behalf.”

The lawsuit was brought by Planned Parenthood against the state after the legislature in 2005 adopted the new informed consent requirements for abortionists.

Cassidy noted that normally a statement of the importance of the decision would suffice.

“However, we feel that, in this instance, given the fact that South Dakota’s Informed Consent Statute, passed to protect the interests of pregnant mothers in South Dakota, was the subject of false claims and protracted litigation that took seven years to conclude, and required the intervenors to win four different appeals in the Eighth Circuit, requires further comment,” he said.

“Throughout the legislative processes, over the past eight years, and all during the pending of this litigation, as well as that of the new case now pending in the District Court (in which Alpha Center and Care Net are party intervenors), Planned Parenthood has threatened expensive litigation and counsel fees. Planned Parenthood has argued that they should be free to perform their radical abortion practices the way its New York City office prefers and that the people of the state of South Dakota should not impose regulations that reflect the values of the people of the state; and the people should not protect the interests of their pregnant mothers.

“Planned Parenthood has been proven completely wrong on every issue in the case. The state statute is a constitutionally valid method to protect pregnant mothers,” he said.

“The people of the State of South Dakota have stood up to the threats, false accusations and litigation tactics of Planned Parenthood. In the process, the people of South Dakota have shown that they will not be intimidated by threats of litigation, threats of payment of attorneys’ fees, and will hold fast to their conviction that a handful of people in New York, with a radical philosophy, will not dictate to the people of South Dakota, when, if, and how they will protect their women from harm, pressure, coercion and false and incomplete information when making the most important decision of their lives,” he said.

Another new law adopted in South Dakota is subject to a second challenge by Planned Parenthood. The law requires that a physician have a personal interview with a woman seeking an abortion. The woman must be offered counseling by state-approved counseling centers before the abortionist can schedule the procedure.

In South Dakota, Planned Parenthood flies abortionists in to a facility where they perform abortions. The law requires doubling the visits, because an abortionist could not interview a woman and perform an abortion on her during the same trip.

The law also requires that an abortionist determine whether the woman is being coerced into the abortion and imposes a waiting period.

Several of the requirements no longer are being challenged by Planned Parenthood, and they are going into effect in the state. Remaining under challenge is the counseling requirement along with the three-day waiting period.

The state recently announced: “Pursuant to the 2011 and 2012 legislation and the order, beginning July 1, 2012, doctors who perform abortions must assess each woman for pre-existing risk factors such as coercion and must advise the woman about the risk of adverse psychological outcomes.”

During the 2012 legislative session, South Dakotans amended several portions of the 2011 abortion law, and Planned Parenthood followed up with an amended complaint. Planned Parenthood dropped its challenge to the provisions regarding coercion and a risk-factor assessment but continued challenging requirements regarding the referrals to the pregnancy help centers and the three-day delay.

As a result, the two sides agreed to an order that the coercion and risk-factor assessment provisions could go into effect right away.

“The remaining challenged provisions – the requirement for involvement of the pregnancy help centers and the three-day delay – will continue to be enjoined pending the outcome of discovery, briefing and argument before the district court,” the state’s announcement said.

According to a statement by the Alpha Center of Sioux Falls and the Black Hills Pregnancy Center of Rapid City, two abortion alternative centers to which women may be referred, the decision from Judge Karen Schreier opens the door to substantial new requirements for abortions.

“Planned Parenthood can no longer have a clerk schedule abortion surgery – which has been its practice – without a physician first seeing a pregnant mother, compelling a change in the practices at the Planned Parenthood abortion facility,” the statement said.

“Only a physician can schedule an abortion, and only after the physician first performs an assessment, which includes an assessment to determine if the pregnant mother is being pressured or coerced into having an abortion. Until now, no such assessments were performed, and no physician saw the pregnant mother until after the surgery was scheduled and only after she was required to sign a consent for the abortion and only after she was required to pay for the abortion,” the statement continued.

In today’s decision over the 2005 law, the appeals court ruling said: “To succeed … Planned Parenthood must show that the [suicide-abortion link] disclosure at issue ‘is either untruthful, misleading or not relevant to the patient’s decision to have an abortion.’”

“The legislature expressly required the disclosure of an ‘increased risk,’ not a causal link. Based on the accepted usage of the term ‘increased risk’ … the usage of that term … does not imply a disclosure of a causal relationship,” the court said.

Instead, the section “requires a disclosure simply that the risk of suicide and suicide ideation is higher among women who abort.”

The judges also said, “We hold that the disclosure facially mandated by the suicide advisory is truthful.”

“The state legislature, rather than a federal court, is in the best position to weigh the divergent results and come to a conclusion about the best way to protect its populace. So long as the means chosen by the state does not impose an unconstitutional burden on women seeking abortions or their physicians, we have no basis to interfere,” the court said.

Understand Planned Parenthood’s agenda. Get “The Marketing of Evil: How Radicals, Elitists, and Pseudo-Experts Sell Us Corruption Disguised As Freedom”

Technorati Tags: abortion,women's health,women's clinics,depression,abortion clinics,abortion procedure,Planned parenthood,South Dakota,Alliance Defending Freedom

Recession Induced Suicides?

I shouldn't be writing about suicides on Christmas Day but I am
stunned by what I found out during the last three days...

It started off when Arthur, first son, called me from Oceanside,
California three days ago. He had said, in  San Diego there about three suicides mentioned on television about every four days. It made me so sad to hear this.

Here in Las Vegas three days ago, it was reported 300 residential eviction notices are given out each and every day in this city.

One Las Vegas female attorney on this same television show said, "I work with people who are losing their homes due to  foreclosure... among my clients 29 have committed suicide due to either losing their homes and or foreclosure."

Then the newscast flashed to a Las Vegas house. In this house a man
knew the constable was on the way to give him a foreclosure notice.
The man  shot himself in the head just before the constable arrived!
In another scenario a scribbled, penciled note on plain paper... a man
had written, "I am sorry we have to do this but we do"... and he
then stabbed his wife, his son and shot himself in the head due to
financial troubles.

Another Las Vegas man with financial woes, drove his wife, and son to an area about two miles from where they lived. He then shot his
wife and son in their car and turned the gun on himself.

In other words, how many thousands of more suicides are we not
hearing about where people have taken this way out???

It's got to be a huge number… and I am certain Las Vegas is mostly
trying to keep these various suicides under wraps.

Arthur also has told me he sees cars with out-of-state license
plates arriving in Oceanside, California all the time. People are
relocating to Southern California trying to find work... when
there is no work. Times are really and truly tough these days.
I just feel  so sad for these people there are no words for it.

In any event in spite of all the bad news, I hope you and  your son enjoy a Merry Christmas.

Hugs,  Judy

The ongoing economic meltdown has had a devastating effect on American families. With double-digit unemployment still lingering, companies cutting corners in every which way, salary cuts and foreclosures continuing at a rapid pace, not to mention vanishing nest eggs, anxiety is at an all-time high.

Now, researchers are starting to wonder if the ongoing recession is beginning to trigger a spike in suicide rates. Considering that the unemployed are two to three times more likely to commit suicide, with the risk rising the longer you are unemployed, it’s not surprising to learn that areas like Macomb County, Mich., where  the official unemployment is at 13.7 percent, saw an almost 40 percent rise in suicides last year, according to The Washington Independent.

In online forums such as Unemployed-Friends, the topic of suicide comes up often, with posters sharing stories of the unemployed, underwater on their mortgages or facing repossession of their cars and furniture saying they can’t take it anymore. If the tales (some apocryphal) are true, they wouldn’t be that surprising. Suicides rose about 20 percent during the Great Depression and while joblessness does not cause suicide – feelings of depression, hopelessness, substance abuse and emotional struggles do.

Americans aren’t alone in this disturbing trend, with Ireland reporting a 25 percent rise in suicides last year and Japan reporting that one in five citizens contemplated suicide as the recession in that country deepened.

And remember that the actual unemployment figures are much higher than reported because once someone drops of the unemployment rolls, quits looking for work or accepts under-employment they are not longer counted.  Actual U.S. unemployment is closer to between 21 or 22 percent’ between 8.5 and 9.5 as officially reported.

This trend and studies reinforcing the obvious have been written about beginning in 2009 and 2010 but is somehow being shoved under the rug or ignored by the media.  After all it wouldn’t look good for Obama’;s re-election!

Related:

No Christmas for Millions of American Families This Year

Health Hazards of the Holiday Season

Depression Checklist

Start by checking off any symptoms of depression that you have had for two weeks or longer, or that you’ve noticed in the family member or friend you’re concerned about. Focus on symptoms that have been present almost every day for most of the day. Then look at the key below. (The exception is the item regarding thoughts of suicide or suicide attempts. A check mark warrants an immediate call to a doctor.)  

• I feel sad or irritable.
• I have lost interest in activities I used to enjoy.
• I’m eating much less than I usually do and have lost weight, or I’m eating much more than I usually do and have gained weight.
• I am sleeping much less or more than I usually do.
• I have no energy or feel tired much of the time.
• I feel anxious and can’t seem to sit still.
• I feel guilty or worthless.
• I have trouble concentrating or find it hard to make decisions.
• I have recurring thoughts about death or suicide, I have a suicide plan, or I have tried to commit suicide.

 
Depression and dysthymia. If you checked a total of five or more statements on the depression checklist, including at least one of the first two statements, you (or your loved one) may be suffering from an episode of major depression. If you checked fewer statements, including at least one of the first two statements, you may be suffering from a milder form of depression or dysthymia.

Source:  The Depression Center

Posted:  True Health Is True Wealth

Related Articles:

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• MSG - Is This Silent Killer Lurking In Your Kitchen Cabinets?

FDA Approves Deadly Antidepressant for Children

CODE RED - FDA Approves Deadly Antidepressant for Children Is the FDA insane or just stupid? Barely a month after the U.S. Department of Justice sued Forest Labs, maker of blockbuster and potentially suicide-inducing antidepressant Lexapro, for illegally marketing the drug for children when it wasn't approved for use in children, the idiots at the FDA approved this highly dangerous drug for use in…you guessed it….children. Hopefully, doctors won't be stupid enough to prescribe it to children in the newly approved 12-to-17-year-old population, or to kids even younger. But we can't count on that – especially considering that the DOJ suit alleges that the Big Pharma firm essentially bribed doctors to prescribe the drug to kids. And it's not like the danger of death isn't widely known. On the Forest Labs own Lexapro website, you'll find this very clear warning: Antidepressants increased the risk compared to placebo of suicidal thinking and behavior (suicidality) in children, adolescents, and young adults in short-term studies of major depressive disorder (MDD) and other psychiatric disorders. Bottom line: If your child is depressed, Lexapro could send them over the edge to suicide. If your doctor recommends this dangerous drug for your child, walk out of his office and find a new doctor immediately.

Bipolar Disorder: What Is It?

Most Important Risk is Suicide

Bipolar disorder, which used to be called manic depressive illness or manic depression, is a mental disorder characterized by wide mood swings from high (manic) to low (depressed).

Periods of high or irritable moods are called "manic" episodes. The person becomes very active, but in a scattered and unproductive way, sometimes with painful or embarrassing consequences. Examples are spending more money than is wise or getting involved in sexual adventures that are regretted later. A person in a manic state is full of energy or very irritable, may sleep far less than normal, and may dream up grand plans that could never be carried out. The person may develop thinking that is out of step with reality — psychotic symptoms — such as false beliefs (delusions) or false perceptions (hallucinations). During manic periods, a person may run into trouble with the law. If a person has milder symptoms of mania and does not have psychotic symptoms, it is called a "hypomanic" episode.

Bipolar disorder is now divided into two subtypes (bipolar I and bipolar II). Bipolar I disorder is the classic form where a person has had at least one manic episode. In bipolar II disorder, the person has never had a manic episode, but has had at least one hypomanic episode and at least one period of severe depression. Bipolar II disorder may be more common than bipolar I. A third disorder, closely related to bipolar disorder, is cyclothymia — people with this disorder fluctuate between hypomania and mild or moderate depression.

The vast majority of people who have manic episodes also experience periods of depression. If manic and depressive symptoms overlap for a period, it is called a "mixed" episode. In some people, moods alternate rapidly or it is difficult to tell which mood — depression or mania — is more prominent.

People who have one manic episode most likely will have others if they do not seek treatment. The illness tends to run in families. Unlike depression, in which women are more frequently diagnosed, bipolar disorder happens nearly equally in men and women. Bipolar I and II disorders occur in up to 4% of the population.

The most important risk of this illness is the risk of suicide. People who have bipolar disorder are also more likely to abuse alcohol or other substances.

Source:  Everyday Health